The Creed of My Heart and Other Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

THE CREED OF MY HEART

I

The night was heavy with sorrow: I heard the plash of its tears:
I caught the breath of its sighing: I felt the gloom of its fears.

II

The storm has died into silence; but its voice is awake in my soul;
And through me, in sad procession, the plaints of its anguish roll:
‘Why do we strive and suffer? Why do we work and weep?
We live, and our days are numbered. We die, and dark is our sleep.
Who reaps the fruit of our travail? Who gains the meed of our toil?
For whom do we drive life's furrow? For whom do we sow life's soil?

Or is Chance the ruler of Chaos? Are we duped by our heart's fond dreams?
Is it false that a Will has framed us? Is it false that a Love redeems?
Are we born of the clash of atoms? Do we pass into dust and clay?
Though the years of a man be sunshine, is darkness the end of day?’

II

From the gloom of the night no answer is borne to my doubting heart;
But the breath of the morn is wafting the clouds of the night apart,—
The herald breath of the morning, light-winged and wandering wide,
The first low tremulous whisper of the day's advancing tide.

IV

Slowly the West grows purple; slowly by hands unseen
The fringe of the East is broidered with coral and gold and green.
Though deep in the valley linger the phantom shadows of night,
From summit to summit flushes the dawn's ineffable light,—
The dawn's ineffable glory, the pure pale roseate glow
That lights with fugitive splendour the death-cold wastes of snow.

White mists float up from the meadows: faint murmurs, borne by the breeze,
Rise from the gliding river, fall from the rustling trees.
All else is enthralled by silence, a silence deeper than song,
A silence of expectation, a silence eager and strong.
The season of sadness is over, the season of tears and sighs:
There is joy in the breath of Nature, and the light of hope in her eyes.
A sense of exultant longing possesses the watchful earth,
As the flush of the morning heralds the sun's predestined birth.

V

A flame in my heart is kindled by the might of the morn's pure breath;
A passion beyond all passion; a faith that eclipses faith;
A joy that is more than gladness; a hope that outsoars desire;
A love that consumes and quickens; a soul-transfiguring fire.
My life is possessed and mastered: my heart is inspired and filled.
All other visions have faded: all other voices are stilled.
My doubts are vainer than shadows: my fears are idler than dreams:
They vanish like breaking bubbles, those old soultorturing themes.

The riddles of life are cancelled, the problems that bred despair:
I cannot guess them or solve them, but I know that they are not there.
They are past, they are all forgotten, the breeze has blown them away;
For life's inscrutable meaning is clear as the dawn of day.
It is there—the secret of Nature—there in the morning's glow;
There in the speaking stillness; there in the rose-flushed snow.
It is here in the joy and rapture; here in my pulsing breast:—
I feel what has ne'er been spoken: I know what has ne'er been guessed.

VI

The rose-lit clouds of morning; the sun-kissed mountain heights;
The orient streaks and flushes; the mingling shadows and lights;
The flow of the lonely river; the voice of its distant stream;
The mists that rise from the meadows, lit up by the sun's first beam;—
They mingle and melt as I watch them; melt and mingle and die.
The land is one with the water: the earth is one with the sky.

The parts are as parts no longer: Nature is All and One:
Her life is achieved, completed: her days of waiting are done.

VII

I breathe the breath of the morning. I am one with the one World-Soul.
I live my own life no longer, but the life of the living Whole.
I am more than self: I am selfless: I am more than self: I am I.
I have found the springs of my being in the flush of the eastern sky.
I—the true self, the spirit, the self that is born of death—
I have found the flame of my being in the morn's ambrosial breath.
I lose my life for a season: I lose it beyond recall:
But I find it renewed, rekindled, in the life of the One, the All.
I look not forward or backward: the abysses of time are nought.
From pole to pole of the heavens I pass in a flash of thought.
I clasp the world to my bosom: I feel its pulse in my breast,—
The pulse of measureless motion, the pulse of fathomless rest.

Is it motion or rest that thrills me? Is it lightning or moonlit peace?
Am I freer than waves of ether, or prisoned beyond release?
I know not; but through my spirit, within me, around, above,
The world-wide river is streaming, the river of life and love.
Silent, serene, eternal, passionless, perfect, pure;—
I may not measure its windings, but I know that its aim is sure.
In its purity seethes all passion: in its silence resounds all song:
Its strength is builded of weakness: its right is woven of wrong.
I am borne afar on its bosom; yet its source and its goal are mine,
From the sacred springs of Creation to the ocean of love Divine.
I have ceased to think or to reason: there is nothing to ponder or prove:
I hope, I believe no longer: I am lost in a dream of love.

VIII

O soul of the soul of Nature! O life of her inmost life!
The saints of the earth have sought thee with toil and sorrow and strife.

O only well-spring of being! O only fountain of force!
The wise of the earth have laboured to trace thy stream to its source.
O circle that art all centre! O world-deep infinite Whole!
For one mysterious moment thy face hath flashed on my soul:—
A moment that is no moment, a timeless atom of time;
For the spell of the dawn is over, and the sun has begun to climb:—
But the moment is mine for ever, it lives and works in my heart:
Though thy face be veiled by its splendour, I have seen thee, O God, as thou art.
In that thrill of wonder and glory thy message came from afar,
As light is flashed through the ages from a bright, invisible star.
With high imperial summons thy voice hath rung in my ears:
I go; for thy love hath called me from beyond the encircling years.
I go; for thy love constrains me; I feel the stress of its might:
It draws me inward and upward with chains of ethereal light.
I have come from thee—when I know not—like mist from the ocean's breast;
But the mist shall feed the river, and the river at last find rest.

