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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/6597.txt b/6597.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b6bba6d --- /dev/null +++ b/6597.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3398 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Perpetual Light, by William Rose Benet + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Perpetual Light + +Author: William Rose Benet + +Release Date: September, 2004 [EBook #6597] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on December 30, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII, with a few ISO-8859-1 characters + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PERPETUAL LIGHT *** + + + + +Produced by Skip Doughty, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + +PERPETUAL LIGHT + + + + +"Ah, do not turn to me that face which is no longer +of this world!... There are enough angels to +serve the mass in Heaven! Have pity on me, who +am only a man without wings, who rejoiced in this +companion God had given me, and that I should +hear her sigh with her head resting on my shoulder!... +the bitterness like the bitterness of +myrrh... And for you age is already come. +But how hard it is to renounce when the heart is +young!" + +"THE TIDINGS BROUGHT TO MARY" + + + + +PERPETUAL +LIGHT + +A Memorial. + +BY + +WILLIAM ROSE BENÉT + + +..that we may be able to arrive +with pure minds at the festival +of perpetual light. Through the +same Christ our Lord. Amen. +--_Oremus._ + + + + +DEDICATION + +TO KATHLEEN AND MARGARET + +Think of no verse when you read this, +But think of her alone +And her enduring benefice, +Sunlight on stone. + +For day is stone and night is stone +Save she has made them bright, +Now she knows all that may be known +Of day and night. + +Courage like hers we have from her, +Strength to be straight and brave, +And noble memories that recur +And heal and save. + +By her clear eyes, by her pure brows, +We take the Sign, +And kneel within her Father's house-- +And yours and mine. + + + + +ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS + +The first eleven poems in the section entitled, "Before" originally +appeared in my first volume, "Merchants from Cathay" published by the +Century Company. This volume is now out of print and I hold the +copyright. The three poems following these originally appeared in my +second volume, "The Falconer of God and Other Poems." For permission +to reprint a few of the remaining poems I have to thank the editors of +_Reedy's Mirror, The Bang, The Lyric, The Madrigal_, The Sun Dial +_(New York Evening Sun), Everybody's Magazine, The Century +Magazine_, and "Books and the Book World" (New York Sunday Sun). +For the group, "The Long Absence" in the section entitled, "After," I +owe thanks to _The Yale Review_. + + + + +CONTENTS + +FOREWORD + +BEFORE + The Snare of the Fowler + Thwarted Utterance + The Song of Her + "Always I Know You Anew" + The Rival Celestial + The Tamer of Steeds + Love in Armor + Wardrobe of Remembrance + The Second Covenant + Dedication to a First Book + The Shadowed Road + Love in the Dawn + "Had I a Claim to Fame?" + The One + Dream and Deed + A Taper of Incense + To Purity + Atonement + The Adoration + Talisman + Recognition + The Silver Hind + Aristeas Relates His Youth + Man Possessed + Miniature + Death Will Make Clear + Sunlight + And a Long Way Off He Saw Fairyland + In Time of Trouble + Anomaly + The Lover + Judgment + Unforgotten + The Pale Dancer + Premonition + +AFTER + Introductory Poem + The Long Absence + By the Counsel of Her Hands + Strength Beyond Strength + Que Sais-Je? + Ebb-Tide + Coward + Aquilifer + The Woman + Pervigilium + Time Was + The Masters + When + Children + The Retreat + Sealed + + + + +FOREWORD + +TERESA FRANCES THOMPSON, who also bore my name by marriage, died on +January 26, 1919. This verse is published to her memory, because I +wish to keep together the poetry she occasioned and enable those who +loved her--and they were a great many-to know definitely what she was +to me. + +I think that is the truth. This is the only means I have at present of +acknowledging publicly the vast debt I owe to her. + +As I turn these poems over--if they are even to be called poems--I +realize that they can never begin to express what her personality was. +The earliest ones were written by a boy who was in love, and the +latest by a man who has suddenly stepped into the dark. Those between +are fragments from the days when we were struggling along together at +the everyday tasks and outside interests and dreams that possessed us. +The war entered our lives to change them in September, 1917. The poem, +"Man Possessed," was written within sound of her actual voice, the +others all in absence from her at various times and in moods made +strange by absence. + +And yet this is all I have at present to give in her memory. But I +hold by these because--though they are poor, freakish fragments as far +as any real expression of her is concerned--they were made for her. + +It is even harder to express in bald prose a personality that had so +many sides, so many varying strengths, such inner sight and yet such a +forthright splendid intelligence. I have tried once to round it into +periods--and have destroyed the attempt. It is my hope that the sister +to whom she was devoted with an attachment altogether unusual to most +of us will write of her. + +If I merely recount the outlines of her life, it loses her. To say +that her girlhood was given up to an intense and whole-souled devotion +to the life of Christ as taught by the Roman Catholic Church will not +even trace the outlines of that great spiritual adventure. But there, +in the word "adventure," is a dim ideograph of what she found in life. +Every day was an adventure to her with the hope of accomplishing +something over and above mere routine and the pursuit of pleasure. And +she used to say to me that her life had simply been a series of +experiments into which she had put her whole heart, and in which she +had always failed. But, of course, she never failed. + +She wrote me while I was stationed at Washington: + +"I am so very glad of your Sunday experience. I wish that I might have +shared it with you, but I almost did, since we were at Mass there and +walked across that green together.... No one else might be impressed +by it, but you _know_. When I first thought of a convent I was +about sixteen, and I did not go until I was twenty-one. During that +time I had the habit of pretending when I went to sleep that I was +lying full-length in a convent chapel before a dark altar, with its +tiny light. When I went to the Little Sisters, with all its +strangeness and homesickness and wrench away from everything, I was +sustained by the knowledge that our bedroom on the third floor was +across a wide hall from a rose window that looked right down into the +Chapel. The dormitory had windows out into the hall, French fashion, +so that when I opened the one at the head of my bed I was doing just +what I had so often planned. You cannot imagine how personal it seemed +to me. + +"Then years after when I was in the Carmelite convent in London, it +began to snow. I stood at a window looking out at the snow upon the +roofs, and began to think (as you would have in my place), "Deep on the +convent roofs the snows are sparkling to the moon,"--and suddenly I +realized that it was St. Agnes Eve, and that long ago, when I was +perhaps fifteen or sixteen, I had prayed that I might be a Carmelite +nun in England. It was a thrill. No one else knew it. No one else +could possibly have brought either of those two things about but Jesus +Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever." + +And she wrote me later: + +"We will make a go of it together--I have been just where you are +several times in my life. There is no denying that it hurts like the +mischief, but there is something carried away out of it that the +people who don't go through with it do not have. When I came back from +the Little Sisters, after affirming and reaffirming (to strengthen my +own resolution) that I was never coming back, I had to face just the +same old world, and the same streets and people. Then, after the +earthquake, I left Paul Elder's to go out to the settlement in the +Mission. I was full of faith in it, to work among the poor, without +the fetters of a convent, to plan a new way in which Catholic girls +could dedicate themselves to the service of God, using the best of the +Protestant and Catholic ideas both--and in three months I... had +handed in a report which criticized the whole place severely--and my +resignation. I do not know now how much was personal spite on my part +and how far I was right. And back to the same old circle at Paul +Elder's, with another bright bubble broken. Then came the Carmelites, +which cost, I think, more than any, and I remember I so dreaded coming +back to New York and facing everyone that I tried hard to get a +position in London where women get $5.00 a week as trained librarians. +So back again. Well, education as the world hands it out to us is a +mighty expensive thing. You give so much of your heart's blood and get +so little back in any tangible form, but 'youth shows but half' and we +have not yet come to the harvesting years. We might as well sow hopes +and plans and ambitions generously 'and stretch through time a hand to +reap the far-off interest of tears'." + +And she said of the number 19 in her life, in the late fall of 1918: + +"I was thinking a lot about life this morning, coming home from +church. You know the 27th of November is Mother's anniversary.... +Today is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, always a great +Catholic Feast ... Father's birthday was the 23rd of December, he was +buried on Christmas day--their wedding anniversary was December 3lst-- +my birthday is January first, J--'s the seventh, Mother's the fifth. +So the whole season is full of memories, churches, masses, prayers, +associations. And it struck me as strange that this New Year's +finishes another half of my life. I was nineteen that winter. This +year I shall be just twice that. Nineteen years were all childhood, +dreaming, planning, hoping, aspiring, but with no practical care, +no responsibilities of any sort, the most sheltered existence a girl +could have. And now nineteen of as varied an experience as most +people know, teaching, housekeeping, bringing up the younger children, +seven years of Paul Elder's, the settlement house, travel, London, +Rome, Paris, New York, the two convents in Chicago and London, extreme +poverty, self-support, comfortable, moderate means, as you and I had, +luxury such as this and the months with E--, six years a wife, five +years a mother when J--'s birthday rounds it out,--the earthquake, +which we thought transcended in size and importance anything that +would ever happen to us, and then our little share of the tragedy of +the war. Nineteen full years, n'est-ce pas? And now we start a new +life, thank God, together." + +She wrote me earlier, in 1917, while I was waiting to be called to a +Southern training camp: + +"I plan a home some day of the most Spartan simplicity, all our needs +cut down to the lowest and plainest of possessions, and yet a spirit +of hospitality, of contentment, of gaiety, of self-reliance and mutual +helpfulness. Books and bookshelves..." + +And of the Army: + +"It so often makes me think of the religious orders. The combination +of the most heroic impulses with the most commonplace drudgery. The +extraordinary fluctuations of feeling, thinking at one time that it is +the only thing in the world to do ... and then the feeling, what am I +doing this for, anyway, other people do not find it necessary... As +one nun said to me, 'You do not have to accept a Carmelite vocation-- +but, you have to either accept or refuse it.' The choice is laid +before everyone, but once it is, all the coward has to do is to stand +aside." + +This last illustrates how she always saw the necessities of those she +loved in