free-verse471 lines

A Parson's Letter To A Young Poet.

by Jean Ingelow

They said "Too late, too late, the work is done;

Great Homer sang of glory and strong men

And that fair Greek whose fault all these long years

Wins no forgetfulness nor ever can;

For yet cold eyes upon her frailty bend,

For yet the world waits in the victor's tent

Daily, and sees an old man honourable,

His white head bowed, surprise to passionate tears

Awestruck Achilles; sighing, 'I have endured,

The like whereof no soul hath yet endured,

To kiss the hand of him that slew my son.'"

They said: "We, rich by him, are rich by more;

One Aeschylus found watchfires on a hill

That lit Old Night's three daughters to their work;

When the forlorn Fate leaned to their red light

And sat a-spinning, to her feet he came

And marked her till she span off all her thread.

"O, it is late, good sooth, to cry for more:

The work once done, well done," they said, "forbear!

A Tuscan afterward discovered steps

Over the line of life in its mid-way;

He climbed the wall of Heaven, beheld his love

Safe at her singing, and he left his foes

In a vale of shadow weltering, unassoiled

Immortal sufferers henceforth in both worlds.

"Who may inherit next or who shall match

The Swan of Avon and go float with him

Down the long river of life aneath a sun

Not veiled, and high at noon? - the river of life

That as it ran reflected all its lapse

And rippling on the plumage of his breast?

"Thou hast them, heed them, for thy poets now,

Albeit of tongue full sweet and majesty

Like even to theirs, are fallen on evil days,

Are wronged by thee of life, wronged of the world.

Look back they must and show thee thy fair past,

Or, choosing thy to-day, they may but chant

As they behold.

"The mother-glowworm broods

Upon her young, fast-folded in the egg

And long before they come to life they shine -

The mother-age broods on her shining thought

That liveth, but whose life is hid. He comes

Her poet son, and lo you, he can see

The shining, and he takes it to his breast

And fashions for it wings that it may fly

And show its sweet light in the dusky world.

"Mother, O Mother of our dusk to-day,

What hast thou lived for bards to sing of thee?

Lapsed water cannot flow above its source;

'The kid must browse,'" they said, "'where she is tied.'"

Son of to-day, rise up, and answer them.

What! wilt thou let thy mother sit ashamed

And crownless? - Set the crown on her fair head:

She waited for thy birth, she cries to thee

"Thou art the man." He that hath ears to hear,

To him the mother cries "Thou art the man."

She murmurs, for thy mother's voice is low -

"Methought the men of war were even as gods

The old men of the ages. Now mine eyes

Retrieve the truth from ruined city walls

That buried it; from carved and curious homes

Full of rich garments and all goodly spoil,

Where having burned, battered, and wasted them,

They flung it. Give us, give us better gods

Than these that drink with blood upon their hands,

For I repent me that I worshipped them.

O that there might be yet a going up!

O to forget - and to begin again!"

Is not thy mother's rede at one with theirs

Who cry "The work is done"? What though to thee,

Thee only, should the utterance shape itself

"O to forget, and to begin again,"

Only of thee be heard as that keen cry

Rending its way from some distracted heart

That yields it and so breaks? Yet list the cry

Begin for her again, and learn to sing;

But first, in all thy learning learn to be.

Is life a field? then plough it up - re-sow

With worthier seed - Is life a ship? O heed

The southing of thy stars - Is life a breath?

Breathe deeper, draw life up from hour to hour,

Aye, from the deepest deep in thy deep soul.

It may be God's first work is but to breathe

And fill the abysm with drifts of shining air

That slowly, slowly curdle into worlds.

A little space is measured out to us

Of His long leisure; breathe and grow therein,

For life, alas! is short, and "When we die

It is not for a little while."

They said,

"The work is done," and is it therefore done?

Speak rather to thy mother thus: "All-fair,

Lady of ages, beautiful To-day

And sorrowful To-day, thy children set

The crown of sorrow on their heads, their loss

Is like to be the loss of all: we hear

Lamenting, as of some that mourn in vain

Loss of high leadership, but where is he

That shall be great enough to lead thee now?

Where is thy Poet? thou hast wanted him.

Where? Thou hast wakened as a child in the night

And found thyself alone. The stars have set,

There is great darkness, and the dark is void

Of music. Who shall set thy life afresh

And sing thee thy new songs? Whom wilt thou love

And lean on to break silence worthily -

Discern the beauty in thy goings - feel

The glory of thy yearning, - thy self-scorn

Matter to dim oblivion with a smile -

Own thy great want, that knew not its great name?

O who shall make to thee mighty amends

For thy lost childhood, joining two in one,

Thyself and Him? Behold Him, He is near:

God is thy Poet now.

