Page:The roamer and other poems (1920).djvu/54

44 "To live—what is it? save with savage use

To slay the beast, and drink the battle-rage?

To strike with Nature compact the most foul,

And bloody league? or at the veins of gold

To suck, the vampire of the commonwealth,

Deal indirectly, safer than sword-play,

Do murder in a mask? and wherefore, wherefore?

To see the sun and moon and stars go round?

Nay, lust, ambition, avarice set aside,

The world put underfoot, what hope remains

To graft on Nature true nobility?

Nature refining still destroys herself;

Briefer the date, more frail the tenure is,

In that same measure as the soul ascends;

And death and madness crown the climax up;

But the coarse multitude she floods with power

To break the wise, to crucify the good,

And to the block bring true nobility;

And souls that will not commerce with her force

Are from the juices of our life cut off;

Cut at the root is true nobility;

Or if, though rare, it puts forth its green shoot

And glorifies the soul in which it grows,

And opes love's passion, deepening bloom in bloom,—

Divine desires innumerably born,