The Promise of the Morning Star
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hou father of the children of my brainBy thee engendered in my willing heart,How can I thank thee for this gift of artPoured out so lavishly, and not in vain. What thou created never more can die,Thy fructifying power lives in meAnd I conceive, knowing it is by thee,Dear other parent of my poetry! For I was but a shadow with a name,Perhaps by now the very name's forgot;So strange is Fate that it has been my lotTo learn through thee the presence of that aim Which evermore must guide me. All unknown,By me unguessed, by thee not even dreamed,A tree has blossomed in a night that seemedOf stubborn, barren wood. For thou hast sown This seed of beauty in a ground of truth.Humbly I dedicate myself, and yetI tremble with a sudden fear to setNew music ringing through my fading youth. J--K. Huysmans A flickering glimmer through a window-pane,A dim red glare through mud bespattered glass,Cleaving a path between blown walls of sleetAcross uneven pavements sunk in slimeTo scatter and then quench itself in mist.And struggling, slipping, often rudely hurledAgainst the jutting angle of a wall,And cursed, and reeled against, and flung asideBy drunken brawlers as they shuffled past,A man was groping to what seemed a light.His eyelids burnt and quivered with the strainOf looking, and against his temples beatThe all enshrouding, suffocating dark.He stumbled, lurched, and struck against a doorThat opened, and a howl of obscene mirthGrated his senses, wallowing on the floorLay men, and dogs and women in the dirt.He sickened, loathing it, and as he gazedThe candle guttered, flared, and then went out. Through travail of ignoble midnight streetsHe came at last to shelter in a porchWhere gothic saints and warriors made a shieldTo cover him, and tortured gargoyles spatOne long continuous stream of silver rainThat clattered down from myriad roofs and spiresInto a darkness, loud with rushing soundOf water falling, gurgling as it fell,But always thickly dark. Then as he leanedUnconscious where, the great oak door blew backAnd cast him, bruised and dripping, in the church.His eyes from long sojourning in the nightWere blinded now as by some glorious sun;He slowly crawled toward the altar steps.He could not think, for heavy in his earsAn organ boomed majestic harmonies;He only knew that what he saw was light!He bowed himself before a cross of flameAnd shut his eyes in fear lest it should fade.
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