AS ON A HOLY DAY
  fragments
(1799)

 

 As, on a holy day, a countryman

Goes out at dawn to view the field, whilst,

Following a night cooled only by the constant

Lightning strikes, the distant thunder rumbles on,

And, gradually, the flood subsides,

The grass luxuriates,

The grapevine drips with all the gladdening rain

That heaven’s sent, and, here, the grove

Stands, in the quiet sunlight, numinously still,

 

 So now they comfortably take their ease,

Who learnt their craft, not humanly alone,

But from the gentle, all-pervasive will of

Mighty Nature, loveliest divinity, herself:

The poets. Ones to whom the seasons of her slumber,

When the nights are long, the flowers withered, those

Dire famines of the spirit, are so desolate; yet who,

Although they seem abandoned, still remain

Forever in communion with the absent one.

 

 But now day breaks! With me, behold

The dawning answer to my urgent prayer:

As She, who’s older than the ages, and exalted

High above the pagan gods of east and west,

Heaven’s queen, is roused amidst the clash of arms,

And, from the heights of Aether down to the lowest depths,

Once more, as is the rule where what’s profane dissolves,

Out of the then resultant anarchy there springs

A new creative impulse of delight.

 

 And like the flash of fire that flickers in the eye

Of one who schemes great things, so

Now the portents, the great deeds, have lit

Fresh flames in poet-souls, and,

As the veil is lifted, now at last we see

How, all this while, the sacred

Powers of Life have been at work,

Albeit incognito, in our fields.

 

 Did you not know? Then, learn! Their inspiration

Is the sap of songs, fresh-sprouting

From the sun-baked soil. Some are the outcome

Of freak storms. Others, more steadily

Prepared, are easier to receive. These are

The universal dialogue of heaven and earth,

The World-Soul’s ruminations,

Come to quiet ripeness in the poet’s thought.

 

 Struck by a holy kindling ray, or shaken

By a sudden hit of memory, the song,

The fruit, the love-child, the collaborative

Self-revealing work of gods and mortals, thus

Becomes what it from all eternity was meant to be.

As once, the story goes, when Semele desired

To see the god with her own eyes, his lightning

Struck her house, and nine months later

She gave birth to holy Bacchus, her wild windfall.

 

 And, indeed, today it seems the sons of earth

May drink, unscathed, of heavenly fire.

So, we – my fellow poets! – we are called to stand

Beneath God’s thunder storms bareheaded.

We are called to seize the Father’s lightning bolt itself

With our own hands; to wrap the heavenly gift

In song, and pass it to the people. For, if

We’re pure in heart and child-like,

If our hands are guileless, then

 

 The Father’s bolt will never singe us.

Even if convulsed, in anguish – sharing the Almighty’s

Anguish – still, in all the steep down-rushing storms

Of God’s approach, the heart will yet hold fast.

But O, my shame! When, from

[…]

O, my shame! […]

[…]

 And let me say at once, […]

When I drew near to gaze upon the Heavenly, they,

Themselves, they threw me down, false priest condemned

To probe the depths of living hell, that I might sing,

To those with ears to hear, a warning song.

There […]