VACILLATION
 I
 BETWEEN extremities
 Man runs his course;
 A brand, or flaming breath.
 Comes to destroy
 All those antinomies
 Of day and night;
 The body calls it death,
 The heart remorse.
 But if these be right
 What is joy?
 
 II
 A tree there is that from its topmost bough
 Is half all glittering flame and half all green
 Abounding foliage moistened with the dew;
 And half is half and yet is all the scene;
 And half and half consume what they renew,
 And he that Attis' image hangs between
 That staring fury and the blind lush leaf
 May know not what he knows, but knows not grief
 
 III
 Get all the gold and silver that you can,
 Satisfy ambition, animate
 The trivial days and ram them with the sun,
 And yet upon these maxims meditate:
 All women dote upon an idle man
 Although their children need a rich estate;
 No man has ever lived that had enough
 Of children's gratitude or woman's love.
 No longer in Lethean foliage caught
 Begin the preparation for your death
 And from the fortieth winter by that thought
 Test every work of intellect or faith,
 And everything that your own hands have wrought
 And call those works extravagance of breath
 That are not suited for such men as come
 proud, open-eyed and laughing to the tomb.
 
 IV
 My fiftieth year had come and gone,
 I sat, a solitary man,
 In a crowded London shop,
 An open book and empty cup
 On the marble table-top.
 While on the shop and street I gazed
 My body of a sudden blazed;
 And twenty minutes more or less
 It seemed, so great my happiness,
 That I was blessed and could bless.
 Although the summer Sunlight gild
 Cloudy leafage of the sky,
 Or wintry moonlight sink the field
 In storm-scattered intricacy,
 I cannot look thereon,
 Responsibility so weighs me down.
 Things said or done long years ago,
 Or things I did not do or say
 But thought that I might say or do,
 Weigh me down, and not a day
 But something is recalled,
 My conscience or my vanity appalled.
 A rivery field spread out below,
 An odour of the new-mown hay
 In his nostrils, the great lord of Chou
 Cried, casting off the mountain snow,
 "Let all things pass away.'
 Wheels by milk-white asses drawn
 Where Babylon or Nineveh
 Rose; some conquer drew rein
 And cried to battle-weary men,
 "Let all things pass away.'
 From man's blood-sodden heart are sprung
 Those branches of the night and day
 Where the gaudy moon is hung.
 What's the meaning of all song?
 "Let all things pass away.'
 
 VII
 The Soul.  Seek out reality, leave things that seem.
 The Heart. What, be a singer born and lack a theme?
 The Soul. Isaiah's coal, what more can man desire?
 The Heart. Struck dumb in the simplicity of fire!
 The Soul. Look on that fire, salvation walks within.
 The Heart. What theme had Homer but original sin?
 
 VIII
 Must we part, Von Hugel, though much alike, for we
 Accept the miracles of the saints and honour sanctity?
 The body of Saint Teresa lies undecayed in tomb,
 Bathed in miraculous oil, sweet odours from it come,
 Healing from its lettered slab.  Those self-same hands
 perchance
 Eternalised the body of a modern saint that once
 Had scooped out pharaoh's mummy.  I – though heart
 might find relief
 Did I become a Christian man and choose for my belief
 What seems most welcome in the tomb – play a pre-
 destined part.
 Homer is my example and his unchristened heart.
 The lion and the honeycomb, what has Scripture said?
 So get you gone, Von Hugel, though with blessings on
 your head.  0084