LIMITATIONS
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f you could crowd them into forty lines!Yes; you can do it, once you get a start:All that you want is waiting in your head,For long-ago you've learnt it off by heart. * * * * * * * Begin: your mind's the room where you must sleep,(Don't pause for rhymes), till twilight wakes you early.The window stands wide-open, as it stoodWhen tree-tops loomed enchanted for a childHearing the dawn's first thrushes through the woodWarbling (you know the words) serene and wild. You've said it all before: you dreamed of Death,A dim Apollo in the bird-voiced breezeThat drifts across the morning veiled with showers,While golden weather shines among dark trees. You've got your limitations; let them sing,And all your life will waken with a cry:Why should you halt when rapture's on the wingAnd you've no limit but the cloud-flocked sky?... But some chap shouts, 'Here, stop it; that's been done!'--As God might holloa to the rising sun,And then relent, because the glorying raysReminded Him of glinting Eden days,And Adam's trustful eyes as he looks upFrom carving eagles on his beechwood cup. Young Adam knew his job; he could condenseLife to an eagle from the unknown immense ...Go on, whoever you are; your lines can beA whisper in the music from the weirsOf song that plunge and tumble toward the seaThat is the uncharted mercy of our tears. * * * * * * * I told you it was easy: words are foolsWho follow blindly, once they get a lead.But thoughts are kingfishers that haunt the poolsOf quiet; seldom-seen; and all you needIs just that flash of joy above your dream.So, when those forty platitudes are done,You'll hear a bird-note calling from the streamThat wandered through your childhood; and the sunWill strike the old flaming wonder from the waters ...And there'll be forty lines not yet begun.
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