第 61 节
作者:套牢      更新:2021-02-20 15:34      字数:9322
  Choke each pure inspiration of thy will?
  I would be a wind;
  Whose smallest atom is a viewless wing;
  All busy with the pulsing life that throbs
  To do thy bidding; yea; or the meanest thing
  That has relation to a changeless truth
  Could I but be instinct with theeeach thought
  The lightning of a pure intelligence;
  And every act as the loud thunder…clap
  Of currents warring for a vacuum。
  Lord; clothe me with thy truth as with a robe。
  Purge me with sorrow。  I will bend my head;
  And let the nations of thy waves pass over;
  Bathing me in thy consecrated strength。
  And let the many…voiced and silver winds
  Pass through my frame with their clear influence。
  O save meI am blind; lo! thwarting shapes
  Wall up the void before; and thrusting out
  Lean arms of unshaped expectation; beckon
  Down to the night of all unholy thoughts。
  I have seen
  Unholy shapes lop off my shining thoughts;
  Which I had thought nursed in thine emerald light;
  And they have lent me leathern wings of fear;
  Of baffled pride and harrowing distrust;
  And Godhead with its crown of many stars;
  Its pinnacles of flaming holiness;
  And voice of leaves in the green summer…time;
  Has seemed the shadowed image of a self。
  Then my soul blackened; and I rose to find
  And grasp my doom; and cleave the arching deeps
  Of desolation。
  O Lord; my soul is a forgotten well;
  Clad round with its own rank luxuriance;
  A fountain a kind sunbeam searches for;
  Sinking the lustre of its arrowy finger
  Through the long grass its own strange virtue5
  Hath blinded up its crystal eye withal:
  Make me a broad strong river coming down
  With shouts from its high hills; whose rocky hearts
  Throb forth the joy of their stability
  In watery pulses from their inmost deeps;
  And I shall be a vein upon thy world;
  Circling perpetual from the parent deep。
  O First and Last; O glorious all in all;
  In vain my faltering human tongue would seek
  To shape the vesture of the boundless thought;
  Summing all causes in one burning word;
  Give me the spirit's living tongue of fire;
  Whose only voice is in an attitude
  Of keenest tension; bent back on itself
  With a strong upward force; even as thy bow
  Of bended colour stands against the north;
  And; in an attitude to spring to heaven;
  Lays hold of the kindled hills。
  Most mighty One;
  Confirm and multiply my thoughts of good;
  Help me to wall each sacred treasure round
  With the firm battlements of special action。
  Alas my holy; happy thoughts of thee
  Make not perpetual nest within my soul;
  But like strange birds of dazzling colours stoop
  The trailing glories of their sunward speed;
  For one glad moment filling my blasted boughs
  With the sunshine of their wings。
  Make me a forest
  Of gladdest life; wherein perpetual spring
  Lifts up her leafy tresses in the wind。
  Lo! now I see
  Thy trembling starlight sit among my pines;
  And thy young moon slide down my arching boughs
  With a soft sound of restless eloquence。
  And I can feel a joy as when thy hosts
  Of trampling winds; gathering in maddened bands;
  Roar upward through the blue and flashing day
  Round my still depths of uncleft solitude。
  Hear me; O Lord;
  When the black night draws down upon my soul;
  And voices of temptation darken down
  The misty wind; slamming thy starry doors;
  With bitter jests。 'Thou fool!' they seem to say
  'Thou hast no seed of goodness in thee; all
  Thy nature hath been stung right through and through。
  Thy sin hath blasted thee; and made thee old。
  Thou hadst a will; but thou hast killed itdead
  And with the fulsome garniture of life
  Built out the loathsome corpse。  Thou art a child
  Of night and death; even lower than a worm。
  Gather the skirts up of thy shadowy self;
  And with what resolution thou hast left;
  Fall on the damned spikes of doom。'
  O take me like a child;
  If thou hast made me for thyself; my God;
  And lead me up thy hills。  I shall not fear
  So thou wilt make me pure; and beat back sin
  With the terrors of thine eye。
  Lord hast thou sent
  Thy moons to mock us with perpetual hope?
  Lighted within our breasts the love of love;
  To make us ripen for despair; my God?
  Oh; dost thou hold each individual soul
  Strung clear upon thy flaming rods of purpose?
  Or does thine inextinguishable will
  Stand on the steeps of night with lifted hand;
  Filling the yawning wells of monstrous space
  With mixing thoughtdrinking up single life
  As in a cup? and from the rending folds
  Of glimmering purpose; the gloom do all thy navied stars
  Slide through the gloom with mystic melody;
  Like wishes on a brow?  Oh; is my soul;
  Hung like a dew…drop in thy grassy ways;
  Drawn up again into the rack of change;
  Even through the lustre which created it?
  O mighty one; thou wilt not smite me through
  With scorching wrath; because my spirit stands
  Bewildered in thy circling mysteries。
  Here came the passage Robert had heard him repeat; and then the
  following paragraph:
  Lord; thy strange mysteries come thickening down
  Upon my head like snow…flakes; shutting out
  The happy upper fields with chilly vapour。
  Shall I content my soul with a weak sense
  Of safety? or feed my ravenous hunger with
  Sore…purged hopes; that are not hopes; but fears
  Clad in white raiment?
  I know not but some thin and vaporous fog;
  Fed with the rank excesses of the soul;
  Mocks the devouring hunger of my life
  With satisfaction: lo! the noxious gas
  Feeds the lank ribs of gaunt and ghastly death
  With double emptiness; like a balloon;
  Borne by its lightness o'er the shining lands;
  A wonder and a laughter。
  The creeds lie in the hollow of men's hearts
  Like festering pools glassing their own corruption:
  The slimy eyes stare up with dull approval;
  And answer not when thy bright starry feet
  Move on the watery floors。
  O wilt thou hear me when I cry to thee?
  I am a child lost in a mighty forest;
  The air is thick with voices; and strange hands
  Reach through the dusk and pluck me by the skirts。
  There is a voice which sounds like words from home;
  But; as I stumble on to reach it; seems
  To leap from rock to rock。  Oh! if it is
  Willing obliquity of sense; descend;
  Heal all my wanderings; take me by the hand;
  And lead me homeward through the shadows。
  Let me not by my wilful acts of pride
  Block up the windows of thy truth; and grow
  A wasted; withered thing; that stumbles on
  Down to the grave with folded hands of sloth
  And leaden confidence。
  There was more of it; as my type indicates。  Full of faults; I have
  given so much to my reader; just as it stood upon Ericson's blotted
  papers; the utterance of a true soul 'crying for the light。'  But I
  give also another of his poems; which Robert read at the same time;
  revealing another of his moods when some one of the clouds of holy
  doubt and questioning love which so often darkened his sky; did at
  length
  Turn forth her silver lining on the night:
  SONG。
  They are blind and they are dead:
  We will wake them as we go;
  There are words have not been said;
  There are sounds they do not know。
  We will pipe and we will sing
  With the music and the spring;
  Set their hearts a wondering。
  They are tired of what is old:
  We will give it voices new;
  For the half hath not been told
  Of the Beautiful and True。
  Drowsy eyelids shut and sleeping!
  Heavy eyes oppressed with weeping!
  Flashes through the lashes leaping!
  Ye that have a pleasant voice;
  Hither come without delay;
  Ye will never have a choice
  Like to that ye have to…day:
  Round the wide world we will go;
  Singing through the frost and snow;
  Till the daisies are in blow。
  Ye that cannot pipe or sing;
  Ye must also come with speed;
  Ye must come and with you bring
  Weighty words and weightier deed:
  Helping hands and loving eyes;
  These will make them truly wise
  Then will be our Paradise。
  As Robert read; the sweetness of the rhythm seized upon him; and;
  almost unconsciously; he read the last stanza aloud。  Looking up
  from the paper with a sigh of wonder and delightthere was the pale
  face of Ericson gazing at him from the bed!  He had risen on one
  arm; looking like a dead man called to life against his will; who
  found the world he had left already stranger to him than the one
  into which he had but peeped。
  'Yes;' he murmured; 'I could say that once。  It's all gone now。  Our
  world is but our moods。'
  He fell back on his pillow。  After a little; he murmured again:
  'I might fool myself with faith again。  So it is better not。  I
  would not be fooled。  To believe the false and be happy is the very
  belly of misery。  To believe the true and be miserable; is to be
  trueand miserable。  If there is no God; let me know it。  I will
  not be fooled。  I will not believe in a God that do