When on the black abysses of the night
My little candle throws a trembling beam,
At first too faint and feeble it would seem
To give security to straining sight;
But presently we see its tiny light
Across the perilous pathway sends a gleam
That pierces through the darkness vast, supreme,
And step by step we find our way aright.
So in the vast and limitless unknown,
That wraps us with its fearful night around,
At first the beam by faith or knowledge thrown
Seems but to make the darkness more profound,
But presently one step ahead is shown —
Enough to prove that it is solid ground.
Finding courage to move step by step through your own darkness with only a faint guiding light
I THOUGHT there was no pleasure in the world
Because of my fears.
Then I remembered life and all the words in my language.
And I had courage even to despise form.
I thought, " I have skill to make words dance.
To clap hands and to shake feet,
But I will put myself, and everything I see, upon the page.
Why should I reject words because of their genealogy?
Or things, because of their association?
Why should I scorn a bus rather than a ship? "
Turning from fear to creative daring by claiming your voice and the ordinary world
O lonely heart so timid of approach,
Like the shy tropic flower that shuts its lips
To the faint touch of tender finger tips:
What is your word? What question would you broach?
Your lustrous-warm eyes are too sadly kind
To mask the meaning of your dreamy tale,
Your guarded life too exquisitely frail
Against the daggers of my warring mind.
There is no part of the unyielding earth,
Even bare rocks where the eagles build their nest,
Will give us undisturbed and friendly rest.
No dewfall softens this vast belt of dearth.
But in the socket-chiseled teeth of strife,
That gleam in serried files in all the lands,
We may join hungry, understanding hands,
And drink our share of ardent love and life.
Courage grows in vulnerable connection and shared hands resisting a harsh world
Now into hearts long empty of the sun
The morning comes again with golden light
And all the shades of the half-dusk are done
And all the crevices are suddenly bright.
So gradually had love lain down to sleep,
We knew it not ; but when we saw his head
Pillowed and sunken in a trance so deep
We whispered shuddering that he was dead.
Then you like Psyche took the light and leant
Over the monster lying in his place,
Daring, despairing, trembling as you bent . . .
But love raised up his new-awakening face
And into our hearts long empty of the sun
We felt the sky-distilled bright liquor run.
Daring to look at what felt dead and witnessing love’s dawn-like renewal
Child, child, love while you can
The voice and the eyes and the soul of a man;
Never fear though it break your heart--
Out of the wound new joy will start;
Only love proudly and gladly and well,
Though love be heaven or love be hell.
Child, child, love while you may,
For life is short as a happy day;
Never fear the thing you feel--
Only by love is life made real;
Love, for the deadly sins are seven,
Only through love will you enter heaven.
Loving boldly despite the risk, since wounds open into new joy and life
Poor son of strife —
Child of inequality and growth —
You will never learn; you have only to live.
You will never know the peace of order,
Routine will crush you.
Safe toil has always thought of time,
But you will work in utter concentration.
Fierce as fire.
You will find no steady excellence:
You will spend your life in a ditch, grubbing for grains of gold.
Remember, my dear son,
That gold is gold.
You will find no steady virtue:
You will live sometimes with holy ecstasy, sometimes with shoddy sin.
You will keep no constant faith,
But with an agony of faithful longing you will hate a lie.
Courage as the only technique and hope for a life of strife and risk
The right to make my dreams come true
I ask, nay, I demand of life,
Nor shall fate's deadly contraband
Impede my steps, nor countermand.
Too long my heart against the ground
Has beat the dusty years around,
And now, at length, I rise, I wake!
And stride into the morning-break !
Demanding the right to make dreams come true and striding into the morning-break
The night is come, but not too soon;
And sinking silently,
All silently, the little moon
Drops down behind the sky.
There is no light in earth or heaven
But the cold light of stars;
And the first watch of night is given
To the red planet Mars.
Is it the tender star of love?
The star of love and dreams?
O no! from that blue tent above,
A hero's armor gleams.
And earnest thoughts within me rise,
When I behold afar,
Suspended in the evening skies,
The shield of that red star.
Drawing serene strength from Mars to suffer and be strong
I spoiled the day;
Hotly, in haste,
All the calm hours
I gashed and defaced.
Let me forget,
Let me embark
--Sleep for my boat--
And sail through the dark.
Till a new day
Heaven shall send,
Whole as an apple,
Kind as a friend.
Sleep as a boat to sail through dark, waking to a whole new day
I am through with regret.
No more shall I kennel with pain.
