Interludes And Poems

atured, came like an open'd grate At last the Mind of Man, Letting the sky in, and a faculty To light the cell with lost Eternity. So commerce with the Infinite was regained : For upward grew Man's ken And trode with founded footsteps the grievous fen Where other life festering and prone remained. With knowledge painfully quarried and hewn fair, Platforms of lore, and many a hanging stair Of strong imagination Man has raised His Wisdom like the watch-towers of a town ; That he, though fastened down In law, be with its cruelty not amazed, But be of outer vastness greatly aware. This, then, is yours : to build exultingly High, and yet more high, The knowledgeable towers above base wars And sinful surges reaching up to lay Dishonouring hands upon your work, and drag From their uprightness your desires to lag Among low places with a common gait. That so Man's mind, not conquered by his clay, May sit above his fate, Inhabiting the purpose of the stars, And trade with his Eternity. "ALL LAST NIGHT ..." ALL last night I had quiet In a fragrant dream and warm She had become my Sabbath, And round my neck, her arm. I knew the warmth in my dreaming; The fragrance, I suppose, Was her hair about me, Or else she wore a rose. Her hair, I think ; for likest Woodruffe 'twas, when Spring Loitering down wet woodways Treads it sauntering. No light, nor any speaking; Fragrant only and warm. Enough to know my lodging, The...