XXXVI

Like cataracts that crash from a crumbling crag

Into the dull-blue smouldering gulf of a lake below,

Landlocked amid the mountains, so my soul

Was a gorge that was filled with the warring echoes of song.

Of old, they wore

Shining armour, and banners of broad gold they bore:

Now they drift, like a wild bird's cry,

Downwards from chill summits of the sky.

Fountains of flashing joy were their source afar;

Now they lie still, to mirror every star.

In circles of opal, ruby, blue, out-thrown,

They drift down to a dull, dark monotone.

Pluck the loose strings, singer,

Thrum the strings;

For the wind brings distant, drowsy bells of song.

Loose the plucked string, poet,

Spurn the strings,

For the echoes of memory float through the gulf for long.

My songs seem now one humming note afar:

Light as ether, quivering‘ twixt star and star,

But yet, so still

I know not whence they come, if mine they are.

Yet that low note

Increases in force as if it said, “I will ":

Kindled by God's fierce breath, it would the whole world fill.

Till steadily outwards thrown,

By trumpets blazoned, from the sky downblown,

It grows a vast march, massive, monotonous, known

Of old gold trumpeteers

Through infinite years:

Bursting the white, thronged vaults of the cool sky.

Till hurtling down there falls one mad black hammer-blow:

Then the chained echoes in their maniac woe

Are loosed against the silence, to shriek uncannily.

The strings shiver faintly, poet:

Strike the strings,

Speed the song:

Tremulous upward rush of wheeling, whirling wings.