Awake!

The stars are all watching; God's angel is catching At thy skirts in the darkness deep! Gold hinges grating, The mighty dead waiting, Why dost thou sleep?

Years without number, Ages of slumber, Stiff in the track of the infinite One! Dead, can I think it? Dropt like a trinket, A thing whose uses are done!

White wings are crossing, Glad waves are tossing, The earth flames out in crimson and green Spring is appearing, Summer is nearing-- Where hast thou been?

Down in some cavern, Death's sleepy tavern, Housing, carousing with spectres of night? There is my right hand! Grasp it full tight and Spring to the light.

Wonder, oh, wonder! How the life-thunder Bursts on his ear in horror and dread! Happy shapes meet him; Heaven and earth greet him: Life from the dead!

TO AN AUTOGRAPH-HUNTER.

Seek not my name--it doth no virtue bear; Seek, seek thine own primeval name to find-- The name God called when thy ideal fair Arose in deeps of the eternal mind.

When that thou findest, thou art straight a lord Of time and space--art heir of all things grown; And not my name, poor, earthly label-word, But I myself thenceforward am thine own.

Thou hearest not? Or hearest as a man Who hears the muttering of a foolish spell? My very shadow would feel strange and wan In thy abode:--I say No, and Farewell.

Thou understandest? Then it is enough; No shadow-deputy shall mock my friend; We walk the same path, over smooth and rough, To meet ere long at the unending end.