Horizons that stretch yonder far. Where work, strifes, ardours, science are; Horizons that change--they pass and glide, And on their way They shew in mirrors of eventide The mourning image of dark To-day. Here--writhing fires that never rest nor end. Where, in one giant effort all employed, Sages cast down the Gods, to change the void Whither the flights of human science tend. Here--'tis a room where thought, assertive, saith That there are weights exact to gauge her by, That inane ether, only, rounds the sky. And that in phials of glass men breed up death. Here--'tis a workship, where, all fiery bright, Matter intense vibrates with fierce turmoil In vaults where wonders new, 'mid stress and toil, Are forged, that can absorb space, time and night. --A palace--of an architecture grown Effete, and weary 'neath its hundred years. Whence voices vast invoke, instinct with fears, The thunder in its flights toward the Unknown. On the silent, even road--his eyes Still fixed towards the waning light That skirts the houses and walls as it dies-- The rope-maker, visionary white, From depths of the evening's halo dim Draws the horizons in to him. Horizons that are there afar Where light, hope, wakenings, strivings are; Horizons that he sees defined As hope for some future, far and kind. Beyond those distant shores and faint That evening on the clouds doth paint. Yon--'mid that distance calm and musical Twin stairs of gold suspend their steps of blue, The sage doth climb them, and the seer too, Starting from sides opposed toward one goal. Yon--contradiction's lightning-shocks lose power. Doubt's sullen hand unclenches to the light, The eye sees in their essence laws unite Rays scattered once 'mid doctrines of an hour. Yon--keenest spirits pierce beyond the land Of seeming and of death. The heart hath ease, And one would say that Mildness held the keys Of the colossal silence in her hand. Up yon--the God each soul is, once again Creates, expands, gives, finds himself in all; And rises higher, the lowlier he doth fall Before meek tenderness and sacred pain. And there is ardent, living peace--its urns Of even bliss ranged 'mid these twilights, where --Embers of hope upon the ashen air-- Each great nocturnal planet steadfast burns. In his village at foot of the dykes, that bend, Sinuous, weary, about him and wend Toward that distance of eddying light, The rope-maker, visionary white. Along by each house and each garden wall. Absorbs in himself the horizons all. From "LES HEURES CLAIRES" I Oh, splendour of our joy and our delight, Woven of gold amid the silken air! See the dear house among its gables light, And the green garden, and the orchard there! Here is the bench with apple-trees o'er head Whence the light spring is shed. With touch of petals falling slow and soft; Here branches luminous take flight aloft, Hovering, like some bounteous presage, high Against this landscape's clear and tender sky.