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91

A BOOK OF MYSTERY AND VISION

92

“Multa quidem sunt sacramenta ... ut indisibilis gratia signo aliqua visibili præstaretur.” —S. Bernardi Abbatis, In Cæna Domini Sermo.

93

SALVETE

In the midst of a world full of omen and sign, impell'd by the seeing gift,
On auspice and portent reflecting, in part I conjecture their drift;
I catch faint words of the language which the world speaks far and wide
And the soul withdrawn in the deeps of man from the birth of each man has cried.
I know that a sense is beyond the sense of the manifest Voice and Word,
That the tones in the chant which we strain to seize are the tones that are scarcely heard;
While life pulsating with secret things has many too deep to speak,
And that which evades, with a quailing heart, we feel is the sense we seek:
Scant were the skill to discern a few where the countless symbols crowd,
To render the easiest reading, catch the cry that is trite and loud.
Wistfully therefore, a mage, I come, but the records that here I bring
Are light-tongued rumours and hints alone of the songs I had hoped to sing,
94

Could words implied by the heart of song be suffer'd, without eclipse
Of inborn splendour, their runes to render through channel of mortal lips.
Only as mystery's scribe I make my script of the things which seem;
And this book is a book of the visions beheld by one who has walk'd in a dream—
Has walk'd in a waking dream apart from the gates and the walls which fence
The common life of a world enswathed in the dreamless swoon of sense.
But you, who are keeping a mystic watch in the same suspended state,
And I, recounting the moods therein, for an hour of waking wait;
Triumphant then through the light derived shall light from the centre blaze,
And that be known which we glimpse alone through the moon-sweet mist and haze.
How will it come to us, that great day? What will the dawn disclose?
Past veils expended, all omens ended, what truth at the heart of those?
95

I. PART I
OF SINGLE CHORDS AND OF MONOLOGUES

96

“O principium primi principii respice finem: O finis ultimi finis intuere principium.”— F. Basilii Valentini Practica de Lapide Sapientum.

97

WORLDS OF VESTURE

Far spreads a mind-world full of gleam and pomp,
Fictitious parities, fair-seeming shows
And shallow music, on a thousand themes
Discoursing lightly to external sense,
But, void of vital meaning, leaving souls
Untouch'd and unawaken'd. Beauty here
Is specious only; to the heart it brings
No message which can penetrate or bind:
Here lights false fantasy, a moon full-orb'd.
Akin to this, there spreads a wider world
Of sensible impressions and of joys
Bereft of depth or height: what restless crowd
Is surging there! As earth of mother earth,
For inspiration pure, for genius true,
Hold thou these worlds with all their paths and ways!
All ye who would be saved, come out from them,
And in the heaven of everlasting mind
Surely the Word Divine shall welcome you!
No password there he needs who keeps within
One sacred truth, that man is compass'd now
By many sacraments and parables,
By speaking likenesses and shows which shew
Rich depths for inquisition. Close about
They press, they minister and dimly limn
The infinite behind them. By a quest
Which does not take too far or ask too much
We can achieve their meanings, know the grace
Which lies within, their living language learn,
And this shall take us past all outward pomps
Far into vision, far through mystery.
98

In splendid pageantries of holy sea,
As in the mellow hush of moonless nights,
And in the grandeur of that starry vault,
Dare to confess the ministries of deep
And many-sided emblems which unfold
To man alone, developing for him
Resources in the measure of his need,
His insight, inquest and experiment.
All speculation's penetrant research;
Toil-conquer'd tracts of knowledge and the vast
Beyond—ungain'd; the solemn sense of things
Immeasurable; glimpses scarcely caught
Of new worlds glimmering on an utmost verge
And precipice of being; these are fonts
Of true suggestion; these awake, uplift
Supreme imagination, and therein
Find proper end and first reality.
Thus, by the glass of the astronomer,
Man searches deeper in his nature's depths,
And by the flights of theosophic thought
He gauges further and surveys himself;
While in proportion with the mind's advance
Great Nature widens, for the silver links—
Which form the mystic chain of hidden things—
Are multiplied by counting; the divine
And visionary universe expands
At every bolder plunge of mind therein.
The goal is still within ourselves alone,
The dream is also there, its meaning there—
All in a sense within. The outer world
Marks but one era of the human soul's
Advance, developing her infinite.
O blessed promise of the time to come!
At each succeeding stage more lofty types—
A wider world—significance more deep—
Till, in the full possession of itself,
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Each soul attains, from every type set free,
The supra-conscious life of pure repose
And unveil'd vision into God, the All.

THE VOYAGE AND THE VENTURE

O to set forth and not to swerve,
Press forward—early, late!—
Thus I, and yet they also serve,
'Tis said, who stand and wait;
Who wait to hear the Master's charge,
As I, that pause and rest
By this great restless ocean's marge,
Do also urge the quest:—
A quest unknown, pursued through all,
As ships brave storm and stress,
Nor e'er did greater hap befall
In old sea voyages;
For, compass'd in the flight of thought
What has been or shall be,
I pass beyond whate'er have wrought
The heroes of the sea.
The ships of Colchis slip behind
Through golden seas of dream;
Columbus in the glass of mind
Sees all his Indies gleam;
De Gama dares the burning Cape
Through gorgeous zones of day,
Appeasing that portentous shape
Which looms to bar his way.
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O Colchis, keep thy fleece of gold!
O western world, retain
Thine Inca's secret wealth untold!
And thou, far southern main,
Fold all thy jewell'd shores in mist
From Cape to austral pole:
With brilliant, topaz, amethyst,
Tempt eyes—but not the soul!
Those sea-kings safe in harbours far
Found anchor long ago;
Set forth where further ventures are
Which future ages shew.
The secret of the poles lay bare,
The flight of men with wings,
And past the highest tracts of air
Declare star travellings.
When sounding tocsins, far beyond,
To greater aims adjure—
Which hold man's higher soul in bond—
Will frozen zones allure?
Nay, nor the eagle's wings uplift,
Nor stars, nor suns extend,
Though past all starry paths we drift,
The lights of our great end.
So therefore days and nights dissolve
By this low-breathing sea,
While here I pause and still revolve
Voyage and venture free!
Dim main, through all my dream intone;
And far through paths untrod,
Sung on by all life's voices, lone
Let me embark for God.
101

I know not when my quest comes true,
I seek, I know not Whom,
Ah, life's end, if I only knew,
I should know all life's doom!
Light of the endless East and West,
Shine on me here as there;
The signs at least of this great quest
Are round me everywhere!

TRANSCRIPTS

Spurr'd on, with zealous soul, to seek
Life's gospel, now unheard,
Boots it to take the mountain peak
Or covet flight of bird?
The byway too shall hear it speak—
That lost, that only Word.
I sought it long, I seek it yet,
Nor cease while life I own;
Art to attain her strength has set,
And faith of old has known;
With longing eyes by tears made wet,
I listen all alone.
The shadows of a thousand leaves
Dance in this dying light;
The Word for which my spirit grieves
On grass and moss they write;
There too the blessed zephyr weaves
The Blessed Word of might.
102

Old is the soul, and otherwhere
Read once with shining eyes
The Word's compounded meanings rare,
And her own mysteries;
At Nature's writings now I stare
As seer in crystal skries;
Who out of mists beholds reversed,
Inchoate shapes emerge,
And deep in waking dream immersed
Seems ever on the verge
Where very life and light shall burst,
To hallow and asperge.
Him the true life escapes, and I
The life of life in vain
From Nature's rapid writings try
To reconstruct again:
A flash comes oft to beautify,
But never to remain.
And yet—in all—the omens found
Through life and time abide;
They take me far through haunted ground
And far through ways untried;
Lost Word, thy transcripts still abound
On every country side!
Then, in those moments, rarely known,
When the soul feels her wings,
Emblazon'd upon star and stone
There flash immortal things;
Through Nature's gates, wide open thrown,
A wild voice sings and sings.
103

Comes secret sense through veils confess'd,
And God eludes no more,
But doth most surely manifest
And all His worlds restore:
Methinks that Word of peace and rest
High-seated saints read o'er.
Lost Word and Last Word, far and long,
Heard through the closing gate,
Dies the dim echo of thy song!
Soul, is it dark and late?
Vast is the void, though hope is strong;
We languish, but we wait.
Yes, we are waiting, I and you;
The white Kings wait enthroned;
And life's pale outcasts languish too,
Dishonour'd and disown'd,
Till that Word—searching through and through—
Be suddenly intoned.

AND HENCE THESE ECSTASIES

I know—
When the glorious disc of a moon all gold
Moves swan-like over the spaces high,
And lone unattainable tracts of a purple sky.
The air is rapture of clearness, the air is keen
And the air is cold;
The stars dissolve in the Artemisian sheen
But gather and cluster and crowd in the quarters four.
In dark, luxurious olive shadows, the trees
104

Twist bending branches, high tops that sway and soar
In the search and swathe of a viewless tide.
It rises up on a sudden with shout and roar,
Latent strength of the storm and eager rush,
Or sinks with the soft and languorous sigh of a summer breeze,
Swooning, crooning, soft in the mystic arms of the midnight hush:
So passes the world aside.
I know—
When the shadows lie so rich, so slant, so long,
Over the close-cropp'd lawn which else is white with dew,
Where the misty vistas shine, and the winding paths go through
To thickets beyond the garden-ground and a secret bird in song.
The darkling orbs of the sunflowers, splendidly tall,
Droop in the moon-mist nimbus, dim with a hallowing tinge,
While from their palm-like leaves the thick dews trickle and fall;
And the musk-rich scents of the garden rise
To the overshadowing fringe
Of their gorgeous, golden eyes.
I know—
When at last the uttermost stillness steeps
Rose and lily, and laurel and lilac hedge.
The leaf does not stir on the willow, nor the leaf where the ash-tree weeps,
The topmost twig of the yew and the cypress sleeps—
Like the box of the garden edge.
Solemnly, sweet, serene,
Flowing from vales beyond, and yet beyond from the hills,
A sense magnetic of expectation fills
105

The palaces sacramental and high-roof'd halls—
In the haunted place of incense, the wondrous place
Earth and its crown between—
With an unvoiced solemn promise of boundless grace.
High over the East's red ramparts, gateways and cloudy walls,
And over a thousand changeful turrets and towers,
The morning glory of heaven blooms over and calls
To morning glories of earth in a thousand bowers.
I know—
That the high emprize of the life of quest
Traces the pathway slowly which leads to a glorious end,
Clambers a winding stairway which takes to the wondrous height,
Buffets the seas tremendous, but makes for a shining goal:
That never the starry promise which haunts the human soul,
And never the hope which holds so high each head up-turn'd to the light,
Or the great desire which swells and pants in the breast,
Shall into a world of loss and of death descend:
That all we have dared to dream in the loftiest flight
Is only the rumour and noise of a greater gain
Out of all mind and sight:
That if one tittle of all we fail, as it seems, to attain,
It is never because the dream in the heart was fond,
But because of the height which still soars over the height,
Of the light within the light,
And the glory of all the glory withdrawn in the great beyond!
106

WINGS OF FIRE

Springs to the West a scarlet bird o'erhead,
Far-darting, circles, sways,
Then swift and straight—as if a spirit sped—
Divides the mellow haze.
The splendid clouds about her burn and glow,
Through liquid gold she glides,
On purple crests floats buoyant, or below
Sinks deep in lilac tides.
What Iris cliffs o'erhang her path, what towers,
White argent, crumble down,
And scatter shards and glitter sparks in showers:
One gems her like a crown.
So all the lambent distance lessening through,
With eager wings address'd,
She merges past man's sight into the blue
Beyond the blazing West.
Do Thou from whom we come, by whom perdure,
Our ways direct and bend,
That—past such pageants—in Thy splendour pure
They may dissolve and end!
Thy rumours fill creation's sounding hall,
Thine omens round us press;
We hear the holy rapture of Thy call
Through all life's close caress.
O speak incessantly in clouds and veils!
Speak, we have heard through these!
We know what message of all life exhales
In Thy sweet August breeze.
107