I wander afar in exile, a wave-born flake of foam;
But the wheel must ‘come full circle,’ and the wanderer wander home.
I have come from thee,—why I know not; but thou art, O God! what thou art;
And the round of eternal being is the pulse of thy beating heart.
Thou hast need of thy meanest creature; thou hast need of what once was thine:
The thirst that consumes my spirit is the thirst of thy heart for mine.
What though with will rebellious I thwart thy omnipotent will,
Through purgatorial æons thy spirit will draw me still;
Draw me through shame and sorrow and pain and death and decay;
Draw me from Hell to Heaven, draw me from night to day;
Draw me from self's abysses to the selfless azure above;
Draw me to thee, Life's Fountain, with patient passionate love.

IX

Shall I fear to be lost for ever—a drop in thy shoreless sea?
Does the heart-sick fear to be happy? Does the captive fear to be free?

Did I fear, when the flame-flushed summits had caught the glow of thy grace?
Did I fear, in that mystic moment, the thrill of thy heart's embrace?
Shall I fear when my life is buried 'neath the surges of life Divine,
In the ocean depths of thy spirit to find what is real in mine?
Shall I fear to unseal the fountain whence all things beautiful came?
Shall I fear to be rapt and ravished by love's all-conquering flame?

X

The sun is high in the heaven: the flush has faded away:
But my heart is aflame for ever with the dawn of a larger day.
Let the years bring joy or sorrow: let Fate send glory or gloom:
I fear no shadow of darkness: I fear no presage of doom.
I have guessed the secret of being: I have probed the meaning of death:
I know why we wake from slumber: I know why we draw life's breath.
I have read the riddle of evil,—the riddle of passion and pain:
I know that no heart has striven or sighed or suffered in vain.

I am clasped to the breast of Nature: I glide where her waters glide:
And I feel, as each ripple rocks me, the swing of the world's one tide.

XI

The sun has climbed to the zenith, but his light has died from the skies:
There is fear at the heart of Nature, and a mist of tears in her eyes:
Dark as despair the storm-clouds in sad procession move:—
But my heart is aflame for ever with the dawn of the light of love.

TO THE UNKNOWN GOD

I

O God! O Father of all things! O Lord and Giver of life!
O fountain of peace and blessing! O centre of storm and strife!
The waves of thy will roll onward: I stand alone on thy shore:
I veil mine eyes in thy presence: I seal my lips,—and adore.

II

Art thou not Force and Matter? Art thou not Time and Space?
Art thou not Life and Spirit? Art thou not Love and Grace?
Do not thy wings o'ershadow the whole and the humblest part?
Are not the world's pulsations the ebb and flow of thy heart?

III

O God! O Father of all men! O Lord of Heaven and Earth!
Shall we, who are dust before thee, exalt thy wisdom and worth?
Shall we, whom thy life embraces, set forth thy life in our creeds?

While the smoke of thy battle blinds us shall we read the scroll of thy deeds?

IV

We spin the threads of our fancy; we weave the webs of our words;
But nearer to truth and knowledge are the songs of the quiring birds.
The rays of thy golden glory fall free through our nets of thought:
And all that we seek is hidden: and all that we know is nought.

V

How shall I kneel before thee who hast no visible shrine?
Is not the soul thy temple? Is not the world divine?
Will tower or transept tell me what the snow-clad mountains hide?
Is the surging anthem holier than the murmur of ocean's tide?

VI

To whom hast thou told thy secret? On whom is thy grace poured out?
Whose lamp will direct my goings? Whose word will resolve my doubt?
Shall I turn to the sects and churches that teach Mankind in thy name?—
But the best is a mote in thy sunshine, a spark flung out from thy flame.

VII

Slowly through all my being streams up from each hidden root
The sap of thy life eternal,—streams up into flower and fruit.
Is this the truth that we dream of? We seek what we ne'er shall know;
But the stress of thy truth constrains us when the springs of thy love o'erflow.

VIII

At night, when the veil of darkness is drawn o'er the sunlit blue,
The stars come out in the heavens, the world grows wide on my view.
At night, when the earth is silent and the life-waves cease to roll,
The strains of a deeper music begin to wake in my soul.

XI

Is it then, O God! that we know thee—when the darkness comes—is it then?
When the surges of thought and passion die down in the hearts of men?
Is it then that we hear thy message? Is it then that we see thy light?
Is the sound of thy voice our silence? Is the sheen of thy face our night?

TO DEATH

I

‘I ask not in what season I shall feel
Thy wintry kisses on my burning brow,
Nor when the balm of thy approach will heal
The wounds that wring me now.

II

‘I ask not when thy grey and gathered gloom
Must end the sunshine of these sparkling hours,
Nor when the March wind of thy breath must doom
Life and its laughing flowers.

III

‘I ask not what the span of circling years
That yet remains—for, be it long or brief,
Death still will clothe itself in chilling fears,
Still bring me sweet relief.

IV

‘Nor need I ask of thee in what a guise
Thou wilt draw near the threshold of my door:—
To see thee is a film before our eyes
That see and see no more.

V

‘It may be that a thorny path of pain—
A weary and interminable way—
Will lead me on through swamps of blinding rain,—
Whither? Ah! who shall say?

VI

‘Or haply on thy slowly heaving breast
Without a pang my soul will fall asleep,
As moonbeams glide into the gleaming rest
Of the enchanted deep.

VII

‘Or it may be that in a moment's space
The sudden quiver of a lightning flash
Will shrivel me to earth, nor grant me grace
To hear its thunder crash.

VIII

‘Or in a mountain tempest thou wilt come;
And through an hour of unavailing woe
Young life will struggle on—then faint and numb
Sink into drifts of snow.

