John Drinkwater

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The Fires of God

                                I

Time gathers to my name;

Along the ways wheredown my feet have passed

I see the years with little triumph crowned,

Exulting not for perils dared, downcast

And weary-eyed and desolate for shame

Of having been unstirred of all the sound

Of the deep music of the men that move

Through the world's days in suffering and love.

Poor barren years that brooded over-much

On your own burden, pale and stricken years --

Go down to your oblivion, we part

With no reproach or ceremonial tears.

Henceforth my hands are lifted to the touch

Of hands that labour with me, and my heart

Hereafter to the world's heart shall be set

And its own pain forget.

Time gathers to my name --

Days dead are dark; the days to be, a flame

Of wonder and of promise, and great cries

Of travelling people reach me -- I must rise.

                                II

Was I not man? Could I not rise alone

Above the shifting of the things that be,

Rise to the crest of all the stars and see

The ways of all the world as from a throne?

Was I not man, with proud imperial will

To cancel all the secrets of high heaven?

Should not my sole unbridled purpose fill

All hidden paths with light when once was riven

God's veil by my indomitable will?

So dreamt I, little man of little vision,

Great only in unconsecrated pride;

Man's pity grew from pity to derision,

And still I thought, 'Albeit they deride,

Yet is it mine uncharted ways to dare

Unknown to these,

And they shall stumble darkly, unaware

Of solemn mysteries

Whereof the key is mine alone to bear.'

So I forgot my God, and I forgot

The holy sweet communion of men,

And moved in desolate places, where are not

Meek hands held out with patient healing when

The hours are heavy with uncharitable pain;

No company but vain

And arrogant thoughts were with me at my side.

And ever to myself I lied,

Saying, 'Apart from all men thus I go

To know the things that they may never know.'

                                III

Then a great change befell:

Long time I stood

In witless hardihood

With eyes on one sole changeless vision set --

The deep disturbèd fret

Of men who made brief tarrying in hell

On their earth-travelling.

It was as though the lives of men should be

Set circle-wise, whereof one little span

Through which all passed was blackened with the wing

Of perilous evil, bateless misery.

But all beyond, making the whole complete

O'er which the travelling feet

Of every man

Made way or ever he might come to death,

Was odorous with the breath

Of honey-laden flowers, and alive

With sacrificial ministrations sweet

Of man to man, and swift and holy loves,

And large heroic hopes, whereby should thrive

Man's spirit as he moves

From dawn of life to the great dawn of death.

It was as though mine eyes were set alone

Upon that woeful passage of despair,

Until I held that life had never known

Dominion but in this most troubled place

Where many a ruined grace

And many a friendless care

Ran to and fro in sorrowful unrest.

Still in my hand I pressed

Hope's fragile chalice, whence I drew deep draughts

Shaping belief that even yet should grow

Out of this dread confusion, as of broken crafts

Driven along ungovernable seas,

Some threads of order, and that I should know

After long vigil all the mysteries

Of human wonder and of human fate.

O fool, O only great

In pride unhallowed, O most blind of heart!

Confusion but more dark confusion bred,

Grief nurtured grief, I cried aloud and said,

'Through trackless ways the soul of man is hurled,

No sign upon the forehead of the skies,

No beacon, and no chart

Are given to him, and the inscrutable world

But mocks his scars and fills his mouth with dust.

And lies bore lies,

And lust bore lust,

And the world was heavy with flowerless rods,

And pride outran

The strength of man

Who had set himself in the place of gods.

                                IV

Soon was I then to gather bitter shame

Of spirit, I had been most wildly proud --

Yet in my pride had been

Some little courage, formless as a cloud,

Unpiloted save by the vagrant wind,

But still an earnest of the bonds that tame

The legionary hates, of sacred loves that lean

From the high soul of man towards his kind.

And all my grief

Had been for those I watched go to and fro.

In uncompassioned woe

Along that little span my unbelief

Had fashioned in my vision as all life.

Now even this so little virtue waned,

For I became caught up into the strife

That I had pitied, and my soul was stained

At last by that most venomous despair,

Self-pity.

     I no longer was aware

Of any will to heal the world's unrest,

I suffered as it suffered, and I grew

Troubled in all my daily trafficking,

Not with the large heroic trouble known

By proud adventurous men who would atone

With their own passionate pity for the sting

And anguish of a world of peril and snares;

It was the trouble of a soul in thrall

To mean despair,

Driven about a waste where neither fall

Of words from lips of love, nor consolation

Of grave eyes comforting, nor ministration

Of hand or heart could pierce the deadly wall

Of self -- of self, -- I was a living shame --

A broken promise. I had stood apart

With pride rebellious and defiant heart,

And now my pride had perished in the flame.

