The Idols Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: AB CDEEFDFGHIJGHKH LMMNLNOPDQDERE SOOTSTUVWTUVXV YEZYZETYA2EB2A2TC2B2 D2E2C2 GF2D2GD2G2F2H2EI2H2G 2EJ2I2D2J2 K2D2K2D2A2DB2L2A2DNL 2A2M2ND2M2 N2O2P2Q2EO2P2IR2S2TI R2 S2T2T D2D2D2D2D2D2U2BV2U2V 2B2DBB2V2D YM2M2M2 W2W2X2X2CY2V2V2Z2Z2 D2D2D2 SSA3A3B3C3HHD2D2 A2A2A2 M2M2D2D2I2I2D3D3D2D2 TEEAJ2E3J2 UUU E2E2DDD2D2D2F3D2E3IG 3TIH3H3EC2D2TI3TYYC2 E YD2D2DDYH2H2J3K3J3K3 L3D2M3M3N3L3D2N3 YD2O3YO3Y D2W2F3W2F3 ND2ND2N P3MD2MD2 MDYDY YMC2MC2 D2Q3YQ3Y MR3MR3M C2D2D2D2D2 C2MNMN YD3ND3NL2L2D3TD2D3TD 2D3MM MMMMMMMGD2MGD2MD2D2 MNMS3T3T3MMMMMMMD2D2 C2U3YU3DDYMD2YD2MYMM MMMMYYMD2D2MD2D2MD2D 2 YD2MND2M W2D2V3W2YNWY TYD2MY GW3MGMX3Y3M NMMGM YYNYGMBG YMD2D2MDW2W2WMMDYW Z3D2J2D2D2M3HM3D2MH MWMD3U2MD2U2MD2D2D2 DD2D2DMMTD2TBTD2 MA4MB4C4C4C2MC2MMMMM YA3MYA3MBYDNDBMD2MMM YR3MR3YA4D2A4MD2D2P2 MD2D4P2BU2BU3U3 W3T2D2W3D2D2T2D2T2YD 2D2Q3D2V2MD2MQ3D2D2D 2E4D2E4D2D2MU2MMMMD4 F4GHG4TGHTD2LLD2D2DY DYD2MGD2MGD2 MYMYD2D2MD2MD2MMMM MD2MD2MGD2GMD2D2D2DD MMD2MMD2MM YMMMMMMMM H4A4B4H4A4BBMMD2D2D2 MD2 D2NMC2NNMD2C2MMD2MD2 MD2D2MD2D2YYM I4J2II4J2IHH YNTMMTN U3MC2J4MU3 MD2C4C4D2M MMYYMM Y YC4YMNYTYK2Y C2YC4D2J2C4K4YMC4 TC2L4D2YL4MMVL4 ND2MUB4MYU3N2M D2MMK2D2MMD2MM D2MC2D2C2C2NGMC2 MYYMD2YD2B4NY D2D2MMIMMMMM C2D2MK2B4MYND2M K2MMMNMK2D2MM YBMK2MK2BMB4MB4 D2MYMMYMD2B4MB4MK2D2 HK2D2HMMMMD2NBD2MMB4 B4 C2X2C2X2MHHHHHHNK2D2 D2K2N D2BD2K2B U2D2U2D2HHHHHHHT2HHT 2HHB4HT2HC4B4HC4K2K2 HHHK2HK2HK2K2HHHHH YD2HHD2U2C4HU2HC4D2H D2H K2BBK2HD2D2HD2D2B4YB 4Y D2D2D2D2L3BD2L3D2BW2 HW2H D2BBD2HHD2HD2HB4HB4H D2YYD2BHHBHHU3D2U3D2 YHD2D2D2HHHD2D2K2K2B 4B4HHHH HHHHM4M4D2D2BBL3L3D2 HD2K2H D2U2U2HHHP2P2D2HD2HK 2K2BBD2D2D2 BYBYBD2D2HBHBHK2K2HB 4D2B4 YYYYK2D2D2K2BBHHL3K2 L3K2K2 K2HHK2HBBT2N4B4B4K2V 3K2B4V3D2B4HD2

An Ode	A
Luce intellettual piena d' amore	B
	-
	-
Prelude	C
Lo the spirit of a pulsing star within a stone	D
Born of earth sprung from night	E
Prisoned with the profound fires of the light	E
That lives like all the tongues of eloquence	F
Locked in a speech unknown	D
The crystal cold and hard as innocence	F
Immures the flame and yet as if it knew	G
Raptures or pangs it could not but betray	H
As if the light could feel changes of blood and breath	I
And all but human quiverings of the sense	J
Throbs of a sudden rose a frosty blue	G
Shoot thrilling in its ray	H
Like the far longings of the intellect	K
Restless in clouding clay	H
	-
Who has confined the Light Who has held it a slave	L
Sold and bought bought and sold	M
Who has made of it a mystery to be doled	M
Or trophy to awe with legendary fire	N
Where regal banners wave	L
And still into the dark it sends Desire	N
In the heart's darkness it sows cruelties	O
The bright jewel becomes a beacon to the vile	P
A lodestar to corruption envy's own	D
Soiled with blood fought for clutched at this world's prize	Q
Captive Authority Oh the star is stone	D
To all that outward sight	E
Yet still like truth that none has ever used	R
Lives lost in its own light	E
	-
Troubled I fly O let me wander again at will	S
Far from cries far from these	O
Hard blindnesses and frozen certainties	O
Where life proceeds in vastness unaware	T
And stirs profound and still	S
Where leafing thoughts at shy touch of the air	T
Tremble and gleams come seeking to be mine	U
Or dart like suddenly remembered youth	V
Like the ache of love a light lost found and lost again	W
Surely in the dusk some messenger was there	T
But haunted in the heart I thirst I pine	U
Oh how can truth be truth	V
Except I taste it close and sweet and sharp	X
As an apple to the tooth	V
	-
	-
I	Y
On a starr'd a still mid night	E
Lost I halted lost I gazed about	Z
Great shapes of trees branched black into the sky	Y
There was no way but wandered into doubt	Z
There was no light	E
In the uncertain desert of dim air	T
But such as told me of all that was not I	Y
Of powers absorbed intent and active without sound	A2
That rooted in their unimagined might	E
Over me there ignoring towered and spread	B2
Homeless in my humanity and drowned	A2
In a dark world I listened all aware	T
And that world drew me	C2
The shadowy crossing of the boughs above my head	B2
Enmeshed me as with undecipherable spells	D2
The silence laid invisible hands upon my heart	E2
And the Night knew me	C2
	-
She put not forth her full power well I knew	G
She only toyed	F2
With reason used to sunshine flatteries	D2
The praise of happy senses trusted true	G
And smile of stable Earth's affirming ease	D2
Yet even in this her ante room I felt	G2
Near me that void	F2
Without foundation roof or bound or end	H2
Where the eyes fast from their food the heavenly light	E
The untallied senses falter being denied	I2
The mind into itself is pressed is penned	H2
Even memoried glories of experience melt	G2
Into one mapless eyeless elemental Night	E
It was so near	J2
That like a swimmer toiled in a full streaming tide	I2
Drawing him unawares down the unsounded seas	D2
My soul sank into fear	J2
	-
O for one far beam of the absenting sun	K2
O for a voice to assure me and to release	D2
Out of this clutching silence There is none	K2
Shadow on shadow and stillness on stillness	D2
Enclose me and fasten round	A2
Is this a world which Day never has known	D
A world made only of doubt and dream and dread	B2
Is this the interior Night of the dark human soul	L2
And the immaterial blackness branching from the ground	A2
A fearful forest that itself has sown	D
Against the stars to tower	N
Stars that dispense their faint uncertain dole	L2
Of light that darkness may the more abound	A2
Whither am I come Where have my wandered feet	M2