IX

‘I know not;—but I know that, late or soon,
My heart must beat to feel thee drawing nigh—
Beat into stillness at thy touch, and swoon
Away from life—and die.

X

‘And there are times when I am quick to hear
Thy fancied footstep in a hush of sound:
There falls the shadow of a sudden fear—
I start and look around.

XI

‘What, even now the dream of thee can chill
My heart and rob life's sunshine of its charm!
O Death, there is one only way to still
These stirrings of alarm.

XII

‘In fancy I will see thee face to face,
And pluck the veil from thine abhorrèd brow,
And commune with thee for awhile—and trace
Thy ghastly features now.

XIII

‘And I will face thee in thy grimmest form—
With snow and darkness for thy winding sheet—
A phantom folded in a freezing storm,
Whose breath is driven sleet;

XIV

‘Whose eyes are lit with such a glare as froze
The Gorgon's victim into lifeless stone;
From whose pale lips each murmur as it flows
Is cruel as the moan

XV

‘Of loosened avalanche in wintry peak,
Whose gathering thunder clots with ice the blood
Of one below: with terror-blanchèd cheek
He waits the rushing flood.

XVI

‘Such and so terrible shalt thou appear’—
‘So terrible’—O Death, forgive the thought;
Forgive that vision of incarnate fear
By fevered fancy wrought.

XVII

Forgive youth's dreams, forgive its vain alarms,
Forgive its quick-drawn, palpitating breath;
I was too young to feel thy fondling arms
Twined round my heart, O Death!

XVIII

Strange fears were mine that, as the years rolled by,
An awful shadow of approaching doom
Would fall on life, and darken earth and sky
With ever-deepening gloom.

XIX

Strange fears and vain! Now, taught by Time, I know
That, ever as life nears its hour of rest,
A warmer light, a slowly-deepening glow,
Burns in the mystic West.

XX

Two visions haunt us while we dream life's dream,—
One bright and beautiful beyond compare;
And one whose features to our fancy seem
Dark as our heart's despair.

XXI

And this we shun with unavailing strife;
And that we seek with passionate desire;
This is the cloud that chills and darkens life;
And that life's inmost fire.

XXII

And yet perchance death's mask of terror hides
The very face divinely fair and bright,
Whose baffling beauty lures us on and guides
Our hearts into the light.

XXIII

O God Triune! O Beauty, Love, and Death!
Whose hidden presence makes the world divine,
Through every nerve and fibre thrills the faith
That links my life to thine.

XXIV

O God, what art thou?—from the depths of doubt
Or heights of hope we passionately cry.
‘Beauty,’ God answers from the world without:
‘Love,’ is the heart's reply.

XXV

Beauty and love—were they not one of old?
For what is beauty but love's outward grace?
And love but beauty burning to behold
Its own resplendent face?

XXVI

Though life divide them, yet at last I think
Love lost in beauty will attain its goal;
And beauty drawn by love at last will sink
Into love's inmost soul.

XXVII

As, in the chaos of life's primal source,
Two world-enfolding vapours floating free,
Flashed into one by some mysterious force,
Became the rolling sea;—

XXVIII

So love and beauty die and live again
In that far-wandering wave whose wind-borne breath
Haunts us through all our years, the boundless main
Of life-encircling death.

XXIX

Sometimes I think that in thine arms of love,
Sleeping the sleep of life, O Death! I rest,
While through my dreams, like rhythmic tide-waves, move
The pulses of thy breast.

XXX

And when mine hour has come, thy lips at last
Will touch my slumb'rous eyelids with a kiss,
And all life's fevered visions fading fast
Will weave one dream of bliss.

XXXI

Then gazing up with half-bewildered eyes,
My waking spirit, like a startled child,
(Who scarce can guess in whose warm arms he lies)
By thy fond love beguiled,

XXXII

Will see at last, through life's dissolving veil,
The form that clasps it in a close embrace;
Will meet at last thy silent eyes, and hail
A dear familiar face.

The first fifteen stanzas of this poem were written many years ago. The rest of the poem has been recently rewritten, the original ending being no longer true to the writer's feelings about death.

NIRVANA

I

Could my heart but see Creation as God sees it,—from within;
See his grace behind its beauty, see his will behind its force;
See the flame of life shoot upward when the April days begin;
See the wave of life rush outward from its pure eternal source;

II

Could I see the summer sunrise glow with God's transcendent hope;
See his peace upon the waters in the moonlit summer night;
See him nearer still when, blinded, in the depths of gloom I grope,—
See the darkness flash and quiver with the gladness of his light;

III

Could I see the red-hot passion of his love resistless burn
Through the dumb despair of winter, through the frozen lifeless clod;—
Could I see what lies around me as God sees it, I should learn
That its outward life is nothing, that its inward life is God.

IV

Vain the dream! To spirit only is the spirit-life revealed:
God alone can see God's glory: God alone can feel God's love.
By myself the soul of Nature from myself is still concealed;
And the earth is still around me, and the skies are still above.

V

Vain the dream! I cannot mingle with the all-sustaining soul:
I am prisoned in my senses; I am pinioned by my pride;
I am severed by my selfhood from the world-life of the Whole;
And my world is near and narrow, and God's world is waste and wide.

VI

Vain the dream! Yet in the morning, when the eastern skies are red,
When the dew is on the meadows, when the lark soars up and sings,—
Leaps a sudden flame within me from its ashes pale and dead,
And I see God's beauty burning through the veil of outward things.

VII

Brighter grows the veil and clearer, till, beyond all fear and doubt,
I am ravished by God's splendour into oneness with his rest;
And I draw the world within me, and I send my soul without;
And God's pulse is in my bosom, and I lie upon God's breast.

