Chapter III: Part 3

Passive I lie: shine down,
Pierce through the will with straight
Swift beams, one after one,
Divide, disintegrate,

Free me from self,--resume
My place, and be Thou there;
Yet also keep me. Come
Thou Saviour and Thou Slayer!

III

Nothing remains to say to Thee, O Lord,
I am confessed,
All my lips’ empty crying Thou hast heard,
My unrest, my rest.
Why wait I any longer? Thou dost stay,
And therefore, Lord, I would not go away.

Let me be at Thy feet a little space,
Forget me here;
I will not touch Thy hand, nor seek Thy face,
Only be near,
And this hour let Thy nearness feed the heart,
And when Thou goest I also will depart.

Then when Thou seekest Thy way, and I, mine
Let the World be
Not wide and cold after this cherishing shrine
Illum’d by Thee,
Nay, but worth worship, fair, a radiant star,
Tender and strong as Thy chief angels are.

Yet bid me not go forth: I cannot now
Take hold on joy,
Nor sing the swift, glad song, nor bind my brow;
Her wise employ
Be mine, the silent woman at Thy knee
In the low room in little Bethany.

IV

Ah, that sharp thrill through all my frame!
And yet once more! Withstand
I can no longer; in Thy name
I yield me to Thy hand.

Such pangs were in the soul unborn,
The fear, the joy were such,
When first it felt in that keen morn
A dread, creating touch.

Maker of man, Thy pressure sure
This grosser stuff must quell;
The spirit faints, yet will endure,
Subdue, control, compel.

The Potter’s finger shaping me....
Praise, praise! the clay curves up
Not for dishonour, though it be
God’s least adornèd cup.

V

Sins grew a heavy load and cold,
And pressed me to the dust;
“Whither,” I cried, “can this be rolled
Ere I behold the Just?”

But now I claim them for my own;
Thy face I needs must find;
Lo! thus I wrought, yea, I alone,
Not weak, beguiled, or blind.

See my full arms, my heaped-up shame,
An evil load I bring:
Thou, God, art a consuming flame,
Accept the hateful thing.

Pronounce the dread condemning word,
I stand in blessed fear;
Dear is Thy cleansing wrath, O Lord,
The fire that burns is dear.

VI

I found Thee in my heart, O Lord,
As in some secret shrine;
I knelt, I waited for Thy word,
I joyed to name Thee mine.

I feared to give myself away
To that or this; beside
Thy altar on my face I lay,
And in strong need I cried.

Those hours are past. Thou art not mine,
And therefore I rejoice,
I wait within no holy shrine,
I faint not for the voice.

In Thee we live; and every wind
Of heaven is Thine; blown free
To west, to east, the God unshrined
Is still discovering me.

IN THE CATHEDRAL CLOSE

In the Dean’s porch a nest of clay
With five small tenants may be seen,
Five solemn faces, each as wise
As though its owner were a Dean;

Five downy fledglings in a row,
Packed close, as in the antique pew
The school-girls are whose foreheads clear
At the _Venite_ shine on you.

Day after day the swallows sit
With scarce a stir, with scarce a sound,
But dreaming and digesting much
They grow thus wise and soft and round.

They watch the Canons come to dine,
And hear the mullion-bars across,
Over the fragrant fruit and wine
Deep talk of rood-screen and reredos.

Her hands with field-flowers drench’d, a child
Leaps past in wind-blown dress and hair,
The swallows turn their heads askew--
Five judges deem that she is fair.

Prelusive touches sound within,
Straightway they recognize the sign,
And, blandly nodding, they approve
The minuet of Rubinstein.

They mark the cousins’ schoolboy talk,
(Male birds flown wide from minster bell),
And blink at each broad term of art,
Binomial or bicycle.

Ah! downy young ones, soft and warm,
Doth such a stillness mask from sight
Such swiftness? can such peace conceal
Passion and ecstasy of flight?

Yet somewhere ’mid your Eastern suns,
Under a white Greek architrave
At morn, or when the shaft of fire
Lies large upon the Indian wave,

A sense of something dear gone-by
Will stir, strange longings thrill the heart
For a small world embowered and close,
Of which ye some time were a part.

The dew-drench’d flowers, the child’s glad eyes
Your joy unhuman shall control,
And in your wings a light and wind
Shall move from the Maestro’s soul.

FIRST LOVE

My long first year of perfect love,
My deep new dream of joy;
She was a little chubby girl,
I was a chubby boy.

I wore a crimson frock, white drawers,
A belt, a crown was on it;
She wore some angel’s kind of dress
And such a tiny bonnet,

Old-fashioned, but the soft brown hair
Would never keep its place;
A little maid with violet eyes,
And sunshine in her face.

O my child-queen, in those lost days
How sweet was daily living!
How humble and how proud I grew,
How rich by merely giving!

She went to school, the parlour-maid
Slow stepping to her trot;
That parlour-maid, ah, did she feel
How lofty was her lot!

Across the road I saw her lift
My Queen, and with a sigh
I envied Raleigh; my new coat
Was hung a peg too high.

A hoard of never-given gifts
I cherished,--priceless pelf;
’Twas two whole days ere I devour’d
That peppermint myself.

In Church I only prayed for her--
“O God bless Lucy Hill;”
Child, may His angels keep their arms
Ever around you still.

But when the hymn came round, with heart
That feared some heart’s surprising
Its secret sweet, I climb’d the seat
’Mid rustling and uprising;

And there against her mother’s arm
The sleeping child was leaning,
While far away the hymn went on,
The music and the meaning.

Oh I have loved with more of pain
Since then, with more of passion,
Loved with the aching in my love
After our grown-up fashion;

Yet could I almost be content
To lose here at your feet
A year or two, you murmuring elm,
To dream a dream so sweet.

