MY world is a painted fresco, where
coloured shapes
Of
old, ineffectual lives linger blurred and warm;
An endless tapestry the past
has woven drapes
The
halls of my life, compelling my soul to
conform.
The surface of dreams is
broken,
The picture
of the past is shaken and scattered.
Fluent, active figures of men pass along the
railway,
and I am woken
From the dreams that the distance
flattered.
Along the railway, active figures of
men.
They have a
secret that stirs in their limbs as they
move
Out of the distance, nearer, commanding my
dreamy
world.
Here in the subtle, rounded flesh Beats the active ecstasy. In the sudden lifting my eyes, it is clearer, The fascination of the quick, restless Creator moving through the mesh Of men, vibrating in ecstasy through the rounded flesh.
Oh my boys, bending over your
books,
In you is
trembling and fusing
The creation of a new-patterned dream, dream of a
generation:
And I watch to see the Creator, the power
that
patterns the
dream.
The old dreams are beautiful,
beloved, soft-toned,
and sure,
But the dream-stuff is molten and moving
mysteriously,
Alluring my eyes; for I, am I not also dream-stuff,
Am I not quickening, diffusing
myself in the pattern,
shaping and
shapen?
Here in my class is the answer for the great yearning: Eyes where I can watch the swim of old dreams reflected on the molten metal of dreams, Watch the stir which is rhythmic and moves them all as a heart-beat moves the blood, Here in the swelling flesh the great activity working, Visible there in the change of eyes and the mobile features.
Oh the great mystery and fascination of the unseen Shaper, The power of the melting, fusing Force — heat, light, all in one, Everything great and mysterious in one, swelling and shaping the dream in the flesh, As it swells and shapes a bud into blossom.
Oh the terrible ecstasy of the
consciousness that I
am life!
Oh the miracle of the whole, the widespread,
labouring
concentration
Swelling mankind like one bud to bring forth
the
fruit of a dream,
Oh the terror of lifting the
innermost I out of the
sweep of the impulse of
life,
And watching
the great Thing labouring through the
whole round flesh of the
world;
And striving
to catch a glimpse of the shape of the
coming
dream,
As it
quickens within the labouring, white-hot metal,
Catch the scent and the colour
of the coming dream,
Then to fall back exhausted into the unconscious,
molten
life!