That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire and of the comfort of the Resurrection

49 of 73 · 1 min of reading

CLOUD-PUFFBALL, torn tufts, tossed pillows | flaunt forth, then

chevy on an air-

built thoroughfare: heaven-roysterers, in gay-gangs | they throng;

they glitter in marches.

Down roughcast, down dazzling whitewash, | wherever an elm

arches,

Shivelights and shadowtackle in long | lashes lace, lance, and pair.

Delightfully the bright wind boisterous | ropes, wrestles, beats

earth bare

Of yestertempest's creases; in pool and rut peel parches

Squandering ooze to squeezed | dough, crust, dust; stanches,

starches

Squadroned masks and manmarks | treadmire toil there

Footfretted in it. Million-fuelèd, | nature's bonfire burns on.

But quench her bonniest, dearest | to her, her clearest-selvèd spark

Man, how fast his firedint, | his mark on mind, is gone!

Both are in an unfathomable, all is in an enormous dark

Drowned. O pity and indig | nation! Manshape, that shone

Sheer off, disseveral, a star, | death blots black out; nor mark

Is any of him at all so stark

But vastness blurs and time | beats level. Enough! the Resur-

rection,

A heart's-clarion! Away grief's gasping, | joyless days, dejection.

Across my foundering deck shone

A beacon, an eternal beam. | Flesh fade, and mortal trash

Fall to the residuary worm; | world's wildfire, leave but ash:

In a flash, at a trumpet crash,

I am all at once what Christ is, | since he was what I am, and

This Jack, joke, poor potsherd, | patch, matchwood, immortal

diamond,

Is immortal diamond.

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End of part 49 of 73