Brought me on circling steps led by what furtive power	N
Alas in this dumb gloom wherein my spirit gropes	D2
Only myself I meet	M2
	-
Only myself but in what strange image	N2
Encountered and phantasmally surprised	O2
This thing of stealth that rises from the shrouds of sleep	P2
I know it I with shuddering guess presage	Q2
An enemy the native of the night	E
That in me was disguised	O2
Hollow echoing caverns where blind rivers creep	P2
With soundless motion ice cold sudden breath	I
Of climbing cloud at whose abstracting touch	R2
The upholding rock seems baseless as the mist	S2
Black silence in the eagle's captive stare	T
Empty of all but the baulked lust of death	I
Could not oppress so much	R2
Even that which in the dark brain says I am ''	-
Desperate in its faltering to persist	S2
Flickers like an expiring lamp's last leap of flame	T2
To leave me I know not where	T
	-
Let not the beautiful world perish and cease	D2
My heart cries freezing in its secret cells	D2
Let me not be extinguished in the abyss	D2
Losing the bless d touch and taste of things	D2
Earth's heaven of hues and smells	D2
I am so far from worlds where any fountain springs	D2
Sunken into this placeless dungeon dream	U2
That holds me without wall or roof or door	B
The light is only legend I begin	V2
To give away my being like a stream	U2
Wandering among unshapen shapes that spin	V2
A world of unintelligible dread	B2
And this world seeks me for its own	D
All is dissolved nothing has meaning more	B
Each moment heaps an age of time above my head	B2
It is the very Mind of Darkness I am in	V2
Lost and alone alone	D
	-
	-
I	Y
The Forests of the Night awaken blind in heat	M2
Of black stupor and stirring in its deep retreat	M2
I hear the heart of Darkness slowly beat and beat	M2
	-
As if Earth shrouded dense in gloom	W2
Shuddered in her guilty womb	W2
As if a power from under earth	X2
Would bring some monstrous spirit to birth	X2
As if a spirit ran pursued	C
And sobbing through the shadowy wood	Y2
Ghostly throbs of sound begin	V2
To circle from the distance in	V2
A phantom beating dulled remote	Z2
With madness in its fever note	Z2
	-
I know not what about me or what above me oppresses	D2
The suffocating air but fear within me guesses	D2
A peopling of the caverned glooms miasma cold recesses	D2
	-
Leaves depending still still	S
Bronzed to blackness spill	S
Dead light from a sinking moon	A3
Wholly to be sunken soon	A3
Wandering down a desert coast	B3
At the horizon's end a lost	C3
Eternal exile from the Day	H
Whence she stole a perished ray	H
That falls from off those fingered fronds	D2
Black as vipers cold as bronze	D2
	-
O is it from my heart or from the darkness round	A2
The far reverberation the dull throb of sound	A2
A pulse a fearful pulse in air or underground	A2
	-
Closer quicker through the heat	M2
Drones insists the incessant beat	M2
Round in shuddering circle comes	D2
Beat on frenzied beat of drums	D2
Nearer in from every side	I2
Thudding madly multiplied	I2
To seize the heart and blind the brain	D3
With a monotone insane	D3
Terrible terrible in continuance	D2
It holds me fastened in a trance	D2
	-
O for a spirit that is not mine to bear	T
This weight of the unfathomable night	E
O for a spirit of more than mortal might	E
To take upon him this my load	A
Of infinitely wide world quivering fear	J2
O for a Demon or a God	E3
In saving presence to appear	J2
	-
What is it that my eyes amid the gloom divine	U
There in the furtive filterings of the ghast moonshine	U
What bodies sway and cry and to the ground incline	U
	-
The fear that held me falls apart	E2
But leaves a horror in my heart	E2
Stony stony of blank stone	D
Fixt on that secret altar throne	D
Inhuman human Shape with hands on knees	D2
With remote stare that nothing nothing sees	D2
Yet is a magnet to a thousand eyes	D2
A thousand forms that crouch scenting the scent of blood	F3
Beat breasts and writhe before you with ejected cries	D2
Unbrothered beast abominable God	E3
Who made you and shaped you into more than breath	I
Can give a will to What power drove the hand	G3
With terror strong as lust to shape you there	T
Immovable as Death	I
And carve the rock of darkness in the mind	H3
To horrible resemblance of my kind	H3
Lost Light sunken Light	E
From what I am save me	C2
The fever beat of sound is in my veins	D2
I breathe the black blood smelling air	T
The ecstasy of fear the blind throb in the breast	I3
I share it I must share	T
It is not I I cry	Y
Yet it is I	Y
These are the powers that crave me	C2
This is the full dominion of the Night	E
	-
The victims ah the victims shriek and die	Y
And on them the eternal Idol stares	D2
But they have made him incense of their prayers	D2
Voluptuously have knelt before their own	D
Black terror bodied into stone	D
Not the expiring cry	Y
So lacerates my mind while without end	H2
Through ages up the altar fumes ascend	H2
And fading into shadow from their bodies rent	J3
Stream spirits without number to conceive	K3
But this O victims this that you consent	J3
That you believe	K3
	-
They were all human My heart falters how	L3
That infinite bond refuse	D2
Like last reverberations of a bell	M3
That in their ebb and last expiry tell	M3
Of stupefying clamour when it heaved	N3
And shook its tower to the foundation now	L3
Whispers out of the dark accuse accuse	D2
I have consented I have believed	N3
	-
	-
I	Y
There is singing of brooks in the shadow and high in a stainless	D2
Solitude of the East	O3
Ineffable colour ascends like a spirit awaking	Y
