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

The Blessed Master from the world beyond
Came in the morning redness of my life;
He singled me from all my name and race
For ministry in secret through the world,
And I have never left Him, night or day,
Through all the lonely wanderings and ways.
Great is the enterprise, the end is sure:
In very truth the Blessed Master came!

You ask how first the Blessed Master came:
When first my heart was stirr'd to choose the path
Of quest, the Venerable Master came.
How came the Venerable Master? Say,
What other likeness could He wear but ours?
A man of men, of royal aspect He:
By just so much as man, aspiring, shapes
The Ends Divine and them in heart conceives
Do those Great Ends assume the man himself,
And so as man the Blessed Master came.
Where met the Master and the friend He loves?
Where should they meet but in familiar scenes?
The cotter need not look beyond his gate,
Nor woodman fare beyond the fallen tree,
Nor any turn the corner of a street;

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In East or West or Zenith seek him not:
O Blessed Master, he is here and now!

To me at eve the Blessed Master came;
Thee haply call'd He with the morn's first bird
And other some at middle night or noon:
With Nature round, to me at eve He came.
The sunset's scarlet heart had fix'd mine eyes,
And when they moved, intincted mist and flame
Seem'd rolling round me: a majestic shape,
Dilated in it, suddenly I saw
Beside me, and my spirit by His voice—
The Master's blessed voice—was inly thrill'd.

The Blessed Master came in evening's hush;
He bade me follow; in the autumn cold
I cross'd still fields, and through an old swing-gate
Pass'd into spongy marshes. Still my mind
Recalls one copse of willows where the moon
Through naked boughs look'd at us. As I cross'd
The crumbling stile, a minute's space I paused,
For who had stood there set apart so far
In all the world, O Blessed Master, say?
From mine old house had ever maid or youth,
At the star-promise of Thy word most true,
Gone forth at night to follow far on Thee,
And paused, as I, in that familiar copse,
Where late and early on my face the moon
Had look'd so oft, which would not know me more,
Yet all its woodland mystics spell the same
In calm and wind, while I was call'd away
The hallow'd bound of all man's life to win?
O Venerable Master, pausing there,
What marvel is it if my human heart
Shall keep the memory of that dreaming copse,
In yellow moonlight lying, fresh for ever,
Though over stars exalted?

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Long ago—
O long ago! And I have follow'd far—
With Thee, still with Thee, ever, Friend, with Thee!
And the old house from the old roof-tree leans,
For death and change have been at work in all;
But still that woodland spells its mystic speech
In calm and wind, and all its speech I know:
'Tis ever fresh within my human heart.
Since thus the Blessed Master came at eve,
That dreaming copse, in yellow moonlight lying,
Bears witness in me through eternity
How in His very truth the Master came!

VISTAS OF COMPASSION

A lullaby heard in a sunlit glade
And a voice in a forest bower;
The tender tones of a youth or maid,
And the wistful want of the world display'd
Comes over the heart with power.

Their message of hunger and aching deep
No tongue can in words translate;
But pity flows over for paths so steep,
For the dreadful height where the white worlds sweep
And the cloud on the golden gate.

O lullaby, soothe the babe's repose!
O voice, on the huntsman call!
A tenderness lives in the heart of the rose—
O sweet-lipp'd lovers! Who knows, who knows,
The secret measure of all?

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KNOWING THY LIKENESS

Not at the gate of heaven, not in the land
Of psychic dream, pours forth thy soul in song,
Lark of the marshes, of the pastures rich!
Enough thou singest in a pearl-grey sky;
The still'd sea rimpling on the hush'd sea-sand
Pauses in sunlight with uplifted crests
And listens. . . . Ever in a dream at noon
Lie lake-like, croon upon the crimpled shore
And languish, shallow sea! There shall not fail
Slow flights of solan geese with flashing wings,
And round the fosses, over dykes and meads
The martin ever with a plaintive note,
And doleful mew, shall call. So still wash on!
With mazy melodies of winds and birds
Mingle, thou mystery-voice!...Life-breathing tract,
Amidst composing magic of a faint,
Ethereal haze, upon that silent verge
Mix with the silent sky! O lambent blue!
Blue of the ocean, glass'd from heaven above,
Still draw the soul, alike on marsh and height,
Where the mole burrows, where the eagle soars;
On bleak, high crests, on the precipitous crests,
Whence torrents plunge to meet thee, draw the soul.
Amid the lonely walks of daily life,
Right on the summits of exalted thought,
Attract her still, and give the wild, white wings
Which o'er thee bear thy furthest-flighted bird.
Then in some vastness of thine underworld
She shall abide with thee—till twilight falls,
Possess thy splendour, thine immensity,
And compass all thy bounds in loving thought—
Yea, in adoring thought—shall so awhile