terms of the spirit. Napoleon is reported to have said of +Jesus Christ: "He speaks from the soul as never man spoke; the soul is +sufficient for him, as he is sufficient for the soul." + +So she thought. And her letters contain many quotations she formed her +life by: + +"God himself is Truth, Charity, and Purity, and the three things he +hates most are deceit, cruelty, and impurity." + +"God make us all saints!" + +And the characteristic ending of a letter, with her full name always +signed, such as: + +"Lord, grant us in this world knowledge of thy truth, and in the world +to come life everlasting. + +TERESA." + + +But it is impossible to convey what her ways were with the children +and in the several homes that she made so full of dreaming light. She +had a keen appreciation of the humorousness and quaintness of +children. She was always quoting to me their adventures, their +sayings. She had countless plans and schemes for work in the world, +and carried out many of them in relation to woman suffrage, baby +clinics, camp-fire organization for the girls of our village, and, +during the war, work with all the local organizations among women that +it called into being where she was living at the time. She wanted to +start a home in America for French widows and orphans, though this +plan was not possible,--she was deeply interested in the work for the +protection of young girls under Miss Katharine Bement Davis, and only +circumstances prevented her taking this up during the fall of 1918. +She had several interviews with Miss Davis and showed herself to be +the very person who could have helped greatly. Self-denial, sacrifice, +poverty, effort were the watchwords ever recurring to her. Her instant +concentration upon any book or paper that came under her eyes became a +family joke. She would be lost immediately, oblivious of all +surroundings. She read and thought with a lively appreciation of the +many futilities in life and a desire to make her life count. She +wasted no time on what did not at once attract her spirit, except of +necessity. And yet she genuinely delighted in the small events of a +day such as please and awe children. And the reason they loved her so +was because they knew she brought the same guileless point of view to +solve their bewilderment from larger experience. And yet she would +write: + +"I _wish_ I knew where I stood. I was much happier when I was a +rigid Catholic. I wish I could fit back into that measure. Can I ever-- +any more than I can fit into the mental measure of a nun?" + +And again her typewriting would exclaim to me: + +"I don't like to write letters to you. I like to talk to you. I like +still better to be silent with you!" + +When she thought me in need of it she could be very self-forgetful: + +"But I want to see the future big with Romance for you and I would +rather feel you came home from voyages two weeks or two months long, +with a trunkful of manuscripts; and that, three years from today, you +had secured us special rates on a tramp steamer to Plymouth, than that +you were going to dodge into subways the rest of your life." + +"I would infinitely rather you shipped before the mast--to Bermuda, +Borneo, or Buenos Aires. Don't think from this I don't want your face +across the table from mine every night the rest of my life!" + +Reading to the children, she would retail to me such incidents as: + +"Then I read them the Gospel stories, ... and they were too funny--R-- +trying to show me how Herod looked, and J-- suggesting charitably that +perhaps his wife was good. 'No,' said R--,'the whole family was bad!'" + +"In the spring I am going to take an old farmhouse, give the children +one brown garment apiece, and plan a scheme of living that will leave +something over for other children." + +And this appealed to her: + +"Well, if it is not in the Fall of 1918, it will be in 'one of those +houses Our Lord is building' as J-- remarks casually. Did I tell you +of the little village in the North Carolina hills where H-- and S. L-- +spent the summer, where the women raised enough sheep to cut the wool, +card, and spin and weave the clothes the family wore?" + +In the winter of 1914 she first visited Augusta, Georgia, where my +father was stationed, and there the campaign against Child Labor, in +which she was always vitally interested, became doubly real in +necessity to her as she went through the cotton mills and saw +conditions at close range. She always gave what sums she could to this +cause. In 1915, perhaps the most famous year of the woman suffrage +battle, she was campaigning, speaking, watching all day at the polls +in her village of Port Washington, Long Island. I remember her +speaking from the stage of the Republican Club against a clever anti- +suffragist from New York. Her voice reached out for something in the +hearts of her audience hid deeper than the appeal of a mere +legislative reform. She knew her intellectual ground, but it was +something deeper than intellectuality that went home. + +In 1918 the Baby Welfare Movement was at its height. She became +chairman of the Augusta committee and established clinics at the +different schools and social centres. + +So I grasp at her life, giving only a slight indication of how full it +was. Her friends were of every type and kind, of every religious +belief or lack of belief, of many different political opinions. + +She hated war with her whole soul. It was directly opposed to the +words of Christ. But she wrote me in a dark time: + +"Italy is bad, Russia is bad, Cambrai is bad. But those things are +only phases in the eternal struggle of right against wrong. And the +only thing that matters is to personally throw your whole life into +the balance for the things you believe to be right." + +How far I failed her! It is given to every man to fight somehow +through the bewilderment of life with the best intentions he can +realize. And life seems to me like a fierce current on which we are +borne rather than anything we can really master--except by forgetting +it. She has left me with the feeling that I must know infinitely more +and try to understand better, and that we are governed most truly only +by the inexplicable. "Meanwhile, there is our life here--Well?" + +The verse in this book is put as nearly as possible in the order of +its writing. If there is any merit in any line of it, the merit is of +her making. If there is none, the effort was, at least, to reach +higher than my grasp--because of her. A writer is--and it is the +ancient curse!--an egotist. But it is not my grief that I wish to +display here. The human heart can fortunately never be put on paper. +Only--reality assures of reality. + +Poetry is unconscionable because it follows true conscience. I knew, +in her, that conscience,--and know it in these fantastic shadows cast +by her light. If you do also, be assured that the light still shines-- +forever. + +New York City, + March 25, 1919. + + + + +BEFORE + + +THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER + +Love, the wild fowler, spreads his nets with care, +And deep-toned warning both our hearts have heard, +Even as the old-time low-bell held each bird +Suddenly trembling, nestling pair by pair +Dark in the covert, till a blinding glare +Of torchlight and a clamorous shouted word +Dazed their bright eyes, and terrified wings upwhirred +To baffled blundering in the close-drawn snare. + +So, dear, we cower at our warning bell. +Creep close to me, where shadows gird us round. +Fear we that wild revealment? Nay, not we! +"Ah, perilous play, to cross Love's stalking-ground!" +You whisper... yet our eyes, our eyes could tell +Of hearts that leap to meet their certainty! + + +THWARTED UTTERANCE + +Why should my clumsy speech so fall astray, +To uncouth jargon of the every-day +Turn each fit word and phrase + I treasured for your praise? + +Discoveries I won to from afar, +All the rare things you are--nor know you are,-- +In Orient offering + I haste to you to bring. + +I think to kneel and spread on cloths of dream +The beautiful, the priceless things you seem; +Perfume and precious stone, + That you be shown your own. + +Prince of my vision-palace, I would call +Your name through trumpets down its central hall, +And the rapt choral praise + Before your dais raise; + +And you should see, should hear, be glad and smile +That I so love you. Ah, but all the while +I may not show nor teach + Save through my paupered speech! + +Beggar in guise, who am so rich at heart +Where you have set your pure white shrine apart +And keep your cherished state + Dear and immaculate, + +How should you know or hear me, when my tongue +Turns a dull rebel and doth ready wrong +To thoughts my dreams repeat?-- + Perhaps too proud, too sweet! + + +THE SONG OF HER + +Thou art my singing and my voice, +Thy life the thing that I would sing, +Perfect past words of perfect choice, +A lovely and a lasting thing. +In every deed of thine, sweetheart, +The poetry of heaven has part +Beyond the gamut of all art, +Leaving me mute and marvelling. + +Thy deeds like rhymes I have by heart, +Thy happy deeds of heavenly choice, +Deeds that rise rapt and shine apart +As echoes of a perfect voice +Rise and rejoice when voices sing, +Linger and ring--linger and ring +Till heaven is of their echoing +And all the heights of heaven rejoice. + +Thou art the song that I would sing, +The purest song of purest art, +Till men stand mute for marvelling, +Aye, till the singing break Man's heart +Where sorrows glory to rejoice +In perfect notes of perfect choice +And strains of One deep, tender voice +Transfigured joys from sorrows start. + +In all this world I have no choice. +If I would sing a lasting thing, +Thou art my singing and my voice. +Poor rhymes that earn no welcoming, +Rhymes that are nothing learned in art, +From heaven, from her, such worlds apart,-- +Creep then unto her tender heart +And from her living learn to sing! + + +"ALWAYS I KNOW YOU ANEW" + +I press my hands on my eyes +And will that you come to me. +Your semblances shimmer and rise; +Yet 'tis never your self I see, +Never the exquisite grace +And the bright, still flame of you. +So, when I meet you face to face, +Always I know you anew! + +Faint visions I saw, instead +Of your brows direct and wise, +Of the little lilt of your head +And your dark-lashed, sky-clear eyes, +Of the soft brown braids demure, +The poise as of quiet light, +The perfect profile, sweet and pure,-- +Never I dream you aright! + +And new in endless ways, +By your blessed heart unplanned, +It is mine to surprise each sweeter phase, +Adore you, and understand; +For through every delicious change in you +Truth burns with a clear still flame; +And, though always I know you anew, +Always I find you the same! + + +THE RIVAL CELESTIAL + +God, wilt Thou never leave my love alone? +Thou comest when she first draws breath in sleep, +Thy cloak blue night, glittering with stars of gold. +Thou standest in her doorway to intone +The promise of Thy troth that she must keep, +The wonders of Thy heaven she shall behold. + +Her little room is filled with blinding light, +And past the darkness of her window-pane +The faces of glad angels closely press, +Gesturing for her to join their host this night, +Mount with their cavalcade for Thy domain. +Then darkness... but Thy work is done no less. + +For she hath looked on Thee, and when on me +Her blue eyes turn by day, they pass me by. +All offerings--even my heart--slip from her hands. +She moves in dreams of utter bliss to be, +Longs for what nought of earth may satisfy. +My heart breaks as I clutch love's breaking strands. + +I clutch--they part--to the wide winds are blown. +And she stands gazing on a cloud, a star,-- +Blind to earth's heart of love where heaven lies furled. +God, wilt Thou never leave my love alone? +Thou hast all powers, dominions, worlds that are; +And she is all my world--is all my world! + + +THE TAMER OF STEEDS + +Beyond this world where skies are free from stain, +Where brilliant flowers blow in open meads, +I heard the drumming hoofs of many steeds +Raise maddening music from a grassy