XI. AN AUTUMN MORNING
O what a morn is this for us who knew
The large, blue, summer mornings, heaven let down
Upon the earth for men to drink, the crown
Of perfect human living, when we grew
Great-hearted like the Gods! Come, we will strew
White ashes on our hair, nor strive to drown
In faint hymn to the year’s fulfilled renown
The sterile grief which is the season’s due.
Lightly above the vine-rows of rich hills
Where the brown peasant girls move amid grapes
The swallow glances; let him cry for glee!
But yon pale mist diffused ’twixt paler shapes,—
Once sovereign trees,—my spirit also fills,
And an east-wind comes moaning from the sea.
SEA VOICES
Was it a lullaby the Sea went singing
About my feet, some old-world monotone,
Filled full of secret memories, and bringing
Not hope to sting the heart, but peace alone,
Sleep and the certitude of sleep to be
Wiser henceforth than all philosophy?
Truth! did we seek for truth with eye and brain
Through days so many and wasted with desire?
Listen, the same long gulfing voice again:
Tired limbs lie slack as sands are, eyes that tire
Close gently, close forever, twilight grey
Receives you, tenderer than the glaring day.
[He sleeps, and after an interval awakes.]
Ah terror, ah delight! A sudden cry,
Anguish, or hope, or triumph. Awake, arise,—
The winds awake! Is ocean’s lullaby
This clarion-call? Her kiss, the spray that flies
Salt to the lip and cheek? Her motion light
Of nursing breasts, this swift pursuit and flight?
O wild sea-voices! Victory and defeat,
But ever deathless passion and unrest,
White wings upon the wind and flying feet,
Disdain and wrath, a reared and hissing crest,
The imperious urge, and last, a whole life spent
In bliss of one supreme abandonment.
ABOARD THE “SEA-SWALLOW”
The gloom of the sea-fronting cliffs
Lay on the water, violet-dark,
The pennon drooped, the sail fell in,
And slowly moved our bark.
A golden day; the summer dreamed
In heaven and on the whispering sea,
Within our hearts the summer dreamed;
The hours had ceased to be.
Then rose the girls with bonnets loosed,
And shining tresses lightly blown,
Alice and Adela, and sang
A song of Mendelssohn.
O sweet, and sad, and wildly clear,
Through summer air it sinks and swells,
Wild with a measureless desire,
And sad with all farewells.
SEA-SIGHING
This is the burden of the Sea,
Loss, failure, sorrows manifold;
Yet something though the voice sound free
Remains untold.
Listen! that secret sigh again
Kept very low, a whole heart’s waste;
What means this inwardness of pain?
This sob repressed?
Some ancient sin, some supreme wrong,
Some huge attempt God brought to nought,
All over while the world was young,
And ne’er forgot?
Those lips, which open wide and cry,
Weak as pale flowers or trembling birds,
Are proud, and fixed immutably
Against such words.
Confession from that burdened soul
No ghostly counsellor may win;
Could such as we receive its whole
Passion and sin?
In this high presence priest or king,
Prophet or singer of the earth,
With yon cast sea-weed were a thing
Of equal worth.
IN THE MOUNTAINS
Fatigued of heart, and owning how the world
Is strong, too strong for will of mine, my steps
Through the tall pines I led, to reach that spur
Which strikes from off the mountain toward the West.
I hoped to lull a fretted heart to sleep,
And in the place of definite thought a sense
Possessed me, dim and sweet, of Motherhood,
The breasts of Nature, warmth, and soothing hands,
And tender, inarticulate nursing-words
Slow uttered o’er tired eyes.
But suddenly
Rude waking! Suddenly the rocks, the trees
Stood up in rangèd power, rigid, erect,
And all cried out on me “Away with him!
Away! He is not of us, has no part
In ours or us! Traitor, away with him!”
And the birds shrilled it “Traitor,” and the flowers
Stared up at me with small, hard, insolent eyes.
