WHO hath not been a poet? who hath not, With life's new quiver full of winged years, Shot at a venture, and then, following on, Stood doubtful at the Parting of the Ways?
There once I stood in dream, and as I paused, Looking this way and that, came forth to me The figure of a woman veiled, that said,
"My name is Duty; turn and follow me."
Something there was that chilled me in her voice; I felt Youth's hand grow slack and cold in mine, As if to be withdrawn, and I replied:
"Oh, leave the hot wild heart within my breast! Duty comes soon enough, too soon comes Death. This slippery globe of life whirls of itself, Hasting our youth away into the dark; These senses, quivering with electric heats, Too soon will show, like nests on wintry boughs, Obtrusive emptiness, too palpable wreck, Which whistling north winds line with downy snow Sometimes, or fringe with foliaged rime, in vain,— Thither the singing birds no more return."
Then glowed to me a maiden from the left, With bosom half disclosed, and naked arms More white and undulant than necks of swans; And all before her steps an influence ran Warm as the whispering South, that opens buds And swells the laggard sails of Northern May. "I am called Pleasure; come with me," she said, Then laughed, and shook out sunshine from her hair; Not only that, but, so it seemed, shook out All memory too, and all the moon-lit past- Old loves, old aspirations, and old dreams— More beautiful for being old and gone.
So we two went together; downward sloped The path through yellow meads, and, so I dreamed, Yellow with sunshine and young green; but I Saw naught nor heard, shut up in one close joy; I only felt the hand within my own, Transmuting all my blood to golden fire, Dissolving all my brain in throbbing mist.
Suddenly shrank the hand; suddenly burst A cry that split the torpor of my brain;
And, as the first sharp thrust of lightning loosens
From the heaped clouds its rain, loosened my sense:
"Save me!" it thrilled; "Oh, hide me! there is Death! Death the divider, the unmerciful,
That digs his pitfalls under Love and Youth, And covers Beauty up in the cold ground. Horrible Death! bringer of endless dark;
Let him not see me! hide me in thy breast!" Thereat I strove to clasp her; but my arms Met only what slipped crumbling down, and fell, A handful of grey ashes, at my feet!
I would have fled-I would have followed back That pleasant path we came; but all was changed: Rocky the way, abrupt, and hard to find;
Yet I toiled on, and, toiling on, I thought
That way lies Youth, and Wisdom, and all good.
For only by unlearning wisdom comes,
And, climbing backward to diviner youth,
What the world teaches profits to the world,
What the soul teaches profits to the soul, Which then first stands erect with Godward face When she lets fall her pack of withered facts, The gleanings of the outward eye and car,
And listens with her finer sense:
Nor Truth, nor Knowledge, cometh from without."
After long weary days I stood again
And waited at the Parting of the Ways.
Again the figure of a woman veiled
Stood forth and beckoned, and I followed now:
Down to no bower of roses led the path,
But through the streets of towns where chattering Cold Hewed wood for fires whose glow was owned and fenced; Where Nakedness wove garments of warm wool,
Not for itself; or through the fields it led Where Hunger reaped the unattainable grain; Where Idleness enforced saw idle lands, Leagues of unpeopled soil, the common earth Walled round with paper against God and man. "I cannot look," I groaned, "at only these ; The heart grows hardened with perpetual want, And palters with a feigned necessity,
Bargaining with itself to be content;— Let me behold thy face."
"Men follow Duty, never overtake
Duty, nor lift her veil, nor look behind."
But as she spake, a loosened lock of hair
Slipped from beneath her hood, and I, who looked To see it grey and thin, saw amplest gold: Not that dull metal dug from sordid earth, But such as the retiring sunset flood Leaves heaped on bays and capes of island cloud. "O guide divine!" I prayed, "although not yet I may repair the virtue which I feel
Gone out at touch of untuned things and foul, With draughts of Beauty, yet declare how soon!"
"Faithless and faint of heart," the voice returned: "Thou see'st no beauty, save thou make it first; Man, Woman, Nature, each is but a glass Where the Soul sees the image of herself
Visible echoes, offspring of herself.
But, since thou need'st assurance of how soon, Wait till that angel comes who opens all,- The reconciler, he who lifts the veil, The re-uniter, the rest-bringer-Death!"
I waited, and methought he came; but how, Or in what shape, I doubted, for no sign, By touch or mark, he gave me as he passed; Only I know a lily that I held
Snapt short below the head, and shrivelled up; Then turned my guide and looked at me unveiled, And I beheld no face of matron stern,
But that enchantment I had followed erst, Only more fair, more clear to eye and brain, Heightened and chastened by a household charm; She smiled, and "Which is fairer," said her eyes: "The hag's unreal Florimel, or mine?"
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