plain. +They passed, with snorting nostril, flying mane, +And fiery spirit; and the lad who breeds +Their mettled herd, and pastures them, and feeds, +Rode the black foremost, scorning spur or rein. + +His eyes were like a seer's and like a child's. +His body shone irradiating joy. +He fought his furious mount with strength and art. +And then my mind divined the glorious boy +As Eros, tamer in the heavenly wilds +Of all the passions of the human heart. + + +LOVE IN ARMOR + +Love scorns that Love implore you +To bind his hurts or heal; +Prays only, arm around you, +To draw on hours that hound you, +To whirl his sword before you +And fence your path with steel. + +Not for the beauty of you, +The peace of all your ways, +He burns--but in your quarrel +To hold the pass of peril, +To stand at arms above you +Against embattled days. + +No comfort for his blundering +He cries your heart to yield, +But that his arm enfold you, +His shield-arm shield and hold you +Safe, when the foe charge thundering,-- +His sword against the field! + + +WARDROBE OF REMEMBRANCE + +Guises your moods once wore are hung within +The closet of my mind. I take access +This moment to regard them and confess +How spare for want of you they hang, and thin. +Pity seems all their argument may win, +That fine, frail rustling of each mood's meet dress. +Yet starts a subtle incense from the press, +Crushed perfumes of the flowers your thoughts have been. + +Sweeter than ever spoken do they come +Again with finer relish to my mind +Starved on your absence. False surmise is numb, +For now in these reliques of you I find +The smile you meant when rebel lips were dumb, +The kind words agitation made unkind. + + +THE SECOND COVENANT + +I dreamt that we were lying +On a high hill afar, +Our deepest thoughts replying +To one lone star. +High from the vault of heaven +Its silver rays were shed; +And the deep peace between us +Was the peace of the dead. + +Our busy lives were over, +Our day and night and day; +Of you and me your lover, +Nought more to say; +And sorrows we had vanquished +And blisses we had known +And our cares and our kisses +To the four winds were blown. + +The handclasp of contrition, +The eyesight of each +Where each had recognition, +Were passed, with our speech. +Vast night declared above us, +"Now sight and semblance fade, +No heart's emotion bindeth +A shadow to a shade." + +Then within me, lying near you, +A dark sadness grew +That, to cherish or to cheer you, +There was nought left to do. +Of happy daily service +Nought now remained to me-- +Of good news for you and comfort +As once it used to be. + +No beauty save the spirit's +Abode wide heaven's scrolls; +No charm the flesh inherits, +No strength save the soul's; +As breath upon a mirror +All recognizing sign. +Yet nearer far and dearer +Your soul spoke to mine. + +For viewed not of each other, +Yet closer side by side +Than child unto his mother, +Than husband to bride, +Thought unto thought you answered. +One prayer we seemed--one breath; +And the deep love between us +Was the love after death. + + +DEDICATION TO A FIRST BOOK + +Braver than sea-going ships with the dawn in their sails, +Than the wind before dawn more healing and fragrant and free, +Fairer than sight of a city all white from the mountain-top viewed in + the vales, +Or the silver-bright flakes of the moonlight in lakes, when the moon + rides the clouds and the forest awakes, + You are to me! + +For you are to me what the bowstring is to the shaft, +Speeding my purpose aloft and aflame and afar, +Through the thick of the fight, in your eyes' steady light my soul + hath seen splendor, and laughed. +Now, however I tend betwixt foeman and friend through the riddle of +Life to Death's light at the end, + I ride for your star! + + +THE SHADOWED ROAD + +Our shadows moved before us on the road. +The trees that watched us brooded dark and still, +Streaked by the frost with phosphorescent gray. +Chill followed sharply on a gorgeous day +Of winds, blown leaves, red bonfires. Faintly showed +The mist-ringed moon above the pasture hill. + +Our shadows moved before us. By our side +New mystery, throbbing through the rhythm of life +Echoed our footsteps; and its presence grew +So real to me, I felt its power endue +An archangelic shape, whose phantom stride +Rhymed with our own who walked as man and wife. + +Light fell upon us from the glimmering moon, +And light upon his face whose name is Love. +Ah, the rapt eyes, the tender, quickening gaze, +The splendor on that wild immortal face! +Then hurrying cloud possessed the heavens, and soon +I saw his shadow darken from above. + +Beyond our own it stretched along the way, +The darkness of Death's cowl, more deep than night. +Gulfing our own, it blotted out the road, +The shadow of Love that brightest dreams forebode. +Yet, in my soul I found a thing to say: +"Though darkness go before, we walk in light. + +"This is Love's answer!" For Death's night must move +Onward before two hearts that cast out fear, +Joined by the closest of immortal bonds. +They shall speak truth when prayer to prayer responds, +"Death but precedes us as the shadow of Love. +Light falls about us from a surer sphere!" + + +LOVE IN THE DAWN + +Dawn, with hallowed flame, seemed to sing your name +Through our open window as the golden glory came. +Ardor thrilled me through; Dawn again--with you! +"Up and at the world again! The world is made anew!" + +Newly on my sight flashed the lovely light, +All the ringing roads of fame glittered broad and bright. +On again! with new visions to pursue; +And dawn again, dawn again, dawn again--with you! + +Other dawns may keep joy as pure and deep? +Dawns of greater splendor may awaken me from sleep? +Nay! they never can bless a stubborn man +Like the dawn, the wonder-dawn with which this day began! + +Oh, my deeds must take triumph for its sake! +Loud my heart shall sing it while the mind remains awake: +Words I never knew could so thrill me through-- +Dawn again, dawn again, dawn again--with you! + + +"HAD I A CLAIM TO FAME?" + +Had I a claim to fame? + Little to honor; +Save when I spoke her name, + Gazing upon her. +Then was I crowned of men, + More than my seeming. +Youth's glorious hope again + Bannered my dreaming. + +So, when our day is past; + When we lie stilly +Under the earth at last, + Clod by white lily. +Give me neither tear nor sigh; + Breath but this in passing by, +Where empearled with morning dew + The high grass above her +Waves, and above me too,-- + "He was her lover!" + + +THE ONE + +You are that belovèd thing +Which, through all my seeking +In silence or in speaking, +I would find, and finding sing! + +You are that belovèd air +Which, o'er all the chiming +Of music or of rhyming, +Reconciles my long despair. + +You are that belovèd sight +Which, beyond life's fairest +Or rich beauty's rarest, +Fills my heart with true delight. + +You are that belovèd place +Where, past all the portals +To the pomp of mortals, +Love perceives the courts of grace, + +And what splendors more,--ah, well! +Though I often fashion +Songs of praise and passion, +Now--I look--but cannot tell! + + +DREAM AND DEED + + All day long I am fashioning crowns, + Crowns of great price for you! + What do I fashion them of? + Opals and pearls of the dew, + Diamonds of old renowns, + Blazing rubies of love, +And gold from the heart of the golden sun, brought down + by a sunset djinn,-- +Brighter gold, purer gold than ever gleamed under + Andvari's fin! + + All day long I am tempering swords, + Swords for my thought to wield! + What is the steel I true, + And how is their splendor annealed? + High dreams, to slay evil hordes, + And flaming thoughts of you +That light my dark heart from their white-hot forge-- + a glory to take one's breath-- +Like the dove-gray, rose-faint veils of faith you wind + round the skull of death! + + But when was a sword or a crown + For praise or for honor meet, + When the truth transcends, and sees + Knighthood kneeling at your feet? + In the darkness they go down! + There is better trust in these: +Set teeth, and the furious will to strive through the dust + of the world for you; +The hardly builded house of deeds each day, that must + prove me true! + + +A TAPER OF INCENSE + +You are a bannered balcony +Of God's heraldic house, +Waving above the dinning throng of the days +Pennants of purple and oriflammes of crimson +And cloths of gold. +Your varying device is on every shining shield +Of the brilliant row that flames beneath the eaves +Of that house whose street is cobbled with silver clouds. + +The days go down that street, the troops of days +Dark and bright, tramping to tread the earth. +Ever, with trumpets and tumult, rigor or laughter, +They pass saluting, to press upon the world, +Regiment after regiment unnumbered. + +Your beauty is a balcony hung with banners +To wave them on. The foremost have sent your name +Echoing rearward to hearten new battalions. +Your beauty is the sunset's streaming flag, +It is the vivid standard of the dawn +Flapping over dazed dream-voyagers +That kneel on new sun-pooled, mysterious strands. +It wasted the moon to pallor, set the sun +Pulsing with burning blood--it shattered the mind +Of heaven into stars. + +The beauty of your spirit has sent the winds +Eternally sighing, and sharpened the cold ache +Of the heart-broken, incessantly-sobbing sea. +It has scattered its sparks in the hearts of silken flowers +And has raised the frozen fury of glaciers against the North +And has permeated the South with its elusive fragrance. +Auroral over East and West it dances. + +You are a crystal goblet of such wine +Set in a niche of night +That when Death quaffs you he must glow to life +Flushed with eternity. + +O proud Love, so humble and human, +Yet beyond the gods to exalt-- +O quiet Love, couching with the curled might and majesty +Of tawny leopards! +O tamed tiger, Love, whose golden eyes +Weep for the thrift of angels! +Thou pinnacled pain of the midnight, +Rose-strewer of daylit mire, +Transfiguration of our futile lives, +Dazzler into the secret courts of heaven-- +Thou whose passion is written in all men's blood and tears +And in silver letters upon the books of God-- +Make me to stand erect, and walk with danger, +And strive like a flame! +For Thou and I are struck as cymbals of God's exultation +In Life, His song! + + +TO PURITY + +God knows that you are beautiful as Death +Chanced on in some hot, sunlit forest-clearing +Where--burst from tangled thickets, with desperate breath-- +My outlawed heart might gasp at him appearing +So sudden and dazzling upon my rage and fearing,-- +Such pale announcement, such quietude should endue +Tall, proud, grave Death, with noble footsteps nearing! +Immortal goddess, thus beautiful are you! + +God knows that you are passionate as Life, +On rhythmic curves of bosom and limb attending,-- +Sweet as clear water, and acid as a knife +Thrust through fresh fruit wherewith the bough is bending,-- +Yet rule the riotous blood to Man's befriending,-- +Yea, hush his ghastly tears the midnight through, +To flesh of flesh your ageless mystery lending. +Ah, holy goddess, thus terrible are you! + +God knows that you are hated as men hate +Only the highest and the uttermost presence, +For in your eyes is anger to break fate +And life's too blissful sweet is all your essence. +Your glory seethed the suns to incandescence, +You are flame--flame! Our creeds your orb unto +Are but thin shadowy demilunes and crescents,-- +Immortal goddess, so infinite are you! + +Infinite in range of life, the worm you quicken +From crashing suns.... "Let there be light!" you said. +Light was, and life,--Man rose, and Man fell stricken +By your relentless power that through him sped; +And again Man rose, halt like the walking dead, +Dragging these heavy laws you never knew +Till you recoiled from him astonishèd,-- +Ah, holy goddess, so wonderful were you! + +So now Man hath smeared filth upon your altar, +And, slant-eyed and slime-lipped, wrought sins apart. +His tongue intones an abominable psalter +Hoarsely, and on his brows cold sweat-drops start,-- +Nor through your