The almond blossoms in Thy breath; the red
Lies richer on the rose;
Earth yields up fragrant incense; where we tread
Baptismal water flows.
For Thou hast severally sanctified
And sanction'd all our days,
And dost in many sacraments abide
Thin-veil'd on all our ways.
A priestly chrism fills the scented air
Which brings Thy bridal kiss,
And Eucharistic feasts are dighted where
Thy board of plenty is.
But if the perfect joy of daily life
Some transient sorrow sears,
Thy holy unction falling on the strife
Melts pain to happy tears.
True joy transfigured knows no sense of loss,
The dead return in Thee;
Our star-bright crowns are shadow'd by no cross:
All's light from sea to sea.
Ah, one thing more, last gift and best, we wait!
Beyond all type and sign,
Teach us to issue out of Nature's gate
On Thine unveil'd Divine.
Pipes on the mountain shrilling, stars supreme
Calling along the height,
Lift us, uplift us, out of this high dream
Into true waking light!
108

THE EXTREME SENSE

Man treads a path with signs and lights ablaze,
Yet scarce conceives of sacrament or sign;
And hence, ill-starr'd, his genius strays,
Midst things that seem, not are, content
To shine.
When Nature's mystic life at first unfolds,
False sacraments he makes, of veils unclean;
The open'd eye but part beholds,
Misreads inverted types and tales
Between.
And at the best we catch some hints alone,
The cypher characters in part translate
And then, our powers at fault compell'd to own,
More insight with dejected heart
Await.
Man can but place, in his most lofty dreams,
Constructions on the signs which best accord
With signifying Nature's schemes
And broader gifts to life repress'd
Afford.
Nor saint, nor priest, nor poet can reveal
The true construction which, obscure and grand,
Life's sacramental depths conceal—
Secret of secrets, yet be sure
At hand.
109

We hear it spoken round us everywhere,
We know that it is blazon'd far and wide;
It falls with dew through evening air,
It glitters, with the fallen star
Descried.
Peace—we have heard it understanding not!
Silence—it fills the silent halls of night!
The heart knew once, the heart forgot,
And yet again the heart recalls:
O God, recall it in Thy morning light!

HOUSE FANTASTIC

Stood the house where I was born
In a garden made of old;
There the heavy, scented flowers
Lay in wait to trap the hours,
Snare the days in bosks and bowers
And the moons in mazes fold.
In the house where I was born
Vivid light of rose and gold,
Permeating vast and fair
Vaulted heights of heavy air,
Held the netted sunbeams there—
In that mansion, ah, how old!
In the house where I was born
Mystic echoes waking told,
In a legend-haunted tongue,
As of viols half unstrung,
Of the days when life was young,
Pulsing through that mansion old!
110

In the house where I was born
On a time the light grew cold,
Columns moulder'd moist and wet—
Walls where little runnels met:
Woe is me, that old spinet
Standing in the mansion old!
In the house where I was born,
Overlooking weir and wold,
Heirs of Kings who once held sway
Mourn'd for grandeur pass'd away,
Fortunes now in such decay
As o'ertook that mansion old.
In the house where I was born,
Meats were meagre, wine was doled:
Would the Genius e'er restore
That exalted state of yore?
To invoke him who forbore,
Praying in the mansion old?
In the house where I was born,
Long by mystic rites ensoul'd,
That spinet with ghostly tone,
By one melody unknown,
Could the Genius call alone
Watching o'er this mansion old.
In the house where I was born
Gentle maidens, masters bold,
To search out the secret brought
Happy faces, eager thought,
And grew old there—as they wrought,
Perish'd in that mansion old.
111

O'er the house where I was born
Many barren ages troul'd,
Till in singing robes came I,
With a ballad heart to try
Unattempted melody,
Pouring through the mansion old.
In the house where I was born
Forth the glorious measures roll'd,
And beneath my fingers playing
That spinet resounded, swaying;
There was moaning, there was maying
In the resonant mansion old.
In the house where I was born
Came the abbot, coped and stoled,
Came the censers, came the lights;
Lovers lost their bridal nights;
Rock'd the bases, cried the heights;
Answer'd all the mansion old:
Singing of the splendid Quest,
Nature's secret end confess'd;
Type and sign
And things divine;
How unskilful senses learn
The true matter to discern;
How the artist's zeal intense
May the ruling secret wrest;
Solemn call and sacred mission;
And beyond—the seeing sense;
And yet beyond—the Vision.
In the house where I was born
That which hinders yet will hold;
All the songs to silence ran,
As when first the dole began:
For the anthem and the man
Tarries still that mansion old.
112

From the house where I was born,
From the mildew, from the mould,
Into this great world I went,
Midst the sign and sacrament,
And another meaning lent
Legend of the mansion old.
In the house where I was born,
By unresting ghosts patroll'd,
This old tale of song and art
Of the mystery is part
And the instrument man's heart,
Waiting in that mansion old;
In the house where I was born,
Till the gifted hand unfold
Music living, music rare,
The long-sought forgotten air
Sleeping latent everywhere,
As within that mansion old.

The Vindication

In the house where I was born
Let the newer tale be told;
Claricord or organ deep,
Open tones from Nature sweep,
But more secret tones asleep
Rest, as in that mansion old;
And the discord heard at times
In the music, in the rhymes,
Tripping stave and jarring tone,
Intimate perchance that He,
Hidden in the mystery,
Artist of the ways unknown,
Also seeks the perfect key
For the cosmic melody.
113

WAITING FOR THE MANIFESTATION

I beheld a scarlet pageant—in a dream of night—
Spread wide its banners, blazon'd with devices bright;
Now my waking eyes are tinctured by the sheen and show,
By the glory and the glister and the gorgeous glow.
Hence I hold this truth unquestion'd: from its sources deep
Comes something into waking out of worlds of sleep,
And like a golden lamp at night held up in garden closes,
Abounding wealth of magic at our gate exposes.
Now because you are a dreamer I may hint to you
That the world of common eyesight as a veil is true,
And by certain tinctures vested in a light divine,
Is sometimes lifted suddenly to type and sign.
We see that there are sacraments, and grace has means
Incalculable, even in the humblest scenes,
But the richest and the fullest in the mystic plan
Is the sacramental mystery of man to man.
For no man knows another, each is sign to each
Of a labyrinthine nature out of sight and reach;
By the texture and the outline of the veil alone
Do we gather hint and presage of its form unknown:
The sign of strength and symmetry, the sign of grace,
The sign of sainthood lighting an unearthly face,
And, pregnant with its message from the world within,
The fever and the scarlet of the sign of sin.
114

But further out of knowledge, say, in far-off eyes,
Want of virgin lips unconscious or lost children's cries,
The sign that, past all signs, remote as white spume out at sea,
The vision is which ever was and ever yet will be.
Now this, I think, received into the heart of heart,
Would life of life to mere day's length of shadow-life impart;
Such sacramental flowers unfold in fair soul-gardens then
As Carmel and Assisi never gave to men.
But, symbols to each other, to ourselves we are
A light reflected only, not itself the star:
Ah, therefore shine within us, thou sad moon of mind,
To the day-star and the noon-tide and the goal assign'd!
Till the great time of awaking from the things which seem
Unto pageantry and splendour which are more than dream;
Till the light of further knowledge of ourselves and all
The lords behind the portal in the Father's hall!
O, hold we all our sacraments till that great day
As consecrated altar-lights which shine alway,
And on the sign where God Divine may dwell, of man unseen,
Let saving dread forbid the print of any mouth unclean!
I have dwelt among the tokens, and in types expound
Some fragments of the secrets which our ways surround,
And that you can interpret, as the veils allow,
The bright dream-tincture tells me on your lips and brow.
115

JAM NOLI TARDARE

Veil of Nature sacramental,
Thou art close but thou art thin,
And the inward, transcendental
Glory canst at need let in:
Lights engird the chosen head
From no sun of Nature shed.
And to see the veils dissolving
Need we travel fast or far,
Past the flashing suns revolving,
Onward to the furthest star?
Are they thinner, think you, friend,
Where the cosmic glories end?
Undetermined starry spaces,
Fill with joy your paths unknown!
But to catch the inward graces
Needs the inward sight alone:
Meanest places hold the spell
Of unfathom'd miracle.
Hence when any hour invites you,
Whether seemly eve's repose,
Or, if better this delights you,
Night august or hush'd moon-close—
Best where best your charm is found—
Pass into your garden-ground.
There a sudden sense supernal
On the mind prepared may fall,
As of haunted thought eternal
And great strangeness vesting all;
Grass and glebe and grove expound
Thin-veil'd secrets latent round.
116

Not in bowers of roses solely
Shall the wondrous tale be told,
But in wild ways meek and lowly,
Beds of burning marigold:
Most betwixt the lilies straight
Swings the visionary gate.
Not devoid of dream—if blended—
Are the windflowers and the docks,
For myself I love a splendid
Place of purple hollyhocks,
And my fancy knows great powers
Which lie rich in the sunflowers.
I could set you in my closes,
With the seeing sense endow'd,
Where the weed is as the rose is,
And the bird's lilt, low or loud,
Voices outward, clear and strong,
Worlds of rapture, worlds of song.
But for you a place of wonder
Your own garden ground must be;
'Twixt the trees that you stand under,
Seeing what is yours to see:
In my garden, seen aright,
All is scarlet and white light.
Of all flowers the bloom and splendour
Backward, forward sweep and swing,
Light as pampas grass and slender,
Fringe the edge of the world's ring;
As the wind-tides round them lave,
Cups and patens flame and wave.
117

But when eastward some moon rises
(Many moons have haunted there,
As the witchcraft pomp devises),
They are virgins very fair,
In ecstatic motion driven
Towards the virgin born of heaven.
And sweet incense, each exhaling
From a thurible, ascends,
Drifts, a dim enchanted veiling,
Eastward as the dew descends:
Hence conceal'd in all that seems,
Truly human nature teems.
Yes, all Nature waits expecting—
Forest, floral hall and field—
For some vital word directing
Her those sleep-held forms to yield:
Long expected, long deferr'd,
Come, thou great unutter'd Word!
Then if man through far creation
Must the secret meaning make,
Fountain, centre, destination,
Let that secret soul awake,
And present the inmost plan—
Man in all and God in man!
While the Word of Words reposes
Far beyond the lip's control,
Till the fitting time discloses,
In the garden of the soul,
Let us dreamers day by day
In the outward gardens pray:
118

Pray that flesh divinely sifted
May discern the Word of power;
Then transmuted Nature, lifted,
Shall confess the crowning hour;
Putting weed and vesture by,
Shall unveil humanity!