THE SECRET OF THE UNIVERSE: AN ODE

(_By a Western Spinning Dervish_)

I spin, I spin, around, around,
And close my eyes,
And let the bile arise
From the sacred region of the soul’s Profound;
Then gaze upon the world; how strange! how new!
The earth and heaven are one,
The horizon-line is gone,
The sky how green! the land how fair and blue!
Perplexing items fade from my large view,
And thought which vexed me with its false and true
Is swallowed up in Intuition; this,
This is the sole true mode
Of reaching God,
And gaining the universal synthesis
Which makes All--One; while fools with peering eyes
Dissect, divide, and vainly analyse.
So round, and round, and round again!
How the whole globe swells within my brain,
The stars inside my lids appear,
The murmur of the spheres I hear
Throbbing and beating in each ear;
Right in my navel I can feel
The centre of the world’s great wheel.
Ah peace divine, bliss dear and deep,
No stay, no stop,
Like any top
Whirling with swiftest speed, I sleep.
O ye devout ones round me coming,
Listen! I think that I am humming;
No utterance of the servile mind
With poor chop-logic rules agreeing
Here shall ye find,
But inarticulate burr of man’s unsundered being.
Ah, could we but devise some plan,
Some patent jack by which a man
Might hold himself ever in harmony
With the great Whole, and spin perpetually,
As all things spin
Without, within,
As Time spins off into Eternity,
And Space into the inane Immensity,
And the Finite into God’s Infinity,
Spin, spin, spin, spin.

BEAU RIVAGE HOTEL

SATURDAY EVENING

Below there’s a brumming and strumming
And twiddling and fiddling amain,
And sweeping of muslins and laughter,
And pattering of luminous rain.

Fair England, resplendent Columbia,
Gaul, Teuton,--how precious a smother!
But the happiest is brisk little Polly
To galop with only her brother.

And up to the fourth étage landing,
Come the violins’ passionate cries,
Where the pale femme-de-chambre is sitting
With sleep in her beautiful eyes.

IN A JUNE NIGHT

(_A Study in the manner of Robert Browning_)

I

See, the door opens of this alcove,
Here we are now in the cool night air
Out of the heat and smother; above
The stars are a wonder, alive and fair,
It is a perfect night,--your hand,--
Down these steps and we reach the garden,
An odorous, dim, enchanted land,
With the dusk stone-god for only warden.

II

Was I not right to bring you here?
We might have seen slip the hours within
Till God’s new day in the East were clear,
And His silence abashed the dancers’ din,
Then each have gone away, the pain
And longing greatened, not satisfied,
By a hand’s slight touch or a glance’s gain,--
And now we are standing side by side!

III

Come to the garden’s end,--not so,
Not by the grass, it would drench your feet;
See, here is a path where the trees o’ergrow
And the fireflies flicker; but, my sweet,
Lean on me now, for one cannot see
Here where the great leaves lie unfurled
To take the whole soul and the mystery
Of a summer night poured out for the world.

IV

Into the open air once more!
Yonder’s the edge of the garden-wall
Where we may sit and talk,--deplore
This half-hour lost from so bright a ball,
Or praise my partner with the eyes
And the raven hair, or the other one
With her flaxen curls, and slow replies
As near asleep in the Tuscan sun.

V

Hush! do you hear on the beach’s cirque
Just below, though the lake is dim,
How the little ripples do their work,
Fall and faint on the pebbled rim,
So they say what they want, and then
Break at the marge’s feet and die;
It is so different with us men
Who never can once speak perfectly.

VI

Yet hear me,--trust that they mean indeed
Oh, so much more than the words will say
Or shall it be ’twixt us two agreed
That all we might spend a night and day
In striving to put in a word or thought,
Which were then from ourselves a thing apart,
Shall be just believed and quite forgot,
When my heart is felt against your heart.

VII

Ah, but that will not tell you all,
How I am yours not thus alone,
To find how your pulses rise and fall,
And winning you wholly be your own,
But yours to be humble, could you grow
The Queen that you are, remote and proud,
And I with only a life to throw
Where the others’ flowers for your feet were strowed.

VIII

Well, you have faults too! I can blame
If you choose: this hand is not so white
Or round as a little one that came
On my shoulder once or twice to-night
Like a soft white dove. Envy her now!
And when you talked to that padded thing
And I passed you leisurely by, your brow
Was cold, not a flush nor fluttering.

IX

Such foolish talk! while that one star still
Dwells o’er the mountain’s margin-line
Till the dawn takes all; one may drink one’s fill
Of such quiet; there’s a whisper fine
In the leaves a-tremble, and now ’tis dumb;
We have lived long years, love, you and I,
And the heart grows faint; your lips, then: come,--
It were not so very hard to die.

FROM APRIL TO OCTOBER

I. BEAUTY

The beauty of the world, the loveliness
Of woodland pools, which doves have coo’d to sleep,
Dreaming the noontide through beneath the deep
Of heaven; the radiant blue’s benign caress
When April clouds are rifted; buds that bless
Each little nook and bower, where the leaves keep
Dew and light shadow, and quick lizards peep
For sunshine,--these, and the ancient stars no less,
And the sea’s mystery of dusk and bright
Are but the curious characters that lie,
Priestess of Beauty, in thy robe of light.
Ah, where, divine One, is thy veiled retreat,
That I may creep to it and clasp thy feet,
And gaze in thy pure face though I should die?

II. TWO INFINITIES

A lonely way, and as I went my eyes
Could not unfasten from the Spring’s sweet things,
Lush-sprouted grass, and all that climbs and clings
In loose, deep hedges, where the primrose lies
In her own fairness, buried blooms surprise
The plunderer bee and stop his murmurings,
And the glad flutter of a finch’s wings
Outstartle small blue-speckled butterflies.
Blissfully did one speedwell plot beguile
My whole heart long; I loved each separate flower,
Kneeling. I looked up suddenly--Dear God!
There stretched the shining plain for many a mile,
The mountains rose with what invincible power!
And how the sky was fathomless and broad!

III. THE DAWN

The Dawn,--O silence and wise mystery!
Was it a dream, the murmurous room, the glitter,
The tinkling songs, the dance, and that fair sitter
I talk’d æsthetics to so rapturously?
Sweet Heaven, thy silentness and purity,
Thy sister-words of blame, not railings bitter,
With these great quiet leaves, and the light twitter
Of small birds wakening in the greenery,
And one stream stepping quickly on its way
So well it knows the glad work it must do,
Reclaim a wayward heart scarce answering true
To that sweet strain of hours that closes May;
How the pale marge quickens with pulsings new,
O welcome to thy world thou fair, great day!