oracles speaks he from his heart, +Hearing you in the porches of his ears; +His eyes are blind of you, where only smart +The sick revulsions of his ignorant tears. + +No! He intones by rote a coded praise, +Unto a leering two-faced god falls prone, +And smears with lust and fear his alternate days +For monstrous imaginations to atone; +For you, most instant, most ardent,--you are flown +Like fumes to his clownish brain, and in his fear +He dreams you a eunuch carved of pallid stone +Warning, "Beware all ye who enter here!" + + +TO PURITY + +God knows you are as clean as the sea-gust +Uproarious round those poppied headlands high +Where huge green seas beneath, in billows upthrust, +Scatter snow-amethysts to the bright sapphire sky,-- +Or music on which fusillade the hoof-beats by +Of screaming valkyr-steeds, to exalted strife! +You are love's seal and love's nobility, +And the burning flame, the aching flame of Life! + +Therefore, transfigurer of the flesh,--clear-shining +Redeemer of the coinage passed for base,-- +Strong flawless column, round which all vipers twining +Hiss out their venom and die on their disgrace,-- +Oh radiant form, oh rapt victorious face +Of our dreams of love, toward whom all brave and true +Strain upward, seeking out your holiest place,-- +This praise I raise, this praise I raise to you! + + +ATONEMENT + +Through flamelit Hades +To win a realm, +I rode with my lady's +Sleeve on my helm. +With fiends around me +And fiends before, +I rode, and found me +At an iron door. + +My pulses hammered. +I clubbed my spear +And knocked. Fiends clamored. +I felt Man's fear +When mysteries awe him. +The door, with din, +Swung wide. I saw him +Who sat therein. + +Oh, amaranthine +Are Love's estates, +But Rhadamanthine +The Judge awaits. +My blazon and banner +He stared them through +And said, _"What manner +Of man are you?"_ + +I stood stripped naked, +Stark to atone. +My body achèd +Through every bone. +A blast blew through me. +I drank black gall. +I saw he knew me. +I told him all. + +"The heart I stare in +Is black as night," +He said, "but therein +There burns a light. +White hands encore it +To guard its grace, +And strangely o'er it +Bends a still face. + +"Small light--great wonder! +Through all my hall +You flash asunder +The murky pall. +Walls grow unreal-- +All Hell a wraith,-- +Oh white, ideal +Flame of her faith!" + +"Here I surrender, +White flame of trust! +Knave, strike some splendor +From this your dust. +Oh gross, weak, dumb thing, +Rise--dare a part! +For here--is something +That breaks my heart!" + + +THE ADORATION + +Now, like withdrawing music +Where pillared aisles implore, +You are a vanished choir, +A soft-closed door. + +Victorious voices blended +Fade, and I kneel still-hearted. +Sudden my life is ended. +We have parted. + +Lost in the vault's vast splendor +My ghost goes rising, thinning. +Can heartbreak be an end, or +Some strange beginning? + + +TALISMAN + +Each cup shall be broken, +Each tower shall fall, +All drink be bitter, +Bitter as gall, +The dark heart go lonely-- +Save for one tower, +One cyathus only, +One wine of power! + +My love's white beauty +Is this tower, +The wine of her beauty +My wine of power, +The cup of her spirit +Mine to drain +With awful knowledge +And trembling pain. + +She only, she only +Stands on the stars. +Her small hands grapple +Heaven's black bars. +Only her deep love +Pays the price +Of a sight of the vistas +Of paradise. + +Each goblet may shatter, +Each tower may fall, +Low livid sunset +Darken on all-- +In her soul's high tower +My love pours wine, +And the glory and the power +Of the stars are mine! + + +RECOGNITION + +Like the twilight blowing over sunset water +Under high holy hills purple-mirrored in a mere, +Quietly and smiling, my dear love brought her +Heart to my heart, and through the dusk drew near; + +Drew to me near, drew my brows up to the tender +Caress of her hands. And I lifted up my eyes +To hers, and deep within them saw a silent splendor +More still, more strange than the planets' in the skies. + +Each gazed on each. O what is mortal seeing +To the glory of that depth, to the glory of that height +Through veils revealed, when all the gates of being +Burst open to a torrent of such blinding light! + +Yes, and here I stand warped by life's derision, +A mountebank grimacing lest at last I weep. +What man could tell that I had ever seen a vision +More wonderful than any on the steeps of sleep? + +Days come, days go, as the clock ticks hours. +Years loom, years pass; the shadows rise.... +Like the twilight breathing over holy flowers +Once my love drew near. And I lifted up my eyes.... + + +TRIBUTE + +Remembering one woman I have seen +And have known, +Benignant eyes, nobility of mien, +A scarf from off a perfect shoulder blown, +Solicitude, white ardor in a face, +Motions like water under the moon's grace,-- +I wonder much how men can be so base, +So worse than stone. + +Oh murmurings of music through the world, +Ye women born +To arduous things and angers, and upwhirled +Like tongues of flame through smoke of the world's scorn, +Crystalline lights, awful and fitful gleams +Of reconciliation with our dreams, +Through you alone the world's true spirit streams +Sounding her silver horn. + +All things I wish for you that height may hold, +Who hold the race, +Oh desperate runners on the track unrolled +Over the highlands now, in the sun's face; +O swift and free, hoverers on the verge +Whence the impossible things we mocked emerge,-- +O wings--wings--sliding the starry surge +And veering on the chase! + +The satyr and the centaur race below +Deriding wings above. +Manful they meet and fight to overthrow +All they are wearied of,-- +Manful they build, demolish, drive, are driven,-- +But you are free, who have more greatly striven, +Yours is the light above their lightless heaven, +For yours is Love! + + +THE SILVER HIND + +Through the black forest +You glance, you start,-- +Through the black forest +That is my heart! +Beautiful, silver-heeled, +Swift as wind, +Topping the brake +Like a flying hind! + +I have a bugle +Of ivory +The wizard of twilight +Gave to me. +I hear it winding in my heart, +In the black forest, where you start. + +And I know, +Like huntsmen in gold and green, +That my thoughts spur past +Where you have been, +And, like hounds that have slipped the leash, +They race,-- +Bell-tongued brachets +Upon your trace. + +Through the black forest +You reach, you run, +Out of the shadow, +Into the sun. +And the hunt behind +Is lyric and loud +Where horses and hounds +And huntsmen crowd.... + +But you are gone-- +Oh, you are gone +Out to the blaze and glory of dawn! +Leaving the print of blood-red anemones +In the mould, and echoes of ancient glees +Shaking like silver leaves on my sombre trees! + + +ARISTEAS RELATES HIS YOUTH + +(_Who, in his age, was reported a magician throughout all Greece, as +it was said that his soul could leave his body at will._) + +Early rose was the light +As I sought the portico +Whence her wings had fluttered in flight +And with surge and flow +Had risen to soar, and go +Out, out over the sea, +Dwindling white and soft and slow +To a memory. + +Oh, grief of all years to be! +Most miserable of men! +My throat ached with my tears, +As a sword driven through my ears +Was my anguish then. + +Dark were the rooms where they lay +Who loved in the flesh +(Diana's disciples they said!) +In that lupanar of the dead. +Sweet was the flesh they loved, +Graceful the limbs that moved, +Wild the passion that they + +Desired afresh +In the night. Were they not of the world, +Of lust and toil and war? +And I--I too? +Yea--till that music swirled +About me, and I knew +I was visited of a star! + +A star it was grew and grew +(As hot in the dark I lay, +Panting, after the feast,) +Glorious out of the east, +And a face that made my soul +A slowly uncrumpling scroll, +It glimmered so near and fey! + +Her voice rippled like water +In the light gold-green +Of some mid-noon ravine. +She stooped, the moon's daughter, +With her hand underneath my head +And her lips on the lips of the dead. +I arose from my rumpled bed. + +A waterfall sliding green +In a silver-mosaicked screen +We two trod under; +Then I turned where her light touch led, +Trembling but unafraid. +Across some Elysian sod, +Winged of heel, I floated--a god!-- +Down and into a moon-filled glade, +A glade of wonder.... + +But the east grew steadily bright, +A glaring sea of light. +I throbbed to drums of dread. +And my eyes still held her flight +When she broke that dream with one kiss +Of agonizing bliss, +Stood in streaming flame by my bed, +Gestured, and fled. + +Between the pillars I saw, +Beyond the pillars I heard +Wings of no mortal bird +Flare and withdraw. +And they who had feasted and passioned +Slept, finding light no bar, +Slept in their bodies' ease. +But under those rustling seas +That lapped at the water-stair +I ached to plunge my despair +And my heart, that some grim God fashioned +To be visited of a star! + + +MAN POSSESSED + +Shaken, a thousand times shaken, with the millions that grieve, +Now at last I am overtaken. I will say I believe. +I ran with the pennons of morning astream over me. +On the precipice, scorning its warning, I ran to be free. +Still I love high winds and the great running and the steep verge, +But strength past my strength overtakes my cunning, and stars emerge +High over me, eternal, deathless, deep over deep, +And my head sways heavy as I run breathless, my eyelids droop with + sleep. + +Yet it is not this has shaken my soul in me, +Not the bounds of life have overtaken my will to be free, +But scent and sound past mete and bound, and a sign--a sign +That no other eyes can recognize, that is only mine. +I hardly know what I believe or what I mean +Save there is sweetness round my heart and the world a screen +Of interwoven mystery to a world unseen. + +Can one drink the air, can one seize the sea, can one grasp the fire? +Even so intangible to me the answer to my desire. +The elements we feel and see shift and drift and suspire +And we therein behind the screen, with glimmering brains that tire. +That is all! Nor can I fall now in the race. +As a second breath to a runner comes my soul takes up the pace-- +For I dreamed the world ran with me in a far and starry place. + +Gray as sea-mist driven were the shapes that strove +With the strength of greed and hate and the greater strength of love. +I saw their eyes like phosphorus, blue fog about them wove. +I saw the limbs glimmer and I heard the sighing come +From this side and from that, as our host ran dumb +Over a silver shining plain, to some strange end, to some-- +Was it goal or heaven or city?