 | A Sculptor and Other Poems |  |
112
TOO LATE.
I am lying here with my head dropt low on your grave: the sky
Is cloudless, pitiless blue: over all a quiet is shed,
A desolate quiet that broods like the passionless calm and dead
Of a heart that ne'er quicken'd its beats at the sound of beloved tread:
The sun strikes blindly down from its noonday height as I lie
With my very soul crampt up in the spasms of its agony.
Is cloudless, pitiless blue: over all a quiet is shed,
A desolate quiet that broods like the passionless calm and dead
Of a heart that ne'er quicken'd its beats at the sound of beloved tread:
The sun strikes blindly down from its noonday height as I lie
With my very soul crampt up in the spasms of its agony.
I feel the slow, slight shudder of growing grass at my ear
Stir through the dead-brown hair that was wont to be so bright
For the royal crown of love, whose very shadow dropt light
Around me until I stood made fair and transfigur'd quite,
And my face as an angel's was—O God of mercy, I fear
The weight of my punishment now is greater than I can bear.
Stir through the dead-brown hair that was wont to be so bright
For the royal crown of love, whose very shadow dropt light
Around me until I stood made fair and transfigur'd quite,
And my face as an angel's was—O God of mercy, I fear
The weight of my punishment now is greater than I can bear.
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My blood makes shuddering leaps as, alone in my dark, I think
Of my own white stag whom the pitiless archers wounded sore;
My royal eagle whose plumes were all bedabbled with gore;
My strong one whose prideful locks of glory and might they shore;
And the iron enters into my soul, and I shiver and shrink;
And the bitter and awe of death is in the cup that I drink.
Of my own white stag whom the pitiless archers wounded sore;
My royal eagle whose plumes were all bedabbled with gore;
My strong one whose prideful locks of glory and might they shore;
And the iron enters into my soul, and I shiver and shrink;
And the bitter and awe of death is in the cup that I drink.
O passionate outstretcht arms, ye may drop your warm, white weight
On the cold, cold, silent grave, for he cannot feel you strain
And beat against the impassable barriers to clasp him again—
Scorch me, O glaring sun! Drench me, O pitiless rain!
Nothing can make me dull to the terrible cry, Too Late!
Or blind to the light that burns through the closed chrystal gate.
On the cold, cold, silent grave, for he cannot feel you strain
And beat against the impassable barriers to clasp him again—
Scorch me, O glaring sun! Drench me, O pitiless rain!
Nothing can make me dull to the terrible cry, Too Late!
Or blind to the light that burns through the closed chrystal gate.
O love, my beloved, I love you, I love you, I love you; I say
Again I love you, I love you; but oh! that awful sea
Of death rolls heavily in betwixt your soul and me,
And my fireful words are drown'd in the roar of its waves, and she
Who utters them sinks and fails, her garments weighted with spray,
And hopes not the terrible tide will ebb out at the breaking of day.
Again I love you, I love you; but oh! that awful sea
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And my fireful words are drown'd in the roar of its waves, and she
Who utters them sinks and fails, her garments weighted with spray,
And hopes not the terrible tide will ebb out at the breaking of day.
All through I lov'd you, dear heart! Oh, had I but told you so
When your forehead was flushen red with the shame of your one, one sin;
Nor open'd my soul's gate wide for pride to enter in;
Nor turn'd my eyes away and left the devils to grin
O'er the grand young fallen soul they waited to drag below;
While I might have sav'd who lie with the Cain-curse on me now.
When your forehead was flushen red with the shame of your one, one sin;
Nor open'd my soul's gate wide for pride to enter in;
Nor turn'd my eyes away and left the devils to grin
O'er the grand young fallen soul they waited to drag below;
While I might have sav'd who lie with the Cain-curse on me now.
Alas, my belov'd, my belov'd! that I left you to sink in the mire
Till the garments you wore, once fair, ah, scarcely a vestige show'd
Of the stately, saintly white they wear in the kingdom of God:
While the hand was folded away that could have help if it would,
Ere the last fair string was wrencht from the breast of the golden lyre,
And the voice into silence sank, that was even the angels' desire.
Till the garments you wore, once fair, ah, scarcely a vestige show'd
Of the stately, saintly white they wear in the kingdom of God:
While the hand was folded away that could have help if it would,
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And the voice into silence sank, that was even the angels' desire.
Come back to me living and erring, and body and soul shall be thrown
As a bridge across the abyss, and the gulf at your feet be spann'd,
And I be right glad to perish so you may but safely stand
Unsmircht from the brow to the feet in the light of the holy land
Where the Shepherd in pastures of rest folds every saved one;
And no more may the eyeballs weep and no more may the lips make moan.
As a bridge across the abyss, and the gulf at your feet be spann'd,
And I be right glad to perish so you may but safely stand
Unsmircht from the brow to the feet in the light of the holy land
Where the Shepherd in pastures of rest folds every saved one;
And no more may the eyeballs weep and no more may the lips make moan.
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