Chapter III

Re-born, re-born
From the splendid sea,
There should you awake and sing,
With every supple sweet from the head to the feet
Modelled like a wood-dove's wing,--
O, to awake, to shake away the night,
And find you happy there,
On the other side of death, with the sea-wind blowing round you,
And the scent of the thyme in your hair.

THE STRANGE GUEST

You cannot leave a new house
With any open door,
But a strange guest will enter it
And never leave it more.

Build it on a waste land,
Dreary as a sin.
Leave her but a broken gate,
And Beauty will come in.

Build it all of scarlet brick.
Work your wicked will.
Dump it on an ash-heap
Then--O then, be still.

Sit and watch your new house.
Leave an open door.
A strange guest will enter it
And never leave it more.

She will make your raw wood
Mellower than gold.
She will take your new lamps
And sell them for old.

She will crumble all your pride,
Break your folly down.
Much that you rejected
She will bless and crown.

She will rust your naked roof,
Split your pavement through,
Dip her brush in sun and moon
And colour it anew.

Leave her but a window
Wide to wind and rain,
You shall find her footsteps
When you come again.

Though she keep you waiting
Many months or years,
She shall stain and make it
Beautiful with tears.

She shall hurt and heal it,
Soften it and save,
Blessing it, until it stand
Stronger than the grave.

_You cannot leave a new house
With any open door,
But a strange guest will enter it
And never leave it more._

GHOSTS

O to creep in by candle-light,
When all the world is fast asleep,
Out of the cold winds, out of the night,
Where the nettles wave and the rains weep!
O, to creep in, lifting the latch
So quietly that no soul could hear,
And, at those embers in the gloom,
Quietly light one careful match--
You should not hear it, have no fear--
And light the candle and look round
The old familiar room;
To see the old books upon the wall
And lovingly take one down again,
And hear--O, strange to those that lay
So patiently underground--
The ticking of the clock, the sound
Of clicking embers ...
watch the play
Of shadows ...
till the implacable call
Of morning turn our faces grey;
And, or ever we go, we lift and kiss
Some idle thing that your hands may touch,
Some paper or book that your hands let fall,
And we never--when living--had cared so much
As to glance upon twice ...
But now, O bliss
To kiss and to cherish it, moaning our pain,
Ere we creep to the silence again.

THE DAY OF REMEMBRANCE

Dazzle of the sea, azure of the sky, glitter of the dew on the grass,
Pass to Oblivion
In the darkness
With all that ever is or ever was.

Yet, O flocks of cloud with your violet shadows, O white may crowding
o'er the lane,
The Shepherd that drives you
To the darkness
Shall lead you thro' the crimson dawn again.

Bear your load of beauty to the sunset, and the golden gates of death.
The Eternal shall remember
In the darkness
And recall you at a word, at a breath.

Even as the mind of a man may remember his lost and linkless hours,
This world that is scattered
To the darkness
Dismembered and dis-petalled, clouds and flowers,

Cities, suns, and systems, as He said of old, they sleep! Not a bird,
not a leaf shall pass by,
But on the day of remembrance
In the darkness,
In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye,

They shall flash to their places in the music of the whole, even as our
fathers said!
For a Power shall remember
In the darkness,
And the universal sea give up her dead.

ON THE EMBANKMENT

Within, it was colour and laughter, warmth and wine.
Without, it was darkness, hunger and bitter cold,
Where those white globes on the wet Embankment shine,
Greasing the Thames with gold.

And was it a bundle of fog in the dark drew nigh?
A bundle of rags and bones it crept to the light,--
A monstrous thing that coughed as it shuffled by,
A shape of the shapeless night,

Spawned as brown things that mimic their mothering earth,
Green creeping things that the grass lifts to the sun,
Out of its wrongs the City had brought to the birth
The shape of those wrongs, in one.

