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

Tu es Vita et Verbum Vitæ Deus meus. Dona mihi verbum, quia Tuus sum ego. Dona mihi discretionem Sancti Spiritus Tui. In terra deserta, terra invia, terra inaquosa, mysteria Tua pronuntiabo, et florebunt omnia.—DE TABERNACULO MYSTICO LIBELLUS

Strange Houses of Sleep

Sciendum est igitur, dona omnia, in quibus vita nostra consistit, sacramontis et extcrnis quibusdam sensibilibus signis tecta ac involuta esse.—Speculum Domini Joannis; Rusbrochii Divinissimi Contemplatoris, Caput ix.

THE WORK OF OUR HANDS

Haunted by memories of his first abode,
Man, in the shadows of this earthly road,
Still vindicates the past his legends claim:
Home is for him the semblance of a name,
Although with steadfastness and frighten'd haste—
By need impell'd—he builds him in the waste
Rude inns and falling houses of his hands—
To overlook the melancholy lands
And all his shrouded, sad environment.

When first, from Life Divine, to exile sent,
About his soul inhibited he wrought
A body fitted to the halting thought
Of those who slowly yield to fever'd sleep,
Praying, if long, it may be also deep,
Yet counting scarcely on a true repose,
Since strife in place of peace such slumber knows.
And then, because that frame was frail and cold,
He built him other tenements to hold
His nakedness, lamenting in the gloom—
Tent, temple, palace—ere, in fine, the tomb.
But though the body, warm'd by hearth and bed,
Came through some makeshifts to be comforted,
His haunted soul, mourning the exile's fate.
Still cried aloud that it was desolate.

Moreover, houses of the heart he made—
The House of Love—but Death therein was laid;
The House of Faith—and there a foeman set
Those strange, sad cups which cause us to forget.
Devices also on the walls he wrote
Which uninscribed all nothingness denote
And writ are nothing. Then the House of Pride
High did he raise, and therein magnified
The hopes and works beguiling his distress—
Yet this was cold through utter emptiness.
So passing thence to where some false lights shone,
He raised up Houses of Ambition;
But through the portals and the windows pour'd
The vacant faces of a spectral horde.
And the soul built with shame the House of Lust,
Where hands emblazon:—“Here is also dust;”
And though strange voices—crying: “Come away!”—
Sound in the darkness, to this latest day
The transient buildings round about us rise.
One bond connects them in fantastic wise—
Houses of Sleep they are, to anxious dreams
Devoted—semblances of things and themes,
Dim images derived from otherwhere.
Yea, this is also true: the House of Prayer
Is part and parcel of that mystic trance
Through which our Momus pageantries advance,
And no one wakes of all whom sense enrings.

Only the evidence of secret things
Bears witness in us of a kindling hour;
Through all strange seizures still it speaks with power,
And those most conscious of their sleeping state
Are haply drawing to the waking gate.
Peace on the Houses of their trance! Unfold,
Great Dawn, on tarnish'd eyes, thy wells of gold!
And past all melancholy, clouded lands
Bring tidings of the House not built with hands.

ALTERNATION

I

Thou dost hear the ocean's tale
In the moonlight, very pale,
Since thy chamber opens wide
One great casement towards the tide.
But another window looks
Over marshes and their brooks;
And thy garden paths, between
Brooks and window, intervene:
When the evening breezes blow,
Hear me in these paths below!

II

Lest the great, insistent sea—
Day and night adjuring thee—
By the secret word it sings,
Take too far from human things;
For a little space apart,
Hear the singing in my heart!
And if things beyond thee make
So much music for thy sake,
Hearken, from thy seat above,
The unmeasured deep of love!

THE SECOND SENSE

Renew'd for ever are the lives of books
For every eye that in their pages looks;
And many are the meanings which they bear:
Like limpid depths of lakes and water-brooks,
Does each who reads discern his image there.

Nature and great books have their second sense,
In still cool wells, and some can charm it thence;
The purports deep by which the soul is stirr'd
Lurk seldom in the manifested word,
As many intimations darkly shew,
Suggesting higher search to those who know.
Far in ourselves the secret meaning lies,
And till we read therein with our own eyes
We miss those heights we dream of and grow lean
Through famish'd longing after things unseen—
Divined, not held.

We give that meaning shapes
Symbolic—in such signs the force escapes.
We take the letter of life's Word; our wit,
In strange metathesis, we wear on it
And so all trace of any point expel.
We say, the Word is lost: but who shall tell?
And who has found? A few fond souls proclaim
Their mission to make known its scope and aim:
O vain assurance of the heart! As if
Earth's wisest speak, except in hieroglyph,
Or offer more than images! The deep
Gives these up; from still tarns of silence leap
Visions and voices, but the things discern'd
Are neither new nor those for which we yearn'd.
One testifies: “The dead in Him abide,
And His forgiveness sets all wrath aside.”

One whispers: “Sweet sleep!” One, with bended head,
Says: “Tears of joy!” One: “Here is Living Bread!”
And an absolving voice, with strength untold
Of pity and sweetness, breathes: “Be then consoled!”
But underneath them all still flows the sea
Of the soul's unexpress'd immensity.

So leave it therefore, friends—with one last word
I also leave it thus: the sense unheard
Which lies for ever those bright veils behind
Of all the books of Nature and of Mind,
Eluding all approximating art,
Shall yield to—God known truly of the heart.
O did I start in mountain or abyss,
I could not choose but end at last in this!
From wayside taverns turning should behold
That this one key unlocks all towers of gold;
Or rising fever'd out of beds of sin
Most truly feel it and to speak begin;
Nor more in cloisters praying could recall
That this is end of end and all in all.
If things so many underneath the sun
Thus lead me ever to the arms of One,
Ye who do likewise deeply crave, forgive—
Turn to this last again and, turning, live.

So much, without distortion or offence,
A man may venture towards the second sense.
All pools heaven rains in and all seas untrod
Go on reflecting heaven—beyond is God;
And 'twixt the gentleness of Nature's spell
And the unsleeping heights, His people dwell.

Great is the ministry of books, and great
Their consolation in our mean estate;
But bearts, whose aches prolong with every beat,
Find them, like Nature's breathings, incomplete.

CUPS THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT

Great were the taverns where we used to dwell,
Fired by strong cups which we could drain of yore;
The stories great which once we used to tell
And maxims, now repeated never more;
Could any scribe have follow'd us—how great
Were truths we found in cups at early hours and late.

First there was chaos, out of brooding bred—
Silent, inseparate, dispirited—
And yet with shapeless semblances impress'd—
Like one who drinks alone beside the dead,
Breast over breast!—

He, dipping deeply in a vintage rare,
Sees it is his own body lying there,
And, in confusion, calls on ghosts without
As boon companions in his watch to share—
A sorry rout.

So chaos moved, distracted in the night,
Conceiving horror of its depth and height,
Saw self in self reflect with deadly fear;
Till that which cried above, Let there be Light,
Made light appear.

Then all great forces strove its rays to reach—
As travellers at an inn the cups of each—
And Tohu held with Bohu orgie high;
From which creation, full of silver speech,
Sprang by and bye.

Then did the morning stars together sing,
As feasting princes who their glasses ring;
The Dionysian chorus swell'd above;
Joy's shout was lifted upon transport's wing,
As love lifts love.

And still creation holds that joy divine,
As the uplifted cup holds blood-red wine;
And still the Cosmos, in its Mœnad dance,
From age to age, with eyes that brighter shine,
Spins into trance.

We too are copies of the cosmic plan,
From earth's quintessence shaped to make us man,
And that which Nature sketches in first place
We raise through purlieus—out of bar and ban—
Towards gifts of grace.

Like chaos once, we dwelt, old friend, alone,
And drank with cold hearts, foreign to our own,
Or, in our solitude, perchance with none;
So to true life were dead as any stone
Or corpse 'neath sun.

But now through purple hours of Bacchic night
We pass our cups, and in the depth and height
Do each in each reflect with love, not fear;
And—when the heart within us cries for light—
Great lights appear.

We, like the morning stars, together sing,
What time in unison our glasses ring,
With cosmic minds matured in vintage fine,
Exalting ever upon rapture's wing
Æonian wine.

And as creation, on some purpose bent,
Moves grandly forward, fill'd with high content,
We, slowly down the road of years withdrawn,
Note from each tavern where the night is spent
Each breaking dawn.

O world, created in a vintage song,
We know thy goal is good, though ways be long!
Strange cups pass too among the stars encrown'd—
The ecstasy is great, the wine is strong:
What graals are found!

THE SCARLET SWAN

Here is high teaching from the far blue lift,
For Madeline, sweet maid of Mary's gift,
By certain stars transmitted—on a beam
Of argent splendour—through a lilac haze;
A legend of the land which is not dream
Or waking, as of eyes in earthly ways,
Under the crimson splendours of the morn,
But something greater which from both is born
And far o'er life abides, in joyful stress,
Full of high state and thoughtful solemnness.

Now, list! That Madeline of white and red
Rose-blooms was wrought, who doubts?—The wise have said—
And the gold hair, assuredly, of her
Shone once upon the King-Sun's royal head,
As all the speaking parables aver,
Whence sunshine loves so well to brood thereon;
But all of scarlet was the Flying Swan

Which, on the day that Madeline was made,
God in such glory of bright plumes array'd,
And so commission'd over starry tides,
Saying:—Dear heart, have courage, a rest abides!

Now thus it is that through the breathless deeps
Of heaven's great space upon his flight he keeps:
Star after star upon the Scarlet Swan,
Pours floods of light, and ever and anon,
Athwart his path, the comets with a crash
Hurtle, the falling meteors seethe and flash;
Dark worlds, bereft of all the fire within,
Blind in the void about him feebly spin;
And where in luminous mists the starry eyes
Shew myriad points of light, swift-wing'd, he flies.