IV. THE SKYLARK

There drops our lark into his secret nest!
All is felt silence and the broad blue sky;
Come, the incessant rain of melody
Is over; now earth’s quietudes invest,
In cool and shadowy limit, that wild breast
Which trembled forth the sudden ecstasy
Till raptures came too swift, and song must die
Since midmost deeps of heaven grew manifest.
My poet of the garden-walk last night
Sang in rich leisure, ceased and sang again,
Of pleasure in green leaves, of odours given
By flowers at dusk, and many a dim delight;
The finer joy was thine keen-edged with pain,
Soarer! alone with thy own heart and heaven.

V. THE MILL-RACE

“Only a mill-race,” said they, and went by,
But we were wiser, spoke no word, and stayed;
It was a place to make the heart afraid
With so much beauty, lest the after sigh,
When one had drunk its sweetness utterly,
Should leave the spirit faint; a living shade
From beechen branches o’er the water played
To unweave that spell through which the conquering sky
Subdues the sweet will of each summer stream;
So this ran freshlier through the swaying weeds.
I gazed until the whole was as a dream,
Nor should have waked or wondered had I seen
Some smooth-limbed wood-nymph glance across the green,
Or Naiad lift a head amongst the reeds.

VI. IN THE WOOD

A place where Una might have fallen asleep
Assured of quiet dreams, a place to make
Sad eyes bright with strange tears; a little lake
In the green heart of a wood; the crystal deep
Of heaven so wide if there should chance to stray
Into that stainless field some thin cloud-flake,
When not a breeze the trance of noon dare break,
About the middle it must melt away.
Lilies upon the water in their leaves,
Stirr’d by faint ripples that go curving on
To little reedy coves; a stream that grieves
To the fine grasses and wild flowers around;
And we two in a golden silence bound,
Not a line read of rich _Endymion_.

VII. THE PAUSE OF EVENING

Nightward on dimmest wing in Twilight’s train
The grey hours floated smoothly, lingeringly;
A solemn wonder was the western sky
Rich with the slow forsaking sunset-stain,
Barred by long violet cloud; hillside and plain
The feet of Night had touched; a wind’s low sigh
Told of whole pleasure lapsed,--then rustled by
With soft subsidence in the rippling grain.
Why in dark dews, unready to depart,
Did Evening pause and ponder, nor perceive
Star follow star into the central blue?
What secret was the burden of her heart?
What grave, sweet memory grew she loath to leave?
What finer sense, no morrow may renew?

VIII. IN JULY

Why do I make no poems? Good my friend
Now is there silence through the summer woods,
In whose green depths and lawny solitudes
The light is dreaming; voicings clear ascend
Now from no hollow where glad rivulets wend,
But murmurings low of inarticulate moods,
Softer than stir of unfledged cushat broods,
Breathe, till o’erdrowsed the heavy flower-heads bend.
Now sleep the crystal and heart-charmèd waves
Round white, sunstricken rocks the noontide long,
Or ’mid the coolness of dim lighted caves
Sway in a trance of vague deliciousness;
And I,--I am too deep in joy’s excess
For the imperfect impulse of a song.

IX. IN SEPTEMBER

Spring scarce had greener fields to show than these
Of mid September; through the still warm noon
The rivulets ripple forth a gladder tune
Than ever in the summer; from the trees
Dusk-green, and murmuring inward melodies,
No leaf drops yet; only our evenings swoon
In pallid skies more suddenly, and the moon
Finds motionless white mists out on the leas.
Dear chance it were in some rough wood-god’s lair
A month hence, gazing on the last bright field,
To sink o’er-drowsed, and dream that wild-flowers blew
Around my head and feet silently there,
Till Spring’s glad choir adown the valley pealed,
And violets trembled in the morning dew.

X. IN THE WINDOW

A still grey evening: Autumn in the sky,
And Autumn on the hills and the sad wold;
No congregated towers of pearl and gold
In the vaporous West, no fiend limned duskily,
No angel whose reared trump must soon be loud,
Nor mountains which some pale green lake enfold
Nor islands in an ocean glacial-cold;
Hardly indeed a noticeable cloud.
Yet here I lingered, all my will asleep,
Gazing an hour with neither joy nor pain,
No noonday trance in midsummer more deep;
And wake with a vague yearning in the dim,
Blind room, my heart scarce able to restrain
The idle tears that tremble to the brim.

XI. AN AUTUMN MORNING

O what a morn is this for us who knew
The large, blue, summer mornings, heaven let down
Upon the earth for men to drink, the crown
Of perfect human living, when we grew
Great-hearted like the Gods! Come, we will strew
White ashes on our hair, nor strive to drown
In faint hymn to the year’s fulfilled renown
The sterile grief which is the season’s due.
Lightly above the vine-rows of rich hills
Where the brown peasant girls move amid grapes
The swallow glances; let him cry for glee!
But yon pale mist diffused ’twixt paler shapes,--
Once sovereign trees,--my spirit also fills,
And an east-wind comes moaning from the sea.

SEA VOICES

Was it a lullaby the Sea went singing
About my feet, some old-world monotone,
Filled full of secret memories, and bringing
Not hope to sting the heart, but peace alone,
Sleep and the certitude of sleep to be
Wiser henceforth than all philosophy?

Truth! did we seek for truth with eye and brain
Through days so many and wasted with desire?
Listen, the same long gulfing voice again:
Tired limbs lie slack as sands are, eyes that tire
Close gently, close forever, twilight grey
Receives you, tenderer than the glaring day.

[_He sleeps, and after an interval awakes._]

Ah terror, ah delight! A sudden cry,
Anguish, or hope, or triumph. Awake, arise,--
The winds awake! Is ocean’s lullaby
This clarion-call? Her kiss, the spray that flies
Salt to the lip and cheek? Her motion light
Of nursing breasts, this swift pursuit and flight?

O wild sea-voices! Victory and defeat,
But ever deathless passion and unrest,
White wings upon the wind and flying feet,
Disdain and wrath, a reared and hissing crest,
The imperious urge, and last, a whole life spent
In bliss of one supreme abandonment.

