In the Moonlight

In the Moonlight

If now must pause the bullocks' jingling tune,
    Here let it be beneath the dreaming trees
    Supine and huge that hang upon the breeze,
Here in the wide eye of the silent moon.

How living a stillness reigns! The night's hushed rules
    All things obey but three, the slow wind's sigh
    Among the leaves, the cricket's ceaseless cry,
The frog's harsh discord in the ringing pools.

Yet they but seem the silence to increase
    And dreadful wideness of the inhuman night.
    The whole hushed world immeasurable might
Be watching round this single spot of peace.

So boundless is the darkness and so rife
    With thoughts of infinite reach that it creates
    A dangerous sense of space and abrogates
The wholesome littleness of human life.

The common round that each of us must tread
    Now seems a thing unreal; we forget
    The heavy yoke the world on us has set,
The slave's vain labour earning tasteless bread.

Space hedges us and Time our hearts o'ertakes;
    Our bounded senses and our boundless thought
    Strive through the centuries and are slowly brought
Back to the source whence their divergence wakes.

The source that none have traced, since none can know
    Whether from Heaven the eternal waters well
    Through Nature's matted locks, as Ganges fell,
Or from some dismal nether darkness flow.

Two genii in the dubious heart of man,
    Two great unhappy foes together bound
    Wrestle and strive to win unhampered ground;
They strive for ever since the race began.

One from his body like a bridge of fire
    Mounts upward azure-winged with eager eyes;
    One in his brain deep-mansioned labouring lies
And clamps to earth the spirit's high desire.

Here in this moonlight with strange visions rife
    I seem to see their vast peripheries
    Without me in the sombre mighty trees,
And, hark! their silence turns the wheels of life.

These are the middle and the first. Are they
    The last too? Has the duel then no close?
    Shall neither vanquish of the eternal foes,
Nor even at length this moonlight turn to day?

Our age has made an idol of the brain,
    The last adored a purer presence; yet

    In Asia like a dove immaculate
He lurks deep-brooding in the hearts of men.

But Europe comes to us bright-eyed and shrill.
    "A far delusion was that mounting fire,
    An impulse baulked and an unjust desire;
It fades as we ascend the human hill."

She cries to us to labour in the light
    Of common things, grow beautiful and wise
    On strong material food, nor vex our eyes
With straining after visionary delight.

Ah, beautiful and wise, but to what end?
    Europe knows not, nor any of her schools
    Who scorn the higher thought for dreams of fools;
Riches and joy and power meanwhile are gained.

Gained and then lost! For Death the heavy grip
    Shall loosen, Death shall cloud the laughing eye,
    And he who broke the nations soon shall lie
More helpless than a little child asleep.

And after? Nay, for death is end and term.
    A fiery dragon through the centuries curled,
    He feeds upon the glories of the world
And the vast mammoth dies before the worm.

Stars run their cycle and are quenched; the suns
    Born from the night are to the night returned,
    When the cold tenebrous spaces have inurned
The listless phantoms of the Shining Ones.

From two dead worlds a burning world arose
    Of which the late putrescent fruit is man;
    From chill dark space his roll of life began
And shall again in icy quiet close.

Our lives are but a transitory breath:
    Mean pismires in the sad and dying age
    Of a once glorious planet, on the edge
Of bitter pain we wait eternal death.

Watering the ages with our sweat and blood
    We pant towards some vague ideal state
    And by the effort fiercer ills create,
Working by lasting evil transient good.

Insults and servitude we bear perforce;
    With profitable crimes our souls we rack,
    Vexing ourselves lest earth our seed should lack
Who needs us not in her perpetual course;

Then down into the earth descend and sleep
    For ever, and the lives for which we toiled
    Forget us, who when they their turn have moiled,
Themselves forgotten into silence creep.

Why is it all, the labour and the din,
    And wherefore do we plague our souls and vex
    Our bodies or with doubts our days perplex?
Death levels soon the virtue with the sin.

If Death be end and close the useless strife,
    Strive not at all, but take what ease you may
    And make a golden glory of the day,
Exhaust the little honey of your life.

Fear not to take her beauty to your heart
    Whom you so utterly desire; you do
    No hurt to any, for the inner you
So cherished is a dream that shall depart.

The wine of life is sweet; let no man stint
    His longing or refuse one passionate hope.

    Why should we cabin in such infinite scope,
Restrict the issue of such golden mint?

Society forbids? It for our sakes
    Was fashioned; if it seek to fence around
    Our joys and pleasures in such narrow bound,
It gives us little for the much it takes.

