Towards the Source : 1894-97 : I : 10

by Christopher John Brennan

I.

The yellow gas is fired from street to street
past rows of heartless homes and hearths unlit,
dead churches, and the unending pavement beat
by crowds — say rather, haggard shades that flit

round nightly haunts of their delusive dream,
where'er our paradisal instinct starves: —
till on the utmost post, its sinuous gleam
crawls in the oily water of the wharves;

where Homer's sea loses his keen breath, hemm'd
what place rebellious piles were driven down —
the priestlike waters to this task condemn'd
to wash the roots of the inhuman town! —

where fat and strange-eyed fish that never saw
the outer deep, broad halls of sapphire light,
glut in the city's draught each nameless maw:
— and there, wide-eyed unto the soulless night,

methinks a drown'd maid's face might fitly show
what we have slain, a life that had been free,
clean, large, nor thus tormented — even so
as are the skies, the salt winds and the sea.

Ay, we had saved our days and kept them whole,
to whom no part in our old joy remains,
had felt those bright winds sweeping thro' our soul
and all the keen sea tumbling in our veins,

had thrill'd to harps of sunrise, when the height
whitens, and dawn dissolves in virgin tears,
or caught, across the hush'd ambrosial night,
the choral music of the swinging spheres,

or drunk the silence if nought else — But no!
and from each rotting soul distil in dreams
a poison, o'er the old earth creeping slow,
that kills the flowers and curdles the live streams,

that taints the fresh breath of re-risen day
and reeks across the pale bewildered moon:
— shall we be cleans'd and how? I only pray,
red flame or deluge, may that end be soon!

II.

Ah, who will give us back our long-lost innocence
and tremulous blue within the garden, else untrod
save by the angels' feet, where joys of childish sense
and twin-born hearts went up like morning-praise to God!

where we were one with all the glad sun-woven hours
and rapture of golden morn thrill'd thro' our blood and nerve:
— our souls knew nothing more than knew the unheeding flowers
nor their own beauty's law, nor what it was to serve.

But that dark lust to learn and suffer drove us forth:
we wearied of the light, of life unvaried, whole;
and seeking have we wandered, south and west and north,
some darker fire to fuse the full-grown sense with soul.

And see! for ages have we dragg'd our long disease
o'er many a hideous street and mouldering sepulchres,
till not a capital of towers and blacken'd trees
but reeks with taint of us, drips with our blood and tears.

London or Tarshish, Rome and Paris our delights
have gilded and thereon have soil'd them: first and last,
flush'd with our wine and song, has shudder'd at our nights,
and cast us, lepers, out into the ancient waste.

Where grinning deserts hide unhid your skeleton stones,
Tadmor or Nineveh, our pomp has enter'd in:
the Dead Sea rolls more bitter above our blasted bones
and spews upon its shore the unwasted scurf of sin.

And what have we at last of all our wandering?
the sadness of the flesh, the languor of the soil,
and this — hard eyes, scarr'd cheeks, lips that forget to sing:
— ah! we could lay us down and let the deluge roll

our corpses into Lethe's pit — but that a breeze
has blown upon our eyes with tidings of the blue
still somewhere: let us bend this once our penitent knees,
then rise and seek for aye the garden that we knew.

Ay, let the cities pile themselves in the red mud,
and flare into the night that hides the of fended heaven,
and belch their sodden dream of empire, lust and blood,
working in dread ferment of the old hellish leaven,

Psyche! our feet are set towards the eastern star,
our eyes upon the spaces of the morning air;
what tho' the garden goal shine o'er sad seas afar,
tho' young hope guide us not, our soul shall not despair.

Enough, we shall have dream'd that solitary emprise,
enough, we shall have been true to our austere thought,
that, if we ne'er behold with longing human eyes
our paradise of yore, sister, we shall have sought.

III.

Let us go down, the long dead night is done,
the dolorous incantation has been wrought;
soul, let us go, the saving word is won,
down from the tower of our hermetic thought.

See — for the wonder glimmers in the gates,
eager to burst the soundless bars and grace
the wistful earth, that still in blindness waits,
perfect with suffering for her Lord's embrace.

The spaces of the waters of the dawn
are spiritual with our transfigured gaze;
the intenser heights of morning, far withdrawn,
expect our dream to shine along their ways.

But speak the word! and o'er the adoring whole
straight from the marge of the perfected hours
sudden, large music through the vast, shall roll
a sea of light foaming with seedless flowers;

lilies that form on some ethereal wave,
still generate of the most ancient blue,
burst roses, rootless, knowing not the grave
nor yet the charnel thought by which they grew.

So we shall move at last, untortured powers,
and in white silence hear, as souls unborn,
our hymn given back by the eternal hours
singing together in the eternal morn