Читать книгу Poems - Edward Dowden - Страница 7

Backward betwixt the gates of steepest heaven,

Faint from the insupportable advance

Of light confederate in the East, is driven

The starry chivalry, and helm and lance,

Which held keen ward upon the shadowy plain,

Yield to the stress and stern predominance

Of Day; no wanderer morning-moon awane

Floats through dishevelled clouds, exanimate,

In disarray, with gaze of weariest pain;

O thou, sole Splendour, sprung to vindicate

Night’s ancient fame, thou in dread strife serene,

With back-blown locks, joyous yet desperate

Flamest; from whose pure ardour Earth doth win

High passionate pangs, thou radiant paladin.

Nay; strife must cease in song: far-sent and clear

Piercing the silence of this summer morn

I hear thy swan-song rapturous; I hear

Life’s ecstasy; sharp cries of flames which burn

With palpitating joy, intense and pure,

From altars of the universe, and yearn

In eager spires; and under these the sure

Strong ecstasy of Death, in phrase too deep

For thought, too bright for dim investiture.

Of mortal words, and sinking more than sleep

Down holier places of the soul’s delight;

Cry, through the quickening dawn, to us who creep

’Mid dreams and dews of the dividing night,

Thou searcher of the darkness and the light.

I seek thee, and thou art not; for the sky

Has drawn thee in upon her breast to be

A hidden talisman, while light soars high,

Virtuous to make wide heaven’s tranquillity

More tranquil, and her steadfast truth more true,

Yea even her overbowed infinity.

Of tenderness, when o’er wet woods the blue

Shows past white edges of a sundering cloud,

More infinitely tender. Day is new,

Night ended; how the hills are overflowed

With spaciousness of splendour, and each tree

Is touched; only not yet the lark is loud,

Since viewless still o’er city and plain and sea

Vibrates thy spirit-wingèd ecstasy.