A stillness deeper than the dearth of sound
Broods over thee: a living silence breathes
Perpetual incense from thy dim abyss.
The Morning-stars that sang above the bower
Of Eden, passing over thee, are dumb
With trembling bright amazement; and the Dawn
Steals through the glimmering pines with naked feet,
Her hand upon her lips, to look on thee.
She peers into thy depths with silent prayer
For light, more light, to part thy purple veil.
O Earth, swift-rolling Earth, reveal, reveal!
Turn to the East, and show upon thy breast
The mightiest marvel in the realm of Time!
*Copyright, 1913, by Henry van Dyke.
Copyright, 1913, by Charles Scribner's Sons. All rights reserved.
'Tis done, the morning miracle of light,-
The resurrection of the world of hues
That die with dark, and daily rise again
With every rising of the splendid Sun!
Be still, my heart! Now Nature holds her breath To see the vital flood of radiance leap
Across the chasm; and crest the farthest rim
Of alabaster with a glistening white
Rampart of pearl; and flowing down by walls
Of changeful opal, deepen into gold.
Of topaz, rosy gold of tourmaline,
Crimson of garnet, green and gray of jade,
Purple of amethyst, and ruby red,
Beryl, and sard, and royal porphyry;
Until the cataract of color breaks
Upon the blackness of the granite floor.
How far below! And all between is cleft
And carved into a hundred curving miles
Of unimagined architecture! Tombs,
Temples, and colonnades are neighbored there
By fortresses that Titans might defend,
And amphitheatres where Gods might strive.
Cathedrals, buttressed with unnumbered tiers.
Of ruddy rock, lift to the sapphire sky
A single spire of marble pure as snow;
And huge aërial palaces arise
Like mountains built of unconsuming flame.
Along the weathered walls, or standing far
In riven valleys where no foot may tread,
Are lonely pillars, and tall monuments
Of perished æons and forgotten things.
My sight is baffled by the close array
Of countless forms: my vision reels and swims
Above them, like a bird in whirling winds.
Yet no confusion fills yon awful chasm;
But spacious order and a sense of peace
Are wide diffused. For every shape that looms
Majestic in the throng, is set apart
From all the others by its far-flung shade,-
Blue, blue, as if a mountain-lake were there.
How still it is! Dear God, I hardly dare
To breathe, for fear the fathomless abyss
Will draw me down into eternal sleep.
What force has formed this masterpiece of awe?
What hands have wrought these wonders in the waste?
O river, gleaming in the narrow rift
Of gloom that cleaves the valley's nether deep,-
Fierce Colorado, prisoned by thy toil,
And blindly toiling still to reach the sea,
Thy waters, gathered from the snows and springs
Amid the Utah hills, have carved this road
Of glory to the Californian Gulf.
But now, O sunken stream, thy splendor lost,
'Twixt iron walls thou rollest turbid waves,
Too far away to make their fury heard!
At sight of thee, thou sullen laboring slave
Of gravitation,-yellow torrent poured
From distant mountains by no will of thine,
Through thrice a hundred centuries of slow
Fallings and liftings of the crust of Earth,—
At sight of thee my spirit sinks and fails.
Art thou alone the Maker? Is the blind
And thoughtless power that drew thee dumbly down
To cut this gash across the layered globe,
The sole creative cause of all I see?
Are force and matter all? The rest a dream?
Then is thy gorge a canyon of despair,
A prison for the soul of man, a grave
Of all his dearest daring hopes! The world
Wherein we live and move is meaningless,
No spirit here to answer to our own!
The stars without a guide! The chance-born Earth Adrift in space, no Captain on the ship!
Nothing in all the universe to prove
Eternal wisdom and eternal love!
And man, the latest accident of Time,
Who thinks he loves, and longs to understand,
Who vainly suffers, and in vain is brave,
Who dupes his heart with immortality,-
Man is a living lie,—a bitter jest
Upon himself,-a conscious grain of sand.
Lost in a desert of unconsciousness,
Thirsting for God and mocked by his own thirst.
Spirit of Beauty, mother of delight,
Thou fairest offspring of Omnipotence,
Inhabiting this lofty lone abode!
Speak to my heart again and set me free.
From all these doubts that darken earth and heaven!
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