We people the lower spaces, Where our cities of silence make scorn Of the sun, and our shadowy faces Are safe from the splendors of morn. Our homes are wrecked worlds and each planet Whose sun is a light that is sped; Bleak moons, whose cold bodies of granite Are hollow and flameless and dead.
We in the living sun Live like a passion: Ere the sad Earth begun We and the sun were one, As God did fashion. Lo! from our burning hands, Flung like inspired brands, Sowed we the worlds, like sands, Countless as ocean: And ’tis our breath gives life, Life to those stars, all rife With iridescent strife, Music and motion.
We joy in the hate of all mortals; Inspire their crimes and the thought That falters and halts at the portals Of actions, intentions unwrought. We cover the face of to-morrow: We frown in the hours that be: We breathe in the presence of sorrow: And death and destruction are we.
We are man’s hope and ease, Joy and his pleasure; Authors of love and peace, Love that shall never cease, Free as the azure. Lo! we but look, and light Heartens the world with might, Vanquishes death and night Hate and its burnings: And from our bosoms stream Beauty and yearnings For a diviner dream, Higher discernings.
Morning and birth are ours; Light that is blown From our fair lips; and flowers, Dropped from our hands in showers, Seeds that are sown: Song and the bursting buds, Life of the fields and floods; Strength that’s full-grown: And, from our beryl jars, Filled with the clouds and stars, Pour we the winds and dew; While by our eyes of blue Darkness is rent in two, Conquered and strown.
Ye in your darkness are Dark and infernal; Subject to death and mar! But in the spaces far, Like our effulgent star, We are eternal.
See! the milk-white doe is wounded. He will follow as it bounds Through the woods. His horn has sounded, Echoing, for his men and hounds. But no answering bugle blew. He has lost his retinue For the shapely deer that bounded Past him when his bow he drew.
Not one hound or huntsman follows. Through the underbrush and moss Goes the slot; and in the hollows Of the hills, that he must cross, He has lost it. He must fare Over rocks where she-wolves lair; Wood-pools where the wild-boar wallows: So he leaves his hunter there.