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Christopher Brennan - 1908
Work rating: Low

        The droning tram swings westward: shrill
        the wire sings overhead, and chill
        midwinter draughts rattle the glass
        that shows the dusking way I pass
        to yon four-turreted square tower
        that still exalts the golden hour
        where youth, initiate once, endears
        a treasure richer with the years.
        Dim-seen, the upper stories fleet
        along the twisting shabby street;
        beneath, the shop-fronts` cover`d ways
        bask in their lampions` orange blaze,
        or stare phantasmal, weirdly new,
        in the electrics` ghastly blue:
        and, up and down, I see them go,
        along the windows pleas`d and slow
        but hurrying where the darkness falls,
        the city`s drift of pavement thralls
        whom the poor pleasures of the street
        lure from their niggard homes, to meet
        and mix, unknown, and feel the bright
        banality `twixt them and night:
        so, in my youth, I saw them flit
        where their delusive dream was lit;
        so now I see them, and can read
        the urge of their unwitting need
        one with my own, however dark,
        and questing towards one mother-ark.
        But, past the gin-shop`s ochrous flare,
        sudden, a gap of quiet air

        and gather`d dark, where, set a pace
        beyond the pavement`s coiling race
        and mask`d by bulk of sober leaves,
        the plain obtruncate chancel heaves,
        whose lancet-windows faintly show
        suffusion of a ruddy glow,
        the lamp of adoration, dim
        and rich with unction kept for Him
        whom Bethlehem`s manger first made warm,
        the sweetest god in human form,
        love`s prisoner in the Eucharist,
        man`s pleading, patient amorist:
        and there the sacring laver stands
        where I was brought in pious hands,
        a chrisom-child, that I might be
        accepted of that company
        who, thro` their journeying, behold
        beyond the apparent heavens, controll`d
        to likeness of a candid rose,
        ascending where the gold heart glows,
        cirque within cirque, the blessed host,
        their kin, their comfort, and their boast.
        With them I walk`d in love and awe
        till I was ware of that grim maw
        and lazar-pit that reek`d beneath:
        what outcast howlings these? what teeth
        gnashing in vain? and was that bliss
        whose counter-hemisphere was this?
        and could it be, when times fulfill`d
        had made the tally of either guild,
        that this mid-world, dredg`d clean in both,
        should no more bar their gruesome troth?
        So from beneath that choiring tent

        I stepp`d, and tho` my spirit`s bent
        was dark to me as yet, I sought
        a sphere appeas`d and undistraught;
        and found viaticum and goal
        in that hard atom of the soul,
        that final grain of deathless mind,
        which Satan`s watch-fiends shall not find
        nor the seven mills of darkness bruise,
        for all permission to abuse;
        stubborn, yet, if one seek aright,
        translucent all within and bright
        with sheen that hath no paradigm,
        not where our proud Golcondas brim,
        tho` sky and sea and leaf and flower,
        in each rare mood of virtual power,
        sleep in their gems` excepted day:
        and so, nor long, the guarded ray
        broke on my eagerness, who brought
        the lucid diamond-probe of thought
        and, driving it behind, the extreme
        blind vehemence of travailing dream
        against the inhibitory shell:
        and found, no grim eternal cell
        and presence of the shrouded Norn,
        but Eden, clad in nuptial morn,
        young, fair, and radiant with delight
        remorse nor sickness shall requite.
        Yes, Eden was my own, my bride;
        whatever malices denied,
        faithful and found again, nor long
        absent from aura of wooing song:
        but promis`d only, while the sun
        must travel yet thro` times undone;

        and life must guard the prize of youth,
        and thought must steward into truth
        the mines of magian ore divined
        in rich Cipangos of the mind:
        and I, that made my high attempt
        no bliss whence any were exempt,
        their fellow-pilgrim, I must greet
        these listless captives of the street,
        these fragments of an orphan`d drift
        whose dower was our mother`s thrift,
        and, tho` they know it not, have care
        of what would be their loving prayer
        if skill bestow`d might help them heed
        their craving for the simple meed
        to be together in the light
        when loneliness and dark incite:
        long is the way till we are met
        when Eden pays her hoarded debt
        and we are orb`d in her, and she
        hath still`d her hungering to be,
        with plenitude beyond impeach,
        single, distinct, and whole in each:
        and many an evening hour shall bring
        the dark crowd`s dreary loitering
        to me who pass and see the tale
        of all my striving, bliss or bale,
        dated from either spire that strives
        clear of the shoal of shiftless lives,
        and promise, in all years` despite,
        fidelity to old delight.
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