compels This infinite desire To match with cramped and finite brain; And all of heaven earth may gain Is smoke, where should be fire. 

 

 SCENE II 

 THE SEEKER 

 The air is heavy, all the winds are still So that my own breath hangs about my head Like incense o'er an altar. Now the earth Lies in a swoon, and all the flowers droop Weighting their stems, ranged in their brazen pots Without the house: the very petals lie Like languid limbs relaxed; this crimson rose Looks as if blood-steeped, almost to my sense Smells of the same, the lilies are like death. There is a taint of sickness in the air Through all the noonday light—like fever chill In fever burning,—and the sky is brass; The very tinkle of the fountain spray Is dead and tuneless, even the fresh springs Have lost their freshness, run from off my hands In drops of lead, and all my spirit seems Weighed and confined with fetters of decay. Because I have loved beauty more than most And striven to pluck out the heart of it; Because I have such sense of lovely things That I can pour my soul in thankfulness Before a leaf God makes to grow aright, A unit of perfection; 'tis ordained Because I love most still I most must lack Love's satisfaction, quietude of soul— Still must I find such void disparity Between the false and true, and yet they grow Together, intermingled; true is false Itself, by sometime seeming, who shall find The point where false and true are reconciled? 

 The very flower that we stoop to smell Grows from a dunghill, look but in its roots, And what obscene and hideous blind life Goes teeming; sickened then we shrink aback From rose's velvet petals. So the soul Holds best and meanest in a common cup. Yet must there be a law in things that are Seemingly lawless, purify the sight And truth must surely then be visible, Disparity made clear; the eye of God Sees good in everything, thereto I strive, To see with God's own vision, be more clear In speech, than God, to asking human hearts. Then is the tangle straightened, and the world Lies in perspective, as before me lie, Traced through the shimmering heat, the palaces, Towers and temples, gardens and granaries, Of this fair City, melting far away Into the sunlight-flooded hills at last. 

 Yet must I sit here for a little while, Where many columns make a heavy gloom, And with the trickle from the water-jars Of unfresh water, cheat myself awhile With thought of evening freshness. Oh my soul Is wearier than my body with the toil, It aches with length 

 Prev. P 6/33 next