Evening star., 1924-11-06

tells us that this one Is dead. NO u
we exclaim. I'VE will not believe it.
Yet 1t is true. Yet we have our work
to do, and we must do 1t. So, to us,
1t seems that the missing one has
only gone on a journey, and will come
back to the office some day, and we
will shake his hand as OF yore.
Alas! that all we loved of him should be.
But for our grief: as II 1t had not been:
| Whence are we, and why are we? OF what
scene
The actors or spectators? Great and mean
| Meet massed in death, who lends what life
As long as skies are blue, and fields are green,
Evening must usher night, night urge the
| morrow,
Month follow month with wo, and year wake
| year to sorrow.
| Looking down into the face of the
/ beloved dead, there is but one thought
| that can come:
| This is not he"
Whatever may be ones faith or
hope for future life, that much is
| sure. The man we knew and loved
| is not there. He has gone away.
| So no child who has not known
| death can possibly understand these
| lines:
Peace. peace! he is not dead, be doth not
He hath awakened from the dream of life
| 'Tis we, who lost In stormy visions, keep
With phantoms Improbable strife.
| And in mad trance strike with our spirits
knife
InvulnerabIe nothings-
Comes. now. the climax of this
poem, lines suffused with music, over
! flowing with calm resignation, filled
| with trust Of Heaven:
He has outsoared the shadow Of our night;
| Envy and calumny. that hate and pain
And that unrest which men miscall delight
Can touch him not and torture not again;
| From the contag zion of the worlds slow stain
He is secure, and now can never mourn
| heart grown cold, q head grown gray In
vain.
He lives, he wakes-'tis Death is
dead, not he! So the triumphant
lines move on, to those great stanzas.
than which there are nothing more
| stately in English literature:
He is made one with Nature there is heard
His voice in ali her music, from the moan
OF thunder to the song OF nights sweet bird:
He is a presence to be felt and known
Spreading Itself wherser that Power may move
Which has withdrawn his being to its own:
Which wields the world with never wearied
love,
Sustains it from beneath, and kindles 1t above.
He is a portion Of the loveliness
Which once he made more lovely: he doth
His part. while the one Spirits plastic stress
Sweeps through the dull sense world. COMPEL
All new suggestions to the forms they wear.
Torturing tn unwilling dross that checks its
To it's own likeness, each mass must bear;
And bursting in its beauty and it's might
From trees and beasts and men into tne
Heavens light.
Only in certain passages of Isaiah
will one find the exaltation of those
;rit hot Of he MI M cd
down by words. but which, neverthe-
less. is compelling beyond description.
This is authentic poetry.
No need. here. to argue what poetry
is. or what 1t is not. Poetry. too, is a
presence to be felt and known in
darkness. and in light, from herb and
stone. spreading itself where'er that
Power may move which wields the
world with never wearied love.
The spIendors of the frmament of time e..
May be ecIpsed. but are e1tinguished not:
Like stars to their appointed height they
And death is a low mist which cannot blot
The brightness 1t may veil
The One remains. the many change and pass;
Heavens light forever shines, Earth's shad-
Life. ike dome of many -eolored glass.
Stains the white radiance Of Eternity.
So we come to the end of a perfect
poem, ending in music worthy of the
rest of it:
The breath whose might I have invoked in
Descends on me: my spirits bark is driven
Far from the shore, far from the trembling
throng
Whose sails were never to the tempest given;
Tie massy earth and shepherd skies are
rtveni
am borne darkly, fearfully, afar:
Whilst burning through the inmost veil of
Heaven
The soul of Adonais. like a star,
Beacons from the abode where the Eternal