A woman, a woman whose lips had once been kissed,
(It was Christmas Eve, and the bells began their chime!)
She sank to a seat like a coughing bundle of mist
Exhaled from the river-slime.

_Bells for the birth of Christ!_ She heard, and she thought--
Vacantly--of her man, that was long since dead,
The smell of the Christmas food, and the drink they had bought
Together, the year they were wed.

She thought of their one-room home, and the night-long sigh
Recalled, as he slept, of his breath in her loosened hair.
_He slept._ She opened her haggard eyes with a cry.
But only the night was there.

Nay, out of the formless night, at her furtive glance,
Crouched at the end of her cold wet bench, there grew
A bundle of fog, a bundle of rags that, perchance,
Once was a woman, too.

A huddled shape, a fungus of foul grey mist
Spawned of the river, in peace and much good-will,
And even the woman whose lips had once been kissed
Wondered, it crouched so still.

No breath, no shadow of breath in the lamp-light smoked,
It crouched so still--that bunch at the bench's end.
She stretched her neck like a crow, then leaned and croaked,
"_A Merry Christmas, friend!_"

She rose, and peered, peered at its vacant eyes.
Touched its cold claws. Its arms of knotted bone
Were wands of ice; like iron rods the thighs;
The left breast--like a stone.

_Far, far along the rows of warmth and light
The Christmas waits, with cornet and bassoon,
Carolled "While shepherds watched their flocks by night."
The bells pealed to the moon._

A bundle of rags and bones, a bundle of mist,
And never a hell or heaven to hear or see,
The woman, the woman whose lips had once been kissed,
Knelt down feverishly.

She plucked the shawl out of that frozen clutch.
The dead are dead. Why should the living freeze?
She touched the cold flesh that she feared to touch
Kneeling upon her knees.

Her palsied hands unlaced the shoes--good shoes!--
She tore them quick from the crooked yellow feet.
If Death be generous, why should Life refuse
To take, and pawn, and eat?

A heavy step drew nearer thro' the mist.
She bundled them into the shawl. Her eyes were bright.
The woman, the woman whose lips had once been kissed,
Slunk, chuckling, thro' the night.

THE IRON CROWN

Not memory of a vanished bliss,
But suddenly to know,
I had forgotten! This, O this
With iron crowned my woe:

To know that on some midnight sea
Whence none could lift the pall
A drowning hand was waved to me,
Then--swept beyond recall.

THE OLD DEBATE

His angels fell, and myriads grope
In doubt, for this dark cause alone,--
That God hath given them room for hope,
And made their struggling wills their own.

In the same breath, they plead for chains
And freedom; pray for ordered spheres,
Then murmur that the sun retains
Its course, unchecked by smiles or tears.

"The Omnipotent would grant us this,
Or else He is not good," they say;
But O, the Power withholds their bliss
Till they agree what prayer to pray.

A SONG OF HOPE

Not in those eyes, too kind for truth,
Which dare not note how beauties wane;
Nor in that crueller joy of youth
Which turns from sorrow with disdain;
No--no--not there,
Abides the hope that answers our despair.

Lie where they hid thy dead away.
Knock on that unrelenting door;
Then break, O desolate heart, and say
Farewell, farewell, for evermore ...
There, only there,
Abides the hope that conquers all despair.

The silence that refused to bless
Till grief had turned the heart to stone ...
What soul compact of nothingness
Could hear so fierce a trumpet blown?
Then hear, O hear,
The dreadful hope that equals all despair.

There, till the deep atoning Might
Shall answer all that each can pray,
The very boundlessness of night
Proclaims--and waits--an equal day.
There, only there,
--_But O, sing low, sweet strings, lest hope take wing!_--
Abides the hope that answers all despair.

