Trumbull Stickney

I used to think The mind essential in the body, even As stood the body essential in the mind: Two inseparable things, by nature equal And similar, and in creation’s song Halving the total scale: it is not so. Unlike and cross like driftwood sticks they come Churned in the giddy trough: a chunk of pine, A slab of rosewood: mangled each on each With knocks and friction, or in deadly pain Sheathing each other’s splinters: till at last Without all stuff or shape they ’re jetted up Where in the bluish moisture rot whate’er Was vomited in horror from the sea.

I hear a river thro’ the valley wander Whose water runs, the song alone remaining. A rainbow stands and summer passes under.

Be still. The Hanging Gardens were a dream That over Persian roses flew to kiss The curlèd lashes of Semiramis. Troy never was, nor green Skamander stream. Provence and Troubadour are merest lies The glorious hair of Venice was a beam Made within Titian’s eye. The sunsets seem, The world is very old and nothing is. Be still. Thou foolish thing, thou canst not wake, Nor thy tears wedge thy soldered lids apart, But patter in the darkness of thy heart. Thy brain is plagued. Thou art a frighted owl Blind with the light of life thou ’ldst not forsake, And Error loves and nourishes thy soul.

And, the last day being come, Man stood alone Ere sunrise on the world’s dismantled verge, Awaiting how from everywhere should urge The Coming of the Lord. And, behold, none Did come,—but indistinct from every realm Of earth and air and water, growing more And louder, shriller, heavier, a roar Up the dun atmosphere did overwhelm His ears; and as he looked affrighted round Every manner of beast innumerable All thro’ the shadows crying grew, until The wailing was like grass upon the ground. Asudden then within his human side Their anguish, since the goad he wielded first, And, since he gave them not to drink, their thirst, Darted compressed and vital.—As he died, Low in the East now lighting gorgeously He saw the last sea-serpent iris-mailed Which, with a spear transfixèd, yet availed To pluck the sun down into the dead sea.