University of Virginia Library

III
DEATH

TRUMBULL STICKNEY OCTOBER 11TH MCMIV

Και μην εγωγε θαυμασια επαθον παραγενομενος. ουτε γαρ ως θανατω παροντα με ανδρος επιτηδειου ελεος εισηει: ευδαιμων γαρ μοι ανηρ εφαινετο, --- ---, και του τροπου και των λογων, ως αδεως και γενναιως ετελευτα.

[I
The House of Life has many mansions, where]

The House of Life has many mansions, where,
Like men dream-haunted in unquiet sleep,
We seek and strive and suffer, laugh and weep,
And fear the Truth, and mask the soul's despair.
And much in festival, and much in prayer
And sorrow and hysteric thanks-givings,
And more in labour for little and low things
Our life's brief interval is wasted there.
And only when magnificently some one
Of all the dreaming myriads, patiently
Shapes the great key and slants the secret door,—
As he departs we feel the blinding sun,
The pealing song, and know his soul is free,
Bound in the dream of life and death no more.

[II
“He sought, believed, dared, found and bore away]

“He sought, believed, dared, found and bore away
The light. The deed, the deathless deed was done!
What mattered it that then Deukalion
Was filled with wrath, resentment and dismay?
What tho' God's bird, relentless, day by day
Tore his immortal heart, and God's high sun
Blistered his eyes?—the man endured and won!”
He said—and smiled in his tremendous way.
And then I knew how fiercely and alone
The Titan had withstood resistless things
And let the soul's accomplishment atone!
Had climbed blind pathways thro' the strangling night,
And, with the courage of his sufferings,
Had seized and kept, for life and death, the Light!

[III
“Nothing is spared,” he said, “nothing is lost]

“Nothing is spared,” he said, “nothing is lost!
Life, from the House of Death, returns again;
There is salvation of the parcelled grain,
And certain harvest where the seed is tossed.
Life never dies, and life the Truth has cost,
And love and lonely labours of the brain!
Therefore the light of Truth shall most remain
After the night-fall and the night are crossed!”
And thus he stared with high expectancy
Into the terrible, blind vacancy,
Until, across the stricken field of Death,
His eyes seemed darkly to discern a goal,—
And we beheld the daybreak's boundless breath
Glimmer against the windows of his soul.

[IV
“That we, however least, however less]

“That we, however least, however less
Than Time's recorded heroes who have bled
And burned and lived and died for Truth,” he said,
“May still, in proof of all our lives profess,
Join with their great companionship, to press
In ways where none who are not free may tread,—
We must endure to die! and, being dead,
To live in death's transcendent loneliness!”
And thus thereafter we beheld him live,
Rapt in the faith of those who most believe,
Who most are curious and unsatisfied;
Till, to the summits and the silences,
Where all the Mighty stand with Socrates,
We saw him rise transfigured as he died!

[V
He felt the blind, lost loneliness increase]

He felt the blind, lost loneliness increase
As life compelled him to the final test.
He said: “The refuge of defeat is rest;
A soul's dishonour is the price of peace!
From star to star the flight shall never cease;
The Truth, perforce, is long and last and best:
Thro' life and death, with bruised, defenceless breast,
We seek the sunrise of the soul's release!”
And so he lived and almost died and died:
The night, the silence and the solitude
Left him magnificent and unsubdued;—
And we, who kept the vigil by his side,
Saw, when at last the door was opened wide,
Flash in his eyes the Dawn his soul pursued.

[VI
He said: “What death leaves derelict is dead]

He said: “What death leaves derelict is dead:
Thus may we circumscribe mortality!
Yet in the last release, when all is free
To the free soul, who shall escape?” he said,
“Haste, lest we sleep, lest we be comforted,
Lest we forget! for we must learn to be
Visionaries of Truth's eternity,
Star-gazers constant and unsatiated.”
Thus we beheld him, steadfast and sublime,
Passing alone in eminent, strange ways
Of great adventure thro' the massive night;
Until at last, after prodigious days,
Outcast over the precipice of Time,
His eyes, triumphant, cried: “The Light! The Light!”