IN THOSE HEIGHTS

If sadness habit in the solitude
And loneness in the uplifted height;
Stars beyond stars shew light
Where few intrude.
Who knoweth the rapture of exalted thought—
Beyond all covenant of speech—
Where thou art first to reach,
Of thy soul taught?
And wouldst thou forfeit freedom to explore
Those realms terrific and unknown,
Because thou goest alone
For evermore?
Disconsolate perchance, yet firm, ascend;
Thou hast eternity to gain;
The infinite domain—
That is thine end.
It lies above thee, spotless, cold, serene
And piercing as a polar wind,
But thou must quit—to find—
Seen for unseen.
119

Dissemble not the joy of this great quest;
Yet know that all of earthly bliss
Thou hast agreed to miss,
All human rest.
What others prize, on that thou dost not reckon,
What others mean is nought to thee;
But hopes they dare not see
Rise up and beckon.
Believe not thou that sense—through all repining—
Shall yearn like soul to share, withdrawn,
That light other than dawn
So far off shining.
The simple ministry of sense is dead;
No surface meanings Nature shews;
But secrets none disclose
By thee are read.
All things are merged into the sense unspoken,
And up through depths their prize concealing
A dim third sense, appealing,
Sends sign and token.
It lies with thine own will to penetrate
Still further in that daring field;
What shall the seventh sense yield?
O gorgeous state!
Seventh sense, the Sabbath of far-cleaving soul—
When all the shining seas are travell'd,
And all the maze-drawn paths unravell'd—
Be thou our goal!
120

O sevenfold Cosmos, to the sevenfold man
Responding, set thy veils aside;
Thine inner self confide,
Thy deep-drawn plan!
Have we not follow'd in the height and deep
The uttermost abstruse invention
Of thy withheld intention,
Waking, asleep?
Thou know'st, because the outward sense is dumb,
Sight does not satiate the eye,
Nor hearing satisfy,
Nor comfort come.
So through the pageant of this world we move
Demanding ever stronger spells,
Thy greater oracles
To search, to prove.
And if, when weaker sentiments invade,
The rigours of our wintry course,
Abstention and divorce,
Make hearts afraid—
O then be with us and about us then,
And laying bare thine inmost heart,
Make us, when far apart,
Dispense with men!
So shall we not life's outward semblance ask
When face to face with thy true being,
Who know—beyond all seeing—
What seen things mask.
121

The wise are lone amidst the concourse loud;
And we, who scan thy mystic pages,
More lone midst all the sages
Than they in crowd:
Alone translated to Olympian places,
Because—if adorations mount
Past common worship's fount—
Shine no gods' faces.
To simple sense, whom signs alone concern,
This world her sacraments dispenses,
But oft starves out the senses
Which signs discern.
On simple souls the Church confers communion,
But him who antitype descries,
And type as type, denies
Her rites, her union.
Therefore be with us—as thou canst defending;
Light through thine echoing halls; we are,
Beyond these regions, far
Call'd and ascending!

OUT OF THE FULNESS

To pass from life aside,
And deep on one design,
Less stated than implied
By Nature's heart, incline;
And passing through, to use
A language long unheard:
These make it vain to muse
On tender glance or word—
122

Ask nursing heart of song
Where wingèd thoughts may sleep;
Such nests of love belong
To dreams less grave and deep.
Shall lover, lacing arms
With maid in moonlight, praise
These poems for their charms,
To him attribute bays
Who holds her virgin grace
Can none in truth discern,
Nor clasp with close embrace—
Howe'er his ardours burn.
Yea, though she yielding lies,
She from his grasp has fled
'Midst secret mysteries
Of body and bridal bed.
Will she that heart's spouse greet
By terms to mine akin,
Who does not dream how sweet
The prize she hides within?
On matron's household ground
What ardours could I stir
By mystic songs profound,
Too sad and strange for her?
She reigns how calm, how safe,
A star above the wild,
A moon, where waters chafe,
Which mellows and makes mild.
Her microcosmos, wrought
By her own hand, she leads,
Quick for the day's import,
Strong for the moment's needs;
But life's eternal sense
Ranks in her sober head
Of lesser consequence
Than the guest's well-air'd bed.
123

What boots mine art's device
To men on 'change, whose fate
Hangs on a closing price,
A rise, a discount-rate?
The social webs enmesh,
Those webs constrain and drive;
And Toil all human flesh
Scourges, to keep alive.
Why squander time and breath?
Who can, that wills, take heed:
Life is all whirl, and death,
If that be rest, God speed!
E'en thou, O priest, content
In thy peculiar school
To class each sacrament
By number, name and rule!—
Is word of mine endow'd
With skill to catch thine ear?
Are seven in Rome allow'd
And two in England here?
But if, accepting those,
From Nature's teeming store
My secret song disclose
Some saving thousands more;
Nor yet of both kinds these
Exclusively, or one,
But of all stars, all seas,
Each element, each sun;
In all a gate flung back
For grace abounding still,
Floodgate and torrent's track,
Where all partake at will—
How sound my tidings then?
Stars speak to stars, but thou,
O priest-voice, leading men,
And this voice mingle—how?
124

All things on sea and land
Speak to my soul, and each
Blythe voice I understand,
Answer in flowing speech.
Quantities, measures, rhymes,
Harp-string and organ note
Surround me at all times;
Stars that in ether float,
Sun in his flaming course,
All the world's lights, and all
Darkness and tempest's force,
Thrill me with frequent call.
Bear I no tidings true
Which all might hear and learn,
Plain Nature, simple view
And little child discern?
Soul, high encompass'd, tell—
Surely the world can know!—
How the small fonts as well
As great with mercy flow;
Grace to the humblest field
Of daily life is lent,
For each is sign'd and seal'd
With marks of sacrament.
In Wall Street dare we say
An office God disowns?
Why, angels pass that way,
As by the masters' thrones!
The keen winds sweeping there
Do proud hosannas sing—
Yea, even as in the fair,
White City of the King.
But ah! those signs august,
For ever far and nigh
Through all life's fume and dust,
The sacrament of high,
125

Aspiring human love,
Spotless and awful, raised
To one White Throne above,
There poised—undimm'd, undazed.
And ah! most blessed feast
Of wonder, to behold
The sacraments no priest
Has ever bought or sold,
Nor saints alone dispense.
Ah! utterly to feel
With fulness deep, intense—
Whatever veils conceal—
Beyond all type and veil,
Deep within deep, far down,
Yet not beyond all hail,
The Vision and the Crown.
Hence to myself I speak,
But not with selfish mind;
Yea, rather do I seek
Some brothers of my kind,
Who shall discern the drift
Of this my mystic tongue;
For them my voice I lift,
To them my songs are sung.
They know these measures roll
Set to a sacred rite,
Perform'd within the soul
'Midst incense, pomp and light.
I know what stars have shone
To soothe what seas unblest;
I fix my faith upon
The Vision, and I rest.
126

THE HAUNTED DIAL

What canst thou tell me, O dial!
Of the days which have been and are,
A mystic procession on-flowing,
As star from the East follows star?
I have come through the past from afar,
Yet the vistas stretch solemn and straight;
Can the mind forecall, at the term of all
What things may befall and wait?
O ever as heaven moves round thee,
Thy slow shade forward steals!
It tells of the days and their sequence
But nought of their source reveals,
Nor yet what their end conceals;
Before, behind thee a blank unseen,
At a pageant of days, in a mystic haze,
Thou dost stand and gaze, between.
Therefore thou art as our symbol,
As if in man's image art thou;
For looking before and after,
We know not of whence nor how,
Nor whither our trending now;
But the space between, with its groves and flowers,
But the gloom and glance of the time's advance,
These are thine with their chance, and ours.
Here then in the copse and woodland
And here in the glade, besprent
With a glory of scarlet tulips,
I take thy sacrament;
For I see, with a heart content,
That the signs decreed by the common mind,
Which are none to me, are renounced by thee
For the deeps we see behind.
127

Thou art not, as some think vainly,
The type of a wing's swift rush,
The sweep of a flood-tide passing,
The vortex and the crush,
But the solemn throb and the hush
Of the great durations which ne'er diminish,
And for evermore are behind, before,
And will not pass o'er, nor finish.
What then is some cloud of a moment
Which hides thy ghostly hand?
The bringer of rain in summer
To a thirsty and panting land;
Herald at most of the storm and grand
Ravage of battle on plain and hill;
Yet brief is the space ere a moon's bright face
Shall the height and the base make still!
Say what dost thou write in the darkness?
Of star or moon record?
The light of all brightness only
Writes on thy mystic board!
Pass, Light withdrawn and restored!
Yet may the infinite, perfect beam,
Intransitory, adorn thy story
With more than glory of dream!
Ah, spell me thy hauntings ever!
Haunted by light thou art,
And time with its changes noting
Dost stand from both apart;
Like the inmost human heart,
One truth confessing 'midst all that shews,
The depth and height of the splendour bright,
When the light of all light o'erflows.
128

From home eternal to home eternal,
High soul of man impell'd,
Fling too thine ancient watchwords,
In spite of the light withheld!
Walker in shadows of eld,
Searcher of God by the ways unknown,
The storm and cloud to withstand endow'd,
Unto light being vow'd alone!
O secret of light supernal!
O Dial of God's great sun!
What unto thee shall be darkness,
When darkness is over and done?
I seize—as the soft hours run—
A hint of the haunting of souls, involved
Where the light rays beat, and the centres meet,
In the great white heat dissolved.

HOW I CAME TO THE SEA

I

A voice in the dark imploring,
A sweet flute play'd in the light,
An organ pealing and pouring
Through the world's cathedral height—
And again the charge and the flight,
The clash and hurtle of fight.
O thou art grand, thou art lonely,
In thy melody, in thy moan,
With the sense of a world unknown
Filling the known world only!
129

Great voice, which invokes and urges
The strenuous souls to strive,
Gather thy waves, thy surges;
Thy breakers heap and drive;
Thy long tides marshal and lead.
The little ripple shall plead
In little whispers on golden sand;
And further out on the rocky strand,
Where white crests crumble and white spume scourges,
Thy drums and tocsins and horns shall blow.
Thy long reverberant beats shall come and go,
From where thy surf-line in sky-line merges
To where, by sounding buffet and blow—
Blare of peans and muffle of dirges—
Capes which crumble and torn cliffs know
The strength and stress of thine ebb and flow—
Waste and know thee and thee confess.
We do not know thee, we own, we know;
But our soul's might in thy might rejoices,
Our hearts respond to thy wild vast voices!
Thought with its fleetness swift wings from the course of thee;
Tongues in the speech of thee;
Hope at the source of thee;
Fire from the gleams of thee, strength from the force of thee;
Width through the reach of thee;
Depth from thy deepness, unfathom'd by plummet,
And height from thy night-sky's impervious summit—
Omen and sign!
These have we drawn from thee, these do we bring to thee;
Nature's great sacraments rise from and spring to thee.
All other ministries—sun, when 'tis shrouded,
Moon in the morning light meagre and pallid,
Stars overclouded—
All are invalid
130

For spaces and seasons; but thou,
Thy greatest ministry is always now.
O sacramental sea, terrible sea,
Thine are the words of the mystery—
Grand-Word and Pass-Word and Number thine,
Grades and Degrees to the height advancing,
And the golden dawn and the glory glancing
Far and away to the secret shrine!

II

There shall be no more sea, they say,
On Nature's great coronation day,
When the Bridegroom comes to the Bride.
Shall earth then lose her sacraments of tide—
Motion, measures tremendous, echoing far and long—
Glister, sparkle and glow, ring of an endless song?
O words prophetic, ye princes and priests attend;
This is the Quest's end promised, the marvellous end
Of all our voyage and venture since time began.
To the Quest for ever the sea's voice calleth man;
And this in a mystery-world, by only the side-light broken—
That a Quest there is and an end—is the single secret spoken
All over that vibrant main:
Of the Quest for ever it tells, of the ends and dooms to gain.
I rise in the half-light early, I vest myself in haste;
I pass over highway and byway, the fielded land and the waste;
As much as a man may prosper, all eager I climb and go down,
For this day surely meseems that the Quest may receive a crown.
131

To and fro in the search I hurry, and some men bid me narrate
What means this fever, and why so eager, and whether their help I wait;
Not as yet they know of the Quest, although they are questing early and late.
And others, my brothers, the same great end pursuing,
Stop me and ask, What news? Fellow Craft, is there anything doing?
Is there light in the East anywhere, some sign set forth in a star,
Or a louder watchword utter'd from over the harbour bar?
And above the light swift music of all its fleeting joys
The world spreads daily through length and breadth, the great Quest's rumour and noise.
Who sought it first, who longest, and who has attain'd almost?
All this in town and in village its heralds proclaim and post;
But the sun goes down and the night comes on for a space to quench endeavour,
While star after star through the spaces far shew the track of the Quest for ever!