Must he not weary? For deep rest indeed
Longs he not, dreaming of the waters cool,
The clear brown stillness of some shaded pool,
A nest engirded by a world of reed?
I know at least, with keen eyes fix'd before,
And fill'd with frighten'd longing, evermore
He labours night and day to reach his end;
On Madeline, of Mary's gift, alone,
As legends tell, for help his wings depend,
Lest he faint somewhere on his paths unknown.

The Scarlet Swan to Mary's gift is bound;
With her it rests that he shall reach his end:
When she on earth is full of goodness found,
Strength and high purpose to his heart ascend.
When Mary's gift aspires to Mary's throne,
And with the will of heaven unites her own,
Asleep on dreaming wings he softly glides
And towards his end is drawn by silent tides;
But when from maiden grace and fair estate
She stoops awhile, sad is the wanderer's fate;

His flagging wings athwart the stir and stress
Of hostile currents wildly forward press;
Against dark worlds he strikes, and stars that fall
With desolating shrieks his heart appal—
Alone, St. Mary's gift; what weariness!

Now, therefore, Madeline shall, inly stirr'd
By this most faithful legend's secret word,
Reflect for ever in her heart thereon,
That so all grace and strength the Scarlet Swan
May visit in his flight, and sleep be his,
With winds that favour, till he reach where is—
O joy!—the refuge of a restful town.
Then, Swan no more, Bright Spirit under crown,
After such struggles, shall God applaud the pains,
Saying:—Dear heart, be welcome; peace remains!

Stars, and a thousand stars, and lilac lift—
God save the Scarlet Swan, save Mary's gift!

THEY THAT WORK IN SILENCE

A space of sleep vouchasafe the Lords of love;
To wake at length they grant who reign above;
Meanwhile, but substitutes for rest their schemes
Dispense, till pity those great hearts shall move
To free us from our dreams.

They that have rock'd us into swoon so well
Alone can break the bars and bonds of spell;
But surely comes the wakening at last,
When each to each of his strange toils shall tell
As of old dangers past.

And towards the place of exile, far away,
We shall look back in our relief and say:
Hard was the bed whereon we writhed in sleep;
But now the vigils of true life repay
With rest divinely deep.

THE HEIGHTS REMAIN

We saw thee drop this day in circles down,
Dear lark, to win thy nest! The stream is brown,
With silver streak'd; upon the left it glows,
Broad in the summer floods. A South-wind blows,
The road is white in front, and blue thou art,
O summer sky! Thy beauty takes the heart.
What gleams high up on yonder distant hill,
This moment brought in view? The white road still!
Great soul, to stand upon that soaring peak
And feel the wind of heaven on either cheek!
But at the base three several tracks divide,
And that which we must take turns there aside;
Wide uplands slope upon the left and right,
The trees grow denser towards the airy height,
Freshens the wind advancing. We shall pass
A furlong's space over the light lawn-grass;
The quickset hedge will part, the path will take
Our steps a little into bower and brake,
Then into forest shade and mystery.
So, if we lose the heights, we yet shall see
What revelations may, in glades conceal'd
And sudden clearings, be to eye reveal'd;
What shapes of beauty down green vistas wait
And who sings sweetly at the farmyard gate;
Or, when those distant bells' sweet jangles cease,
Feel what it is which gives the woodland peace,

And why the spring, which keeps so still through noon,
Begins towards eve to chatter for the moon;
Till, after winding for a mile or less,
The path comes gaily from the wilderness
And gives us back once more to wind and sky.
There, over pleasant meadows, soaring high,
The peak again invites the climber's feet.
So we who have explored the green retreat,
And something of its lesser secrets learn'd,
Lose nothing, from our course a moment turn'd,
Since the exulting heights still rest to climb—
To-day, to-morrow, or in after time.

OF TRUE AND FALSE MARRIAGES

Earth has its nuptials, and the flesh shall know
What flesh can learn of unions here below;
But the soul, coming from some far-off place,
Beholds not now the Royal Bridegroom's face,
And therefore goeth sadly here along.
Give up, O void of voids, the marriage-song!
Above earth's jarring measures and their noise,
Call us in peace unto the nuptial joys.

“Whom God hath join'd”—aye, that leaves room for wonder,
Granting—who doubts?—that none can put asunder:
But seeing that two lovers in one bed
—So Love itself will teach—
Seem parted each from each,
As star from star is parted overhead,
This question still recurs:
Whom hath God join'd?

Think you, his flesh to hers
Whom stratagem from other arms purloin'd,
And she not surely first, nor he the last—
While simple passion is so quickly past
Or courts remain to utter their decrees?
But think you any marriage of the flesh?
True, they shall part not when their earth is dead
Who, few and rarely, in their souls are wed.
Past doubt, eternity, assuming these,
Transfigures the old bonds or welds afresh;
But their true souls how few on earth have found,
Much less with others have their own been bound,
And skin-deep wedlock—with the joys it brings—
Scarce counts among indissoluble things.

Alas, the souls which once God join'd, through some
Deep-seated mischief, to divorce have come;
And it is only when desires within
From height exceeding height some lustre win;
From space-immensities of winter's clime—
Cold, inaccessible and clear—
Or great distractions fallen on the sea,
Bring subtly-quickening intimations near,
That pasts withdrawn in worlds of memory—
Beyond all deeps of time—
Send faint reports—though bands of sense enfold—
Of great free unions which obtain'd of old.

Naked we are, divorced from our true ends,
And conscious only of what pain attends
The isolation on our course imposed,
The bar on prospects from all points disclosed;
Yea, on the nuptial night man lies alone
And lonely sleeps the wife he calls his own:
Veil'd limbs and shrouded lips—
Of such are our most close companionships,

Sad travesty of joys that once we knew.
Pass as we can this mournful exile through,
But ask not constancy and faith too much;
Of loving kindness seek the healing touch,
And let us deal with those who share our lot
As if all mercy were, all judgment not;
Keep, if we may, through this life's stormy weather,
But say not rashly God hath join'd together.
What did God join? Man to the star he seeks,
Sea to the soul to which the sea-deep speaks?
But here are also types: O symbols fair,
Reflecting faintly light from otherwhere!
Off with these bonds! Over the great abyss
The far-off hope proclaims what union is,
And all that cannot rest in man's vast deep
Till it returns to God and there finds sleep
Has since creation in our inmost cried:
What God hath join'd who was it dared divide?

GREAT SILENCES

Ah, sighing grass! Ah, trees that know not rest!
All life of earth, pressing to ends afar,
Heart's flight of man and hurry of every star—
What go ye forth to find? Where ends your quest?

VIATICUM

He who hath made it will mend it,
He who began it must end it—
Leave it to Him.
Weary and poor thou art,
Weak of purpose and frail in heart—
Thy hopes are vague and dim.
Stretch forth a hand and try
If thou canst touch the sky;
Lift up thine eyes and see
How far 'tis over thee—
Over all reach!
Quit then—the hour is late—
Leave unto Him, to fate;
Great may take care of great,
Each star of each!

Those books, my friend, you purchased yester eve,
Though treating faithfully a certain art,
Contain not that you fondly now believe:
(Brother, a little while—and we depart!)

This habitation by the mere and stream,
For wood-shade peace, self-promised long ago,
Will not afford the rest of which you dream:
(Come, lock up house, my friend, and leave it so!)

The wealth which took you hand in hand with sin—
When you stand knocking at a certain gate,
Will forge no golden key to let you in:
(Make haste, one further step, the hour is late!)

Now, well-away! What treasures some things were—
Ah, woe is mine!—which soon are utter dross:
(Toll slowly!—Stifle the unseemly stir—
A horror falls upon the house of loss!)

Be still, pale prophets of disaster, yet
In pace, in idipsum, dormiet!

HEMLOCK

You know that, in the last resource of all,
It matters scarcely how the light may fall,
Or what stars in the night their beacons lift.
So little also brings the morning's gift
That whether late or early Nature stir,
We mark but idly how it fares with her
When in the East the scarlet glories spill,
Or how at noon her children take their fill
Of all the good which warmth in brightness brings.
Who counts these other than as trivial things,
Having so much, unmurmuring, left behind
Of all the morning splendours of the mind
And all life's midway majesty and pride?
One great detachment puts the soul aside
From the fair outward fields which Nature owns,
Since some time sadly seeking certain thrones,
Remember'd ever through a world of wrong,
The soul went forth. She, having journey'd long
Amidst the sorrows of secluded tracts,
Among cold snows and frozen cataracts,
Above the common zones of human thought,
One burden of sad knowledge thence has brought:—
That in such altitudes all stars look thin.
So, 'twixt the throne you surely thought to win

And that last dizzy peak of precipice
Where you have dared to stand, the great abyss
Its void unfathom'd offers silently.

Now, hence it is that though the eye may see,
With sight herein it is not satisfied,
Nor is the ear by hearing occupied,
And nothing ministers of all things round.
For as the man who looking to be crown'd
Amidst high pageantry at eve, if left
Outside the palace, of all state bereft,
Would little comfort find that Western skies
Shew over wide meads phantom pageantries,
And though the stars might shine in all their state
Would still keep knocking at the Palace Gate;
So, dedicated unto larger things
Than all solicitudes of earthly kings,
And having strongly striven to ascend
Where great gods are, but having miss'd our end,
By reason of the gulfs which intervene:
What wonder now that all this earthly scene
Spectral and pallid to the soul appear?

And this is desolation; hemlock here
We drink henceforth through all the aching void,
Taking the cross of our fair hope destroy'd,
No longer with the scheme of things in touch.
But—lest our mingled cup should over-much
Embitter us, and those whom thought intense
Has worn, seem ravaged by the work of sense,
Like any worldling underneath the sun—
We still remember that which once was done,
When, some time sadly seeking certain thrones,
Beyond the outward fields which Nature owns,
On that last dizzy peak of precipice
We were held only by the great abyss;

And when we most may turn from mortal things
It is in longing for unearthly wings,
Or—at the utmost solitary ridge—
Still in the end to find a secret bridge.

