Gloucester Moors and Other Poems

by William Vaughn Moody

Along the violet slopes of evensong.
Of all the sights that starred the dreamy year,
For me one sight stood peerless and apart:
Bright rivers tacit; low hills prone and dumb;
Forests that hushed their tiniest voice to hear;
Skies for the unutterable advent robed
In purple like the opening iris buds;
And by some lone expectant pool, one tree
Whose gray boughs shivered with excess of awe,—
As with preluding gush of amber light,
And herald trumpets softly lifted through,
Across the palpitant horizon marge
Crocus-filleted came the singing moon.
Out of her changing lights I wove my youth
A place to dwell in, sweet and spiritual,
And all the bitter years of my exile
My heart has called afar off unto her.
Lo, after many days love finds its own!
The futile adorations, the waste tears,
The hymns that fluttered low in the false dawn,
She has uptreasured as a lover's gifts;
They are the mystic garment that she wears
Against the bridal, and the crocus flowers
She twined her brow with at the going forth;
They are the burden of the song she made
In coming through the quiet fields of space,

And breathe between her passion-parted lips
Calling me out along the flowering road
Which summers through the dimness of the sea.

Hark, where the deep feels round its thousand shores
To find remembered respite, and far drawn
Through weed-strewn shelves and crannies of the coast
The myriad silence yearns to myriad speech.
O sea that yearns a day, shall thy tongues be
So eloquent, and heart, shall all thy tongues
Be dumb to speak thy longing? Say I hold
Life as a broken jewel in my hand,
And fain would buy a little love with it
For comfort, say I fain would make it shine
Once in remembering eyes ere it be dust,—
Were life not worthy spent? Then what of this,
When all my spirit hungers to repay
The beauty that has drenched my soul with peace?
Once at a simple turning of the way
I met God walking; and although the dawn
Was large behind Him, and the morning stars
Circled and sang about his face as birds
About the fieldward morning cottager,
My coward heart said faintly, "Let us haste!

Day grows and it is far to market-town."
Once where I lay in darkness after fight,
Sore smitten, thrilled a little thread of song
Searching and searching at my muffled sense
Until it shook sweet pangs through all my blood,
And I beheld one globed in ghostly fire
Singing, star-strong, her golden canticle;
And her mouth sang, "The hosts of Hate roll past,
A dance of dust motes in the sliding sun;
Love's battle comes on the wide wings of storm,
From east to west one legion! Wilt thou strive?"
Then, since the splendor of her sword-bright gaze
Was heavy on me with yearning and with scorn
My sick heart muttered, "Yea, the little strife,
Yet see, the grievous wounds! I fain would sleep."
O heart, shalt thou not once be strong to go
Where all sweet throats are calling, once be brave
To slake with deed thy dumbness? Let us go
The path her singing face looms low to point,
Pendulous, blanched with longing, shedding flame
Of silver on the brown grope of the flood;
For all my spirit's soilure is put by
And all my body's soilure, lacking now
But the last lustral sacrament of death
To make me clean for those near-searching eyes

That question yonder whether all be well,
And pause a little ere they dare rejoice.

Question and be thou answered, passionate face!
For I am worthy, worthy now at last
After so long unworth; strong now at last
To give myself to beauty and be saved;
Now, being man, to give myself to thee,
As once the tumult of my boyish heart
Companioned thee with rapture through the world,
Forth from a land whereof no poet's lip
Made mention how the leas were lily-sprent,
Into a land God's eyes had looked not on
To love the tender bloom upon the hills.
To-morrow, when the fishers come at dawn
Upon that shell of me the sea has tossed
To land, as fit for earth to use again,
Men, meeting at the shops and corner streets,
Will speak a word of pity, glossing o'er
With altered accent, dubious sweep of hand,
Their virile, just contempt for one who failed.
But they can never cast my earnings up,
Who know so well my losses. Even you
Who in the mild light of the spirit walk
And hold yourselves acquainted with the truth,
Be not too swift to judge and cast me out!
You shall find other, nobler ways than mine

To work your soul's redemption,—glorious noons
Of battle 'neath the heaven-suspended sign,
And nightly refuge 'neath God's ægis-rim;
Increase of wisdom, and acquaintance held
With the heart's austerities; still governance,
And ripening of the blood in the weekday sun
To make the full-orbed consecrated fruit
At life's end for the Sabbath supper meet.
I shall not sit beside you at that feast,
For ere a seedling of my golden tree
Pushed off its petals to get room to grow,
I stripped the boughs to make an April gaud
And wreathe a spendthrift garland for my hair.
But mine is not the failure God deplores;
For I of old am beauty's votarist,
Long recreant, often foiled and led astray,
But resolute at last to seek her there
Where most she does abide, and crave with tears
That she assoil me of my blemishment.
Low looms her singing face to point the way,
Pendulous, blanched with longing, shedding flame
Of silver on the brown grope of the flood.
The stars are for me; the horizon wakes
Its pilgrim chanting; and the little sand
Grows musical of hope beneath my feet.
The waves that leap to meet my swimming breast
Gossip sweet secrets of the light-drenched way,

And when the deep throbs of the rising surge
Pulse upward with me, and a rain of wings
Blurs round the moon's pale place, she stoops to reach
Still welcome of bright hands across the wave,
And sings low, low, globed all in ghostly fire,
Lost verses from my youth's gold canticle.

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