The Poetry of James McLay (1837-1918)

ARISE, BRUISED SPIRIT, ARISE

Ah! why should we so fondly cling
To thoughts that give the deepest sting-
To memories that o'er us throw
A veil whose warp and waft is woe.

E'en as we bid sad thoughts depart
We clasp them closer to our heart,
And fondle o'er the withered flower
We're casting off from hour to hour.

The things we love pass softly by,
As feathered clouds within the sky,
The thing we dread, we always find
Nursed in the cradle of the mind.

And oft within this tangled vale,
We hear the laugh drowned in the wail,
And see the opening bud of spring
Shrivel beneath death's venomed sting.

But this is nature and nature's law,
A blooming flower, a withered straw:
A tree life rising greets the sun,
Its mate, low mouldering and undone.

Yet from that fallen giant's dust,
The sapling shoot is gayly thrust,
And deathless all - its ashes greens
The shading forest's leafy screens.

Then, rise bruised spirit from the gloom-
The mystic vista to the tomb,
That, for which thou mourn'st is not there
But gerns the brow of nature fair.

But thou, poor vaunting, finit man
Would'st sum correct the infinite's plan,
Yet spurn his works through nature given
The ladder's steps 'tween earth and heaven.

Man, can do something in his line
Can eat a peach and say tis fine,
But how the mellow thing did grow
Is just the thing he cannot know.

He can earth's granite jaws unlock -
Belch from its hold, the surf-beat rock,
Where, for some thousand years it hath
Withstood the ocean's billowed wrath.

He can, but then, is't he who can?
Here comes a thought we cannot span--
Wide, as the universe's flight,
Where there is neither depth, nor heighth.

A centreless, and boundless way,
And timeless all - no night, no day.
Without beginning, and no end
That finit mind can comprehend.

But on, and on, forever on,
Stretches the eternal spirit throne,
Bejewelled with its blazing suns,
And living worlds, which round them runs.

Back to our modest earth again,
And listen to the joyous strain.
Or plaintive notes, of bird or bee,
In sorrow, or in ecstacy.

Then, let us nothing under rate,
For know - the power is just as great
That shoots from dust, the grassy spears
As what revolves celestial spheres.

Then, forward, spirit, on your way,
A task awaits you every day --
Nought lives, or moves, in calm or storms,
But hath its duties to perform.