ABOARD THE “SEA-SWALLOW”

The gloom of the sea-fronting cliffs
Lay on the water, violet-dark,
The pennon drooped, the sail fell in,
And slowly moved our bark.

A golden day; the summer dreamed
In heaven and on the whispering sea,
Within our hearts the summer dreamed;
The hours had ceased to be.

Then rose the girls with bonnets loosed,
And shining tresses lightly blown,
Alice and Adela, and sang
A song of Mendelssohn.

O sweet, and sad, and wildly clear,
Through summer air it sinks and swells,
Wild with a measureless desire,
And sad with all farewells.

SEA-SIGHING

This is the burden of the Sea,
Loss, failure, sorrows manifold;
Yet something though the voice sound free
Remains untold.

Listen! that secret sigh again
Kept very low, a whole heart’s waste;
What means this inwardness of pain?
This sob repressed?

Some ancient sin, some supreme wrong,
Some huge attempt God brought to nought,
All over while the world was young,
And ne’er forgot?

Those lips, which open wide and cry,
Weak as pale flowers or trembling birds,
Are proud, and fixed immutably
Against such words.

Confession from that burdened soul
No ghostly counsellor may win;
Could such as we receive its whole
Passion and sin?

In this high presence priest or king,
Prophet or singer of the earth,
With yon cast sea-weed were a thing
Of equal worth.

IN THE MOUNTAINS

Fatigued of heart, and owning how the world
Is strong, too strong for will of mine, my steps
Through the tall pines I led, to reach that spur
Which strikes from off the mountain toward the West.
I hoped to lull a fretted heart to sleep,
And in the place of definite thought a sense
Possessed me, dim and sweet, of Motherhood,
The breasts of Nature, warmth, and soothing hands,
And tender, inarticulate nursing-words
Slow uttered o’er tired eyes.

But suddenly
Rude waking! Suddenly the rocks, the trees
Stood up in rangèd power, rigid, erect,
And all cried out on me “Away with him!
Away! He is not of us, has no part
In ours or us! Traitor, away with him!”
And the birds shrilled it “Traitor,” and the flowers
Stared up at me with small, hard, insolent eyes.
But I, who had been weak, was weak no more,
Nor shrank at all, but with deliberate step
Moved on, and with both hands waved off the throng,
And feared them not, nor sent defiance back.
Thus, till the pine-glooms fell away, and goats
Went tinkling and no herd-boy near; glad airs
With sunshine in them moved angelical
Upon the solitary heights; the sky
Held not a cloud from marge to marge; and now
Westward the sun was treading, calm and free.
I lay upon the grass, and how an hour
Went past I know not. When again time was,
The sun had fallen, and congregated clouds,
A vision of great glories, held the West,
And through them, and beyond, the hyaline
Led the charm’d spirit through infinite spaces on.
I think of all the men upon this earth
The sight was mine alone; it for my soul,
My soul for it, until all seeing died.
Where did I live transfigured? through what times
Of heaven’s great year? What sudden need of me
For sacrifice on altar, or for priest,
For soldier at the rampart, cup-bearer
At feasts of God, rapt singer in the joy
Of consonant praise, doom’d rebel for the fires?
--I know not, but somewhere some part I held,
Nor fail’d when summoned.

When the body took
Its guest once more the clouds were massy-grey,
The event was ended; yet a certain thing
Abode with me, which still eludes its name,
Yet lies within my heart like some great word
A mage has taught, and he who heard it once
Cannot pronounce, and never may forget.
But this I dare record,--when all was past,
And once again I turned to seek the vale,
And moved adown the slippery pine-wood path,
In the dimness every pine tree bowed to me
With duteous service, and the rocks lay couched
Like armèd followers round, and one bird sang
The song I chose, and heavy fragrance came
From unseen flowers, and all things were aware
One passed who had been called and consecrate.

“THE TOP OF A HILL CALLED _CLEAR_”

(_In sight of the Celestial City_)

And all my days led on to this! the days
Of pallid light, of springs no sun would warm,
Of chilling rain autumnal, which decays
High woods while veering south the quick wings swarm,
The days of hot desire, of broken dreaming,
Mechanic toil, poor pride that was but seeming,
And bleeding feet, and sun-smit flowerless ways.

Below me spreads a sea of tranquil light,
No blue cloud thunder-laden, but pure air
Shot through and through with sunshine; from this height
A man might cast himself in joy’s despair,
And find unhoped, to bear him lest he fall,
Swift succouring wings, and hands angelical,
And circling of soft eyes, and foreheads bright.

Under me light, and light is o’er my head,
And awful heaven and heaven to left and right;
In all His worlds this spot unvisited
God kept, save by the winging of keen light,
And the dread gaze of stars, and morning’s wan
Virginity, for me a living man,
Living, not borne among the enfranchised dead.

New life,--not death! No glow the senses cast
Across the spirit, no pleasure shoots o’er me
Its scattering flaw, no words may I hold fast
Here, where God’s breath streams inexhaustibly;
But conquest stern is mine, a will made sane,
Life’s vision wide and calm, a supreme pain,
An absolute joy; and love the first and last.

THE INITIATION

Under the flaming wings of cherubim
I moved toward that high altar. O, the hour!
And the light waxed intenser, and the dim
Low edges of the hills and the grey sea
Were caught and captur’d by the present Power,
My sureties and my witnesses to be.

Then the light drew me in. Ah, perfect pain!
Ah, infinite moment of accomplishment!
Thou terror of pure joy, with neither wane
Nor waxing, but long silence and sharp air
As womb-forsaking babes breathe. Hush! the event
Let him who wrought Love’s marvellous things declare.

Shall I who fear’d not joy, fear grief at all?
I on whose mouth Life laid his sudden lips
Tremble at Death’s weak kiss, and not recall
That sundering from the flesh, the flight from time,
The judgments stern, the clear apocalypse,
The lightnings, and the Presences sublime.

How came I back to earth? I know not how,
Nor what hands led me, nor what words were said.
Now all things are made mine,--joy, sorrow; now
I know my purpose deep, and can refrain;
I walk among the living not the dead;
My sight is purged; I love and pity men.