AT THE END OF THINGS

The world uprose as a man to find Him—
Ten thousand methods, ten thousand ends—
Some bent on treasure; the more on pleasure;
And some on the chaplet which fame attends
But the great deep's voice in the distance dim
Said: Peace, it is well; they are seeking Him.

When I heard that all the world was questing,
I look'd for a palmer's staff and found,
By a reed-fringed pond, a fork'd hazel-wand
On a twisted tree, in a bann'd waste-ground;
But I knew not then what the sounding strings
Of the sea-harps say at the end of things.

They told me, world, you were keen on seeking;
I cast around for a scrip to hold
Such meagre needs as the roots of weeds—
All weeds, but one with a root of gold;
Yet I knew not then how the clangs ascend
When the sea-horns peal and the searchings end.

An old worn wallet was that they gave me,
With twelve old signs on its seven old skins;
And a star I stole for the good of my soul,
Lest the darkness came down on my sins;
For I knew not who in their life had heard
Of the sea-pipes shrilling a secret word.

I join'd the quest that the world was making,
Which follow'd the false ways far and wide,
While a thousand cheats in the lanes and streets
Offer'd that wavering crowd to guide;
But what did they know of the sea-reed's speech
When the peace-words breathe at the end for each?

The fools fell down in the swamps and marshes;
The fools died hard on the crags and hills;
The lies which cheated, so long repeated,
Deceived, in spite of their evil wills,
Some knaves themselves at the end of all—
Though how should they hearken when sea-flutes call?

But me the scrip and the staff had strengthen'd;
I carried the star; that star led me:
The paths I've taken, of most forsaken,
Do surely lead to an open sea:
As a clamour of voices heard in sleep,
Come shouts through the dark on the shrouded deep.

Now it is noon; in the hush prevailing
Pipes, harps and horns into flute-notes fall;
The sea, conceding my star's true leading,
In tongues sublime at the end of all
Gives resonant utterance far and near:—
“Cast away fear;
Be of good cheer;
He is here,
Is here!”

And now I know that I sought Him only
Even as child, when for flowers I sought;
In the sins of youth, as in search for truth,
To find Him, hold Him alone I wrought.
The knaves too seek Him, and fools beguiled—
So speak to them also, sea-voices mild!

Which then was wisdom and which was folly?
Did my star more than the cozening guide?
The fool, as I think, at the chasm's brink,
Prone by the swamp or the marsh's side,
Did, even as I, in the end rejoice,
Since the voice of death must be His true voice.

A BRIDGE FROM EARTH

Away with time-worn thought! Who gives free space
For inward silence, in some form of tongue
Not wholly secret, not at least unknown,
May hear God speak, and shall that speech to men,
His brothers, by the haste of eager days
Distracted, in due season, if in part,
Interpret. A fair world before me now
Spreads, past indeed most bounds of daily walk,
But yet not more than commonly removed,
And, strong and sweet, God's voice moves over it
In winds which freshen; in the burnish'd sky—
The high, clear sky swept bright by Autumn winds—
His eyes are shining. What if in the South
Some dark clouds roll, and, gather'd in the West
Below great banks, of black, foreboding mien,
Far droop long tendrils down of angry light?
These hold some other mystery of God
Behind them; and a pearl is in the mist
On certain fields before me. At my feet,
O'er all this down, the heath's dark green and rich
Begins to burst with blossom. Now it breaks—
Yes, breaks the sunshine forth; all heaven looks out,
Earth strips all shades to greet me. Like a voice,
The beauty round me calls on every side:
“Awake! Arise!” And broad on farther slopes

The road ascends, while all the loose brown earth
Of fields plough'd newly glows with amber hues.
Fair sleeps the vale between us—pastures rich,
Dark gold of woods. Speech in the winds indeed—
Eyes in the light; but in the still life too
An eloquence of silence, in the holds
Of solemn shadow such a frequent hint
Of high intelligence, on secret things
So wisely brooding; by our doors, our hearts,
On every side the earth puts forth a bridge,
Or lifts a ladder, or a path makes smooth
From less to more, till earth of all the worlds
Is nighest thing to heaven and star to man.

Hereof is looking from the world within,
When something learn'd in silence fills the heart
And finds the kindred message spell'd without.

AT THAT DOOR

In the late night—full sorrowful and cold—
I stood by mine own door and knock'd;
White mists against the vacant windows roll'd;
The house was barr'd and lock'd.

The house was lock'd, and desolate and void,
The forecourt wild and damp without;
The rose was scatter'd and the vine destroy'd;
Loose tiles were strewn about.

From ragged eaves the stealthy moisture dripp'd;
The moss upon the steps was green;
The foot along the reedy pathways slipp'd
On fungus growths unclean.

No link was set within the time-worn sconce,
No lamp in porch to shew the way;
Cypress and yew made ominous response
To wind more sad than they.

No loving hand was there to let me in,
No voice behind the portal spoke,
But at the knocker's unaccustom'd din
The hall's deep echoes woke.

And yet, meseem'd, I went forth yester morn
From warmth and light and peace within;
Whence, if I tarried in this state forlorn,
Eftsoons must day begin.

But still for ever, in the vapour's shroud,
The moon leans sideways from the sky,
And in the dark East speaks no saffron cloud
Of morrow's morning nigh.

Ah, what distress!—By mine own house denied,
Acold beside its portals dumb
And vacant windows, staring blind and wide—
If dawn should never come.

ILLUMINATION

I

With native ease the serpent sloughs his skin,
But cannot change his old snake-heart within;
Man does not lay his outward form aside,
Yet can his old life from his new divide.

II

The simple words which follow shall direct
Right well and pleasantly all hearts elect,
And little children of the world to come;
But unto others be in meaning dumb—
Vague voices which delight on inward seas—
All storm and wrath—in cryptic images:
May hearts that read these maxims sweetly reach—
Late, if not soon—the truths exceeding speech!

III

What makes us say that underneath the sun
The toil we call our own is toil undone—
Finds work, when others sleep, for hand and heart,
And from repose shapes obstacles to art?
It is the sense of trust which burdens thought:
In these wild ways, ungovern'd and untaught,
We came some solemn purpose to fulfil,
But till encompass'd in its whole extent
We cannot prove that we indeed were sent,
Nor yet be sure we do the Master's will.

IV

Something has gone before us in the past,
And something more must follow at the last.

V

Man enters life expectant, and departs
With expectation in his heart of hearts.

VI

He dwelt in darkness ere his birth occurr'd
And oft in darkness still his strife is heard,
Toiling a higher title to attain:
His throes are those of being born again.

VII

The universe he enters here bestows
Such earthly lights on him as Nature knows,
And sustenance is his from brimming wells
Of its white sacraments and parables;
Through all its veils the presages are brought
Of greater orders—passing human thought—
Which interpenetrate at times our own:
In Grace and Nature nothing stands alone.

VIII

When souls come down into this world they take
The letter of the books, their thirst to slake;
The spirit in the Temple's place conferr'd
Is in the inmost Temple only heard;
And that which darkness doth from dawn divide
Renders it always night, the soul outside.

IX

As every witness in the heart avers,
No dispensation of the light occurs,
Save in that shrine which earth's eye never sees,
The place withdrawn of the Great Mysteries.
Subject and object there Plotinus found
United truly on a common ground.
What place is that? Ye neophytes—it lurks
Deep in the heart of these external works!

X

High rites in all their stages can dispense
Only the sanctuary's secret sense,
And can at most in empty hearts arouse
The hunger for the beauty of the House.

XI

Now, last, remember that which none deny—
Clean life can enter into sanctity,
And yet no mere morality shall gain
That vision which the pure in heart attain.

XII

But what is raised magnetically draws
All things to reach it: this is law of laws.

XIII

A golden ring unites such scatter'd Keys,
Which open portals to the Mysteries.

A DREAM OF JUNE

A splendid pageantry of sunset takes
The dreamer forth along this winding road,
What time the dew-fall in the roses makes,
Descending silently, its night abode;
What time the hedge-rose lifts a coral cup,
About the dew's cool treasure closing up.
Now sunset roses o'er the wintry way
Alone recall the rose of yesterday.

With fragile petals delicate of hue—
The sweetest flower that in our country blooms—
This wayside rose, 'neath heaven's imperial blue,
Dispenses its ineffable perfumes,
While dying daylight's gold and scarlet flood
With sudden glory tinges leaf and bud.
The snow-drift quenches now the dying beam;
Rose and deep rose of sunset—both a dream.

O floral chalice, on the hedge so high,
May gentle rains, that soothe the thirsty land,
Refresh thy blossom from a gracious sky!
May thorns for ever from the rustic hand
Thine elfin beauties jealously defend,
And thy last petal to its latest end!
May dark December's bleak and dreary stress
Be soothed with memories of thy loveliness!

May temper'd winds about thy spaces green
Breathe light in modulated music low!
May golden bees, when thy full bloom is seen,
Extract its mellow sweets to overflow
The deep recesses of their tree-built homes,
To fill with winter stores their honeycombs!
And in man's image-haunted hives of thought
Not all in vain may thy June sweets be sought!

Those Ariel children, born of summer's bliss,
The moths that flit through fruitful fields beyond,
With wings of azure, where thy beauty is
For ever hover in a silence fond!
And, with deep rapture all the day long ringing,
May thy fair world ne'er want a lark's blithe singing!
The leaves of thought which thy sere petals hold
Shall echoes also of that song enfold.

O may thy fabled love, the nightingale,
Through all night's calm and visionary space,
In glow-worm haunted thicket, or deep vale,
Abide at hand, musician of thy grace;
And all the senses of thy floral soul
With rapture ravish, by delight control!
Soft falls the snow from leaden lift above;
Soft in our hearts repose, O flower of love!

