Canticle Of The Babe

I

Over the broken world, the dark gone by,
Horror of outcast darkness torn with wars;
And timeless agony
Of the white fire, heaped high by blinded Stars,
Unfaltering, unaghast;--
Out of the midmost Fire
At last,--at last,--
Cry! ...
O darkness' one desire,--
O darkness, have you heard?--
Black Chaos, blindly striving towards the Word?
--The Cry!

Behold thy conqueror, Death!
Behold, behold from whom
It flutters forth, that triumph of First-Breath,
Victorious one that can but breathe and cling,--
This pulsing flower,--this weaker than a wing,
Halcyon thing!--
Cradled above unfathomable doom.


II

Under my feet, O Death,
Under my trembling feet!
Back, through the gates of hell, now give me way.
I come.--I bring new Breath!
Over the trampled shards of mine own clay,
That smoulder still, and burn,
Lo, I return!
Hail, singing Light that floats
Pulsing with chorused motes:--
Hail to thee, Sun, that lookest on all lands!
And take thou from my weak undying hands,
A precious thing, unblemished, undefiled:--
Here, on my heart uplift,
Behold the Gift,--
Thy glory and my glory, and my child!


III

(And our eyes were opened; eyes that had been holden.
    And I saw the world, and the fruits thereof.
And I saw their glories, scarlet-stained and golden,
    All a crumbled dust beneath the feet of Love.
    And I saw their dreams, all of nothing worth;
    But a path for Love, for Him to walk above,
And I saw new heaven, and new earth.)


IV

        The grass is full of murmurs;
        The sky is full of wings;
                The earth is full of breath.
                With voices, choir on choir
                With tongues of fire,
        They sing how Life out-sings--
                Out-numbers Death.


V

Who are these that fly;
As doves, and as doves to the windows?
Doves, like hovering dreams round Love that slumbereth;
Silvering clouds blown by,
Doves and doves to the windows,--
Warm through the radiant sky their wings beat breath.
They are the world's new-born:
Doves, doves to the windows!
Lighting, as flakes of snow;
Lighting, as flakes of flame;
Some to the fair sown furrows;
Some to the huts and burrows
Choked of the mire and thorn,--
Deep in the city's shame.
Wind-scattered wreaths they go,
Doves, and doves, to the windows;
Some for worshipping arms, to shelter and fold, and shrine;
Some to be torn and trodden,
Withered and waste, and sodden;
Pitiful, sacred leaves from Life's dishonored vine.


VI

O Vine of Life, that in these reaching fingers,
Urges a sunward way!
Hold here and climb, and halt not, that there lingers
So far outstripped, my halting, wistful clay.
Make here thy foothold of my rapturous heart,--
Yea, though the tendrils start
To hold and twine!
I am the heart that nursed
Thy sunward thirst.--
A little while, a little while, O Vine,
My own and never mine,
Feed thy sweet roots with me
Abundantly.
O wonder-wildness of the pushing Bud
With hunger at the flood,
Climb on, and seek, and spurn.
Let my dull spirit learn
To follow with its longing, as it may,
While thou seek higher day.--
But thou, the reach of my own heart's desire,
Be free as fire!
Still climb and cling; and so
Outstrip,--outgrow.

O Vine of Life, my own and not my own,
So far am I outgrown!
High as I may, I lift thee, Soul's Desire.
--Lift thou me higher.



And thou, Wayfaring Woman, whom I meet
On all the highways,--every brimming street,
Lady Demeter, is it thou, grown gaunt
With work and want?
At last, and with what shamed and stricken eyes,
I see through thy disguise
Of drudge and Exile,--even the holy boon
That silvers yonder in the Harvest-moon;--
That dimly under glows
The furrows of thy worn immortal face,
With mother-grace.

O Queen and Burden-bearer, what of those
To whom thou gavest the lily and the rose
Of thy far youth?... For whom,
Out of the wondrous loom
Of thine enduring body, thou didst make
Garments of beauty, cunningly adorned,
But only for Death's sake!
Largess of life, but to lie waste and scorned.--
Could not such cost of pain,
Nor daily utmost of thy toil prevail?--
But they must fade, and pale,
And wither from thy desolated throne?--
And still no Summer give thee back again
Thine own?

Lady of Sorrows,--Mother,--Drudge august.
Behold me in the dust.

Josephine Preston Peabody

Josephine Preston Peabody was an American poet and dramatist known for her lyrical and imaginative poetry, as well as her contributions to children's literature and drama. Born in New York, she grew up in an intellectually stimulating environment. She published her first poetry collection, "The Wayfarers," in 1898. Her work often explores themes of nature, love, and spirituality. Peabody's work earned her considerable acclaim during her lifetime, and she was especially noted for her verse dramas such as "The Piper," which won the Stratford Prize in 1910.

Josephine Preston Peabody

The Golden Shoes

Josephine Preston Peabody, Simple Poetry

Alison's Mother To The Brook

Josephine Preston Peabody, Simple Poetry

The Trees

Josephine Preston Peabody, Simple Poetry

English

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Oh, who will hush that cry outside the doors,
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Louder, you viols;--louder, O my harp;
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The Foundling

Beautiful Mother, I have toiled all day;
        And I am wearied. And the day is done.
        Now, while the wild brooks run
Soft by the furrows--fading, gold to gray,
    Their laughters turned to musing--ah, let me
    Hide here my face at thine unheeding knee,
        Beautiful Mother; if I be thy son.

The birds fly low. Gulls, starlings, hoverers,
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Fly down, fly down. One reedy murmur blurs
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All they are stalled and folded for their rest,
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The Trees

I

Now, in the thousandth year,
When April's near,
Now comes it that the great ones of the earth
Take all their mirth
Away with them, far off, to orchard-places,--
Nor they nor Solomon arrayed like these,--
To sun themselves at ease;
To breathe of wind-swept spaces;
To see some miracle of leafy graces;--
To catch the out-flowing rapture of the trees.
Considering the lilies.
                                            --Yes. And when
Shall they consider Men?

            (O showering May-clad tree,
            Bear yet awhile with me.)


II

For now at last, they have beheld the trees.
Lo, even these!--
The men of sounding laughter and low fears;
The women of light laughter, and no tears;
The great ones o...

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The Daguerreotype

        This, then, is she,
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        Younger than spring, without the faintest trace
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        Upon the childlike earnestness and grace
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        These close-wound ropes of pearl
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Jetsam

        I wonder can this be the world it was
        At sunset? I remember the sky fell
        Green as pale meadows, at the long street-ends,
        But overhead the smoke-wrack hugged the roofs
        As if to shut the city from God's eyes
        Till dawn should quench the laughter and the lights.
        Beneath the gas flare stolid faces passed,
        Too dull for sin; old loosened lips set hard
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        Made by its own bright hair, the eyes were wan
        With desolate fore-knowledge of the end.
        My life lay waste about me: as I walked,
        From the gross dark of unfrequented streets
        The face of my own youth peered forth at me,

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Demeter And Persephone

Faint as a climate-changing bird that flies
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With passing thro' at once from state to state,
Until I brought thee hither, that the day,
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On thy lost self. A sudden nightingale
Saw thee, and flash'd into a frolic of song
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When first she peers along the tremulous deep,
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