Page:The poems of Richard Watson Gilder, Gilder, 1908.djvu/213

Rh And weeping of the sufferers; there where the Pleiads float—

Here, there, forever, pain most dread and dire

Doth bring the intensest bliss, the dearest and most sure.

'T is not from Life aside, it doth endure

Deep in the secret heart of all existence.

It is the inward fire,

The heavenly urge, and the divine insistence.

Uplift thine eyes, O Questioner, from the sod!

It were no longer Life,

If ended were the strife;

Man were not man, God were not truly God.

PART VI

ODE

Read before the Alpha Chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, Harvard University, June 26, 1890.

the white midday's full, imperious show

What glorious colors hide from human sight!

But in the breathing pause 'twixt day and night

Forth stream those prisoned splendors, glow on glow;

Like billows on they pour

And beat against the shore

Of cloud-wrought cliffs high as the utmost dome,

To die in purple waves that break on dawns to come.

II

Divine, divine! O, breathe no earthlier word!

Behold the western heavens how swift they flame

With hues that bring to mortal language shame;