The poet's benediction dowers thee well—
Was that thy blush upon the western sky?
Was that thy beauty over field and fell
Investing all in gorgeous panoply?
Ah, when deep night envelops all things here,
Thy fragrance still proclaims that thou art near!
Still art thou with us under Christmas snows,
For us the Rose ne'er dies—long live the Rose!

The Rose and Rose, for evermore the Rose,
While days are dwindling towards the least of all
And every utterance sadly sets towards close;
The shadow of life itself has ceased to fall;
Ferment and sap of life no longer work;
All the quick light is still'd in shroud of murk:
Yet it is daylight shortly, torrid sun;
A thousand Roses in the place of one!

A FREE WAY

The green hedge grows by the dull wayside,
And, for no sweet reason or artful sense,
But merely a landmark, rises the fence,
While a gate in that fence stands wide.
Close—on the further side of the hedge—
To the weedy bank is the oozy edge
Of a shoal and torpid pond.
A random foot-way falters beyond,
Its narrow track in the woodland screening.
The hedge is ragged, the shoots spring high;
Through gaps and breaches one sees the sky—
You would doubt if even a dreamer's eye
Could clothe it with secret meaning:
Nor seems that twig, from the rest up-rising
Twelve inches straight in the air or more,

A guide-post pointing an unknown shore
For a good stout heart's emprizing.

Yet on certain nights—when the moon is late—
In front of the moon's disc, dark and straight,
With a single leaf will the twig stand clear,
Moved by the night-wind's hand unseen;
And a still small voice in the dreamer's ear
Begins to murmur and keen.
Very softly there, very sadly here,
Sway'd South or North by the viewless hand,
The leaf says: “Here it is Faërie Land!”
And then, more plainly:
“He that looks further is searching vainly:
Near, near—never so near:
The gate is open, the path is free;
It is now, if ever, to hear and see!”

And I see for one—through this message coming
In the midst of the dusk night's drowsy humming—
That to him who can hear and understand
Why this is the entrance of Faërie Land,
May even a twig and a leaf impart
Some secrets hidden in Nature's heart.
Hence I conclude that the end of things
Exceeds not the sweep of an angel's wings,
And, by these spread widely from base to marge,
We know He has given His angels charge.

SEASONS

For ever the autumn and spring
And for ever, on shining wing,
A Summer which goes and returns;
But oh for the cleansing fount,
Dear heart, of the Holy Mount,
For which ever the true heart yearns!

A NIGHT PIECE

On the drench'd sands and shallow, windless sea,
On that one boat which rocks, with one bare mast,
At anchor, on a hundred naked groynes,
And on the desolate and sinking house,
With crumbling turrets facing towards the tide,
There falls, like stillness on the close of Time—
In soft and mournful mist—the sad, grey night.

OF SLEEPING AND WAKING

That virgin peer who sought the Holy Grail
Found in the castle hall his senses fail,
By heavy slumber strangely overweigh'd.
The pomp, through smoke of censers slowly sway'd,
Swept by him, prone with limbs that never stirr'd
And lips that moved not with the questing word,
Which would the hidden mystery reveal
And the King's hurts and all the country heal.
Therefrom the woe wax'd greater, more and more.
So also we, who our sad state deplore,
Of hidden oracle and holy lips
Ask secret lights, the passwords and the grips;
But when the vision from the veil replies
Sleep falls full heavy on our souls and eyes,
And, whatsoe'er is spoken or withheld,
It utters nothing to our senses spell'd.
O Knight of Arthur's court, after great stress
You saw the hallows which could heal and bless:
May we in time our long enchantment break
And to the word of life from sleep awake!

LOSS AND GAIN

We lost it long ago; we dream not how,
We know not where. The spirit—with a brow
Which high thoughts hallow'd, full of peace in them—
Wore, as some say, its royal diadem;
But crowns are nothing to the soul, and this
High legend only or a symbol is.
Ah, friends! What, therefore, did we lose and why?
Was it our home beyond the far blue sky?
But home is only where the soul, above
These anxious ways, finds sleep of perfect love,
While the same heaven which draws our hearts, we know,
Extends not more above us than below.
Whence, therefore, this so dimly understood
Yet haunting sense within us of the good
Wherein we once rejoiced; which evermore
Through mournful ways of life we now deplore?
Ah, if the heart could learn, the heart might find!
Or, at least, less inhibited and blind,
Move on more conscious where the ways direct,
What to avoid aware and what expect.
Here is the measure of our loss—perchance
One gain is theirs who thus in dark advance
As best they can, peering with hoodwink'd eyes:
Light comes at last more splendid, and surprise
The sweeter, for the gloom and its dismay,
When night in fine and hoodwinks pass away:
A hand has guided and a hand shall lead
Till loss be loss no more, but gain indeed.

OF CONSUMMATION

Wise, O heart, is the heart which loves; but what of the heart which refrains—
Not as if counting the cost, and preferring the ease to the pains,
But knowing how treasures of all are neither received nor given,
The aching void that is under love and above it the aching heaven?

Wise are the lips which have learn'd how long may linger the lips' caress,
But wiser they who the hungering lips can chasten and repress,
For that which our fain mouths burn to kiss and loving arms to embrace
Has never been given to lips or arms in the world of time and space.

Wise therefore, and wise above all, is he who does not swerve aside,
But knows to his greatest need on earth is service of earth denied;
Who, least things asking of flesh and blood, and less than the least of rest,
Goes on demanding the perfect good and disdaining the second best.

After much conquest and toil no doubt, but high in his starry tracks,
Shall the greater ministers come to him burning the sacred flax,

Saying: So passes the world and so the glory and light expend;
But the High Term, follow'd unflinching, cries: I can repay at the end.

IN ANY GARDEN

I

I dream'd in a garden when noon was past,
On a thyme-sweet bank reclining—
Half dream'd, half thought of the peace unbroken
After the breeze to the rose has spoken,
And ere it rises, where light so still is,
To breathe of love to the shining lilies.
Over the bower was the bindweed twining,
And beyond the lily's last white cup
Life's mystery yielded its secret up:
So the end seem'd clear at last—
As in any garden, when noon is past.

II

They came who lead me, the Sons of Thought,
That ever my steps attend,
And the first is named the Sense of the End,
But the second the Way that the End is sought:
Now as to the third, I have search'd my soul,
But I know not well, for His face is dim,
If love can divine the great name of Him,
Yet I dream that His name is The Goal—
Say, have you also by these been taught?
Have you not seen them, from first to last,
In any garden, when noon is past?

THE KING'S SECRET

Kept well—too closely kept—or so it seems—
Few quests disclose the Secret of the King.
That Presence, manifest in evening's cool
Long since in the first garden of the world,
Withdrawn to-day in the most secret place
Of all concealment, baffles reason's search.
God veils His glory from our questing eyes—
We know not why; few claims are ours to press:
But still the longing and the hope remain.
Poor baffled reason in the end perchance
Finds her spent forces unto new give place,
While in the soul at length, from all apart,
The glory dawns, and in the depths thereof
A still voice breathes the Secret of the King.

THE INWARD MAJESTY

Our mental dalliance with the lighter vein
Is possible in cities of the plain,
In pleasant meadows, or where gardens are;
And on the fringe and margin of the sea,
Such happy refuge comes to you and me.
But compass'd by the immeasurable main,
Or on those heights where nothing intervenes
Betwixt the climber and a certain star,
Let inward majesty to outward scenes
So consciously respond,
That, when the shallows into silence fall,
Our soundless deeps within the soul may call
And Words of Life make answer from beyond.

HAUNTINGS

From life's first dawn till now, when life's new stress
Drives all things swifter into consciousness,
Earth has been full of those strange secret things
Which we touch sometimes in our quickenings.
So in the veils which commonly divide
From what we vaguely term the further side,
Rent or thin place makes possible to see
That which encompasses so pressingly.
There is no man, however steep'd in sense,
But can recall some such experience,
When dusk or dark or daylight dimly gave
Suggestions which are deeper than the grave,
Till soul in body for a moment felt
Contact with souls that in no flesh have dwelt.
'Tis then we know there is a houseless host
Of incomplete humanities, of ghost
And spectral people, who, from dregs and lees
And depths of stagnant and unconscious seas
Exhaled, their evolution's course begin,
But, though remote, are still our kith and kin,
And by the process of the years advanced
Shall reach, like us, their share of light enhanced.
You cannot draw your blinds at eventide
And not leave thousands in the dark outside;
You cannot fling the windows wide at morn
But there are thousands, as on sunbeams borne:
Sad is their lot, midst all their crowds alone,
To none responding and by all unknown.
And yet the pity in the human heart
For life's great travail, of which theirs is part,
By solidarity of all things here,
Helps such poor souls, so far and yet so near;

Just as our kindness to the dear, dumb beasts
First hallows us, making us Nature's priests,
Then helps their prison'd yearning to assuage,
And lastly leads them in their pilgrimage.

Ah! pity, tenderness and love—these three
And the Great God above—and these are He!

THE BRIDAL JOURNEY

He call'd her with a mighty cry:—
“Come forth! I need thee, eye to eye!”
Then all of mortal life she set
Aside thereat and, featly, came—
A virgin soul of purest flame:
Their deep eyes met.

From out her house of flesh came she;
He stood, a spirit grandly free
From mortal veil and bond.
They left their bodies side by side—
The blessed bridegroom and the bride—
And soar'd beyond.

The paths of light their presence own
And zones beyond the starry zone;
A light outshining suns for them
Is granted as a diadem;
And, where no mortal steps have trod,
They follow the high quest of God.

DREAMS OF DEATH

In storm, in darkness and in stress,
In languor and deep weariness,
What wonder if, o'er life's dark deep—
That tossing sea which dare not sleep—
From time to time, on each should come
An exile's sickness for his home?

