<h2><SPAN name="page72"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>HERTHA</h2>
<p class="poetry"> I <span class="smcap">am</span> that which began;<br/>
Out of me the
years roll;<br/>
Out of me God and man;<br/>
I am equal and
whole;<br/>
God changes, and man, and the form of them bodily; I am the
soul.</p>
<p class="poetry"> Before ever
land was,<br/>
Before ever the
sea,<br/>
Or soft hair of the grass,<br/>
Or fair limbs of
the tree,<br/>
Or the flesh-coloured fruit of my branches, I was, and thy soul
was in me.</p>
<p class="poetry"> First life
on my sources<br/>
First drifted
and swam;<br/>
Out of me are the forces<br/>
That save it or
damn;<br/>
Out of me man and woman, and wild-beast and bird; before God was,
I am.</p>
<p class="poetry"> Beside or
above me<br/>
Nought is there
to go;<br/>
Love or unlove me,<br/>
Unknow me or
know,<br/>
I am that which unloves me and loves; I am stricken, and I am the
blow.</p>
<p class="poetry"> <SPAN name="page73"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>I the mark
that is missed<br/>
And the arrows
that miss,<br/>
I the mouth that is kissed<br/>
And the breath
in the kiss,<br/>
The search, and the sought, and the seeker, the soul and the body
that is.</p>
<p class="poetry"> I am that
thing which blesses<br/>
My spirit
elate;<br/>
That which caresses<br/>
With hands
uncreate<br/>
My limbs unbegotten that measure the length of the measure of
fate.</p>
<p class="poetry"> But what
thing dost thou now,<br/>
Looking Godward,
to cry<br/>
“I am I, thou art thou,<br/>
I am low, thou
art high”?<br/>
I am thou, whom thou seekest to find him; find thou but thyself,
thou art I.</p>
<p class="poetry"> I the grain
and the furrow,<br/>
The
plough-cloven clod<br/>
And the ploughshare drawn
thorough,<br/>
The germ and the
sod,<br/>
The deed and the doer, the seed and the sower, the dust which is
God.</p>
<p class="poetry"> Hast thou
known how I fashioned thee,<br/>
Child,
underground?<br/>
Fire that impassioned thee,<br/>
Iron that
bound,<br/>
Dim changes of water, what thing of all these hast thou known of
or found?</p>
<p class="poetry"> <SPAN name="page74"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>Canst thou
say in thine heart<br/>
Thou hast seen
with thine eyes<br/>
With what cunning of art<br/>
Thou wast
wrought in what wise,<br/>
By what force of what stuff thou wast shapen, and shown on my
breast to the skies?</p>
<p class="poetry"> Who hath
given, who hath sold it thee,<br/>
Knowledge of
me?<br/>
Hath the wilderness told it
thee?<br/>
Hast thou learnt
of the sea?<br/>
Hast thou communed in spirit with night? have the winds taken
counsel with thee?</p>
<p class="poetry"> Have I set
such a star<br/>
To show light on
thy brow<br/>
That thou sawest from afar<br/>
What I show to
thee now?<br/>
Have ye spoken as brethren together, the sun and the mountains
and thou?</p>
<p class="poetry"> What is
here, dost thou know it?<br/>
What was, hast
thou known?<br/>
Prophet nor poet<br/>
Nor tripod nor
throne<br/>
Nor spirit nor flesh can make answer, but only thy mother
alone.</p>
<p class="poetry"> Mother, not
maker,<br/>
Born, and not
made;<br/>
Though her children forsake
her,<br/>
Allured or
afraid,<br/>
Praying prayers to the God of their fashion, she stirs not for
all that have prayed.</p>
<p class="poetry"> <SPAN name="page75"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>A creed is a
rod,<br/>
And a crown is
of night;<br/>
But this thing is God,<br/>
To be man with
thy might,<br/>
To grow straight in the strength of thy spirit, and live out thy
life as the light.</p>
<p class="poetry"> I am in
thee to save thee,<br/>
As my soul in
thee saith;<br/>
Give thou as I gave thee,<br/>
Thy life-blood
and breath,<br/>
Green leaves of thy labour, white flowers of thy thought, and red
fruit of thy death,</p>
<p class="poetry"> Be the ways
of thy giving<br/>
As mine were to
thee;<br/>
The free life of thy living,<br/>
Be the gift of
it free;<br/>
Not as servant to lord, nor as master to slave, shalt thou give
thee to me.</p>
<p class="poetry"> O children
of banishment,<br/>
Souls
overcast,<br/>
Were the lights ye see vanish
meant<br/>
Alway to
last,<br/>
Ye would know not the sun overshining the shadows and stars
overpast.</p>
<p class="poetry"> I that saw
where ye trod<br/>
The dim paths of
the night<br/>
Set the shadow called God<br/>
In your skies to
give light;<br/>
But the morning of manhood is risen, and the shadowless soul is
in sight.</p>
<p class="poetry"> <SPAN name="page76"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>The tree
many-rooted<br/>
That swells to
the sky<br/>
With frondage red-fruited,<br/>
The life-tree am
I;<br/>
In the buds of your lives is the sap of my leaves: ye shall live
and not die.</p>
