University of Virginia Library

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
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.
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.