| |
| ALL I could see from where I stood | |
| Was three long mountains and a wood; | |
| I turned and looked another way, | |
| And saw three islands in a bay. | |
| So with my eyes I traced the line | 5 |
| Of the horizon, thin and fine, | |
| Straight around till I was come | |
| Back to where I’d started from; | |
| And all I saw from where I stood | |
| Was three long mountains and a wood. | 10 |
| Over these things I could not see; | |
| These were the things that bounded me; | |
| And I could touch them with my hand, | |
| Almost, I thought, from where I stand. | |
| And all at once things seemed so small | 15 |
| My breath came short, and scarce at all. | |
| But, sure, the sky is big, I said; | |
| Miles and miles above my head; | |
| So here upon my back I’ll lie | |
| And look my fill into the sky. | 20 |
| And so I looked, and, after all, | |
| The sky was not so very tall. | |
| The sky, I said, must somewhere stop, | |
| And—sure enough!—I see the top! | |
| The sky, I thought, is not so grand; | 25 |
| I ’most could touch it with my hand! | |
| And, reaching up my hand to try, | |
| I screamed to feel it touch the sky. | |
| |
| I screamed, and—lo!—Infinity | |
| Came down and settled over me; | 30 |
| And, pressing of the Undefined | |
| The definition on my mind, | |
| Held up before my eyes a glass | |
| Through which my shrinking sight did pass | |
| Until it seemed I must behold | 35 |
| Immensity made manifold; | |
| Whispered to me a word whose sound | |
| Deafened the air for worlds around, | |
| And brought unmuffled to my ears | |
| The gossiping of friendly spheres, | 40 |
| The creaking of the tented sky, | |
| The ticking of Eternity. | |
| I saw and heard, and knew at last | |
| The How and Why of all things, past, | |
| And present, and forevermore. | 45 |
| The universe, cleft to the core, | |
| Lay open to my probing sense | |
| That, sick’ning, I would fain pluck thence | |
| But could not,—nay! But needs must suck | |
| At the great wound, and could not pluck | 50 |
| My lips away till I had drawn | |
| All venom out.—Ah, fearful pawn! | |
| For my omniscience paid I toll | |
| In infinite remorse of soul. | |
| All sin was of my sinning, all | 55 |
| Atoning mine, and mine the gall | |
| Of all regret. Mine was the weight | |
| Of every brooded wrong, the hate | |
| That stood behind each envious thrust, | |
| Mine every greed, mine every lust. | 60 |
| And all the while for every grief, | |
| Each suffering, I craved relief | |
| With individual desire,— | |
| Craved all in vain! And felt fierce fire | |
| About a thousand people crawl; | 65 |
| Perished with each,—then mourned for all! | |
| A man was starving in Capri; | |
| He moved his eyes and looked at me; | |
| I felt his gaze, I heard his moan, | |
| And knew his hunger as my own. | 70 |
| I saw at sea a great fog-bank | |
| Between two ships that struck and sank; | |
| A thousand screams the heavens smote: | |
| And every scream tore through my throat. | |
| No hurt I did not feel, no death | 75 |
| That was not mine; mine each last breath | |
| That, crying, met an answering cry | |
| From the compassion that was I. | |
| All suffering mine, and mine its rod; | |
| Mine, pity like the pity of God. | 80 |
| Ah, awful weight! Infinity | |
| Pressed down upon the finite Me! | |
| My anguished spirit, like a bird, | |
| Beating against my lips I heard | |
| Yet lay the weight so close about | 85 |
| There was no room for it without. | |
| And so beneath the Weight lay I | |
| And suffered death, but could not die. | |
| |
| Long had I lain thus, craving death, | |
| When quietly the earth beneath | 90 |
| Gave way, and inch by inch, so great | |
| At last had grown the crushing weight, | |
| Into the earth I sank till I | |
| Full six feet under ground did lie, | |
| And sank no more,—there is no weight | 95 |
| Can follow here, however great. | |
| From off my breast I felt it roll, | |
| And as it went my tortured soul | |
| Burst forth and fled in such a gust | |
| That all about me swirled the dust. | 100 |
| |
| Deep in the earth I rested now; | |
| Cool is its hand upon the brow | |
| And soft its breast beneath the head | |
| Of one who is so gladly dead. | |
| And all at once, and over all, | 105 |
| The pitying rain began to fall; | |
| I lay and heard each pattering hoof | |