But I, who had been weak, was weak no more,
Nor shrank at all, but with deliberate step
Moved on, and with both hands waved off the throng,
And feared them not, nor sent defiance back.
Thus, till the pine-glooms fell away, and goats
Went tinkling and no herd-boy near; glad airs
With sunshine in them moved angelical
Upon the solitary heights; the sky
Held not a cloud from marge to marge; and now
Westward the sun was treading, calm and free.
I lay upon the grass, and how an hour
Went past I know not. When again time was,
The sun had fallen, and congregated clouds,
A vision of great glories, held the West,
And through them, and beyond, the hyaline
Led the charm’d spirit through infinite spaces on.
I think of all the men upon this earth
The sight was mine alone; it for my soul,
My soul for it, until all seeing died.
Where did I live transfigured? through what times
Of heaven’s great year? What sudden need of me
For sacrifice on altar, or for priest,
For soldier at the rampart, cup-bearer
At feasts of God, rapt singer in the joy
Of consonant praise, doom’d rebel for the fires?
—I know not, but somewhere some part I held,
Nor fail’d when summoned.
When the body took
Its guest once more the clouds were massy-grey,
The event was ended; yet a certain thing
Abode with me, which still eludes its name,
Yet lies within my heart like some great word
A mage has taught, and he who heard it once
Cannot pronounce, and never may forget.
But this I dare record,—when all was past,
And once again I turned to seek the vale,
And moved adown the slippery pine-wood path,
In the dimness every pine tree bowed to me
With duteous service, and the rocks lay couched
Like armèd followers round, and one bird sang
The song I chose, and heavy fragrance came
From unseen flowers, and all things were aware
One passed who had been called and consecrate.
“THE TOP OF A HILL CALLED CLEAR”
(In sight of the Celestial City)
And all my days led on to this! the days
Of pallid light, of springs no sun would warm,
Of chilling rain autumnal, which decays
High woods while veering south the quick wings swarm,
The days of hot desire, of broken dreaming,
Mechanic toil, poor pride that was but seeming,
And bleeding feet, and sun-smit flowerless ways.
Below me spreads a sea of tranquil light,
No blue cloud thunder-laden, but pure air
Shot through and through with sunshine; from this height
A man might cast himself in joy’s despair,
And find unhoped, to bear him lest he fall,
Swift succouring wings, and hands angelical,
And circling of soft eyes, and foreheads bright.
Under me light, and light is o’er my head,
And awful heaven and heaven to left and right;
In all His worlds this spot unvisited
God kept, save by the winging of keen light,
And the dread gaze of stars, and morning’s wan
Virginity, for me a living man,
Living, not borne among the enfranchised dead.
New life,—not death! No glow the senses cast
Across the spirit, no pleasure shoots o’er me
Its scattering flaw, no words may I hold fast
Here, where God’s breath streams inexhaustibly;
But conquest stern is mine, a will made sane,
Life’s vision wide and calm, a supreme pain,
An absolute joy; and love the first and last.
THE INITIATION
Under the flaming wings of cherubim
I moved toward that high altar. O, the hour!
And the light waxed intenser, and the dim
Low edges of the hills and the grey sea
Were caught and captur’d by the present Power,
My sureties and my witnesses to be.
Then the light drew me in. Ah, perfect pain!
Ah, infinite moment of accomplishment!
Thou terror of pure joy, with neither wane
Nor waxing, but long silence and sharp air
As womb-forsaking babes breathe. Hush! the event
Let him who wrought Love’s marvellous things declare.
Shall I who fear’d not joy, fear grief at all?
I on whose mouth Life laid his sudden lips
Tremble at Death’s weak kiss, and not recall
That sundering from the flesh, the flight from time,
The judgments stern, the clear apocalypse,
The lightnings, and the Presences sublime.
How came I back to earth? I know not how,
Nor what hands led me, nor what words were said.
