Chapter V

Between the hawk's and the wood-dove's wing,
My love, my love flashed by like Spring!
The year had finished its golden ring!
Earth, the Gipsy, and Heaven, the King,
Were married like notes in the song I sing,
And O, I followed her, followed her, followed her over the hills of
Time,
Never to lose her now I know,
For whom the sun was clasped in snow,
The heights linked to the depths below,
The rose's flush to the planet's glow,
Death the friend to life the foe,
The Winter's joy to the Spring's woe,
And the world made one in a rhyme.

IN MEMORIAM: SAMUEL COLERIDGE-TAYLOR

_Farewell!_ The soft mists of the sunset-sky
Slowly enfold his fading birch-canoe!
_Farewell!_ His dark, his desolate forests cry,
Moved to their vast, their sorrowful depths anew.

Fading! Nay, lifted thro' a heaven of light,
His proud sails brightening thro' that crimson flame,
Leaving us lonely on the shores of night,
Home to Ponemah take his deathless fame.

Generous as a child, so wholly free
From all base pride that fools forgot his crown,
He adored Beauty, in pure ecstasy,
And waived the mere rewards of his renown.

The spark that falls from heaven not oft on earth
To human hearts this vital splendour gives;
His was the simple, true, immortal birth.
Scholars compose; but--_this man's music lives_!

Greater than England or than Earth discerned,
He never paltered with his art for gain:
When many a vaunted crown to dust is turned,
This uncrowned king shall take his throne and reign.

Nations unborn shall hear his forests moan;
Ages unscanned shall hear his winds lament,
Hear the strange grief that deepened through his own
The vast cry of a buried continent.

Through him, his race a moment lifted up
Forests of hands to Beauty as in prayer;
Touched through his lips the sacramental Cup,
And then sank back--benumbed in our bleak air.

Through him, through him, a lost world hailed the light!
The tragedy of that triumph none can tell,--
So great, so brief, so quickly snatched from sight;
And yet--O hail, great comrade, not farewell!

INSCRIPTION

(_For the Grave of Coleridge-Taylor_)

Sleep, crowned with fame; fearless of change or time.
Sleep, like remembered music in the soul,
Silent, immortal; while our discords climb
To that great chord which shall resolve the whole.

Silent with Mozart on that solemn shore;
Secure where neither waves nor hearts can break;
Sleep--till the Master of the World, once more,
Touch the remembered strings, and bid thee wake....

Touch the remembered strings, and bid thee wake.

VALUES

The moon that sways the rhythmic seas,
The wheeling earth, the marching sky,--
I ask not whence the order came
That moves them all as one.

These are your chariots. Nor shall these
Appal me with immensity;
I know they carry one heart of flame
More precious than the sun.

THE HEROIC DEAD

(_On the loss of the Titanic_)

If in the noon they doubted, in the night
They never swerved. Death had no power to appal.
There was one Way, one Truth, one Life, one Light,
One Love that shone triumphant over all.

If in the noon they doubted, at the last
There was no Way to part, no Way but One
That rolled the waves of Nature back and cast
In ancient days a shadow across the sun.

If in the noon they doubted, their last breath
Saluted once again the eternal goal,
Chanted a love-song in the face of Death
And rent the veil of darkness from the soul.

If in the noon they doubted, in the night
They waved the shadowy world of strife aside,
Flooded high heaven with an immortal light,
And taught the deep how its Creator died.

THE CRY IN THE NIGHT

It tears at the heart in the night, that moan of the wind,
That desolate moan.
It is worse than the cry of a child. I can hardly bear
To hear it, alone.

It is worse than the sobbing of love, when love is estranged:
For this is a cry
Out of the desolate ages. It never has changed.
It never can die.

A cry over numberless graves, dark, helpless and blind,
From the measureless past,
To the measureless future, a sobbing before the first laughter,
And after the last!

* * * * *

From the height of creation, in passion eternal, the Word
Rushes forth, the loud cry,
_Forsaken! Forsaken!_ It cuts through the night like a sword!
Shall it win no reply?

Not of earth is that height of all sorrow, past time, out of space,
Therefore here, here and now,
Universal, a Calvary, crowned with Thy passionate face,
Thy thorn-wounded brow.

Ah, could I shrink if Thy heart for each heart upon earth
Must break like a sea?
Could I hear, could I bear it at all, if I were not a part
Of this labour in Thee?

Shall I accuse Thee, then? God, I account it my own
All the grief I can bear,
On Thy Cross of Creation, to balance earth's bliss and atone,
Atone for life there.