The troubled sleep of man endures, it seems,
Long—and too long—laid waste with evil dreams
Which end not even with his latest breath,
And sad and lonely are the dreams of death.
May those who did with sleep of sense inbind
Vouchsafe, compassioning, to free the mind,
For heavy vapour doth the heart enring!
I, more than all, should pray for wakening—
These many years in mortal slumber kept.
What if, indeed, my time is overstept
And the great hour I should have known is past,
So that the only tenant in the vast
And silent place of sleep, in vain I beat
Wings weariful and weary hands and feet
Against the gates, with clamour and ado;
But there is no more hope of passing through!

If morn will come! It is so long to wait;
Long seem'd it never at the cottage gate—
That space of day the morn and night betwixt
When forth I went, and bore, to lighten toil,
A hallow for the crowded day's turmoil,
My bride within the gate, an image fix'd,
Till eve and love should come to hearten me.

But I went forth one morning when the free
Spring breath found ambush in her sunny hair,
Which opulence of light encompass'd, there
Standing so statue-tall, as saints might, crown'd,
And the child with her in the garden ground,
Where heavy scent of hyacinths abode.
Hard by the dusty tumult of the road,
That artless picture shone in equal grace
With any sacrament of angel's face;
And in my soul, as in the street, it stirr'd
The solemn rumours of that secret word
Which Nature must not utter lest she cease.
So as I pass'd abroad, with inward peace,
All suddenly methought that it was long
Betwixt the Matins-time and Evensong;
Then, midst a strange confusion in the mind
At many cries before me and behind,
I knew that I should go back never more—
That never gate should open as before,
Nor door swing back, nor scented dusk reveal
The eyes which welcome and the hands which heal—
Being by sad calamity or sin
Absorb'd for ever by the gulf within;
And, disinherited of earthly shape,
Doom'd self in self to find, nor e'er escape
Even by plunging deeper in the gloom—
Such is the unlighted secret of my tomb.

Long have I sought, yet no relief is found,
And my soul sickens in this aching round,
Amidst the purblind air and vapours dim;
For it seems idle now to call on Him
Who having put to sleep, as I have said,
Is my sole hope of waking from the dead
And all the ghostly semblances which fill
With their own dread these halls of voided will.

O but I pray that I may find some track
At least to my old life directing back,
And that my dreaming arms may there enfold
The wife who shared with me the sleep of old,
The little child whose innocence and mirth
Seem'd newly waken'd in the life of earth
Rather than aught which play'd in dreams of sleep.

There is an anthem full of meaning deep
Which evil thought from souls entranced could drive,
And save from phantoms of the night alive;
There is a promise which from old has said
How rest from labour on the blessed dead
In peace descends: Give me their balm once more,
And they, perchance, repeated o'er and o'er,
Shall yet become to me a gospel word,
With grace to die hereafter in the Lord.

Ah, let us rest—as much as men may do—
Those faithful homes within where hearts are true,
Because—without—the darkness and the cold
Hide laidly shapes and monstrous growths from view,
And hard it fares with those who shall behold!

WORLDS OF DREAM

The sun descended in a flaming mist
And all God's world beneath it—wide, waste downs,
Blue sky, serene and beautiful, and thou,
Half-shrouded sea, mysterious, with smooth,
Far-reaching bay, for miles and miles the land
Embracing—steep'd therein, divinely glow'd
Through deepening orange clouds ... A sudden change,

A shifting wind, a lifting mist, and lo!
Eastwards the sea shone cold and steely grey,
While downs and headlands, with the chalky roads
That wound among them—as the wan, white moon
Rose over like a phantom grandiose—
All these grew sombre. Facing there the main,
I stood, rich Sunset Land upon my right,
With capes and cliffs, with towns and towers therein,
Enchanted, dreaming; on the left, this world,
Which sober'd sadly towards a single tint
As night fell down thereon. It did not sleep,
It did not wake, but ever as the wind
Grew keener, utter'd its disquietude,
Sole sign of life. Of which of these could one
Apart from both—in such a mood—have said
This and not that was true reality?

THE SWOONING CASTLE

Suddenly, wide in the night awake—
Do you know what that means?—with a start
And a tremulous heart,
In the dark of the night rose I:
Had a voice unknown of a day to break
Utter'd some warning cry? ..
But the East was cold, and the thin white fold
Of a light mist up to the windows roll'd,
And the leaves by the windows wept.
'Tis a mournful thing, at a time so dead,
To wake uncall'd and with stealthy tread—
And the hush'd breath inward kept—
From room to room, in the curtain'd gloom,
Pass, and from bed to bed.

They slept:
Some in their peace and some in their grace,
And some there were with a haunted face
And a fever'd head.
Once at the corridor's end I drew
Toward a sheeted figure which glided through
To the top of a stairway steep:
It carried a darken'd lamp and pass'd:
There was none in the house that slept so fast
As he who walk'd in his sleep.
Over the stairs I peer'd and found,
With head to breast, by his lantern's side,
On the porter's bench was the porter bound,
I knew not whether in sleep or swound,
While heavy-eyed by the doorway wide
Lay drowsy henchman and dreaming hound.

With none to challenge, I slipp'd the latch
And, issuing under the streaming thatch,
I visited stable and stall and stye,
But I never came on an open eye,
For the roosting fowl, that crow'd unbidden,
Slept with his beak in his plumage hidden.
Far and sad, in a world of reeds,
A shoal brook slipp'd through the marsh and meads,
With no more sound than the dark lagoon,
Dead still, outstaring the dripping moon:
The moon on her side in the mist lay red—
Green leaves, but they stirr'd not overhead!

So, seeing the swoon of the world outside
Has more of sorrow and less of kin
Than the torpid heart of the house within—
Like the hush which falls when a ghost has cried—
My heart with its yearning drew me back,
By the creaking stairway's winding track.

In an upper room of the roof which faces
East, with the sense of a hope subdued
That a light may whiten the mist-fill'd spaces,
Sleep being out of my thoughts, I brood
And watch; but I feel that they watch me too,
The unseen ones, sitting this long night through—
Near, as it may be, though out of reach—
Till sleepers shall waken to life and speech
At the end of this sorrowful spell.
And since high up in the belfry tower
There hangs a listless bell,
Some voice may bid me proclaim the hour:
Whence in my comfortless mood I gain
The sense of a vigil not wholly vain.
Shall I not, seeing the Rising Sun,
Cry: “Look; It is Morning”—when night is done?
If I fell at the end into slumber deep,
I should call out such good news in my sleep.

HOW IT FALLS BY THE SEA

The air was cool, the wind was fresh, the sky
Before him violet, westward tinged with deep
And angry red. Behind him, loose and black,
Great clouds roll'd up; a church, impending, loom'd;
He pass'd with awe beneath its tower of stone—
Square, tall and grey—the graveyard cross'd in haste
And reach'd the wood; beyond its gentle slope
Far stretch'd a plain; and there thin, early mists
Had gather'd; from the orange in the West
A dull glow fell on quiet pool and pond;
The lamps in scatter'd hamlets there and here
Began to glisten. All his later way
The scarlet sunset and the stormy South

Made splendid, and with images sublime
The boy's mind fill'd; while overhead the pale,
Translucent vault of heaven was thinly sown
With gleaming stars; while, above sea, the pure
Unclouded moon her white and crescent disc
Reveal'd, suffusing light sky-wandering clouds
And ether's pensive lilac.

By the shore
He paused, still'd waters washing at his feet,
But far through distance, mingling with the wind,
Giving forth solemn sounds. And turning then,
One mile or more, against keen breeze he kept
His set face steadfast. By his path the wan
And shrinking silverweed, midst stones, maintain'd
A struggling life. A mile or more, sea-waves
Charm'd him with music, moon on moon look'd down
Mirror'd in trembling bosom of the deep.
A mile or more, he watch'd their communing
Till thin clouds stay'd it, till there shew'd alone
One pallid phantom. Then the sun burst forth,
Glory of storm-fill'd wonder, light on dark
Of formless cloud, crying to melt in light.
He stood; heaven's blaze upon his cheek and brow
Smote him. One moment every field and tree—
Great haystacks, fragrant hedges and the thatch
Of cottages—shone in that gorgeous light
As things transfigured. Suddenly the sun—
Beneath grim ruins of empurpled cloud—
Fell swift; the twilight over hills behind
And low champaign in utter gloom devolved.

Awhile the waning glory of the West—
Its broken pageant and fire-shards thereof—
He watch'd; the sullen purple, tinged with gold,
Grew lurid; leaden vapours far away
Were stain'd with blood; but here and there the sky
Laid bare far depths of melancholy blue.

The boy turn'd northward, down a lane which led
Straight from the sea. Beside some stunted elms
He paused; the darkness chill'd him; far and near
He heard loud chafing of incessant waves,
As suddenly a violet dark involved
Their vast expanse, and he, more lone than they,
Knew well how night discourses to the soul.
He started, as a bird, with whirring wings,
Broke forth from covert. The wind died and rose,
But darkness deepening on the early wheat,
Left every green blade visible: his path
Wound pale before him; waver'd stars above;
And still the phantom of the moon behind
Mourn'd at him as he pass'd into the night.

A GREY WORLD

The horse is warm in his stall,
Warm in his but lies the thrall;
A measured music, grand and dim,
Heard from afar, is the angels' hymn.
Turn horse in stall and churl on bed;
Angels of Issa, bend the head:
Let all waif-children be comforted!

These things in a vision saw I,
But they rest with me till I die;
And ever the pity grows in my heart
For all earth's stray'd ones, her counterpart.

Now, the child was striving where great downs rose,
And about those downs did the steep hills close;
Peak above peak, with a frozen crown,
Each mountain over the hills look'd down.

The sky was snow, and within it all
Was a sense of night that could not fall;
While the wind, which seem'd to carry a cross,
Scream'd the eternal sense of loss:
Yet through that wailing world of grey
The white waif follow'd her woful way.