[VII
“We serve no God, nor in the retinue]

“We serve no God, nor in the retinue
Of creed or faction are we crowned and fed!
Therefore no less than our belief,” he said,
“No less than all that we were faithful to,
No less than capital and revenue
Of all we won of Truth's inheritance,
No less than our achieved significance,
No less than all! in justice is our due!”
And then, before he left us, day by day,
And when his dumb, deserted body lay
Folded in death's impenetrable cloak,
By many a sign and proof no tongue can tell,
We knew the Justice that he dared invoke
Was swift and sure and indefectible!

[VIII
I well remember how one yesterday]

I well remember how one yesterday
Of all our lives' intense communion,
He said, “In Death's austere dominion
Only the coin of Truth's device can pay
The price of liberty!—What alien way
Might chance direct us, when oblivion
Sets us adrift from all we were and won?
Or take us from ourselves whither away?
Therefore must we, for our deliverance,
Levy on life the toll of truth!” he cried.
And so he lived indeed—but when he died,
Beyond all proof I seemed to understand
That he, from Death's outstretched and friendly hand,
Received his ransom and recognizance.

[IX
“At least,” he said, “we spent with Socrates]

“At least,” he said, “we spent with Socrates
Some memorable days, and in our youth
Were curious and respectful of the Truth,
Thrilled with perfections and discoveries.
And with the everlasting mysteries
We were irreverent and unsatisfied,—
And so we are!” he said. And when he died
His eyes were deep with strange immensities.
And all his words came back to me again
Like stars after a storm. I saw the light
And trembled, for I knew the man had won
In solitude and darkness and great pain;—
But when he leaped headlong into the Night,
He met the dawn of an eternal Sun!

[X
He said: “We are the Great Adventurers,]

He said: “We are the Great Adventurers,
This is the Great Adventure: thus to be
Alive and, on the universal sea
Of being, lone yet dauntless mariners.
In the rapt outlook of astronomers
To rise thro' constellated gyres of thought;
To fall with shattered pinions, overwrought
With flight, like unrecorded Lucifers:—
Thus to receive identity, and thus
Return at last to the dark element,—
This is the Great Adventure!” All of us,
Who saw his dead, deep-visioned eyes, could see,
After the Great Adventure, immanent,
Splendid and strange, the Great Discovery!

[XI
Above his heart the rose is red]

Above his heart the rose is red,
The rose above his head is white,
The crocus glows with golden light,
The Spring returns—and he is dead!
We hark in vain to hear his tread,
We reach to clasp his hand in vain;
Tho' life and love return again
We can no more be comforted.
With tearless eyes we kept steadfast
His vigil we were sworn to keep:
But, when he left us, and at last
We saw him pass beyond the Door,
And knew he could return no more,
We wept aloud as children weep.

[XII
We knew he lived alone with loneliness]

We knew he lived alone with loneliness
Day after day. We did what men could do:
Men could do nothing,—or, at most, a few
Moments persuade him to forgetfulness.
We often smiled—perhaps in sheer excess,
Perhaps because we found him smiling too.
We never wept, and he divinely knew
The love that gave us strength, nevertheless.
In solitude as tho' in dungeon walls
His soul was held sequestered and confined.
We always wondered how it was he bore
The tense intolerable intervals
Wherein he waited, steadfast, breathless, blind,
To hear the hand of Death unlock the door.

[XIII
In silence, solitude and stern surmise]

In silence, solitude and stern surmise
His faith was tried and proved commensurate
With life and death. The stone-blind eyes of Fate
Perpetually stared into his eyes,
Yet to the hazard of the enterprise
He brought his soul, expectant and elate,
And challenged, like a champion at the Gate,
Death's undissuadable austerities.
And thus, full-armed in all that Truth reprieves
From dissolution, he beheld the breath
Of daybreak flush his thought's exalted ways,
While, like Dodona's sad, prophetic leaves,
Round him the scant, supreme, momentous days
Trembled and murmured in the wind of Death.