If this be the One Way for ever, which not Thine all-might
Could change, if it would,
Till the truth be untrue, till the dark be the same as the light,
And till evil be good,

Shall I who took part in Thine April, shrink now from my part
In Thine anguish to be?
If Thy goal be the One goal of all, shall not even man's heart
Endure this, with Thee;

Die with Thee, balancing life, or help Thee to pay
For our hope with our pain?...
_O, the voice of the wind in the night! Is it day, then, broad day,
On the blind earth again?_

ASTRID

(_An Experiment in Initial Rhymes_)

White-armed Astrid,--ah, but she was beautiful!--
Nightly wandered weeping thro' the ferns in the moon,
Slowly, weaving her strange garland in the forest,
Crowned with white violets,
Gowned in green.
Holy was that glen where she glided,
Making her wild garland as Merlin had bidden her,
Breaking off the milk-white horns of the honey-suckle,
Sweetly dripped the dew upon her small white
Feet.

White-throated Astrid,--ah, but she was beautiful!--
Nightly sought the answer to that riddle in the moon.
She must weave her garland, ere she save her soul.
Three long years she has wandered there in vain.
Always, always, the blossom that would finish it
Falls to her feet, and the garland breaks and vanishes,
Breaks like a dream in the dawn when the dreamer
Wakes.

White-bosomed Astrid,--ah, but she was beautiful!--
Nightly tastes the sorrow of the world in the moon.
Will it be this little white miracle, she wonders.
How shall she know it, the star that will save her?
Still, ah still, in the moonlight she crouches
Bowing her head, for the garland has crumbled!
All the wild petals for the thousand and second time
Fall.

White-footed Astrid,--ah, but she is beautiful!--
Nightly seeks the secret of the world in the moon.
She will find the secret. She will find the golden
Key to the riddle, on the night when she has numbered them,
Marshalled all her wild flowers, ordered them as music,
Star by star, note by note, changing them and ranging them,
Suddenly, as at a kiss, all will flash together,
Flooding like the dawn thro' the arches of the woodland,
Fern and thyme and violet, maiden-hair and primrose
Turn to the Rose of the World, and He shall fold her,
Kiss her on the mouth, saying, all the world is one now,
This is the secret of the music that the soul hears,--
This.

THE INIMITABLE LOVERS

They tell this proud tale of the Queen--Cleopatra,
Subtlest of women that the world has ever seen,
How that, on the night when she parted with her lover
Anthony, tearless, dry-throated, and sick-hearted,
A strange thing befell them in the darkness where they stood.

Bitter as blood was that darkness.
And they stood in a deep window, looking to the west.
Her white breast was brighter than the moon upon the sea,
And it moved in her agony (because it was the end!)
Like a deep sea, where many had been drowned.
Proud ships that were crowned with an Emperor's eagles
Were sunken there forgotten, with their emeralds and gold.
They had drunken of that glory, and their tale was told, utterly,
Told.

There, as they parted, heart from heart, mouth from mouth,
They stared upon each other. They listened.
For the South-wind
Brought them a rumour from afar; and she said,
Lifting her head, too beautiful for anguish,
Too proud for pity,--
_It is the gods that leave the City! O, Anthony,
Anthony, the gods have forsaken us;
Because it is the end! They leave us to our doom.
Hear it!_ And unshaken in the darkness,
Dull as dropping earth upon a tomb in the distance,
They heard, as when across a wood a low wind comes,
A muttering of drums, drawing nearer,
Then louder and clearer, as when a trumpet sings
To battle, it came rushing on the wings of the wind,
A sound of sacked cities, a sound of lamentation,
A cry of desolation, as when a conquered nation
Is weeping in the darkness, because its tale is told;
And then--a sound of chariots that rolled thro' that sorrow
Trampled like a storm of wild stallions, tossing nearer,
Trampled louder, clearer, triumphantly as music,
Till lo! in that great darkness, along that vacant street,
A red light beat like a furnace on the walls,
Then--like the blast when the North-wind calls to battle,
Blaring thro' the blood-red tumult and the flame,
Shaking the proud City as they came, an hundred elephants,
Cream-white and bronze, and splashed with bitter crimson,
Trumpeting for battle as they trod, an hundred elephants,
Bronze and cream-white, and trapped with gold and purple,
Towered like tusked castles, every thunder-laden footfall
Dreadful as the shattering of a City. Yet they trod,
Rocking like an earthquake, to a great triumphant music,
And, swinging like the stars, black planets, white moons,
Thro' the stream of the torches, they brought the red chariot,
The chariot of the battle-god--Mars.
While the tall spears of Sparta tossed clashing in his train,
And a host of ghostly warriors cried aloud
_All hail!_ to those twain, and went rushing to the darkness
Like a pageantry of cloud, for their tale was told--utterly--
Told.