The child was wretched, the child was bare,
And, for greater horror, was lonely there;
No single face in that stricken zone
Had bent in kindness to meet her own;
None offer'd the grasp of a helping hand,
For no man dwelt in the dreadful land;
And the tender heart of a woman had not
Sweeten'd or lighten'd her orphan lot.
It seem'd that since the beginning of things
Such feet came less than an angel's wings,
And the kind, sweet angels, it is known,
Only encircle a great white throne,
Or if below them they turn their faces,
'Tis not to gaze on accursèd places.

She went on trying some goal to reach,
As a lost child strives who has none to teach;
But she knew not whence she had come, nor whither
Tended the path which had brought her thither,
While fear—which is worse than a frozen track
Through an ice-world stretching, at front and back—
Forbade the pulses of thought to stir
And wither'd the poor little heart of her:
One thing only, by waste and hill
Something drove her to hasten still,
Lest cross more dreadful and greater woes,
In that world's unrest, should befall repose.

Over the waste, through the mist so wan,
The tortuous path went on and on—

What purpose serving exceeded wit:
Say, is there light at the end of it?
And after all, in the scheme of things,
Is the child protected by unseen wings?
Or is this only a show which seems?—
Shall the waif wake up from uneasy dreams
On a bed of down, where bright rays are falling,
To hear the voice of her mother calling,
Saying: “Sweet maid, it is late, so late,
And out in the garden your sisters wait
In the morning shine, while the bells begin
To usher my dear one's birthday in?”

The grey clouds gather from rim to lift
And the child enters a great snow-drift;
The sharp flakes stifle her wailing cry,
The peaks are lost in a blank of sky.
If God is behind this doom and wrath,
She will haply issue on smoother path,
But I know not, granting all crowns of bliss,
For what good end it is ruled like this:

While the horse is warm in his stall,
And warm in his hut lies the thrall;
And a high chant filling the heavens says thus:—
“But Thou, O Lord, have mercy on us!”
Angels of Issa, bow the head,
Till all waif-children are comforted.

BURDENS OF BABYLON

When the stars cease to speak to thee; when all
The silent messages which softly fall
From liquid skies, over dark groves, have said
Their final word; when ministries are dead,

When winds are voiceless and, from distance brought,
Sea-sounds give up no more the forms of thought;
Then faded Nature, once in life so glad,
Wears sadder mien than ever mourner had;
And if one utterance in the world is yet,
'Tis but the burden of a vain regret.

When with a melancholy, helpless trend,
All settles slowly into silent end,
Then the soul also, fickle and deranged,
Too weak for action and from peace estranged,
If offer'd straightway an immortal cup
Might lack the power of hand to lift it up;
Then hearts no longer struggle to get breath,
But through deep lethargy subside towards death;
And underneath the swooning moon or sun
There comes no help from any, no not one;
While of all things that are of least avail,
Love, which we lean'd on, seems the first to fail.
Yet, signs and sacraments of death, bereft
Of death's bleak graces, is there nothing left?

O inexpressible! O deeps forlorn!
O wild clouds, collocated eve and morn!
O eyes, imparting through their glooms a sense
Of vast abysses of impenitence,
With gulfs behind of sorrow unreveal'd
And bitter springs of loss in gulfs unseal'd!
Say, is there nothing? Do ye hold at length
Far off suggestions of some fount of strength—
Far as the stars of peace o'er stars of strife,
And far as life is from the life of life?

Wrecks on the tide-ways, wrecks upon the sea;
Black frozen heights, wherein no breath can be;
Hearts that have broken, hearts in ardent heat
To ashes burnt—vain ways and vain conceit—

Yet, through immeasurable loss and need,
Come hints of One still strong to intercede,
And to the prostrate soul in poison'd lands
Comes grip of the unseen, uplifting hands.

ONWARD

Beyond the breakers lies the free,
Unfathomable space of sea;
Beyond the sea some harbour far;
And that beyond new countries are.
From cliff to hill, from hill to plain,
We pass and find a further main;
Until we reach where time is not,
Brothers! But then beyond it—what?
Peace, doubting heart which questions thus—
Peace! Do not all things answer us?
Or if they speak not, all and each,
Silence gives deeper hints than speech.

GABRIEL

Do you remember, wheresoe'er you keep
Your sponsion with eternity, asleep
Or waking, but at least transported now
Beyond all bounds our dreams to earth allow,
And so, I trust, set free from time and space—
Do you remember his unearthly face,
Shining so softly in the temple's band?
If I spoke riddles, you would understand
Who are—I pray!—intelligence unmix'd;
But even then, on secret graces fix'd,

You saw with me great miracles in him,
White-vested walking through the cloisters dim.
Hence, knowing that none except yourself above,
With me below, will penetrate our love,
However plainly stands the written word,
Let me conceal no more, whose heart is stirr'd
To tell outright what then I spoke alone
Either to you, apart in undertone,
Or but in parables to other men.
Far have we travell'd both, 'twixt now and then;
You, as I dream, are something more than earth,
Brought through cold deeps of death to your new birth,
While I have follow'd for so long the shades
And lights reserved in strange and secret grades
For few indeed, that, set from man apart—
In spite of all corruptions of the heart—
Pursuing a peculiar path of quest,
Shunn'd am I or forgotten by the rest.

As in your ear then, plainly let me tell
When first it was we look'd on Gabriel,
At mass or vespers, guarded, earnest, blythe,
A white-robed, censer-bearing acolythe;
Only a face amidst an incense cloud—
Silent within the chants which swell'd so loud.
Lovely he was, as human beauty goes—
The lily's lustre, the faint blush of rose,
Met in his face; his lips were chaste and fair;
Like a dim nimbus was his auburn hair;
While his deep eyes had caught, as in a net,
All the dark glories of the violet.
Youth though he was, in our two hands we could
Have ta'en his face to kiss as lovers should,
But on his earthly presence had come down
So high a sense of vision and of crown,

That out of any place where lovers lean
And whisper, he, with his uplifted mien,
So bright uprose that, like the ground he trod,
We knew him seal'd and set apart to God.

As Dante standing in the market-ways,
Who saw his blest Madonna many days,
But did, continually spell'd, defer
Each opportunity of speech with her;
We with the boy adored the Sacred Host
But challenged not that spiritual ghost—
Until at length his apparition ceased.
This day, perchance, a consecrated priest,
He celebrates, all fairly alb'd and stoled,
The holy mass at which he served of old.
Well, you are dead, and God is strong to save;
But certain secret matters to my grave
I carry heavily concerning you,
Who were through all so good and more than true:
Still in your heart make them a safe retreat,
If you can do so, at the judgment-seat.
But through the sorrows of your later years,
That boy's face hallow'd you for purer spheres;
'Mid derelictions of my longer road,
So has it also with myself abode.
Still in the vigils of a wakeful night
It serves like prayer because it shines so white,
And brings, in ushering to slumber deep,
Some of their peace who fall in Christ asleep.

Old friend, whate'er our early verse may tell,
Here is the mystery of Gabriel;
But the rare seeds sown thus in earth of ours
Once gave us many miracles of flowers;
Fair fruits too promised—what of these to say?—
Oh, you are dead, and he has gone away!

A LADDER OF LIFE

From age to age in the public place,
With the under steps in view,
The stairway stands, having earth for base,
But the heavens it passes through.

O height and deep,
And the quests in sleep,
Yet the Word of the King says well,
That the heart of the King is unsearchable.

Of the upmost steps there are legends grand,
And far stars shine as they roll;
But, of child or man in the wonderful land,
Is there one who has scaled the whole?

Yet the great hope stirs,
Though His thoughts as yours
Are not, since the first man fell;
For the heart of the King is unsearchable.

A pulsing song of the stairway strange
Sing, lark, dissolved in the sky!
But no, for it passes beyond the range
Of thy song and thy soaring high.

The star is kin
To our soul within—
God orders His world so well:
Yet the heart of the King is unsearchable.

They say that the angels thereby come down,
Thereby do the saints ascend,
And that God's light shining from God's own Town
May be seen at the stairway's end:

For good and ill
May be mix'd at will,
The false shew true by a spell,
But the heart of the King is unsearchable.

Now, the stairway stands by the noisy mart
And the stairway stands by the sea;
About it pulses the world's great heart
And the heart of yourself and me.

We may read amiss
Both in that and this,
And the truth we read in a well;
Since the heart of the King is unsearchable.

For a few steps here and a few steps there
It is fill'd with our voices loud,
But above these slumbers the silent air
And the hush of a dreaming cloud.

In the strain and stress
Of that silentness,
Our hearts for the height may swell;
But the heart of the King is unsearchable.

Some few of us, fill'd with a holy fire,
The Cross and the Christ have kiss'd;
We have sworn to achieve our soul's desire
By mass and evangelist:

Of step the third
I can bring down word,
And you on the fifth may dwell;
Yet the heart of the King is unsearchable.

As each of us stands at his place assign'd
And ponders the things we love,
It is meet and right we should call to mind
That some must have pass'd above:

Yes, some there are
Who have pass'd so far,
They have never return'd to tell;
And the heart of the King is unsearchable.

Some glimpse at least of the end we glean,
Of the spiral curve and plan;
For stretch as it may through the worlds unseen,
They are ever the worlds of man;

And—with all spaces—
His mind embraces
The way of the stairs as well—
For his heart, like the King's, is unsearchable.

SEVEN WATCHERS

A certain Son of the Desire which springs,
From life's heart-deeps unfathom'd, towards the things
Withdrawn in undetermined altitude,
Sat in his silence shrouded and subdued;
On many fragments of his splendid dreams—
Vocations shadow'd forth by ardent schemes
And haunting insights—pondering alone.
But the height's secrets are a world unknown,
And though we recognise in these our rest,
That which we look to find—has heart express'd
Save in the glowing symbols of the heart?
Therefore the quest seems vague, and far apart

Desire stands, vainly reaching towards its end:
So deeper glooms than with the night descend
Fell on the soul of that aspiring Son.

