Prompting the Dexterous to work his arts, And shatter earth's delirious holiday, Then first, as where the fountain runs a stream, Resolving to composure on its throbs.
But see her in the Seasons through that year;That one glad year and the fair opening month.
Had never our Great Mother such sweet face!
War with her, gentle war with her, each day Her sons and daughters urged; at eve were flung, On the morrow stood to challenge; in their strength Renewed, indomitable; whereof they won, From hourly wrestlings up to shut of lids, Her ready secret: the abounding life Returned for valiant labour: she and they Defeated and victorious turn by turn;By loss enriched, by overthrow restored.
Exchange of powers of this conflict came;Defacement none, nor ever squandered force.
Is battle nature's mandate, here it reigned, As music unto the hand that smote the strings;And she the rosier from their showery brows, They fruitful from her ploughed and harrowed breast.
Back to the primal rational of those Who suck the teats of milky earth, and clasp Stability in hatred of the insane, Man stepped; with wits less fearful to pronounce The mortal mind's concept of earth's divorced Above; those beautiful, those masterful, Those lawless. High they sit, and if descend, Descend to reap, not sowing. Is it just?
Earth in her happy children asked that word, Whereto within their breast was her reply.
Those beautiful, those masterful, those lawless, Enjoy the life prolonged, outleap the years;Yet they ('twas the Great Mother's voice inspired The audacious thought), they, glorious over dust, Outleap not her; disrooted from her soar, To meet the certain fate of earth's divorced, And clap lame wings across a wintry haze, Up to the farthest bourne: immortal still, Thenceforth innocuous; lovelier than when ruled The Tyranny. This her voice within them told, When softly the Great Mother chid her sons Not of the giant brood, who did create Those lawless Gods, first offspring of our brain Set moving by an abject blood, that waked To wanton under elements more benign, And planted aliens on Olympian heights; -Imagination's cradle poesy Become a monstrous pressure upon men; -Foes of good Gaea; until dispossessed By light from her, born of the love of her, Their lordship the illumined brain rejects For earth's beneficent, the sons of Law, Her other name. So spake she in their heart, Among the wheat-blades proud of stalk; beneath Young vine-leaves pushing timid fingers forth, Confidently to cling. And when brown corn Swayed armied ranks with softened cricket song, With gold necks bent for any zephyr's kiss;When vine-roots daily down a rubble soil Drank fire of heaven athirst to swell the grape;When swelled the grape, and in it held a ray, Rich issue of the embrace of heaven and earth;The very eye of passion drowsed by excess, And yet a burning lion for the spring;Then in that time of general cherishment, Sweet breathing balm and flutes by cool wood-side, He the harsh rouser of ire being absent, caged, Then did good Gaea's children gratefully Lift hymns to Gods they judged, but praised for peace, Delightful Peace, that answers Reason's call Harmoniously and images her Law;Reflects, and though short-lived as then, revives, In memories made present on the brain By natural yearnings, all the happy scenes;The picture of an earth allied to heaven;Between them the known smile behind black masks;Rightly their various moods interpreted;
And frolic because toilful children borne With larger comprehension of Earth's aim At loftier, clearer, sweeter, by their aid.