[XIV
At last the light leaped in his patient eyes]

At last the light leaped in his patient eyes!
And he, transfigured by the breathless sense
Of an eventual magnificence,
At last forbore life's small felicities.
Then, as beneath Death's starred and silent skies
His life's large sunset lingered, calm and tense,
His faith revealed, in days of dark suspense,
Proof of the soul's immortal destinies.
Yet, when at last the heights he dared to climb
Sphered him in solitudes no tongue can tell,
Then, tho' we knew not all our love could share
With him the last adventure, as he fell
We leaned over the parapets of Time
And saw strange splendours in the abysmal air!

[XV
With life and lips he said tremendous things]

With life and lips he said tremendous things!
Yet, when he died, I most recalled the smile
Which day by day he gave us to beguile
The crude disaster of our sufferings.
He knew what we believed or half-believed:
How from the Lakes of Hell the fabled springs
Rise to his lips who most divinely sings,
Who, tried in truth, has most superbly lived.
Therefore his calm lips smiled because he stood,
And we beheld him stand, in loneliness,
Lost in the shadow of Eternity;
Therefore at last his eyes revealed the mood,
Thro' mortal passion and sublime distress,
Of one reborn into divinity!

[XVI
Times were when, reeling on his eminence]

Times were when, reeling on his eminence,
He seemed to doubt the event:—if, after all,
His strength could well endure what must befall
And hold his breath in anguish and suspense.
And we, who watched with every fibre tense,
There, so to speak, within his sight and call,
At every such momentous interval,
Measured the man's surpassing excellence.
And when, crouched silent by the silent gate,
We saw him pass within, alone with Fate,
We seemed to hear, as thro' the closing door,
The shouting of star-choirs, and to see
The sunrise flash against his brows that wore
The glory and the gold of victory!

[XVII
I saw that day in his dead eyes]

I saw that day in his dead eyes
The light that suffers no eclipse,
I felt the chill on his dead lips
Of shoreless seas and starlit skies.
I knew he lives indeed who dies
A champion in the lists of Truth,
I knew the days of all his youth
Were tournaments and victories!
And yet once more heart-brokenly
I kissed his lips and clasped his hand
And suffered darkly, humanly;
Till, there beside his corpse and me,
I almost seemed to see him stand,
Dead—and alive, triumphant, free!

[XVIII
There moved a Presence always by his side]

There moved a Presence always by his side,
With eyes of pleasure and passion and wild tears,
And on her lips the murmur of many years,
And in her hair the chaplets of a bride;
And with him, hour by hour, came one beside,
Scatheless of Time and Time's vicissitude,
Whose lips, perforce of endless solitude,
Were silent and whose eyes were blind and wide.
But when he died came One who wore a wreath
Of star-light, and with fingers calm and bland
Smoothed from his brows the trace of mortal pain;
And of the two who stood on either hand,
“This one is Life,” he said, “and this is Death,
And I am Love and Lord over these twain!”

[XIX
Because for some tremendous cause he chose]

Because for some tremendous cause he chose
To meet his life's supreme catastrophe
In silence, and with grave serenity
To bear alone the last, remorseless woes,
We turned the tide of dreadful tears that rose
High on the shores of Life, resolved to be
True to his tragic, tense tranquillity;
And day by day we often smiled—God knows!
But, when at last he died and we were left
Utterly, irretrievably bereft,
Blear-eyed with vigil by the Great Abyss,
We found no tears because the man was dead,—
But there beside his corpse!—God knows—instead
We shared with him unutterable bliss!