Slowly Earth is released	O3
It is dawn it is dawn the light is budding and breaking	Y
	-
Earth is released flowing out from the void of the darkness	D2
Into body and bloom	W2
Flowing out from the nameless immensity night where she waited	F3
Myriad forms to resume	W2
Gloriously moulded as if in her freshness created	F3
	-
The lineaments of the hills serene in their order	N
Arise and the trees	D2
With their motionless fountains of foliage perfect in slumber	N
And by lovely degrees	D2
The blades of the grass re appear minute without number	N
	-
The rounded rock glistens and warms where the water slips by it	P3
Familiar of old	M
The tree stretches up to the air its intimate branches	D2
Bathing in gold	M
And the dew dazzle colours in fire the lichen it blanches	D2
	-
Each is seen in its beauty of difference deeply companioned	M
Leaf root and the stone	D
And drawn by the light from their dream in earth's prison emerging	Y
Distinct in their own	D
Form from the formless a million natures are urging	Y
	-
I see them I know them I name them I share in their being	Y
I am not betrayed	M
I feel in my fibre the touch of a spirit that knows me	C2
For this was I made	M
In a world of delight and of wonder my senses enclose me	C2
	-
Whence come they the water brooks Out of the mountainous darkness	D2
Where no life is seen	Q3
From caverns of night are they come but because of their springing	Y
Meadows laugh to be green	Q3
And hearing the voice of their carol the children go singing	Y
	-
The children go singing they read in the books of the Light	M
Things hidden from the sage	R3
Unschooled are their bodies that run like a ripple and fear not	M
Coming of grief and age	R3
The sighs of the night the doubt in the shadow they hear not	M
	-
Lo single mid grasses a flower upspringing before me	C2
In delicate poise	D2
Takes the light like a kiss from an innocent mouth as it quivers	D2
Confiding its joys	D2
To the air and my heart from its prison of self it delivers	D2
	-
I stand in the dew and the radiance my shadow behind me	C2
Lost out of thought	M
The bright beams ascend and ascending from earth they uncover	N
The secret they sought	M
Enter me make me afresh O Light my lover	N
	-
	-
I	Y
Why are these beams so twined with sweetness and with pain	D3
Injury and anger fear and all desire	N
Whose purity should stream through pulse and brain	D3
Not thickened in dull fume or frayed with fire	N
But absolute and whole	L2
Into the central soul	L2
Disclouded from those lures and all their train	D3
Knowing what is and is not white and bare	T
As the bathed body quit of day's disguise	D2
But the only truth is coloured with the secret stain	D3
Of our mortality that unaware	T
Infects the farthest vision of the eyes	D2
And region of invisible thought Vain vain	D3
That throbbing search The Light	M
Is more profound more secret than the Night	M
	-
Who has built an airy mansion for the unresting mind	M
To inhabit and rejoicing contemplate	M
A many pillared universe designed	M
In order clear complete and intricate	M
Intelligible wonder not	M
Too vast to hold man's lot	M
But he has waked on some malignant morn to find	M
The certainty too certain to be true	G
Distasted and that palace only a maze	D2
Wherein he wanders and is still confined	M
The pillars of it fallen and no clue	G
But through the ruin penetrates a blaze	D2
Of glory beyond glory and of light behind	M
The light and the strength fails in him he knows	D2
Himself lost in a world that overflows	D2
	-
Yet no power stills the ache or stops the springing need	M
The dark creative spiritual Desire	N
Seizes upon his heart which holds that seed	M
And straightway till the last of breath expire	S3
Like tool upon the wheel	T3
Sharpened the more to feel	T3
He counts all else waste honour wealth a weed	M
The burden of the beauty is too great	M
The eternal mystery in the heart a wound	M
Until his vision in the end be freed	M
Until he has spent his all to incarnate	M
An airy spirit upon earthly ground	M
Forms for a God to dwell in and exceed	M
This fading flesh Alas from godlike shapes	D2
Some yet diviner essence still escapes	D2
	-
O that the form which once kindled to ecstasy	C2
The rapt gazer and freed him should become	U3
A cold thing to appraise with leisure's eye	Y
A beauty disinherited and dumb	U3
Whither is the spirit flown	D
From the forsaken stone	D
That seemed our sunken selves to deify	Y
O that the thought the word which into the heart leapt	M
Pregnant with light and troubling even to tears	D2
Should fade and wither should grow old and dry	Y
By repetition dulled upon the ears	D2
Like cheapened courtesies the lips accept	M
And falsehood custom cares not to deny	Y
A scumm'd and stirless pool a frozen rut	M
A path deserted a door shut	M
	-
But that the life should be less living than the dead	M
This is the worst that perfect form and word	M
Should perish of perfection yet be fed	M
With incense still and duteously adored	M
A name prostrate the throng	Y
The presence moved among	Y
Unrecognized neglected and forsaken bled	M
Time's treachery sleeks and glozes to our use	D2
The bright eternal bareness dearer grows	D2
To mortals what is mortal comforted	M
Mid alteration rather to keep truce	D2
With the ancestral darkness than oppose	D2
Too arduous scrutiny by dreams we are led	M
Content to pleasure us our truth decays	D2
The God departs the Idol stays	D2
	-
II	Y
I have heard voices under the early stars	D2
Where among hills the cold roads glimmer white	M
Voices of shadows passing each to the other	N
