In the womb of the All-spirit The universe lay; the will Blind, an atom, lay still. The pulse of matter Obeyed in awe And strove to flatter The rhythmic law. But the will grew; nature feared, And cast off the child she reared, Now her rival, instinct-led, With her own powers impregnated. Brain and heart, blood-fervid flowers, Creation is each act of yours. Your roots are God, the pauseless cause, But your boughs sway to self-windy laws. Perception is no dreamy birth And magnifies transfigured earth. With each new light, our eyes receive A larger power to perceive. If we could unveil our eyes, Become as wise as the All-wise, No love would be, no mystery: Love and joy dwell in infinity. Love begets love; reaching highest We find a higher still, unseen From where we stood to reach the first; Moses must die to live in Christ, The seed be buried to live to green. Perfection must begin from worst. Christ perceives a larger reachless love, More full, and grows to reach thereof. The green plant yearns for its yellow fruit. Perfection always is a root, And joy a motion that doth feed Itself on light of its own speed, And round its radiant circle runs, Creating and devouring suns. OF ANY OLD MAN Wreck not the ageing heart of quietness With alien uproar and rude jolly cries, Which (satyr-like to a mild maiden’s pride) Ripen not wisdom but a large recoil; Give them their withered peace, their trial grave, Their past youth’s three-scored shadowy effigy. Mock them not with your ripened turbulence, Their frost-mailed petulance with your torrid wrath, When, edging your boisterous thunders, shivers one word (Pap to their senile sneering, drug to truth, The feigned rampart of bleak ignorance) “Experience”—crown of naked majesties, That tells us naught we know not, but confirms. O think, you reverend shadowy austere, Your Christ’s youth was not ended when he died. THE ONE LOST I mingle with your bones; You steal in subtle noose This lighted dust Jehovah loans And now I lose. What will the Lender say When I shall not be found, Safe-sheltered at the Judgment Day, Being in you bound?