RENUNCIANTS

Seems not our breathing light?
Sound not our voices free?
Bid to Life’s festal bright
No gladder guests there be.

Ah, stranger, lay aside
Cold prudence! I divine
The secret you would hide,
And you conjecture mine.

You too have temperate eyes,
Have put your heart to school,
Are proved. I recognize
A brother of the rule.

I knew it by your lip,
A something when you smiled,
Which meant “close scholarship,
A master of the guild.”

Well, and how good is life,
Good to be born, have breath,
The calms good and the strife,
Good life, and perfect death.

Come, for the dancers wheel,
Join we the pleasant din,
--Comrade, it serves to feel
The sackcloth next the skin.

SPEAKERS TO GOD

_First Speaker_

Eastward I went and Westward, North and South,
And the wind blew me from deep zone to zone;
Many strong women did I love; my mouth
I gave for kisses, rose, and straight was gone.

I fought with heroes; there was joyous play
Of swords; my cities rose in every land;
Then forth I fared. O God, thou knowest, I lay
Ever within the hollow of thy hand.

_Second Speaker_

I am borne out to thee upon the wave,
And the land lessens; cry nor speech I hear,
Nought but the leaping waters and the brave
Pure winds commingling. O the joy, the fear!

Alone with thee; sky’s rim and ocean’s rim
Touch, overhead the clear immensity
Is merely God; no eyes of seraphim
Gaze in ... O God, Thou also art the sea!

_Third Speaker_

Thus it shall be a lifetime,--ne’er to meet;
A trackless land divides us lone and long;
Others, who seek Him, find, run swift to greet
Their Friend, approach the bridegroom’s door with song.

I stand, nor dare affirm I see or hear;
How should I dream, when strict is my employ?
Yet if some time, far hence, thou drawest near
Shall there be any joy like to our joy?

POESIA

(_To a Painter_)

Paint her with robe and girdle laid aside,
Without a jewel upon her; you must hide
By sleight of artist from the gazer’s view
No whit of her fair body; calm and true
Her eyes must meet our passion, as aware
The world is beautiful, and she being fair
A part of it. She needs be no more pure
Than a dove is, nor could one well endure
More faultlessness than of a sovran rose,
Reserved, yet liberal to each breeze that blows.
Let her be all revealed, nor therefore less
A mystery of unsearchable loveliness;
There must be no discoveries to be made,
Save as a noonday sky with not a shade
Or floating cloud of Summer to the eye
Which drinks its light admits discovery.
Did common raiment hide her could we know
How hopeless were the rash attempt to throw
Sideways the veil which guards her womanhood?
Therefore her sacred vesture must elude
All mortal touch, and let her welcome well
Each corner, being still unapproachable.
Plant firm on Earth her feet, as though her own
Its harvests were, and, for she would be known
Fearless not fugitive, interpose no bar
’Twixt us and her, Love’s radiant avatar,
No more to be possessed than sunsets are.

MUSICIANS

I know the harps whereon the Angels play,
While in God’s listening face they gaze intent,
Are these frail hearts,--yours, mine; and gently they,
Leaning a warm breast toward the instrument,
And preluding among the tremulous wires,
First draw forth dreams of song, unfledged desires,
Nameless regrets, sweet hopes which will not stay.

But when the passionate sense of heavenly things
Possesses the musician, and his lips
Part glowing, and the shadow of his wings
Grows golden, and fire streams from finger-tips,
And he is mighty, and his heart-throbs thicken,
And quick intolerable pulses quicken,
How his hand lords it in among the strings!

Ah the keen crying of the wires! the pain
Of restless music yearning to out-break
And shed its sweetness utterly, the rain
Of heavenly laughters, threats obscure which shake
The spirit, trampling tumults which dismay,
The fateful pause, the fiat summoning day,
The faultless flower of light which will not wane.

How wrought with you the awful lord of song?
What thirst of God hath he appeased? What bliss
Raised to clear ecstasy? O tender and strong
The eager melodist who leaned o’er this
Live heart of mine, who leans above it now:
The stern pure eyes! the ample, radiant brow!
Pluck boldly, Master, the good strain prolong.

MISCELLANEOUS SONNETS

A DAY OF DEFECTION

This day among the days will never stand,
Carven and clear, a shape of fair delight,
With singing lips, and gaze of innocent might,
Crown’d queenwise, or the lyre within her hand,
And firm feet making conquest of a land
Heavy with fruitage; nay, from all men’s sight
Drop far, cold sun, and let remorseful Night
Cloke the shamed forehead, and the bosom’s brand.
Could but the hammer rive, the thunder-stone
Flung forth from heaven on some victorious morn
Grind it to dust! Slave, must I always see
Thy beauty soil’d? Must shining days foregone
Admit thee peer, and wondering new-born
To-morrow meet thy dull eyes’ infamy?

SONG AND SILENCE

While Sorrow sat beside me many a day,
I,--with head turned from her, and yet aware
How her eyes’ light was on my brow and hair,
The light which bites and blights our gold to grey,--
Still sang, and swift winds bore my songs away
Full of sweet sounds, as of a lute-player
Who sees fresh colours, breathes the ripe soft air,
And hears the cuckoo shout in dells of May,
Being filled with ease and indolent of heart.
So sang I, Sorrow near me: chide me not,
O Joy, for silence now! Hereafter wise,
Large song may come, life blossoming in art,
From this new fate; but leave me, thou long sought,
To gaze awhile into those perfect eyes.

LOVE-TOKENS

I wear around my forehead evermore,
The circlet of your praise, pure gold; and how
I walk forth crown’d, the approving angels know,
And see how I am meeker than before
Being thus proud. For roses my full store,
Upon a cheek where flowers will scantly blow,
Is your lips’ one immortal touch, and lo!
All shame deserts my blood to the heart’s core.
Dare I display love’s choicest gift--this scar
Still sanguine-hued? Here ran your sudden brand
Sheer through the starting flesh, and let abroad
A traitor’s life; your wrathful eyes afar,
Had doom’d him first. Ah, gracious, valiant hand
Which drew me bleeding to the feet of God!