--some agonizing gleam +That broke the heart for pity and made the eyes stream. +Above the pallor of that race our spent breath rose like steam, +Yet our red hearts pulsed within us, as we ran, in my dream. + +A glow below the ghostly surf that swirled and surged and turned +Came from human hearts visible that throbbed and beat and burned, +And like sand of human ashes was the soil our feet spurned. +All the stars above us thronged the dome of space, +Poised like javeliniers, with glinting spear or mace, +Watchful of our running and to spoil our race, +And all the souls that ran, ran with drawn and lifted face. + +This too was the real. I ran with dogged heart. +I parched like a desert, tortured in every part. +I knew not what city--nor why the race should start. + +Then a singing touched me, and the scent of a flower, +A child's laugh, and the crying of a woman in her hour, +And a comrade's courage--and a subtle power +Not of worldly schemes and ways crept along my veins, +And my heart went ablaze and consumed its many stains, +And my lips were touched with wine and my body felt no pains. +Then it passed--and yet again it came and it passed-- +Yet again and yet again, till I toiled at last +In the old ironic torture, bound fast, bound fast. + +But as I looked I saw how it came and went, +That touch, that communion, almost inevident, +Through the host of these my brothers who ran nigh spent. +When it came they ran like men with life and lung +And the wind went by them like a song bravely sung, +Their hearts spread wide radiance, their limbs glowed young. +It passed, and they were phantoms with phantom arms that swung. + +Here and there a true form some spirit would endue +For moments, but we mortals were but ghosts I knew. +Then a light low down before us to a distant landscape grew. +The stars from heaven crowded down. I knew our race was through. +The stars from heaven crowded down intolerably bright +With dizzying brilliance, height above armored height. +Every star upcast a spear and hurled it down to smite. + +There was one strange thought in me. It echoed through my head +As some titanic corridor echoes a giant tread, +Only a little thing that my love once had said. +Common daily speech, a comforting word +Tossed to me as lightly as crumbs to a bird, +But it lived in my heart, it broke to flame and stirred +My self to a purpose at last not self could mar, +And I cried "We are delivered!" and I heard it echo far +Up to the vault of heaven past star on shrinking star. + +So then I was running through poppies that I knew +Above a blue sea basking--and you--and you +Were running on the headland in the world made anew. + +I know some force is mighty, some force I cannot reach. +I know that words are said to me that are not said with speech. +My heart has learned a lesson that I can never teach. +Only this I know, that I am overtaken +By a swifter runner Whose breath is never shaken, +That I follow on His pace, and that round me, as I waken, +Are the headlands of home and the blue sea swinging +And the flowers of the valleys their fresh scents flinging +And the prophets and the poets, with their singing--with their + singing! + + +MINIATURE + +For all your gestures, for your gray-blue eyes +And Irish mouth, and hair that makes you child, +When shaken out at evening; for your mirth +And your quick pity, and your mother's breast; +For the great tenderness that you have given +And the rich dreams through purple-flowing night, +The holy lull of effort and the peace +Of a deep love; because of all these things, +Wherever I should be,--beyond what seas +Of an enchanted music, on what isles, +I know not, of a strange irradiance, +In dream or life or death,--dissatisfied +With splendor or white mystery, my heart +Would break--my heart would break--never to hear +Your tones again or feel your hair again +Beneath my lips, or see your lifted eyes +Brimming with all the secrets of the stars! + + +DEATH WILL MAKE CLEAR + +What in the night says the clock that ticks time to eternity, +Swimmer of waves of your thought that are dark waves and deep? +What in the night says the moon, from her patient infinity, +Laying pale hands on your heart, hands of peace and of sleep? +What say the stars to her eyes, who has loosed by the window +The billow of her hair, as the dark of the trees feels her fear? +And over the cradle what whisper is breathing, is breathing. +As over the bed of the bride or the catafalqued bier, +Or over the flung and clawed earth where a soldier is dying? +"Death will make clear!" + +Furious and fleet is man's soul, like a hound through the woodland, +On through the tangle of trees and the green and the gold. +Yes, for the senses are goads, but the lineage noble, +Not for the warren or hutch to be cornered and sold, +Then there is freedom and ease, and a dream that persuades one +On, till the track quakes on black whence the death-lilies peer. +So the bronzed shoulder, that sets to the crust of the boulder +Heaving it up--as the mill-wheel that turns at the weir-- +Bring--? They bring silence and candles and creaking and whispers. +Death will make clear. + +Why that white work from the crag and the hands of the sculptor +Smitten in a moment to rubble as earth heaves her breast? +Why that intangible glory, remote but God-in-us, +Golden and crumbling to pathos of dusk in the west? +Why the pure curve of the arm and the breast of a mother, +Yes, and the proud head of man held erect on the mere +Void of blue heaven,--the seas and the ships and the trumpets, +Towers and horizons, all shouting? The answer is here, +Here in thy breast, son of man, sorry son of the ages. +Death will make clear. + +Lord of the mighty, as Lord of the weak and the lowly, +Lord of the sage and the madman, of clean and unclean; +Breeder of suns and of excrement, loathly and holy, +Graving the skull with the pity of all that had been,-- +Death, oh thou graver of countenance knighted austerely, +Yea, on the pitiful clay, such poor flesh in its fear +Of God and the soul and the singing of stars that may teach us +Wisdom at last,--oh thou ultimate searcher and seer, +Beckon--I follow. At last on my lips set thy finger; +Thou wilt make clear! + + +SUNLIGHT + +Sunlight is full of age. +Ah, so old! +Older than any sage +Has ever told! + +The draught our Lord quaffed up +To the bloody lees; +The aching hemlock cup +Of Socrates. + +It is a golden sword; +The veil of the Grail; +The unfathomable Word +That will not fail. + +Along a summer street +It often lies +Shimmering to repeat +Immortal paradise. + +As a mountain lake can mirror +The exalted with the near, +Heaven's wonder and terror-- +Both shine here. + +It says all things in nought; +And, saying them, passes +To gild like gentle thought +Trees and grasses. + +It sways upon the ocean +Like a god asleep +Where the waves' wandering motion +Hides the deep. + +It shafts through forest aisles +Like miracle; +It trembles and smiles +On the lip of Hell. + +It has touched Greece and Rome +And Persia's might-- +And stirs the vines of home +With flickering light. + +It lay on Cain's hot neck +As he stooped to slay. +David's stone from the beck +Glittered its day. + +Cleopatra gazed upon it +Through shadowed lids. +High halls they built to shun it +In the Pyramids. + +It opens babies' hands +That crawl to snatch its beams. +Through hovels in ancient lands +Its splendor streams. + +Eternal wells of light +Its largeness shows. +There shall be no more night +Its conscience knows. + +It is a smiling stranger, +A fainting hour, +Love and peace and danger +And the mock of power. + +Yet have I said no word +Of what it is. +Only--my heart is stirred +By its mysteries! + + +AND A LONG WAY OFF HE SAW FAIRYLAND + +I lived once with fairies, +(And I know they're _true_ fairies!) +One lifts laughing eyes +In a way I most admire. +Truth goes by contraries, +For you don't know they're fairies +Till there isn't any firelight, +Nor song beside the fire. + +One fairy's small to hold, +And her hair is fairy gold. +One's a feminine fairy +With unusual address. +One fairy's just Jim. +You just look and love him, +With his nonsense and his laugh +And his sturdy steadfastness. + +And the fairy queen I knew +Has eyes that are blue, +Has moods that are decided, +And courage that denies +It is ever brave at all. +She mends them when they fall; +She tends the little fairies +In absurd, delightful wise. + +They bring her thoughts like birds +And very funny words +And mountainous decisions +And things to make you cry. +But, after all, it's airy +In the house of a fairy, +With a face like that to sob to +And those arms close by. + +I lived once with a fairy. +I was wild and contrary. +I'm _still_ wild and contrary. +But her heart's a heart for two. +She sees rooms of starry graces, +Kind firelight on our faces, +And a watch on sleeping fairies, +And the fairy home come true. +Once again, with gentle evening +And the dreaming trees, come true. + + +IN TIME OF TROUBLE + +In memory of your desolate eyes I know +That words are words, with nothing to gainsay +The testimony of pain, the heavy day; +But searching in the ruins of overthrow +I gathered you this wreath that now I show; +Small and barbaric brightness on the gray,-- +Glimmering irony, perhaps. I lay +It down before your eyes, and softly go. + +You are a vista blundered on in Arden +Where the fool grasps his bells, that he may hark; +A sudden skyward path where cliffs are warden +Of waves that foam to reach a high tide-mark; +Whisper of blossoms in a midnight garden; +A fountain whitely flowering on the dark. + + +ANOMALY + +Men who are fain to change, look wizenedly +Into the flowing mirror of your thought +And see on what strange reefs your joys are caught +And contemplate your vexed variety: +Grief that was hooded for eternity +Casting the stole for spangled domino, +Awe on its pinnacle jigging heel and toe. +Love laughing into hate and mockery. + +What shoots the warp to patterns that reblend +And spread and fade,--and working out what end? +In time of pain why be as voluble +As one who tells an endless useless sum, +Yet simple clay, pallid and deaf and dumb +Through the one moment forging Heaven or Hell? + + +THE LOVER + +I rooted silver stars from heaven in showers, +Rived adamant to show an azure gap, +Captured the very Psyche in my cap, +Filched from the sack of Time six diamond hours. +Hyperborean in my crown of flowers +I ran and leapt the cliff of thunderclap +Plunging through green sea-light where bronze fronds wrap +Crumbling pearl palaces and coral bowers. + +Now--"Could I move, all humankind would pant +Even to think such effort! Could my songs +Cry out, dusked heaven would shudder at my wrongs!" +I moaned, and then looked flushed and palpitant +On Love's rapt face, that frenzied flagellant +Wielding with zeal the welting golden thongs. + + +JUDGMENT + +Down the deep steps of stone through iron doors +I entered that red room and saw the rack, +And round the walls I saw them sit in black, +The immutable and urgent councillors. +My heart was clotted with an old remorse, +Despair a vulture fast upon my back. +I saw my body like an empty sack +Tossed disarticulate on grated floors. + +But even a wilder wonder at this crime +Tried in the dungeon of my own grim life +Woke, as your memory awoke with tune +That crazed the very walls. I stared through Time +Like to a man who stands with smoking knife +Above his dead, and sees the rising moon. + + +UNFORGOTTEN + +Wakening in the night, the pain that slumber +Strikes with her mace of silence dead and dumb +Loomed over me and, formless, said, "I come! +Bringing illusions lost beyond all number. +Rigid you lie, yet for a little cumber +This flaming world, where some die proudly, some +Glitter like granite, or dream millenium." +It left me toiled in mountainous clouds of umber. + +I lay sustaining all the old emotion, +Numbed as beneath the blows of iron cars. +Then slowly, slowly some supreme devotion +Crept down, and drew me out of ageless wars, +Like a dear voice heard over darkened ocean +When all dim heaven is trembling into stars. + + +THE PALE DANCER + +My heart's a still shore; all the golden sails are gone. +A pale, silver floor in the hugeness of dawn +My heart lies once more, and the little ripples beat +This small, idle tune, like the fall of elves' feet, +"Oh, come, airy dancer--come dance on us, Sweet!" + +She comes like a breeze in the midnight of May. +The tumbling of the seas makes a tune far away. +She comes with closed eyes, with light footsteps she nears, +And she sings the low song that each lipping ripple hears. +"In love there is laughter, and after--come tears!" + +She dances like the moonlight--light, languorous, aswoon. +Her face floats uplifted, a flower to the moon, +To the moon pale in heaven and the dawn coming slow, +And under her measure the ripples breathe low, +"The dancer, the dancer from ages ago!" + +Oh, dance me no more! Witching dancer be gone! +For my heart's a still shore in the hugeness of dawn, +And some answer is thrilling, is trembling for me +In the eerie still brightness of heaven and sea, +And the little ripples whisper, "What thing can it be?" + +Pale dancer, pale dancer, atread without breath, +Majestic and yearning and brooding as death, +Oh, passion of my heart, oh, enchanted despair +That glides before God like a bird from a snare, +Return, then, return to me, clothe me with care!