<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="" class="head">A Quatercentenary Ode<a class="footnote" href="#macfie058n1" name="macfie058n1-link" xmlns:html="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40">*</a></h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line">ETERNITY is throned upon thy spires:</p><p class="line">Upon Eternity thy towers rest:</p><p class="line">Thou wert conceived in the eternal fires</p><p class="line">Of the sun's womb: upon the sun's white breast</p><p class="line">Wert carried ere the souls of men were made--</p><p class="line">Nay, in the nebula the seed was sown</p><p class="line">Of every stone,</p><p class="line">And by the stars were thy foundations laid.</p><p class="line">The fire-mist held thee ere the sun it bore;</p><p class="line">The sun had presage of thee ere she hurled</p><p class="line">From her wild heart the world;</p><p class="line">And the hot world enwrapped thee at its core,</p><p class="line">In lava and in lightning, to await</p><p class="line">The slow, fastidious finishing of Fate.</p><p class="line">Then the round earth grew furrowed and grew frore,</p><p class="line">And the encircling steam,</p><p class="line">Condensing in a stream,</p><p class="line">Hissed, boiling, bubbling on a barren shore,</p><p class="line">Till the Word spake, and then</p><p class="line">There blossomed flowers, and beasts, and souls of men;</p><p class="line">And lo, in man's magnificent desires</p><p class="line">And high imaginations, wilful, warm,</p><p class="line">Thy polished pinnacles, and frosty spires,</p><p class="line">Took shape and form,</p><p class="line">Till all this growth of granite towers,</p><p class="line">And pediments and columns round,</p><p class="line">Like spikelets of colossal flowers,</p><p class="line">Came burning through the ground.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Eternity was author of thy plan;</p><p class="line">The fire-mist, and the sun, and earth, and man</p><p class="line">Joined in thy making. Yea, by fire and thought</p><p class="line">The gracious granite miracle was wrought.</p><p class="line">And now thou art full-grown,</p><p class="line">Full-leaved, full-blown--</p><p class="line">An encrinite,</p><p class="line">Stately and white,</p><p class="line">A lily made of stone--</p><p class="line">A torch that flares across the night</p><p class="line">Of the Unknown--</p><p class="line">The spindle and the loom of light--</p><p class="line">An altar and a throne--</p><p class="line">A temple where the feet of Truth may fare--</p><p class="line">A peak where wisdom may be set on high,</p><p class="line">Under a cloudless sky,</p><p class="line">In Alpine air.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Yet what of Truth and Wisdom can we share,--</p><p class="line">We who have seen Eternities prepare</p><p class="line">The granite there,</p><p class="line">"The polisht stones and squair,"</p><p class="line">We who have watched worlds blossom and worlds die,</p><p class="line">Who find beneath the silt of ancient seas,</p><p class="line">Antediluvian cosmogonies?</p><p class="line">How can we guess at things so far away?</p><p class="line">How read the Mind who shapes the feathery snows</p><p class="line">Then knits a glacier to knead the clay</p><p class="line">That makes a rose,</p><p class="line">Who sends the cataracts with heavy feet,</p><p class="line">And white tumultuous toil,</p><p class="line">To grind the rocks to make a meadow sweet</p><p class="line">Giving the daisies soil?</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">How can we Know? What knowledge can we win?</p><p class="line">The spindles flash: the mighty Destinies spin--</p><p class="line">We know not whence we came, or whither we go.</p><p class="line">What can we know?</p><p class="line">How can we mete the masonry of God?</p><p class="line">Our spirits are His trowel and His hod.</p><p class="line">We guess a part: He pre-ordains the whole.</p><p class="line">We lay a stone: He labours at a soul.</p><p class="line">How can we see with His all-seeing sight</p><p class="line">Issues so broad,</p><p class="line">Meanings so infinite?</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">How can we know? How can we understand?</p><p class="line">Who build a house of Truth upon the sand</p><p class="line">Knowing the corner stone to be a lie,</p><p class="line">Knowing the roof</p><p class="line">Not lightning-proof,</p><p class="line">A travesty and mockery of the sky.</p><p class="line">How can we know, who know our truth is based</p><p class="line">On finite facts by infinity effaced,</p><p class="line">On parallels that meet in space behind,</p><p class="line">On matter that is force, unconscious, blind?</p><p class="line">How can we know whose knowledge is so small?</p><p class="line">Why should we know? Why should we live at all?</p><p class="line">Why all this toil and strife?</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">How did the Chaos burgeon into life?</p><p class="line">Did it imagine, when the toil begun,</p><p class="line">'Twould blossom into star, and moon, and sun</p><p class="line">Rolling to rhythmic music? Toil seemed vain.</p><p class="line">Mistily, vaguely, dizzily it spun</p><p class="line">Racked with strange pain,</p><p class="line">In fiery rain,</p><p class="line">Through black abysses, while the cosmic power</p><p class="line">Compelled it into bird, and beast, and flower,</p><p class="line">And this grey temple's pinnacle and tower.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Truth is eternities away,</p><p class="line">And we but climb,</p><p class="line">In the dark of Time,</p><p class="line">To the dawn of day.</p><p class="line">What if the truth we do not see?</p><p class="line">What matters truth.</p><p class="line">To love and youth.</p><p class="line">Who labour for eternity?</p><p class="line">What if an error or a flaw</p><p class="line">Life's beauty mars?</p><p class="line">We are hammered to eternal law,</p><p class="line">On love's high stithy by the stars.</p><p class="line">The hands that made these spires were held</p><p class="line">By the strong hand that holds the seas,</p><p class="line">And every pillar was compelled,</p><p class="line">By mighty cosmic energies.</p><p class="line">And what we have not rightly wrought</p><p class="line">In stone or thought</p><p class="line">Will not endure; yet even so</p><p class="line">Out of the false the true will grow.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">And in this temple by the Northern Sea</p><p class="line">Continually</p><p class="line">Will surge and seethe the fire-mist of the mind</p><p class="line">Fettered and free,</p><p class="line">Radiant and blind--</p><p class="line">Will bud and blossom nebulæ of soul,</p><p class="line">Till bright, and true, and round, and whole,</p><p class="line">Love's planets in their orbits roll,</p><p class="line">And wandering Wills their Centre find.</p></div></body></html> · Great War