Chapter VI
“They charged, they struck; both fell, both bled;Brain rose again, ungloved;Heart fainting smiled, and softly said,`My love to my Beloved.’”
Heart and Brain! no more be twain;Throb and think, one flesh again!Lo! they weep, they turn, they run;Lo! they kiss: Love, thou art one!
Now the Land, with drying tears,Counts him up his flocks of years,“See,” he says, “my substance grows;Hundred-flocked my Herdsman goes,Hundred-flocked my Herdsman standsOn the Past’s broad meadow-lands,Come from where ye mildly graze,Black herds, white herds, nights and days.Drive them homeward, Herdsman Time,From the meadows of the Prime:I will feast my house, and rest.Neighbor East, come over West;Pledge me in good wine and wordsWhile I count my hundred herds,Sum the substance of my PastFrom the first unto the last,Chanting o’er the generous brimCloudy memories yet more dim,Ghostly rhymes of Norsemen paleStaring by old Bjoerne’s sail,Strains more noble of that nightWorn Columbus saw his Light,Psalms of still more heavenly tone,How the Mayflower tossed alone,Olden tale and later songOf the Patriot’s love and wrong,Grandsire’s ballad, nurse’s hymn—Chanting o’er the sparkling brimTill I shall from first to lastSum the substance of my Past.”
Then called the Artist’s God from in the sky:“This Time shall show by dream and mysteryThe heart of all his matter to thine eye.Son, study stars by looking down in streams,Interpret that which is by that which seems,And tell thy dreams in words which are but dreams.”
I
The Master with His lucent handPinched up the atom hills and plainsO’er all the moiety of landThe ocean-bounded West contains:The dust lay dead upon the calmAnd mighty middle of His palm.
II
And lo! He wrought full tenderly,And lo! He wrought with love and might,And lo! He wrought a thing to seeWas marvel in His people’s sight:He wrought His image dead and small,A nothing fashioned like an All.
III
Then breathed He softly on the dead:“Live Self!—thou part, yet none, of Me;Dust for humility,” He said,“And my warm breath for Charity.Behold my latest work, thou Earth!The Self of Man is taking birth.”
IV
Then, Land, tall Adam of the West,Thou stood’st upon the springy sod,Thy large eye ranging self-possest,Thy limbs the limbs of God’s young god,Thy Passion murmuring `I will’—Lord of the Lordship Good-and-Ill.
V
O manful arms, of supple sizeTo clasp a world or a waist as well!O manful eyes, to front the skiesOr look much pity down on hell!O manful tongue, to work and sing,And soothe a child and dare a king!
VI
O wonder! Now thou sleep’st in pain,Like as some dream thy soul did grieve:God wounds thee, heals thee whole again,And calls thee trembling to thine Eve.Wide-armed, thou dropp’st on knightly knee:`Dear Love, Dear Freedom, go with me!’
VII
Then all the beasts before thee passed—Beast War, Oppression, Murder, Lust,False Art, False Faith, slow skulking last—And out of Time’s thick-rising dustThy Lord said, “Name them, tame them, Son;Nor rest, nor rest, till thou hast done.”
VIII
Ah, name thou false, or tame thou wrong,At heart let no man fear for thee:Thy Past sings ever Freedom’s Song,Thy Future’s voice sounds wondrous free;And Freedom is more large than Crime,And Error is more small than Time.
IX
Come, thou whole Self of Latter Man!Come o’er thy realm of Good-and-Ill,And do, thou Self that say’st `I can,’And love, thou Self that say’st `I will;’And prove and know Time’s worst and best,Thou tall young Adam of the West!
Baltimore, 1876.