Clear in the airy stillness	D2
Call their familiar greeting and Good night	M
	-
Were they not come as guests to a remembered room	W2
Those words surrounded by the befriending silence	D2
But words ah words who can tell what they are made of	V3
Or how inscrutably shaped to colour and bloom	W2
Sharp odours they breathe and bitter and sweet and strong	Y
Born from exultation endurance and desire	N
Flying from mind to mind to bud a thought again	W
Spring and in endless birth their wizard power prolong	Y
	-
There was a voice on a sun shafted stair	T
That sang I heard it singing	Y
The very trees seemed listening to their roots	D2
Out in the sunshine and like drops in light	M
The words rained on the grasses greenly springing	Y
	-
Ah lovely living words what have we done to you	G
Each infant thought a soul exulting to be born	W3
Into a body a breath breathed from the lips a word	M
Dancing tingling pulsing a body fresh as dew	G
Once in the bonds of use manacled and confined	M
How have we made you labour thinned from beauty and strength	X3
Dulled with our dullness starved to the apathy of a serf	Y3
Outcast in streets abandoned foundlings of the mind	M
	-
Yet once in stillness of night's stillest hour	N
Words from the page I read	M
Rose like a spirit to embrace my spirit	M
Their radiant secret shook me earth was new	G
And I throbbed like one wakened from the dead	M
	-
O swift words words like flames proud as a victor's eye	Y
Words armed and terrible storming the heart sending	Y
Waves of love and fear and accusation over	N
Peoples kindling changing Alas but can you die	Y
Hardened to wither round the thought wherein you grew	G
Become as the blind leading with slow shuffle the blind	M
Heavy like senseless stones the savage kneels before	B
O shamed O victim words what have we done to you	G
	-
	-
II	Y
The Presses are awake Under the midnight cloud	M
Mid labyrinthine silence of the spectral streets	D2
Sound upon darkness beats	D2
A pulse quivering aloud	M
Insanely as if a fever throbbed in stone	D
As if a demon plied in palpitating gloom	W2
The hurry of his loom	W2
To weave that tissue white for an instant then	W
Populated with words shadows of thought and act	M
Death birth fear madness joy disaster packed	M
Headlong into a medley a monotone	D
Indifferently echoing alike	Y
Laughter and the moan of men	W
	-
In the avaricious gloom a secret Ear	Z3
Sucks with a whirlpool greed out of the skies	D2
Words voiceless words drawn in from far and near	J2
Bubble blown rumour whisperings like spies	D2
The knife stab in the night the fall of thrones	D2
Alarm of nations like a beating bell	M3
Jubilant feat and misery grey	H
Caught from all corners of the air pell mell	M3
In a voice that no man owns	D2
That a multitude of brazen masks shall shout	M
To the multitudes of Day	H
	-
The few stars solitary in heights of night	M
Thieved by the cloud shine and are dimmed again	W
Though none puts out their light	M
So solitary in the heart is pain	D3
Solitary the Dream	U2
Solitary the Vow solitary the Deed	M
There is no room for these	D2
In that invisible cloud woven of things that seem	U2
Sure of accepting softness and the greed	M
That it shall cling to and make cheaply wise	D2
An all uniting web of lies and of half lies	D2
And lying silences	D2
	-
Into my ear remote remote is blown	D
Out of the darkness and across the seas	D2
Sound of a forest falling young bodies of trees	D2
One by one falling prone	D
To be tamed to a helpless tissue and to feed	M
The insatiate Presses' need	M
Oh did they spring to scent the blue silence of air	T
And sway slow to the wind launching the light winged birds	D2
Ghosts only are there	T
The ghosts of trees that shoot no fresh leaf any more	B
But drones of darkness in the midnight bear	T
Black myriads of words	D2
	-
Invisibly the night thickens with words that glide	M
Driven thronging on blind errands soon to fall	A4
Into a million minds and glorified	M
To be their momentary oracle	B4
Glitter and then they are like the innumerable snow	C4
Chance timed indifferent random swift and slow	C4
That falls to a stillness out of whirling flurry	C2
And workers heavy eyed	M
That under the chill cloud of morning hurry	C2
Muffled against the shiver in the blood	M
Soil it at every stride	M
Till each articulate crystal whiteness is confused	M
And where the moment's wonder shone is mud	M
Trodden stale and used	M
	-
	-
II	Y
Hewn and heavy of granite hewn	A3
Heavy and hard the walls ascend	M
Bare without measure to the eye	Y
Indifferent to night or noon	A3
Over pavement they impend	M
Locked impassive huge the Door	B
Stands caverned in the midst on high	Y
Ruled and squared the lintel stone	D
Bears the carven Janitor	N
Justice blind upon her throne	D
Her no praying hands implore	B
To her bound eyes no eyes plead	M
Reason's idol calm she sits	D2
Weighing only the gross deed	M
Scrupulous with mind unsoiled	M
Not to know the thoughts that bleed	M
In the dumb soul fluttering beating	Y
Hither thither in its cage	R3
Of ancestral ignorance foiled	M
Rushing blinded into rage	R3
And its own desire defeating	Y
Behind the door within the wall	A4
Locked they sit the numbered ones	D2
Secret from each other all	A4
Lost to name like spectres passed	M
From the region of the sun's	D2
Changeful glory on young limbs	D2
Free to dance and free to leap	P2
From the acted thought they fast	M
Them a roof of silence dims	D2
The midnight stars move over them	D4
They move not but ruled times they keep	P2
With the shadows on the floor	B
They are mortised in a scheme	U2
