Change and Transformation

Agonies are one of my changes of garments.

Dies, all dies! The grass it dies, but in vernal rain Up it springs and it lives again; Over and over, again and again It lives, it dies and it lives again.

All civil charms And priestly spells which late held hearts in awe— Fear-bound, subjected to a better sway Than sway of self; these like a dream dissolve, And man rebounds whole aeons back in nature.

If Luther’s day expand to Darwin’s year, Shall that exclude the hope—foreclose the fear?

Progress, man’s distinctive mark alone, Not God’s, and not the beasts’: God is, they are; Man partly is, and wholly hopes to be.

Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her, And tempted her out of her gloom.

The Night is mother of the Day, The Winter of the Spring, And ever upon old Decay The greenest mosses cling.

If the red slayer think he slays, Or if the slain think he is slain, They know not well the subtle ways I keep, and pass, and turn again. 1

The world’s great age begins anew, The golden years return, The earth doth like a snake renew Her winter weeds outworn.

Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is: What if my leaves are falling like its own! The tumult of thy mighty harmonies Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone, Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce, My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!

The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind, If winter comes, can spring be far behind?

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh, hear!

O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being, Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, Pestilence-stricken multitudes.

Man, who wert once a despot and a slave; A dupe and a deceiver; a decay; A traveler from the cradle to the grave Through the dim light of this immortal day.

Man’s yesterday may ne’er be like his morrow; Nought may endure but Mutability.

A sadder and a wiser man He rose the morrow morn.

That there hath passed away a glory from the earth.

My heart leaps up when I behold So was it when my life began; So is it now I am a man; So be it when I shall grow old, The child is father of the man; And I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by natural piety. 3

But pleasures are like poppies spread— You seize the flow’r, its bloom is shed; Or like the snow falls in the river— A moment white—then melts forever.

John Barleycorn got up again, And sore surprised them all.

Little Fly, Thy summer’s play My thoughtless hand Has brushed away. Am not I A fly like thee? Or art not thou A man like me? For I dance And drink and sing, Till some blind hand Shall brush my wing.

Variety’s the very spice of life.

The wild vicissitudes of taste.

’Tis education forms the common mind: Just as the twig is bent, the tree’s inclin’d.