"A King sang once

Long years ago 'My soul is athirst for God,

Yea for the living God' - thy thirst and his

Are one. It is thy Poet whom thy hands

Grope for, not knowing. Life is not enough,

Nor love, nor learning, - Death is not enough

Even to them, happy, who forecast new life;

But give us now and satisfy us now,

Give us now, now, to live in the life of God,

Give us now, now, to be at one with Him."

Would I had words - I have not words for her,

Only for thee; and thus I tell them out:

For every man the world is made afresh;

To God both it and he are young. There are

Who call upon Him night, and morn, and night

"Where is the kingdom? Give it us to-day.

We would be here with God, not there with God.

Make Thine abode with us, great Wayfarer,

And let our souls sink deeper into Thee" -

There are who send but yearnings forth, in quest

They know not why, of good they know not what.

The unknown life, and strange its stirring is.

The babe knows nought of life, yet clothed in it

And yearning only for its mother's breast

Feeds thus the unheeded thing - and as for thee,

That life thou hast is hidden from thine eyes,

And when it yearns, thou, knowing not for what,

Wouldst fain appease it with one grand, deep joy,

One draught of passionate peace - but wilt thou know

The other name of joy, the better name

Of peace? It is thy Father's name. Thy life

Yearns to its Source. The spirit thirsts for God,

Even the living God.

But "No," thou sayest,

"My heart is all in ruins with pain, my feet

Tread a dry desert where there is no way

Nor water. I look back, and deep through time

The old words come but faintly up the track

Trod by the sons of men. The man He sent,

The Prince of life, methinks I could have loved

If I had looked once in His deep man's eyes.

But long ago He died, and long ago

Is gone."

He is not dead, He cannot go.

Men's faith at first was like a mastering stream,

Like Jordan "the descender" leaping down

Pure from his snow; and warmed of tropic heat

Hiding himself in verdure: then at last

In a Dead Sea absorbed, as faith of doubt.

But yet the snow lies thick on Hermon's breast

And daily at his source the stream is born.

Go up - go mark the whiteness of the snow - Thy

faith is not thy Saviour, not thy God,

Though faith waste fruitless down a desert old.

The living God is new, and He is near.

What need to look behind thee and to sigh?

When God left speaking He went on before

To draw men after, following up and on;

And thy heart fails because thy feet are slow;

Thou think'st of Him as one that will not wait,

A Father and not wait! - He waited long

For us, and yet perchance He thinks not long

And will not count the time. There are no dates

In His fine leisure.

Speak then as a son:

"Father, I come to satisfy Thy love

With mine, for I had held Thee as remote,

The background of the stars - Time's yesterday -

Illimitable Absence. Now my heart

Communes, methinks, with somewhat teaching me

Thou art the Great To-day. God, is it so?

Then for all love that WAS, I thank Thee, God,

It is and yet shall hide. And I have part

In all, for in Thine image I was made,

To Thee my spirit yearns, as Thou to mine.

If aught be stamped of Thy Divine on me,

And man be God-like, God is like to man.

"Dear and dread Lord, I have not found it hard

To fear Thee, though Thy love in visible form

Bled 'neath a thorny crown - but since indeed,

For kindred's sake and likeness, Thou dost thirst

To draw men nigh, and make them one with Thee,

My soul shall answer 'Thou art what I want:

I am athirst for God, the living God.'"

Then straightway flashes up athwart the words:

"And if I be a son I am very far

From my great Father's house; I am not clean.

I have not always willed it should be so,

And the gold of life is rusted with my tears."

It is enough. He never said to men,

"Seek ye My face in vain." And have they sought -

Beautiful children, well-beloved sons,

Opening wide eyes to ache among the moons

All night, and sighing because star multitudes

Fainted away as to a glittering haze,

And sparkled here and there like silver wings,

Confounding them with nameless, numberless,

Unbearable, fine flocks? It is not well

For them, for thee. Hast thou gone forth so far

To the unimaginable steeps on high

Trembling and seeking God? Yet now come home,

Cry, cry to Him: "I cannot search Thee out,

But Thou and I must meet. O come, come down,

Come." And that cry shall have the mastery.

Ay, He shall come in truth to visit thee,

And thou shalt mourn to Him, "Unclean, unclean,"

But never more "I will to have it so."

From henceforth thou shalt learn that there is love

To long for, pureness to desire, a mount

Of consecration it were good to scale.

Look you, it is to-day as at the first.

When Adam first was 'ware his new-made eyes

And opened them, behold the light! And breath

Of God was misting yet about his mouth,

Whereof they had made his soul. Then he looked forth

And was a part of light; also he saw

Beautiful life, and it could move. But Eve - Eve

was the child of midnight and of sleep.