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Be satisfied and deem at length she rests,
Made one with being which is vast as her's.
Yet thou shalt fail, for twilight shuts thee in;
Thy strong spell utterly dissolves; thy voice
Grows hoarse and ominous, cold vapours brood
About the shining beauty of thy breast.
And, when the shifting wind begins to chafe,
Thy bitter discontent of brooding depths
Spumes upward; a vain madness passes through
Thy barren nature; on the rocks, the beach,
Thou ragest, passionful and anguish-tost.
Grand art thou then, yet peace is far from thee!
But when the startled moon among the clouds
Begins to scurry, and with fitful rays
Thine eager waste illumines, dire thou art,
With wretchedness full-voiced in all thy waves;
And then we know thee in the want thou hast.
O for the footsteps of the Prince of Peace
To still thy tumult, for His voice to still
Our stormy hearts! There is no help in thee;
Our need is thine; and what, O sea, thou art,
All Nature is, a message to the soul,
Assuagement sometimes and some ministry,
But not true rest or true beatitude!

Yet in the sweet peace of a day to come
There shall be no more sea of storm and pain,
But splendid calm, lucidity and depth,
With gladness in immensity like thine,
O royal ocean whom we hail and love!

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TO YOU IN ABSENCE

When I have seen thy sunset smoke,
How I have long'd for thee!
When through the fire and light
A deeper heart of light and fire
Has open'd from the infinite,
Deep as that void was my desire—
O heart of light! O heart of fire!—
Thy very self to feel and see
In ecstasy of sense and sight—
In nuptials of the depth and height:
Beyond the outward beauty's show,
The evanescent gleam and glow,
Ah, thee to know, ah, thee to know!

We do but see thy painted face,
Symbol and vesture of thy grace:
The long-drawn forests trail and bend,
The great paths wind and have no end,
The swimming floods their founts pour out,
The tides of the mysterious sea
That writhing vastness turns about,
And all draw out our souls to thee.

When darkness on the earth and ocean
Only unfolds the sense of motion,
Sound, and the echo of all sound,
Surging sharpen'd senses round,
There seems a closer contact made
Than when thy features stand display'd
But oh, not thee, ah no, not thee!
The portrait of a face conceal'd,
An absent person's picture shining;
And we before it stand divining
What thou art like and where art thou.
Does the light fall thus on thy brow?

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And do thy sweet eyes glance like this?
Thy lips seem as the lips we kiss,
And has thy voice, to cheer and bless,
Our music's dulcet tenderness?

We know thy picture well, ah well!
From out the blazon'd frame of things
It almost steps at times to tell
How close our heart's imaginings,
Beata Pulchra, reach to thee!
About thy country's shrouded sphere
Gather we tidings far and near;
And through the sunset and the star,
Through all the fields of space afar,
Through long-drawn fire of light which fills
The openings beyond the hills,
We pass in flight of thought to see—
O antitype of all things fair,
If thou art there, if thou art there!

Surely thy country is our home,
And all is exile here;
And surely we shall reach thy place:
We must be meant to see thy face—
Who also from afar have come,
With faces veil'd, as thine is now,
And other than our looks appear—
We know not how, we know not how!
While still we tarry far away,
And still pursue the anxious quest,
In beauty let thy picture stay,
In beauty and in light express'd
Throughout this long dream-haunted day—
On sea and land, on land and sea,
Long haunted with the dreams of thee—
And therefore, till the light shall fail,
O thou in absence, thee we hail!

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FOUNDATIONS OF SAPPHIRE

A keeper's stray shot suddenly divides
This evening's silence, then the dogs respond,
And up the steep hill's moist and rutted road
Hardly the waggon horses toil and strain.
An ancient beech is by me, broad of girth
And all about its roots enrich'd with moss,
While through the wooded vista of the slope
Only the bush makes dark the rover's way.

Now pleasant pools, with basking swans beside,
In dim recesses spread their brown expanse,
While East and South the spell of sunset light
Has visibly transfigured and enrich'd
Those golden slopes of uplands far away.

Her priestly function so the soul assumes—
Invoking, praising. Here the peace without
Makes peace within; the peace profound within
Sheds deeper peace without than Nature knows,
Save in the mystic equipoise of man's
Immortal part with her essential life,
Exalting both; then both repose therein,
In common bliss dependent each on each,
And unified.

Sweet Spirit of the sky—
So speaks the Soul, vibrating, brimm'd with song—
May peace of God o'er all thy broad expanse
Be spread for ever! May thy roving clouds,
Which carry coolness and life-yielding showers,
From zone to zone, to freshen every field,
To swell the streams and seas, thyself invest
With beauties new! May each returning eve

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From one new star, more bright than all before,
Enrich thy gem-set crown with silver gleam,
Thy lucid spaces purify and fill—
As with the lenity and grace of God!
O may thy peace and beauty's broad increase
On hearts distil in other showers and dew!
May all bright eyes beneath thy glance uplifted
Be with thine azure, with thine argent rays,
Suffused, and melted towards love's mildest mood,
Yet thy full joy reflect in every glance!