III

But still, in the hush and the haunting, I stand, even I, by the shore,
And the sea in the sunshine crooning pervades me with deep unrest,
For it speaks of the Quest, of the Quest—
With a torrent of tongues in a thousand tones
And a far-off murmur of viewless zones,
Old and new, new and old, of the Quest;
Amen, it speaks evermore!
132

The whole wide world of voice and of rushing sound
You may seek through vainly,
But never a voice is found
To search the soul with such deep unrest,
Or to speak of the Quest
So plainly.
Then surely thither the Quest's way lies
And a man shall not err therein;
Yet not on the surface surely seen with eyes,
For thence the swallow has come and thereon the seamew flies;
And the haunting ships with tremulous sails, we learn,
For ever about it hover, pass to their place and return;
And over the wastes thereof the tempests ravage and burn,
Or the sea-spouts spin.
But not of these is the Quest;
In the deep, in the deep it lies—
Ah, let me plunge therein!
But the caves of the deep are silent, and the halls of the deep are still;
Not there is the clarion bird
Or the wind's loud organ heard;
No blythe voice cries on the hill.
A sail, a sail for the seaman, sailing East and West;
And a horse for the rover when he goeth over the dappled down and road!
But a man may better remain in his own abode
Who is vow'd to the wonderful end which crowns the Quest;
For sail and compass, and coach and steed and the rest,
The king's highway, and the beaten track, and the great sea-road—
Are these the way of the Quest?
133

Travel, travel and search, eyes that are eager glisten
(To-day is perchance too late),
I stand on the marge and listen
(To-morrow is stored with fate);
I stand on the marge and wait.
I know that the deep, with its secret, is a sacramental hymn.
Enough that it speaks to me vaguely with meanings reserved and dim,
Saga and rune of eld;
Enough that its volume and grandeur hint the great tale withheld;
While, far through the depth and the darkness, the echoing halls of the soul
Reply to the roar and the roll,
Themselves in the mystery-tongue,
All the world over sung,
As the sibyl awaking from dream
In oracles hints at the theme
That has never been spoken or spell'd.

THE SHADOW OF THY WINGS

Awake, revolving many troublous themes,
Because of thee I suffer, and in dreams
Am darkly haunted. Yea, with soul adread
I must confess thee, and, inclining head,
To thine admitted majesty defer.
How sovereign wast thou, who wast Lucifer!
And all God's world bears testimony still
To the dark power of thy perverted will.
O, in the days when, first by light renew'd,
I found all Nature and her life endued
With blessed sacraments, at bed and board
The uncreated beauty I adored
134

Through shining veils, while—galaxied about
My path—God's omens glitter'd and gave out
Deep meaning and high promise, which compell'd
At once all avenues of sense. I held
All wonder sacred, and, as flame in flint,
Sought God conceal'd in every mystery-hint.
Too soon, as if on moonless nights like this,
All the right order of the world we miss
Amidst thick darkness—as a man his way,
Whom storm surprises in the waste astray;
Black aspects of the sacramental scheme
Are thrust in roughly on our mystic dream,
And midst the sacred ministries proclaim
A baleful presence and a sign of shame;
That in the great hierarchic chant of things,
One evil voice continually sings;
And when our mystic nourishment we take,
That some cups poison which our thirst should slake.
To thee, O Lucifer, for our own woe,
Are many sacraments reserved, I know,
And many likewise in life's holy place
Are set for worship as a sign of grace!
Thy baptisms of water and of fire,
Thine ordinations and thine unctions dire
Hast thou, and efficacies strange subsist,
With a rare savour, in thy Eucharist,
Where lying latent, under semblance dim,
Thou dost win entrance and abide in him
Who cometh, kneeling by thine altar rail.
Thou too hast many priests within the pale
Of thy communion, licensed to dispense
Thy mystic treasures; and when men go hence,
All seal'd and fortified with thy last rites,
How oft they pass expecting thy delights,
And the good things which thou hast stored to see:
Longing they look and fall asleep in thee.
135

How in those sacraments, whose order fair
Is like a wall about us, everywhere
With life our life environs, and in them,
As the hills stand around Jerusalem,
God hidden, in all ages and all lands,
With a great power about his people stands,
Came this invasion of the evil sign?
Prophets shew forth in vain and seers divine;
The old-world legends dimly strive to tell;
And the lone thinkers on the problem dwell,
Break up the answering words and form again.
We must confess where no one can explain—
We must confess at least who speak in song;
We know that mischief and misrule and wrong
Befell the garden of the soul's content.
We know not what laid waste its fair extent,
What fill'd the springs with bitterness, or broke
The music up, and to such sad-eyed folk,
Haunted with memories of some former sin,
Turn'd those who once abode in joy therein.
Yet many fruits and many flowers are left,
Nor is the garden of all lights bereft.
Sacred to incense still are places found,
And psalters also in the garden sound;
Nor, Master, yet so densely intervene
The flaming clouds of any sunset scene,
That cloud or light can veil Thee or make known;
So being mindful of our star and throne—
All attestations of desire and awe,
Thy words flame-written on the soul, her law
And that great longing wherewith all are bent
To get behind the veil of sacrament—
We do believe, past every veil and gate,
That to the centre we shall penetrate,
Which yields no form, nor is by form express'd,
And that this centre is our end and rest.
137

II. PART II
OF THINGS HEARD AND SEEN

138

“O sacramenta lucis creatæ, O signa, omnium apparentium, ad exitum felicem perducite, ad finem nostrum perfectum, in lumine Dei increato, in mysterio signato ineffabile.”—De Concordia Dei et Animæ.

139

A BALLAD OF WHITE MAIDENS

The King Speaks

As I walk'd in the moonlight, that garden I found
By strange sorcery compass'd within and around;
Where the voices are muffled, the vistas are blurr'd,
Dense incense makes faint the enamouring word,
And enfolds broider'd vestments or far-flashing gems
Of pontiff's tiaras and king's diadems.
The cups of the tall-springing lilies confuse
With white maidens' faces, moist-eyed, while the dews
Shine ghostlike and pallid on mist-breathing grass,
Where pearl-sprinkled sandals fall light as they pass.
The maid's trailing garments glide softly and raise
Such light stir as June in her slumberous days
Permits to low zephyrs, with pauses between
Lest they wanton too long with the leaf's silver sheen:
Some cooing dove murmurs in languorous elms
Of the dream and the dreamer in reverie's realms.
O willow-sweet maidens! What maidens are these,
Curd-white in the moonlight and honey-lipp'd breeze?
Old voices grow faint, from the summit they fall;
Your measures enchant me, I come at your call.
O faint grow the tocsin, the trumpet, the drum!
Enswathe me, enclose me; white maidens, I come!
Ah, stay me with lilies, sweet press of your faces,
The nearness and warmth of your mystic embraces,
Dissolving the sacred, inviolate state
Which I shared with the dwellers outside of your gate!
By a superincession fantastical, sweet,
I am merged in the maids of this shadow'd retreat;
They are I, I am they, neither many nor one,
As the light and the warmth from the fount of the sun.
140

The King Sleeps

Within the charm'd walls is a place of delight,
And a world from its windows shines strange to the sight,
In the pomp of deep night and high glory of day,
Where the long golden prospects stretch shining away.
With pennons and banners the pageants pass by,
And the crash of their music goes up to the sky:
The centre and shrine is this paradise fair,
And crown'd midst his maidens the monarch is there.
O wrapp'd all about by a ministry blest
And the intimate sense of the garden of rest,
How vague are the legends, the memories dim
Of the King's distant country surviving for him!
But a hint in the stars, but a voice in the wind,
An echo of canticles lost to the mind,
Welling up from the depths in the sea's organ voice,
Bear witness how far he has err'd in his choice.
In the garden are stairways and turrets and towers;
'Twas spring when he enter'd, and sweet were the flowers;
The maidens sang ballads, how blithe to the heart!
All bells rang the nuptials of Nature and Art;
And the world to the walls in high carnival came,
Bright eyes full of rapture, bright faces aflame.
But what of that moaning when music is still'd—
That ache in the pause which no pageant has fill'd?
The garden has hill-tops, the stars live above;
It is summertide now and the earth is all love;
Those maids in full chorus sing jubilant odes;
A glory abides in the vistas and roads.
O high the emprizes and high the renown,
But the King hath his maidens, the King hath his crown
Now, what of the whispers which hint in his sleep?
Do hearts never sorrow? Do eyes never weep?
141

The garden has sycamores stately and old;
O the time is rich autumn; these leaves are all gold,
Round maids in the moonlight, high-seeming and soft;
But a mist looking mournful envelopes them oft:
With a voice full of loss falls the wave on the strand;
Lone horsemen ride hurriedly far through the land;
Cold sleet against windows beats heavy and drives
On the overblown blooms and the bees' ravish'd hives.
All voice in that garden dies down in a dirge,
And the King hath his sorrow to crown him and scourge.
Far, far through the windows his vision is strain'd;
The young have grown old, and the old have not gain'd
Save in sense of illusion and measureless loss;
So the weary wayfarer goes dragging his cross
O'er the stones of the road to the hills out of reach,
Where storms utter faintly their ominous speech.
'Mid the ghosts of the maidens, in vain let him roam,
And remember at last how he strayed from his home!
Deep frost in the garden, the maidens are dead;
The King is a-cold, with the snows on his head;
Through the rime on the windows forth-looking sees he
The dearth and the dark when the glory should be.
Where now are the stars and the altitude keen,
All the music of old in the shining demesne,
With fellowships lofty, reserved to adorn
That secret pageant and state inborn?
The heart cannot dream it, though hearts may yearn,
Nor a way of attainment the eye discern;
But the King in his garden, of all bereft,
Knows that which was priceless for this was left—
For a paradise fated with time to end,
The Place of that Vision whence Kings descend.
So over the desolate, lonely road
Dim thoughts strain forth from his waste abode,
And hope for a herald with tidings sent
From the land withdrawn of the soul's content;
142

For a beacon speaking the darkness through
Of the light beyond and the further blue;
Past all sea-cries, for a distant tone
From the royal realm which was once his own.

The King's Going Forth

When will they come to him? Come they now?
Falls there a gleam on his clouded brow?
The wasting garden is moist and wan;
Far has the King of the garden gone!
Whither he travels and what may chance—
Whether restored from the lifelong trance,
Whether to tarry in exile far
Where other illusive gardens are—
Who shall acquaint us? He that knows
The one true place for a King's repose,
And, long though he travel the outward track,
That the King came forth and the King goes back.

CLAVIS ABSCONDITORUM

Therefore, perchance, at a time assign'd
Some key to the mystery Kings may find,
Why maidens five in a garden dwell
And Kings delude by their potent spell.
Peace on the King through his ways attend;
All things lead him to reach his end;
Stars be his pathway and suns his track,
For the King comes forth and the King goes back!

Epilogue

Ballad of maidens white to see,
All are spelling thy mystery;
Faint is the music and low the tone:
Lead us still, lead us to reach our own!
143

THE BLESSED LIFE OF SORCERY

ARGUMENTUM MIRABILE

Voice and the Word proclaim, but the outward Voice may fail,
In song and psalter the numbers falter; yet a hint may redeem the tale:
Hear therefore why, from a losing quest,
In a place of spells I dream'd of rest,
And there had thought to remain—
But a lone star rose on the heart's repose,
And it drew me to quest again.

Proem

Short the distance and smooth the road,
Not too far from a man's abode—
Seek, you shall find it; far and nigh
Stretches the Land of Sorcery.

