ACT IV. SCENE 2.

The Lady Margaret, with Susan and Lucy; Lady M. at her embroidery frame, singing.

Girls, when I am gone away,
On this bosom strew
Only flowers meek and pale,
And the yew.

Lay these hands down by my side,
Let my face be bare;
Bind a kerchief round the face,
Smooth my hair.

Let my bier be borne at dawn,
Summer grows so sweet,
Deep into the forest green
Where boughs meet.

Then pass away, and let me lie
One long, warm, sweet day
There alone with face upturn’d,
One sweet day.

While the morning light grows broad,
While noon sleepeth sound,
While the evening falls and faints,
While the world goes round.

Susan. Whence had you this song, lady?

L. Mar. Out of the air;
From no one an it be not from the wind
That goes at noonday in the sycamore trees.
—When said the tardy page he would return?

Susan. By twelve, upon this very hour.

L. Mar. Look now,
The sand falls down the glass with even pace,
The shadows lie like yesterday’s. Nothing
Is wrong with the world. You are a part of it,—
I stand within a magic circle charm’d
From reach of anything, shut in from you,
Leagues from my needle, and this frame I touch,
Waiting till doomsday come—
[Knocking heard] The messenger!
Quick, I will wait you here, and hold my heart
Ready for death, or too much ravishment.

[Exeunt both Girls.]
How the little sand-hill slides and slides; how many
Red grains would drop while a man’s keen knife drawn
Across one’s heart let the red life out?

Susan. [returning] Lady!

L. Mar. I know it by your eyes. O do not fear
To tell all punctually: I am carved of stone.

BY THE WINDOW

Still deep into the West I gazed; the light
Clear, spiritual, tranquil as a bird
Wide-winged that soars on the smooth gale and sleeps,
Was it from sun far-set or moon unrisen?
Whether from moon, or sun, or angel’s face
It held my heart from motion, stayed my blood,
Betrayed each rising thought to quiet death
Along the blind charm’d way to nothingness,
Lull’d the last nerve that ached. It was a sky
Made for a man to waste his will upon,
To be received as wiser than all toil,
And much more fair. And what was strife of men?
And what was time?

Then came a certain thing.
Are intimations for the elected soul
Dubious, obscure, of unauthentic power
Since ghostly to the intellectual eye,
Shapeless to thinking? Nay, but are not we
Servile to words and an usurping brain,
Infidels of our own high mysteries,
Until the senses thicken and lose the world,
Until the imprisoned soul forgets to see,
And spreads blind fingers forth to reach the day,
Which once drank light, and fed on angels’ food?

It happened swiftly, came and straight was gone.
One standing on some aery balcony
And looking down upon a swarming crowd
Sees one man beckon to him with finger-tip
While eyes meet eyes; he turns and looks again—
The man is lost, and the crowd sways and swarms.
Shall such an one say “Thus ’tis proved a dream,
And no hand beckoned, no eyes met my own?”
Neither can I say this. There was a hint,
A thrill, a summons faint yet absolute,
Which ran across the West; the sky was touch’d,
And failed not to respond. Does a hand pass
Lightly across your hair? you feel it pass
Not half so heavy as a cobweb’s weight,
Although you never stir; so felt the sky
Not unaware of the Presence, so my soul
Scarce less aware. And if I cannot say
The meaning and monition, words are weak
Which will not paint the small wing of a moth,
Nor bear a subtile odour to the brain,
And much less serve the soul in her large needs.
I cannot tell the meaning, but a change
Was wrought in me; it was not the one man
Who come to the luminous window to gaze forth,
And who moved back into the darkened room
With awe upon his heart and tender hope;
From some deep well of life tears rose; the throng
Of dusty cares, hopes, pleasures, prides fell off,
And from a sacred solitude I gazed
Deep, deep into the liquid eyes of Life.

SUNSETS

Did your eyes watch the mystic sunset splendours
Through evenings of old summers, slow of parting,—
Wistful while loveliest gains and fair surrenders
Hallow’d the West,—till tremulous tears came starting?

Did your soul wing her way on noiseless pinion
Through lucid fields of air, and penetrated
With light and silence roam the wide dominion
Where Day and Dusk embrace,—serene, unmated?

And they are past the shining hours and tender,
And snows are fallen between, and winds are driven?
Nay, for I find across your face the splendour,
And in your wings the central winds of heaven.

They reach me, those lost sunsets. Undivining
Your own high mysteries you pause and ponder;
See, in my eyes the vanished light is shining,
Feel, through what spaces of clear heaven I wander!

OASIS

Let them go by—the heats, the doubts, the strife;
I can sit here and care not for them now,
Dreaming beside the glimmering wave of life
Once more,—I know not how.

There is a murmur in my heart, I hear
Faint, O so faint, some air I used to sing;
It stirs my sense; and odours dim and dear
The meadow-breezes bring.

Just this way did the quiet twilights fade
Over the fields and happy homes of men,
While one bird sang as now, piercing the shade,
Long since,—I know not when.

FOREIGN SPEECH

Ah, do not tell me what they mean,
The tremulous brook, the scarcely stirred
June leaves, the hum of things unseen,
This sovran bird.

Do they say things so deep, and rare,
And perfect? I can only tell
That they are happy, and can bear
Such ignorance well;

Feeding on all things said and sung
From hour to hour in this high wood
Articulate in a strange, sweet tongue
Not understood.

IN THE TWILIGHT

A noise of swarming thoughts,
A muster of dim cares, a foil’d intent,
With plots and plans, and counterplans and plots;
And thus along the city’s edges grey
Unmindful of the darkening autumn day
With a droop’d head I went.