The Philosopher's Oration: A Faun's Holiday

Meanwhile, though nations in distress

Cower at a comet's loveliness

Shaken across the midnight sky;

Though the wind roars, and Victory,

A virgin fierce, on vans of gold

Stoops through the cloud's white smother rolled

Over the armies' shock and flow

Across the broad green hills below,

Yet hovers and will not circle down

To cast t'ward one the leafy crown;

Though men drive galleys' golden beaks

To isles beyond the sunset peaks,

And cities on the sea behold

Whose walls are glass, whose gates are gold,

Whose turrets, risen in an hour,

Dazzle between the sun and shower,

Whose sole inhabitants are kings

Six cubits high with gryphon's wings

And beard and mien more glorious

Than Midas or Assaracus;

Though priests in many a a hill-top fane

Lift anguished hands -- and lift in vain --

Toward the sun's shaft dancing through

The bright roof's square of wind-swept blue;

Though 'cross the stars nightly arise

The silver fumes of sacrifice;

Though a new Helen bring new scars

Pyres piled upon wrecked golden cars,

Stacked spears, rolled smoke, and spirits sped

Like a streaked flame toward the dead:

Though all these be, yet grows not old

Delight of sunned and windy wold,

Of soaking downs aglare, asteam,

Of still tarns where the yellow gleam

Of a far sunrise slowly breaks,

Or sunset strews with golden flakes

The deeps which soon the stars will throng.

For earth yet keeps her undersong

Of comfort and of ultimate peace,

That whoso seeks shall never cease

To hear at dawn or noon or night.

Joys hath she, too, joys thin and bright,

Too thin, too bright, for those to hear

Who listen with an eager ear,

Or course about and seek to spy,

Within an hour, eternity.

First must the spirit cast aside

This world's and next his own poor pride

And learn the universe to scan

More as a flower, less as a man.

Then shall he hear the lonely dead

Sing and the stars sing overhead,

And every spray upon the heath,

And larks above and ants beneath;

The stream shall take him in her arms;

Blue skies shall rest him in their calms;

The wind shall be a lovely friend,

And every leaf and bough shall bend

Over him with a lover's grace.

The hills shall bare a perfect face

Full of a high solemnity;

The heavenly clouds shall weep, and be

Content as overhead they swim

To be high brothers unto him.

No more shall he feel pitched and hurled

Uncomprehended into this world;

For every place shall be his place,

And he shall recognize its face.

At dawn he shall upon his path;

No sword shall touch him, nor the wrath

Of the ranked crowd of clamorous men.

At even he shall home again,

And lay him down to sleep at ease,

One with the Night and the Night's peace.

Ev'n Sorrow, to be escaped of none,

But a more deep communion

Shall be to him, and Death at last

No more dreaded than the Past,

Whose shadow in the brain of earth

Informs him now and gave him birth.