Nor need we hearken to the gospel vain
    That bids men curb themselves to help mankind.
    We lose our little chance of bliss, then blind
And silent lie for ever. Whose the gain?

What helps it us if so mankind be served?
    Ourselves are blotted out from joy and light,
    Having no profit of the sunshine bright,
While others reap the fruit our toils deserved.

O this new god who has replaced the old!
    He dies today, he dies tomorrow, dies
    At last for ever, and the last sunrise
Shall have forgotten him extinct and cold.

But virtue to itself is joy enough?
    Yet if to us sin taste diviner? why
    Should we not herd in Epicurus' sty
Whom Nature made not of a Stoic stuff?

For Nature being all, desire must reign.
    It is too sweet and strong for us to slay
    Upon a nameless altar, saying nay
To honied urgings for no purpose plain.

A strange unreal gospel Science brings,—
    Being animals to act as angels might;
    Mortals we must put forth immortal might
And flutter in the void celestial wings.

"Ephemeral creatures, for the future live,"
    She bids us, "gather in for unborn men
    Knowledge and joy, and forfeit, nor complain,
The present which alone is yours to give."

Man's immortality she first denies
    And then assumes what she rejects, made blind
    By sudden knowledge, the majestic Mind
Within her smiling at her sophistries.

Not so shall Truth extend her flight sublime,
    Pass from the poor beginnings she has made
    And with the splendour of her wings displayed
Range through the boundaries of Space and Time.

Clamp her not down to her material finds!
    She shall go further. She shall not reject
    The light within, nor shall the dialect
Of unprogressive pedants bar men's minds.

We seek the Truth and will not pause nor fear.
    Truth we will have and not the sophist's pleas;
    Animals, we will take our grosser ease,
Or, spirits, heaven's celestial music hear.

The intellect is not all; a guide within
    Awaits our question. He it was informed
    The reason, He surpasses; and unformed
Presages of His mightiness begin.

Nor mind submerged, nor self subliminal,
    But the great Force that makes the planets wheel
    Through ether and the sun in flames reveal
His godhead, is in us perpetual.

That Force in us is body, that is mind,
    And what is higher than the mind is He.

    This was the secret Science could not see;
Aware of death, to life her eyes were blind.

Through chemistry she seeks the source of life,
    Nor knows the mighty laws that she has found,
    Are Nature's bye-laws merely, meant to ground
A grandiose freedom building peace by strife.

The organ for the thing itself she takes,
    The brain for mind, the body for the soul,
    Nor has she patience to explore the whole,
But like a child a hasty period makes.

"It is enough," she says, "I have explored
    The whole of being; nothing now remains
    But to put details in and count my gains."
So she deceives herself, denies her Lord.

Therefore He manifests Himself; once more
    The wonders of the secret world within
    Wrapped yet with an uncertain mist begin
To look from that thick curtain out; the door

Opens. Her days are numbered, and not long
    Shall she be suffered to belittle thus
    Man and restrain from his tempestuous
Uprising that immortal spirit strong.

He rises now; for God has taken birth.
    The revolutions that pervade the world
    Are faint beginnings and the discus hurled
Of Vishnu speeds down to enring the earth.

The old shall perish; it shall pass away,
    Expunged, annihilated, blotted out;
    And all the iron bands that ring about
Man's wide expansion shall at last give way.

Freedom, God, Immortality; the three
    Are one and shall be realised at length,
    Love, Wisdom, Justice, Joy and utter Strength
Gather into a pure felicity.

It comes at last, the day foreseen of old,
    What John in Patmos saw, what Shelley dreamed,
    Vision and vain imagination deemed,
The City of Delight, the Age of Gold.

The Iron Age is ended. Only now
    The last fierce spasm of the dying past
    Shall shake the nations, and when that has passed,
Earth washed of ills shall raise a fairer brow.

This is man's progress; for the Iron Age
    Prepares the Age of Gold. What we call sin,
    Is but man's leavings as from deep within
The Pilot guides him in his pilgrimage.

He leaves behind the ill with strife and pain,
    Because it clings and constantly returns,
    And in the fire of suffering fiercely burns
More sweetness to deserve, more strength to gain.

He rises to the good with Titan wings:
    And this the reason of his high unease,
    Because he came from the infinities
To build immortally with mortal things;

The body with increasing soul to fill,
    Extend Heaven's claim upon the toiling earth
    And climb from death to a diviner birth
Grasped and supported by immortal Will.