The Rope-Maker

At the dike's foot that wearily
Curves along the sinuous sea,
The visionary, silver-haired
Rope-maker with arms bared,
Pulling backwards as he stands,
Rolls together, with prudent hands,
The twisting play of endless twine,
Coming from the far sky-line.

Down yonder in the sunset sheen,
In the twilight tired and chill,
A busy wheel is whizzing still,
Moved by one who is not seen;
But, parallel on stakes that space
The road from equal place to place,
The yellow hemp that the roper draws
Runs in a chain that never flaws.

With skilful fingers thin and old,
Fearing to break the glint of gold
That with his work the gliding light
Blends by the houses growing dim,
The visionary roper weaves
Out of the heart of the eddying eves,
And draws the horizons unto him.

Horizons? Those of red sunsets:
Furies, hatred, fights, regrets,
Sobs of beings broken-hearted,
Horizons of the days departed,
Writhen, golden, overcast;
Horizons of the living past.

Of old--the life of strayed somnambulists,
When the right hand of God to Canaans blue
The road of gold through gloaming deserts drew,
Through morns and evenings swayed with shifting mists.

Of old--exasperated life careering
Hanging from stallions' manes, lighting the dense
Darkness with heels that flashed out gleams immense,
Towards immensity immensely rearing.

Of old--it was a life of burning leaven;
When the Red Cross of Hell and Heaven's White
Through miles of marshalled mail that shed the light
Marched each through blood towards its victory's heaven.

Of old--it was a foaming, livid life,
Living and dead, with tocsin bells and crime,
Edicts and massacres reddening the time,
With mad and splendid death above the strife.

Between the flax and osiers,
On the road where nothing stirs,
Along the houses growing dim,
The visionary roper weaves
Out of the heart of the eddying eves,
And draws the horizon unto him.

Horizons? There they linger yet:
Toil, and science, struggle, fret.
Horizons? There at even-chime,
They in their mirrors show the mourning
Image of the present time.

Now, a mass of fires that belch defiance,
Where wise men, leagued in mighty storm and stress,
Hurl the gods down to change the nothingness
Whereunto strives the force of human science.

Now, lo! a room that ruthless thought has swept,
Weighed and exactly measured, and men swear
The firmament is arched by empty air;
And Death is in glass bottles corked and kept.

Now, lo! a glowing furnace, and resistance
Of matter molten in fire's dragon dens;
New strengths are forged, far mightier than men's,
To swallow up the night, and time, and distance.

Here, lo! a palace tiredly built, and lying
Beneath a century's weight, bowed down and yellow,
And whence, in terror, mighty voices bellow,
Invoking thunder towards adventure flying.

Upon the regular road, with eyes
Fixed where the silent sunset dies,
And leaves the houses drear and dim,
The visionary roper weaves
Out of the heart of the eddying eves,
And draws the horizons unto him.

Horizons? Where yon sunset beams:
Combats, hopes, awakenings, gleams;
The horizons he can see defined
In the future of his mind,
Far beyond the shores that swim
Sketched in the sky of sunsets dim.

Up yonder--in the calm skies hangs a red
Staircase of double gold with steps of blue,
With Dream and Science mounting it, the two
Who separately climb to one stair-head.

The lightning clash of contraries expires;
Doubt's mournful fist its fingers opes, while wed
Essential laws that had been wont to shed
In horal doctrines their fragmentary fires.

Up yonder--mind more strong and subtle darts
Its violence past death and what is seen.
And universal love sheds a serene
And mighty silence over tranquil hearts.

The God in every human heart, above,
Unfolds, expands, and his own being sees
In those who sometimes fell upon their knees
To worship sacred grief and humble love.

Up yonder--living peace is burning bright,
And shedding on these lands, down evening's slope
A bliss that kindles, like the brands of hope,
In the air's ash the great stars of the night.

At the dike's foot that wearily
Curves along the sinuous sea
Towards the distant eddying spaces,
The visionary roper paces
Along the houses growing dim,
And drinks the horizons into him.