sleep.
But suddenly alive
The rivers of the air
Invade the static square;
As the stars only move
Obedient to Love,
Heart opens into time.
The square explodes in space,
The window opens into time—
As poems breathe within their strict design,
As holiness may look out from a face.
THE LION AND THE ROSE
Vision is locked in stone.
The lion in the air is gone
With the great lion of the sun.
The sky is wild and cold.
The tawny fire is gone.
The hill where love did open like a rose
Is black. It snows.
Emptiness flows.
The flowers in the heart all close
Drowned in a heavy white. Love knows
That poverty untold,
The cave where nothing grows.
The flaming lions of the flesh are gone,
Their power withdrawn.
God of the empty room,
Thy will be done. Thy will be done.
Now shine the inward sun,
The beating heart that glows
Within the skeleton,
The magic rose, the purer living gold,
Shine now, grown old.
All that is young and bold,
The lion’s roar, the flaming skin and wild,
Unearthly peace now cherish and enfold
And fresh sleep overcome,
That in this death-in-life, delicate, cold,
The spiritual rose
Flower among the snows—
The love surpassing love.
AMERICAN LANDSCAPES
WINCHESTER, VIRGINIA
All day I had seen a nearer dot on the map, this town,
A night’s sleep and the end of speeding and climbing
The steep magnificent hills, a way of coming home.
It is a still town where the past lies dreaming.
Drenched in the old sun, washed in the gold light,
Orderly and gay with white sills gleaming
And brick that glows by day and frames the night.
It is a warm town where the past is living.
The ancient walls draw comfort from the ancient trees.
Their roots are bound together in the earth and breathing.
They wear their double beauty with a marvelous ease.
It is a deep town where the past is sleeping,
And in the silence on the sills the soldiers’ spurs
Are stilled and all the shouting and the women weeping
As the town is taken and lost in those unburied wars.
It is a strange town where the past is breathing.
For nothing is lost that has happened, nothing is over.
The traveller walking dark streets is silently leaving
His step beside Stonewall Jackson’s like a lover—
For all foresees him here and he remembers all and knows
That from this past the future rises streaming,
And from this town relationship is born and flows.
It is a good town where the past is growing
Into the whole stretch of the land and touches all
With warmth about the heart and gives a form to living,
A still town where the stranger listens to his footsteps fall.
MONTICELLO
This legendary house, this dear enchanted tomb,
Once so supremely lived in and for life designed,
Will none of mouldy death nor give it room,
Charged with the presence of a living mind.
Enter and touch the temper of a lively man.
See, it is spacious, intimate and full of light.
The eye, pleased by detail, is nourished by the plan;
Nothing is here for show, much for delight.
All the joy of invention and of craft and wit
Are freely granted here, all given rein,
But taut within the classic form and ruled by it,
Elegant, various, magnificent—and plain,
Europe become implacably American!
But Mozart still could have been happy here,
And Monroe riding from his farm again,
As well as any silversmith or carpenter—
As well as we, for whom this elegance,
This freedom in a form, this peaceful grace
Is not our heritage, although it happened once:
We read the future, not the past, upon his face.
The time must come when, from the people’s heart,
Government grows to meet the stature of a man,
And freedom finds its form, that great unruly art,
And the state is a house designed by Jefferson.
IN DEEP CONCERN
Guilford College, North Carolina
Quakers define the hour when thoughts begin to burn,
And faith leaps from the heart into the hands,
That great turbulence of spirit, “a concern”,
The hour when contemplation breaks its
But suddenly alive
The rivers of the air
Invade the static square;
As the stars only move
Obedient to Love,
Heart opens into time.
The square explodes in space,
The window opens into time—
As poems breathe within their strict design,
As holiness may look out from a face.
THE LION AND THE ROSE
Vision is locked in stone.
The lion in the air is gone
With the great lion of the sun.
The sky is wild and cold.
The tawny fire is gone.
The hill where love did open like a rose
Is black. It snows.
Emptiness flows.
The flowers in the heart all close
Drowned in a heavy white. Love knows
That poverty untold,
The cave where nothing grows.
The flaming lions of the flesh are gone,
Their power withdrawn.
God of the empty room,
Thy will be done. Thy will be done.
Now shine the inward sun,
The beating heart that glows
Within the skeleton,
The magic rose, the purer living gold,
Shine now, grown old.
All that is young and bold,
The lion’s roar, the flaming skin and wild,
Unearthly peace now cherish and enfold
And fresh sleep overcome,
That in this death-in-life, delicate, cold,
The spiritual rose
Flower among the snows—
The love surpassing love.
AMERICAN LANDSCAPES
WINCHESTER, VIRGINIA
All day I had seen a nearer dot on the map, this town,
A night’s sleep and the end of speeding and climbing
The steep magnificent hills, a way of coming home.
It is a still town where the past lies dreaming.
Drenched in the old sun, washed in the gold light,
Orderly and gay with white sills gleaming
And brick that glows by day and frames the night.
It is a warm town where the past is living.
The ancient walls draw comfort from the ancient trees.
Their roots are bound together in the earth and breathing.
They wear their double beauty with a marvelous ease.
It is a deep town where the past is sleeping,
And in the silence on the sills the soldiers’ spurs
Are stilled and all the shouting and the women weeping
As the town is taken and lost in those unburied wars.
It is a strange town where the past is breathing.
For nothing is lost that has happened, nothing is over.
The traveller walking dark streets is silently leaving
His step beside Stonewall Jackson’s like a lover—
For all foresees him here and he remembers all and knows
That from this past the future rises streaming,
And from this town relationship is born and flows.
It is a good town where the past is growing
Into the whole stretch of the land and touches all
With warmth about the heart and gives a form to living,
A still town where the stranger listens to his footsteps fall.
MONTICELLO
This legendary house, this dear enchanted tomb,
Once so supremely lived in and for life designed,
Will none of mouldy death nor give it room,
Charged with the presence of a living mind.
Enter and touch the temper of a lively man.
See, it is spacious, intimate and full of light.
The eye, pleased by detail, is nourished by the plan;
Nothing is here for show, much for delight.
All the joy of invention and of craft and wit
Are freely granted here, all given rein,
But taut within the classic form and ruled by it,
Elegant, various, magnificent—and plain,
Europe become implacably American!
But Mozart still could have been happy here,
And Monroe riding from his farm again,
As well as any silversmith or carpenter—
As well as we, for whom this elegance,
This freedom in a form, this peaceful grace
Is not our heritage, although it happened once:
We read the future, not the past, upon his face.
The time must come when, from the people’s heart,
Government grows to meet the stature of a man,
And freedom finds its form, that great unruly art,
And the state is a house designed by Jefferson.
IN DEEP CONCERN
Guilford College, North Carolina
Quakers define the hour when thoughts begin to burn,
And faith leaps from the heart into the hands,
That great turbulence of spirit, “a concern”,
The hour when contemplation breaks its
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