VIII

Dies the beatific vision in the moment of its birth;
Dies, but in its death transfigures all the sequence of my days;
Dies, but dying crowns with triumph all the travail of the earth,
Till its harsh discordant murmurs swell into a psalm of praise.

IX

Then a yearning comes upon me to be drawn at last by death,
Drawn into the mystic circle in which all things live and move,
Drawn into the mystic circle of the love which is God's breath,—
Love creative, love receptive, love of loving, love of love.

X

God! the One, the All of Being! let me lose my life in thine;
Let me be what thou hast made me, be a quiver of thy flame.
Purge my self from self's pollution; burn it into life divine;
Burn it till it dies triumphant in the firespring whence it came.

MORNING TWILIGHT

Motionless mists around the mountains cling,
Veiling their splintered summits from our eyes:
Though night is dead the sun delays to rise,
And all is cold and grey: no living thing
Moves on the earth; no bird is on the wing:—
Calmer than death the lake far-winding lies,
While slumber in its depths the cloud-thronged skies,
And trancëd hills that from its margin spring.
O wondrous hour, thy stillness is the womb
Of puissant passions and imperial powers
That yet shall wake to life. The silent earth
Waits, grandly patient, for a glorious birth:
And, burning through the coldness and the gloom,
A dawn divinely bright shall yet be ours.

THE SECRET OF THE SEA

I

Tell me, O Sea, thy secret; speak to me, soul to soul:
I hear the boom of thy billows; I see them surge and roll:
There is something that they are saying as they break on the foaming beach;
Something that they would tell me if I could but learn their speech.

II

They come like a trampling army from some fateful far-off land:
They storm with unwearied onsets the ramparts of rock and sand:
Wave after wave, they perish. Is their travail void and vain?
What realm do they strive to conquer? What crown do they strive to gain?

III

Afar in the misty distance, where loom like ghostly shapes,
Out of the clouds that haunt them, the giant headland capes,
As I trace the land's dim outline by the fringe of thy foaming snow,
I think, do the dark cliffs listen to the surf that breaks below?

IV

I have seen thee, O Sea, in summer, when thy waves were all asleep,
And the blue of the sky above thee was matched by thine azure deep:
What spell had bound thy waters? What charm had hushed their strife?
What dream, what vision of glory, had tranced thy mighty life?

V

And in the wintry season, O dark tempestuous Sea!
When storm-clouds hid the heavens, and the wild winds wandered free,—
I have seen thy terrible surges scourging the streaming reefs,
And caught in their echoed thunder the plaint of thy voiceless griefs.

VI

On gusty days, far inland, borne by the rushing blast,
The flakes of thy foam have met me, and kissed me as they passed:
And as I drank enraptured the breath of the spraying brine,
Thy mystic message thrilled me, but I could not make it mine.

VII

When the sun is slowly sinking, and the world grows wildly bright,
And sea and sky are mingled in a mist of crimson light,
Vainly my soul has striven, through the gates of the glowing West,
To win the golden shore-line of thine ‘Islands of the Blest.’

VIII

Or when, full-orbed and lustrous, the moon is throned on high,
And paths of gleaming silver across thy ripples lie,
Though soft as a dying zephyr the breeze of midnight blows,
More passionate far than passion is thy deep divine repose.

IX

Oh, there's a life profounder than the life that we deem our own:
There are words that are never spoken, and thoughts that are never known;
And secret gusts of passion, and wild far-wandering dreams;
And sudden spectral shadows, and swift mysterious gleams.

X

What do they mean? We know not. Why do they come and go?
Where is the fount that feeds them? Whence do their storm-winds blow?
Vain thoughts! With cant and custom the world still walls us in;
And we may not guess what passes in the hidden depths within.

XI

Yet at times, for timeless moments, there come to all and each
Flashes of sudden splendour, yearnings that crave for speech:
But swift as the light that dazzles is its cruel dark eclipse;
And the soul's unspoken message dies on our faltering lips.

XII

Dies! Will it ne'er be spoken? O vast encircling Sea!
Thine is the voice eternal of the life that is dumb in me:
I hear in thy surging thunder the sound of my soul's unrest;
And thy fathomless depths of silence are the dream-deep life of my breast.

XIII

Murmur, O Sea, thy message; speak to me, deep to deep:
We are swept by the same fierce passions; we sleep the same moonlit sleep:
For I think that thy restless waters through the gulfs of my life have rolled;
And I think that my heart has suffered whatever thy waves have told.

XIV

Speak to me, spirit to spirit: thou art more than symbol or sign;
For thine are the very pulses of the life that is lost in mine:
From afar, from the soul's expanses, the winds have wafted thy breath;
And thy murmuring surges whisper of the infinite deeps of death.

LA VIE PROFONDE

Hemmed in by petty thoughts and petty things,
Intent on toys and trifles all my years,
Pleased by life's gauds, pained by its pricks and stings,
Swayed by ignoble hopes, ignoble fears;
Threading life's tangled maze without life's clue,
Busy with means, yet heedless of their ends,
Lost to all sense of what is real and true,
Blind to the goal to which all Nature tends:—
Such is my surface self: but deep beneath,
A mighty actor on a world-wide stage,
Crowned with all knowledge, lord of life and death,
Sure of my aim, sure of my heritage,—
I—the true self—live on, in self's despite,
That ‘life profound’ whose darkness is God's light.

A SUNSET

I

A warm soft wind from the south-west came,
And blew white cloudlets over the sky;
But the fire of the sunset streamed on high
Till each fleecy cloud was a floating flame.

II

Then as the glory deepened and grew,
The cloudlets vanished; and in their stead
Broad burning bands of resplendent red
Girdled the heaven's vault of blue;—

III

Flushes of passion and joy and pain,
With spaces of halcyon calm between,
Spaces of pale pellucid green,
Peaceful and pure, without stir or stain.

