But thou, should the answer ring Ay, Hast warrant of seed for thy word: The musical God is nigh To inspirit and temper, tune it, and steer Through the shoals: is it worthy of Song, There are souls all woman to hear, Woman to bear and renew. For he is the Master of Measure, and weighs, Broad as the arms of his blue, Fine as the web of his rays, Justice, whose voice is a melody clear, The one sure life for the numbered long, From him are the brutal and vain, The vile, the excessive, out-thrust: He points to the God on the upmost throne: He is the saver of grain, The sifter of spirit from dust. He, Harmony, tells how to Measure pertain The virilities: Measure alone Has votaries rich in the male: Fathers embracing no cloud, Sowing no harvestless main: Alike by the flesh and the spirit endowed To create, to perpetuate; woo, win, wed; Send progeny streaming, have earth for their own, Over-run the insensates, disperse with a puff Simulacra, though solid they sail, And seem such imperial stuff: Yes, the living divide off the dead. Then thou with thy furies outgrown, Not as Cybele’s beast will thy head lash tail So præter-determinedly thermonous, Nor thy cause be an Attis far fled. Thou under stress of the strife Shalt hear for sustainment supreme The cry of the conscience of Life: _Keep the young generations in hail_, _And bequeath them no tumbled house_! There hast thou the sacred theme, Therein the inveterate spur, Of the Innermost. See her one blink In vision past eyeballs. Not thee She cares for, but us. Follow her. Follow her, and thou wilt not sink. With thy soul the Life espouse: This Life of the visible, audible, ring With thy love tight about; and no death will be; The name be an empty thing, And woe a forgotten old trick: And battle will come as a challenge to drink; As a warrior’s wound each transient sting. She leads to the Uppermost link by link; Exacts but vision, desires not vows. Above us the singular number to see; The plural warm round us; ourself in the thick, A dot or a stop: that is our task; Her lesson in figured arithmetic, For the letters of Life behind its mask; Her flower-like look under fearful brows.