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قراءة كتاب Matins
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اللغة: English
الصفحة رقم: 5
sound?
O puny, powerless Sun!
On the pure white snow where are the lightest traces
Of what thy forces' ordered ways have done?
On these large spaces
No footsteps are imprinted anywhere;
Still the white glare
Is perfect; yea, the snows are drifted still
On plain and hill;
And still the river knows the Winter's iron will.
Thou wert most wise, O Sun, to hide thy face
This day beneath the cloud's gray covering;
Thou wert most wise to know the deep disgrace
In which thy name is holden of the Spring.
She deems thee now an impotent, useless thing,
And hath dethroned thee from thy mighty place;
Knowing that with the clouds will come apace
The Rain, and that the rain will be a royal king.
A king?—Nay, queen!
For in soft girlish-wise she takes her throne
When first she cometh in the young Spring-season;
Gentle and mild,
Yet with no dread of any revolution,
And fearing not a land unreconciled,
And unafraid of treason.
In her dark hair
Lieth the snow's most certain dissolution;
And in her glance is known
The freeing of the rivers from their chainings;
And in her bosom's strainings
Earth's teeming breast is tokened and foreshown.
Behold her coming surely, calmly down,
Where late the clear skies were,
With gray clouds for a gown;
Her fragile draperies
Caught by the little breeze
Which loveth her!
She weareth yet no crown,
Nor is there any sceptre in her hands;
Yea, in all lands,
Whatever Spring she cometh, men know well
That it is right and good for her to come;
And that her least commands
Must be fulfilled, however wearisome;
And that they all must guard the citadel
Wherein she deigns to dwell!
And so, even now, her feet pass swiftly over
The impressionable snow
That vanisheth as woe
Doth vanish from the rapt face of a lover,
Who, after doubting nights, hath come to know
His lady loves him so!
(Yet not like him
Doth the snow bear the signs of her light touch!
It is all gray in places, and looks worn
With some most bitter pain;
As he shall look, perchance,
Some early morn
While yet the dawn is dim,
When he awakens from the enraptured trance
In which he, blind, hath lain,
And knows that also he hath loved in vain
The lady who, he deemed, had loved him much.
And though her utter worthlessness is plain
He hath no joy of his deliverance,
But only asketh God to let him die,—
And getteth no reply.)
Yea, the snows fade before the calm strength of the rain!
And while the rain is unabated,
Well-heads are born and streams created
On the hillsides, and set a-flowing
Across the fields. The river, knowing
That there hath surely come at last
Its freedom, and that frost is past,
Gathereth force to break its chains;
The river's faith is in the Spring's unceasing rains!
See where the shores even now were firmly bound
The slowly widening water showeth black,
As from the fields and meadows all around
Come rushing over the dark and snowless ground
The foaming streams!
Beneath the ice the shoulders of the tide
Lift, and from shore to shore a thin, blue crack
Starts, and the dark, long-hidden water gleams,
Glad to be free.
And now the uneven rift is growing wide;
The breaking ice is fast becoming gray;
It hears the loud beseeching of the sea,
And moveth on its way.
Surely at last the work of the rain is done!
Surely the Spring at last is well begun,
O unavailing Sun!
O ye who worship only at the noon,
When will ye learn the glory of the rain?
Have ye not seen the thirsty meadow-grass
Uplooking piteous at the burnished sky,
And all in vain?
Even in June
Have ye not seen the yellow flowers swoon
Along the roadside, where the dust, alas,
Is hard to pass?
Have ye not heard
The song cease in the throat of every bird
And know the thing all these were stricken by?
Ye have beheld these things, yet made no prayer,
O pitiless and uncompassionate!
Yet should the sweeping
Of Death's wide wings across your face unsleeping
Be felt of you to-night,