-- +But the beautiful dancer has vanished in air. + + +PREMONITION + +(_Written in absence and unaware of her desperate condition, a few +days before her death_.) + +This is the song I shall make. +Love with white wing bids it wake. +Love with dark wing bids it die. +Trailing to dimness, the flood of my passion, +Glittering to darkness, the necklace I fashion +To loop on the breast of the sky! + +I have climbed high, even I, +Following a light through a rift in the blue, +Following a silence that pierced like a cry, +Following the image of you. + +This is the song I will fashion for you. + +Oh ragged-jawed, jagged-toothed Dragon of Time, +What will you do with the weft of my rhyme, +You who have pawed every jewel in slime-- +_You!_ + +No, in this space between darkness and light, +Holiness gleams like a rift in the night +Here where I stand and command the full height, +All of the glory and gall ... +Wrestle and struggle and surge for the height-- +And fall.... + +Pain, your pale hands are clenched loose in my hair. +My heaving breast to your bleakness is bare. +Each of the other as brothers aware, +Backward and forward we strain. +What is this struggle, why my despair, +Pain? + +God is somewhere in the night. +Listen! The night is so still +God could be heard if he walked on the height +As a man at night will walk on a hill +Lulled by the darkness and dim. +Heaven is the hill under Him. +Is there not glimmer of light at its rim? + +Pain? Ah the struggle again. +Drive then your darts in me, drive! +Pang after pang of it, Pain. +Wounds that will wake me alive. +Listen! The night is a hive +Of sound like a swarming of myriad bees. +Drive the gold darts in me, whet them and drive, +Pain! But his shadow flees. +What is this plain, whose these shapes that connive +Peace? + +Peace? But your garment is smirched +With grime and the stain of blood! +Peace! When I struggled and searched, +Ah, when have I understood? +I who was broken and spent, +I who was baffled, and meant +Only to wrench my release! + +Who are Those crouching behind you, so still and intent, +Peace? + +Memories? Why do they haunt? +Lust and vainglory and pride? +What is it now of my victory they want? +What of you, Peace, the crucified? +This is the height. Can they scan it? +This is no space-festering planet. +This is no rack of vain tears! +Even a dream, can they cloud it and ban it,-- +Fears? + +Years go over me, cloud me and cover me, +Years--haunted years. + +Only one thing I say over and over +Under that catafalque glooming to cover +My shame and disaster and wraith of faith. +Only one thing I say over and over, +Your name, said under my breath. + +There, like a storm on the sea line, you hover, +Death! + +Ripples and eddies and whirlpools of light +Swirling like veils on the face of the night. +Down from the infinite, down from the height +Stricken and whirled, +Swept like a leaf on the blast of the night +Back to the world! + +Breathing beside me--your breath! +Listen! The night is so still +God could be heard if he talked with Death +As a man at night might talk on a hill +Gently and sad to a friend +Of the things we always intend ... +Night without end for Him--_night without end_...! + +This is the song I have made +Of the night when I was afraid, +Of the night too breathless, too still, +When I lay like stone--alone--alone, +However near me the love we kill. +What of the love we kill? + +Pride that died and darkness that grew! +This is the song I began to wreathe ... +Ah, but God remembered,--it is not true! +_And you--you live, you breathe!_ + + + + +AFTER + +(Introductory Poem) + +I + +On Sunday in the sunlight +With brightness round her strown +And murmuring beauty of the sky +At last her very own, +She who had loved all children +And all high things and clean +Turned away to silentness +And bliss unseen. + +Rending, blinding anguish, +Is all a man can know; +Yet still I kneel beside her +For she would have it so, +Kneel and pray beside her +In light she left behind-- +Light and love in silentness, +Sight to the blind. + +Oh living light burn through me! +Oh speak, as spoke to me +Her deep sweet eyes and faithful, +Voice on Calvary! +Oh light be near and shining, +Nearer than I guess, +And teach me that true language +Of silentness! + + +II + +If now I fall away +From faith, may never day +Shine as it shone +With inmost sanctities +Of those sun-glittering trees-- +We two alone. + +The darkness toils and heaves. +The Wood of Glittering Leaves +You gave--you gave, +Dearest in life and death, +Dearest with every breath, +Lamp of the brave! + +You came in sunlight, still +As God, with Whom your will +Was always one. +You knew me, and you knew +I read your presence through +That sacred sun. + +League upon league of light, +As the train raced the night, +With night on me, +With pain that gripped and wrung +As the cars clashed and swung,-- +I yet could see + +The slim trees of that wood +Brighter than tears or blood, +Fairy with day; +That dark marsh land made bright, +Veiled in miraculous light,-- +Your way! + +I hold it fast. I hold +All that mysterious gold, +All that it weaves +Of Heaven to understand-- +Our radiant bridal land +Of glittering leaves. + + +III + +Honest hands to help, honest eyes to see, + Light that lives in God: +Such our dearest was, such will ever be + Under Heaven. +Nothing in this life gives to you and me + Such a sunlight-shod, +Sunlight-crowned delight in our memory + As was given. + +There was not a harm in these roaring hours + That could touch Her head +Perfect was Her charm borne against the powers + Gnashing still. +In her heart a field laughed with golden flowers + Where Her soul could tread. +Swift, serene, she passed all that snarls and cowers, + White of will. + +Song can give her nothing. We who brave the night + Say Her name again +Raise it like a cup full of sacred light + Up to Heaven. +Now we know our pain blinding, burning bright + In the world of men. +Yet we know our joy, knowing now aright + What was given. + + +IV + +Base rewards and glamours, the beating tide of hours, +The crying and clamors and the surge of silent powers +Pass me and pass me now. Silently I go +The one road, the only road I know. + +Oh, bare and bright as dreams +And laced with silver streams +Lies the land on either hand, past the darkness and dread. +Though a man must grip his soul lest it start from all control, +And must bow his head. + +Where are your footprints on air that I may find them? +Where your radiant garments that I may hide behind them? +No, it is my own road, straight and black +That turns not back. + +I will search till the darkness sears on either hand +With the drifting sparkles of some fiery brand, +Of some pain that lights me nearer to the land of your endeavor. +I will search forever. + +The torrent of the hours like a veil veiling heaven, +The war with bitter powers--I am given. +But light that you left me--light, your own decision, +Your secret and your vision. + +Time? What is Time now. Standing to the thong +And the dream that is passing, time is not long. +And I shall find the valley past the mountains that defeat me, +And see you come to meet me. + + +V + +Not all the spoils you cast, not all the dark was bearing +In dream across the sea, across the murmurous sea; +Not beauty that has passed or crowns the stars were wearing +Or flame that fierce and fast through darkness hunted me; +Not the frustrate desire, the web of memory broken, +The silence where your speech dizzies through all the air; +Not these elude my reach when the dark hours have spoken +As does that priceless token, your soul of passionate prayer. + +Oh race that falters on, the striving and the stricken +Passing with fruits and garlands and dust upon the head; +Oh burning sunset gone wherein was hope to quicken +The surge of starry dawn rising above the dead; +Oh clamor over shame, yoke of the little-wiser +On the unwilling shoulders, clenched by the quivering hands; +Patience and proof that were and are your still appriser +Now veil her and disguise her, gone from the spectral lands. + +The spectral lands of time, the eternal torrent pouring +Of dark and light around us, who fear both dark and light; +And grief that wails in rhyme, and flesh the soul abhorring, +And dismal pantomine played on a stage moon-bright; +Why should such things as these assail her happy meadow, +Creep on the court of children, come crying through the shine? +We who are too unskilled even to taunt the shadow +Groan only in the darkness and spill the precious wine! + +For round us beating, beating her wings are in the mirror +Of sleep, the mirror of silence built up with perilous breath. +And in our conscience meeting her smile is on the terror +That chains us round with error and desperate fear of death; +Kind as a child's small hands her faithfulness is round us +With swift and fading gestures, wise as a child is wise; +Out of the gathering clouds that curtain and confound us, +Ecstasy and enchantment--sudden and swift, her eyes! + +The hills shall lay away their sombreness unspoken, +The seas shall hush their murmur, the saddened wind be still, +When the long league of silence 'twixt earth and beast is broken +When at the end of all things the stones speak on the hill. +Then Calvary shall cry with glorious joy to heaven, +Aceldama be hearkened and purged by words aware,-- +For that in days gone by her voice to His was given, +And to the joy of heaven her soul of passionate prayer. + + +VI + +I listened to the wind who speaks of finding +Among the litter of his blown leaves of days +All rainbow gold of tears that are so blinding; +And then again he says +Something of glittering jewels in the haze, +Incense of praise, myrtles and bays for binding +The wounds that blossom blood upon his ways. + +I listened to the sun who can recover +Miraculous instants of an earlier time +Surprise Her eyes alinger on her lover +And run like rhyme +On leaf and stream. He spoke of dream and clime +Sacred with everlasting Spring, ahover +With light more cadenced than bright bells in chime. + +I listened to the earth and sea. Their voices, +Too mixed with men, came sombrer and more sad. +They droned awhile of all the tangled choices +That every man has had, +And moaned like ancients with mere age gone mad +And left me nothing that reasons or rejoices-- +That seemed so reasonless in being glad. + +I listened starward where the ghostly weaving +Of wandering lights is all of Heaven we know +And worlds are lamps and darkness comes bereaving +The world of ebb and flow, +And 'tis as if a bosom were heaving slow +With firmamental care,--ah, heaving, heaving +With an unfathomable earlier woe. + +"Listener at many doors,--for what disaster?