And following, in the fury of the vine, rushing down
Like a many-visaged torrent, with ivy-rod and thyrse,
And many a wild and foaming crown of roses,
Crowded the Bacchanals, the brown-limbed shepherds,
The red-tongued leopards, and the glory of the god!
_Iacchus! Iacchus!_ without dance, without song,
They cried and swept along to the darkness.
Only for a breath when the tumult of their torches
Crimsoned the deep window where that dark warrior stood
With the blood upon his mail, and the Queen--Cleopatra,
Frozen to white marble--the Maenads raised their timbrels,
Tossed their white arms, with a clash--_All hail!_
Like wild swimmers, pale, in a sea of blood and wine,
_All hail! All hail!_ Then they swept into the darkness
And the darkness buried them. Their tale was told--utterly--
Told.

And following them, O softer than the moon upon the sea,
Aphrodite, implacably, shone.
Like a furnace of white roses, Aphrodite and her train
Lifted their white arms to those twain in the silence
Once, and were gone into the darkness;
Once, and away into the darkness they were swept
Like a pageantry of cloud, without praise, without pity.
Then the dark City slept. And the Queen--Cleopatra--
Subtlest of women that this earth has ever seen,
Turning to her lover in the darkness where he stood,
With the blood upon his mail,
Bowing her head upon that iron in the darkness,
Wept.

THE CRAGS

(_In memory of Thomas Bailey Aldrich_)

Falernian, first! What other wine
Should brim the cup or tint the line
That would recall my days
Among your creeks and bays;

Where, founded on a rock, your house
Between the pines' unfading boughs
Watches through sun and rain
That lonelier coast of Maine;

And the Atlantic's mounded blue
Breaks on your crags the summer through,
A long pine's length below,
In rainbow-tossing snow.

While on your railed verandah there
As on a deck you sail through air,
And sea and cloud and sky
Go softly streaming by.

Like delicate oils at set of sun
Smoothing the waves the colours run--
Around the enchanted hull,
Anchored and beautiful,--

Restoring to that sun-dried star
You brought from coral isles afar--
With shells that mock the moon--
The tints of their lagoon;

Till, from within, your lamps declare
Your harbours by the colours there,
An Indian god, a fan
Painted in Old Japan.

But, best of all, I think at night,
The moon that makes a road of light
Across the whispering sea,
A road--for memory.

When the blue dusk has filled the pane,
And the great pine-logs burn again,
And books are good to read.
--For his were books indeed.--

Their silken shadows, rustling, dim,
May sing no more of Spain for him;
No shadows of old France
Renew their courtly dance.

He walks no more where shadows are
But left their ivory gates ajar,
That shadows might prolong
The dance, the tale, the song.

His was no narrow test or rule.
He chose the best of every school,--
Stendhal and Keats and Donne,
Balzac and Stevenson;

Wordsworth and Flaubert filled their place.
Dumas met Hawthorne face to face.
There were both new and old
In his good realm of gold.

The title-pages bore his name;
And, nightly, by the dancing flame,
Following him, I found
That all was haunted ground;

Until a friendlier shadow fell
Upon the leaves he loved so well,
And I no longer read,
But talked with him instead.

THE GHOST OF SHAKESPEARE

1914

Crimson was the twilight, under that crab-tree,
Where--old tales tell us--all a midsummer's night,
A mad young poacher, drunk with mead of elfin-land,
Lodged with the fern-owl, and looked at the stars.

There, from the dusk where the dream of Piers Plowman
Darkens on the sunset, to this dusk of our own,
I read, in a history, the record of our world.

The hawk-moth, the currant-moth, the red-striped tiger-moth
Shimmered all around me, so white shone those pages;
And, in among the blue boughs, the bats flew low.

I slumbered, the history slipped from my hand.
Then I saw a dead man, dreadful in the moon-dawn,
The ghost of the master, bowed upon that book.
He muttered as he searched it,--_what vast convulsion
Mocks my sexton's curse now, shakes our English clay?_
Whereupon I told him, and asked him in turn
Whether he espied any light in those pages
Which painted an epoch later than his own.
_I am a shadow_, he said, _and I see none_....

_I am a shadow_, he said, _and I see none_.

Then, O then he murmured to himself (while the moon hung
Crimson as a lanthorn of Cathay in that crab-tree),
Laughing at his work and the world, as I thought,
Yet with some bitterness, yet with some beauty,
Mocking his own music, these wraiths of his rhymes: