There is an eagerness in youth, that fears
To choose one path to follow all its days,
Uncertain of its curves. The silent tears
Fall salted on the heart. A thousand ways
Lift beckoning fingers. Fearfully, youth weighs
Each ounce of this and that; failing to find
The perfect balance in any one, obeys
Each summons for a little while — not blind
To unity but leaving awful choice behind.
And later, should we choose, we see no smile
On welcoming face. How sad, the heart of man,
To laugh and jest, and stay a little while,
And then go singing with the caravan
Of muted throats, never to learn the plan
Of what we strive and suffer for — and die,
Tasting no more than when our lives began,
Reaching our questing fingers to the sky,
An fining our hands barren — God, what a strange reply!
Barren our hands, yet even more our hearts,
Who sense the peace, but never reach the place.
For as we near the end, swift peace departs,
And we must struggle on, nor glimpse her face,
Who travels as we do — but half a pace
Ahead. I wonder, if we sang our songs
Eternally through life, could we unlace
This net of intricate design — that longs
To snare — and tuck away some peace where peace belongs.
There peace belongs where music finds its rest —
Not altogether undisturbed. No soul
That music haunts, but knows the sheltering breast
To feel despair; or like the blind-eyed mole
Would lose the beauty of the light. The bowl
Of fairy water, sometimes called the sea,
Feels no loss when one drop from the whole
Vanishes in the mist. To what degree,
Then, do we win our race, our bounds, eternity?
A soul is not perfected by the touch
Of silk, the glint of gold, the noise of words,
But by the bitterness of tears, and such
A note of gladness as the winter birds
First carol, seeing spring scatter the herds
Of sullen cattle, weary of winter’s face.
With songs of sparrow and whippoorwill spring girds
Her singing throat. Why do we ask which race
Is first or best? Black soul and white hold equal pace.
Who is to say who fails, and who succeeds?
We stamp our goods with a long-enduring mark
Of worldly wealth, and pray for gold. Who bleeds
Upon the shrouded altar in the dark,
The altar of self-sacrifice? The spark
Of Christ-fire, hidden deep within us, burns
A while, unfed — then paints a whistling arc
Across the aching sky, and there it learns
That the whole form which it sprang is the part for which
it yearns.
If giving over self should be the way
To learn, what of these darker brothers to
My “sovereign” race, going, bent, away,
Chanting their song — begin, and chant it through,
Hearing no song in answer. As the dew
Strengthens the thirsty plant, so the taste
Of tolerance. But try the other shoe
Upon this foot, and we should soon make haste
To cut the binding strings that we’d so tightly laced.
Unknown, how many twisting strings there be!
The pregnant mind, heavy with stirring thought,
Delicate in sensibility,
Like some rare web by elf and fairy wrought,
Hangs in the open winds and soon is caught
In the arms of passing time, and stands aghast
To see the silent years, that it had sought
So eagerly in youth, go swiftly past —
A ship with its enemy’s colors flying from the mast.
Scorn, I have looked full many a time
Into your face; been filled with fear to smell
Your breath — as though ten minutes hence, you’d climb
With rotting body back into the spell
Of death — momentarily freed — and Hell
The while, cracking its brittle sides to find
Your shrouded self; death alone can quell
The ardor of scorn’s fire, and slowly wind
Him in his arms — deafen, and make him blind.
Where’er Creation gnaws — (the thin-haired youth),
He leaves in every man the self-same mark.
The flesh, new-torn, is open where the tooth
Has sunken deep, dripping blood as dark
As drops of midnight be. — Where to embark?
Which ship — Creation at the mast — to sail?
With which all-eager breath to blow the spark
That burns uncertainly? Hearing the wail
Of many chiselled stones, which statue to unveil?
Who knows which thing to doubt, and which believe?
Since Peter did, once in the Holy Land,
Mistake his choice, this name he must receive:
“Denier!” Men ate Christ’s heart out from His hand,
And later, when they spat upon the sand,
Christ smiled, hearing how slow His heart could beat,
Thinking that later they would understand.
And yet today, nine Judases He’d meet,
And there’d be weeping Magdalens about His feet.
If at the hour of dusk I should forget —
With half-closed eyes watching the silent night
Come creeping stealthily — to pay my debt
Of gracious death; if I should lose the sight
And thirst for beauty ere the passing light
Has gone, and only shadows fill the sky,
Death, to mock me then becomes your right.
In life I may have failed, but let me die
With grace — no moaning agony, no final cry!
This piece originally appeared in New Strung Bow, a book of poems written by Sarah Lawrence students that was published in 1932.