The Prose

Where never a sense of the world beyond
On the soul bewitch'd intrudes,
But to soft spells only is sense in bond,
And, if illusion, delight deludes;
Where the heart does not yearn
Past what eyes discern,
Or far in some land remote—
Perchance unfriendly, at least unknown—
Picture the bliss and the vision alone;
Here let me anchor a stranded boat,
144

And taste the joy of the heart and eye
In the Blessed Life of Sorcery.
I have voyaged far and my sails are rent;
The mast is splinter'd; the rudder is bent.
I have been where billows their might expend
On pitiless walls at the known world's end,
But turret or window or hand extended
Found I none when the quest was ended,
While an icy blast o'er the pathless track
Seized me and toss'd me, and drove me back.
Here the air is heavy with spells;
From a sky overflowing the soft charm spills;
A loving litany breathes round wavering hills
And faintly chimes in the bosks from floral bells,
Or sighs in a veil on the surface of tarns and wells.
Here too the sheeted hyacinth meadows
Suspire and yearn,
Melt in the purple splendour, flicker and burn,
Through vistas of trees prolong'd and the musk-dark shadows
Of haunted dells.
Far off the glister of shining surf looks white;
How far, how soften'd comes the roll of the open sea!
And the long, low-breathing wind is hush'd as a wind may be.
The amber light of the afternoon is caught
And hidden in thickets and traps which mazy leaves have wrought,
Or talismanic figures of flowers that none can name—
But the nameless mystic people:
It moves in tongues of fire on vane and steeple,
On crumbling towers in pageants of auburn flame.
145

Hark a little and hark, for close at hand
Is one light voice you can hear and understand
In the plash and purl of the brook!
Otherwise, over the open road, through leafy covert or lawn,
The silent wain by a silent team with its harvest-load is drawn,
Though the road may rise or fall;
And only shadow'd figures slip past through the ravish'd land,
For ever wearing the dreamful elfin look
And ever the wondering guise of him who has heard the faërie call.
But yet, and now, and surely a theme uplifted,
With subtle, mastering melody suddenly fills the air;
From the midst of a secret centre, suddenly rifted,
The penetrant vibrant music pulses everywhere;
Through every leaf and blade of grass is sent,
As over the strings of its instrument—
Sweeping, sweeping, sweeping. The earth, with its volume stored,
Is a quivering sounding-board,
And the sea, with melodious roar,
For ever and ever responds on the long, pulsating shore.
The faces of women are faces of strange enchanted flowers,
Giving forth fragrance of incense and sounds of flutes on the deep,
In the sweetest, stillest, and gravest charm of the tardy hours;
And the children are blossoms in bud, which smile in the light, and sleep.
White lilies, pallid and pure, in a shimmering cloud of pearls,
Are the choric bands of the girls;
146

There are royal, ruddy roses of eager and splendid boys,
Heavy, yet lissom of limb, tan-faced, full of glories and joys.
Their moist lips full and intense,
Well over with rippling speech;
Yet a strange transfusion of sex and form and sense
Swims undeveloped in each;
And all the men in the land, if men be a part of the scheme,
Walk through the haunted places dissolved in vision and dream.
O holy, holy, holy, wild-sweet to the ear and eye,
Is the Blessed Life and the Haunted Life in the Land of Sorcery!
Will I not dwell in these ways for evermore?
Breathe harps and all ye strings in a world of strings,
With every voice in a world of voice and choir.
Breathe over sea and shore
Lowly and faintly and fading far away,
With a sudden tremor and hint of all unspeakable things,
As of dusk in the heart of the fire;
Lowly and faintly and fading far away,
Over the senses breathe till the senses swim;
Chant in the dells and dingles, among the groups so dim,
Standing at footpath ends—anthem, litany, hymn
Of the world's delight, from the pleasant rite
In the missal of Faërie!
The anthems swell and never a chord is lost,
The light of the Vision floats for ever around,
And a perfect peace of the heart, by an anxious thought uncross'd
Of the life in life, in this Blessed Life is found,
All under the purple sky,
Which swoons and falls in a mist—
Of opal and amethyst—
On fields and meadows and hills in the Land of Sorcery.
147

Envoy

At evening the light of a lone star fell through the lilac gloaming and gloom,
But a voice fell with it, meseem'd, in the midst of that choric spell, on the sorcery craft and bloom,
And, stilling the pulse of a thousand strings,
Said: Sails may fail thee, but wings—take wings!
Then suddenly out of the land withdrew
The savour, the music, the scent, the hue;
A curtain of darkness droop'd from the sky
On the Blessed Life of Sorcery.
That star in the distance sings and sings;
I have burn'd my ships, but I come with wings;
O'er the wall at the world's end, eyes of pity
Shine on the quest for the Mystic City.

HOW ONE OFFERED INCENSE

Just where the forest thins towards its edge,
On the western side
Is a clearing wide,
Or a glade, if you will,
And beyond the copse is a quickset hedge,
But this is the brow of the hill.
Over the hillside climbs the wheat;
In the August sun—like a golden tide—
It washes over the whole hillside,
Except for a narrow and tortuous track
Left for the passage of hardy feet.
Far down a little bridge looks black,
Spanning a stream which chimes and tinkles,
Leaps in the sunlight, sparkles and twinkles,
Rolls its smooth white pebbles, and sprinkles
Crisp green turf upon either hand.
Further again is the rising land,
148

This time with bearded barley and rye
Draped in the sunlight gorgeously;
But climb you over that further slope,
For a splendid stretch of the sky's blue cope
Bends to the West, and the breeze comes thence,
Over the low plain, keen and intense—
Rife with rumour of riot and rout—
Salted and strong from the sea far out.
To watch the sunset smoulder and burn
Over the surf-line, churn'd and creamy;
To see the mists on the plain assemble,
The dotted lamps of the inns dissemble
Their fullest light
Till it's really night;
To see the sky turn mauve and dreamy
And so many stars in the dark a-tremble;
To hear the anthem roll of the main
And the strong response of a seawind's strain—
Take your stand on the further height;
But for real magic 'twixt eve and night,
And a speculation strange and deep
From the inmost heart of the house of sleep,
At a fitting hour the hills forsake
For the edge of the woodland cover and brake.
Over the clearing, high and far,
You shall see only a single star;
Trees, in the dubious light convoked,
Stand, like mystæ muffled and cloak'd;
And lone in the midst of the lonely glade
To the cubical stone which no hand has made,
Shalt thou in the border twilight bring—
If thou hast the gift of soul to bear
A glimpse of the secrets of earth and air—
As an outward sign of the heart's desire,
Thy little parcel of sacred fire
And an incense-pot for an offering.
149

May he who has offer'd his incense tell
Of something which follows this kind of spell?
Say that the smoke will rise and spread,
Making a nimbus round one's head,
While glade and bush through the vaporous mist
Take shapes uncertain, which writhe and twist.
The sky looks marshlike, the star is dim,
And the air, which haply is moist and damp,
Seems to cling close, or just to swim;
The coal glows dull like a dying lamp,
And the moss-grown altar-stone, unbidden
Passing into the cloud, is hidden.
A change comes over the face of things,
And twixt the sense of a soul alone
And the subtle hint of invisible wings,
Tense expectation thrills and swings;
Till suddenly welling and surging round,
Down from the welkin and up from the ground,
From common motion and sight and sound
Isolated and terribly free,
The sense of a thing which is all unknown
Shapes in a moment and pierces thee.
Scatter the coals, for the rite is done;
Go to the hillside—one by one
Number the stones on the downward way;
Note how the wheat-ears bend and sway;
Get with haste to the village and choose
The tavern which most the yokels use;
Or hang on the bridge till one comes near
With a light step and a listening ear.
You have touch'd as close as one rite may reach
To that which lies undeclared behind
The things of Nature and things of mind—
Out of vision, exceeding speech—
And it isn't intended that men should get
A fuller glimpse of the secret yet.
150

Meanwhile it shews you that this life's scheme
Has more of omen and sign and dream
Than enters into the hearts of those
Who cannot the inner eyes unclose;
And that after all the life of man
Is shaped on a sacramental plan;
That all the light which he gets is clouded
Because of the manifold veils between;
The truth which he seeks to clasp is shrouded
And thus the beauty he longs for seen.
Yet truth and beauty and light exist,
And the sign is bright and the umbrage mist.
The border twilight melts at times,
And through the twilight or over the verge
Gleams from beyond do at times emerge—
Meaning of sorrow and sense of song,
The second import of runes and rhymes,
The seed of right at the core of wrong,
And in many legends and mystic tales
A rumour of what is behind the veils.
Nota Bene—the heart's desire
Is surely good as a charcoal fire,
And the heart, I think that we all may own,
Is as much an altar as woodland stone;
Wherefore the incense cloud may well
Be aspiration's transforming spell,
And for shades and forests and woodland dew,
With the lone star's lustre sifting through,
And all other things that I've been telling,
Choose any corner in your own dwelling.
151

A DOOR FOR WHITE DOVES

I sing not now of a thought from sight
In a word evasive hidden,
Of signs which stand for a sense unseen—
The little signs and the worlds they mean—
But an arch so old and a sward so green,
And the sudden flight in a tawny light
Of doves through that arch unbidden.
Science of motion, wings of white,
Gay, so gay, in the beams so bright,
In the warm rich stream of the amber beam—
Gleam, dream, glory and gleam!
The honey-bee hums in the hawthorn hedge,
The wild rose slumbers on plinth and ledge,
And over the wide world's sapphire edge
The rich ripe corn of the world is roll'd,
As rocks in its laver the burning gold.
The whirr of the wings of the doves goes by,
And a singing bird hangs in the flame of the sky;
Hot is the scent of the wheat and dry;
And sinking slowly and circling down
A petal falls from the rose's crown;
Soft on the soft sward falls and reposes,
As a gentle breath stirs the swooning roses.
But the doves come forth and the doves go in;
Here in a low flight circle and spin
Over and under the arch and out,
And out and over the arch and in,
Wheel and circle and plunge about.
Sweet and warm is the air they stir,
And pleasant the chirp of the grasshopper;
Motion, melody, scent are kin,
And the doves come forth and the doves go in.
152

The second sense on a day like this,
Meseems, a moment the mind may miss,
Midst incense, music and lights content
With the outward grace of the sacrament.
Therefore for once of mere doves in flight
The rhymes shall end as the rhymes begin;
Of the full rich light upon wings so white,
As the doves come forth and the doves go in.

ENVOY

Why hint so deeply, O mind within,
Of the going forth and the coming in
Of doves through an arch unbidden?
Do I not know that the whence and where
Of the life of man may be symboll'd there?
But in light so bright and on sward so fair
O let what is hidden be hidden!

