Page:The poems of Richard Watson Gilder, Gilder, 1908.djvu/401

Rh IDENTITY

can it be?

The heart that in the earth's far dawn knew God;

The thought that seized the circling of the stars;

The soul of fire that on that hill of Athens

Builded immortal beauty; the brain enorm

That peopled for all men and for all time

A world Shakespearian; and can it be?—

The mind imperial named Beethoven,

Majestically chanting harmonies

That hold the motions of the rhythmic worlds,

And to far doomsday stir all living hearts;

And he the framer of earth's mightiest dome,

Painter sublime and poet marvelous,

Who carved the likeness of his soul in stone,

And in cold marble the hot heart of man

Imprisoned eternally; and can it be?—

These, these and all the potencies of time

Which throbbed in human form; and can it be

That the intensive fire which made them men,

Not trees, nor creeping beasts, nor stones, nor stars,

And gave identity to every soul

Making it individual and alone

Among the myriads; and can it be

That, when the mortal framework failed, this fire,—

Which flamed in separate and lonely life,—

These souls, slipt out of being and were lost,

Eternally extinguished and cast out:

Only to some obscure electric wave

Giving new force, to some stray flower new grace,

Unto some lover's vow more ardency;

Making some island sunset more intense,

Passing from fiery thought to chemic heat—