<p class="poetry"> But the
Gods of your fashion<br/>
That take and
that give,<br/>
In their pity and passion<br/>
That scourge and
forgive,<br/>
They are worms that are bred in the bark that falls off; they
shall die and not live.</p>
<p class="poetry"> My own
blood is what stanches<br/>
The wounds in my
bark;<br/>
Stars caught in my branches<br/>
Make day of the
dark,<br/>
And are worshipped as suns till the sunrise shall tread out their
fires as a spark.</p>
<p class="poetry"> Where dead
ages hide under<br/>
The live roots
of the tree,<br/>
In my darkness the thunder<br/>
Makes utterance
of me;<br/>
In the clash of my boughs with each other ye hear the waves sound
of the sea.</p>
<p class="poetry"> That noise
is of Time,<br/>
As his feathers
are spread<br/>
And his feet set to climb<br/>
Through the
boughs overhead,<br/>
And my foliage rings round him and rustles, and branches are bent
with his tread.</p>
<p class="poetry"> <SPAN name="page77"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>The
storm-winds of ages<br/>
Blow through me
and cease,<br/>
The war-wind that rages,<br/>
The spring-wind
of peace,<br/>
Ere the breath of them roughen my tresses, ere one of my blossoms
increase.</p>
<p class="poetry"> All sounds
of all changes,<br/>
All shadows and
lights<br/>
On the world’s
mountain-ranges<br/>
And stream-riven
heights,<br/>
Whose tongue is the wind’s tongue and language of
storm-clouds on earth-shaking nights;</p>
<p class="poetry"> All forms
of all faces,<br/>
All works of all
hands<br/>
In unsearchable places<br/>
Of time-stricken
lands,<br/>
All death and all life, and all reigns and all ruins, drop
through me as sands.</p>
<p class="poetry"> Though sore
be my burden<br/>
And more than ye
know,<br/>
And my growth have no guerdon<br/>
But only to
grow,<br/>
Yet I fail not of growing for lightnings above me or deathworms
below.</p>
<p class="poetry"> These too
have their part in me,<br/>
As I too in
these;<br/>
Such fire is at heart in me,<br/>
Such sap is this
tree’s,<br/>
Which hath in it all sounds and all secrets of infinite lands and
of seas.</p>
<p class="poetry"> <SPAN name="page78"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>In the
spring-coloured hours<br/>
When my mind was
as May’s,<br/>
There brake forth of me flowers<br/>
By centuries of
days,<br/>
Strong blossoms with perfume of manhood, shot out from my spirit
as rays.</p>
<p class="poetry"> And the
sound of them springing<br/>
And smell of
their shoots<br/>
Were as warmth and sweet
singing<br/>
And strength to
my roots;<br/>
And the lives of my children made perfect with freedom of soul
were my fruits.</p>
<p class="poetry"> I bid you
but be;<br/>
I have need not
of prayer;<br/>
I have need of you free<br/>
As your mouths
of mine air;<br/>
That my heart may be greater within me, beholding the fruits of
me fair.</p>
<p class="poetry"> More fair
than strange fruit is<br/>
Of faiths ye
espouse;<br/>
In me only the root is<br/>
That blooms in
your boughs;<br/>
Behold now your God that ye made you, to feed him with faith of
your vows.</p>
<p class="poetry"> In the
darkening and whitening<br/>
Abysses
adored,<br/>
With dayspring and lightning<br/>
For lamp and for
sword,<br/>
God thunders in heaven, and his angels are red with the wrath of
the Lord.</p>
<p class="poetry"> <SPAN name="page79"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>O my sons, O
too dutiful<br/>
Toward Gods not
of me,<br/>
Was not I enough beautiful?<br/>
Was it hard to
be free?<br/>
For behold, I am with you, am in you and of you; look forth now
and see.</p>
<p class="poetry"> Lo, winged
with world’s wonders,<br/>
With miracles
shod,<br/>
With the fires of his thunders<br/>
For raiment and
rod,<br/>
God trembles in heaven, and his angels are white with the terror
of God.</p>
<p class="poetry"> For his
twilight is come on him,<br/>
His anguish is
here;<br/>
And his spirits gaze dumb on
him,<br/>
Grown grey from
his fear;<br/>
And his hour taketh hold on him stricken, the last of his
infinite year.</p>
<p class="poetry"> Thought
made him and breaks him,<br/>
Truth slays and
forgives;<br/>
But to you, as time takes him,<br/>
This new thing
it gives,<br/>
Even love, the beloved Republic, that feeds upon freedom and
lives.</p>
<p class="poetry"> For truth
only is living,<br/>
Truth only is
whole,<br/>
And the love of his giving<br/>
Man’s
polestar and pole;<br/>
Man, pulse of my centre, and fruit of my body, and seed of my
soul.</p>
<p class="poetry"> <SPAN name="page80"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>One birth of
my bosom;<br/>
One beam of mine
eye;<br/>
One topmost blossom<br/>
That scales the
sky;<br/>
Man, equal and one with me, man that is made of me, man that is
I.</p>
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