Now all things are made mine,—joy, sorrow; now
I know my purpose deep, and can refrain;
I walk among the living not the dead;
My sight is purged; I love and pity men.
RENUNCIANTS
Seems not our breathing light?
Sound not our voices free?
Bid to Life’s festal bright
No gladder guests there be.
Ah, stranger, lay aside
Cold prudence! I divine
The secret you would hide,
And you conjecture mine.
You too have temperate eyes,
Have put your heart to school,
Are proved. I recognize
A brother of the rule.
I knew it by your lip,
A something when you smiled,
Which meant “close scholarship,
A master of the guild.”
Well, and how good is life,
Good to be born, have breath,
The calms good and the strife,
Good life, and perfect death.
Come, for the dancers wheel,
Join we the pleasant din,
—Comrade, it serves to feel
The sackcloth next the skin.
SPEAKERS TO GOD
First Speaker
Eastward I went and Westward, North and South,
And the wind blew me from deep zone to zone;
Many strong women did I love; my mouth
I gave for kisses, rose, and straight was gone.
I fought with heroes; there was joyous play
Of swords; my cities rose in every land;
Then forth I fared. O God, thou knowest, I lay
Ever within the hollow of thy hand.
Second Speaker
I am borne out to thee upon the wave,
And the land lessens; cry nor speech I hear,
Nought but the leaping waters and the brave
Pure winds commingling. O the joy, the fear!
Alone with thee; sky’s rim and ocean’s rim
Touch, overhead the clear immensity
Is merely God; no eyes of seraphim
Gaze in ... O God, Thou also art the sea!
Third Speaker
Thus it shall be a lifetime,—ne’er to meet;
A trackless land divides us lone and long;
Others, who seek Him, find, run swift to greet
Their Friend, approach the bridegroom’s door with song.
I stand, nor dare affirm I see or hear;
How should I dream, when strict is my employ?
Yet if some time, far hence, thou drawest near
Shall there be any joy like to our joy?
POESIA
(To a Painter)
Paint her with robe and girdle laid aside,
Without a jewel upon her; you must hide
By sleight of artist from the gazer’s view
No whit of her fair body; calm and true
Her eyes must meet our passion, as aware
The world is beautiful, and she being fair
A part of it. She needs be no more pure
Than a dove is, nor could one well endure
More faultlessness than of a sovran rose,
Reserved, yet liberal to each breeze that blows.
Let her be all revealed, nor therefore less
A mystery of unsearchable loveliness;
There must be no discoveries to be made,
Save as a noonday sky with not a shade
Or floating cloud of Summer to the eye
Which drinks its light admits discovery.
Did common raiment hide her could we know
How hopeless were the rash attempt to throw
Sideways the veil which guards her womanhood?
Therefore her sacred vesture must elude
All mortal touch, and let her welcome well
Each corner, being still unapproachable.
Plant firm on Earth her feet, as though her own
Its harvests were, and, for she would be known
Fearless not fugitive, interpose no bar
’Twixt us and her, Love’s radiant avatar,
No more to be possessed than sunsets are.
MUSICIANS
I know the harps whereon the Angels play,
While in God’s listening face they gaze intent,
Are these frail hearts,—yours, mine; and gently they,
Leaning a warm breast toward the instrument,
And preluding among the tremulous wires,
First draw forth dreams of song, unfledged desires,
Nameless regrets, sweet hopes which will not stay.
But when the passionate sense of heavenly things
Possesses the musician, and his lips
Part glowing, and the shadow of his wings
Grows golden, and fire streams from finger-tips,
And he is mighty, and his heart-throbs thicken,
And quick intolerable pulses quicken,
How his hand lords it in among the strings!
Ah the keen crying of the wires! the pain
Of restless music yearning to out-break
And shed its sweetness utterly, the rain
Of heavenly laughters, threats obscure which shake
The spirit, trampling tumults which dismay,
The fateful pause, the fiat summoning day,
The faultless flower of light which will not wane.