THE HEDGE-ROSE OPENS

How passionately it opens after rain,
And O, how like a prayer
To those great shining skies! Do they disdain
A bride so small and fair?
See the imploring petals, how they part
And utterly lay bare
The perishing treasures of that piteous heart
In wild surrender there.
What? Would'st _thou_, too, drink up the Eternal bliss,
Ecstatically dare,
O, little bride of God, to invoke _His_ kiss?--
But O, how like a prayer!

THE MAY-TREE

The May-tree on the hill
Stands in the night
So fragrant and so still,
So dusky white.

That, stealing from the wood
In that sweet air,
You'd think Diana stood
Before you there.

If it be so, her bloom
Trembles with bliss.
She waits across the gloom
Her shepherd's kiss.

Touch her. A bird will start
From those pure snows,--
The dark and fluttering heart
Endymion knows.

OLD LETTERS

Read them? Strangle that sick cry?
Christ God, no!
Shut the box. Lock the lid.
You'll be safer--so.
Could you read one crooked word
Scrawled so long ago,
Love would rise before your face
And blind you, like a blow.

_Close it! Quickly! For I caught,
In a childish hand,
Something that she never thought
I should understand._

So I crouch. And shall our God
Prove Him baser yet,
He who filled her eyes with light
Quite renounce His debt,

Give her worlds to love, and then--
Ere the sun be set,
Strike her down and coffin all?
Christ, shall _He_ forget?

_Close it! Quickly! For I caught,
In a childish hand,
Something that she never thought
I should understand._

LAMPS

Immense and silent night,
Over the lonely downs I go;
And the deep gloom is pricked with points of light
Above me and below.

I cannot break the bars
Of Time and Fate; and if I scan the sky,
There comes to me, questioning those cold stars,
No signal, no reply.

Yet are they less than these--
These village-lights, which I do scan
Below me, or far out on darkling seas
Those messages from man?

Round me the darkness rolls.
Out of the depth, each lance of light
Shoots from lost lanthorns, thrills from living souls,
And shall I doubt the height?

No signal? No reply?
As through the deepening night I roam,
Hope opens all her casements in the sky
And lights the lamps of home.

AT EDEN GATES

_To Eden Garden_--so the sign-post said;
I could not see the road;
But, where the Sussex clover blossomed red
Its runaway blisses flowed.

I traced them back for many a night and day,
--The way she, too, had gone!--
Till lo, the terrible Angel in the way
Inexorably shone.

Up to the Gates, a fearless fool I came;
Between the lily and rose
Fluttering these evil rags of sordid shame,
A thing to scare the crows.

"And hath the Master given thee, then, no word?"
The scornful Angel smiled:
Only two souls may pass my Flaming Sword,--
The Lover and the Child.

I raised my head,--"Now let all hell make mirth,
Where Love went, I go, too!"
His eyes met mine. The sword sank to the earth,
And let her lover through.

THE PSYCHE OF OUR DAY

As constant lovers may rejoice
With seas between, with worlds between,
Because a fragrance and a voice
Are round them everywhere:
So let me travel to the grave,
Believing still--for I have seen--
That Love's triumphant banners wave
Beyond my own despair.

I have no trust in my own worth;
Yet have I faith, O love, for you,
That every beauty in bloom or leaf,
That even age and wrong
May touch, may hurt you, on this earth,
But only, only as kisses do;
Or as the fretted string of grief
Completes the bliss of song;

That you shall see, on any grave
The snow fall, like that unseen hand
Which O, so often, pressed your hair
To cherish and console:
That seas may roar and winds rave
But you shall feel and understand
What vast caresses everywhere
Convey you to the goal.

So was it always in the years
When Love began, when Love began
With eyes that were not touched of tears
And lips that still could sing--
And all around us, in the may,
The child-god with his laughter ran,
And every bloom, on every spray,
Betrayed his fluttering wing.

So hold it, keep it, count it, sweet,
Until the end, until the end.
It is not cruelty, but bliss
That pains and is so fond:
Crush life like thyme beneath your feet,
And O, my love, when that strange friend,
The Shadow of Wings, which men call Death
Shall close your eyes, with that last kiss,
Ask not His name. A rosier breath
Shall waken you--beyond.

