Page:The Poems of Henry Kendall (1920).djvu/108

 Like a hard, bitter laughter, cracked and thin,

From a ghost with a sin

Too dark for a name!

And all thro' the year,

The fierce seas run

From sun to sun,

Across the face of a vacant world!

And the Wind flies forth

From the wild, white North,

That shivers and harries the heart of things,

And shapes with its wings

A chaos uphurled!

Like one who sees

A rebel light

In the thick of the night,

As he stumbles and staggers on summits afar—

Who looks to it still,

Up hill and hill,

With a steadfast hope (though the ways be deep,

And rough, and steep),

Like a steadfast star—

So I, that stand

On the outermost peaks

Of peril, with cheeks

Blue with the salts of a frosty sea,

Have learnt to wait,

With an eye elate

And a heart intent, for the fuller blaze

Of the Beauty that rays

Like a glimpse for me—

Of the Beauty that grows

Whenever I hear

The winds of Fear

From the tops and the bases of barrenness call;

And the duplicate lore

Which I learn evermore,

Is of Harmony filling and rounding the Storm,

And the marvellous Form

That governs all!