Ascending still this winding woodland road,
I see thy gentle blue to golden green,
Like shapes in sleep, transfigure. Then it seems
Thine answer comes; thy splendour passing down
Invests the soul and blesses in return;
Man's love for Nature on himself devolves
In lucid gifts; he sees, he feels, he knows,
And inspiration to a throne of thought
Uplifts him. Take, sweet Nature, take thy child!
Speak in the winds of evening, speak in mists,
Speak in the revelation of the stars!
And in the tremor of the midnight hush,
Wherein the lone sea washes far away,
Reveal and speak!

“So art thou child no more”—
This mystic Nature utters to the soul—
“But, one in essence, thou art old like me,
Yet ever young, for ever changed and born,
As through the pageant of created things
Thou passest slowly towards the utmost point;
And all my light goes with thee, all my hopes
Spread wings before thee, while the end, the end,
Is not so distant but its glory streams
Far and away, not from the East or West—
O not from star or sun!—far and away,
Where the heart rests—all in the light, the light—

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Truth-light and love-light, splendour of over-soul,
Making the soul a splendour; and my form,
Which is the circle of created things,
Glows in thy glory, in thy change transmutes.
For what divides us, whether dark or day?
What makes our union? Ever that which joins
The God encompassing to thee within!”

And in the fading splendour of the West,
When spent larks drop, when waters merge in mist,
Who wills may read this message of God's light
And find already in his inmost self
The first faint gleams of that effulgence shine.

A SONG OF THE SLEEPING WORLD

O not of the hush when a wind sinks down,
And the sea on its shore lies still,
As a winding highway broad and brown
Which clambers the crest of the hill;
Or as moonshaft struck through a cloven cloud
To repose on a mist impearl'd,
Where slips some stream through a valley of dream,
Is the song of the sleeping world!

For the world still sleeps when the rack goes past
And the heart of Nature fails
At the bolt's reply to the moaning blast,
As the scattering storm assails;
Sleeps in the stir which the morning brings,
Sleeps through the Spring's new birth—
O the joyous word of the loudest bird
Is a song of the sleeping earth!

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All Nature is steep'd in a trance intense
And strangely moves in a dreamer's round,
As those that walk in their sleep, with sense
And soul unconscious to sight and sound;
At times to the waking point approaching,
Sinks she again into slumber deep;
An earthquake rends or a star descends—
She stirs or cries in her sleep.

It is man alone, in a world of spell,
Wakes or believes that he wakes and sees
More than this tremulous pendant bell,
Rock'd in the arms of an evening breeze;
More than that rack of a sea, distraught
As a dreamer's vision, of darkness born:
He too perchance in an anxious trance
Tosses and waits for the coming morn.

Sleep that has kiss'd us too long, too long,
Where is the prince with the kiss that wakes?
What will he bring to us, sorrow or song?
What more sad than the sleep he takes?
Mournfully, smouldering sunset, fade,
Mournfully kindle, O morning blue!
But a day is at hand for the sea and land,
And a day for the soul is due!

When shall it come with a trumpet's blare,
Fife and tocsin and roll of drum,
Tramp of cavalcades filling the air,
And the prince of all in the morning come?
Come in the morning or come in the night,
Whence we know not, O Lord of bliss!
Come at our call, and the lips of all
Will be life of life to Thy kiss!

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Wake us; we sleep, but we dream of Thee:
Dreams, we have known them at board and bed:
Sleep and its rest on the earth or sea
To the heart of Thy heart are wed!
And hark through the wide earth, flushing and stirr'd,
A whisper, a rumour, a hint goes by,
And the breeze falls soft, as Thy lips shall oft—
O kiss us then lest we die!

Burden

For that light is the gleam of Thine eye,
And waking, as yet we must wake, how bright
Is the light in which we shall see Thy light!

MIRRORS OF LIFE

Night deepen'd round me on those upland slopes;
The phosphor dome of heaven diffused its green
And failing glow; yet all the ghostly hills
Loom'd through the dusk distinctly. On the loose
And yielding soil of some fresh-furrow'd field,
Uncertain, lost, I fared, then, stricken, paused;
For, lo, the dread arc of a flaming disc
Rose o'er the hill, as if an angry eye
Unfolded, loom'd—unradiating, red—
And with an awful aspect seem'd to watch
My doubting steps!

Unwittingly—I thought—
Here have I stepp'd perchance on ghostly ground,
And now some presence of the phantom scene
Comes with accusing front. My steps intrude

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One moment more to see that face unveil'd,
Then will I fly!

Advancing there, I met
The lifting moon, who raised her weeds of mist
And sweetly turn'd a bright, benignant brow
To greet me.

Poet, whether peace or storm
Prevail, is Nature ever fair to thee;
And, Man, in her abyss of very dread,
Bares thee a midmost heart of pure goodwill!