--" +Her spirit murmur crept into my ears. +"Brooder on pictures breathed on by the Master, +Listen at the heart that hears,-- +Ah, listen softly, breathing low!" The years +Were not--for there She was--and, gazing past her, +I saw the Vision raised by blood and tears. + + +VII + +For the eyes loved, +For the face lifted +In that still light, +Dark trees are groved, +The snow drifted, +And the mound white. + +And the grave dug +And the words spoken +And the flowers shed-- +And the eyes tearless +But the heart broken +For the brave dead. + +Though a soul thrill +To the stars' fire +And a mind sing +To a keen will +Of a high desire +And a great thing,-- + +Ah, who listens? +Who--who hearkens +Or answer makes,-- +Though the moon glistens +And the night darkens +And the heart breaks? + +Lay her sword by her, +Her steel of spirit, +Her phantom blade, +Lest the loud liar +In his hell inherit +What her soul made! + +Sweet sword, she came +To pierce and quicken +My heart to grace,-- +Oh, white flame, +Oh, heart life-stricken, +Oh, deathless face! + + +VIII + +Now the snow drives. The day +Goes on in whirling gray. +Still the world roars, +As if no striving flame +Had gone, as it suddenly came, +Passing blind doors; + +As if no eyes, no smile, +No heart that could beguile +Evil from earth, +Had hovered just a space +To light one holy place +In the dark and the dearth. + +Was it always as fierce and strange-- +This blank and sudden change +Men have known ever? +This veil as hard and keen +As the blade of a guillotine +Flashing to sever? + +Oh, ears that hark in the night, +Eyeballs that strain for sight, +Pulses that know +The same dull burning ache, +Though a man sleep, though he wake,-- +Was it always so? + + +IX + +True love runs wild and wildly understands. +I took the bread of Heaven once from your two hands. +And your eyes are upon me even as I sing, +Saying, "Be of comfort. Death is a little thing." + +Oh, magic child and woman, who crept into my heart, +Who hold me with strong arms from all the world apart-- +No, I will not say it--for your eyes grieve; +I will say you draw us all to Heaven--_your_ Heaven, by your + leave! + +Lady Simplicitas, who hummed like any bee +Little quaint and olden rhymes to keep simplicity, +Lady of the downcast eyes and sudden starry mirth, +And eloquence by torchlight for the wronged of all the earth, + +True love runs wild and wildly understands! +I took the wine of Heaven once from your two hands; +And when your eyes were darkened for the world's red smart +You made a violet twilight as you pressed against my heart. + +For that coiled hair's brown crown, for that sweet and seemly way, +The straight thoughts, the eager words, the dazzle of your day, +Shall I turn base then and learn to whine and curse? +Not though daggers of memory flicker through this verse! + +For true love runs wild and wildly understands. +I took the sacrament of love from your two hands. +So shall I cross the sunset hill and climb the pasture bars +And meet you in our porch at last, in the Village of the Stars. + + +X + +One thing only I can say to you +Whatever be the things men do; +Let one love make May to you, +Hold one love true. +Who but hears the querulous +Sigh and the heavy groan,-- +Yet stand for the one love perilous, +Though you stand alone. + +Yes, and though beaten and beaten +By the ravings of the blood; +Though with dust and ashes eaten, +Be one thing understood. +The battle in the cloud overthrows you, +Your lips are dashed with foam,-- +Yet the one love lives and knows you +And leads you home. + +Home--ah, God!--to the slumber +At last and the waking peace, +Where wars without name or number +Give last release; +Where her whisper again is more to you +Than the angels' flaming wars, +And proud Death's hands can pour to you +The cold of the stars. + + +XI + +The selfishness of grief! ... and yet each turning +And questing after some new brave relief +Shows other steel stretched forth and on me burning +The selfishness of grief. + +Till self who was my God and love, my chief, +Even these turn from my side with footsteps spurning +As, stooping low, I lift the heavy sheaf + +Of our flowered hours gathered with our yearning, +Gathered so wildly in our happy fief +And glimmering beautiful beyond belief, +With dazing fragrance, till my dim discerning +Sees them the legend dropped for my unlearning +The selfishness of grief! + + +THE LONG ABSENCE + +I + +ACCOSTED + +"If you saw blue eyes that could light and darkle +With merriment or pain; +If you saw a face that was only heart--lonely +In the cities of the plain; +If you felt a kindness that was happy as the daybreak, +Patient as night, +And saw the eyes lift and--the dawn in May break, +You have seen her aright. + +"Blue-cloaked archangel, rein your steed a little, +Though cities flame! +Messenger of night, though my words are brittle, +Though I know not your name, +Though your steed paw sparkles and your pinions quiver +With colors like the sea, +Tell me if you saw her, if you saw my love ever! +She is lost to me. + +"That is why I walk this windy highway +And stop and hark +And peer through the moonlight--always my way! +And listen up the dark +And knuckle my forehead to remember her truly, +The very She; +And that is why I cling your rein unduly +To answer me!" + +But the eyes were deep and dark, though somehow tender. +Haste was manifest +In the gauntlet, the greaves, the irid splendor +That pulsed on his breast. +He did not even gesture to the night grown holy, +But shook his rein +As his steed leapt forth; while I--turned slowly +To the cities of the plain. + + +II + +THE HOUSE AT EVENING + +Across the school-ground it would start +To light my eyes, that yellow gleam,-- +The window of the flaming heart, +The chimney of the tossing dream, +The scuffed and wooden porch of Heaven, +The voice that came like a caress, +The warm kind hands that once were given +My carelessness. + +It was a house you would not think +Could hold such sacraments in things +Or give the wild heart meat and drink +Or give the stormy soul high wings +Or chime small voices to such mirth +Or crown the night with stars and flowers +Or make upon this quaking earth +Such steady hours. + +Yet, that in storm it stood secure, +And in the cold was warm with love, +Shall its similitude endure +Past trophies that men weary of, +When two were out of fortune's reach, +Building great empires round a name +And ushering into casual speech +Dim worlds aflame. + + +III + +FOR THINKING EVIL + +For thinking evil and planning shame +The fire licked upward--at first a name, +Then star-devouring rebellious flame. + +The dread light lingered high on the sky. +It grew and reddened--a voiceless cry. +It spread and touched us, we knew not why. + +And a man sat staring out to the night, +Through tender silence, in warm lamplight, +Thinking always, "The fire at height!" + +That fire blowing with growing roar +Saw us going, closing the door; +Saw us parted--who meet no more. + +For thinking evil--all men drawn +Against a devil that dusked the dawn. +Each to his station. All men gone. + +Some for the hilltop, fire to its brow,-- +Death, long torture,--some for the plough,-- +Some for the silence--that I know now. + + +IV + +TRAVEL + +You and I dreaming +Planned the far-away, +Cities and hedgerows, +Distant summer day, +When, the sun sinking,-- +But oh, a distant sun!-- +We would be thinking, +"Think what we have done!" + +You and I whispering +Held the isles in fee +By a chain of grasses, +By your smile to me, +Visioning some clime-- +But long years between-- +When we should say, sometime, +"Think what we have seen!" + +You and I wondering +Of our old age, +Turned a page pondering, +And turned a page ... +Now, my hands pluck ravelled +Strands I can't untie. +Yet--you always travelled +Farther than I! + + +V + +HER WAY + +You loved the hay in the meadow, + Flowers at noon, +The high cloud's long shadow, + Honey of June, +The flaming woodways tangled + With Fall on the hill, +The towering night star-spangled + And winter-still. + +And you loved firelit faces, + The hearth, the home,-- +Your mind on golden traces, + London or Rome,-- +On quaintly-colored spaces + Where heavens glow +With his quaint saints' embraces,-- + Angelico. + +In cloister and highway + (Gold of God's dust!) +And many an elfin byway + You put your trust,-- +A crock and a table, + Love's end of day, +And light of a storied stable + Where kings must pray. + +Somewhere there is a village + For you and me, +Hay field, hearth and tillage,-- + Where can it be? +Prayers when birds awake, + Daily bread, +Toil for His sunlit sake + Who raised us dead. + +With this in mind you moved + Through love and pain. +Hard though the long road proved, + You turned again +With a heart that knew its trust + Not ill-bestowed. +With this you light the dust + That clouds my road. + + +BY THE COUNSEL OF HER HANDS + +"Propter veritatem, et mansuetudinem, et justitiam: et deducet te +mirabiliter dextera tua. Alleluia." + +With her clear eyes lifted, +Dreaming, lighting, swift and quelling +On all darkness drifted +From this earth, a vacant dwelling,-- +With her haste flashing, flowing +Bright above all fear or scorning,-- +I have seen my darling going +Up the mountains of the morning! + +Oh, like harps wrung thrilling, +Like those viols that voice their answer +To the wild still willing +Of the heavens' necromancer, +From the flowers around her rises +Music--gold, more gold in glory-- +First of all those pure surprises +At the ending of the story. + +Through the trees she passes +Where the purple spreads in shadow, +Through the dew-bright grasses +Of that heaven-quiet meadow, +Up the way of climbing vines, +Never faltering, never failing, +Where the blue of heaven shines +Through the sun for only veiling. + +Flowers and leaves together sing +Like those birds in clouds that choir. +Aching-sweet from silver string, +Purling flute and golden wire +Music flows no mortal knows +Even in April thronged with voices. +Deeper glory throbs and glows +Till the trembling air rejoices. + +Sweet and deep, sweet and deep +In the heart dark and aching, +Glamorous waves across my sleep +Is that tide of splendor breaking. +Pure and high, pure and high, +Shaking every star to chiming, +Till the wonder-stricken sky +Thrills and trembles to the rhyming! + +Seraphim and cherubim +On their wings' immaculate wonder +Rise in whirlwinds from the dim, +Pass through voids of rolling thunder, +Mount from lightning into light, +One great surge of praise awaking, +White and white into the height-- +And the music trembling--breaking--! + +But above the wood of fear, +On one white road forever, +From the darkness mounts my dear +In her still and bright endeavor, +With her kind brave eyes, +Honest hands and heart of healing,-- +Lips that rapturously surmise-- +Little smiles upon them stealing. + +For--a violet twilight now +Spreads--as arms had cast a shadow +And the Godhead stooped to bow +Over phantom hill and meadow! +And--again--a field +Floats before her--as her choice is-- +Where _her_ heaven is revealed +In those small and rippling voices. + +Elfin flowers invoked alive, +Fairy clouds from hives of honey +Like no angry human hive, +Billows of brightness swift and sunny, +Pattering, chuckling, panting haste, +Rosy-shy--though never sweeter +Than the three her arms embraced-- +Heaven's children flock to meet her! + +There are harps in Heaven +That must fail against that splendor; +And the Sacred Seven +Bow their heads in mute surrender. +Holy Mother of God, tonight +Bend your star-bright eyes and brimming +On the sweetness of that sight +In that meadow, dusk and dimming! + +For, with hands in grasp so small +Of the tumbling ones that follow,-- +With her smile upon them all, +Up the hill and through the hollow,-- +With that rich voice crooning, waking +Sparkling gusts of joy and laughter,-- +Climbs the Light of my forsaking, +Mounts the Hope of my hereafter! + +Harshest song, bow down! +Mutinous words!--to make immortal +How the heavens in starlight drown +As she enters in the Portal, +How the Heavenly City glows, +How the bells cry, "We have found her!" +As through tears and praise she goes +With the children crowding round her! + + +STRENGTH BEYOND STRENGTH + +"If thou hast run with the footmen and they have +wearied thee, what wilt thou do with the horsemen?" + +Breathless, beaten as with whips of wonder, +Scourged and naked to the flying sky,-- +Yet have I heard the hoofs of thunder, +Seen the horsemen glimmering by. + +Head back, teeth bared, eyes aglitter, +Questioning still the black reply, +Laboring stride and breath grown bitter-- +_Phantom horsemen swerving by!_ + +Foot on the flint and burning, parching +Death at the throat, with gall to taste. +_Rank on rank are the footmen marching, +Wave on wave do the footmen haste!_ + +Past and past me toiled and slowing, +Gasping breathing and straining limb,-- +_Rank on rank are the footmen going +Forward to fog and the distance dim._ + +Sledge on the brain and huge hands crushing +Hard on my heart that they wring at will. +_Wave on wave are the footmen rushing, +Surging in silence across the hill._ + +Sudden lit road they run together +Just as the cloven mist-wreaths close! +Each, each strives by a stirrup-leather +Where some glimmering horseman goes! + +Iron in sinew, steel persuasion +Now of the weak and sobbing will; +Scorn that beats on the old evasion; +Limbs that move for the further hill. + +Teeth clenched hard on an execration, +Chin sunk deep on a laboring chest-- +Racing death with a revelation, +Dead and done with--but forging abreast, + +Forging past them and past, and gaining +Once again to my hard-fought place. +Lord of Runners, requite my feigning! +Help me only to run this race! + +Head-down, plunged through the roiling weather, +Flinging the sweat from a straining brow,-- +_Now, I run by your stirrup-leather. +Golden Horseman, I see you now!