There, 'mid the holy people, Healed of your blasting scorn, Clasped in these arms that hunger, Splendid with dreams reborn,
You shall be mastered, lady, Knowing, at last, Desire-- Lifting your face for kisses-- Kisses of bitter fire.
Ah, in the night, all music haunts me here ... Is it for naught high Heaven cracks and yawns And the tremendous amaranth descends Sweet with glory of ten thousand dawns?
Does it not mean my God would have me say:-- "Whether you will or no, oh city young Heaven will bloom like one great flower for you, Flash and loom greatly, all your marts among?"
Friends I will not cease hoping, though you weep. Such things I see, and some of them shall come Though now our streets are harsh and ashen-grey, Though now our youths are strident, or are dumb.
Friends, that sweet town, that wonder-town shall rise. Naught can delay it. Though it may not be Just as I dream, it comes at last, I know With streets like channels of an incense-sea!
I. The voice of the man who is impatient with visions and Utopias.
We find your soft Utopias as white As new-cut bread, as dull as life in cells, Oh scribes that dare forget how wild we are, How human breasts adore alarum bells.
You house us in a hive of prigs and saints Communal, frugal, clean, and chaste by law. I'd rather brood in bloody Elsinore Or be Lear's fool, straw-crowned amid the straw.
Promise us all our share in Agincourt. Say that our clerks shall venture scorns and death. That future ant-hills will not be too good For Henry Fifth, or Hotspur, or Macbeth.
Promise that through tomorrow's spirit-war Man's deathless soul will hack and hew its way, Each flaunting Cæsar climbing to his fate Scorning the utmost steps of yesterday.
And never a shallow jester any more. Let not Jack Falstaff spill the ale in vain. Let Touchstone set the fashions for the wise, And Ariel wreak his fancies through the rain!
II. The Rhymer's reply. Incense and Splendor.
Incense and splendor haunt me as I go. Though my good works have been, alas, too few, Though I do naught, High Heaven comes down to me And future ages pass in tall review.
I see the years to come as armies vast, Stalking tremendous through the fields of time. Man is unborn. Tomorrow he is born Flamelike to hover o'er the moil and grime;