Where the walls and fastened door	B
Built of words that are become	U3
Stones are like their spirits dumb	U3
	-
In ripened rustle of the corn	W3
The wind becomes a flowing flame	T2
As swift it curves and slow relents	D2
The body of a wave is born	W3
It passes whither No one knows	D2
But in the vision that consents	D2
It is the beauty it became	T2
The wind blows and the spirit blows	D2
No moment ever yet the same	T2
And fresher than a sparkling spring	Y
The unrepeated beauty flows	D2
And in the child that claps his hands	D2
To see the daisy on the green	Q3
And in the young man where he stands	D2
Poised for the naked plunge and in	V2
The invisible bursting of the bud	M
The leafing of the bough that sends	D2
Lightness like laughter through the blood	M
Of dancing girls its wave is seen	Q3
It flows and sings and never ends	D2
And flowers trembling heavenly hues	D2
In a lonely mountain place	D2
And chiming water's liquid curve	E4
The torrent's white rock ruffled race	D2
Freed for splendour of its swerve	E4
And clouds that steal the solemn blues	D2
Of noon unregioned in their trace	D2
Or ghostly travellers invade	M
The mountains they dissolve in dream	U2
And mazes of the stars that fade	M
At dawn still moving lost in light	M
All all the threads of music bind	M
Together in the visioned mind	M
Eternity has imaged them	D4
	-
O lovely is their secret Law	F4
Timing all their motions true	G
They know it not yet they obey	H
Without thought and without awe	G4
Of that fountain unaware	T
Which they spring from and renew	G
Finding out their missioned way	H
Everywhere oh everywhere	T
It is wild as a wild rose	D2
And fearful as the weltering wave	L
It is courage to the brave	L
Wisdom to the eye that knows	D2
But we have bound it as with cords	D2
We have built it into stone	D
All its motions frozen stark	Y
Round a hidden human moan	D
We have made it old and dark	Y
Out of maiming thought and fears	D2
And the things our fears forbid	M
Out of self hurt and of rue	G
We have built it into words	D2
And the words are stones We did	M
What we could not help but do	G
We the eternal Prisoners	D2
	-
Break the word and free the thought	M
Break the thought and free the thing	Y
But who in any net has caught	M
The wind or in a sieve the spring	Y
As soon shall he dissever these	D2
Through which the life blood single streams	D2
From germ unknown to fruit unguessed	M
Nourished with wonder and with dreams	D2
In its deep essence unpossessed	M
And smiling out of mysteries	D2
The flower is in the bud the bud	M
Within the seed beneath the ground	M
But all is flowing of one flood	M
That is not seen that is not bound	M
	-
This palace prison of the mind	M
How in the youthful morn it glows	D2
Its windows flame with angel light	M
Auroral flushes of the rose	D2
And all the airs of heaven invite	M
With miracle of breathing blue	G
And shifting glory of sun and showers	D2
To ecstasy and song and who	G
Remembers how therein confined	M
In sunken cells are captive powers	D2
Powers that a jailer fetters close	D2
With chains of the invisible hours	D2
To one another hardly known	D
In furtive glimpse and each alone	D
O marvel of the world O bright	M
And luminous palace built to hold	M
The light of heaven within its walls	D2
Precious with glory as of gold	M
Why comes the night why comes the night	M
When as about it the sky falls	D2
Filled with the dark it seems to stand	M
A dark tower in a lonely land	M
	-
	-
II	Y
In the wonder of dreams on a wave of the sky buoyed	M
My body was the body of a wish the word of a thought	M
Uttered whole from a throb of the heart in a cry's delight	M
Never bird out of Africa beating a golden void	M
Shifting the coloured regions that Spring has caught	M
Pursued the desire of its being in flight	M
Happier Time an idle ruin gleamed	M
Where vision flamed or flowered or streamed	M
	-
Slow slow the mind gropes back to curb and term	H4
Of this strange world to Time that's used and all	A4
The enclosing age descended ritual	B4
The invisible garment cobweb fine and firm	H4
Wherein the limbs move to the ancestral call	A4
And hands repeat what dead hands did before	B
And the mind lingers as behind a door	B
The hinted glory of liberty is fled	M
And in its stead	M
Is only the shadow of Man's ancient nurse	D2
Dear Custom at whose knees he learnt the ways	D2
Of his uncounted tribe schooled to rehearse	D2
Cruelty and folly and ere he comprehend	M
Make these his virtue so to earn her praise	D2
	-
Massive as mountain to his childish gaze	D2
Is that unmoved authority of power	N
His fibre trembles to offend	M
And slow as the Earth is in her seasons she	C2
Befriends and punishes like sun and shower	N
Well used to tears and the heart broken hour	N
Smoulder of mutiny and anger tamed in the end	M
Indulgent of a laughter brief as those	D2
For all come back at night fall to her knee	C2
When the old shadows descend	M
With mutter upon her lips with eyes half blind	M
Buried mysteries she knows	D2
With dark fountains of ignorance in her mind	M
How wise she seems amassed in ancient certitudes	D2
Her silences how comfortably kind	M
The human slowly grows	D2
Inhuman where she broods	D2
And if a solitary spirit would wrest	M
His wrongs away from what so closely cleaves	D2
And break into the world that he believes	D2
Betrayers from within crying Traitor seek	Y
To pull him back securely weak	Y
In passiveness he sucked it from her breast	M
	-
O away and away and afar from this alien home	I4
Where spirits are woven together in words of fear	J2
Released into innocence let me have being and breath	I