A DREAM

I dreamed I went to seek for her whose sight
Is sunshine to my soul; and in my dream
I found her not; then sank the latest beam
Of day in the rich west; upswam the Night
With sliding dews, and still I searched in vain,
Through thickest glooms of garden-alleys quaint,
On moonlit lawns, by glimmering lakes where faint
The ripples brake and died, and brake again.
Then said I, “At God’s inner court of light
I will beg for her;” straightway toward the same
I went, and lo! upon the altar-stair,
She knelt with face uplifted, and soft hair
Fallen upon shoulders purely gowned in white
And on her parted lips I read my name.

MICHELANGELESQUE

Shaping thy life what if the stubborn stuff
Grudge to inform itself through each dull part
With the soul’s high invention, and thy art
Seem a defeated thing, and earth rebuff
Heaven’s splendour, choosing darkness,--leave the rough
Brute-parts unhewn. Toilest thou for the mart
Or for the temple? Does the God see start
Quick beauty from the block, it is enough.
The spirit, foiled elsewhere, presses to the mouth,
Disparts the lips, lives on the lighted brow,
Fills the wide nostrils, flings the imperious chin
Out proudly. Now behold! the lyric youth,
The wrestler stooping in the act to win,
Pythian Apollo with the vengeful bow.

LIFE’S GAIN

“Now having gained Life’s gain, how hold it fast?
The harder task! because the world is still
The world, and days creep slow, and wear the will,
And Custom, gendering in the heart’s blind waste,
Brings forth a wingèd mist, which with no haste
Upcircling the steep air, and charged with ill,
Blots all our shining heights adorable,
And leaves slain Faith, slain Hope, slain Love the last.”
O shallow lore of life! He who hath won
Life’s gain doth hold nought fast, who could hold all,
Holden himself of strong, immortal Powers.
The stars accept him; for his sake the Sun
Hath sworn in heaven an oath memorial;
Around his feet stoop the obsequious Hours.

COMPENSATION

You shake your head and talk of evil days:
My friend, I learn’d ere I had told twelve years
That truth of yours,--how irrepressible tears
Surprise us, and strength fails, and pride betrays,
And sorrows lurk for us in all the ways
Of joyous living. But now to front my fears
I set a counter-truth which comes and cheers
Our after-life, when, temperate, the heart weighs
Evil with good. Do never smiles surprise
Sad lips? Did the glad violets blow last spring
In no new haunts? Or are the heavens not fair
After drench’d days of June, when all the air
Grows fragrant, and the rival thrushes sing,
Until stars gather into twilight skies?

TO A CHILD DEAD AS SOON AS BORN

A little wrath was on thy forehead, Boy,
Being thus defeated; the resolvèd will
Which death could not subdue, was threatening still
From lip and brow. I know that it was joy
No casual misadventure might destroy
To have lived, and fought and died. Therefore I kill
The pang for thee, unknown; nor count it ill
That thou hast entered swiftly on employ
Where Life would plant a warder keen and pure.
I thought to see a little piteous clay
The grave had need of, pale from light obscure
Of embryo dreams; thy face was as the day
Smit on by storm. Palms for my child, and bay!
Thus far thou hast done well, true son: endure.

BROTHER DEATH

When thou would’st have me go with thee, O Death,
Over the utmost verge, to the dim place,
Practise upon me with no amorous grace
Of fawning lips, and words of delicate breath,
And curious music thy lute uttereth;
Nor think for me there must be sought-out ways
Of cloud and terror; have we many days
Sojourned together, and is this thy faith?
Nay, be there plainness ’twixt us; come to me
Even as thou art, O brother of my soul;
Hold thy hand out and I will place mine there;
I trust thy mouth’s inscrutable irony,
And dare to lay my forehead where the whole
Shadow lies deep of thy purpureal hair.

THE MAGE

When I shall sing my songs the world will hear,
--Which hears not these,--I shall be white with age,
My beard on breast great as befits a mage
So skilled; but song is young, and in no drear
Tome-crammed, lamp-litten chamber shall mine fear
To pine ascetic. Where the woods are deep,
Thick leaves for arras, in a noonday sleep
Of breeze and bloom, gaze, but my art revere!
There I will sit, and score rare wisardry
In characters vermilion, azure, gold,
With bird, starred flower, and peering dragon-fly
Limned in the lines; and secrets shall be told
Of greatest Pan, and lives of wood-nymphs shy,
Blabbed by my goat-foot servitor overbold.

WISE PASSIVENESS

Think you I choose or that or this to sing?
I lie as patient as yon wealthy stream
Dreaming among green fields its summer dream,
Which takes whate’er the gracious hours will bring
Into its quiet bosom; not a thing
Too common, since perhaps you see it there
Who else had never seen it, though as fair
As on the world’s first morn; a fluttering
Of idle butterflies; or the deft seeds
Blown from a thistle-head; a silver dove
As faultlessly; or the large, yearning eyes
Of pale Narcissus; or beside the reeds
A shepherd seeking lilies for his love,
And evermore the all-encircling skies.

THE SINGER’S PLEA

Why do I sing? I know not why, my friend;
The ancient rivers, rivers of renown,
A royal largess to the sea roll down,
And on those liberal highways nations send
Their tributes to the world,--stored corn and wine,
Gold-dust, the wealth of pearls, and orient spar,
And myrrh, and ivory, and cinnabar,
And dyes to make a presence-chamber shine.
But in the woodlands, where the wild-flowers are,
The rivulets, they must have their innocent will
Who all the summer hours are singing still,
The birds care for them, and sometimes a star,
And should a tired child rest beside the stream
Sweet memories would slide into his dream.

THE TRESPASSER

_Trespassers will be prosecuted_,--so
Announced the inhospitable notice-board;
But silver-clear as any lady’s word
_Come in, in, in, come in_, now rich and low,
Now with tumultuous palpitating flow,
I swear by ring of Canace I heard.
“Sure,” said I, “this is no brown-breasted bird,
But some fair princess, lost an age ago
Through stepdame’s cursed spell, till the saints brought her
Who but myself, the knight foredoomed of grace.”
Alas! poor knight, in all that cockney place
You found no magic, save one radiant sight,
The huge, obstreperous house-keeper’s granddaughter,
A child with eyes of pure ethereal light.

