Duality

Calm, two-handed, self-possessed,

   In their vital center,

Being's forces work or rest,

   And to all things enter;

Light and shadow, worst and best,

Wed their mutual interest,

And throughout creation stand

On their Parent's either hand.

 

Into nature flows a power,

   Outward flows a beauty;

Things whose life is but an hour,

   Yet fulfil their duty,

Taking in their little dower,

Cold or heat, sunlight or shower,

And returning, to boon Nature,

Aptitude of work or feature.

 

Life is dual, but the goods

   Come not paired together;

Twins, but differing in moods,

   Bears the great World-Mother;

Alternating neighborhoods,

Ebb and flow of being's floods;

Hope, that bears its shadow, Fear;

Life, whose bridegroom, Death, is near;

 

Daylight with her locks of yellow,

   Wedding the dun gloaming-

Desdemona and Othello

   Into nature coming;

Brow-knit Doubt, whose sweet yoke-fellow

Faith is; Discord with his mellow-

Throated consort, Music, blend;

So, through all things without end,

 

Good and ill in mystic bands,

   Fact and hollow seeming,

Walk together with linked hands,

   Losing and redeeming ;

Feeding ruin's desert sands

From the wealth of greenest lands,

And returning crowned from thence

With a new magnificence.

 

Nature's law is, give and take,

   Using, never keeping;

Lending for the borrower's sake;

   Sowing without reaping;

Leaves the dew's pavilion make,

Dews the flowers' thirsting slake,

Flowers give odor to the air,

Air divides it everywhere.

 

All have some good, nothing all;

   Having's taxed of Heaven,

Swift is slender, keen is small,

   Kind is overdriven;

Rarest cates are sure to pall,

Greenest summer has its fall,

Storms are eloquent but fearful,

Lore is deep, but rarely cheerful.

 

Every thing is at some time,

   Nothing always, sweetest;

The most precious in their prime,

   To their end are fleetest;

Plague devours the sunniest clime,

Terror glooms with the sublime,

Day's fire fadeth to night's embers-

Yet in stars its life remembers.

 

Through and through the woof of ill

   Runs the thread of goodness:

Winds that shake the wingéd mill,

   Feed us with their rudeness;

Frosts, that Autumn blossoms kill,

Ope the nut-burs on the hill;

Griefs, that settled heart-swards tear,

Fit for greener blessings there!

 

And the like innative check

   With the good abideth,

Soundest rind, without a speck,

   A diseased core hideth;

Calmest seas have many a wreck,

Highest hills the dizziest peak,

Sweetest lays the saddest tale,

Tenderest voice the shrillest wail.

 

Honey lures the arméd bee,

   Wealth, the secret robber;

Father of the wildest glee,

   Is the saddest sobber;

Thoughts of grandest prophecy

Verge upon insanity,

And the holiest joy we know-

Love itself is kin to wo.

 

Hopeless fear, and fearless hope,

   See not nature truly;

Dual, from the lowest up,

   All her works rise duly;

And the wise their spirits ope

So to Being's sense and scope,

They can smile at grief, and weep

At their joys so calm and deep.