The setting sun, an orb of lurid fire
Enring'd with golden mist, stood clear below
A sea-born cloud, with loose serrated fringe
And purple folds, involving heaven in gloom,
While on the earth the patter of the rain
Fell audibly. A sudden rainbow spann'd
Both sea and sky, then as in dream dissolved,
While slowly round, to join the train of night,
With twilight mixing, moved that sombre cloud,
And pass'd at length left bare the heaven o'erhead—
A lucid lilac soon with stars besprent.
Once more there rose a huge and angry form,
Like that which first came up out of the sea;
With front appalling, ask'd, it seem'd, of earth
Some vanish'd brother; but the world was mute,
Whereat the rended inmost heart sent forth
Its shaft of lightning; scream'd a riven oak;
Then, shorn of strength, the vapour-pile dissolved
In gentle tears, and, merged with evening dews,
Call'd forth new lives to compensate for life
Destroy'd.

So ever out of wrath and wreck
The living spirit which abides in all
Still reconstructs the plastic house of life:
There is no loss, no waste, rejection none.

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Pass to the height, O Soul, pass to the height!
But in the dregs and depth of very death
The very life shall find and work in thee.

Night on the waters of the deep! Those loud
And sullen voices, with the rising wind
Combining, made a roar of sound—confused
And far prolong'd. The zenith of the sky
Was clear and blue; but hazy vapour dwelt
Along the soft horizon; and above
The ocean eastward rose fantastic heaps
Of livid haze. Mine eyes were fixed thereon,
When in the midmost heart began to glow
A ruddy point of light. The sinking moon,
September's crescent moon, her golden horn
Protruded, brightening. On a wall I lean'd;
Its base was in a terrace built above
The loud, besieging sea. With reverend gaze
I watch'd the pregnant struggle in the sky
Of moon descending and of mist which strove
To quench that slanting gift of light, to earth
So welcome, and those eager, moaning waves.
O ever and anon the golden arm,
Again thrust upward, for the queen of stars
Made passage, who emerged at times to fair
But hasty view! And so, with varying chance,
This war endured, until the wearied orb
Defeated ceased to tinge her sullen foe.
The shallow water shimmer'd in the light
Of harbour lamps, and evermore the main,
From out the depth and vastness of the dark,
Brought voices wild which stirr'd within the soul
All heights, all depths; which spoke and speaketh still—
One message to the future as the past,

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Prolong'd from age to age; and there are none
On earth to understand it.

Nay, man's heart
Interprets all the voices of the main,
The low, light whisper under skies serene,
The swell at middle night beneath the stars,
And all the dread and strident trumpet-roar
Of the storm-stricken water's waste distress;
For there is nowhere any voice or sound
Which does not offer in the midst thereof
The hidden secret of a hope ungain'd,
But very sure. The moon shall shine once more,
All clouds shall melt, the light shall fill the world,
The summer glow lead on to rosy dawn
And rosy dawn to perfect noon of bliss;
While this most bright procession of the world
But dimly limns, O soul, thine own romance!
Not only we to reach our end in God
Are moving on, but the divine great ends
Make flight towards us on eager wings of time,
And somewhere surely in the wonder-gleam
Life and that crown of life shall meet and join.

TO COME INTO THY PRESENCE

Forth! Through the great free world unknown
Of the wonderful, measureless mind,
As who goes sailing over the sea
Till the shore dissolves in the mist behind!
For the soul is free and the sail is free—
Slipping through many a mystic zone
On the light curl'd crests of the sea,
In the lightsome arms of the wind—
On the dancing waves of the fancy-sea,
At the will of the wings of mind.

204

Blythely the voyage begins—ahoy!
Shout to the ships with their sails all shrouded,
Safely moor'd in the harbour wide;
Over the bar and beyond the buoy,
Hail to the craft, with its canvas crowded,
Taking the turn of the tuneful tide!
How many ships in the roadstead ride!
Tarry who will till the skies are clouded—
Over the great sea, hearts of joy,
Over the ocean far and wide!

Some for a pilot pause, and some
For convoy tarry, but some slip round
From point to point of the shining shore;
Some will perchance to destruction come
Where, black reefs over, the breakers roar,
Or not far out on the sand-banks ground;
But sail we further and dare we more,
Where never the dripping lead took sound,
Or the look-out sighted a distant shore,
Or a sail in front was found!

Who strives to follow our viewless track?
Who watches for tidings of how we fare?
One God-speed bid us, and so good-bye!
For this is the voyage, whence none comes back,
To the other side of the world so fair.
We cleave the main and we cleave the sky,
And we follow the tide of the starry track,
Through the shining isles of the stars so high;
But whatever befalls us we turn not back—
O we turn not back lest we die!

We hurry in front of the speeding world,
And our flight transcends all flights of time,
For our quest is the end of all.

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The sails are spread and the sails are furl'd,
As make we here for a distant clime
And linger we there at a port of call,
With the flush and rush of the quest on all;
Till at length we have lost the speeding world,
Till somehow slipping from space and time,
We are moor'd at the end of all.

Swift sky, over our heads run past;
Swift sea, under our keels slide through;
Swift worlds, circle about, away!
We cannot travel too fast, too fast,
With thought still chiding the long delay;
Deep sea's greenness and far sky's blue,
When will you open the pathway true,
Out of the night time and out of the day,
Which, when the worlds and their light are past,
To the light of the end leads through?

