The Complete Poetical Works of Robert Buchanan :: :: University of Virginia Library

O ye, ye ancient men born yesterday,
Some few of whom may in this Yuletide lay
Feel echoes of your own hearts, listen on,
Till the faint music of the harp is gone
And the weak hand drops leaden down the string!
For lo, I voice to you a mystic thing
Whose darkness is as full of starry gleams
As is a tropic twilight; in your dreams
This thing shall haunt you and become a sound
Of friendship in still places, and around
Your lives this thing shall deepen, and impart
A music to the trouble of the heart,
So that perchance, upon some gracious day,
Ye may bethink you of the Song, and pray
That God may bless the Singer for your sake!

Not unto bliss and peace did I awake
From that deep swoon, nor to the garish light
Wherein all spiritual things grow slight
And vanish—nay;—the midnight and the place
Had changèd not, and o'er me still the Face
Shone piteously serene; I felt its ray
On mine unclosèd eyelids as I lay;
Then gazing up, blinking mine eyes for dread
Of some new brightness, I discerned instead
That Man Forlorn, and as I gazed He smiled
Even as a Father looking on a child!
Aye me! the sorrow of that smile! 'Twas such
As singer ne'er may sing or pencil touch!—
But ye who have seen the light that is in snow,
The glimmer on the heights where sad and slow
Some happy day is dying—ye who have seen
Strange dawns and moonlit waters, woodlands green
Troubled with their own beauty; think of these,
And of all other tender images,
Then think of some belovèd face asleep
'Mid the dark pathos of the grave, blend deep
Its beauty with all those until ye weep,
And ye may partly guess the woe divine
Wherewith that face was looking down on mine,—
While trembling, wondering like a captive thrown
By cruel hands into some cell of stone,
Who waiting Death to end his long despair
Sees the door open and a friend stand there
Bringing new light and life into his prison,
I faltered, ‘Lord of Life, hast Thou arisen?’

215

‘Arisen! Arisen! Arisen!’

At the word
The silent cisterns of the Night were stirred
And plash'd with troublous waters, and in the sky
The pale stars clung together, while the cry
Was wafted on the wind from street to street!
Like to a dreaming man whose heart doth beat
With thick pulsations while he fights to break
The load of terror with a shriek and wake,
The sleeping City trembled thro' and thro'!
And in its darkness opened to my view
As by enchantment, those who slumberèd
Rose from their pillows, listening in dread;
And out of soot-black windows faces white
Gleamed ghost-like, peering forth into the night;
And haggard women by the River dark,
Crawling to plunge and drown, stood still to heark;
And in the silent shrouded Hospitals,
Where the dim night-lamp flickering on the walls
Made woeful shadows, men who dying lay,
Picking the coverlet as they pass'd away
And babbling babe-like, raised their heads to hear,
While all their darkening sense again grew clear,
And moaned ‘Arisen! Arisen!’ In his cell
The Murderer, for whom the pitiless bell
Would toll at dawn, sat with uplifted hair
And broke to piteous impotence of prayer!

Then all grew troubled as a rainy Sea,
I sank in stupor, struggling to be free
Even as a drowning wight; and as the brain
Of him who drowneth flasheth with no pain
Into a sudden vision of things fled,
Faces forgotten, places vanishèd
Came, went, and came again, and 'mid it all
I knew myself the weary, querulous, small,
Weak, wayward Soul, with little hope or will,
Crying for ‘God, God, God,’ and thrusting still
Cain's offering on His altar. All this pass'd—
Then came a longer darkness—and at last
I found myself upon my feet once more
Tottering and faint and fearful, a dull roar
Of blood within mine ears, still crying aloud
‘Arisen! Arisen! Arisen!’ . . .

Whereon the cloud
Of wonder lifted, and again mine eyes
Saw the sad City sleeping 'neath the skies,
Silent and flooded with the white Moon's beams
As still as any City seen in dreams;
And lo! the great Bridge, and the River that ran
Blindly beneath it, and that hoary Man
Standing thereon with naked piercèd feet
Uplooking to the Heavens as if to meet
Some vision; and the abysses of the air
Had opened, and the Vision was shining there!

Far, far away, faint as a filmy could,
A Form Divine appeared, her bright head bowed,
Her eyes down-looking on a Babe she prest
In holy rapture to her gentle breast,
And tho' all else was ghost-like, strange and dim,
A brightness touched the Babe and cover'd Him,—
Such brightness as we feel in summer days
When hawthorn blossoms scent the flowery ways
And all the happy clay is verdure-clad;
And the Babe seem'd as others who make glad
The homes of mortals, and the Mother's face
Was like a fountain in a sunny place
Giving and taking gladness, and her eyes
Beheld no other sight in earth or skies
Save the blest Babe on whom their light did shine;
But he, that little one, that Babe Divine,
Gazed down with reaching hands and face aglow
Upon the Lonely Man who stood below,
And smiled upon Him, radiant as the morn!
Whereat the weary Christ raised arms forlorn
And answer'd with a thin despairing moan!
And at the sound Darkness like dust was blown

216

Over the Heavens, and the sweet Vision fled,
And all that wonder of the night was dead! . . . .

Yet still I saw Him looming woe-begone
Upon the lonely Bridge, and faltering on
With feeble feet beneath the falling snow,
And in His hand the lamp hung, flickering low
As if to die, yet died not. Far away
He seemèd now, altho' so near,—a grey
Ghost seen in dreams; yet even as dreams appear
To one who sleeps more mystically clear
Than any vision of the waking sight,
He shone upon the sadness of the Night
As softly as a star, while all around
Loom'd the great City, sleeping with no sound
Save its own deep-drawn breath. Yet I could mark
The glimmer of eyes that watched Him from the dark
Shadows beyond the Bridge, and, where the rays
Of the dim moonlight lit the frozen ways,
Shapes crouching low or crawling serpentwise
Waited to catch the pity of His eyes
Or touch His raiment-hem!

Then, while I wept
For pity of His loneliness, and crept
In wonder after Him, with bated breath,
Fell a new Darkness deep and dread as Death;
And from the Darkness came tumultuously
Clangour and roar as of a storm-torn Sea,—
And, shrill as shrieks of ocean-birds that fly
Over the angry waters, rose the cry
Of human voices!

Then the four Winds blew
Their clarions, while the stormy tumult grew,
And all was dimly visible again.