The House of the Titans and other Poems

It is half an indignity and half a delight To know in age that I am but a child Kept in a nursery. And yet we must Be children of a king, pardoned so oft Our passion fits, immodesties and noise, Washed clean and dressed in shining raiment. Here In this wide palace of air my spirit glows With the gold and silver that it looks upon As if it had never paddled in the mire. Some majesty it must be ordered this Transfiguration, the drapery of light That I might come fitly unto the feast. And this deep music of being in me, how Could it be played upon my jangled strings But by a master to whom the broken heart, The listless will, the self-despisings, are But notes that in the spirit melody Had lost their sister notes, and sounding these All breathe together in one melting chord. O, what profundity, what gentleness In power, to take what's base or fearful and To find its place in beauty. I begin To guess the infinite wisdom of the king, And to what stature we must grow to come To our inheritance, how airy delicate The fingers holding the sceptre, and how deep Must be the vision in brows that wear the crown. For with what calm the princes of the stars Carry the madness of battle on their orbs, And yet the multitudinous agony Must be theirs also. Are not the hands that strike The stricken heart, within their sovereignty? I sigh to think of all the toll to be Ere we, who cry out at a prick of the thumb, Can in the inexorable cavalcade Ride on the power. And yet there is a joy In contemplating the heroic gods, The labor of the high, unshakeable ones In whom the king has trust. For have we not An infant spark of that which in the gods Can pierce both heaven and brothel with its light And be seduced neither by love nor hate, But with the secret wisdom of their king Weaving the richness of the universe Into the least of things. So in our dark Are breathings from the stars: no car but there The majesty whispers itself: there's no exalted Thought but the king gave unto it its light. Dazed by excess of riches we do not know That we are heaped with gifts from all the gods, Microcosmos unconscious of itself. And with this wisdom childhood ends, and all Its songs are sung. I know a door has closed Behind me and I can never again with joy Live in that house. The arts that once were sweet Would now be bitter in using. For not death Which brings us back to life can take away Age from the spirit. When again I try To learn the starry alphabet of life All I have passed through will be emptiness, And only that have power which draws me to The circle of wisdom. O, that I might be A nameless vagrant without home, who yet Could cry to the winds "Brother" as they pass, And nod back at the stars, and so adore The visible beauty that I may pass into All that I contemplate, and feel the trees Growing within me, men live, winds blow, seas roll In the inner glory. Being so myriad I Might forget I had a self and let the fullness Be counselor unto me, and move as those Born of the spirit, its messengers, whose ways Are undecipherable as the winds, And come at last after long tutelage Nigh to the circle of wisdom, to those who shine In ageless beauty and with smokeless light.