EVEN LIFE FOR EVERMORE

One inward hope reads import into life:
We shall not wholly die, our best persists,
And we therein are of eternity.
Seek, it will yield not, through the ample range
Of circumstance, some perfect end of mind
Which man achieving, may desist, and say:
Should I die now and wholly cease to be,
I count it blessed to have lived. Is time
A foreword of eternity? Is that
Which men call life some transitory mode
Assumed by conscious and eternal truth
Of real being? Then are all things good.
Does the soul live? Then is there nothing mean
Or void of worth. Eternity abides

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No trivial and no transitory act,
And time itself, which is a dream thereof,
Has issues passing through the infinite.
But if the testifying voice within,
Which utters forth the watchwords of the soul,
Lies in the dark place of our mystery,
Then life is nothing, for behold it ends!
And love is nothing, for that ends with life;
And sacrifice put up for others' weal
Is folly at white heat. A little while
And death shall swallow up our offering,
While that for which the sacrifice is made
Shall perish too. What then is left of all?
And what shall profit? To upraise the race
Is nothing, serves no purpose at the close;
For in a little age the race itself
Will also vanish—when the stars shall fall
And, drawn into the red sun's flaming font,
This earth shall feed her father and shall end.
Bold minds may face it, striving to extract
Some ghost of joy from very woe thereof,
But all is artifice and counterfeit—
All-worthless that which into nothing leads.

Black frost binds hard and holds the waste of life;
No phantom sun can warm it. Ah, perchance
There shall be morning on the hills! A light
All-proudly bursting from the eternal sun!
No frost is then too black to melt therein.
Nay, mark, it glistens: that is rime alone,
And all the bulbs and buds of blessed spring
Are waiting only the descending ray
To burst and blossom! It is here, the light
Which draws the tender plant of rising life
Up from some dark but serviceable soil
Wherein the sower's hand hath planted it;
And earth no more is barren: from the seed

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A harvest springs, and the whole land is fill'd
With plenty.

On the winter of the mind
So also rises spiritual light,
And all our seeds of hope and thought begin
To germinate; the wilderness becomes
A planted ground which fructifies and blooms,
And this is presently a paradise
Wherein the soul descends, whose angel rule
Draws all the bitter order of the world
Full sweetly round into a perfect way.

Then not in vain shall man, forsaking sense,
Abide by choice in the domain of mind;
And not in vain shall soaring mind ascend
The solemn summits of uplifted thought—
There is the mead of souls. The crown is there.
No quest can fail whereof the end is this;
Wings shall not want when weary feet give way,
Angels shall bear us when our pinions tire,
And if the angels falter in the white
Flame of the holy place, One shall be there,
And under us the Everlasting Arms.

A SONG OF SOUND AND OF SILENCE

The groves are fill'd with murmurs and the ways
With sound;
The choric birds sing canticles of praise;
Along the stony ground
The hoofs of horses clatter and resound,
Waking reverberations strange and deep;
E'en in the dead of night
Is Nature ever stirring in her sleep,
And the sea, far and near,
With stress and tumult shouts into the ear:

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The winds take up the message and repeat;
O'er far-off meadows peals their anthem sweet.
A thousand cries
Are round us; ever, when a hush succeeds,
Stars in the circle of the moving skies
Float whispers down, and upon flowers and weeds
Not without murmur does the dew descend.

O chants and litanies intoned so loud,
O medley'd minstrelsy of pain and mirth,
Ascending—a confusèd crowd—
And echoing from end to end
Of all the resonant earth!
Some spell upon your music lies,
As hangs enchantment upon drooping eyes,
And howsoe'er your founts are stirr'd
There issues not the saving Word;
The music's volume and the organ's roll—
In place of voice, that melody of soul.
Stars seem to strive at speech and birds at rhyme,
And pregnant rumours pass at even-time,
While out on the tremendous main
The surges break and shout, and break again;
We seem to wait
For ever at the opening gate
Of resonant, intelligible speech,
And ever still the Word is out of reach.

When in the higher moments of the soul,
Ascending from divided things,
Almost it seems to snatch the whole
Of that which Nature's chorus sings,
Yet comes there neither note nor tone
It all rejects or all can own—
A subtle something proving short
Of base and bond subtending all:
How deep is here the chord's report,
How shallow there the notes may fall;

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So ever on profounder meaning's brink
The oracles back into vagueness sink,
And wanting the true Word, or dispossess'd,
Nature is consolation but not rest!

Maintaining still a solemn state
And pageant, inarticulate
At every gateway of our dreams
Her echo or her rumour seems;
A tale upon the point of telling,
A prophecy for ever spelling
And yet not wholly spell'd,
Because the application is withheld;
The matter of the Word on every side
Resounding, but the sense denied.