[XX
All thro' the night most strange it was to see]

All thro' the night most strange it was to see,
Vigilant of him as he lay there, dead,
The eyes of Love singing beside his bed,
Clear as the dawn-stars singing over-sea.
At last Love turned his eyes to mine, and said,
“Love is the Lord of Life, and I am he!
Walk in my ways and thy despair shall be
A dungeon whence the captive soul has fled!”
Then I beheld how all unscathed he passed,
With high, calm face and eyes unterrified,
The destined Door of all that perisheth;
So, as I caught his hand and held it fast,
“Whither thou goest I will go!” I cried,
“O Lord of Life, O Lord of Life and Death!”

[XXI
The stately silence, the perpetual peace]

The stately silence, the perpetual peace
Of death's inscrutable, divine event
Lay on his body like a sacrament,
In calm assurance of the soul's release.
Gone forth on the great ways that never cease
With all the Mighty and Magnificent
Whose souls like his were strangers to content,
We knew he voyaged for Truth's Golden Fleece.
And we, who, day by day and hand in hand,
Had fared with him in close community
Of high endeavour to the treacherous sand
Edging Life's continent, we turned our eyes
Seaward, and there, far forth, we seemed to see,
Full-sailed and outward-bound, his Argosies!

[XXII
We said no word of all men use to say]

We said no word of all men use to say,
But, when the childish jargon of the priest
And all the stale formalities had ceased,
We laid him in the earth and went away.
Mysteriously thereafter all that day
We felt, like adepts at a sacred feast,
Rapt in austere rejoicing, and released
From all dark bounds of life's dim-vistaed way.
And all that night about me in the gloom
I felt great consummations and the stir
Of high events, and in the dawn's first breath
I saw a presence by the empty tomb,
Who said, “I am the Great Deliverer!
I am the Life!”—I looked, and it was Death!

[XXIII
We bore the chill, persistent dread]

We bore the chill, persistent dread
Here in the long, tree-shaded way;
And here the things we could not say
Were more, I know, than man has said.
These are the paths that felt his tread,
This is the bench where sunset lay
So large and tranquil day by day,—
And I return, and he is dead!
And I must bear to feel the breath
Of desolation thrill and swell
My broken heart's discordant strings!
While he, who bore life's utmost things,—
In the immensity of Death,
With him it is not less than well!

XXIV
DAYS

Still on his grave, relentless, one by one,
They fall as fell the mystic, Sibylline,
Sad leaves, and still the Meaning's secret sign
Dies undeciphered with each dying sun.
How shall the burning heart of Truth be won?
Whence shall the light of revelation shine?
When shall the mind's discernment grow divine?
Where shall the soul's immortal deeds be done?
What were the incommunicable things
Whereof his dying eyes were undismayed?
What were the words that stirred his strangling breath?
Sharply the Night's impenetrable wings
Covered his eyes, and on his lips was laid
The inveterate taciturnity of Death!

[XXV
O Memory, Lord of broken and broadcast]

O Memory, Lord of broken and broadcast
Fragments of life, like scattered Cyclades
Set in the dark, illimitable seas
Of Time, still twilight-silvered and steadfast:—
Wayfarer in the devastated past,
Ghoul of the great necropolis of Time,
Where Life and Death and all things, in the lime
Of long oblivion, are consumed at last:—
Salvage the shattered drift, the tempest-tossed
Derelicts of his shipwrecked life's dead days!
Treasure of his loved voice an echoed phrase!
And set, O Memory, in thy stagnant skies
The Dawn reflected in his dying eyes,
Herald of victory when all was lost!

[XXVI
It is not that we loved him, as in sooth]

It is not that we loved him, as in sooth
Beyond all words we loved and love him still;
It is not that he seemed so to fulfil
Ineffably the very spirit of Truth;
It is not, day by day, in the uncouth
Brutality of death, his calm control,
Courage and tenderness of heart and soul;
It is not pity even of his mere youth;—
God knows these were alone sufficient cause!
Yet it is not for all these things that we
Now keep sure faith with things transcendent, true
And untransmissible:—it is because,
Even in the presence of the Mystery,
He knew!—it is because we knew he knew!