But is it alone by mercy of dreams that I roam	I4
Liberated to joy's essential sphere	J2
In an antechamber of birth or beyond death	I
All flushes around me and then dissolves away	H
The heavenly dawning closes gray	H
	-
	-
II	Y
Once only once never again never	N
The idle curve my hand traces in air	T
The first flush on the cloud lost in the morning's height	M
Meeting of the eyes and tremble of delight	M
Before the heart is aware	T
Gone to return never again never	N
	-
Futurity flows toward me all things come	U3
Smooth flowing and ere this pulse beat they are bound	M
In fixity that no repenting power can free	C2
They are with Egypt and with Nineveh	J4
Cold as a grave in the ground	M
And still undated all things toward me come	U3
	-
Why is all strange Why do I not grow used	M
The ripple upon the stream that nothing stays	D2
The bough above in glory of warm light waving slow	C4
Trouble me enchant me as with the stream I flow	C4
Lost into the endless days	D2
Why is all strange Why do I not grow used	M
	-
Eternity Where heard I that still word	M
Like one that moving through a foreign street	M
Has felt upon him bent from far some earnest look	Y
Yet sees not whence and feigns that he mistook	Y
I marvel at my own heart beat	M
Eternity how learnt I that far word	M
	-
	-
III	Y
	-
Not for pity and pardon for Judgment now I cry	Y
To be seen that I may see known that I may know	C4
For this I cry	Y
Dwelling among dear images dream created	M
Flattered or daunted by a deluding mirror	N
That is not I	Y
O to taste the light as my body tastes the air	T
Let fall defence cast off the obstinately excusing	Y
Pleas and myself be my only vindication	K2
Nothing but this in the end can satisfy	Y
	-
Why does this desire pursue me and so possess me	C2
Is not breath sweet and the young smile of the morning	Y
Yet inly to know	C4
That I am bound in a net of minutes and of hours	D2
Inheriting bondages of habit and fear	J2
And ancient woe	C4
To be rooted so deep in lost ages of time	K4
With tendrils of hope and want and frail repining	Y
The ignorant accomplice of purposes abhorred	M
This thought is my companion and my foe	C4
	-
Sometimes to fly to some remoteness of the air	T
To perceive with different senses a new body	C2
I pine and ache	L4
As on this bed of self whereon I am bound I toss	D2
Day and night filled with ineffectual longing	Y
That bond to break	L4
O yet enslaved I know not to what I am enslaved	M
Only this husk and shard of what I am this fond	M
Dreamer of dreams eater and drinker of untruth	V
This only I know and this cannot forsake	L4
	-
Wondrous glories crowd into the eye's treasure chamber	N
Wondrous harmonies linger in the ear's recesses	D2
Stored for delight	M
But beyond the ear's compass what modulations fine	U
Tremble and what marvels unapprehended sparkle	B4
Beyond the sight	M
Oh and beyond the mind's capacity of conceiving	Y
Much less of measuring amplitudes of wisdom	U3
Fit to sustain eternal serenity and courage	N2
While we go clouded faltering finite	M
	-
Were I stationed in the sun to behold the worlds	D2
Not nightly in declension but in dance triumphant	M
And timeless rolled	M
Had I the vision closed to the eye's horizon	K2
Labyrinths of an unimagined minuteness	D2
In the mind to hold	M
Could I attain the greatest and assume the least	M
Shrink to be a blade of the innumerable grass	D2
Soar eagle winged amid the altitudes of noontide	M
Then might I measure and what I am behold	M
	-
But rained over with riches of hours and moments	D2
Meshing me as a lily thick with honeyed light	M
The drunken bee	C2
Intoxicated with wild sweetnesses of sense	D2
Fullness of the opened heart glory of earth and beauty	C2
Enamouring me	C2
Roofed in a den I am a poor captive rather	N
Who sits in fetters eyeing the barred the precious blue	G
Where high in the envied air a cloud lingers in light	M
And wings fly whither they desire to be	C2
	-
Lying in the night I hear from graves unnumbered	M
Under stars that have seen all history passing	Y
The indignant cry	Y
Must we only in effigy and phantom be remembered	M
Malignly obscured or mocked with gilded pretences	D2
Wherefrom we fly	Y
Will none unwind these cerements none lift up from us	D2
This load of false praise and false fortune's betrayal	B4
Let us be known in nakedness of our nature	N
Deliver us from dominion of the lie	Y
	-
As if they wandered in deserts and groped in caves	D2
I hear the exclaiming of disenchanted spirits	D2
In bitter lament	M
Beholding the barren things for which they wasted	M
The world the pitiable causes whereon their breath	I
And blood were spent	M
Was this the Light this little candle at noon This loathed	M
Cruelty the righteousness for which they thirsted	M
Sacrificing to invisible idols of the mind	M
They see But who hears This world is content	M
	-
Perfect Experience Is not the mind worthy	C2
This when for glimpses only and shining fragments	D2
The martyrs bled	M
Majesty and splendour of overcoming vision	K2
Vision all judging certain and universal	B4
Not this I dread	M
But to remain banished into a parcelled being	Y
Eternized in all these faculties of error	N
Better a perfect oblivion in Earth's vastness	D2
By that eternal ignorance comforted	M
	-
Yet does my heart not cease from its supplication	K2
Yet I remember and cannot be satisfied	M
By Time oppressed	M
And as if summoned and drawn whither I know not	M
Clinging into earth with strong fibres of nature	N
In dark unrest	M
I burn like a seed that in burial forgotten	K2