Perchance in some far epoch of the past,
O Nature's music, to the Word thou wast
More closely wedded than is speech to man!
Perchance thy measure moveth still
To meet the meaning which shall fill
Thy widely resonant span.
Howe'er this be, we know the Word is ours,
Though not in all the fulness of its powers;
And in the great concerted plan
Perchance thy strings and tones are lent
As an accompanying instrument
By man alone interpreted,
And from his voice and speech, in tone and string,
Reflected meaning borrowing.
Sound to us therefore as we dream and drift,
Thou who dost aid the soul her voice to lift,
By her unseen conductor taught and led;
And when time's gates flow open, still prolong—
Great Leader, past these measures—her supernal song!

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PHASES

Wintry and wild and wasting and above
All winds in woe, out of a bleak grey sky,
With sharp-tooth'd wings, it blows—the eastern wind—
And like a two-edged sword that sleety breath
Cuts and drives through. The bitter sea beneath
Assumes a kindred mood, and, wrought thereby,
Responds in fury, raging on the rocks—
All quiet coves, where sunny shallows smiled,
And plash'd and rippled, in a milder mood,
Filling with savage voices. Pause and watch
The troubled morning ripen far across
Those spuming billows; through this lifting mist
The lone and dreadful ocean shews no life
Of bird or boat. One presence on the peak
Of yon sea-splinter'd spur, with bony arms
Incites all winds and waters on to war;
She only calm, the foe of peace and man,
Bids strife and tempest still possess the world.
An elemental battle, as of old,
Deepens about her. Who shall break her spells?
Who bid the baleful fury hold henceforth
The shafts and fatal watchwords of the fight?

An answer comes: the Rose is in the East;
There at the source of strife comes the Lord Day;
Comes splendid Sun, dispersing dark and cloud;
The driven mists before his rays dissolve,
The phantom flees, a sudden stillness steeps
The weary space of air; the ocean springs
Lightsome and gladsome, blue beneath the blue—
Clear depth and lucent height.

O dark and storm,
O peace and glow, your phases haunt the soul,

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The world unknown of man within himself!
And from this pageantry of Nature we
May learn the mystic lesson of the East!
Whence first the darkness comes, first comes the light;
Whence bitter winds, the morning's fragrant joy;
And so the desolation and the gloom
Obscure of souls are visitants of God,
From the same world unknown of that dread will
Which brings His morning beam of life and grace
To soothe, to comfort and to purify.

When on the aspirations of our heart
A darkness falls and, all her aids withdrawn,
No comfort comes to cheer thee, lonely soul,
God is not with thee less in dark than light;
So in aridity and drought discern
His ministry and one true way to Him!
A little while He leaves thee, to return
In fuller sweetness—ah, He leaves thee not!
His consolation, not His ward or watch,
Withdraws awhile, and thus He leads thee on,
That thou through dereliction and great pain
Mayest pass forth into felicity.
God waits behind the darkness of thy soul,
As waits the sun to gladden earth and sea;
And bitter winds, possessing all the East,
Can hinder not—nor darkness bar the way.

THERE AND HERE

The sunset floods these ways with flames,
A glister fills the air,
And sudden pomp of mystic names
Shines burnish'd everywhere:
Far out of sight a lark proclaims
That what we seek is there.

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The sward contracts beneath our feet,
And softly whispers: “Here!”
Those dingles, full of dim retreat,
Murmur: “Conceal'd, but near!”
The further vistas all repeat:
“This way it shall be clear!”

A shoal stream lispers: “Forward still!
You cannot seek in vain;
Beyond the hollow and the hill
I hear and hear again!”
The flood cries: “That resistless will
Draws all my springs amain!”

The ocean, hurtling far away
Beyond the bay and bar,
Alone moans ever night and day:
“For ever far and far!”
And yet beyond the spume and spray
Hope brightens in the star.

BE YE COMFORTED

For every man the tangled skein of life
Betrays one leading thread, one Gordian knot
Secures that clue; but howsoe'er we strive,
Twine and untwine the labyrinthine mesh,
Its grand Tantalian maze and mystery,
Line upon line, to more fantastic shape
Is twisted. Baffled ingenuity
Returns upon itself, a vain expense;
For still the leading thread that Fate assign'd
At each one's birth remains within his hands,
Unused: the knot which ties it is himself. . . .
Say, is there any man, however far

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He ventures down into his nature's depths,
Has yet unravell'd his own mystery?

Mournful it is amidst the night to sit
And spell the doubtful message of the stars;
To place what vague construction best appeals
On half-caught voices speaking in the wind;
Mournful to wait until a wiser hand
Unties the knot, or lets the mesh fall down.
Stars, teach us patience; lift upon the wind
Your voices, ministers unseen; and thou,
Take heart, O Soul! Emancipated, wing'd,
Thou shalt come forth and raise into the light
The guiding line which somehow led thee on
Where mazes end, where oracles declare
Their purport, where the light speaks clear and loud.
To-day perchance, to-morrow is not long,
Yet at an age's end, nigh is the time!

