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

A little gloved hand on my arm, a tall slight form beside me,
After the supper at Rule's, on a balmy night in June,
Whither in all the world should God or the Devil guide me
But down to face the Sphinx, in the light of the summer moon!
Not on the desert sands, with lions roaring around her
Seeking their timid prey in pools of the bright moonrise,
But here, by the glimmering Thames, in silence of dreams profounder,
Crouches the Shape of Stone, wingèd, with wondrous eyes!
Puffing my cigarette, I look on her marble features,
Dead, stone dead, and looming pale in the starry light,
While, flitting silently round, creep desolate human creatures,
Carrion-seeking women, woeful waifs of the night,—

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Fading swiftly away as the slow policeman comes nearer,
Stolid, silent, and tall, with measured ominous tread. . . .
Hush! he is gone like a ghost! the light falls brighter and clearer
On the wingèd Shape of the Beast, on the ringleted Woman's Head,
On the dead dumb eyes still gazing, not on the City before them,
Not on the moonlit streets, but on something far away,—
Heedless of Earth around, of the patient Heavens o'er them,
Heedless of Life and Time, dead to the Night and the Day!

II.

Clari, my sweet, you shiver? Nay, but the night is chilly! . . .
Fear not the fabled Sphinx, but look in her rayless eyes,—
Tiptoe, clinging unto me, frail and white as a lily,
You face the Sphinx at last, with a maidenly mute surmise!
Older than Night and Day, older than Death, she remaineth!
Still, tho' New Rome is astir! Calm, tho' the Tempest complaineth!
Ancient of days she was crouching like this ere Christ was created!
Watching the things that are fled, seeing the things that are fated;
Speechless, impotent, wise; pitiless, silent, and certain;
Seeing some Shape that is stirring yonder beyond Night's curtain;
Conscious, perchance, of the Sea of Eternity, blindly breaking
Over this Rock of a World, on to the space without spheres. . . .
We, too, look, but discern not!—yet ever, sleeping or waking,
Fear the Sight she is seeing, shrink from the Silence she hears!

III.

Charm of the mystic Moonlight! Now, as the moonrays enfold you,
You seem some lissome Queen, upgazing with a smile!
With tiger-skin on your shoulders and fillet of dusky gold, you
Witch the night with your mirth, on the banks of the yellow Nile!
With armèd troops behind, this gloaming of golden weather,
You lift your jewel'd hand, and lo! the trumpets play. . . .
Ah, but the magic fades, and again, in bonnet and feather,
You laugh, and merrily whisper, ‘Leave her, and come awal!’

IV.

Nay, let me front the Sphinx for only another minute,
Now when the city sleeps, and the River is mother-o'-pearl'd:
Then hey for the hansom home, two lovers nestling within it,
The joy of Night, and to-morrow, the rush of the waking World!

V.

Secret no mortal hath guessed, she seëth and knoweth for ever!
Light no mortal hath seen, streams on her eyeballs of stone!
Under her talon'd feet runs like a desolate river
Life, and over her head Time like a trumpet is blown!
Silent,—and we shall be silent;—lonely,—and we shall be lonely,
Knowing what she hath known, seeing what she can see;—
Dead,—and we shall be dead!—for our life and our love are only
A dream in the Dream she dreameth, a drop in that infinite Sea!
Even as Nineveh faded, even as Babylon perish'd,
So shall this City depart, with all it hath shelter'd and cherish'd!
Stone shall be cast upon stone,—grave upon grave shall be lying,—
There, where the Magdalen wails, jackal and wolf shall be crying:
Yet shall the River of Life wander and wander and wander,
Yet shall the Trumpet of Time sound from the Sungates up yonder,

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Yet shall the fabled Sphinx brood on the mystic To-morrow
While newer Cities arise, on the dust that is scatter'd in sorrow!

VI.

Dearest, 'tis long, so long, since out of the lonely abysses
Crawl'd this fabled Sphinx, and moved among things of breath,
Seeing the Sight Man sees not, feeling the Light Man misses,
Turn'd to eternal stone, and brooded in dreamful Death—
Cities have followed cities, nations have followed nations,
Thick as the sands have vanish'd the tribes and the generations,
God hath fallen on god, like statues of marble broken,
Zeus hath gone like a cloud, Jehovah hath left no token,—
And hush! who yonder is stealing, old and hoary and saintly,
Holding in His thin hand a lamp that is flickering faintly?—
Ghostwise on through the night, still loving thro' wholly despairing,
Creeps the gentlest of all, to the grave of His kindred repairing!

VII.

Well! if the last word said, so long as our ears can hearken,
Be this last word of Love (dear hand, how it creeps in mine!)
Well, if the last God seen, ere the thrones of Eternity darken,
Be the supremest and best, most human and most Divine?
Is it not sweet to go, if He who is also going
Beckons and bids us follow, ev'n to the empty grave?
Better to rest beside Him, be done with seeing and knowing
Than walk in a World bereft of the Spirits who heal and save!
Ah, but in sad procession fast at His back they follow—
Buddha, Balder, Menù, Prometheus, Phœbus Apollo:
Shades, that follow a Shade; Gods, that obey a Supremer;
Spirits of Healing and Light, Lords of the poet and dreamer,
Leaving behind them only a world by despair overshaded,
Only these eyes of the Sphinx, to mock us till we too have faded!

VIII.

Nay, then, by yonder blue Vault, with its million eyes gazing hither,
Open and watching the world roll blindly no mortal knows whither,
Nay, by those eyes more divine than any of stone, ever filling
With drops of infinite Life, from the great heart of Nature distilling,
God and the gods shall abide, wherever our souls seek a token,
Speech of the Gods shall be heard, the silence of Death shall be broken,
And Man shall distinguish a sign, a voice in the midnight, a tremor
From every pulse of the Heavens, to answer the heart of the Dreamer!
Faces of Gods and men shall throng the blue casements above him!
Heaven shall be peopled with throngs of Spirits that watch him and love him!
Out of the furthest Abyss voices shall call, while upspringing
Man shall arise to his height, reaching hands up the darkness and singing,—
Clouds of the Void shall part, with lights that throng brighter and faster,
While blind as the grave the Sphinx lies low, 'neath the feet of her Master!

IX.

Close thine eyes, old Sphinx! we heed thy stare not a feather!
Sleep in the summer moon, near the River mother-o'-pearl'd!
And now for the hansom home, two lovers nestling together,
The joy of Night, and to-morrow, the rush of the waking World!