Thereat, a little space and, after, one
Who enter'd softly in the gloom, and fill'd
A seat beside him, said: “Perchance He will'd
To keep us doubtful of the soul's true aim;
But there are earthly gifts—and these are Fame
And Wealth and Honour and all high estate.”
“I also enter'd by that barren gate,”
The Son of Heaven replied, “and surely found
By what strange sorrows is ambition crown'd.”
“Yea,” said the other, “I endured as well.”

To these a third came in, made visible
By shining eyes—and spake: “The ways of Love
Are to be counted, as I deem, above
All other paths, and he who enters them
Has life in fulness and the diadem.”
The Son made answer: “Hast thou counted Loss?”
But he: “My sorrow is my crown and cross;
The tears of Loss are bitter as the sea,
And, sword in heart, behold I wait with thee.”

Then silence follow'd, till a fourth broke in,
Flush'd from the revel, singing: “I am Sin,
And I have known all raptures and the bliss
Of shame which meets with shame, to mix and kiss.”
Then said the Son of the Desire which lifts
The heart in search of the unearthly gifts:
“What wages, brother, doth thy rapture earn?”
“From death they come and unto death return,”
The child of Bacchus and the Mœnads cried,
“And many deaths in life my soul has died;

But I will wait with thee for evermore.”

“Kings of the earth,” said one, who through the door
Had enter'd suddenly, “and crowns of such,
May haply melt to ashes at a touch,
But Knowledge treasures still its proud estate,
And Wisdom's shining grows from less to great.”
“O fair, sweet friend! What therefore knowest thou?”
Spake the First Watcher. But with bended brow
The other answer'd—yea, with eyes which burn'd:
“That dust for ever has to dust return'd;
I also therefore wait dejectedly,
And Truth, though out of sight, perchance is nigh.”

There follow'd him who said: “Though all things fail,
Faith's sacred consolations still avail.”
“Yea,” said the Son, “did we indeed believe,
The star and dust perchance should interweave;
But the star also into dust may fall.”

A deeper silence fill'd that gloomy hall,
And gloom was on the watchers, while the feet
Of hurried passers died along the street.
So all that night the solemn guard was kept:
Some pray'd within them sobbingly, some wept,
As they that melt towards prayer, and other some
Through windows look'd to see if morn would come.
But the air gave up at the darkest hour
A sudden sense of presence and of power,
And where the six had waited through the night,
There stood a Seventh with a guiding light;
Who said: “May peace be with you! I have been
Through the great gates of death, and I have seen
That which I testify as surely true.
Give me your hands, for I am made as you,
And look into mine eyes, and speak my Name.”
Whereat the Watchers cried with one acclaim:

“Master of All, for Thee we waited long
Who to enlighten and to save art strong.”
He answer'd: “Watch with me a little space!”
But they stood raptured, gazing on His face,
So that the world and all therein went by,
And from the eastern heaven the sun rose high.

LOOKING WESTWARD

Worlds beyond worlds of sunset pageantry—
Wild West: the spirit with a yearning deep
Springs forth to thee! Like ripples are thy long
Low lines of violet cloud: all dreams, all hopes
Seem possible within these earthly bounds
Which heaven enrings and thy bright marge of light—
Set in cerulean circle, jewel-wise.

THE END WHICH CROWNS

The music falters on the harp of gold;
That which it longs to say is never told;
Stern silence now indraws it evermore.
The thought which scarcely to the heart before
Was half so keenly or so highly given,
Once and for all to speak the heart has striven;
Once and for all the heart has failed therein.
The word and music of the word begin,
But cannot finish; yet the soul shall see;
Light in the soul shall dawn, that light shall be
Extended surely through the great domain,
Nor towards the summits turn her eyes in vain—
Far end, perchance, but still she sees the end.
Clouds intervene indeed and veils extend,
But gifted inly by those ardent rays—
Clouds and the veils thereof before the gaze

Of soul dissolving—shall the soul descry
That which is hidden from the fleshly eye,
The end and high significance of things.
Of old, great Plato said the soul has wings,
And deem not thou that ne'er the soul has risen,
Flame-wing'd, above the ramparts of her prison.
Think not with bolts and bars she strives in vain,
Who can at need the path of stars attain;
Yet it remains that, stars and heights explored,
Or wheresoe'er the soul has plunged and soar'd,
In deep abysses or on holy hill,
The secret baffles and eludes her still.

Made subject now to terms of time and space,
Drawn by the outward, not the inward place,
She chiefly shares the public pomps and shows:
Therein no star as star that secret knows,
Nor sun divines it. Earth has mighty themes
To guard our sleeping and our waking dreams;
The peaks have ravishment; the great sea-deep
Has other mysteries, to yield or keep;
Those which we lack, the meaning and the goal,
Exceed their depth and height. And hence the soul,
By outward witcheries encompass'd, sees
The glory and the glamour which are these:
She listens, she divines as best she can,
And gathers something of the cosmic plan,
While from the snatches of the secret caught—
Beyond the limit of the world of thought
Withdrawn in regions of which none can tell—
She fashions answers in an oracle
And burning prophecies which inly stir:
She fashions answers, nothing answers her.

Therefore of how it shall at length befall,
The hidden meaning and the end of all—

Life's crown therein—are hidden from the soul,
Which gleans in part but cannot grasp the whole.
Some voices truly at her door have sung,
But in an unintelligible tongue;
And flashes sometimes from her centre strike
Which seem to shew her what the end is like,
As if the centre and the end were there.
Such lesson haply might her labours spare:
That which can answer nothing, or, if heard,
Only some unintelligible word,
Serving for presage in divining art,
May after all have little to impart;
But in the soul herself, if deeply sought,
Will come an answer to our inmost thought.

Let therefore music fail from harps of gold;
Let words be kept within the heart untold;
And let the soul no longer use her wings
For ranging through the outward scheme of things,
But inward turn the light of shining eyes—
Be sure, the end is there, the meaning wise.

OF THE DEEP SEAS

Some world-secret dwells in sadness,
Granting tears at length are dried,
All the cares which mar life's pages,
From the heirship of the ages,
Cast, and once for all, aside.

Take the heights and the abysses,
Those great spaces which are past,
And the forward vistas, blending
With our dreams of life unending—
Holy hopes, attainments vast:

Surely joy, with all its keenness,
Haunts too narrow grooves of change,
On the common sense of pleasure
Draws too much, to serve as measure
Of the world's resource and range.

Morning stars may sing together,
Sons of God for joy may shout;
But beyond the choric pæan
Spreads the stillness empyrean:
There the anthem falters out.

If we came and passed like summer,
Short of sight though joy would be,
It might help us towards forgetting,
Twixt our rising and our setting,
What a moth's-flight space had we.

But confronting earth's unearnest
And yet ever anxious span
With the undeclared hereafter,
Joy must perish and light laughter
Waver on the lips of man.

Life is so far past all searching,
So much hangs from strings so frail,
That the firmest faith must question
And against all dark suggestion
Hope can never quite prevail.

Love remains and Love can save us,
All the keys of doom are there;
But if more with gladness blended
Than dejections deep attended,
Those who love shall first declare.

Well then to be self-reliant,
Highest ends with strength achieve,
Hold that life is best expounded
By the faith in goodwill grounded—
So go forward, so believe.

But ask not that joy be with us;
Light things are by joy express'd:
Unto us the deeps are speaking,
Past the sadness of their seeking
Is God's graveness—and God's rest.

THE WIDER PROSPECTS

On level meads, as smooth as garden lawns,
Rooks swarm with gleaming plumage, then—with screams
Discordant—rise and circle high in air!—
God's splendour brightens now their peaceful flight,
To giant elms returning—dizzy nests,
Poised in the air triumphant.

Here my road
Reveals the open country. I see slopes
Of verdant green, wide fields and marshy lands
Low-lying; I see misty hills against
The distant sky, in outline dimly limn'd—
A long blue line. The land is dark with trees,
Far and away beyond me winds the road,
Ascending; as I follow, evermore
The prospect widens—round me hills and hills,
And round me all things in the clear, sweet air
Give back the sunset light. Soft winds are held

By silver spells of silence.

The whole earth
Seems mine, and shortly will all heaven put forth
Stars o'er my path. Methinks, this road so broad,
So brown, so pleasant, like the rover's life,
Goes on for ever; it is steep, it curves,
It leaps and dips; it follows all the vale,
Then takes a spiral course to climb the slope,
So to be lost amidst a world of downs.
Here silver willows in the evening wind
Begin to stir; by hedges do the oaks
Rich foliage rustle; on the open mead
A brown horse browses, while in one beyond
A stalwart beast—with black and burnish'd sides—
Draws on the loaded wain to reach the track;
And at that bend he gains it. As I walk
Behind, a dry and subtle incense fills
The cool air round me; but I hasten now
And see the farm before me: so mine eyes
At every turn are met by something new
Which gratifies the senses and the mind.

All suddenly the golden air is changed
To purple, passing swiftly into grey,
And there is mist about me; it is chill:
The sense of sadness settles, but I reach
A clear space free upon the West and pause
To mark, in contrast, certain blurr'd, green trees
Thrown on a vivid and illumined sky—
Ere night one hour has fallen—O first star,
With lamp enkindled in the South so high!—
To mark it and to worship. Now the moon,
Out from bleak vapours of the East, aglow,
With not one touch of sadness, o'er the marsh
Her orb uplifts. How fair, how sweet, how blue,
Looks the high zenith, with faint clouds involved!

And as the summer breeze, from flute-notes soft,
Turns to a resonant wind and boldly calls
Among the echoing hills, my transient mood
Of graveness passes, for the night is strong,
And passionately the voices of the night
Speak to deep wells within the heart of man,
Till the deep wells make answer. I, at least,
Walking in summer on the winding road,
With downs about me, with the moon above—
With the bright moon which, as it rises, pours
A light increasing through the lilac sky—
Amidst the wine-like fragrance of the air,
Hear depth to depth make answer, height to height.

