Poems (Whitney)/Five sonnets relating to beauty
FIVE SONNETS RELATING TO BEAUTY.
I.
I dreamed an angel, Angel twice, through death,Wrought us another "Night." A stately dream,Where reconciling Infinites did seemTo fold round life's perplexities, and wreathIts ancient glooms with stars:—a marble breathFrom Art's serene, fresh, everlasting morn,Where the dull worm of earthly pain is bornTo winged life thenceforth, and busiethWith golden messages its mortal hours.O the Divine, earth would have wronged and slain!Its pangs are rays above her falling towersOf lovelier truth—breaths of a sweet disdainShedding strange nothingness on meaner pain,Drops of the bleeding god that turn to flowers.
II.
Largess from seven-fold heavens, I pray, descendOn all who toil for Beauty! Never feetGrow weary that have done her bidding sweetAbout the careless world! For she is friendAnd darling of the universe;—and day by day,She comes and goes, but never dies,So precious is she in the eternal eyes.O dost thou scorn her, seeing what fine wayShe doth avenge? For heaven, because of her,Shall one day find thee fitter. How old hoursOf star-rapt night about thy heart had curled—And thou hadst felt the morning's golden stir,And the appealing loveliness of flowers,Yea, all the saving beauty of the world!
III
O fair mistrust of earth's more solid shows!And mute appeal from its inhuman ways,Its iron judgments and its misspent praise,To the appreciation sweet that glowsIn heaven's old smiling eye! O slowly growsOur human thought; and freedom long delays,Love in the shade fulfilling weary days,Ere her great child is born! No wasting throesForetell thy being to the universe!It is as thou didst lurk on half-poised wingsBelow our life, blessing, and care and curse,Even at the very root and core of things:And couldst not keep from start, and chirp, and flight,And warbled hint of something back of sight.
IV.
No slight caprice rules thee,—Who sounds one noteIn God's high order finds thee at his side.Thou art twin-born with joy, and dost abideWith conscience old, and blood-deep art inwroughtWith love's sweet mystery. No wanton thoughtShall wrong the world that holds thee, or the wideDeep Ordering, whereof thou art the bride.For neither hate, nor custom's stress, nor aughtOf evil can thee harm, divinest thing;And through these folds of sense, thou openestBlue rifts to Freedom and unfathomed rest.Flower of a hidden life, sweet mystic spring,What joy must tune thy flow, and calm divine!What soundness at the-heart from east to west!
V.
And for that thou art Beauty, and thy nameTranscends all praise of thee, and doth but leaveThyself for thy true rendering, I grieveO'er idle words. O never dost thou blame,But seekest to inspire me all the same,With thine immortal freshness! Through the nightThe moon comes large and slow, winging with lightThe joyous sea; while sunset's last red flame,Baring the heavens for glories to succeed,Goes softly out, with endless farewell gleams,Ebbing along the yellow marge of day;Glides slow, with backward gaze; sadly indeed,And slow, as from the heart which new love claimsAn older memory doth steal away.