Читать книгу Collected Poems: Volume One - Alfred Noyes - Страница 59

Table of Contents

I

In the beginning?—Slowly grope we back Along the narrowing track, Back to the deserts of the world's pale prime, The mire, the clay, the slime; And then … what then? Surely to something less; Back, back, to Nothingness!

II

You dare not halt upon that dwindling way!

There is no gulf to stay

Your footsteps to the last. Go back you must!

Far, far below the dust,

Descend, descend! Grade by dissolving grade,

We follow, unafraid!

Dissolve, dissolve this moving world of men

Into thin air—and then?

III

O pioneers, O warriors of the Light,

In that abysmal night,

Will you have courage, then, to rise and tell

Earth of this miracle?

Will you have courage, then, to bow the head,

And say, when all is said—

"Out of this Nothingness arose our thought!

This blank abysmal Nought

Woke, and brought forth that lighted City street,

Those towers, that armoured fleet?" …

IV

When you have seen those vacant primal skies

Beyond the centuries.

Watched the pale mists across their darkness flow,

As in a lantern-show,

Weaving, by merest "chance," out of thin air,

Pageants of praise and prayer;

Watched the great hills like clouds arise and set,

And one—named Olivet;

When you have seen, as a shadow passing away,

One child clasp hands and pray;

When you have seen emerge from that dark mire

One martyr, ringed with fire;

Or, from that Nothingness, by special grace,

One woman's love-lit face, …

V

Will you have courage, then, to front that law

(From which your sophists draw

Their only right to flout one human creed)

That nothing can proceed—

Not even thought, not even love—from less

Than its own nothingness?

The law is yours! But dare you waive your pride,

And kneel where you denied?

The law is yours! Dare you re-kindle, then,

One faith for faithless men,

And say you found, on that dark road you trod,

In the beginning—GOD?