How wrought with you the awful lord of song?
What thirst of God hath he appeased? What bliss
Raised to clear ecstasy? O tender and strong
The eager melodist who leaned o’er this
Live heart of mine, who leans above it now:
The stern pure eyes! the ample, radiant brow!
Pluck boldly, Master, the good strain prolong.
MISCELLANEOUS SONNETS
A DAY OF DEFECTION
This day among the days will never stand,
Carven and clear, a shape of fair delight,
With singing lips, and gaze of innocent might,
Crown’d queenwise, or the lyre within her hand,
And firm feet making conquest of a land
Heavy with fruitage; nay, from all men’s sight
Drop far, cold sun, and let remorseful Night
Cloke the shamed forehead, and the bosom’s brand.
Could but the hammer rive, the thunder-stone
Flung forth from heaven on some victorious morn
Grind it to dust! Slave, must I always see
Thy beauty soil’d? Must shining days foregone
Admit thee peer, and wondering new-born
To-morrow meet thy dull eyes’ infamy?
SONG AND SILENCE
While Sorrow sat beside me many a day,
I,—with head turned from her, and yet aware
How her eyes’ light was on my brow and hair,
The light which bites and blights our gold to grey,—
Still sang, and swift winds bore my songs away
Full of sweet sounds, as of a lute-player
Who sees fresh colours, breathes the ripe soft air,
And hears the cuckoo shout in dells of May,
Being filled with ease and indolent of heart.
So sang I, Sorrow near me: chide me not,
O Joy, for silence now! Hereafter wise,
Large song may come, life blossoming in art,
From this new fate; but leave me, thou long sought,
To gaze awhile into those perfect eyes.
LOVE-TOKENS
I wear around my forehead evermore,
The circlet of your praise, pure gold; and how
I walk forth crown’d, the approving angels know,
And see how I am meeker than before
Being thus proud. For roses my full store,
Upon a cheek where flowers will scantly blow,
Is your lips’ one immortal touch, and lo!
All shame deserts my blood to the heart’s core.
Dare I display love’s choicest gift—this scar
Still sanguine-hued? Here ran your sudden brand
Sheer through the starting flesh, and let abroad
A traitor’s life; your wrathful eyes afar,
Had doom’d him first. Ah, gracious, valiant hand
Which drew me bleeding to the feet of God!
A DREAM
I dreamed I went to seek for her whose sight
Is sunshine to my soul; and in my dream
I found her not; then sank the latest beam
Of day in the rich west; upswam the Night
With sliding dews, and still I searched in vain,
Through thickest glooms of garden-alleys quaint,
On moonlit lawns, by glimmering lakes where faint
The ripples brake and died, and brake again.
Then said I, “At God’s inner court of light
I will beg for her;” straightway toward the same
I went, and lo! upon the altar-stair,
She knelt with face uplifted, and soft hair
Fallen upon shoulders purely gowned in white
And on her parted lips I read my name.
MICHELANGELESQUE
Shaping thy life what if the stubborn stuff
Grudge to inform itself through each dull part
With the soul’s high invention, and thy art
Seem a defeated thing, and earth rebuff
Heaven’s splendour, choosing darkness,—leave the rough
Brute-parts unhewn. Toilest thou for the mart
Or for the temple? Does the God see start
Quick beauty from the block, it is enough.
The spirit, foiled elsewhere, presses to the mouth,
Disparts the lips, lives on the lighted brow,
Fills the wide nostrils, flings the imperious chin
Out proudly. Now behold! the lyric youth,
The wrestler stooping in the act to win,
Pythian Apollo with the vengeful bow.
LIFE’S GAIN
“Now having gained Life’s gain, how hold it fast?
The harder task! because the world is still
The world, and days creep slow, and wear the will,
And Custom, gendering in the heart’s blind waste,
Brings forth a wingèd mist, which with no haste
Upcircling the steep air, and charged with ill,
Blots all our shining heights adorable,
And leaves slain Faith, slain Hope, slain Love the last.”
