Houses
Then a mason came forth and said, "Speak to us of Houses."And he answered and said:
Build of your imaginings a bower in the
wilderness ere you build a house within
the city walls.
For even as you have home-comings in
your twilight, so has the wanderer in you,
the ever distant and alone.
Your house is your larger body.
It grows in the sun and sleeps in the
stillness of the night; and it is not dreamless.
Does not your house dream? And dreaming,
leave the city for grove or hilltop?
Would that I could gather your houses
into my hand, and like a sower scatter them
in forest and meadow.
Would the valleys were your streets,
and the green paths your alleys, that you
might seek one another through vineyards,
and come with the fragrance of the earth in
your garments.
But these things are not yet to be.
In their fear your forefathers gathered
you too near together. And that fear shall
endure a little longer. A little longer shall
your city walls separate your hearths from your
fields.
And tell me, people of Orphalese, what
have you in these houses? And what is it
you guard with fastened doors?
Have you peace, the quiet urge that reveals
your power?
Have you remembrances, the glimmering
arches that span the summits of the mind?
Have you beauty, that leads the heart
from things fashioned of wood and stone to
the holy mountain?
Tell me, have you these in your houses?
Or have you only comfort, and the lust
for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters
the house a guest, and becomes a host,
and then a master?
Ay, and it becomes a tamer, and with hook
and scourge makes puppets of your larger
desires.
Though its hands are silken, its heart
is of iron.
It lulls you to sleep only to stand by your
bed and jeer at the dignity of the flesh.
It makes mock of your sound senses, and
lays them in thistledown like fragile vessels.
Verily the lust for comfort murders the
passion of the soul, and then walks grinning
in the funeral.
But you, children of space, you restless in
rest, you shall not be trapped nor tamed.
Your house shall be not an anchor but a mast.
It shall not be a glistening film that covers
a wound, but an eyelid that guards the
eye.
You shall not fold your wings that you
may pass through doors, nor bend your
heads that they strike not against a ceiling,
nor fear to breathe lest walls should crack
and fall down.
You shall not dwell in tombs made by
the dead for the living.
And though of magnificence and splendour,
your house shall not hold your secret
nor shelter your longing.
For that which is boundless in you abides
in the mansion of the sky, whose door is
the morning mist, and whose windows are
the songs and the silences of night.
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