I cried for succour as a little child

Might supplicate whose days are undefiled --

For tutored pride and innocence are one.

To the gloom has won

A gleam of the sun

And into the barren desolate ways

A scent is blown

As of meadows mown

By cooling rivers in clover days.

                                V

I turned me from that place in humble wise,

And fingers soft were laid upon mine eyes,

And I beheld the fruitful earth, with store

Of odorous treasure, full and golden grain,

Ripe orchard bounty, slender stalks that bore

Their flowered beauty with a meek content,

The prosperous leaves that loved ths sun and rain,

Shy creatures unreproved that came and went

In garrulous joy among the fostering green.

And, over all, the changes of the day

And ordered year their mutable glory laid --

Expectant winter soberly arrayed,

The prudent diligent spring whose eyes have seen

The beauty of the roses uncreate,

Imperial June, magnificent, elate

Beholding all the ripening loves that stray

Among her blossoms, and the golden time

Of the full ear and bounty of the boughs, --

And the great hills and solemn chanting seas

And prodigal meadows, answering to the chime

Of God's good year, and bearing on their brows

The glory of processional mysteries

From dawn to dawn, the woven shadow and shine

Of the high moon, the twilight secrecies,

And the inscrutable wonder of the stars

Flung out along the reaches of the night.

And the ancient might

Of the binding bars

Waned as I woke to a new desire

For the choric song

Of exultant, strong

Earth-passionate menwith souls of fire.

                                VI

'Twas given me to hear. As I beheld --

With a new wisdom, tranquil, asking not

For mystic revelation -- this glory long forgot,

This re-discovered triumph of the earth

In high creative will and beauty's pride

Establshèd beyond the assaulting years,

It came to me, a music that compelled

Surrender of all tributary fears,

Full-throated, fierce and rhythmic with the wide

Beat of the pilgrim winds and labouring seas,

Sent up from all the harbouring ways of earth

Wherein the travelling feet of men have trod,

Mounting the firmamental silences

And challenging the golden gates of God.

We bear the burden of the years

Clean-limbed, clear-hearted, open-browed;

Albeit sacramental tears

Have dimmed our eyes, we know the proud

Content of men who sweep unbowed

Before the legionary fears;

In sorrow we have grown to be

The masters of adversity.

Long ere from immanent silence leapt

Obedient hands and fashioning will,

The giant god within us slept,

And dreamt of seasons to fulfil

The shaping of our souls that still

Expectant earthward vigil kept;

Our wisdom grew from secrets drawn

From that far-off dim-memoried dawn.

Wise of the storied ages we,

Of perils dared and crosses borne,

Of heroes bound by no decree

Of laws defiled or faiths outworn,

Of poets who have held in scorn

All mean and tyrannous things that be;

We prophesy with lips that sped

The songs of the prophetic dead.

Wise of the brief belovèd span

Of this our glad earth-travelling,

Of beauty's bloom and ordered plan,

Of love and love's compassioning,

Of all the dear delights that spring

From man's communion with man;

We cherish every hour that strays

Adown the cataract of the days.

We see the clear untroubled skies,

We see the glory of the rose,

And laugh, nor grieve that clouds will rise

And wax with every wind that blows,

Nor that the blossoming time will close,

For beauty seen of humble eyes

Immortal habitation has

Though beauty's form may pale and pass.

Wise of the great unshapen age,

To which we move with measured tread

All girt with passionate truth to wage

High battle for the word unsaid,

The song unsung, the cause unled,

The freedom that no hope can gauge;

Strong-armed, sure-footed, iron-willed

We sift and weave, we break and build.

Into one hour we gather all

The years gone down, the years unwrought,

Upon our ears brave measures fall

Across uncharted spaces brought,

Upon our lips the words are caught

Wherewith the dead the unborn call;

From love to love, from height to height

We press and none may curb our might.

                                VII

O blessèd voices, O compassionate hands,

Calling and healing, O great-hearted brothers!

I come to you. Ring out across the lands

Your benediction, and I too will sing

With you, and haply kindle in another's

Dark desolate hour the flame you stirred in me.

O bountiful earth, in adoration meet

I bow to you; O glory of years to be,

I too will labour to your fashioning.

Go down, go down, unweariable feet,

Together we will march towards the ways

Wherein the marshalled hosts of morning wait

In sleepless watch, with banners wide unfurled

Across the skies in ceremonial state,

To greet the men who lived triumphant days,

And stormed the secret beauty of the world.

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