O shallow lore of life! He who hath won
Life’s gain doth hold nought fast, who could hold all,
Holden himself of strong, immortal Powers.
The stars accept him; for his sake the Sun
Hath sworn in heaven an oath memorial;
Around his feet stoop the obsequious Hours.
COMPENSATION
You shake your head and talk of evil days:
My friend, I learn’d ere I had told twelve years
That truth of yours,—how irrepressible tears
Surprise us, and strength fails, and pride betrays,
And sorrows lurk for us in all the ways
Of joyous living. But now to front my fears
I set a counter-truth which comes and cheers
Our after-life, when, temperate, the heart weighs
Evil with good. Do never smiles surprise
Sad lips? Did the glad violets blow last spring
In no new haunts? Or are the heavens not fair
After drench’d days of June, when all the air
Grows fragrant, and the rival thrushes sing,
Until stars gather into twilight skies?
TO A CHILD DEAD AS SOON AS BORN
A little wrath was on thy forehead, Boy,
Being thus defeated; the resolvèd will
Which death could not subdue, was threatening still
From lip and brow. I know that it was joy
No casual misadventure might destroy
To have lived, and fought and died. Therefore I kill
The pang for thee, unknown; nor count it ill
That thou hast entered swiftly on employ
Where Life would plant a warder keen and pure.
I thought to see a little piteous clay
The grave had need of, pale from light obscure
Of embryo dreams; thy face was as the day
Smit on by storm. Palms for my child, and bay!
Thus far thou hast done well, true son: endure.
BROTHER DEATH
When thou would’st have me go with thee, O Death,
Over the utmost verge, to the dim place,
Practise upon me with no amorous grace
Of fawning lips, and words of delicate breath,
And curious music thy lute uttereth;
Nor think for me there must be sought-out ways
Of cloud and terror; have we many days
Sojourned together, and is this thy faith?
Nay, be there plainness ’twixt us; come to me
Even as thou art, O brother of my soul;
Hold thy hand out and I will place mine there;
I trust thy mouth’s inscrutable irony,
And dare to lay my forehead where the whole
Shadow lies deep of thy purpureal hair.
THE MAGE
When I shall sing my songs the world will hear,
—Which hears not these,—I shall be white with age,
My beard on breast great as befits a mage
So skilled; but song is young, and in no drear
Tome-crammed, lamp-litten chamber shall mine fear
To pine ascetic. Where the woods are deep,
Thick leaves for arras, in a noonday sleep
Of breeze and bloom, gaze, but my art revere!
There I will sit, and score rare wisardry
In characters vermilion, azure, gold,
With bird, starred flower, and peering dragon-fly
Limned in the lines; and secrets shall be told
Of greatest Pan, and lives of wood-nymphs shy,
Blabbed by my goat-foot servitor overbold.
WISE PASSIVENESS
Think you I choose or that or this to sing?
I lie as patient as yon wealthy stream
Dreaming among green fields its summer dream,
Which takes whate’er the gracious hours will bring
Into its quiet bosom; not a thing
Too common, since perhaps you see it there
Who else had never seen it, though as fair
As on the world’s first morn; a fluttering
Of idle butterflies; or the deft seeds
Blown from a thistle-head; a silver dove
As faultlessly; or the large, yearning eyes
Of pale Narcissus; or beside the reeds
A shepherd seeking lilies for his love,
And evermore the all-encircling skies.
THE SINGER’S PLEA
Why do I sing? I know not why, my friend;
The ancient rivers, rivers of renown,
A royal largess to the sea roll down,
And on those liberal highways nations send
Their tributes to the world,—stored corn and wine,
Gold-dust, the wealth of pearls, and orient spar,
And myrrh, and ivory, and cinnabar,
And dyes to make a presence-chamber shine.
