Poems (Whitney)/Five sonnets relating to beauty
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FIVE SONNETS RELATING TO BEAUTY.
I.
I dreamed an angel, Angel twice, through death,
Wrought us another "Night." A stately dream,
Where reconciling Infinites did seem
To fold round life's perplexities, and wreath
Its ancient glooms with stars:—a marble breath
From Art's serene, fresh, everlasting morn,
Where the dull worm of earthly pain is born
To winged life thenceforth, and busieth
With golden messages its mortal hours.
O the Divine, earth would have wronged and slain!
Its pangs are rays above her falling towers
Of lovelier truth—breaths of a sweet disdain
Shedding strange nothingness on meaner pain,
Drops of the bleeding god that turn to flowers.
Wrought us another "Night." A stately dream,
Where reconciling Infinites did seem
To fold round life's perplexities, and wreath
Its ancient glooms with stars:—a marble breath
From Art's serene, fresh, everlasting morn,
Where the dull worm of earthly pain is born
To winged life thenceforth, and busieth
With golden messages its mortal hours.
O the Divine, earth would have wronged and slain!
Its pangs are rays above her falling towers
Of lovelier truth—breaths of a sweet disdain
Shedding strange nothingness on meaner pain,
Drops of the bleeding god that turn to flowers.
II.
Largess from seven-fold heavens, I pray, descend
On all who toil for Beauty! Never feet
Grow weary that have done her bidding sweet
About the careless world! For she is friend
And darling of the universe;—and day by day,
She comes and goes, but never dies,
So precious is she in the eternal eyes.
O dost thou scorn her, seeing what fine way
She doth avenge? For heaven, because of her,
Shall one day find thee fitter. How old hours
Of star-rapt night about thy heart had curled—
And thou hadst felt the morning's golden stir,
And the appealing loveliness of flowers,
Yea, all the saving beauty of the world!
On all who toil for Beauty! Never feet
Grow weary that have done her bidding sweet
About the careless world! For she is friend
And darling of the universe;—and day by day,
She comes and goes, but never dies,
So precious is she in the eternal eyes.
O dost thou scorn her, seeing what fine way
She doth avenge? For heaven, because of her,
Shall one day find thee fitter. How old hours
Of star-rapt night about thy heart had curled—
And thou hadst felt the morning's golden stir,
And the appealing loveliness of flowers,
Yea, all the saving beauty of the world!
III
O fair mistrust of earth's more solid shows!
And mute appeal from its inhuman ways,
Its iron judgments and its misspent praise,
To the appreciation sweet that glows
In heaven's old smiling eye! O slowly grows
Our human thought; and freedom long delays,
Love in the shade fulfilling weary days,
Ere her great child is born! No wasting throes
Foretell thy being to the universe!
It is as thou didst lurk on half-poised wings
Below our life, blessing, and care and curse,
Even at the very root and core of things:
And couldst not keep from start, and chirp, and flight,
And warbled hint of something back of sight.
And mute appeal from its inhuman ways,
Its iron judgments and its misspent praise,
To the appreciation sweet that glows
In heaven's old smiling eye! O slowly grows
Our human thought; and freedom long delays,
Love in the shade fulfilling weary days,
Ere her great child is born! No wasting throes
Foretell thy being to the universe!
It is as thou didst lurk on half-poised wings
Below our life, blessing, and care and curse,
Even at the very root and core of things:
And couldst not keep from start, and chirp, and flight,
And warbled hint of something back of sight.
IV.
No slight caprice rules thee,—Who sounds one note
In God's high order finds thee at his side.
Thou art twin-born with joy, and dost abide
With conscience old, and blood-deep art inwrought
With love's sweet mystery. No wanton thought
Shall wrong the world that holds thee, or the wide
Deep Ordering, whereof thou art the bride.
For neither hate, nor custom's stress, nor aught
Of evil can thee harm, divinest thing;
And through these folds of sense, thou openest
Blue rifts to Freedom and unfathomed rest.
Flower of a hidden life, sweet mystic spring,
What joy must tune thy flow, and calm divine!
What soundness at the-heart from east to west!
In God's high order finds thee at his side.
Thou art twin-born with joy, and dost abide
With conscience old, and blood-deep art inwrought
With love's sweet mystery. No wanton thought
Shall wrong the world that holds thee, or the wide
Deep Ordering, whereof thou art the bride.
For neither hate, nor custom's stress, nor aught
Of evil can thee harm, divinest thing;
And through these folds of sense, thou openest
Blue rifts to Freedom and unfathomed rest.
Flower of a hidden life, sweet mystic spring,
What joy must tune thy flow, and calm divine!
What soundness at the-heart from east to west!
V.
And for that thou art Beauty, and thy name
Transcends all praise of thee, and doth but leave
Thyself for thy true rendering, I grieve
O'er idle words. O never dost thou blame,
But seekest to inspire me all the same,
With thine immortal freshness! Through the night
The moon comes large and slow, winging with light
The joyous sea; while sunset's last red flame,
Baring the heavens for glories to succeed,
Goes softly out, with endless farewell gleams,
Ebbing along the yellow marge of day;
Glides slow, with backward gaze; sadly indeed,
And slow, as from the heart which new love claims
An older memory doth steal away.
Transcends all praise of thee, and doth but leave
Thyself for thy true rendering, I grieve
O'er idle words. O never dost thou blame,
But seekest to inspire me all the same,
With thine immortal freshness! Through the night
The moon comes large and slow, winging with light
The joyous sea; while sunset's last red flame,
Baring the heavens for glories to succeed,
Goes softly out, with endless farewell gleams,
Ebbing along the yellow marge of day;
Glides slow, with backward gaze; sadly indeed,
And slow, as from the heart which new love claims
An older memory doth steal away.