IV

Aflame beneath them the wild waves rolled:
Were they waves of water or waves of light?
Or were sea and sky made one that night
In the western gates of quivering gold?

V

Alone on the headland height I lay,
With the sea beneath and the sky above:
And into my heart with yearning love
I drank the light of the dying day;—

VI

I drank the crimson, I drank the blue,
I drank the passion, I drank the peace,
Till the life of my senses seemed to cease,
And the beauty that thrilled me through and through

VII

Caught up my soul and bore it afar
Through the gates of gold to some haven blest,
Where pain is rapture and passion rest,
Where love is light and each soul a star.

VIII

The splendour faded away from the west;
The sky grew pallid and drear and dead;
And the message of Nature was still unsaid;
And the secret of Nature was still unguessed.

IX

But my heart has dreamed that the sunset's fire
Was a flush which burned on Nature's cheek,
The flush of a hope which she might not speak,
The flush of a passionate, deep desire.

X

And I know that the light which died away,
In my kindled spirit is glowing yet;
And I know that the sun will never set,
For my love will keep it aflame for aye.

XI

And I guess that the dumbness of Nature's heart
Is the breath, the life, the fire of mine;
That her voiceless deeps are the springs divine
That feed the fountains of song and art;

XII

That because dumb Nature in silence bears
The awful weight of her heart's desires,
The poet dreams and the saint aspires,
The prophet burns and the hero dares.

XIII

Voices of silence! Is this our doom?
When our hearts o'erflow, does each echoed sound
Deepen the stillness that reigns around,
As lightning deepens the midnight gloom?

XIV

Have all our melodies, new or old,
One only burden, one last refrain,—
That their voice is hollow, their music vain,
That the pain, the triumph are still untold?

XV

I shall never learn what the sunset meant;
I shall never guess what it strove to say;
Yet a message came from the dying day,
And my heart that heard it is well content.

XVI

And perhaps when our passions surge and throng,
The silence deep of the startled soul,
The silence beyond our thought's control,
Is the truest speech and the sweetest song.

MOONLIGHT

Southward a silvery dream-world lies,
Fading at last into Fairyland;
Northward beneath the moonlit skies
Clear-cut and cold the mountains stand.

Sable-black on a field of snow
The shadows fall from the dark-massed trees;—
Motionless all,—so lightly blow
The languid airs of the midnight breeze.

The world has vanished, I know not where,—
The busy world with its warmth and light:
The stars are hidden: the skies are bare:
The moon and I are alone to-night.

I glide no more with life's rushing stream,
But, moored awhile in some inlet deep,—
Some windless channel where shadows dream,—
I float, forgetful of all but sleep.

Dear is the sunlit realm of life;
Dark is the starlit world of death:—
But beyond the frontiers of toil and strife
There's a land where life suspends its breath;—

Where pain and passion are lulled to rest;
Where love is languor and joy repose;
Where the riddle of death is still unguessed,
But life forgets that its day must close;—

A land that is bathed in Lethe's dew;—
A land that lies in a trancëd swoon;—
A land whose heaven of cloudless blue
Is the throne of the white-robed lonely moon.

BEAUTY AND LOVE

I

What does it mean that, when the morn
With pure cold passion faintly glows,
My heart responds with yearning throes
Prophetic of a life unborn?

II

Or what, that, when the crimson West
Sends to the zenith clouds of flame,
A fire which life can never tame
Leaps up, rekindled in my breast?

III

What does it mean that when the spring
Returns with leaf and flower and bud,
Her quickening impulse thrills my blood,
And in my heart her sweet birds sing?

IV

What does it mean that, when the sea
With gently heaving bosom sleeps,
My soul draws from her moonlit deeps
Their passionate serenity?

V

What means it that, when Ocean raves,
Storm-tortured, round the streaming rocks,
In me reverberate the shocks,
Far-thundered, of his baffled waves?

VI

Or what, that when the silent night
With stars innumerable shines,
My prisoned spirit ever pines
To wander through those fields of light?

VII

What does the mystic kinship mean
That links the life of outward things
To this deep love, whose fountain springs
Within me from some source unseen?

VIII

What does it mean? I cannot tell:
Or, if I can, my lips are sealed;
For too much brightness is the shield
Of its own light. Yet once it fell

IX

That of a sudden there was wrought,
Across the darkness of my soul,
A sinuous flash, a flaming scroll,
Of world-illuminating thought.

X

And then I saw or seemed to see—
Ere yet the night resumed its reign
With tenfold gloom—that not in vain
Do Nature's chords vibrate in me;—

XI

That God, the One Eternal Life,
Whose love sustains all Heaven and Earth,
Whose pulses beat from death to birth,
Whose peace controls our whirling strife,—

XII

That God, with sudden glad surprise,
Sees through the rapture of my heart,
Sees through the tears of joy that start
Unbidden to my gazing eyes,—

XIII

Sees in the grandeur and the grace
Diffused through all things, near and far,
From quivering leaf to throbbing star,
The light of his own glorious face;—

14

Sees his own beauty burning through
This film of outward loveliness,
These luminous clouds which half confess
The radiance that they veil from view;—

XV

Sees it, and glows with love divine,
Glows through my heart in golden gleams,
Glows through its beauty-haunted dreams,
Glows till its life is God's, not mine.

XVI

All this in that one scroll of light
I seemed to read: then, ere it came,
Far off had flashed the blinding flame,
Leaving behind a deeper night.

XVII

Yet still one faith outsoars all doubt,—
That all things outward are my kin;
That their true life is here within;
That my true life is there without:

XVIII

That what I feel and what I see
Are one at last—one living whole;
That love is beauty's inmost soul,
And beauty love's epiphany.