RITUALISM

This is high ritual and a holy day;
I think from Palestrina the wind chooses
That movement in the firs; one sits and muses
In hushed heart-vacancy made meek to pray;
Listen! the birds are choristers with gay
Clear voices infantine, and with good will
Each acolyte flower has swung his thurible,
Censing to left and right these aisles of May.
For congregation, see! real sheep most clean,
And I--what am I, worshipper or priest?
At least all these I dare absolve from sin,
Ay, dare ascend to where the splendours shine
Of yon steep mountain-altar, and the feast
Is holy, God Himself being bread and wine.

PROMETHEUS UNBOUND

I, who lie warming here by your good fire,
Was once Prometheus and elsewhere have lain;
Ah, still in dreams they come,--the sudden chain,
The swooping birds, the silence, the desire
Of pitying, powerless eyes, the night, and higher
The keen stars; (if you please I fill again
The bowl, Silenus)--; yet ’twas common pain
Their beaks’ mad rooting; O, but they would tire,
And one go circling o’er the misty vast
On great, free wings, and one sit, head out-bent,
Poised for the plunge; then ’twas I crushed the cry
“Zeus, Zeus, I kiss your feet, and learn at last
The baseness of this crude self-government
Matched with glad impulse and blind liberty.”

KING MOB

Dismiss, O sweet King Mob, your foot-lickers!
When you held court last night I too was there
To listen, and in truth well nigh despair
O’ercame me when I saw your greedy ears
Drink such gross poison. I could weep hot tears
To think how three drugged words avail to keep
A waking people still on the edge of sleep,
And lose the world a right good score of years.
I love you too, big Anarch, lately born,
Half beast, yet with a stupid heart of man,
And since I love, would God that I could warn
Work out the beast as shortly as you can,
Till which time oath of mine shall ne’er be sworn,
Nor knee be bent to you, King Caliban.

THE MODERN ELIJAH

What went ye forth to see? a shaken reed?--
Ye throngers of the Parthenon last night.
Prophet, yea more than prophet, we agreed;
No John a’ Desert with the girdle tight,
And locusts and wild honey for his need,
Before the dreadful day appears in sight
Urging one word to make the conscience bleed,
But an obese John Smith, “a shining light”
(Our chairman felt), “an honour to his creed.”
O by the gas, when buns and tea had wrought
Upon our hearts, how grew the Future bright,--
The Press, the Institutes, Advance of Thought,
And People’s Books, till every mother’s son
Can prove there is a God, or there is none.

DAVID AND MICHAL

(2 SAMUEL vi. 16)

_But then you don’t mean really what you say_--
To hear this from the sweetest little lips,
O’er which each pretty word daintily trips
Like small birds hopping down a garden way,
When I had given my soul full scope to play
For once before her in the Orphic style
Caught from three several volumes of Carlyle,
And undivulged before this very day!
O young men of our earnest school confess
How it is deeply, darkly tragical
To find the feminine souls we would adore
So full of sense, so versed in worldly lore,
So deaf to the Eternal Silences,
So unbelieving, so conventional.

WINDLE-STRAWS

I

Under grey clouds some birds will dare to sing,
No wild exultant chants, but soft and low;
Under grey clouds the young leaves seek the spring,
And lurking violets blow.

And waves make idle music on the strand,
And inland streams have lucky words to say,
And children’s voices sound across the land
Although the clouds be grey.

II

Only maidenhood and youth,
Only eyes that are most fair,
And the pureness of a mouth,
And the grace of golden hair,
Yet beside her we grow wise,
And we breathe a finer air.

Words low-utter’d, simple-sweet,--
Yet, nor songs of morning birds,
Nor soft whisperings of the wheat
More than such clear-hearted words
Make us wait, and love, and listen,
Stir more mellow heart accords.

Only maiden-motions light,
Only smiles that sweetly go,
Girlish laughter pure and bright,
And a footfall like the snow,
What in these should make us wise?
What should bid the blossom blow?

Child! on thee God’s angels wait,
’Tis their robes that wave and part,
Make this summer air elate,
Fresh and fragrant, and thou art
But a simple child indeed,
One dare cherish to the heart.

III

Were life to last for ever, love,
We might go hand in hand,
And pause and pull the flowers that blow
In all the idle land,
And we might lie in sunny fields
And while the hours away
With fallings-out and fallings-in
For half a summer day.

But since we two must sever, love,
Since some dim hour we part,
I have no time to give thee much
But quickly take my heart,
“For ever thine,” and “thine my love,”--
O Death may come apace,
What more of love could life bestow,
Dearest, than this embrace.

IV

Now drops in the abyss a day of life:
I count my twelve hours’ gain;--
Tired senses? vain desires? a baffled strife,
Vexed heart and beating brain?

Ten pages traversed by a languid eye?
--Nay, but one moment’s space
I gazed into the soul of the blue sky;
Rare day! O day of grace!

V

She kissed me on the forehead,
She spoke not any word,
The silence flowed between us,
And I nor spoke nor stirred.

So hopeless for my sake it was,
So full of ruth, so sweet,
My whole heart rose and blessed her,
--Then died before her feet.

VI

Nay, more! yet more, for my lips are fain;
No cups for a babe; I ask the whole
Deep draught that a God could hardly drain,
--Wine of your soul.

Pour! for the goblet is great I bring,
Not worthless, rough with youths at strife,
And men that toil and women that sing,
--It is all my life.

VII

Look forward with those steadfast eyes
O Pilot of our star!
It sweeps through rains and driving snows,
Strong Angel, gaze afar!

Seest thou a zone of golden air?
Hearest thou the March-winds ring?
Or is thy heart prophetic yet
With stirrings of the Spring?

VIII

Words for my song like sighing of dim seas,
Words with no thought in them,--a piping reed,
An infant’s cry, a moan low-uttered,--these
Are all the words I need.

Others have song for broad-winged winds that pass,
For stars and sun, for standing men around;
I put my mouth low down into the grass,
And whisper to the ground.