I have called to this whimpering soul,
This soul that is sodden with tears
And sour with the reek of the years!
And now we shall glory in light!
Like a tatter of sail in the wind,
Like a tangle of net on the sand,
Like a hound stretched out in the heat,
My soul shall lie in the sun,
And be drowsy with peace,
And not think of the past!
Declaring 'I am through with regret' and releasing the soul to sunlit peace
If the oriole calls like last year
when the south wind sings in the oats,
if the leaves climb and climb on a bean pole
saying over a song learnt from the south wind,
if the crickets send up the same old lessons
found when the south wind keeps on coming,
we will get by, we will keep on coming,
we will get by, we will come along,
we will fix our hearts over,
the south wind says so.
Nature's recurring cycles promise that hearts mend and courage returns with the south wind
Defeat, my Defeat, my solitude and my aloofness;
You are dearer to me than a thousand triumphs,
And sweeter to my heart than all world-glory.
Defeat, my Defeat, my self-knowledge and my defiance,
Through you I know that I am yet young and swift of foot
And not to be trapped by withering laurels.
And in you I have found aloneness
And the joy of being shunned and scorned.
Defeat, my Defeat, my shining sword and shield,
In your eyes I have read
That to be enthroned is to be enslaved,
And to be understood is to be leveled down,
And to be grasped is but to reach one's fullness
And like a ripe fruit to fall and be consumed.
Defeat, my Defeat, my bold companion,
Embraces defeat as a liberating force that fuels defiance and self-knowledge for a fresh start
Like barley bending
In low fields by the sea,
Singing in hard wind
Ceaselessly;
Like barley bending
And rising again,
So would I, unbroken,
Rise from pain;
So would I softly,
Day long, night long,
Change my sorrow
Into song.
Bending like barley in hardship yet rising again to turn pain into song
Into the furnace let me go alone;
Stay you without in terror of the heat.
I will go naked in--for thus ’tis sweet--
Into the weird depths of the hottest zone.
I will not quiver in the frailest bone,
You will not note a flicker of defeat;
My heart shall tremble not its fate to meet,
My mouth give utterance to any moan.
The yawning oven spits forth fiery spears;
Red aspish tongues shout wordlessly my name.
Desire destroys, consumes my mortal fears,
Transforming me into a shape of flame.
I will come out, back to your world of tears,
A stronger soul within a finer frame.
Alone in the furnace, burns away fear to emerge stronger and reborn
Because you love me I have much achieved,
Had you despised me then I must have failed,
But since I knew you trusted and believed,
I could not disappoint you and so prevailed.
Examines how a loved one's belief in you kindles the courage to overcome doubt
Am no longer lame since Spring
Stooped to me where I lay,
And charmed with flute and silver lute
My laggard limbs to play.
Her voice is sweet as long-stored wine;
I leap like a hounded fawn;
I rise and follow over hill and hollow
To the flush of the crimson dawn!
Spring's touch heals the speaker's lameness, propelling a leap toward dawn—renewal as a physical surge of courage
With but one life full certified,
And that of every gleam denied
My portion,
Close to the unrelenting sod.
E'en as my fathers dumbly trod,
I've slumbered;
But now a surging, wild unrest
Uproots the poppies from my breast,
My soul awake, erect! anew!
I stand and face the star-swept blue,
And swear to make my dreams come true!
A defiant breakup with inherited silence, rising to swear dreams into reality—starting again as an act of self-determination
There should be no despair for you
While nightly stars are burning,
While evening pours its silent dew
And sunshine gilds the morning.
There should be no despair - though tears
May flow down like a river:
Are not the best beloved of years
Around your heart forever?
They weep - you weep - it must be so;
Winds sigh as you are sighing,
And Winter sheds his grief in snow
Where Autumn's leaves are lying:
Yet these revive, and from their fate
Your fate cannot be parted,
Then journey on, if not elate,
Still, never broken-hearted!
Sorrow is seasonal; like winter giving way, your spirit revives—hope that makes starting over a natural turn
But the march to Life . . .
Break song to sing the new song!
Clouds leap, flowers bloom.
Even clouds leap and flowers bloom; breaking the old song is an exuberant march into new life
Sometimes the mist overhangs my path,
And blackening clouds about me cling;
But, oh, I have a magic way
To turn the gloom to cheerful day--
I softly sing.
And if the way grows darker still,
Shadowed by Sorrow's somber wing,
With glad defiance in my throat,
I pierce the darkness with a note,
And sing, and sing.