Pushes its hope up growing in blind affiance	D2
Toward the light shining over an unconceived world	M
There to be lost illumined and released	M
	-
	-
III	Y
In my dream there was a Door	B
Dark on my musing path it stood	M
Before me and straightway I knew	K2
The certainty ran through my blood	M
That did I open and pass through	K2
I should know all for evermore	B
Those slow hinges and that weight	M
Relenting on them would unroll	B4
The hidden map of all my fate	M
And all the world and the world's soul	B4
	-
Who has trembled not at doors	D2
Motionless they shake the heart	M
Hope and menace on them hang	Y
They are the closed lips' counterpart	M
Wherein the sentence is concealed	M
For leaping joy or lancing pang	Y
Ah what answer will they yield	M
Will it be barren as the shores	D2
That endless waves beat like a knell	B4
Slowly repeated to Time's end	M
Or will it be the ineffable	B4
Still radiance that shall all amend	M
Melting out Time's ancient stain	K2
Will they open on sunrise	D2
Everlasting or will they	H
Close upon the light again	K2
Like eyelids closing over eyes	D2
That see for the last time the day	H
Is it not by such ancient dread	M
Inspired the warning doubt of what	M
Our prospering spirits has full fed	M
With certainties by hope begot	M
That on his progress proud we raise	D2
For the returning conqueror	N
The arch the immaterial door	B
So he may pass amid the blaze	D2
And loud acclaim at glory's height	M
Beneath a shadow of the night	M
Where the hinted powers take toll	B4
Of what is mortal in the soul	B4
	-
O Door like sealed fatal decree	C2
Image of death image of birth	X2
Ever uncertain certainty	C2
O silence as of silent earth	X2
O silence into substance built	M
O night projected into day	H
O still unspoken Yea or Nay	H
O brimming vessel still unspilt	H
O end that meets us on the way	H
What lies behind your blank accost	H
Is it the treasure we have lost	H
And laboured wearily to recover	N
Or something that we never knew	K2
Another mind with other measures	D2
Laughing to scorn our pangs and pleasures	D2
Is it at last the only true	K2
The unknown Love the unknown Lover	N
	-
With all my soul at earnest gaze	D2
Fixed upon that silent Door	B
I stretched my hand the latch to raise	D2
I lifted up my hand and then	K2
Some power forbade me and I forbore	B
	-
In the changes of my dream	U2
I was borne to a far place	D2
Empty and wide and all a gleam	U2
With sunlit quivering of the grass	D2
There rose before me vast and blind	H
A towered prison walled and old	H
It seemed a prison house so great	H
It could have held all human kind	H
In the midst there was a gate	H
And as I dreamed my dream behold	H
I saw the prisoners released	H
The gates rolled back and forth they came	T2
Stumbling in the light that smote	H
Full on them from the dazzling East	H
Like knives it stabbed them like a flame	T2
It seared them with their hands they hid	H
Their faces or as if by rote	H
Stretched out vain arms to touch and feel	B4
Familiar walls closing around	H
Then lacking fetters halted lame	T2
Waiting to do what they were bid	H
Their helpless motions made as though	C4
They would run back or fall or kneel	B4
Or hide themselves beneath the ground	H
This way and that they looked to go	C4
O never may I see again	K2
Such looks of blank and empty pain	K2
They were looks of men betrayed	H
And of their naked souls afraid	H
But some there were a few that stood	H
And stretched their arms up to the sun	K2
As if the light streamed through their blood	H
As if their breath was now begun	K2
As if their spirits till then had slept	H
As if they never yet had known	K2
The world of life that was their own	K2
These it was not those who wept	H
Was it for pity of all that sad	H
Throng or the extreme joy they had	H
O that on earth I could have sight	H
Of those faces and that light	H
	-
	-
III	Y
I am laid within a place of summer leaves	D2
Solid boles mount through foliage out of sight	H
No shadow lacks some intimacy of light	H
No penetrating radiance but receives	D2
Shadowy immersion Dream	U2
Is on me is on the hushed the thronged and drowsing glow	C4
Even the thoughts emerging from the mind	H
Like voices in a sleeping city seem	U2
Reproved This is old Earth so old and kind	H
That she is lenient in her overflow	C4
To all things human Why why tease the sense	D2
For a hope to a fear unmated	H
Why rend the rich seam of experience	D2
Why toss upon thoughts frustrated	H
	-
Each way appears a closing avenue	K2
Leading among warm scents I know not where	B
But Whither is to the idle mind no care	B
For always there is fragrance of some clue	K2
Neglected that might guide	H
As in a trance the veiled soul to its unknown peace	D2
Peace such as comes like lips laid upon lips	D2
A brimmed oblivion of all else beside	H
Like anchorage to tempest blinded ships	D2
When the thwart waves resign and the winds cease	D2
Earth with warm arms embrace me and let me feel	B4
Feel only a wonder working	Y
Until the tender and still sense reveal	B4
The secrets round me lurking	Y
	-
Now might you come back old divinities	D2
Earth born from cradling green and lost recess	D2
Serene in your unclouded nakedness	D2
To enrich the mirror of my musing eyes	D2
As fruit on the rough bough	L3
Globes itself the last golden glory of the tree	B
Smooth from wild earth the human image rose	D2
And what diviner shape should hear the vow	L3
Of mortals or what else their secret knows	D2
Though past the ache of our mortality	B
Shall I not sacrifice unrest and fume	W2
On an altar here secluded	H
Let the vext mind re open like a bloom	W2
