The Path Too Fair

The Path Too Fair

The chapel bell is ringing

In the bistered hand of day,

And I am standing near 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 a tower

In a park some 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, we live love’s 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, but for the tender heart

 

We are the waking of a mind,

The scribblings in a tome �"

 

A glancing back upon the bay,

As we are going home

 

 

 

 

Nostalgia is more than a sigh

We gather from the past:

 

It is the pith of all we love,

And all love has amassed

 

In each decision, joy, and pain

That we in wonder hear

 

Upon the sounding of a bell,

When God to us is near

 

-

 

I pass a 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. Moreover, he believed that his work could only affirm what is, and could not break new ground since art merely “reflects upon” those things that have existed since the beginning of time.

 

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.”