Reverie

I know there shall dawn a day     Is it here on homely earth?     Is it yonder, worlds away,     Where the strange and new have birth,     That Power comes full in play?     Is it here, with grass about,     Under befriending trees,     When shy buds venture out,     And the air by mild degrees     Puts winters death past doubt?     Is it up amid whirl and roar     Of the elemental flame     Which star-flecks heavens dark floor,     That, new yet still the same,     Full in play comes Power once more?     Somewhere, below, above,     Shall a day dawn, this I know,     When Power, which vainly strove     My weakness to oerthrow,     Shall triumph. I breathe, I move,     I truly am, at last!     For a veil is rent between     Me and the truth which passed     Fitful, half-guessed, half-seen,     Grasped at, not gained, held fast.     I for my race and me     Shall apprehend lifes law:     In the legend of man shall see     Writ large what small I saw     In my lifes; tale both agree.     As the record from youth to age     Of my own, the single soul,     So the worlds wide book: one page     Deciphered explains the whole     Of our common heritage.     How but from near to far     Should knowledge proceed, increase?     Try the clod ere test the star!     Bring our inside strife to peace     Ere we wage, on the outside, war!     So, my annals thus begin:     With body, to life awoke     Soul, the immortal twin     Of body which bore souls yoke     Since mortal and not akin.     By means of the flesh, grown fit.     Mind, in surview of things,     Now soared, anon alit     To treasure its gatherings     From the ranged expanse, to wit,     Nature, earths, heavens wide show     Which taught all hope, all fear:     Acquainted with joy and woe,     I could say, Thus much is clear,     Doubt annulled thus much: I know.     All is effect of cause:     As it would, has willed and done     Power: and my minds applause     Goes, passing laws each one,     To Omnipotence, lord of laws.     Head praises, but heart refrains     From lovings acknowledgment.     Whole losses outweigh half-gains:     Earths good is with evil blent:     Good struggles but evil reigns.     Yet since Earths good proved good,     Incontrovertibly     Worth loving, I understood     How evil, did mind descry     Powers object to end pursued.     Were haply as cloud across     Goods orb, no orb itself:     Mere mind, were it found at loss     Did it play the tricksy elf     And from lifes gold purge the dross?     Power is known infinite:     Good struggles to be, at best     Seems, scanned by the human sight,     Tried by the senses test,     Good palpably: but with right     Therefore to minds award     Of loving, as power claims praise?     Power, which finds naught too hard,     Fulfilling itself all ways     Unchecked, unchanged: while barred,     Baffled, what good began     Ends evil on every side.     To Power submissive man     Breathes, Een as Thou art, abide!     While to good Late-found, long-sought,     Would Power to a plenitude     But liberate, but enlarge     Goods strait confine, renewed     Were ever the hearts discharge     Of loving! Else doubts intrude.     For you dominate, stars all!     For a sense informs you, brute,     Bird, worm, fly, great and small,     Each with your attribute     Or low or majestical!     Thou earth that embosomest     Offspring of land and sea,     How thy hills first sank to rest,     How thy vales bred herb and tree     Which dizen thy mother-breast.     Do I ask? Be ignorant     Ever! the answer clangs:     Whereas if I plead worlds want,     Souls sorrows and bodys pangs,     Play the human applicant,     Is a remedy far to seek?     I question and find response:     I, all men, strong or weak,     Conceive and declare at once     For each want its cure. Power, speak!     Stop change, avert decay     Fix life fast, banish death     Eclipse from the star bid stay,     Abridge of no moments breath     One creature! Hence, Night, hail Day!     What need to confess again     No problem this to solve     By impotence? Power, once plain     Proved Power, let on Power devolve     Goods right to co-equal reign!     Past minds conception Power!     Do I seek how star, earth, beast,     Bird, worm, fly, gain their dower     For lifes use, most and least?     Back from the search I cower.     Do I seek what heals all harm,     Nay, hinders the harm at first,     Saves earth? Speak, Power, the charm!     Keep the life there unamerced     By chance, change, deaths alarm!     As promptly as mind conceives,     Let Power in its turn declare     Some law which wrong retrieves,     Abolishes everywhere     What thwarts, what irks, what grieves!     Never to be! and yet     How easy it seems, to sense     Like mans, if somehow met     Power with its match, immense     Love, limitless, unbeset     By hindrance on every side!     Conjectured, nowise known,     Such may be: could man confide     Such would match, were Love but shows     Stript of the veils that hide.     Powers self now manifest!     So reads my record: thine,     O world, how runs it? Guessed     Were the purport of that prime line,     Prophetic of all the rest!     In a beginning God     Made heaven and earth. Forth flashed     Knowledge: from star to clod     Man knew things: doubt abashed     Closed its long period.     Knowledge obtained Power praise.     Had Good been manifest,     Broke out in cloudless blaze,     Unchequered as unrepressed,     In all things Good at best.     Then praise, all praise, no blame,     Had hailed the perfection. No!     As Powers display, the same     Be Goods, praise forth shall flow     Unisonous in acclaim!     Even as the world its life,     So have I lived my own,     Power seen with Love at strife,     That sure, this dimly shown,     Good rare and evil rife.     Whereof the effect be, faith     That, some far day, were found     Ripeness in things now rathe,     Wrong righted, each chain unbound,     Renewal born out of scathe.     Why faith, but to lift the load,     To leaven the lump, where lies     Mind prostrate through knowledge owed     To the loveless Power it tries     To withstand, how vain! In flowed     Ever resistless fact:     No more than the passive clay     Disputes the potters act,     Could the whelmed mind disobey     Knowledge the cataract.     But, perfect in every part,     Has the potters moulded shape,     Leap of mans quickened heart,     Throe of his thoughts escape,     Stings of his soul which dart     Through the barrier of flesh, till keen     She climbs from the calm and clear,     Through turbidity all between,     From the known to the unknown here,     Heavens Shall be, from Earths Has been?     Then life is, to wake not sleep,     Rise and not rest, but press     From earths level where blindly creep     Things perfected, more or less,     To the heavens height, far and steep,     Where, amid what strifes and storms     May wait the adventurous quest,     Power is Love, transports, transforms     Who aspired from worst to best,     Sought the souls world, spurned the worms.     I have faith such end shall be:     From the first, Power was, I knew.     Life has made clear to me     That, strive but for closer view,     Love were as plain to see.     When see? When there dawns a day,     If not on the homely earth,     Then yonder, worlds away,     Where the strange and new have birth,     And Power comes full in play.