Upon which the light has brooded	H
	-
Delay me from the sight that only sees	D2
Frost of a dawn disclosing the world bare	B
And stript of splendour all things as they are	B
When stiffened grasses and stark branches freeze	D2
And the mind shrinks apart	H
With all the living colours famished out of it	H
O kindly mediation interpose	D2
Images of those forms that hold the heart	H
Warm wondrous forms whereinto the world flows	D2
To bloom and to perfect them O admit	H
Certitude to obscurity awhile	B4
As cloud in the light suspended	H
Gracious is Earth not far her secret smile	B4
And here is the soul befriended	H
	-
Only such sorrow as lingered in the gaze	D2
Of Proserpine returning from the dark	Y
Such tears as filled her listening to the lark	Y
And looking on the flower that springs and sways	D2
All humanized for her	B
As even the shadows were when she was throned in night	H
No more than these to enhance the glowing day	H
Shall enter where the green leaves are astir	B
Shall I not be sufficed and charm away	H
Perplexities to soft and shadowy flight	H
Shall I not now O whence is this breath come	U3
Of Time in a stealing chillness	D2
Why cries my heart out Why are all things dumb	U3
And strange strange the stillness	D2
	-
	-
III	Y
Whisper to me whisper I have listened and have not heard	H
Whisper to me you leaves have you not more to say	D2
Now at the ebb of the low evening ray	D2
Whisper some word left over from the day	D2
The one word the lost word	H
So I cried and then was stilled	H
For suddenly unsought unwilled	H
I knew not how I knew not whence	D2
There came a lightening of the sense	D2
I found an answer from within	K2
That made me to the stars akin	K2
My pulse obeyed the lovely Law	B4
With ears I heard with eyes I saw	B4
And one leaf veined with green indwelling light	H
Seemed the world's secret and absorbed me quite	H
Eternity through a moment	H
Sparkled I could not turn away my sight	H
	-
What thing long contemplated alters not	H
Its seeming substance as the deepening mind	H
By contemplation passes out of thought	H
Immenser worlds to find	H
The Mother as she clasps her infant boy	M4
Bent over him with the deep looks of joy	M4
Becomes her own hope oh she stays	D2
Not with the idol of her gaze	D2
But she is gone beyond her farthest prayer	B
And Time's last injury to meet him there	B
All that distracts him from her bosom now	L3
White butterflies a waving bough	L3
Presages the usurping world she grows	D2
To something more than fear and hope forebode	H
Wide as the sky He goes	D2
Out of her heart's possession	K2
Yet in her arms he lies that stranger and that God	H
	-
Free on its wings the mind can hover worlds away	D2
To where the vast Atlantic stream	U2
Dwindles to a watery gleam	U2
And like a star in bright noonday	H
The body's home is lost	H
The mind can tell me that these mossed	H
Gray boulders in green shadow deep	P2
Appearing sunk and socketed in sleep	P2
Beneath their image of repose	D2
Are all a dizzy motion whirled	H
A streaming dust our sight so gross	D2
Confuses to a solid world	H
Never mortal eye has seen	K2
Those minim motes no thought can lodge between	K2
So restless in their secret fever	B
They dance invisibly for ever	B
Alone the soul has knowledge of release	D2
Only in the soul is stillness	D2
Poised to receive a universe in peace	D2
	-
Only in the soul is stillness I remember an hour	B
It was the May month and wild throats were singing	Y
From bough to bough that breathed in bud and flower	B
And the full grass was springing	Y
Beneath an old gray tower	B
I remember those blue scented airs	D2
And how I came at unawares	D2
Beside the daisied border of a mead	H
Upon a pool so magically clear	B
It made each coloured pebble and furry weed	H
And star grained sand within its depth appear	B
Like things of Paradise unearthly bright	H
No surface seemed to intervene	K2
Fairy floor and eye between	K2
Save for a traceless quivering of the light	H
Gentle as breathing sleep where stole	B4
Up from its pregnant darkness	D2
The living spring as private as the soul	B4
	-
Love from its inward well a secret wonder arising	Y
Clear as the trembling water spring	Y
A spirit that knows not anything	Y
Simple in the world and nought despising	Y
Changes all it meets the stone	K2
Becomes a gem the weed a rose	D2
But oh within itself it grows	D2
By all it touches all it makes its own	K2
Vast and multitudinous a Power	B
To act to kindle and to dower	B
In pain's and fear's despite	H
With glory of unending light	H
O fountain in my heart I feel you now	L3
Full and resistless so I nothing scorn	K2
How could I lose you how	L3
Ever for an hour forget you	K2
This is the world whereinto I was born	K2
	-
Why did I tread long roads seeking seeking in vain	K2
Why did I make lament of the dark night	H
Why crouch with images of old affright	H
Eternal Moment hold me again again	K2
Bathe me in wells of light	H
It is now and it is here	B
The something beyond all things dear	B
The miracle that has no name	T2
When I am not then I am	N4
Having nothing I have all	B4
It was my hands that built my prison wall	B4
It was my thought that did my thought confine	K2
It was my heart refrained my heart from love	V3
Now I am stilled as in a gaze divine	K2
Now I flow upward from my secret well	B4
Now I behold what spirit I am of	V3
The Body is the Word nothing divides	D2
This blood and breath from thought ineffable	B4
Hold me Eternal Moment	H
The Idols fade the God abides	D2

Robert Laurence Binyon

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