The collected poems of Arthur Edward Waite :: :: University of Virginia Library

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But far withdrawn I found one frozen clime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.