Man seeks to cage delight
In vain, not seeing
That her strong-pinioned flight
Is all her being,
And sets about to frame
Dead fantasies—
Eternity, Infinity—to tame
The ecstasy that flies;
And vexed by bonds of Space,
By veils of Time,
He dreams a special grace,
A power sublime,
In these abstractions, vain
Unbodied signs,
Frail shadows of the ecstasy and pain
With which Orion shines,
With which the rose unwinds
Each scented fold,
With which man grows and finds
The note of gold
Hid in the heart of laughter,
Heart of sighs,
In measured golden music flying after
The golden voice that flies,
In love from marble wrought,
In love that chimes
Over clear-ringing thought
And well-tuned rhymes,
Keen, swift, and fell,
When the whole self leaps forward to the act
Clean as the whistling shell.
For when the body and mind,
Fused in one fire,
Leap, like tiger on hind,
On the one desire,
Then the careful thoughts and schemes
Of barren years
Go down into the pit of ruined dreams
And crumbling hopes and fears.
For to be single, sure,
In one swift flash,
Pure flame or diamond pure;
To slough the ash
Of things burnt out; to gain
The fountain’s powers
Gathered in little compass to attain
Its crown of glittering showers;
This is the eternal, this
The infinite,
The gods’ immortal kiss
Set warm and bright
On heroes’ brows. In these brief moments’ span
Shall man outlive the thousand centuries
Of the blind life of man.
Therefore when I am sunk
To earth again
My joy and pain,
I shall not know or need
Pity or praise
Or thanks or love from you, the human seed
Sprung out of later days:
For on the burning crest
Of great extremes
Where the soul meets breast to breast
Its highest dreams,
Safe from stern Fate’s decrees
Irrevocably
I have possessed and savoured to the lees
My own eternity.