Her lover yet uncarnate; of thy race
To be; long-dreamèd mate
Of her embrace;
Whose godling fruit, too prized, too dear
For bandit breath, shall wait
The Garnerer.
Not then mute, anguished wives,
Dumb in law's gyves,
Shall shrink to mother a soul-famined brood,—
Unbudding sentiencies of flowerhood,
Shut miracles no wand
May touch, that from the hand
Of Toil, the reaver, fall
To dust, their grudgèd pall,
Leaving imperial web to those who wear
That woof of blood and tears as gossamer.
Not then! Where now the wailing way o'erteems,
And baffled starvelings bar
The way of dreams;
Pouring to Want, grey-veined Disease,
To Greed, and lurking War,—
Brute goblinries
With horde-lip sateless on
God-food dust-thrown,—
Lover and Love shall pass, each babe of theirs,
Darling of Life, born for the higher wars
Where knights of spirit sway,
Summoned to holiest fray
By heralds never bare
To clodded vision. There,
Shriven and sure, the sun-dipped lance shall leap
Till Dream uncorselet clay and put off sleep.
For me one rift! Through this sepultural blight
A breath runs living, new;
Unburdening light
As when the flame-borne prophet on
The Syrian ploughman threw
A people's dawn.
The world is Heaven worth,
The cradle earth
Casts orphanhood, a Bethlehem God-swung
From crimson grapple with his lyric young.
Here triumph I, so low,
Knowing that Lust shall go,
With whited, anarch train,—
Shall pass, this curbless, vain
Usurping deity that would compel
The Mary-longing Love to yet mould Jezebel.
Drag me with life that keeps Death shadow-near
Till I, unfrighted, wake
His charnel fear
In every face that wariful
Meets mine; this bud-mouth make
Unkissable
With kisses; and up-lap
My soul's youth sap
Till 't withers to a clutch about the gold
You think pays all; yet from this reedy mould,
This swamped, unfructant sedge,
Gentility's marsh edge,
I, on free wing, shall take
My swan-course o'er the brake,
Leaving the chanson of thy sin to thee
Who hast not seen, not touched the unstainable me.
Yet art thou dear, O singer! When we rest
Past all Life's hostel doors,
On her home crest;
And 'neath our feet the dark vat night
From pain's crushed star-grapes pours
The climbing light;
There thou, beside me then,
With moteless ken,
Remembering these, thy pity and thy song,
Dropped at the cross where thou didst nail me long,
Shalt sereless 'scape the aim
Of hot, lance-darting shame,
For over thee shall fall
The dawn-tressed coronal
Of Love I then shall be, wrapping thee in
The pity at whose touch dies every sin.
FRIENDS
There's one comes often as the sun
And fills my room with morning; comes with step
Light as a youth's that joy has hurried home.
If he should greet my cheek, so might a wind
Blow roses till they touch, silk leaf to leaf,
And on their beauty leave no deeper dye;
But with that touch an old world is untombed,
Gay, festal-gowned; and two with nuptial eyes
Walk arm-locked there, flinging the curls of Greece
From proud, smooth brows. As trapped between two throbs,
Their laughter dies in silent passion's kiss;
And I from glow of ancient dust look up
To meet the untroubled eyes of my friend's bride,
Her pretty, depthless eyes that smile and smile
Possessingly, not grudging alien me
A footstool place about her sceptred love.
And I, too, from imperial largess, smile.
Another comes more rarely than new moon,
And always with a flower,—one; pours tea
Like an old picture softly made alive,
Sings me a ballad that once teased the ears
Of golden Bess, and reads the book I love.
If he must journey, first he comes to lay
Knight-service on my hand; no passion then
More swift than when a last cool petal falls
To faded summer grass; but as he goes
I see a girl deep in a forest lane,
A narrow lane dark-roofed with locking firs;
And there are purple foxgloves shoulder high,
And round the girl's knees Canterbury bells.
Upon the air is scent of wounded trees,
As though a storm had passed there, and great owls
Ruffle a shade unloved of birds that sing.
But at the green lane's end, far down
A bit of heart-shaped sun tells where the road
Lies wide and open; on the sun the still
Dark shadow of a steed: and by the girl
One who shall ride,—unvisored now, and pale.
"And when I come," he says, to me who know
He'll come that way no more; then hear my door
Closed softly on a sob ten centuries old.