The collected poems of Arthur Edward Waite :: :: University of Virginia Library

And, betwixt a shriek and moan,
All over the floors of stone
Or the scented ivory floors,
The wind of the world outside
Took and scatter'd them wide
And far through the open doors;
When a shaft of the sunlight broke,
Like smouldering fire and smoke,
Through the painted windows—lifting high
Their forest of tangled tracery;
And over the dunes, through the brushwood maze,
The cries which echoed all day drew off afar,
Towards the holocaust fire of the sunset and the long drawn under-haze—
Forth I issued alone, and heard
The final note of the day's last fountain-hearted bird
Spring to the fountain-beam of the night's first star.

Thereat at length my heart sustain'd
The utter sense of loss,
And that first ghostly lawn I gain'd—
Like one who drags his cross.
Thereon—as over a mountain ledge—
At the South horizon's terminal edge,
Where the ragged road of that restless place
Suddenly seems to fall into space,
I saw how the pageant, rank by rank,
Paused on the brink, there gleam'd and sank.
So took they, 'twixt the day and the night,
My wonder forth on her palfrey white,
And the whole world's dissolving spell
Mutter'd and moan'd confused farewell.
Then life fell suddenly dead and cold,
While over the terrace and through the gate,
And far through the woodland and farther still, all over the open wold,

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With a vacant heart and a voided will,
Forth I hurried; but still
Sang, on the crest of the coppice, that bird—which tarried so late—
To the early star far over the naked crest of the hill.

I will not dwell on this night's eclipse,
When all the world's woes came—
The secret want with shrouded lips,
The grief too deep for name.
They found a name to ease their grief,
They shew'd their wounds to win relief,
And then, confessing, look'd on mine,
Crying: No sorrow is like to thine,
For the Master of all in His great day
Shall scarcely wipe thy tears away.
One also from afar came down,
Who said: Twelve stars were in my Crown;
The lilies of all the world, besprent
Through bosks and valleys, made white my star of old.
Deep is my loss and far my lapse, but further is thy descent;
Yes, I know by thine eyes of doom
That I rise from the curse and gloom,
And the glory of morning blossoms, as lights in the heart unfold.

Another from the marshes rose,
With dripping cloak and hood—
Wolf-eyes that had not found repose
Through years, nor look'd on good;
With aspect of a man long dead,
Whom loathing earth refused a bed,
Empty and yet compell'd to be—
O weary of all the skies was he!
And from his neck—what load of pain!—
There hung a heavy and tarnish'd chain,

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From the thirty pieces of silver wrought
By which Christs and Kings have been sold and bought.
For a little space he gazed, then cried,
Hands stretch'd, like one that is crucified:—
Woe and woe, but an end of woe—
With a hope at end, as a light in darkness born—
Because it is given to gaze at length on a face from every face distinguished here below
By mine own sorrow and loss.
Yet deeper is scored thy cross,
As the pit than the grave is deeper, O thou of all forlorn!

So therefore as the night of murk
Drew towards a morning chill;
As light began like a yeast to work—
Nameless, stealthy and still—
And a torpid shuddering life to stir,
It seem'd that the burden of Lucifer,
With the twelve stars dark in his crown,
And of Judas the chain'd fell down,
While those twain over the steep hill trod,
Like souls set free that return to God.
But forth abroad through the day's bright heart,
God's hand under, I moved apart;
And a Borgia poison as I went
Pass'd into every sacrament.
The vision went out in the eyes that see;
The star absinthos and wormwood, hissing, into all sweet waters fell;
The chrism destroy'd the dying man, as Nature the honey-bee;
And with heavy feet, as I fared,
I straiten'd the road and prepared
A path, meseems, for the world to take, going down to the gates of hell.

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How on this middle deep and dark
Should light and joy be rain'd?
Ah, by what process hard, remark,
Redemption's height is gain'd!
Hence, over the marsh and over the sky
And the unclaim'd wastes, I testify
That the morning comes, howe'er delay'd,
Till the saddest feet through a glory wade,
While the aching head cannot fail to lift,
Eyes turn where the white cloud-splendours drift.
And when the eyes behold what gem
Is set in the great world's diadem,
There is no soul in the deep abyss
But shall remember crown and bliss.
Yea, the light behind is the light before,
O'erflowing the wreck and the ravage, suffusing the day's deep wells;
The light without is for ever and evermore
The sacro-saintly joy of all light within;
High over the cross and the loss the sun-clouds circle and spin;
And the bane from the soul uplifted its curse from the earth expels.

So therefore in those softer hours
Which soothe the close of all,
I stood as one midst lights and flowers
By an altar fair and tall;
And in priestly vestments even I
Intoned the mystical liturgy.
Yea, with unearthly and shining eyes,
I, even I, offer'd sacrifice,
And uttered the kingly and terrible terms
Which, veils assuming, the King confirms.
The painted windows lifted high
Their forest of tangled tracery;

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And the heavy shafts of sunlight broke
Through the shifting denseness of incense-smoke;
When I—even I—with hands made clean
—As God in the past cried: “Light”—
Saw light flash forth at the mystic words, and Christ through His veils was seen.

By this do I testify
That the soul of itself can die,
Yet in death is He strong to save, since I have seen crown and height.