Lo, in the dark God led her to his side;

It may be in the dark she heard him breathe

Before God woke him. And she knew not light,

Nor life but as a voice that left his lips,

A warmth that clasped her; but the stars were out,

And she with wide child-eyes gazed up at them.

Haply she thought that always it was night;

Haply he, whispering to her in that reach

Of beauteous darkness, gave her unworn heart

A rumour of the dawn, and wakened it

To a trembling, and a wonder, and a want

Kin to his own; and as he longed to gaze

On his new fate, the gracious mystery

His wife, she may have longed, and felt not why,

After the light that never she had known.

So doth each age walk in the light beheld,

Nor think on light, if it be light or no;

Then comes the night to it, and in the night Eve.

The God-given, the most beautiful

Eve. And she is not seen for darkness' sake;

Yet, when she makes her gracious presence felt,

The age perceives how dark it is, and fain,

Fain would have daylight, fain would see her well,

A beauty half revealed, a helpmeet sent

To draw the soul away from valley clods;

Made from itself, yet now a better self -

Soul in the soulless, arrow tipped with fire

Let down into a careless breast; a pang

Sweeter than healing that cries out with it

For light all light, and is beheld at length -

The morning dawns.

Were not we born to light?

Ay, and we saw the men and women as saints

Walk in a garden. All our thoughts were fair;

Our simple hearts, as dovecotes full of doves,

Made home and nest for them. They fluttered forth.

And flocks of them flew white about the world.

And dreams were like to ships that floated us

Far out on silent floods, apart from earth,

From life - so far that we could see their lights

In heaven - and hear the everlasting tide,

All dappled with that fair reflected gold,

Wash up against the city wall, and sob

At the dark bows of vessels that drew on

Heavily freighted with departed souls

To whom did spirits sing; but on that song

Might none, albeit the meaning was right plain,

Impose the harsh captivity of words.

Afterward waking, sweet was early air,

Full excellent was morning: whether deep

The snow lay keenly white, and shrouds of hail

Blurred the grey breaker on a long foreshore,

And swarming plover ran, and wild white mews

And sea-pies printed with a thousand feet

The fallen whiteness, making shrill the storm;

Or whether, soothed of sunshine, throbbed and hummed

The mill atween its bowering maple trees,

And churned the leaping beck that reared, and urged

A diamond-dripping wheel.

The happy find

Equality of beauty everywhere

To feed on. All of shade and sheen is theirs,

All the strange fashions and the fair wise ways

Of lives beneath man's own. He breathes delight

Whose soul is fresh, whose feet are wet with dew

And the melted mist of morning, when at watch

Sunk deep in fern he marks the stealthy roe,

Silent as sleep or shadow, cross the glade,

Or dart athwart his view as August stars

Shoot and are out - while gracefully pace on

The wild-eyed harts to their traditional tree

To clear the velvet from their budded horns.

There is no want, both God and life are kind;

It is enough to hear, it is enough

To see; the pale wide barley-field they love,

And its weird beauty, and the pale wide moon

That lowering seems to lurk between the sheaves.

So in the rustic hamlet at high noon

The white owl sailing drowsed and deaf with sleep

To hide her head in turrets browned of moss

That is the rust of time. Ay so the pinks

And mountain grass marked on a sharp sea-cliff

While far below the northern diver feeds;

She having ended settling while she sits,

As vessels water-logged that sink at sea

And quietly into the deep go down.

It is enough to wake, it is enough

To sleep: - With God and time he leaves the rest.

But on a day death on the doorstep sits

Waiting, or like a veil'd woman walks

Dogging his footsteps, or athwart his path

The splendid passion-flower love unfolds

Buds full of sorrow, not ordained to know

Appeasement through the answer of a sigh,

The kiss of pity with denial given,

The crown and blossom of accomplishment.

Or haply comes the snake with subtlety,

And tempts him with an apple to know all.

So, - Shut the gate; the story tells itself

Over and over; Eden must be lost

If after it be won. He stands at fault,

Not knowing at all how this should be - he feels

The great bare barrenness o' the outside world.

He thinks on Time and what it has to say;

He thinks on God, but God has changed His hand,

Sitting afar. And as the moon draws on

To cover the day-king in his eclipse,

And thin the last fine sickle of light, till all

Be gone, so fares it with his darkened soul.

The dark, but not Orion sparkling there

With his best stars; the dark, but not yet Eve.

And now the wellsprings of sweet natural joy

Lie, as the Genie sealed of Solomon,

Fast prisoned in his heart; he hath not learned

The spell whereby to loose and set them forth,

And all the glad delights that boyhood loved

Smell at Oblivion's poppy, and lie still.