PARACLETE

Tongue hath not told it,
Heart hath not known;
Yet shall the bough swing
When it hath flown.

Dreams have denied it,
Fools forsworn:
Yet it hath comforted
Each man born.

Once and again it is
Blown to me,
Sweet from the wild thyme,
Salt from the sea;

Blown thro' the ferns
Faint from the sky;
Shadowed in water,
Yet clear as a cry.

Light on a face,
Or touch of a hand,
Making my still heart
Understand.

Earth hath not seen it.
Nor heaven above,
Yet shall the wild bough
Bend with the Dove.

Yea, tho' the bloom fall
Under Thy feet,
_Veni, Creator,
Paraclete!_

AFTER RAIN

Listen! On sweetening air
The blackbird growing bold
Flings out, where green boughs glisten,
Three splashes of wild gold.

Daughter of April, hear;
And hear, O barefoot boy!
That carol of wild sweet water
Has washed the world with joy.

Glisten, O fragrant earth
Assoiled by heaven anew,
And O, ye lovers, listen,
With eyes that glisten, too.

THE DEATH OF A GREAT MAN

No--not that he is dead. The pang's not there,
Nor in the City's many-coloured bloom
Of swift black-lettered posters, which the throng
Passes with bovine stare,
To say _He is dead_ and _Is it going to rain?_
Or hum stray snatches of a rag-time song.
Nor is it in that falsest shibboleth
(Which orators toss to the dumb scorn of death)
That all the world stands weeping at his tomb.
London is dining, dancing, through it all.
And, in the unchecked smiles along the street
Where men, that slightly knew him, lightly meet,
With all the old indifferent grimaces,
There is no jot of grief, no tittle of pain.
No. No. For nearer things do most tears fall.
Grief is for near and little things. But pride,
O, pride was to be found by two or three,
And glory in his great battling memory,
Prouder and purer than the loud world knows,
In one more dreadful sign, the day he died--
The dreadful light upon a thousand faces,
The peace upon the faces of his foes.

THE ROMAN WAY

He that has loyally served the State
Whereof he found himself a part,
Or spent his life-blood to create
A kingdom's treasure in his art;

Who sees the enemies of his land
Applauded, by her sects and schools;
And the high thought they scarce had scanned
Derided and befogged by fools;

--Better to know it soon than late!--
Struggling, he wins a meed of praise;
Achieving, he is dogged by hate
And furtive malice all his days.

O, Emperor of the Stoic clan,
Enfold him, then, with nobler pride.
Teach him that nought can hurt a man
Who will not turn or stoop to chide.

Can falsehood kindle or bedim
One bay-leaf in his quiet crown?
Ten thousand Lies may pluck at him,
But only Truth can tear him down.

Why should he heed the thing they say?
They never asked if it were true.
Why brush one scribbler's tale away
For others to invent a new?

No, let him search his heart, secure
--If Truth be there--from tongue or pen;
And teach us, Emperor, to endure,
To think like Romans and like men.

THE INNER PASSION

There is a Master in my heart
To whom, though oft against my will,
I bring the songs I sing apart
And strive to think that they fulfil
His silent law, within my heart.

But He is blind to my desires,
And deaf to all that I would plead:
He tests my truth at purer fires
And shames my purple with His need.
He claims my deeds, not my desires.

And often when my comrades praise,
I sadden, for He turns from me!
But, sometimes, when they blame, I raise
Mine eyes to His, and in them see
A tenderness too deep for praise.

He is not to be bought with gold,
Or lured by thornless crowns of fame;
But when some rebel thought hath sold
Him to dishonour and to shame,
And my heart's Pilate cries, "Behold,"

"Behold the Man," I know Him then;
And all those wild thronged clamours die
In my heart's judgment hall again,
Or if it ring with "Crucify!"
Some few are faithful even then.

