And unto the mighty mother, gay, eternal, rise
All the hopes we hold, the gladness, dreams of things to be.
One of all thy generations, mother, hails to thee.
Hail, and hail, and hail for ever, though I turn again
From thy joy unto the human vestiture of pain.
I, thy child who went forth radiant in the golden prime,
Find thee still the mother-hearted through my night in time:
Find in thee the old enchantment there behind the veil
Where the gods, my brothers, linger. Hail, for ever hail!
DIVINE VISITATION
The heavens lay hold on us:
the starry rays
Fondle with flickering fingers
brow and eyes:
A new enchantment lights the
ancient skies.
What is it looks between us
gaze on gaze?
Does the wild spirit of the
endless days
Chase through my heart some
lure that ever flies?
Only I know the vast within
me cries
Finding in thee the ending
of all ways.
Ah, but they vanish; the immortal
train
From thee, from me, depart,
yet take from thee
Memorial grace: laden
with adoration
Forth from this heart they
flow that all in vain
Would stay the proud eternal
powers that flee
After the chase in burning
exultation.
THE MASTER SINGER
A laughter in the diamond
air, a music in the trembling grass;
And one by one the words of
light as joydrops through my being pass.
I am the sunlight in the heart,
the silver moonglow in the mind;
My laughter runs and ripples
through the wavy tresses of the wind.
I am the fire upon the hills,
the dancing flame that leads afar
Each burning-hearted wanderer,
and I the dear and homeward star.
A myriad lovers died for me,
and in their latest yielded breath
I woke in glory giving them
immortal life though touched by death.
They knew me from the dawn
of time: if Hermes beats his rainbow wings,
If Angus shakes his locks
of light, or golden-haired Apollo sings,
It matters not the name, the
land; my joy in all the gods abides:
Even in the cricket in the
grass some dimness of me smiles and hides.
For joy of me the day star
glows, and in delight and wild desire
The peacock twilight rays
aloft its plumes and blooms of shadowy fire,
Where in the vastness too
I burn through summer nights and ages long,
And with the fiery footed
Watchers shake in myriad dance and song.
APHRODITE
Not unremembering we pass
our exile from the starry ways:
One timeless hour in time
we caught from the long night of endless days.
With solemn gaiety the stars
danced far withdrawn on elfin heights:
The lilac breathed amid the
shade of green and blue and citron lights.