TO URANIA

I

As in the days of winter, when the birds no longer sing,
The dark earth, wrapped in slumber, dreams of the flowers of spring;
As midnight dreams of the morning; as the river dreams of the sea;—
So have I dreamed and waited,—waited, and dreamed of thee.

II

Long ere thine eyes enthralled me, their light was my guide and goal;
Long ere thy lips had spoken, their music rang in my soul;
Long ere the sun had risen, the skies were flushing above;
Long ere our hearts had mingled, I felt the flame of thy love.

III

As, in the old-world story, the dark-eyed beautiful queen
Came to the heart that loved her, though the ocean rolled between;—

So from afar thou camest, borne by the world's deep tide,
Sped by the breath of Heaven, my heart's predestined bride.

IV

Soft are thy murmured accents; yet in them my spirit hears
The voice of the rolling thunder, the song of the gliding spheres:
Dark are thine eyes, and dreamy,—dreamy, and dark and deep;
Yet in them the lightning flashes, and the stars their vigils keep.

V

Daughter of all the ages, thy soul is woven of rays
Shed by the deeds of heroes from dark forgotten days.
Thou hast caught the glow of the sunset, the flush of the mystic morn,
The glamour of years departed, the promise of years unborn.

VI

Forgive if I ever doubted that life is cradled in light:
Forgive if I ever trembled at death's mysterious night:—
Queen of my heart, forgive me: I tremble, I doubt no more:
I am strong in thy soaring courage, and wise in thy sacred lore.

VII

Nature to thee hath whispered the secret of all her strife;
Nature in thee hath hidden the fount of her inmost life:—
Oh, I am tired of dreaming: dark are thine eyes and deep;
Gaze into mine and wake them from life's bewildering sleep.

VIII

What shall I give thee, Dearest, who hast given my soul to me?
What but the gift thou gavest,—the life that thy love set free?
The flame that leaped from its embers,—the flame of love's kindled breath;
Love's dream in the world of shadows; love's self in the world of death.

LUX MUNDI

‘L'amour est la forme la plus divine de l'infini; et en même temps, sans doute parce qu'elle est la plus divine, la plus profondément humaine.’—Mæterlinck.

I

This is the one and only thing
For which we live and toil and die,—
That two bright flames should upward spring,
And mingle as they soar on high.

II

This is the first, the last, the whole,
The source of life, the way, the end,—
That soul should wed itself to soul,
And, flame through flame, to Heaven ascend.

III

Oh! when thy throbbing heart is pressed
Close against mine, my love! my own!
Life's mystic meaning stands confessed,
Life's inmost truth is named and known.

IV

And in love's rapture I forecast
How swiftly, without pain or strife,
The weary world will break at last
The fetters of its outward life,—

V

And be the source from which it came,
The goal to which it wings its flight,
Be what it is—a quivering flame,
A pulsing wave of love and light.

VI

Does not the Lord of Night and Day,
Who makes the Universe his throne,
Forever send himself away
Far into exile, lost and lone;

VII

That from his sorrow love may spring,—
Love rushing into love's embrace—
And lift Creation on its wing,
And light with life the voids of Space;

VIII

That in and through the twofold love
That draws the wanderer to his rest,
The whole wide world may live and move
And all its pain and toil be blest;—

IX

That in and through the vast desire
Of God for God's self-exiled soul,
The stars may light their quenchless fire,
And Time sweep onward to its goal.

X

Oh then, when heart and heart are one,
When I am thine, when I am thou,
For thee and me the days are done
That crown with thorns God's bleeding brow.

XI

The dream of Nature is fulfilled;
The soul of Nature is set free;
The circle that God's love hath willed
Ends in its own eternity.

XII

Nay more,—our love means more than this;
For when our mutual passion burns,
God feels the rapture of our bliss
And, exiled, to his home returns.

XIII

God needs our love. The weakest heart
Roused by his trumpet-call, may make
His cause its own, and play his part
And be a hero for his sake.

XIV

My best! My own! My heart's one bride!
When thy dear bosom beats on mine,
I feel the pulse of life's great tide,
The passion-pulse of life divine.

XV

I learn that love is all in all,
That all things else are dreams and shades,—
Snowflakes that vanish ere they fall,
Flowers that are gone ere summer fades.

XVI

There is no room for aught but love,—
None in the years that come and go,
None in the heights of Heaven above,
None in the depths of Hell below.

XVII

Nature is ransomed by our bliss:
God in our hearts fulfils his plan;
For this, our love's impassioned kiss,
Was purposed when the years began.

A PALINODE

Of old I deemed that the divinest soul
Was his who loved beyond his will's control;—
Who sought no recompense, but claimed the right
To flood a kindred soul with waves of light.
But when I saw thee radiant and serene,
Waiting for love, a crowned and sceptred queen;—
Waiting for love, as waits triumphantly
For tribute waters the imperial sea;—
Waiting for love, on beauty's high-set throne,
As one who knows her might and claims her own;—
And when I mused how all that I could bring
To thy dear feet of love's best offering,—
How all my passion's flood, my passion's force
Was but a stream returning to its source;—
Oh, then I learned—and learned for evermore—
The deepest secret of love's deepest lore,—
That in this Masque of Life the lover's heart,
For all its travail, plays the lesser part,—
That, though 'tis great to love, 'tis greater far
To be beloved, to be love's guiding star.

AMOR FONS AMORIS

I

I love all men the better, O love! for loving thee:
The dear ones whom I cherish are dearer still to me:
Each stranger is my kinsman; and ever, for thy sake,
Belovèd! at love's bidding, new springs of love awake.