THE PLACE OF THY GLORY

I shaped within my thought all goodly aims,
Too grandly built to crumble or incline;
The soul baptizing gave them holy names:
They flourish'd, they were mine.
At first, from man's pursuits my schemes I took
And glorified the world for glory's praise;
In camps and courts and colleges I shook,
With sounding feet, all ways.
But night and silence fall on every quest,
And on ambition's peak I paused and heard
A voice unbidden utter in my breast
One vapid, vacant word
153

Gold rose and red rose, sun-down glory and all
The tinctured flame, and the trump of fame; but the rose and the star shall fall!
Perchance, I cried, a refuge for the heart
Is found in beauty! And my soul, in her
All life transforming, by the hand of art,
Shall grace on life confer.
So I became an artist, and forth brought
Strange life, begotten but not made, to fill
The world with beauty; and the canvas taught
Beauty, and teaches still.
Rich wert thou, world, in that imperial time,
By art transfigured and that art mine own;
But far withdrawn I found one frozen clime
Within me, bleak and lone.
Soul bless'd is soul express'd; colour, melody, verse!
High God was lonely when He lived only: thereof is the universe!
Dirge-laden winds along the waters sweep;
E'en storms are chanted; when the light flows back
Light leaps the carol zephyr, and the deep
Follows a flute-note's track.
So up creation's scale the seeker takes
His search, and music's rapture fills the world;
But discord inly finds a thousand snakes
In those sweet numbers curl'd.
Bowl of ill, slowly fill; acrid cup be fill'd!
A vacant glance in a tongueless trance! And the empty soul is still'd!
154

O there are towers which ghosts will not frequent,
And marshes where the bittern will not cry,
And seas accursed where never tide is sent,
And wastes which know not sky!
But if to utter brings at least relief,
And if relief means refuge—space for work,
Free breath—what wonder in the word of grief
The word of grace should lurk?
So in the revolutions of the soul
Was I reborn a poet, and I wed
The wondrous meaning to the metre's roll,
And life interpreted!
Then all the outward life of man and beast,
Transmuting, turn'd to something “rich and strange”;
Till a new Eos rose in a new East,
O'er earth of broader range.
The Blessed Vision at the gates abode;
The pageant pass'd in every leafy lane;
The Quest was heard upon the open road;
Strange galleons swept the main.
I look'd within, but there no haunted room
Where ghostly presences sit throned and veil'd—
An empty place which never in the gloom
One form divine exhaled.
Cross comes, loss comes: thus is the hope destroy'd;
The harp of gold is a symbol cold, if the soul be vain and void.
Thereat I sought, because of fell distress,
A higher ministry; the altar blazed
A thousand lights pontifical; to bless,
The Saving Host I raised.
155

O never priest with consecrating word
Lord Christ set thus before adoring sight:
Of sacramental wonders, seen and heard,
Went forth the tale of might.
All men saw angels tarrying in the street,
The rush of white wings over all the land;
And where the wicked city's pulses beat
The Kingdom was at hand.
But as from lonely fortress, high-erect,
Commanding wastes unmeasured, lone and grey,
And acrid further waters scarcely fleck'd
With cruel points of spray;
I saw the lone soul's Kingdom stretch within,
Where sat the soul in solitary state—
But dead and pass'd beyond the reach of sin,
Or chrism to consecrate.
Dark soul, hark! Toll, bells of the dead without;
So let it fade, all vain parade: wrap the dark pall about!
I made myself a King in my despair:
There fell a glamour upon earth and sea,
While starry banners blazon'd all the air,
And men said: it is He!
The Sabbath splendour of the Prince of Peace
Fell on deliver'd nations bending low;
All Nature chanted for her heart's release
Grand Antiphons in O.
Great state and golden age and glorious dower:
No King of Kings had ever reign'd till then;
Yet I alone, in that tremendous hour,
A mendicant of men!
156

Quail not, fail not, Soul, in thy rayless room!
Fair when they rise are the shapes and eyes, as the faces pass in the gloom!
Come forth, thou giver, of all gifts bereft,
Who healest all save thine own dread disease:
No further path of ministry is left;
Spare then thy services!
Much didst thou manifest; be now withdrawn;
Much didst thou brighten; now thyself inweave!
Still in thine absence there is scarlet dawn,
Nor lustres fail at eve.
Open, ye gates, and open, portals, wide,
Wild land of Faërie! Let the dreamer through!
Green world and sea-world, past all shore and tide—
Sky-world, beyond the blue!
So I became a prince in Faërie Land;
Mine the weird rite and mine the potent spell,
Stars in my crown and lilies in my hand,
And feet on asphodel.
I was the Vision and the Eye that sees,
The blazon'd symbol and its inmost drift,
The Quest, the Seeker and the Bourne of these,
The Giver and the Gift.
But when I look'd within, the soul was blind,
The pageant tattered and the place unkempt—
Vague quests ill follow'd, by no path defined,
Gifts with no grace to tempt.
Sink not, think not—all must be night and storm;
To sweeter motion subsides the ocean, and flowers into light and form.
157

So thence I pass'd, outside all elfin reach,
To snatch prerogatives and powers which yield,
Far past the compass of theurgic speech,
Worlds of all dread conceal'd.
I saw the gods which Julian saw of eld,
And after others which we name not now
Except with incense-worship, and beheld
Light on the Father's brow.
Ah, woe is me! To see God's shining face
O'er Christ's white throne bend down, yet not to die!
And the great masters in the Holy Place—
How dead within was I!
But humbly now, to this dim world restored,
By temple doors I stand, a man reprieved;
The broken bread, which kindly hands accord,
With bended head received.
God bless the givers and the gifts make blest,
For by this sacrament withheld before,
Deliver'd hardly from a life's unrest,
My soul is dead no more.

A PORTION OF MY INHERITANCE

One day agone, one weariful,
One day of faded light,
Of shade that chill'd but could not cool,
Of blister'd bloom and blight!
May-day, fay-day, all the world was bright
Till they lured my lady fond—
Esclairmonde—
By an elfin rite.
158

One night agone; the stars have shed
All light in tears; if that be dew,
'Tis meet, since she bewray'd is fled,
That light of verdure follow too!
A venom in the damp distils;
The long, enchanted lawn exhales
An acrid odour; hemlock fills
The wingless air; it dulls and stills
The busy murmur of the vales,
The quicken'd sense which haunts the hills;
And in the mystic thicket kills
With beldam fumes the nightingales.
Avé, Avé! Voices come and go;
Baneful, painful, breathing far and low—
“Esclairmonde”—
Throbbing from the bourne beyond,
Liturgic voices slow.
One moon agone; the moon has ceased
Her hauntings of the starry maze;
There is no light from West to East;
The sun is dead, the skies are haze.
Softness and marsh-warmth and decay
Confuse the swimming seasons here,
Till all is fen from May to May
And deeper haze when June is near.
May-day, fay-day, all the spring turn'd sere
When they brought to Esclairmonde
Smoking censers from beyond.
The dark heavy incense swells;
All the dying dales and dells
Echo still with tinkling bells,
Chimes and spells
Rung from elfin thuribles.
159

One year agone; and Nature bleeds
The sap of life from every vein;
The mould is over-rich; the seeds
Have rotted; an unwholesome stain
Makes lepers of the strongest weeds;
The hemlock only blooms again,
And sickly, fungous growths possess
The monstrous boles of pining trees;
The nightshade at the air's caress
Feeds with more poison these.
Lightly, brightly, all amidst the vapours light,
Underneath soft eyes and fond—
Esclairmonde!—
Elfin vestments white.
Pomp of elfin, pomp of fay,
Blazon'd banners' soothing sway,
Draw thy dreaming soul away—
Through thine eyes enthrall'd—so vow
Gossips of the vacant brow.
I opine, since loss of mine
Better makes the heart divine,
That three maidens, Esclairmonde,
Coming from the bourne beyond,
In the dusk and ghostly mean
Eventide and night between—
Thy sweet face was peering forth
From the window facing North,
The embayëd window North—
Wailing, wailing, drew thee forth.
And although no human hand
Wipes the tears from Faërie Land;
And though never human art
Heals the broken elfin heart;
And no words that man can spell
Shall redeem the tax to hell,
160

They have lured thee, Esclairmonde,
Far beyond;
Choir and incense gone before
And the banners evermore
Dripping with the dreary mist.
They who draw thee know not why;
They are lonely, they persist;
When their spells possess the eye
Seldom human wills resist.
Follow fast and follow fond!
They shall lead thee, Esclairmonde;
And I seek the elfin track
Not to bear thy semblance back,
Since the ghost-world, woe is me,
Touching, makes a wraith of thee!
But to join thy useless quest
And to share thy long unrest—
Esclairmonde, O Esclairmonde!
Homeless, haunted, pass'd beyond,
Wraiths are in the world alone
Where thy steps no more are known.
Thus, a mournful ghost, I take
Woe of mine from bower to brake,
From brake to sodden mead, and see,
Evermore escaping me,
Choir and incense gone before
And the banners evermore,
With fantastic plunge and twist,
Looming strangely in the mist,
As thy pale ghost by maidens three
Evermore removes from me.
Passing every house of rest,
Pass'd love's gateway of the blest,
161

And far into dim lands beyond
The march of muffled music steals;
The incense vista curls and reels;
The low chant dieth far beyond;
Far die the ghostly censer bells,
Confused amid a world of spells.
A ghost behind, a ghost before,
Falls woe on both for evermore,
O Esclairmonde! O Esclairmonde!

LA VIE INTIME

THE FIRST SCROLL

A BOW OF PROMISE

O bright between the South and West
That wonder fled before!
So flies, O heart, thy hope of rest
In front for evermore!
Far on the gleam of gorgeous dyes
I spurr'd my russet steed;
The woof disclosed a thousand eyes—
Now grope I, dark in need.
He rode upon a palfrey white,
More white than milk was he;
And his white garments gave strange light
Of golden broidery.
Strange rhymes from witch-lips fill'd the glade
And ballad-music stirr'd;
Rain spangles, hung from leaf and blade,
Shook bells at every word.
162

So evermore the rainbow drew,
Betwixt the South and West,
Its shifting pageant mutely through
That strange green world unblest.
O follow fast! O follow far!
O follow fleet! he cried:
Betwixt the sunset and the star
I see the ways divide;
But one shall lead to convent walls,
While one leads on to mine:
The casements of my joyous halls
Beyond the rainbow shine.
O heed not thou the key of gold—
Shall slip into the grass;
And when white hands a wine-cup hold
Set close thy mouth and pass.
For this is the key of the convent door,
And that which the cup conceals,
To him who crosses the convent floor,
Another life reveals.
Farewell all knightly life of earth,
With the gold key in thy hand!
Magic measures, music, mirth,
Quests and gestes of Faërie Land!
Farewell the wassail and the bowl,
When the gold cup is drain'd!
To quench the thirst it brings the soul
Hath never man attain'd.
From out the convent windows gaze
The cloister'd eyes within,
And watch the steep upwinding ways
Which lead from a world of sin;
163

From the world of sin and joy they lead,
By a fasting waste without;
Through ways of weed, from the green sweet mead,
To the frozen height and drought.
And he that reaches the peaks of ice
Sees over the void untrod
How glister the gates of Paradise
When shut at the word of God.
But the pleasant arch of the rainbow bends,
And its sheen is fair in the spring-tide sky,
With the earth's green turf at one of its ends;
At the other is Faërie.
Where the ways divide in the saffron light
A flame in the West leap'd red,
And the Key from the rainbow—burnish'd bright—
Slipp'd out, as the rainbow fled.
In a music-waft the air gave up,
From God's most holy place,
A priestly youth with a golden cup,
White alb and shining face.
The witch-boy over his palfrey lean'd;
He drew my bridle round;
The witch-boy croon'd and the witch-boy keen'd:
We sprang into faërie ground.
With the sudden shot of a shaft, the bow
Sprang over and spilt its dyes,
And a sex-change swift, with the gaudy flow,
Forth leap'd in his eager eyes.
Ye wist I knew what the lays foretell;
My birth-cross saved me there;
But not from the lips of her evil spell
Nor the twist of her snake-limbs fair.
164

O the light, light play of the naked fire,
On face and limbs transform'd,
In the glowing dawn of a red desire,
As the pulse-beats swelter'd and swarm'd.
At the rainbow's end to a witch-maid wed,
In place of a maid of man,
The nameless rites of an elfin bed
In the maze-built halls began.