I brood not over the broken past,
Nor dread whatever time may bring;
No nights are dark, no days are long,
While in my heart there swells a song,
And I can sing.
Singing pierces darkness and transforms gloom — the magical inner resource for facing an uncertain new start
To live on a sterile hill
Suits not my mood,
I'll walk in towns my fill,
With strong resisting blood.
There is no virtue in stark fear.
Whether it be of Sin or Death,
But there is pride in walking clear,
Through Plague's contaminating breath.
Chooses raw, risky life over sterile safety — strong blood against the plague of fear
I WILL not draw only a house or a tree,
I will draw very Me;
Everything I think, everything I see!
I will have no shame,
No hope of praise nor fear of blame!
These things are mean things, and the same.
I am the product of old laws,
Old effect of old cause.
The thing that is, may make the blind gods pause.
Declares defiant selfhood, drawing your own fate without shame or fear of blame
In the silver light after a storm,
Under dripping boughs of bright new green,
I take the low path to hear the meadowlarks
Alone and high-hearted as if I were a queen.
What have I to fear in life or death
Who have known three things: the kiss in the night,
The white flying joy when a song is born,
And meadowlarks whistling in silver light.
After the storm, fear dissolves in high-hearted joy and silver light — renewal found
From out the dragging vastness of the sea,
Wave-fettered, bound in sinuous, seaweed strands,
He toils toward the rounding beach, and stands
One moment, white and dripping, silently,
Cut like a cameo in lazuli,
Then falls, betrayed by shifting shells, and lands
Prone in the jeering water, and his hands
Clutch for support where no support can be.
So up, and down, and forward, inch by inch,
He gains upon the shore, where poppies glow
And sandflies dance their little lives away.
The sucking waves retard, and tighter clinch
The weeds about him, but the land-winds blow,
And in the sky there blooms the sun of May.
Gains the shore inch by inch through dragging waves — recovery as stubborn perseverance
Here, O my heart, let us burn the dear dreams that are dead,
Here in this wood let us fashion a funeral pyre
Of fallen white petals and leaves that are mellow and red,
Here let us burn them in noon's flaming torches of fire.
We are weary, my heart, we are weary, so long we have borne
The heavy loved burden of dreams that are dead, let us rest,
Let us scatter their ashes away, for a while let us mourn;
We will rest, O my heart, till the shadows are gray in the west.
But soon we must rise, O my heart, we must wander again
Into the war of the world and the strife of the throng;
Let us rise, O my heart, let us gather the dreams that remain,
We will conquer the sorrow of life with the sorrow of song.
Burns dead dreams, rests, then rises to gather what remains — sorrow turned to strength
There was a time when Mother Nature made
My soul's sun, and my soul's shade.
A cloud in the sky could take away
The song in my heart for all day,
And a little lark in a willow-tree
Would mean happiness to me.
My moods would mirror all her whims ;
Trees were my strength : their limbs, my limbs.
But, oh, my mother tortured me,
Blowing with wind, and sighing with sea.
I flamed, I withered, I blossomed, I sang,
With her I suffered pang for pang,
Until I said: "I will grow my own tree
Where no natural wind will bother me."
And I grew me a willow of my own heart's strength,
With my will for its width, and my wish for its length :
Defiant will to forge your own light after breaking free from what weighed you down
When I hoped I feared --
Since I hoped I dared
Everywhere alone
As a Church remain --
Spectre cannot harm --
Serpent cannot charm --
He deposes Doom
Who hath suffered him --
Quiet courage that dares despite fear, standing alone like an unshakable church
I heard a wood thrush in the dusk
Twirl three notes and make a star--
My heart that walked with bitterness
Came back from very far.
Three shining notes were all he had,
And yet they made a starry call--
I caught life back against my breast
And kissed it, scars and all.
A bird's song turns bitterness into embrace of life, scars and all
I KEEP a bird in my heart,
He lives on sorrow,
His name is Faith.
He is so quick a conjurer that he can borrow
Flesh from a wraith.
He swallows the harsh weeds of pain
And gives me scope,
To tend my little garden-plot again
And wait for Hope.
Faith feeds on sorrow, turning pain into strength to tend hope again
I was not beloved of the villagers,
But all because I spoke my mind,
And met those who transgressed against me
With plain remonstrance, hiding nor nurturing
Nor secret griefs nor grudges.
That act of the Spartan boy is greatly praised,
Who hid the wolf under his cloak,
Letting it devour him, uncomplainingly.