II

I love all things the better for loving thee the best:
My thoughts of thee make deeper the glories of the West:
My hopes of thee make fresher the fragrance of the spring:
And when thine accents haunt me the birds more sweetly sing.

III

I love the whole world better for loving thee so well:
Love tells my soul the secret which tongue may never tell:
I learn, when thou art near me, that loss is more than gain,
That not a pang is wasted, that not a hope is vain.

VI

Even Love,—the dream, the vision, that floods the world with light,—
Lit by the flame thou kindlest, grows more divinely bright:
His beauty wins new beauty from shining through thine eyes;
And when he claims my homage he comes in thy sweet guise.

LOVE'S LAST WORD

I

Should I love thee better, my Belovëd,
If my love were all confessed;
If I held thee to my heart and listened
To the pulsings of thy breast?
If I told thee, flesh to flesh, the secret
Which the flesh alone may tell;—
If the last fond word of love were spoken,—
O Belovëd, were it well?

II

Nay, but love's last word will ne'er be spoken,
Till God speaks it, soul to soul,
Till God whispers, as his fire enfolds us,
‘Thou art loosed from love's control,—
Loosed from love and lost beyond redemption
In the ocean of my heart;
Mine at last, though love through all the ages
Held us, soul from soul, apart.’

III

‘Love's last word.’ Alas! if love could speak it,
What were left for life to gain,
What of failure to redeem fruition,
What of hope to ransom pain?
‘Love's last word.’ Ah no, when passion's whirlwind
Wearied out has drooped and died,
Wakes the first faint far-off murmur wafted
From the surges of love's tide.

IV

‘Love's last word.’ Alas! that love should perish
In the season of his birth:
Is that helpless cry, that sob of passion
All that love can speak on earth?
No, the child will ripen into manhood,
And the man, transformed by love,
Grow in grace till wings of flame shall lift him
To the cloudless heights above.

V

‘Love's last word’—my soul will wait to hear it
With an ever-deepening thirst.
What if hapless love too long had lingered
O'er the telling of his first?
Weary are the wings, from earth up-springing,
That aspire to climb the skies:
Bolder flight is theirs that, like the eagles’,
From a storm-girt eyrie rise.

VI

Or perchance in love's unchanging language
There is neither first nor last,—
But one word whose echoes ever circle
Through the Future and the Past;
One pure word that hallows every symbol,—
Love itself, whose whispered name
Turns the grossness of the world to glory,
And man's heart to living flame.

TO A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN

I

Some day the frosts of autumn will mar thine outward grace;
Some day what men call beauty will vanish from thy face:
But I, to whom thy spirit lies bare in all its light,
Shall see thee still, Belovèd, with love's unchanging sight.

II

Think not that aught will perish. Think not that Time will harm,
Though wasting form and feature, the magic of thy charm.
His breath may blanch thy tresses or make thy cheeks grow pale;
But love's the soul of beauty, and love will never fail.

III

See where yon stately river, brimmed by the rising tide,
Winds, with empurpled mountains and woods on either side,
Winds, with the sky above it glassed in its ample breast,
Fair as a lake enchanted, when winds are lulled to rest.

IV

But lo! the borrowed waters fall slowly back to sea:
The charm, the spell is broken: the lake has ceased to be:
And ere the tide, far-summoned, has reached another land,
Forlorn the river wanders through trackless wastes of sand.

V

Yet not a drop has vanished. The sea, whose flowing wave
Had filled the vale with gladness, drew back the gift she gave,
Back to her own abysses, whence, when the ebb is o'er,
She'll weave anew the picture that she unwrought before.

VI

So, Love! when life is waning and when thy mortal frame
No more can guard the treasures that from thy spirit came,
Back to its mystic fountain the silent tide will creep,
And find a safe asylum in love's unfathomed deep;—

VII

Safe till, when Death has mastered the pulses of life's storm,
Thy soul will fill with radiance another fairer form,
Will flood an ampler channel with waves of purer light,
And charm with deeper beauty my soul's enraptured sight.

COME TO ME

Come as a strain from some once-loved song;
Come as a breath from moorland or sea;
Blot out the years that have done thee wrong;
Come as of old. Oh, come to me.

Come as a gleam of orient light,
Kindling the hope of what ne'er may be;
Come as the dew of a moonlit night;—
Softly, silently come to me.

Come as the scent of a wayside flower;
Come as a blackbird's melody;
Come as the spray of an April shower;
Come as thou wilt,—but come to me.

Come as a breeze to my aching head;
I am in prison,—oh, set me free:
Summon again the days that are dead,
And out of their darkness come to me.

Come with the spirit-light in thine eyes;
Come with thy voice of witchery;
Come, O my Queen, in queenly guise;
Come as thou ne'er wilt come to me.

Come in my slumber dark and deep;—
Come till at last my dreams of thee
Melt into death's diviner sleep,—
And, soul to soul, thou wilt come to me.

CALL ME NOT BACK

I

Call me not back, O Love, when I am dead:
Call me not back with witchcraft of thy will:
Far beyond thought my spirit will have fled;—
Call it not back lest it obey thee still.

II

Dear is the haunting music of thy voice;
And dear the sunlight of thy tresses brown:—
From Heaven itself (spare me the cruel choice)
For love of these my soul might flutter down.

III

Oh, of thy mercy let me wander hence:—
Fair are thine outward charms, but fairer far
The mystic beauty, veiled from mortal sense,
That makes thy voice a song, thy face a star.

IV

Long have I loved the symbols of thy grace,
And loved them best for what they left untold;
But thou art lovelier than thine own sweet face.
And brighter than thy waves of burnished gold.