But order now the temple of the mind,
That we be ready when the hour arrives;
And let no crookedness or twist within
Prevent the correspondence of the soul
With the best order that the soul has dream'd.
O be we inly rectified and right,
And stand we clear before the mystery,
And open we in all to gain our sun;
But if the light should tarry, be we still
Patient and purged, and not a day too late!
The cords may want some pulling at the end
To straighten them; the parting veil may need
Some happy violence to cast it quite
Aside for ever; the high light beyond
Ask something from the boldness of the eye
Which meets it first. And if indeed there be
God's wisdom latent in life's parables,
Then all the unsolved problem of ourselves,

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Subtended by the sapience of God,
Is sacred through the presence of the King;
There dwells His secret, there His rumours stir,
And there be sure the royal voice shall first
Proclaim the great arcanum over which
We dream and brood. O long and dolorous way,
Thine end is all within! O life-long search,
Thy crown is there! O light of all desired,
There art thou shrouded, there wilt manifest!
O God, our end, if we can meet with Thee
In any place apart from all the world,
It is there only, and abiding there,
Waiting for Thee, our mystic comfort comes—
That none shall lose Thee who makes search within,
If, O our God, Thou art!

And hark, the soul
Speaks in the depths of man and testifies!
Prophets may fail us and the Christs may die,
And many Calvaries and Golgothas
Be waiting still the saviours of the race;
But never has the sibyl soul adjured
Made any answer from her oracle,
Save—God is with me, and within me God!

QUIET NIGHT AND PERFECT END

The desert cries for the city,
The city, from strife and stress
Of the weary weeks, for a refuge seeks
In the cave and the wilderness.

I know that the marsh, exhaling
White mists to a liquid star,
In the windless night to a sacred height
Aspires, and the light afar.

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I know that the woods wind-driven
Send thoughts—with a bird on high—
Through white cloud-clusters, when young March blusters,
For the peace of a purple sky.

The torrents pour through their chasms
To the unplumb'd wells below,
And to ocean's vastness, with a sure flight's fastness,
All eager waters flow.

But O the city, the desert,
The founts, the marshes, the streams,
Wild waters falling, which are crying and calling
As they roll, O Soul, in thy dreams!

Earth knows not what it is seeking,
Though still to the search impell'd;
But thou can'st divine what an end is thine
And the course to that end withheld.

Thou hast sought in the city and desert;
Thou hast sought in the height and deep;
Though the goal to win is not found therein;
Yet a certain trance or sleep,

'Twixt space and time, gives issue
By a wonderful path and lone,
Leading keen and straight to a mystical gate,
And beyond the gate it is known.

It is known, the end of the vision
Which is neither to East nor West,
And the North cannot tell it, nor the sweet South spell it,
But the end of that path is rest.

The high thoughts reel and waver,
And sense in that realm untrod
Has bonds unbelted and cinctures melted,
But the end of the path is God!

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THE VOICE OF THE TURTLE

When valiant souls have climb'd the furthest heights,
And hear beyond all stir of mortal man
A dimmest echo, Thou art far away!
We strive to reach Thee with uplifted heads;
Our straiten'd natures, bursting bar and bond,
From all of self set free, by yearning's strength
And the fierce energy of consuming will,
Divide this blackness of the night of sense—
The mystic night obscure which parts the Soul,
Ascending Carmel's mount, from her true Spouse.
So upward, upward; seems there light at hand!
The darkness whitens, morning comes apace!
Faint shines already on her straining sight
The Blessed Master's hills and fair demesne;
And soon in bush or bower or garden close,
In dighted hold or chamber shall we meet
The Blessed Spouse and Master face to face.

Resplendent Vision of eternal joy,
Best, brightest, dearest, holy, holy One—
Life's measure, life's totality, life's end—
We cannot reach Thee, till Thou come to us,
Nor dwell with Thee, till Thou abide in us,
Nor see Thee, till Thou art reveal'd in us,
Nor any way, till Thou art known in us,
Can we Thy saving beauty's fulness know!
But we must reach Thee, know Thee and possess;
Thou art our nature's one necessity,
And whatsoe'er we lose, in life or death,
No part in us of body, mind, or soul
Renounces Thee. All good which works in us,

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All yearning towards Thee—these are part of Thee,
And Thou art in us when we know it not.
Be more in us, that we may more be Thine;
Be with us ever till the soul, enlarged
And fortified, grow fit to gaze on Thee!
Then let the night melt on the mountain tops—
Star of the Morning, rise; lighten us then!
The time is surely near; our part is done:
Lo, we have search'd the world, crying on Thee!
Lo, we have mounted every steep of mind,
And now we wait upon the utmost range:
Horeb and Calvary and Sinai,
All peaks where man has suffer'd and has seen
Some little corner of the mystery,
Are far below; they profit nothing more:
We must have all of truth, O Lord, and Thee!

So call we Thee, the infinite between:
We can no more; therefore Thy time has come.
O Thou, desired of the eternal hills,
Spirit of strength, Spirit of counsel, come,
And come, O holy God! Come, Prince of Peace!
Lo, we are saint-like, and we call on Thee,
Wasteful and wanton, but the more we call!
Whatever good or evil dwells in us,
The time hath come when Thou must all be ours.
Amen, it shall be so: we will not wait:
Maker of all desire, Thou knowest this,
Thou knowest us. We do not call alone—
The voice of Antichrist and Lucifer,
With every voice, in agonised appeal,
Invoke Thee now. And Thou, O Lord, wilt come,
Thou wilt not fail, nor tarry, nor bestow
A part again, nor offer type and sign,
But Thou wilt wholly give Thy gracious self.
So all our need shall cease, for Thine are we,
Father and Mother of the gods and men!

