A Path Too Fair

The Path Too Fair

 

The tenor bell is ringing

In the bistered hand of day,

And I am standing on the steps

Above the little cay, that slips

Beneath the fishing pier

And drops into the deep,

To which my mind

Has wandered

In its loves,

 

So long asleep

 

It rings from out the tower

 In the square blocks away,

 

And in its staid recital,

I am pleased to hear it play;

 

I sense in it an unshed tear

That it was meant to wake,

And in a swell of sentiment,

My heart begins to break

 

It seems as if a thing I dreamed

That moved me long ago

Whose purpose then

I could not guess

 

And value did not know

 

It bids me down a path too fair,

A way too dear to dare, for I am old

And cannot risk the beauty that is there

 

Yet I will share a thought with you

That I fear to advance �" It is that though

We have but love, love lives our full expanse

 

We are the portrait’s vibrant paint,

The face, both fresh and dear �"

The essence of a miracle

 

That gives us meaning here

 

We are God’s goodly masterpiece,

The logos in the art; the noble hand

That lifts a lamp and leads a tender heart

 

We are the waking of a mind, the scribblings in a tome �"

The looking back upon the bay, as we are going home

 

Nostalgia is more than a gleam we gather and recast;

It is the pith of all we love, both now and in the past

It is the joy and every pain, that we in wonder hear

Upon the sounding of a bell, when God to us is near

 

I pass the tower on my way, and silently it stands,

And I am mulling how its clock

Is round with moving hands�"

 

I hear a bell that rings within; I hear a bell that chimes

Upon the writing of a poem that echoes, as it rhymes.[1]

---

[1] Paris believed that the purpose of art is to enhance life (primarily his life), and therefore, God was the only audience that mattered to him. He did not care too much about the opinion of others because their judgment is meaningless in the context of eternity.

 

Note: Paris had been contemplating some lines from G.M. Hopkins’ poem, “As Kingfishers Catch Fire” prior to his writing of “A Path Too Fair.” Those lines were: “Each hung bell’s bow swung / Finds tongue to fling out broad its name.”