Some few sad thoughts,--one bears His cross;
To that dark Calvary of my pride;
One stands far off and mourns His loss,
And one poor thief on either side
Hangs on his own unworthy cross.

And one--O, truth in ancient guise!--
Rails, and one bids him cease alway,
And the God turns His hungering eyes
On that poor thought with, "Thou, this day,
Shalt sing, shalt sing, in Paradise."

A COUNTRY LANE IN HEAVEN

The exceeding weight of glory bowed
My head, in that pure clime:
I found a road that ran through cloud
Along the coasts of Time....

Out of that mist of years there came
A cross-barred gate of wood.
I clutched, I kissed the unheavenly frame
So hard, it trickled blood.

My head upon the iron lay.
I slobbered blood and foam.
Yea, like a dog, I knew the way,
A hundred yards from home.

_Iron and blood and wood! They knew
The secret of that cry
When the Eternal Passion drew
Their Maker through--to die._

I knew each little hawthorn-cloud
Along my misty lane,
Then my heart burst. She sobbed aloud,
Between my arms again.

TO THE DESTROYERS

Yes. You have shattered many an ancient wrong,
And we were with you, heart and mind and soul,
But there are fools who cast away control
In life and thought and art; because the Strong--
We dare to say it--have now destroyed so long,
That careless minds forget the unchanging goal--
The nobler Order which shall make us whole,
The Service which is freedom, beauty, song.

We shall be stoned as traitors to your cause
While the real traitors that you did not know,
Chaos and Vice, trumpet themselves as free.
Pray God that, loyal to the Eternal laws,
A little remnant, mauled by friend and foe,
Save you through Truth, and bring you Liberty.

THE TRUMPET-CALL

I

Trumpeter, sound the great recall!
Swift, O swift, for the squadrons break,
The long lines waver, mazed in the gloom!
Hither and thither the blind host blunders.
Stand thou firm for a dead Man's sake,
Firm where the ranks reel down to their doom,
Stand thou firm in the midst of the thunders,
Stand where the steeds and the riders fall,
Set the bronze to thy lips and sound
A rally to ring the whole world round.
Trumpeter, rally us, rally us, rally us!
Sound the great recall.

II

Trumpeter, sound for the ancient heights!
Clouds of the earth-born battle cloak
The heaven that our fathers held from of old;
And we--shall we prate to their sons of the gain
In gold or bread? Through yonder smoke
The heights that never were won with gold
Wait, still bright with their old red stain,
For the thousand chariots of God again,
And the steel that swept thro' a hundred fights
With the Ironsides, equal to life and death,
The steel, the steel of their ancient faith.
Trumpeter, rally us, rally us, rally us!
Sound for the sun-lit heights.

III

Trumpeter, sound for the faith again!
Blind and deaf with the dust and the blood,
Clashing together we know not whither
The tides of the battle would have us advance.
Stand thou firm in the crimson flood,
Send the lightning of thy great cry
Through the thunders, athwart the storm,
Sound till the trumpets of God reply
From the heights we have lost in the steadfast sky,
From the Strength we despised and rejected. Then,
Locking the ranks as they form and form,
Lift us forward, banner and lance,
Mailed in the faith of Cromwell's men,
When from their burning hearts they hurled
The gage of heaven against the world!
Trumpeter, rally us, rally us, rally us,
Up to the heights again.

IV

Trumpeter, sound for the last Crusade!
Sound for the fire of the red-cross kings,
Sound for the passion, the splendour, the pity
That swept the world for a dead Man's sake,
Sound, till the answering trumpet rings
Clear from the heights of the holy City,
Sound till the lions of England awake,
Sound for the tomb that our lives have betrayed;
O'er broken shrine and abandoned wall,
Trumpeter, sound the great recall,
Trumpeter, rally us, rally us, rally us;
Sound for the last Crusade!