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Robert Laurence Binyon - The Threshold
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An Ode
 I walked beside full--flooding Thames to--night
 Westward; upon my face the sunset fell:
 The hour, the spacious evening, pleased me well.
 Buoyant the air breathed after rain, and kind
 To senses flattered with soft sound and light
 Of merry waves that leapt against the wind,
 Where, broadly heaving barge and boat at rest,
 The River came at flood; from golden skies
 Issuing through arches, black upon the West,
 To flame before the sunset`s mysteries.

 Far off to--night as a remembered dream
 That different Thames, familiar as a friend,
 That youthful Thames, to whom his willows bend
 With private whisper; where my boat would come,
 Heaped with fresh flowers, and down the cool smooth stream
 Follow his green banks through the twilight home.
 Far from these paven shores, these haughty towers,
 Where wave and beam glorying together run,
 As though they would disown those cradling bowers,
 And gushed immediate from the molten sun.

 Dazzled I turn; and lo, the solemn East
 Before me comes. Soft to my eyes, yet bright,
 London her vastness stretches in hushed light
 Murmuring; wharf and terrace curve afar
 Past bridge and steeple, thronging, great with least,
 To Paul`s high cross that sparkles like a star.
 The distant windows glitter; and high o`er them,
 Clouds unapproachable, illumined snows,
 Tinged with calm fire that blushes like a gem,
 As though themselves burned inwardly, repose.

 All things, methought, that inward glory shared,
 A radiant strangeness: nothing I beheld
 But spoke in a new tongue to me, or spelled
 New meanings; and within me a deep sense
 Of portals opening, of an hour prepared,
 Prophesied; and a light, transported thence,
 Of expectation on me also came.
 Glowing, the city waits what shall arrive:
 The steep clouds smoulder as to sudden flame
 They would burst forth, and the wave leaps alive.

 Immediately stole over me the thought
 Of this age ending; painful and oppressed,
 Its cry, entreating still--rejected rest,
 Echoed behind me. But I seemed to stand
 Beyond; and over the near threshold brought
 Of days to be, the air blew strong and bland.
 I listened; and a voice, wherein bore part
 Cloud, light, and wind, and water, thus began
 Aerial tones; a voice from the deep heart
 Of all things speaking to the heart of man.

 Say, troubled one, what sorrow is it keeps
 Thy spirit? Because thy latest dream is shed,
 Is the root sapped, and the strong branches dead?
 Forget`st thou that thy generations have
 Their seasons, and for them her due term sleeps
 Spring, with her buds, dreaming in Autumn`s grave?
 Because `twas Autumn with thee, thou sit`st mute,
 To the fall of the leaf consenting: yet thine eyes
 Cast round thee, and consider what fair fruit
 The full seeds bear in charge! Wake, and arise!

 Wake, and for blither energy remit
 This tedious questing in the inscrutable past,
 This pondering the before and after vast.
 O couldst thou take, like us, Time`s quiet bloom,
 On life alone expend thy freshened wit,
 The burden and the joy alone resume!
 The mountains groan not that the streams devour
 With thievish tongue their ancient high estate,
 Nor of her pining leaf complains the flower;
 But thou enjoy`st not nor reject`st thy fate.

 Pitying thee, the Powers that on thee cast
 Thy destiny, `mid labour solace sent.
 For veiled they keep that infinite ascent
 Of years, and by degrees the pathway show
 Up which thou mountest, deemest still the last
 Step won, and numbered all the stones of woe.
 And easily triumphant thou lean`st forth
 To grasp the final palm; when that eludes,
 As easily dejected: placid Earth
 Remains, a mirror for thy hundred moods.

 Dream--builder, for whose dreams thy lips invent
 Names of sweet sound, freedom and peace and truth,
 Upon the bright fermenting mists of youth
 Projecting a foredoomed reality:
 Happy, if gross joys could thy brain content,
 Or could thy faith match thy credulity;
 Ever inweaving Earth`s plain warp with thread
 Of thy deep wishes, thine own heart`s strong hue,
 The mind thy prison, thought thy narrow bed,
 With truth, with freedom what hast thou to do?

 O yet, I answered, not in vain desire
 Spurs us to gaze into the infinity,
 To dip our hands in that wide whispering sea.
 How shall one flower the whole wood`s voices tell,
 Or one small sphere interpret that full choir
 Of orb with orb, music ineffable
 From all worlds mingled? Yet since our best joy
 Not in possession but beyond us lies,
 Our hearts at last, weary of earth`s annoy,
 Only that far--off music satisfies.

 Name beyond names, Heart of the Eternal Life,
 Whom our faint thought hardly at times conceives,
 Who hear`st but as the oak his fluttered leaves
 The cry of parting spirits; who in the pang
 For children born rejoicest; from whose strife
 And travail issuing the bright worlds outsprang;
 If the wide thought of thee my childish grief
 Ever effaced, accept my manhood`s vow!
 O sweet and insupportable, O chief
 And first and last of all loves, hear me now!

 Me, whom this living vastness once appalled,
 And this uproar disheartened and oppressed,
 Now larger thoughts enfranchise, with sweet zest
 Nourish, and this immensity sustains;
 Buoyed as a swimmer upon ocean, called
 From time to the eternal, my due pains
 Accepting, in thy bosom I repose,
 Of joys and griefs together make my bed,
 In longing to set sure against all foes
 My spirit freed, and with thy spirit wed.

 Thou, thou remainest ever in lovely power
 Triumphant, whom beginning never knew;
 `Tis we alone that our own strength undo,
 `Tis we alone that, to thy ardour lame,
 Often defeated, miserably deflower
 The joy thou gavest, quench the imparted flame,
 And native sweet sourly to ashes turn.
 O help, inspire! Us with thyself endow!
 Through our brief actions let thy greatness burn,
 As through the clouds the light is burning now!

 For me, since thou this hour to see thee whole
 Vouchsafest, no more shall my heart deny
 That thou proceed`st, because I fail and cry.
 Henceforth will I endure to walk right on
 Nor my bliss too much ponder, nor my dole.
 And since dear peace fortifies faith alone,
 I trust thee, and not loth resign my heart,
 Nor though thou shouldst betray me, wound and rend,
 Would my course alter, that the better part
 Have chosen, enduring to the unknown end.

 So inwardly my lifted spirit sang.
 And lo, that solemn joy to authorize,
 With answering bloom before my lifted eyes
 The clouds moved softly; the far western fires
 A moment o`er the steeples paused and sprang.
 Now on the eye the fading light expires.
 But `tis to me as if Earth cast off Day,
 Assuming her own glory, and her flight
 Unwearied urging on the eternal way,
 Already glowed among the lamps of Night.
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