The Crystal
At midnight, death’s and truth’s unlocking time,When far within the spirit’s hearing rollsThe great soft rumble of the course of things—A bulk of silence in a mask of sound,—When darkness clears our vision that by dayIs sun-blind, and the soul’s a ravening owlFor truth and flitteth here and there aboutLow-lying woody tracts of time and oftIs minded for to sit upon a bough,Dry-dead and sharp, of some long-stricken treeAnd muse in that gaunt place,—’twas then my heart,Deep in the meditative dark, cried out:
“Ye companies of governor-spirits grave,Bards, and old bringers-down of flaming newsFrom steep-wall’d heavens, holy malcontents,Sweet seers, and stellar visionaries, allThat brood about the skies of poesy,Full bright ye shine, insuperable stars;Yet, if a man look hard upon you, noneWith total lustre blazeth, no, not oneBut hath some heinous freckle of the fleshUpon his shining cheek, not one but winksHis ray, opaqued with intermittent mistOf defect; yea, you masters all must askSome sweet forgiveness, which we leap to give,We lovers of you, heavenly-glad to meetYour largesse so with love, and interplightYour geniuses with our mortalities.
Thus unto thee, O sweetest Shakespeare sole,A hundred hurts a day I do forgive(’Tis little, but, enchantment! ’tis for thee):Small curious quibble; Juliet’s prurient punIn the poor, pale face of Romeo’s fancied death;Cold rant of Richard; Henry’s fustian roarWhich frights away that sleep he invocates;Wronged Valentine’s unnatural haste to yield;Too-silly shifts of maids that mask as menIn faint disguises that could ne’er disguise—Viola, Julia, Portia, Rosalind;Fatigues most drear, and needless overtaxOf speech obscure that had as lief be plain;Last I forgive (with more delight, because’Tis more to do) the labored-lewd discourseThat e’en thy young invention’s youngest heirBesmirched the world with.
Father Homer, thee,Thee also I forgive thy sandy wastesOf prose and catalogue, thy drear haranguesThat tease the patience of the centuries,Thy sleazy scrap of story,—but a rogue’sRape of a light-o’-love,—too soiled a patchTo broider with the gods.
Thee, Socrates,Thou dear and very strong one, I forgiveThy year-worn cloak, thine iron stringenciesThat were but dandy upside-down, thy wordsOf truth that, mildlier spoke, had mainlier wrought.
So, Buddha, beautiful! I pardon theeThat all the All thou hadst for needy manWas Nothing, and thy Best of being wasBut not to be.
Worn Dante, I forgiveThe implacable hates that in thy horrid hellsOr burn or freeze thy fellows, never loosedBy death, nor time, nor love.
And I forgiveThee, Milton, those thy comic-dreadful warsWhere, armed with gross and inconclusive steel,Immortals smite immortals mortalwiseAnd fill all heaven with folly.
Also thee,Brave Aeschylus, thee I forgive, for thatThine eye, by bare bright justice basilisked,Turned not, nor ever learned to look where LoveStands shining.
So, unto thee, Lucretius mine(For oh, what heart hath loved thee like to thisThat’s now complaining?), freely I forgiveThy logic poor, thine error rich, thine earthWhose graves eat souls and all.
Yea, all you heartsOf beauty, and sweet righteous lovers large:Aurelius fine, oft superfine; mild SaintA Kempis, overmild; Epictetus,Whiles low in thought, still with old slavery tinct;Rapt Behmen, rapt too far; high Swedenborg,O’ertoppling; Langley, that with but a touchOf art hadst sung Piers Plowman to the topOf English songs, whereof ’tis dearest, now,And most adorable; Caedmon, in the mornA-calling angels with the cow-herd’s callThat late brought up the cattle; Emerson,Most wise, that yet, in finding Wisdom, lostThy Self, sometimes; tense Keats, with angels’ nervesWhere men’s were better; Tennyson, largest voiceSince Milton, yet some register of witWanting;—all, all, I pardon, ere ’tis asked,Your more or less, your little mole that marksYou brother and your kinship seals to man.
But Thee, but Thee, O sovereign Seer of time,But Thee, O poets’ Poet, Wisdom’s Tongue,But Thee, O man’s best Man, O love’s best Love,O perfect life in perfect labor writ,O all men’s Comrade, Servant, King, or Priest,—What `if’ or `yet’, what mole, what flaw, what lapse,What least defect or shadow of defect,What rumor, tattled by an enemy,Of inference loose, what lack of graceEven in torture’s grasp, or sleep’s, or death’s,—Oh, what amiss may I forgive in Thee,Jesus, good Paragon, thou Crystal Christ?”
Baltimore, 1880.