On 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 then

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.