The Blessing

When, by a decree of the sovereign power,

The poet makes his appearance in a bored world,

With fists clenched at the horror, his outraged mother

Calls on a pitying God, at whom these curses are hurled:

"Why was I not made to litter a brood of vipers

Rather than conceive this human mockery?

My curses on that night whose ephemeral pleasures

Filled my womb with this avenging treachery!

Since I must be chosen among all women that are

To bear the lifetime's grudge of a sullen husband,

And since I cannot get rid of this caricature,

—Fling it away like old letters to be burned,

On what you have devised for my punishment

I will let all your hate of me rebound,

I will torture this stunted growth until its bent

Branches let fall every blighted bud to the ground!"

And so she prepares herself in

Hell's pit. A place on the pyre made for a mother's crimes,

Blind, in the fury of her foaming hatred,

To the meaning and purpose of the eternal designs.

Meanwhile, under the care of an unseen angel,

The disinherited Child revels in the sun's

Bright force; all that he eats and drinks can fill

Him with memories of the food that was heaven's.

The wind his plaything, any cloud a friend,

The Spirit watching can only weep to see

How in childhood his way of the cross is lightened

With the wild bird-song of his innocent gaiety.

Those he would love look at him with suspicion

Or else, emboldened by his calm, experiment

With various possible methods of exciting derision

By trying out their cruelty on his complaint.

They mix ashes or unspeakable filth with the bread

And the wine of his daily communion, drop

Whatever he may have touched with affected dread,

And studiously avoid wherever he may step.

His mistress, parading her contempt in the street,

Cries: "Since he finds my beauty a thing to worship,

I will be one of the ancient idols he talks about,

And make myself with gold out of the same workshop!

I will never have enough of his kneelings and offerings

Until I am sure that the choice foods, the wines,

The 'nard,' the 'incense,' the 'myrrh' that he brings

He brings as other men would to the Virgin's shrines.

And when I am sick to death of trying not to laugh

At the farce of my black masses,

I'll try the force Of the hand he calls 'frail,' my nails will dig a path

Like harpies', to the heart that beats for me, of course!

Like a nestling trembling and palpitating

I will pull that red heart out of his breast

And throw it down for my favorite dog's eating

—Let him do whatever he likes with the rest!"

A serene piety, lifting the poet's gaze,

Reveals heaven opening on a shining throne,

And the lower vision of the world's ravening rage

Is shut off by the sheet lightnings of his brain.

"Be blessed, oh my God, who givest suffering

As the only divine remedy for our folly,

As the highest and purest essence preparing

The strong in spirit for ecstasies most holy.

I know that among the uplifted legions

Of saints, a place awaits the

Poet's arrival, And that among the

Powers, Virtues, Dominations

He too is summoned to Heaven's festival.

I know that sorrow is the one human strength

On which neither earth nor hell can impose,

And that all the universe and all time's length

Must be wound into the mystic crown for my brows.

But all the treasury of buried Palmyra,

The earth's unknown metals, the sea's pearls,

Mounted by Thy hand, would be deemed an inferior

Glitter, to his diadem that shines without jewels.

For Thou knowest it will be made of purest light

Drawn from the holy hearth of every primal ray,

To which all human eyes, if they were one bright

Eye, are only a tarnished mirror's fading day!"