Mest leste ▸
William Stanley Braithwaite
No more from out the sunset,
No more across the foam,
No more across the windy hills
Will Sandy Star come home.
He went away to search it
With a curse upon his tongue:
And in his hand the staff of life,
Made music as it swung.
I wonder if he found it,
And knows the mystery now--
Our Sandy Star who went away,
With the secret on his brow.
As PARSIFAL of old stood in the hall,
And saw with silent awe and wondering
The Holy Grail uncovered by the king —
Hearing within himself the still voice call;
So I, but newly wakened, rapt by all
The sweet enchantments that around me spring-
Beholding daily in each living thing
Love's miracle — am held in Beauty's thrall.
As Parsifal of old a knight became
And gave his powers to a holy quest —
All baser part consumed as by a flame —
So I am fain, at Love's divine behest,
To yield both heart and spirit to the claim
That life makes visible and manifest.
In that day
Everyone will sing,
Everyone will play in that day ;
There will be carolling.
You will make poems for your neighbor's child ;
Woods will grow wild.
In that day
Men will not pray,
Men's hearts will never know
Struggle and woe.
Lovers will be
Simple and free;
On warm fall nights, men's sweethearts will conceive.
No one will grieve,
No one grow gray;
Feet will not go
To all in the village I seemed, no doubt,
To go this way and that way, aimlessly.
But here by the river you can see at twilight
The soft-winged bats fly zig-zag here and there—
They must fly so to catch their food.
And if you have ever lost your way at night,
In the deep wood near Miller’s Ford,
And dodged this way and now that,
Wherever the light of the Milky Way shone through,
Trying to find the path,
You should understand I sought the way
With earnest zeal, and all my wanderings
Were wanderings in the quest.
Today I will let the old boat stand
Where the sweep of the harbor tide comes in
To the pulse of a far, deep-steady sway.
And I will rest and dream and sit on the deck
Watching the world go by
And take my pay for many hard days gone I remember.
I will choose what clouds I like
In the great white fleets that wander the blue
As I lie on my back or loaf at the rail.
And I will listen as the veering winds kiss me and fold me
And put on my brow the touch of the world's great will.
Daybreak will hear the heart of the boat beat,
Engine throb and piston play
In the quiver and leap at call of life.
To-morrow we move in the gaps and heights
On changing floors of unlevel seas
The thing that I am seeking
I know I shall not find.
A wistful voice is crying
This sorrow in my mind.
I know I shall not find it
However far I go,
But I shall always seek it;
My heart has told me so.
Though I must always wander
I do not find it sweet :
There is no journey's ending
To draw my restless feet;
There is no distant vision
To help me on my way ;
I know my quest is hopeless
But yet I may not stay.