Julian.
A voice comes from the vacant, wide sea-vault:
Man with the heart, praying for woman's love,
Receive thy prayer; be loved; and take thy choice:
Take this or this. O Heaven and Earth! I see—What
is it? Statue trembling into life
With the first rosy flush upon the skin?
Or woman-angel, richer by lack of wings?
I see her—where I know not; for I see
Nought else: she filleth space, and eyes, and brain—
God keep me!—in celestial nakedness.
She leaneth forward, looking down in space,
With large eyes full of longing, made intense
By mingled fear of something yet unknown;
Her arms thrown forward, circling half; her hands
Half lifted, and half circling, like her arms.
O heavenly artist! whither hast thou gone
To find my own ideal womanhood—
Glory grown grace, divine to human grown?
I hear the voice again: Speak but the word:
She will array herself and come to thee.
Lo, at her white foot lie her daylight clothes,
Her earthly dress for work and weary rest!
—I see a woman-form, laid as in sleep,
Close by the white foot of the wonderful.
It is the same shape, line for line, as she.
Long grass and daisies shadow round her limbs.
Why speak I not the word?———Clothe thee, and come,
O infinite woman! my life faints for thee.
Once more the voice: Stay! look on this side first:
I spake of choice. Look here, O son of man!
Choose then between them. Ah! ah!
[Silence.]
Her I knew
Some ages gone; the woman who did sail
Down a long river with me to the sea;
Who gave her lips up freely to my lips,
Her body willingly into my arms;
Came down from off her statue-pedestal,
And was a woman in a common house,
Not beautified by fancy every day,
And losing worship by her gifts to me.
She gave me that white child—what came of her?
I have forgot.—I opened her great heart,
And filled it half-way to the brim with love—
With love half wine, half vinegar and gall—
And so—and so—she—went away and died?
O God! what was it?—something terrible—
I will not stay to choose, or look again
Upon the beautiful. Give me my wife,
The woman of the old time on the earth.
O lovely spirit, fold not thy parted hands,
Nor let thy hair weep like a sunset-rain
If thou descend to earth, and find no man
To love thee purely, strongly, in his will,
Even as he loves the truth, because he will,
And when he cannot see it beautiful—
Then thou mayst weep, and I will help thee weep.
Voice, speak again, and tell my wife to come.
'Tis she, 'tis she, low-kneeling at my feet!
In the same dress, same flowing of the hair,
As long ago, on earth: is her face changed?
Sweet, my love rains on thee, like a warm shower;
My dove descending rests upon thy head;
I bless and sanctify thee for my own:
Lift up thy face, and let me look on thee.
Heavens, what a face! 'Tis hers! It is not hers!
She rises—turns it up from me to God,
With great rapt orbs, and such a brow!—the stars
Might find new orbits there, and be content.
O blessed lips, so sweetly closed that sure
Their opening must be prophecy or song!
A high-entranced maiden, ever pure,
And thronged with burning thoughts of God and Truth!
Vanish her garments; vanishes the silk
That the worm spun, the linen of the flax;—
O heavens! she standeth there, my statue-form,
With the rich golden torrent-hair, white feet,
And hands with rosy palms—my own ideal!
The woman of my world, with deeper eyes
Than I had power to think—and yet my Lilia,
My wife, with homely airs of earth about her,
And dearer to my heart as my lost wife,
Than to my soul as its new-found ideal!
Oh, Lilia! teach me; at thy knees I kneel:
Make me thy scholar; speak, and I will hear.
Yea, all eternity—