'L'amor che muove il Sole e l'altre stelle.' —Dante

I have flung away my Dante, weary with the sounding line,
And the sad and solemn music of the mighty Florentine;
And I come out to the doorway with a throbbing in my heart
For the mission of the poet and his high and holy art.
But such gift is for the mighty who have rear'd in pain and tears
Finger-posts to guide the world moaning with its birth of years.
Giants who have heard in prisons, bolted by a tyrant's nod,
In their hearts like angel music footsteps of their guiding god.
Theirs is the melodious whisper floating in the front of time,
Bending human hearts and footsteps to the purpose in their chime.
But for me is no cool laurel, but the use that labour brings,
With a quiet voice at midnight harping on the lower strings.
Then I look up to the stars that beam and sparkle far above,
Soft, as whispers in my bosom, rises up their tender love.
Even as I stand and watch them, in their space so far away,
Down their shafts of light run whispers, and those whispers seem to say—
'O, thou lone one from thy chamber, weary with the toil of books,
Come and rest thyself a moment underneath our quiet looks—
Come and open up thy being till the silence all around
Be unto thy soul within a trembling realm of thoughtful sound.
Then I come out from the doorway, and the stars burn soft and sweet
As I turn my quiet footsteps up the lone and narrow street;
Human hearts are all around me sleeping, as an infant sleeps,
Dreamless while my own between them still its busy vigil keeps.
Then I whisper, 'O, my fellows, light be all thy slumbers now,
Voiceless lives are thine, yet noble in the labour on thy brow.
Then I pass the bridge and churchyard, with its dead in perfect rest,
Ah, what love springs up within me, filling all my alter'd breast;
For they come, the fair young dead, who in the early blush and strife
Wither'd, leaving all their perfume to come up behind my life;
Sweet as summer winds come back their heart-breath'd blessings unto me—
Love is love when from the grave the dead stretch out their hands to thee.
Then I turn to watch the river moaning in a broken dream,
Lo! a world of stars beneath me lies within its placid beam.
Stars above and stars beneath me standing thus between their pow'r,
Let my thoughts range into order and take colour from this hour.
First come all those inspirations, thronging through my passionate youth,
As through sculptors' dreams a vision to be set in marble truth.
Then the frets and fancies touching as with some magician's rod,
Dreams within the fair to-morrow to the brightness of a god.
Then the long melodious whisper filling every pause of time
With its flowing out of passion and its bursts of golden rhyme.
Then the grief for one fair being wither'd in the early bloom,
With its yellow madness sneering at the purpose of a tomb.
Shame on all that restless worship of the grand but aimless past,
Let the stars pour down their wisdom that this night may be its last.
Lo, from all their beams above me, from the shadows seen below,
Love comes to me, slowly filling all my being with its glow.
Love for Him that lit their lustre, love for human work and weal,
Love for all the wider space in which the heart must move and feel.
Then I bow as if my forehead felt the touch of spirit hands,
Bow and feel my better nature growing as a bud expands;
Then the silence all around me whispers with a fruitful sound—
Let the faith this night hath given keep thee ever in its bound.
Then I turn from stream and churchyard, pace again the little street,
All the old life dead within me, and the new life soft and sweet:
Feeling that this new existence must forever follow me,
Growing wider in the yearning and the trust in good to be,
Until like the soul of Dante it flings off its earthly bars,
Leaps from clay and clasps its arms around the sun, and moon, and stars.'