Lest the glimmering of a star should fail
Or sorrows untold wend their ways
over the silent seas
Let all who dream of a Truth prevail
And wistful wisdom spread its healing balm
on wounded hearts
and weary knees.
Evil works will, on sightless eye
Or witless heart, from eggs long lain
in filth be alway born.
Clear eyes with heart unclouded will ever try
And never wholly fail! Their tears wash away the dust
of ignorance
from the feet of the forlorn.
All that is mortal must fear dancing Darkness
Who stretches forever from sweet self-awareness
to a time before then;
But she beckons, a Siren, all men's secret mistress
Both poignant and passionate as the last piercing line
wrung in a moment of quiet desperation
from a great Master's pen.
Every seed has its season, and it quietly waits
In the pasture swirling winds of fate have chosen
as a bed o'borning.
Though its destiny: Death, when the dream-life abates
In the blinding, brilliant silence
of the dewy light
of the morning.
This remorseless enchantment of Rules that surrounds us
Our destiny channels like the banks of a river
winding from hills to the sea.
The paradoxical spite of the answer confounds us:
Who can question that the waters that constantly wander
are both driven by Law
and still free?
Lest the gloried light of that sweet star should fail
And darkness eternal descend upon the breast
of the shaggy restless seas,
From Love's patient chalice and Wisdom's gentle grail
Dispense the wine of a life well spent;
then drink to the dregs
its bitter-sweet leas.