_ + + +QUE SAIS-JE? + +If I could answer that sob of the brave little heart, +If I could answer that silence I suddenly fear, +If I could give him truth that would set this apart +From creeping question, my dear, + +There would be ground for our feet, sky for our eyes, +At least, at worst. All I can whisper is dreams +And faith I hold, being doubtful of all things "wise" +And all the outrage that seems. + +We are your boys to the end, that is all I know. +I the stronger as yet, but knowing no more +For all my years than I guessed at years ago +And searched through weary lore. + +I thought they knew who were older and wiser than I. +I saw them confident, grave, with their answers swift. +Till I stood in turn at the edge of earth and sky +And saw the planets adrift, + +And felt my heart struggling and striving for rest +And my baffled mind groping and yearning for peace +In some great answer or on some infinite breast +Of last complete release. + +And now I turn his mind to fanciful things +And grip him close and hoarsely murmur my love +And pray away from him all this pain that clings +To this mind I am weary of. + +Oh, I will teach him as best a man can teach +And strive to find him all knowledge of you I hold +And make you near to him even when out of reach +Of my treacherous heart and cold. + +For though I cannot see there is more to be seen, +And what I cannot know is in presciences, +And all you are is as it has ever been +Between my heart and his. + + +EBB-TIDE + +You who were never afraid of truth or doubt, +Only saying "The light in the soul is real, +The spirit of grace is true, the lamp is not put out." +I must follow forever your white ideal. + +Splendor amid the smoke and the dust and vapor, +Truth through the litter of lies and rubble of dreams, +Mutable yet immutable; changed, and the shaper +Of all that light in the mind that steadily gleams! + +So--words fail, and run to ironic length; +Like panting breath the phrases quiver and fade. +And the heart unthought-of throbs its appalling strength-- +Tireless--till it too in the dust is laid. + +But something lives--say there is something lives! +Our passion it is, all of our will to be-- +Something in men like a rout of fugitives +Hurrying on the shore of a phantom sea, + +Hurrying, wailing, questing, seeing the moon +Light that waste of beauty and terror and plangent sound; +Knowing the tide creeps on, and that soon, too soon, +All of the torches and all of the flowers lie drowned + +Yet that that sea moves not of its movement only, +All of the dim vast force is motes that blend, +Each still striving and still secure and lonely +Unto some end, some great mysterious end. + +You who were never afraid of truth or doubt-- +Granted that truth we know!--oh, eyes of mine, +Eyes in my soul that will never glimmer out,-- +This is my soul's ebb-tide, but I make the Sign! + + +COWARD + +By her beauty stayed, by her love empowered, + (_Coward! Coward!_) +Take the honest light and pray for grace. +Where her lightning struck, where her pureness flowered, + (_Coward! Coward!_) +Dare to see her face. + +Through the sea of lies--skies have always lowered!-- + (_Coward! Coward!_) +Be she your horizon or your mist, +Make straight on, though dawn be still undowered, + (_Coward! Coward!_) +Toward the timeless tryst. + +One thing now you know for truth at least, +One thing more than groan of witless beast, +One thing more than jest at mumming feast, +Pain is still increased, increased, increased +Marking life like milestones toward Love's East. + + +AQUILIFER + +Ax and bundled rods let Cæsar's henchmen bear, +Down to the house of sods processional torchmen pass,-- +When was your part with these, armed thought's aquilifer, +Turning with streaming standard where the barbarians mass! + +Cæsar's screaming eagles black as Hell's vultures flew, +But birds went up our dawning splendid and wing and wing +And bright for the slaves and captives your fearless banner blew +And laughing-glad as a trumpet the faith you still could sing. + +Old as the world is evil and disenchantment old. +Man's ancient heart is bitter, his hard eyes doubt of a sign. +Blown hair beneath that banner that floated in folds of gold, +In spirit I see you standing first in the battle-line. + +Kind, and a girl, and little, but wiser than all their sneers; +Truer than their predictions, daring to be not base; +Daring to ride for the Captain who held through blood and tears +Life well lost for justice and love acclaimed to the race. + +Still with shifting and turning, with minds and the ways of swine, +Earth is girded by Cæsar's men, life a stag in a snare,-- +Yet still--your banner burning first in the battle-line, +Aye, and the trumpets blowing for dawning, Aquilifer! + + +THE WOMAN + +You could hurt and you could heal, +You could hide and still reveal, +You were lilies, lilies and steel. + +You the near and you the far +Were as lamplight and a star. + +I cannot tell them what you were; +Yet, Death, you have not all of her. + +No, I, the passionate nondescript, +Have wine your lips have never sipped, + +Have wine of her in my heart's blood +Whom I never understood. + +You were tender and benign, +Trusting--and all fire divine +And a constellation's sign. + +You the far and you the near, +You heaven high and heaven here, +You the quest, and closest dear. + +Ah, God, you have not all of her, +For still my cause she can prefer +Where she goes, and where You were. + +You could weep and you could rise +With the Word clear in your eyes, +With a strength beyond the wise. + +Girl and goddess, will and love, +Struggling, battling, winged above +Memories I have memory of! + + +PERVIGILIUM + +Oh, not in words--for what are words to seeing; +Yet not in sight, for presence veils and hides; +Not even in sleep, though then the gates of being +Stand open to the large eternal tides; +Neither in memory, embers fading ashen; +Nor by the code, wherein the voice is dumb; +Nor wild still love, fluttered by veils of passion, +Rise summit by summit to Janiculum! + +Think not to speak and tell the riddling purport; +Think not that sight of beauty caught the best; +Nor any dream furls its dim sails in her port; +Nor any memory makes her manifest; +Nor by a measure of days mete out her measure, +Nor through remembered poignance pluck her strings. +For she, like moonlight on some hidden treasure, +Steals glimmering down and renders vain these things. + +Then I cried, "Love!"--but stars not even shrinking +Glittered the same and night remained the same. +Slowly I swam on dark tides of my thinking, +Yet like no moon she rose to hear her name. +I lay like sand unrimmed of sea and crisping +Under dead sunlight, parched as bleaching bone, +Till all seas shrank and dried, and the last lisping +Of beaded water vanished from the stone. + + +Then jagged lightning forked, the thunder shattered +Like stunning guns. Amain the trees were blown +And shrieked and writhed and whirled their branches tattered +Like patriarchs waking to some end long-known,-- +All my heart's storm--assault and wild repulsion-- +And hissing sand-coils swaying high and dim-- +Flash blinding-bright! And through that last revulsion +I saw her passing on the desert's rim. + + +TIME WAS + +Time was when you would enter +That door and I would be +No longer in the darkness +Upon the sea, +Sailing through lowering tempest +Of thoughts within the brain.... +If that could be so +Ever again.... + +Time was when your slight gesture +Would bid the fairies dance +And make the world a twilight +Of woodland trance, +And wake old aching music +All honey through its pain.... +If that could be so +Ever again.... + +Time was when I would flout you +With clever something said-- +And could not live without you +When you turned your head. +With me you walked the sunlight, +With me you walked the rain.... +If that could be so +Ever again.... + + +THE MASTERS + +Two with great hearts, deeply you proved them. +Laughing you loved them, childlike you said, +"Oh, but this is the part--!" Almost I reproved them +Drawing you from me, minds long dead. + +Yet forever your voice, wraith that was rapture! +What great-souled spaces the while you read +Joy--pain--mirth--all I would capture,-- +Dickens and Browning--your bended head ... + +Heaven of lamplight I long for lonely +Where all the folk of their fancy tread; +Three small faces, and mine,--and only +Dickens and Browning--your bended head! + + +WHEN + +It is when the trees have such radiant flowers, +Such white and rosy showers, +Such fragrant whispering,-- +It is when the sun lights such mellow, yellow hours,-- +_For lovers love the Spring!_ + +It is when the moon is so pale and drifting, +Blossoms softly sifting +From the vines that climb and cling, +That my heart will stop to hear love's laughter lifting,-- +_For lovers love the Spring!_ + +It is when the long evenings, their haze of violet wearing, +Hold the passing voices as on music's throbbing string, +By some vague open window I shall sit long staring,-- +_For lovers love the Spring!_ + +CHILDREN + +Children, we played at games--your laughter still is round me. +Children, we called each other's names. I hid--you found me. +Children, we went in search of death, and came back often. +Children, we prayed with equal breath--_no time can soften!_ + +Children, I loved your pretty looks, your eyebrow lifted. +Children, we wandered story-books and star-dust sifted. +Children, we plucked amazing flowers in a walled garden. +Children, we dreamed through healing hours--_no time can harden!_ + + +THE RETREAT + +Some sunny close hung high +In depths of sky, +Vivid presentment of your old desire; +No multitudes, but peace +And the release +From days and nights that are but pitch and fire. + +Some simple garden, old +Gray walls that fold +Its fragrance in, and one slow softened bell; +The waited Face, the light +And inner sight +And the good voices that you heard so well. + +There may you quaintly move,-- +You whom I love,-- +Sometimes, even now, and make retreat at last +With the truth known and rest +Made manifest +And all the meaning of the hurried past. + +And may I find you there +When the still air +Holds yet the thrilling of His evening smile, +And stand within the gate +And watch and wait, +Till, from your prayer, you turn after a while + +To see me stained and torn +And travel-worn +But yet with all my love of you held fast; +And wonder "Is it he?" and know it is-- +All mysteries +Being outdone by this mysterious last. + +And as the evening glows +In throbbing rose +May you lift your arms then, lift your head and cry +"Come!"--and yet sleep not wake +Nor dreaming break-- +But light forever fold us, you and I. + + +SEALED + +Man has been famed +Time out of mind +For having gone lamed +Or deaf or blind +Or weighted down +With loads that bind. + +And eye and ear +Now curtained are +To see or hear +Rhyme in a star +Since you, my dear, +Have gone so far. + +And limbs that go +And lips that speak +Are not to know +That which they seek.... +Does Time jest so +In a madman's freak? + +No, Time jests not, +Nor have I guessed +What has overshot +All bitter jest +Since first Man got +Fate's manifest. + +Cold eyes averse +And stony brows +And the old curse +On Adam's house +Despite, my verse +This truth allows: + +A clear light hidden, +A tower of air, +A voice unbidden, +A secret stair, +And dream long-chidden +That makes aware + +Thought of a time-- +Who shall say how? +Oh, burnished grime, +Star-studded plough, +Common coin of rhyme +Ringing golden now! + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Perpetual Light, by William Rose Benet + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PERPETUAL LIGHT *** + +This file should be named 6597.txt or 6597.zip + +Produced by Skip Doughty, Charles Franks +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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