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

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;

170

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,

171

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!