V

Where dost thou dwell, for thither would I go?
Ah, not on earth, but in some world of light:—
Guided by death perchance my soul will know,
And knowing, seek thee with aspiring flight.

VI

Or, haply, rapt into some inward state,
Where dreams are real and what is wished is won,
Reaping what life has sown, my soul will wait
Till dreams are o'er and the new life begun.

VII

Reaping what life has sown:—O guerdon blest
(For love by deeper love alone is crowned)
To lie in rapture on love's moonlit breast,
To melt into the loved one's life profound!

VIII

Ten thousand years will pass—if years they be,—
Will pass too quickly while I dream love's dream;
For what is time to spirits floating free
On the broad bosom of love's gliding stream?

IX

And when, at Fate's behest, I wake at last
To toil on earth, to laugh, to weep again,—
Dense be the darkness that enshrouds the past,
Deep be the draught of Lethe that I drain.

THE DOOM OF LOVE

I

I have a dim, mysterious fear,
Lest love at last should cease to be;
Lest love—this love—this love of mine,
This passion of my heart for thine,
Should fade far hence and disappear,
Lost in its own eternity.

II

O Love, what happens when a flame,
A panting, glowing, quivering spire,
Leaps into life and soars on high,
Then faints and fails, content to die,
Drowned in the depths from which it came,
The white-hot fount of furnace fire?

III

Is this the doom of love, the prize
Of which he dreamed, for which he strove;
Is this the crown that he will wear,
The crown that in his worst despair
Still fired with hope his gazing eyes,—
To change at last to love of love?

IV

Clasped in that infinite embrace,
Ravished beyond his dream of bliss,
Loosed from Fate's tyrannous control,
Wedded to love's own inmost soul,—
Will love forget the loved one's face,
Forget the thrill of love's sweet kiss?

V

Ah, no; but with unclouded sight
He'll see the beauty that of old
Haunted him in his dreams, and know
At last what spell enthralled him so,
And from what hidden springs of light
The loved one's waves of beauty rolled.

SILENCE AND SONG OR THE NEMESIS OF JOY

I

I wish that sometimes in the sky
A storm-cloud fraught with fear and doom,
Blown from afar, would climb on high
And veil the sunshine with its gloom:
For, all too blue and all too bright,
Love's ether floods my soul with light.

II

I wish that I could sometimes hear
The world's deep undertone of pain:
With yearning heart and eager ear
I listen, but alas! in vain:
For Nature's anthems ever roll,
Strong and exultant, through my soul.

III

I wish my Muse could sometimes sing
Where men might hearken,—hovering o'er
Their upturned eyes, with earthbound wing:
But ah! she cannot choose but soar,
On wings that spurn the earth, away
Into the very gates of day.

IV

And there she sings beyond my ken,
Lost in a throbbing mist of gold;
Unseen, unheard by mortal men;
Telling what tongue hath never told;
Singing what song hath ne'er confessed,—
The joy, the hope that swell her breast:—

V

Singing her passion, singing mine,—
My joy, my hope, my soaring faith,
My sense of harmony divine,
My love of life, my trust in death,
My dream that—could we see aright—
The whole wide world were bathed in light.

VI

Her music echoes through my heart,
Then dies unsung; for here below
Pain is the foster-nurse of art,
And sorrow makes our numbers flow.

And so my joy, which none may share,
Changes to dumbness and despair:—

VII

Despair that dims my eyes with tears;
That clouds the brightness of the blue;
That numbs my heart with haunting fears,
With doubts if aught be real and true;
Till in my very pangs I find
The balm of kinship with my kind.

VIII

Strange paradox, that joy's excess
Should darken joy with gloom of grief!
That what has cursed my life should bless!
That pain to pain should bring relief!
That song should choke song's hidden spring,
And silence teach the heart to sing!

IX

For, haply, from her haunts on high
My Muse, whose raptures none may hear,
Scared by the clouds that throng the sky,
Will earthward drop, and circling near
Will sing to listening ears a strain
Made strong by hope, made sweet by pain.

A TRUE TALE OF THE FAR WEST

I

The rifles glittered in the sun,
All pointed at one human breast;
Eight rifles—but they rose like one,—
So well the line of death was dressed.

II

Who dressed it? Who on that dread day
Was captain of that stern-faced squad?
Who marshalled it in grim array
To wreak on man the wrath of God?

III

Who—but its victim? Proud he stood,
Proud and erect before them all,—
A thief, a murderer, wild and rude,
Doomed by their vengeful hands to fall.

IV

Plunder and murder—such his crime,
A crime which death alone could purge:
Swift was his judgment; short the time
Allowed him on life's dizzy verge.

V

He laughed at death,—but death's disgrace!
To die the felon's death of shame!
A sudden horror flushed his face,
And swept through all his veins like flame.

VI

His aged mother far away:—
The gibbet! No! For her dear sake
Prone on the earth he'd kneel and pray:
Were that his doom, her heart would break.

VII

Prone, humbled, at his captors' feet
He knelt, he prayed with eager breath—
Chide not his whim—that he might meet
A soldier's, not a felon's death.

VIII

His boon was granted. Up he sprang
Inspired, impassioned. Pride and joy
Glowed in his face. He danced and sang,
Lighthearted as a careless boy.

IX

Then facing death he took his stand.
The rifles rose. ‘Too low!’ ‘Too high!’
He called impatient, as he scanned
The muzzles with a critic's eye.

X

‘Look, boys!’ he cried, ‘my heart is here,’
And on his heart his hand he laid—
His beating heart that knew no fear—
Too full of joy to feel afraid.

XI

‘Here is your mark; take careful aim;
There! Steady! So!’ He bared his head.
Forth leaped a sheet of living flame;
And every bullet struck him dead.