Chapter IV

When they together saw the Calendar
Slip by in months that wore Spring all days long,
He made his lover’s verse and roundel song,
The burthen of the rhyme his love of her!...
What though the storm swept by with rainy stir,
And winds, like ghosts, would ’round the windows throng,
They sat heart-linked, hand-linked; and bright and strong
Riot ran through their veins like Midsummer.
For palm to palm is exquisite as May;
And lip on lip is mad July at best!
Where is the fire for this pale winter’s day?
For one who sits alone at Death’s behest?
Ghosts of the storm peer in with charnel mirth
At ghosts of ashes on the gusty hearth.

EXCOMMUNICATE

I do not find an altar, or a priest,
Nor any sacred still confessional;
Masses and vespers, I must shun them all,
Tho’ every belfry bid me to the feast!
I may not wear the cross upon my breast;
Nor make its sign;--or in repentance fall
Before the nichèd saint. In canticle
I must not chaunt one frail blurred note, or least.

For my religion is my joy and shame;
My priest, my altar, canticle, and mass
Art thou! and lest thou hear my creed, and know;
Shouldst hear me sing my love, or pray thy name--
Unshriven with my burden I must go;
Proud, excommunicate, I pagan pass!

THE CONFESSION

Oh, when I saw you yesterday I stood
Trembling and silent; thus you could not know
The vibrant, singing beauty, stealing slow,
A sacred fire through my veins and blood.
In the poor, songless, unawakened wood
Of lute forgotten, who can guess the flow
Of hidden harmonies to overthrow
The heart and sense if one set free the flood?
As the deaf master never hears the tone
His genius wakes; so you, who make me sing,
And all the pulses of my life control,
Know but my silence, whilst for you alone
Music and thought and song their concourse ring.
Turn, then, and hear the love-song of my soul.

THE KINGDOM

Behold I bring a Kingdom in my hand,
Oh bend your eyes upon it!... Ways of peace
Lead by its rivers. Fields of rest are these
Above the endless skies of God expand.
Oceans of dear delight kiss on the sand,
And azure islands lift their waving trees
Where virgin forests’ twined interstices
Shadow the pools of sleep, deep inland seas!

This is my lovely Kingdom.... Tho’ you reign
Over an empire, proud, imperial,
Annex this land of beauty to your part;
Else, like a mirage, seen, then lost again
It fade forever! Kingdoms vanish all--
Immortal is the land of love, Sweetheart!

AMOR VICTRIX

Strong Death, proud power invisible, even now
Slowly thou drawest near me in the dark,--
And though within me the clear glowing spark
Of life is warm and beats in heart and brow,
My body shall grow colder, till I bow,
White as the ash, thine unresisting mark.
But for the word from the veiled years I hark,--
As calm and as invincible as Thou.
And when at last I feel thy kisses,--Death,--
My fading lips shall smiling tell thee this--
“Master thou art not! On my Spirit’s shrine
Deathless, although the altar crumbleth.
Ascend twin flames in one,--to find God’s bliss,
As God immortal,--my Love’s love and mine!”

SAINT OUEN

Oh shrive my soul, Belovèd! Yesterday
I placed two candles, straight and slim and fair
Before a virgin’s altar, kneeling there
For our united lives and love to pray.
Around me the cathedral’s stillness lay;
The mystery of God was everywhere;
Lifting the misty aisles through incensed air
Uprose the threading pillars, dim and grey.

God heard my prayer: and He forgave my need,
If after that day’s grace and majesty
I fall and pay my sin with bitter cost;--
You who have taught me prayer again, and creed,
Bend down in dear forgiveness unto me!
Shrive me, Belovèd! or my soul is lost.

RENUNCIATION

I have not ever reached for Paradise;
Nor sought beyond my fellows to be blessed.
Nor hoped where all men fail;--but quick confessed
The Limit, and the taunting Mark that flies.
But since I’ve seen thy soul without disguise;
And dreamed thy love’s great passion once expressed;
I’ve known my portion’s good in one sole best:--
Thy love and thee,--strong Spirit pure and wise!
To read thro’ tortuous lines, at length to see
What is the single goal, the heart’s desire,
And then without possession learn to live,--
Is Life...! Toward this, my chastened mind I give,
And thro’ Renunciation dare aspire
To reach God’s light, thro’ love and loss of thee.

ENVOI

A song of France in the autumn time,
When rooks fly low, then go calling, calling
That summer’s a thing of long ago,
For the golden warmth you would never know,
But the bronze-brown forests tell you so,
And the leaves are falling, falling.

The broad, bright river shines and flows
In sweeps of blue; then goes singing, singing,
Where borders of fern in crimson line
Are aglow like flame in the late sunshine.
In little slim poplars straight and fine,
Mistletoe’s clinging, clinging.

What matter after the sun goes down
If chill creeps out from the forest’s hollow,
Promising winter that earth affrays?
Is not the course of the year always
Toward spring,--and glory of golden days
To follow, follow, follow?

The light of the late year’s in my heart!
It will not linger on death or dying.
Like leaves of the forest, sere and gone,
Are hopes of a future it once looked on;
But Life and Love to goals to be won,
Go flying, flying, flying.