THE SECOND SCROLL

A VOICE IN THE HEIGHT

If only the blood of the race of man
In the veins of the mother that bore me ran,
And only the soul of the open sea
Dwelt in my father, a rover free,
Then something came from a secret place
And look'd me, a young child, in the face,
Till all the natural world became
A pageant unstable as smoke and flame.
Sunsets faded and stars went out,
But, pressing me closer round and about
Than the common modes by which man is fenced,
Another order and rite commenced.
In quiet garden and market town
Strange processions went up and down;
In dusky corners and rooms secluded
Warm arms encircled and lips intruded;
Stealthy tortuous corridors stirr'd
With the whisper of an unearthly word.
In the very bed where my mother placed me
Strange, trembling creatures cried and embraced me.
165

There was no river so high, so clear,
But a face not mine would there appear;
Or if in summer I plunged therein
Something kiss'd me which seem'd like sin;
And hands which never could lift to bless me
Up through the cool depths came to caress me.
Over the edge of the world astray,
How swift I pass'd from the world away
To see those sights of glory and joy,
Alike forbidden to man or boy,
In a place so pale with an eye so dim,
Had never the fairies come to him.
Yet the light had something of autumn's shine,
And the blush of the leaf in its last decline,
But the sights if seen by an angel's eyes
Had lost him for æons his native skies.
Why was I taken from Nature's arms,
And taught so early on secret charms
To nourish the innocent heart's desire?
To fan the flame of a fervent fire
Under the eyes, at the lips of those
Whose kisses are more than Nature knows,
Whose arts far down in the scale of things
Are sweets full of poison and mortal stings?
Ah, but a melody faint at times
Drown'd for a little those drowsy rhymes
Which the nameless loves of that world unknown
Over the nuptial bowers intone,
Where limbs which have never by man been seen
Poppies and wormwood slipp'd between!
O eyes unsated and grey with want!
O hearts inhuman, of fire the font!
O shameless bodies and eager faces,
With human sex to your scarlet graces
166

E'en in the secret of bliss denied!
Who was the bridegroom and who the bride?
He who hath seen your arms extended
Shall know of a hunger and need unended.
Gentle melody, tones rejoicing,
Worlds beyond worlds and their secrets voicing,
O but in Faërie I heard the call—
Heard and hearken'd, and over all—
Heart and body and mind and eye—
Fell the great longing to reach your cry!
Not under Nature's rule returning,
Forth I went and carried my yearning,
For he that strays from her realm in vain
May seek therein to return again;
But somehow, some time the place to reach
Where dwelt that singer of mystic speech,
Chanting clearly—how far, how high—
So blythe, so sacred a litany!
O if the natural world to nought
Brings what the heart and the eyes have sought,
That have look'd on things to our eyes forbidden,
Surely a place of peace is hidden!
Surely that mystic voice which sings
Of the Sacred City and its secret things,
Not in vain on the mountains far,
Nor taken vainly from star to star,
Forth from the great delusion leading,
Carries the heart with a hope exceeding,
Where, in the light of all light descried,
One shall be bridegroom and one the bride!
167

THE THIRD SCROLL

THE EXPENDED WAYS

Ah! whither now shall one bewray'd,
Through listless paths and wrack
Of longing, dull'd but not allay'd,
Descry the true way back?
The mists about me crawl and creep,
Warm folds, which swathe and wind,
The swooning soul in languor steep,
And every nerve unbind.
Landscape and seascape far and near
Are voiceless, void and grey;
Thought sets as moon, if moon were here,
Where two eves make one day.
This pallid screen, which hangs between
All-kindling heaven and earth,
Can bring no purpose fair and clean—
In sodden light—to birth.
O the worn way and the lorn way,
And the way that never ends,
Where the light is as the night is,
But never night descends!
The shapes of all things form and fade,
With outlines vague and strange;
While the pace is slow for the pulse is stay'd,
Where nothing is swift but change;
168

And the male rose blooms like the maiden rose
And the maid like the man appears:
Is it night or noon in the sky? God knows—
But the dark mist flows with tears!
Body and ghost are spectres pale,
Shadow and substance fuse in one,
The back-view melts and the prospects fail—
Who knoweth of star or sun?
Mind cannot think, nor sad heart dream,
Maim'd by the dreary spell,
Whence none can issue, by road or stream:
Take the woodland, try the dell;
Try the ghostly, moaning mere,
Take the sand-strewn ways of weed—
Who shall sail and who shall steer?
Who shall spur the flagging steed?
O for a bolt from heaven to fall,
For a rain to follow fast!
Waste and ravage of storm, or all
The strength of a clarion blast!
I yearn for the rainbow's farther side!
I dream of the golden key!
The angel-priest where the ways divide
And the Cup of the Mystery!
The convent gate and the heights untrod
In a silent world of ice!
I ask but to gaze on the hand of God
As it shuts me from Paradise.
169

THE FOURTH SCROLL

RESTORED TO LIGHT

A faint light shining for a space;
A breath of wind upon the face;
A stirring in the mist; a sigh;
A sense of distance, height and sky;
A little wave of melody!
O but how beautiful to see
The light leaf dance upon the tree,
The bloom upon a hedgerow stirr'd
By transport of a singing bird,
And—after darkness and eclipse—
The sun upon the sails of ships,
All up and down the dancing sea!
O but how beautiful to hear
A little whisper in the ear,
A smaller voice than note of bird,
A still small voice, a mighty word,
A whisper in the heart to say
That God is not so far away!
And when the torpid soul is stirr'd,
The voices of all the worlds are heard,
And all the world's lights come and kiss
The sleeping soul to waking bliss,
While joy of new-found life and hours
Bursts everywhere into dews and flowers—
Dews and flowers and fragrance sweet,
In the month of May, with her light feet;
The promise of fuller scent and tune
Under the florid lips of June;
And the gorgeous glory in the eye,
All among roses, of rich July;
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The blessed vision which crowns the year,
When August apples and corn appear.
Out of darkness and sorcery,
Out of the spell and the mystery,
As a mother with accents mild,
Nature has call'd back her lost child
From the other side of the world so far.
She has taken him for a little while
Into the refuge of her smile,
Until from one of her far-off heights—
Peak that glisters or gleaming star—
Some hand shall kindle the greater lights,
Shall point to a pathway leading straight,
As it might seem, to the convent gate,
And into a different world of spell,
As it might be, led by a convent bell—
Gently over the hill-tops ringing.
From the star and over the peak,
And over the peak and beyond the star,
Comes voice, or chorus, or cosmos singing
Of one thing needful which, time out of mind,
All worlds over, the nations seek,
And past all worlds shall the nations find.
By which also, restored to sight,
From the hells of sense and the spells of night,
Having my peace with Nature made,
And taking humbly, as best I may,
To the convent gate my pilgrim way;
If by a chance that key should slip
From another rainbow into a glade,
And the Mystic Cup be placed to my lip,
O what shall loosen one fervent grip,
And O where else be the thirst allay'd?
Or having the key of the convent door,
Will I not stand on that sacred floor,
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And gaze with the cloister'd eyes within
On the paths which lead from my great sin
Up to the sacred peaks and light,
Holy and holy and holy height?
But I know that over the void untrod
A way shall be found for the soul with wings,
When the last true path to the summit brings,
And far though they shine from the peaks of ice,
Shall glister the gates of Paradise,
Unbarr'd by the hand of God!

THE KING'S RENDERING

A TRANSCRIPT

'Twas when the great Telesma of the sun
With ardent flame inform'd the torrid zone,
And summer's heavy heat possess'd the air
With spells successively of rapture, great
Strange longing, ardour dim. A day of bland
And happy parable was 'blazon'd round
With symbols—matron Nature teeming, rich,
Full-lipp'd and yielding. In such tide I left
My house of dreams and forth I fared alone
Into the splendid sacramental world,
Where, all the sacramental veils dissolved,
Shone midst the light flamboyant and flaming heat
The Corpus Christi feast of earth and sea.
A night of ecstasy, so deep, so full,
So holy follow'd—as of mystic death,
When lips of spirit upon spirit lips
Have kiss'd and tasted rapture, unity.
Now, other morn has broken; the hush'd night
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Hath surely pass'd; without that house of dreams—
Midmost within the city—I pause, and know
What wonder and high truth of all the world
Stands at the doors and knocks. All dream is done!
He then shall hear who will—a rich device—
The quest and pageant of the coming King!
All in the little tower that crowns the Church,
Hear ye the pleasant bells which stir in sleep
With muffled cadences and whisper'd chimes! . .
Files past the fair procession! Those twin yews,
The two proud peacocks of the legend, shaped
Uncouthly, feeling, through their long drear spell,
That pride and vanity are over, stir
All tremulous, as if with sudden wind.
For in the night we rode to save the town.
And overtaking ever and anon
Belated market-waggons, saw, aroused
And wonderstruck, how yokels heavy-eyed
Marked—scared in vision—that goodly train go by,
With the great Graal's glad light encompassing;
Fair horses plunging, steaming in the light;
Vast banners streaming, swirling, taken past
By Gilead winds; the King of all the world—
So in my heart I hail'd my heart's dear lord—
Rex quondam ille et futurus rex—
Riding his great white horse with reverend mien
Behind the holy vessel, set about
With sweetness and with savour. Next in place,
Of mien erect but still an ancient man,
The King's sword-bearer came; Excalibur
Lay keen in sheath, the sharp quick light thereof,
Like unto thirty torches, the red gold
Inscription round it, ray'd on every side,
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And all the scabbard's wealth of jewell'd length
And haft transfigured.
Past the roadside stream,
Where crooked willows trembled, crouch'd and croon'd;
The windy rookery swaying in the old
Elm-tops; the narrow bridge—a shallow pool
Below it shining faintly; and across
The little remnant of the open heath
Dotted with pointed tents all white and ghostly;
Past old decaying houses shrouded deeply
In ivy thicker than the walls which bore it;
Past windows dim, with dainty blinds drawn close
In little villas; and past the creaking sign
Whereby the great roads enter from the West
An abject village street; past shutter'd shops
Of that mute place; still eastward, where the bridge
Crosses the road; and as we drew to this
A train of waggons, steaming slowly, shew'd
Forth-hanging guards and drivers eager-eyed,
Awestruck and crying.
Thereat I fell to dream:
What wonder in the city of the King,
When the King came into his own: what joy
Among the common people, when the King
Stood manifest: what poets should come out
To meet him: with what lights should altars blaze:
What flowers be strewn: what bells and bells peal forth:
What merchants, councillors and princes haste
To proffer homage: and what peace in all:
What putting by of sorrow and of shame:
What goodness raised to sanctity: what sins
By pardon purified: what wounds made whole:
What sudden change in heart and hope of all.
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Thereafter pass'd the pictures of the quest;
The inception's fever and high colouring
Kindled its fires within me, going out
From the great city through those long green lanes,
By a free way, far stretch'd into the West.
Came too the pain of doubt, the questioning,
The aching sense of loneness and of loss,
Faring through mournful marshes—where the mist
At sunset flamed with a dull ruddy light,
Which after ever in the moonlight turn'd
To rolling seas. Again, distraught, I heard,
Through smoke and smoulder of the sunset-time,
The plaint of plovers; heard the bitterns cry
Strangely, with breasts and wings incarnadined,
Flocking and flying towards the falling sun.
And further still, descending steep hillsides,
I saw below me the forest tree-tops sweep,
Bending and crashing before the risen wind,
Spelling out wild reverberant messages.
Through fields of bearded barley, fields of rye,
Through winding byways all among tall ripe wheat,
Still faring forward many a morning after;
Betwixt the teeming life of lush hedgerows,
The rich disorder'd growth of bank and ditch,
Right in the drowsy heat and harvest wealth—
Scented and songful—of early autumn sunshine;
By circling, gaudy moths, the birr and buzz
Of bees, dove-croonings, splendid heavy flight
Of armour'd dragon-flies; by lonely wells
Disused and the forgotten source of springs;
By open roads scored white on breezy hills
And white and brown through miles of lilting vales
And worlds embower'd of pool and meeting stream;
Past apple-orchards, russet, green and red;
So to the sea—the questing restless waste
Of the tumultuous ocean! How it cried
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Loud in the moonlight terribly—how broke
Ever its long white line of angry surf,
Chafing beyond the bar, broke and reform'd,
Toss'd high, toss'd higher, where the beacon-lamps—
Set in tide-isolated light-house towers—
Seem'd to flash watchwords through the infinite!
But after, in the morning glory's pearl
Of shell, pale pink, convolvulus and rose—
Bell-like, far-echoing, caroll'd along the coast—
Sea voices taking shape, as soul's take flesh,
Scatter'd light music, breath'd between the songs
Sweet little words of prophecy, soft words
Of promise, high resounding words of hope.
Then all the landscapes and the seascapes merged
In world of dream, the hills abode in light
Down streaming from the gold-bright city above;
All visible realities assumed
A richer tincture, an uplifted type;
And in the human side of earthly things
A higher magic confess'd its mystery
Even in cottage homes and humble farms.
So swept the path of quest into a place
Of very sacrament and mystery.
Vested in samite strange ships glided down
Sea-ways, full-tided, swirling, glisterful;
The odour and the spicery of the world
Hung over all the shore; high mystic chants
Swept and re-echoed through the haunted air,
Telling of Aromat and the Holy Cup.
There fell the subtle hint of perilous quests
On turrets dimly seen between old trees,
On moated manors mouldering far away
From all frequented roads. Unlook'd for glades
Of strange encounter open'd out in bosks,
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Where steaming summer draws rich humid scents
From yielding leaf-mould; in waste places rose
Old chapels, and the sieges set therein
Were less for worship than for vision's gifts;
The reverence of high feasting rang throughout
The sparged and censed extent of castle halls;
Pavilions rose on lawns by power of words;
White doves flew past with golden censers borne
In bills anointed, from their choric wings—
Spread wide—expanding measured melody;
Children in sacred vestments went before,
With sacred lights, far-shining priest-like men
From those far countries which are reached by none
That traverse sea or land.
In such a place
The path of quest and promise was closed about
With eager faces; on the faces fell
The white light shining from the Holy Graal.
I saw them—even I—a man unclean:
The faces shone of angels and of men;
The face of Galahad, of Perceval,
The face of Lancelot sanctified by woe
And seal'd by priesthood. More than all I saw
The fair uncover'd visage of the King,
The King's face in his splendour, as the King
Came out of Avalon, in the morning glory
Passing with royal train along the coast,
Whereon the light sea scatter'd foam and song.
Fair orchards ripen'd in the mellow sun;
The white road ran behind his horse's hoofs;
Over the bridges, over the hills, and all
Through fields of barley, miles of wheat and rye;
Out of the West, far forth into the East,
By secret paths for many and many a day
All reverend riding behind the Holy Graal,
Amidst all manner of sweetness and of savour.
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And reaching now the lion-guarded gates
Of that old convent-house and school of saints
Which, past the river and a hundred meads,
Descries the dim horizon of the hills,
I saw the vision of a pallid nun,
With quivering aureole, watching on her knees
And praying. Then I knew the mourning queen
Had look'd again upon her master's face,
And all must come to pass as I was warn'd
Already in my quest. The glorious train
Swept by; there fell a hush among the stars,
A stir in streets, a spell upon the wind;
And whereabouts the silent highway flows
Beneath the rude arch of a formless bridge,
Some homeless urchin on the kerb asleep,
Lifting his bare head from his ragged knees,
Scream'd worship as an angel's broider'd hem—
The twelfth fair master in a scarlet cope
And white dalmatic—brush'd with sudden touch
His naked feet.
In that same hour a light
Began to kindle faintly in the East;
The eastern heaven dissolv'd its scatter'd stars
In many-hued solutions. For the morn
Was now at hand; the stir of human life
Must soon begin; whereat I felt my heart
Leap in my side, foreseeing those great things
Which every man should witness. As I rode
My palfrey humbly far behind the train,
The narrow street which skirts the water-side
In squalid slumber stirr'd; at early inns
And coffee-houses, waggoners look'd forth
From grimy windows; bargemen crowding doors
Stared as in dream, stone-turn'd for wonderment.
So pass'd the pageant; on the hush thereof
An awestruck sob ensued, a stir spread wide
Through all the ways, shouting of many voices,
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Clatter of doors and casements. Over all
That shoeless urchin shriek'd, and beat the air
With yearning hands, fast following.
Below
The bridge, a whistle of some early steamer
Blew keenly in the thin keen morning air,
As first we enter'd on the smoother ways
And broader streets, where life awaited light
And light of life unlook'd for thus drew nigh.
Amidst dull echoes of a hundred feet
In the old capital of Middlesex,
Again the cloud enveloped us; again
We rode invisible; his own choice kept back
The blessed revelation of the King,
Because the Holy Graal must first be set
For worship on the minster's altar high,
Midmost within the city. Whatsoe'er
Wild rumours of some unknown mystery
Run like light fire from all the western side,
The great metropolis to light of day
Shall wake once more, on common toil intent,
Nor know what must betide it. . . . I alone,
Foreseeing all, steal hurriedly and close
My house of dreams; I cast the keys away,
And riding thence in haste to reach betimes
The minster shrine, hereby proclaim to all
The quest and pageant of the coming King.