| Upon my lowly, thatchèd roof, | |
| And seemed to love the sound far more | |
| Than ever I had done before. | 110 |
| For rain it hath a friendly sound | |
| To one who’s six feet underground; | |
| And scarce the friendly voice or face: | |
| A grave is such a quiet place. | |
| |
| The rain, I said, is kind to come | 115 |
| And speak to me in my new home. | |
| I would I were alive again | |
| To kiss the fingers of the rain, | |
| To drink into my eyes the shine | |
| Of every slanting silver line, | 120 |
| To catch the freshened, fragrant breeze | |
| From drenched and dripping apple-trees. | |
| For soon the shower will be done, | |
| And then the broad face of the sun | |
| Will laugh above the rain-soaked earth | 125 |
| Until the world with answering mirth | |
| Shakes joyously, and each round drop | |
| Rolls, twinkling, from its grass-blade top. | |
| How can I bear it; buried here, | |
| While overhead the sky grows clear | 130 |
| And blue again after the storm? | |
| O, multi-colored, multiform, | |
| Beloved beauty over me, | |
| That I shall never, never see | |
| Again! Spring-silver, autumn-gold, | 135 |
| That I shall never more behold! | |
| Sleeping your myriad magics through, | |
| Close-sepulchred away from you! | |
| O God, I cried, give me new birth, | |
| And put me back upon the earth! | 140 |
| Upset each cloud’s gigantic gourd | |
| And let the heavy rain, down-poured | |
| In one big torrent, set me free, | |
| Washing my grave away from me! | |
| |
| I ceased; and, through the breathless hush | 145 |
| That answered me, the far-off rush | |
| Of herald wings came whispering | |
| Like music down the vibrant string | |
| Of my ascending prayer, and—crash! | |
| Before the wild wind’s whistling lash | 150 |
| The startled storm-clouds reared on high | |
| And plunged in terror down the sky, | |
| And the big rain in one black wave | |
| Fell from the sky and struck my grave. | |
| |
| I know not how such things can be | 155 |
| I only know there came to me | |
| A fragrance such as never clings | |
| To aught save happy living things; | |
| A sound as of some joyous elf | |
| Singing sweet songs to please himself, | 160 |
| And, through and over everything, | |
| A sense of glad awakening. | |
| The grass, a-tiptoe at my ear, | |
| Whispering to me I could hear; | |
| I felt the rain’s cool finger-tips | 165 |
| Brushed tenderly across my lips, | |
| Laid gently on my sealèd sight, | |
| And all at once the heavy night | |
| Fell from my eyes and I could see,— | |
| A drenched and dripping apple-tree, | 170 |
| A last long line of silver rain, | |
| A sky grown clear and blue again. | |
| And as I looked a quickening gust | |
| Of wind blew up to me and thrust | |
| Into my face a miracle | 175 |
| Of orchard-breath, and with the smell,— | |
| I know not how such things can be!— | |
| I breathed my soul back into me. | |
| Ah! Up then from the ground sprang I | |
| And hailed the earth with such a cry | 180 |
| As is not heard save from a man | |
| Who has been dead, and lives again. | |
| About the trees my arms I wound; | |
| Like one gone mad I hugged the ground; | |
| I raised my quivering arms on high; | 185 |
| I laughed and laughed into the sky, | |
| Till at my throat a strangling sob | |
| Caught fiercely, and a great heart-throb | |
| Sent instant tears into my eyes; | |
| O God, I cried, no dark disguise | 190 |
| Can e’er hereafter hide from me | |
| Thy radiant identity! | |
| Thou canst not move across the grass | |
| But my quick eyes will see Thee pass, | |
| Nor speak, however silently, | 195 |
| But my hushed voice will answer Thee. | |
| I know the path that tells Thy way | |
| Through the cool eve of every day; | |
| God, I can push the grass apart | |
| And lay my finger on Thy heart! | 200 |
| |
| The world stands out on either side | |
| No wider than the heart is wide; | |
| Above the world is stretched the sky,— | |
| No higher than the soul is high. | |
| The heart can push the sea and land | 205 |
| Farther away on either hand; | |
| The soul can split the sky in two, | |
| And let the face of God shine through. | |
| But East and West will pinch the heart | |
| That cannot keep them pushed apart; | 210 |
| And he whose soul is flat—the sky | |
| Will cave in on him by and by. | |
| |
