Arthur Stace

That shy mysterious poet Arthur Stace Whose work was just one single mighty word Walked in the utmost depths of time and space And there his word was spoken and he heard ETERNITY, ETERNITY, it banged him like a bell Dulcet from heaven sounding, sombre from hell. Sometimes it twinkled to him in the sand As though God winked at him, and then he smiled And scooped it up to sift it through his hand; Sometimes it roared upon him vast and wild When the green seas rolled heaving from the Gap; Appalled he stood, to think a man might leap And swim those waves, and could if he had strength, Could count the sand, if he had time enough, And yet the sea was not one inch in length Against those endless miles his thought slid off, ' And though you counted the sand-grains ten times over You'd not begun Eternity's awful number. One two three four, sometimes he counted all day, Five six seven eight, and on far into the night By tens, by thousands, hoping to reach half way, And still before his eyes like swans in flight Though he got up to billions and to trillions The numbers streamed away into the silence. 0 it was in the sky that had no end Where fiery worlds hung glittering in the void; He thought of Heaven where man had his big friend And that was safe he knew and that was good, But at the back of Heaven he felt, he feared, The hellish dark ran on, the wild eyes glared. And it was here in Monday, Tuesday, Friday, In yesterday, tomorrow, morrow, morrow, In Caesar's day, thought Arthur Stace, and my day; It moved in him, it struck him deep with sorrow That men should live in time with all its vanity Or think they did, and yet were in Eternity. For it was like a dark wind in their hair, It burnt their eyes, it roared in their dull ears, It flowed between their fingers with the air, How could they be obsessed with worldly cares, How could they sin, how waste one precious minute When every step they took plunged deeper in it? This must be told, he knew. But how to do it? He was a quiet man and he was shy And had no gift to speak, but like a poet Must write the word that reached him from on high. ETERNITY he'd heard great preachers shout And shook to hear, but say it he could not. No, it must come like moonlight or like frost Silent at night like mushrooms quietly growing To wake the wicked and redeem the lost; Like a white feather in the dawn wind blowing, Perfect and white, like copperplate in chalk ... And that was when Arthur Stace began to walk. All night he walked and most nights of the week, Treading with silent steps the silent town Where none but drunks and whores were still awake, His great word burning where he wrote it down; ETERNITY he wrote, clear pure and pale, And underlined it with the y's long tail, No night-bird saw him for he was an angel Or almost that, upon his holy mission; Unseen he passed the copper with his cudgel, Unseen he climbed the steps at Town Hall station, Invisible, like ectoplasm, he swam Where shops were empty and lights were dim. Sometimes when midnight chimed in Martin Place Behind the arches of the G.P.O. A shadow moved, but was it Arthur Stace? Some flickering thing perhaps crept soft and low On the dark pavement by the Opera House But was it hands that moved there or a mouse? No one could say, one only knew for certain That here, that there, in unexpected places Somewhere that night the great word had been written And Arthur Stace once more had left his traces And bright and spry now like a leprechaun Was stepping home to Pyrmont in the dawn. ETERNITY, it lades like morning dew, Like morning dew and he is lost in it; Yet one can say, as one can say of few, It was the greatest of all words he wrote And if it hardly changed this wicked city God rest his soul, his copperplate was pretty.