HOW I ALSO SANG MASS

So therefore, when the palsied hours
Reach'd towards an end of all;
When petals from the scarlet flowers
Dropp'd through the empty hall;
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And, betwixt a shriek and moan,
All over the floors of stone
Or the scented ivory floors,
The wind of the world outside
Took and scatter'd them wide
And far through the open doors;
When a shaft of the sunlight broke,
Like smouldering fire and smoke,
Through the painted windows—lifting high
Their forest of tangled tracery;
And over the dunes, through the brushwood maze,
The cries which echoed all day drew off afar,
Towards the holocaust fire of the sunset and the long drawn under-haze—
Forth I issued alone, and heard
The final note of the day's last fountain-hearted bird
Spring to the fountain-beam of the night's first star.
Thereat at length my heart sustain'd
The utter sense of loss,
And that first ghostly lawn I gain'd—
Like one who drags his cross.
Thereon—as over a mountain ledge—
At the South horizon's terminal edge,
Where the ragged road of that restless place
Suddenly seems to fall into space,
I saw how the pageant, rank by rank,
Paused on the brink, there gleam'd and sank.
So took they, 'twixt the day and the night,
My wonder forth on her palfrey white,
And the whole world's dissolving spell
Mutter'd and moan'd confused farewell.
Then life fell suddenly dead and cold,
While over the terrace and through the gate,
And far through the woodland and farther still, all over the open wold,
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With a vacant heart and a voided will,
Forth I hurried; but still
Sang, on the crest of the coppice, that bird—which tarried so late—
To the early star far over the naked crest of the hill.
I will not dwell on this night's eclipse,
When all the world's woes came—
The secret want with shrouded lips,
The grief too deep for name.
They found a name to ease their grief,
They shew'd their wounds to win relief,
And then, confessing, look'd on mine,
Crying: No sorrow is like to thine,
For the Master of all in His great day
Shall scarcely wipe thy tears away.
One also from afar came down,
Who said: Twelve stars were in my Crown;
The lilies of all the world, besprent
Through bosks and valleys, made white my star of old.
Deep is my loss and far my lapse, but further is thy descent;
Yes, I know by thine eyes of doom
That I rise from the curse and gloom,
And the glory of morning blossoms, as lights in the heart unfold.
Another from the marshes rose,
With dripping cloak and hood—
Wolf-eyes that had not found repose
Through years, nor look'd on good;
With aspect of a man long dead,
Whom loathing earth refused a bed,
Empty and yet compell'd to be—
O weary of all the skies was he!
And from his neck—what load of pain!—
There hung a heavy and tarnish'd chain,
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From the thirty pieces of silver wrought
By which Christs and Kings have been sold and bought.
For a little space he gazed, then cried,
Hands stretch'd, like one that is crucified:—
Woe and woe, but an end of woe—
With a hope at end, as a light in darkness born—
Because it is given to gaze at length on a face from every face distinguished here below
By mine own sorrow and loss.
Yet deeper is scored thy cross,
As the pit than the grave is deeper, O thou of all forlorn!
So therefore as the night of murk
Drew towards a morning chill;
As light began like a yeast to work—
Nameless, stealthy and still—
And a torpid shuddering life to stir,
It seem'd that the burden of Lucifer,
With the twelve stars dark in his crown,
And of Judas the chain'd fell down,
While those twain over the steep hill trod,
Like souls set free that return to God.
But forth abroad through the day's bright heart,
God's hand under, I moved apart;
And a Borgia poison as I went
Pass'd into every sacrament.
The vision went out in the eyes that see;
The star absinthos and wormwood, hissing, into all sweet waters fell;
The chrism destroy'd the dying man, as Nature the honey-bee;
And with heavy feet, as I fared,
I straiten'd the road and prepared
A path, meseems, for the world to take, going down to the gates of hell.
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How on this middle deep and dark
Should light and joy be rain'd?
Ah, by what process hard, remark,
Redemption's height is gain'd!
Hence, over the marsh and over the sky
And the unclaim'd wastes, I testify
That the morning comes, howe'er delay'd,
Till the saddest feet through a glory wade,
While the aching head cannot fail to lift,
Eyes turn where the white cloud-splendours drift.
And when the eyes behold what gem
Is set in the great world's diadem,
There is no soul in the deep abyss
But shall remember crown and bliss.
Yea, the light behind is the light before,
O'erflowing the wreck and the ravage, suffusing the day's deep wells;
The light without is for ever and evermore
The sacro-saintly joy of all light within;
High over the cross and the loss the sun-clouds circle and spin;
And the bane from the soul uplifted its curse from the earth expels.
So therefore in those softer hours
Which soothe the close of all,
I stood as one midst lights and flowers
By an altar fair and tall;
And in priestly vestments even I
Intoned the mystical liturgy.
Yea, with unearthly and shining eyes,
I, even I, offer'd sacrifice,
And uttered the kingly and terrible terms
Which, veils assuming, the King confirms.
The painted windows lifted high
Their forest of tangled tracery;
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And the heavy shafts of sunlight broke
Through the shifting denseness of incense-smoke;
When I—even I—with hands made clean
—As God in the past cried: “Light”—
Saw light flash forth at the mystic words, and Christ through His veils was seen.
By this do I testify
That the soul of itself can die,
Yet in death is He strong to save, since I have seen crown and height.

SUMMA TOTIUS MYSTERII

Now therefore concerning that wonder white
Over a world's edge drawn from sight—
This also surely is thine own loss,
And, because of the crown, like me
Thou must partake of the curse and cross
Till a mass shall be sung by thee.
But that which was taken is not confess'd
Betwixt introibo and missa est:
Say therefore, as man and his angels do,
Worlds over, refugium meum es tu;
Though, for myself, on that great day
I cried a Tu Autem, Domine.

VALETE

The heart of the woodland
Gives range to the rover,
Each broad tidal ocean
To ships that come over;
And some on the mountain,
And some in the hollow,
Are free, as it bids them,
Their fancy to follow.
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But song, having bless'd them,
Must leave them unheeded,
Since, more than new accent,
The new theme is needed.
If woods could be greener
And seas might be broader,
More stars overwatch'd them
In luminous order;
If touch'd by the tincture
Transmuting existence
The height were exalted,
Transfigured the distance;
If wings should be granted,
Like doves, for swift flying,
And sight, as an eagle's
Sun-bathed, for descrying;
Still wings would droop downward,
The vision must falter,
And mists would all glory
Diminish or alter.
Ah, ye that go outward,
Where cold lie the snows on
The track up those mountains
'Tis death to repose on!
Ye too that go outward,
Where winds with their moaning—
In spume on the tost seas—
Your dirge are intoning;
All ye that go outward
Where dryads have hidden
Snake-fangs in the forests
For hunters unbidden;
Hath dream in the brightness,
When sense-veils grow thinner,
No vision's bright prospect
Conjured from the inner?
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With mournful and mystic
Penumbra is shrouded
That threshold which opens
On splendours unclouded.
O ways unfrequented,
Eluding detection,
I found you, I enter'd,
One day of election!
And, lo! through what regions,
Because of her trances,
The spirit, unbonded
By vision, advances!
O beautiful outward!
O inward! Divine is
Your ray on the outward,
Now each of them mine is!
What secrets, what meanings,
Informing, uplighting!
This life's common story
Turns mystical writing;
All that which is beauty
A light is shed down on,
While thought is new vestured,
High song hath its crown on;
And all is romance, from
The green leaf's light flutter
To strong spirit music
Which tongue cannot utter.
And seen in the brightness
And heard in the glory,
By this book of vision
And magical story,
In strange ballad measures,
Some part have I striven
To give of those marvels
Which I have been given.
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