But in the woodlands, where the wild-flowers are,
The rivulets, they must have their innocent will
Who all the summer hours are singing still,
The birds care for them, and sometimes a star,
And should a tired child rest beside the stream
Sweet memories would slide into his dream.
THE TRESPASSER
Trespassers will be prosecuted,—so
Announced the inhospitable notice-board;
But silver-clear as any lady’s word
Come in, in, in, come in, now rich and low,
Now with tumultuous palpitating flow,
I swear by ring of Canace I heard.
“Sure,” said I, “this is no brown-breasted bird,
But some fair princess, lost an age ago
Through stepdame’s cursed spell, till the saints brought her
Who but myself, the knight foredoomed of grace.”
Alas! poor knight, in all that cockney place
You found no magic, save one radiant sight,
The huge, obstreperous house-keeper’s granddaughter,
A child with eyes of pure ethereal light.
RITUALISM
This is high ritual and a holy day;
I think from Palestrina the wind chooses
That movement in the firs; one sits and muses
In hushed heart-vacancy made meek to pray;
Listen! the birds are choristers with gay
Clear voices infantine, and with good will
Each acolyte flower has swung his thurible,
Censing to left and right these aisles of May.
For congregation, see! real sheep most clean,
And I—what am I, worshipper or priest?
At least all these I dare absolve from sin,
Ay, dare ascend to where the splendours shine
Of yon steep mountain-altar, and the feast
Is holy, God Himself being bread and wine.
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND
I, who lie warming here by your good fire,
Was once Prometheus and elsewhere have lain;
Ah, still in dreams they come,—the sudden chain,
The swooping birds, the silence, the desire
Of pitying, powerless eyes, the night, and higher
The keen stars; (if you please I fill again
The bowl, Silenus)—; yet ’twas common pain
Their beaks’ mad rooting; O, but they would tire,
And one go circling o’er the misty vast
On great, free wings, and one sit, head out-bent,
Poised for the plunge; then ’twas I crushed the cry
“Zeus, Zeus, I kiss your feet, and learn at last
The baseness of this crude self-government
Matched with glad impulse and blind liberty.”
KING MOB
Dismiss, O sweet King Mob, your foot-lickers!
When you held court last night I too was there
To listen, and in truth well nigh despair
O’ercame me when I saw your greedy ears
Drink such gross poison. I could weep hot tears
To think how three drugged words avail to keep
A waking people still on the edge of sleep,
And lose the world a right good score of years.
I love you too, big Anarch, lately born,
Half beast, yet with a stupid heart of man,
And since I love, would God that I could warn
Work out the beast as shortly as you can,
Till which time oath of mine shall ne’er be sworn,
Nor knee be bent to you, King Caliban.
THE MODERN ELIJAH
What went ye forth to see? a shaken reed?—
Ye throngers of the Parthenon last night.
Prophet, yea more than prophet, we agreed;
No John a’ Desert with the girdle tight,
And locusts and wild honey for his need,
Before the dreadful day appears in sight
Urging one word to make the conscience bleed,
But an obese John Smith, “a shining light”
(Our chairman felt), “an honour to his creed.”
O by the gas, when buns and tea had wrought
Upon our hearts, how grew the Future bright,—
The Press, the Institutes, Advance of Thought,
And People’s Books, till every mother’s son
Can prove there is a God, or there is none.
DAVID AND MICHAL
(2 Samuel vi. 16)
But then you don’t mean really what you say—
To hear this from the sweetest little lips,
O’er which each pretty word daintily trips
Like small birds hopping down a garden way,
When I had given my soul full scope to play
For once before her in the Orphic style
Caught from three several volumes of Carlyle,
And undivulged before this very day!
O young men of our earnest school confess
How it is deeply, darkly tragical
To find the feminine souls we would adore
So full of sense, so versed in worldly lore,
So deaf to the Eternal Silences,
So unbelieving, so conventional.