It is braver, I think, to snatch the wolf forth
And fight him openly, even in the street,
Amid dust and howls of pain.
The tongue may be an unruly member—
But silence poisons the soul.
Berate me who will—I am content.
Courage to speak truth openly, rejecting silence that poisons the soul
Lord, who createdst man in wealth and store,
Though foolishly he lost the same,
Decaying more and more,
Till he became
Most poor:
With thee
O let me rise
As larks, harmoniously,
And sing this day thy victories:
Then shall the fall further the flight in me.
My tender age in sorrow did begin: And still with sicknesses and shame
Thou didst so punish sin,
That I became
Most thin.
With thee
Let me combine
It promises that fall can become flight and affliction is turned into rising
My soul is like the oar that momently
Dies in a desperate stress beneath the wave,
Then glitters out again and sweeps the sea:
Each second I'm new-born from some new grave.
It says each defeat is a moment, then you glitter out again, new-born
The night was a failure but why not--?
In the darkness
with the pale dawn seething at the window
through the black frame
I could not be free,
not free myself from the past, those others--
and our love was a confusion,
there was a horror,
you recoiled away from me.
Now, in the morning
As we sit in the sunshine on the seat by the little shrine,
And look at the mountain-walls,
Walls of blue shadow,
And see so near at our feet in the meadow
Myriads of dandelion pappus
Bubbles ravelled in the dark green grass
Morning light and dandelions show that after night's failure everything starts from you
From naked stones of agony
I will build a house for me;
As a mason all alone
I will raise it, stone by stone,
And every stone where I have bled
Will show a sign of dusky red.
I have not gone the way in vain,
For I have good of all my pain;
My spirit's quiet house will be
Built of naked stones I trod
On roads where I lost sight of God.
It builds an inner shelter from agony, stone by stone, so pain becomes strength
Day, you have bruised and beaten me,
As rain beats down the bright, proud sea,
Beaten my body, bruised my soul,
Left me nothing lovely or whole--
Yet I have wrested a gift from you,
Day that dies in dusky blue:
For suddenly over the factories
I saw a moon in the cloudy seas--
A wisp of beauty all alone
In a world as hard and gray as stone--
Oh who could be bitter and want to die
When a maiden moon wakes up in the sky?
Even a bruised soul can spot a sliver of moon and feel hope instead of bitterness
I have moved west, I travel with the sun;
You cannot hold, you cannot hinder me.
There are no ends for what I have begun —
There are no resting places where I run,
Until I am surrendered to the sea.
An unstoppable westward charge toward the sea mirrors the forward momentum needed to start anew
We grow accustomed to the Dark --
When light is put away --
As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp
To witness her Goodbye --
A Moment -- We uncertain step
For newness of the night --
Then -- fit our Vision to the Dark --
And meet the Road -- erect --
And so of larger -- Darkness --
Those Evenings of the Brain --
When not a Moon disclose a sign --
Or Star -- come out -- within --
The Bravest -- grope a little --
And sometimes hit a Tree
Directly in the Forehead --
But as they learn to see --
Describes groping through darkness until life steps almost straight — courage as gradual adjustment to the unknown
Who bides his time, and day by day
Faces defeat full patiently,
And lifts a mirthful roundelay,
However poor his fortunes be,--
He will not fail in any qualm
Of poverty -- the paltry dime
It will grow golden in his palm,
Who bides his time.
Who bides his time -- he tastes the sweet
Of honey in the saltest tear;
And though he fares with slowest feet,
Joy runs to meet him, drawing near;
The birds are hearalds of his cause;
And, like a never-ending rhyme,
The roadsides bloom in his applause,
Who bides his time.
Patience transforms defeat into honey and promises peace to those who wait — courage to begin again through endurance
The pines shake and the winds wake,
And the dark waves crowd the sky-line!
The birds wheel out on a troubled sky;
The widening road runs white and long,
And the page is turned,
And the world is tired!
So I want no more of twilight sloth,
And I want no more of resting,
And of all the earth I ask no more
Than the green sea, the great sea,
The long road, the white road,
And a change of life to-day!
Rejects rest for the open sea and road, craving an immediate change of life — the call to act now
If I were God, I would find equal treasure,
In human work, in courage, and in pleasure.
And I would whisper to the captive soul,
That all these things should be in sweet control.
That man should be from birth-bed to the grave,
Not always busy, not always brave.
That he should gather me the flower of idleness,
And the seed-holding cup of perfect happiness.
Gives permission to rest and value idleness, easing the pressure to be always busy and brave before restarting