HERE END THE POEMS
WHICH WERE FIRST
PUBLISHED IN
A VOLUME
IN 1876

MISCELLANEOUS
POEMS OF LATER DATES

AT THE OAR

I dare not lift a glance to you, yet stay
Ye Gracious Ones, still save me, hovering near;
If music live upon mine inward ear,
I know ye lean bright brow to brow, and say
Your secret things; if rippling breezes play
Cool on my cheeks, it is those robes ye wear
That wave, and shadowy fragrance of your hair
Drifted, the fierce noon fervour to allay,
Fierce fervour, ceaseless stroke, small speed, and I
Find grim contentment in the servile mood;
But should I gaze in yon untrammelled sky
Once, or behold your dewy eyes, my blood
Would madden, and I should fling with one free cry
My body headlong in the whelming flood.

THE DIVINING ROD

Here some time flowed my springs and sent a cry
Of joy before them up the shining air,
While morn was new, and heaven all blue and bare;
Here dipped the swallow to a tenderer sky,
And o’er my flowers lean’d some pure mystery
Of liquid eyes and golden-glimmering hair;
For which now, drouth and death, a bright despair,
Shards, choking slag, the world’s dust small and dry.
Yet turn not hence thy faithful foot, O thou,
Diviner of my buried life; pace round,
Poising the hazel-wand; believe and wait,
Listen and lean; ah, listen! even now
Stirrings and murmurings of the underground
Prelude the flash and outbreak of my fate.

SALOME

(_By Henri Regnault_)

Fair sword of doom, and bright with martyr blood,
Thee Regnault saw not as mine eyes have seen;
No Judith of the Faubourg, mænad-queen,
Pale on her tumbril-throne, when the live flood
Foams through revolted Paris, unwithstood,
Is of thy kin. Blossom and bud between,
Clear-brow’d Salome, with her silk head’s sheen,
Lips where a linnet might have pecked for food,
Pure curves of neck, and dimpling hand aloft,
Moved like a wave at sunrise. Herod said--
“A boon for maiden freshness! Ask of me
What toy may please, though half my Galilee;”
And with beseeching eyes, and bird-speech soft,
She fluted: “Give me here John Baptist’s head.”

WATERSHED

Now on life’s crest we breathe the temperate air;
Turn either way; the parted paths o’erlook;
Dear, we shall never bid the Sphinx despair,
Nor read in Sibyl’s book.

The blue bends o’er us; good are Night and Day;
Some blissful influence from the starry Seven
Thrilled us ere youth took wing; wherefore essay
The vain assault on heaven?

And what great Word Life’s singing lips pronounce,
And what intends the sealing kiss of Death,
It skills us not; yet we accept, renounce,
And draw this tranquil breath.

Enough, one thing we know, haply anon
All truths; yet no truths better or more clear
Than that your hand holds my hand; wherefore on!
The downward pathway, Dear!

THE GUEST

Rude is the dwelling, low the door,
No chamber this where men may feast,
I strew clean rushes on the floor,
Set wide my window to the East.

I can but set my little room
In order, then gaze forth and wait;
I know not if the Guest will come,
Who holds aloft his starry state.

MORITURUS

Lord, when my hour to part is come,
And all the powers of being sink,
When eyes are filmed, and lips are dumb,
And scarce I hang upon the brink.

Grant me but this--in that strange light
Or blind amid confused alarms,
One moment’s strength to stand upright
And cast myself into Thy arms.

ALONE

This is the shore of God’s lone love, which stirs
And heaves to some majestic tidal law;
And bright the illimitable horizons’ awe;
God’s love; yet all my soul cries out for hers.

FAME

My arches crumble; that bright dome I flung
Heavenward in pride decays; yet all unmoved
One column soars, and, graven in sacred tongue,
Endure the victor words--“This man was loved.”

WHERE WERT THOU?

Where wert Thou, Master, ’mid that rain of tears,
When grey the waste before me stretched and wide,
And when with boundless silence ached mine ears?
“Child, I was at thy side.”

Where wert Thou when I trod the obscure wood,
And one lone cry of sorrow was the wind,
And drop by heavy drop failed my heart’s blood?
“Before thee and behind.”

Where wert Thou when I fell and lay alone
Faithless and hopeless, yet through one dear smart
Not loveless quite, making my empty moan?
“Son, I was in thy heart.”

A WISH

Could I roll off two heavy years
That lie on me like lead;
And see you past their cloudy tears,
Nor dream that you are dead.

I would not touch your lips, your hair,
Your breast, that once were mine;
Ah! not for me in Faith’s despair
Love’s sacramental wine.

Find you I must for only this
In some new earth or heaven,
To bare my sorry heart, and kiss
Your feet and be forgiven.

THE GIFT

“Now I draw near: alone, apart
I stood, nor deemed I should require
Such access, till my musing heart
Suddenly kindled to desire.

No farther from Thee than Thy feet!
No less a sight than all Thy face!
Nay, touch me where the heart doth beat,
Breathe where the throbbing brain hath place.

Yield me the best, the unnamed good,
The gift which most shall prove me near,
Thy wine for drink, Thy fruit for food,
Thy tokens of the nail, the spear!”

Such cry was mine: I lifted up
My face from treacherous speech to cease,
Daring to take the bitter cup,
But ah! Thy perfect gift was peace.

Quiet deliverance from all need,
A little space of boundless rest,
To live within the Light indeed
To lean upon the Master’s breast.

RECOVERY

I joy to know I shall rejoice again
Borne upward on the good tide of the world,
Shall mark the cowslip tossed, the fern uncurled
And hear the enraptured lark high o’er my pain,
And o’er green graves; and I shall love the wane
Of sea-charm’d sunsets with all winds upfurl’d,
And that great gale adown whose stream are whirl’d,
Pale autumn dreams, dead hopes, and broodings vain.
Nor do I fear that I shall faintlier bless
The joy of youth and maid, or the gold hair
Of a wild-hearted child; then, none the less,
Instant within my shrine, no man aware,
Feed on a living sorrow’s sacredness,
And lean my forehead on this altar-stair.

IF IT MIGHT BE