I will have to do only with that faith that leaves the best untold. 7. Say on, sayers! Delve! mould! pile the words of the earth! It may have to wait long, but it will certainly come in use; When the materials are all prepared, the architects shall appear. I swear to you the architects shall appear without fail! I announce them and lead them; I swear to you they will understand you and justify you; I swear to you the greatest among them shall be he who best knows you, and encloses all, and is faithful to all; I swear to you, he and the rest shall not forget you— they shall perceive that you are not an iota less than they; I swear to you, you shall be glorified in them. VOICES. I. Now I make a leaf of voices for I have found nothing mightier than they are, And I have found that no word spoken but is beautiful in its place. 2. O what is it in me that makes me tremble so at voices? Surely, whoever speaks to me in the right voice, him or her I shall follow, As the water follows the moon, silently, with fluid steps any where around the globe. All waits for the right voices; Where is the practised and perfect organ? Where is the developed Soul? For I see every word uttered thence has deeper, sweeter, new sounds, impossible on less terms. 1 see brains and lips closed—tympans and temples unstruck, Until that comes which has the quality to strike and to unclose, Until that comes which has the quality to bring forth what lies slumbering, forever ready, in all words. WHOSOEVER. WHOEVER you are, I fear you are walking the walks of dreams, I fear those supposed realities are to melt from under your feet and hands; Even now your features, joys, speech, house, trade, manners, troubles, follies, costume, crimes, dissipate away from you, Your true Soul and Body appear before me, They stand forth out of affairs—out of commerce, shops, law, science, work, farms, clothes, the house, medi cine, print, buying, selling, eating, drinking, suffering, dying. Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you, that you be my poem; I whisper with my lips close to your ear, I have loved many women and men, but I love none better than you. Oh! I have been dilatory and dumb; I should have made my way straight to you long ago; I should have blabbed nothing but you, I should have chanted nothing but you. I will leave all, and come and make the hymns of you; None but have found you imperfect—I only find no imperfection in you; None but would subordinate you—I only am he who will never consent to subordinate you; I only am he who places over you no master, owner, better, God, beyond what waits intrinsically in yourself. Painters have painted their swarming groups, and the centre figure of all, From the head of the centre figure spreading a nimbus of gold-coloured light; But I paint myriads of heads, but paint no head without its nimbus of gold-coloured light; From my hand, from the brain of every man and woman it streams, effulgently flowing forever. OI could sing such grandeurs and glories about you! You have not known what you are—you have slumbered upon yourself all your life; Your eye-lids have been the same as closed most of the time; What you have done returns already in mockeries; Your thrift, knowledge, prayers, if they do not return in mockeries, what is their return? The mockeries are not you; Underneath them, and within them, I see you lurk; pursue you where none else has pursued you; I Silence, the desk, the flippant expression, the night, the accustomed routine, if these conceal you from others, or from yourself, they do not conceal you from me; The shaved face, the unsteady eye, the impure complexion, if these baulk others, they do not baulk me. The pert apparel, the deformed attitude, drunkenness, greed, premature death, all these I part aside. There is no endowment in man or woman that is not tallied in you; There is no virtue, no beauty, in man'or woman, but as good is in you; No pluck, no endurance in others, but as good is in you; No pleasure waiting for others, but an equal pleasure waits for you. Ꮓ |