Ah! they must sleep - "The mill can grind no more

With water that hath passed." Let it run on.

For he hath caught a whisper in the night;

This old inheritance in darkness given,

The world, is widened, warmed, it is alive,

Comes to his beating heart and bids it wake,

Opens the door to youth, and bids it forth,

Exultant for expansion and release,

And bent to satisfy the mighty wish,

Comfort and satisfy the mighty wish,

Life of his life, the soul's immortal child

That is to him as Eve.

He cannot win,

Nor earn, nor see, nor hear, nor comprehend,

With all the watch, tender, impetuous,

That wastes him, this, whereof no less he feels

Infinite things; but yet the night is full

Of air-beats and of heart-beats for her sake.

Eve the aspirer, give her what she wants,

Or wherefore was he born?

O he was born

To wish - then turn away: - to wish again

And half forget his wish for earthlier joy;

He draws the net to land that brings red gold;

His dreams among the meshes tangled lie,

And learning hath him at her feet; - and love,

The sea-born creature fresh from her sea foam,

Touches the ruddiest veins in his young heart,

Makes it to sob in him and sigh in him,

Restless, repelled, dying, alive and keen,

Fainting away for the remorseless ALL

Gone by, gone up, or sweetly gone before,

But never in his arms. Then pity comes,

Knocks at his breast, it may be, and comes in,

Makes a wide wound that haply will not heal,

But bleeds for poverty, and crime, and pain,

Till for the dear kin's sake he grandly dares

Or wastes him, with a wise improvidence;

But who can stir the weighty world; or who

Can drink a sea of tears?

O love, and life,

O world, and can it be that this is all?

Leave him to tread expectance underfoot;

Let him alone to tame down his great hope

Before it breaks his heart: "Give me my share

That I foresaw, my place, my draught of life.

This that I bear, what is it? - me no less

It binds, I cannot disenslave my soul."

There is but halting for the wearied foot.

The better way is hidden; faith hath failed -

One stronger far than reason mastered her.

It is not reason makes faith hard, but life.

The husks of his dead creed, downtrod and dry,

Are powerless now as some dishonoured spell,

Some aged Pythia in her priestly clothes,

Some widow'd witch divining by the dead.

Or if he keep one shrine undesecrate

And go to it from time to time with tears,

What lies there? A dead Christ enswathed and cold,

A Christ that did not rise. The linen cloth

Is wrapped about His head, He lies embalmed

With myrrh and spices in His sepulchre,

The love of God that daily dies; - to them

That trust it the One Life, the all that lives.

O mother Eve, who wert beguiled of old,

Thy blood is in thy children, thou art yet

Their fate and copy; with thy milk they drew

The immortal want of morning; but thy day

Dawned and was over, and thy children know

Contentment never, nor continuance long.

For even thus it is with them: the day

Waxeth, to wane anon, and a long night

Leaves the dark heart unsatisfied with stars.

A soul in want and restless and bereft

To whom all life hath lied, shall it too lie?

Saying, "I yield Thee thanks, most mighty God,

Thou hast been pleased to make me thus and thus.

I do submit me to Thy sovereign will

That I full oft should hunger and not have,

And vainly yearn after the perfect good,

Gladness and peace"?

No, rather dare think thus:

"Ere chaos first had being, earth, or time,

My Likeness was apparent in high heaven,

Divine and manlike, and his dwelling place

Was the bosom of the Father. By His hands

Were the worlds made and filled with diverse growths

And ordered lives. Then afterward they said,

Taking strange counsel, as if he who worked

Hitherto should not henceforth work alone,

'Let us make man;' and God did look upon

That Divine Word which was the form of God,

And it became a thought before the event.

There they foresaw my face, foreheard my speech,

God-like, God-loved, God-loving, God-derived.

"And I was in a garden, and I fell

Through envy of God's evil son, but Love

Would not be robbed of me for ever - Love

For my sake passed into humanity,

And there for my first Father won me home.

How should I rest then? I have NOT gone home;

I feed on husks, and they given grudgingly,

While my great Father - Father - O my God,

What shall I do?"

Ay, I will dare think thus:

"I cannot rest because He doth not rest

In whom I have my being. THIS is GOD -

My soul is conscious of His wondrous wish,

And my heart's hunger doth but answer His

Whose thought has met with mine.

"I have not all;

He moves me thus to take of Him what lacks.

My want is God's desire to give, - He yearns

To add Himself to life and so for aye

Make it enough."

A thought by night, a wish

After the morning, and behold it dawns

Pathetic in a still solemnity,

And mighty words are said for him once more,

"Let there be light." Great heaven and earth have heard,

And God comes down to him, and Christ doth rise.