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I LOOK TO SEE

A SONG OF VISION

When the twilight of autumn falls, sober and grave, on the brightness;
When, pungent with mystic aroma of turf and of earth, in its lightness
The mist, from the vague ground exhaling, some zephyr's breath urges
To form in the hollows, in meadows, midst muffled dead marches and dirges,
Deploying—battalions in bosks—here a banner unfurl'd;
There a pennon, a streamer put forth; all the ghosts of the world
'Twixt the trees gather'd watching; a man, though the footway is known—
In the broad road ends yonder—uncertain, impress'd by the lone
And the sense of the vague and the dim, for some light in the distance
Looks forward, not lost nor distress'd, guessing well where the glimmer must be—
As he looks without pausing, so I to sure ends of existence,
O I look to see!

Yet perchance the unknown shall await him; white bird on the wing
From out of the mist in the coppice unthought of shall suddenly spring;

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With flight that is low and uncertain, o'er meadow and brake,
Him who sought but his home in the village shall tempt and shall take
On the chase, till the moonset may find him astray by high walls
Of a bright burnish'd palace built fair in a land of enchantment and thralls.
Then the task of the world is before him, to win the world's flower,
One maid of all maids, and behold him, the man in the magical hour!
So bent upon far-shining ends, pressing on where they gleam,
By some path unexpected, perchance what was dream'd not by me
I shall reach in my longing, and that overstanding all dream
O I look to see!

The thought in its flight may escape me, but I follow still;
The Word of my art is remote. Where the keen star broods over the hill,
Where the dark clouds hang out, flashes flame, the red flame o'er the storm-driven deep,
Where the winds have their caverns, 'tis far, but longer the way I must keep.
The heart that is flagging goes forward, the eye that is weary is bent
Where the Thought with the Word is united; and albeit the day is far spent,
The night comes when no man can labour—see, eve closes round—
O I know, where the circle is woven which hallows a glorious ground!

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In the church of all art shall its priest the high union effect
'Midst the strings and the horns and the organs, and, bent on the knee,
Shall the great Œcumenical Council confess it; so therefore erect
Do I look to see!

We clasp but the shadow of love, which is longing and thirst,
And no man possesses another, for bonds which have never been burst
Enswathe and divide us from each, and our separate life
Intervenes like a wall in all nuptials; no woman is wife,
Nor ever call'd any man husband, save only in sign;
But because of the want and the longing, the strong flame which burns in the shrine
And feeds on the heart that sustains it, I know, beyond sense,
O I know my Redeemer is living; that keen and intense,
By some change in our substance of being, the union divine,
To which all our blind motions reach out, shall the ends of all longing decree ;
And that out of the flesh I shall gaze on the love which is mine—
So I look to see!

The darkness falls over the waste; the great deep in the darkness roars;
But the shores, it would seem, have no sea, or the sea in the dark has no shores;
The God-light falls lost, if it shine, on the eye unresponsive and blind;
While the eye that would see hath no light, as we tread the dark maze of the mind.

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Who knows what is urging us forward midst shrill battle-call?
The arrows scream round; if we fall, shall we lie—can we tell?—as we fall?
O light in the darkness, upshining through a world of false-seeming and wraith,
Our trust may be cold and half-hearted, but yet all our trust is in thee,
And our peace past the fields of dissension—because of thee, Faith—
Do I look to see!

To hear and to see and to know, and, immersed where the lights never fail,
Confess that at length we have truly transcended the world of the veil;
We have pass'd through the region of omen, and enter'd a land of sight.
O thanks be to God for the pillar of smoke by day and the pillar of fire by night;
The voice in the cloud and the burning bush and the holy places trod;
For the soften'd grace of the shaded face and the back of the Lord our God;
For the shadow'd home and the light beyond, for the secret pulses stirr'd
By the parable dim and the mystic hymn and the first sense of the Word!
But O for the end and the vision, beyond the gate and the way,
The light which the eye cannot picture, repose in activity free!
The veils of the world are about me, sad dreams of the night and the day,
But I look to see!

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AT PASSING

When the day begins to break
Call us back to life and light;
Leaving sweetly now we take—
And so, good night!

Short or long we do not know,
Dark at least the night-space seems:
Hearts are weary; leave it so,
But kind be dreams!

Wish us thy good speed at end
Who, committing all to thee—
Truest love and dearest friend—
At rest would be.

And to keep us free from pain,
With the eye's light in the eye,
Thus we pray thee: Come again;
Till then, good-bye!

Sense of all things slowly slips,
Utter trust dissolves alarms—
Thus with lips against thy lips!
And arms in arms!