JOYS OF LIFE

That light we know to be only seeming;
Those stars in dream looking down on dreaming;
Blank space which cheats us; quick time which slips;
Thin ghosts of wines which deride our yearning;
Pale shadows of love which leave us burning
To gain the rapture of unseen lips:

The faiths too cold for the heart's subsistence;
Hope's light too faint on a bleak existence;
All ways too many for ends in doubt:
But though perplex'd by disorder'd courses—
One strength call'd up from the soul's resources—
Still to go on and to do without!

WATERS OF CREATION

Thou dost reflect alone the changeful skies—
A greater speculation fills our eyes:
We are thy masters, for, exceeding thee,
Above thy wildest storm the mind can rise,
Strong sea, great sea!

THE PALACE OF LIFE

Man's sacramental house has many halls
And secret passages contrived in walls,
With darken'd chambers, suited for repose,
Down quiet corridors—remote from those
Wherein the guests and menials daily tread.
Sad rooms are set for watchers by the dead,
And secret alcoves, plann'd on lonely stairs,
Open, wherein fond lovers unawares
Are seldom taken by the stealthy spy.
There also towers and turrets are built high,
Where those ascend whom solitary thought
Has inward contemplation's sweetness taught.
Halls of convention may be found and vast
Saloons for banqueting and music; last,
There, too, are chapels of a thousand creeds,
By hearts devoted to the greater needs,
And solemn places more remote than these
Wherein adepts set forth their mysteries.

Now, howsoe'er a man his life divide
'Midst things of sanctity or things decried,

One corner cover'd by the dome alone
Can knowledge or mere rumour make his own;
Yet in that house are casements opening
On vistas of the strange and unknown thing
Which spreads without humanity's abode.
Where lead the paths therein? Where leads the road?
What lies beyond the fastness and the fell,
Or the great deeps of sea which surge and swell?
O mist of valleys and æonian snows!
O desperate days and nights without repose!
There is no man that knoweth, save a dream
Shall hint him somewhat of the clouded scheme;
Or voices equally unknown outseek
The watcher on his balcony, and speak
A message in his shrinking ear, about
The joy or sorrow that is stored without.
Thereafter visions and the power of song,
With deep prophetic tongues, to him belong;
Or, by desirable and awful things
O'erwhelm'd, his body from the house he flings,
When in a twinkling of the eye he learns
The all or nothing, but at least returns
Into the mansion of mankind no more.

The house has seemingly no public door
For coming and for going; here the dead
Sleep in the vaults beneath with easy head;
Or if their souls into the unpierced space
Go forth, the watcher cannot see their face;
And if at times against the windows press
Poor phantom aspects full of dreariness,
The horror of the eyes for those within
Cuts off the sympathy of kith and kin.

Now this is, therefore, to dissuade a few
From heeding tidings, whether false or true,

Which in these later days are rumour'd round—
To say some open portal has been found,
Or one which can be open'd by the hand,
For easy entrance in the unknown land;
That Nature high-exalted then is seen;
That dead men greet us with a front serene;
That when the secret mazes have been trod
The mind may feel itself alone with God,
And can see truth and beauty with pure eyes.
In sooth we know not which way beauty lies,
Or on what heights and in what wells and deeps
Truth, which is also beauty, wakes or sleeps,
Much less of how it shall the soul befall
In this place or in that to find the All.
But not denying that a door may be
Set back by him who hath its master-key,
Let one who, ere the ending of his days,
Has much endured and travail'd in strange ways,
Exhort his brothers not in life's short span
To leave unqualified the roof of man,
Or seek, especially in ways unknown,
What it may feel like when with God alone.
Our sacramental house has veils undrawn
And curtains never raised at eve or dawn;
It burns alone the instituted lights
And all that shews therein are only rites.
We know indeed the soul with her strong fires
Beyond these human ministries aspires
In spirit and in truth to reach her end;
But not in vain do veils the soul defend;
Nor yet in vain do Nature, Grace and Art,
Their ceremonial formulæ impart;
And not in vain does God His glory dim
By many clouds, that we can gaze on Him.
A time may come when He shall put them by
And, standing lip to lip and eye to eye,
From all conventions sign the soul's release,
With true Pax tecum and with kiss of peace

More closely married than is rhyme with rhyme.
Great is the speech of parables meantime,
And up and down the house of man there pass
The sacred pageants of a life-long mass:
O let the arid speculations end,
Till from the altar-steps the priests descend!

There is indeed a certain narrow road
Which in a sense leads forth from our abode,
But not by ways from vantage points descried
Through desert places of the world outside.
Open it lies for those to walk therein
Who having put away the life of sin,
With the long quest of their desire and gain,
Do in their own souls seek and so attain
The individual knowledge of their end.
Peace on those paths for the elect attend!
May the great universe expand for them
Through many kingdoms to their diadem!
And underneath the white light of their crown
May those who go to God find God come down,
Since in the secret centre of their heart
Who came from Him from Him did never part.
But howsoe'er encompass'd by the hosts
This is the life of life and not of ghosts,
Nor does it lie beyond the walls of each.
Hard is this path to learn of, hard to reach
And few there are that seek it, or can teach
The rending of the veils that guard it here—
Too well protected since it lies too near.
Therein the waking comes, the rest is dream;
Yet this is also in the mystic scheme
And, steep'd awhile in life's magnetic trance,
The souls that slumber may in sleep advance
And something still behold through their smoked lens—
Sic salve, Domine omnipotens!

THE SECRET GARDEN

Friends, it is fair in garden-bowers conceal'd,
When, round the high, fruit-heavy mural shield,
The white wind washes and the corn-fields roll;
But further still, in the wide world afield,
I found a secret garden of the soul.

O, there is morning glory on the sea,
And fragrant still at eve shall pinewoods be!
While night is grand on mountains, in the glow
And mystery of moonlight; but for me
One place reserve, of all the world I know!

So, having travell'd long, and fain to rest,
I keep that place a secret in my breast
And secret more than all one bower of love,
Where—sweeter far than Araby the blest—
My spikenard giveth forth the fumes thereof.

BACK TO THE LAND

To silent worlds of music, open'd up
Within the present scheme and scope of things
By audible solemnities of sound,
My soul slipp'd through, and traversed endless groves
Of immemorial melody. A storm
Of choral praise, unprefaced, with a crash
Burst on me then, the language of dead gods,
And drew me back amidst a Temple's types—
Sign-words and sacraments of mystery.
So to the end it held me, magnet-wise,

Till thyrsus-bearers pass'd and hierophants;
But when the darken'd Fane reserved alone
The secret god, I follow'd from afar
Behind a veil into the vestibule,
And saw grey ashes of the charcoal fire
Shew one faint spark; the open window shew'd,
All bent and twisted through the floral wilds,
A woodland path whence myrrh-like odours rose;
Low voices came from violets and faint
Song-bursts of birds invisible.

Through such
High offices, the heart, whose seeing sense
Follows election, having Nature heard—
As Nature speaks—has taken to itself
A certain message and the most withdrawn—
To wit, those deeps within the living masque
Of days. Thereafter, in pursuit of signs
More eloquent, of greater testaments,
The heart takes counsel with the sanctuary
And finds the Holy of the Holies, past
All Holy Places, yet at times looks forth,
Where all the chancels of the world without—
Which after their own manner sang of old—
Do now in likeness of One Voice intone.
The chancel walls, expanding thereupon,
Take Nature in; exalting Nature gives
At every point upon the Temple's gates;
And if the fires and lights expend in fine,
Her lights, her fires, assume on man's behalf
The offices—not antiphons alone
Reciting, but responses order'd well.
If therefore priests at altars fall asleep,
And in their stalls the choirs forget the Rites,
No psaltery is wanting in the world.

A RITE OF EXALTATION

I thought at length that haply human love
Might offer refuge from the things above
Which had so long drawn on my life of thought
Through unfrequented pathways, hardly sought,
Full hard to climb; and having climb'd, 'tis still
More dreadful on the summit of such hill
The mind's fastidious balance to preserve,
Nor dizzily towards precipices swerve
And the emerited soul in sense immerge.
Back therefore from the summit and the verge,
Where terribly the known and unknown meet,
For some few seasons baffled, such retreat
As those can find who once the starry track
Have strain'd at and for ever must look back
I made; my peace with Nature, long foregone,
Sign'd, as I best could sign; and so put on
Once more the huddled vesture of my kind.
Then the unearthly beauties, which to find
I strove so long, for me seem'd now to strive;
Their tincture haunted all things here alive,
Suggesting ends desired that were not they;
And that which in the height was far away
On earthly eyes seem'd momently to loom—
Clamour of triumph seized, glorious doom.
And in the place of stillness, brooding deep
On frozen summits, or the awful sleep
Which can the soul amidst the heights infold,
All that which beats within the chains of gold
And iris prison of the public things,
Through mystic music, its invisible wings,
Amidst the outward melodies, began
To speak—as Nature never spoke to man.

I testify that past mere sense alone
Experience spreads her more exalted zone;
That past the common range of human mind
There stretch the royal regions undivined,
An undiscover'd country which if trod
Seems to lead backward and be lost in God.
There is a door, which, when we find its key,
Opens therein from our humanity.
So forth on roof and parapet at times
Stealing, I saw what none can speak in rhymes;
But never came the message to mine ear,
Or saw the visionary eye so near
As when, reluctantly, its potent spell
Breaking, I turn'd from the invisible
And brought the light of all that dwells withdrawn,
The glory of the spiritual dawn,
These fleshly regions to illuminate.

Now, there was one who dwelt within the gate
Of outward dreams, nor ever question'd these,
But rather, awestruck, from realities
Had surely shrunk, if face to face with them.
Yet beauty wore she as a diadem,
And shone in innocence a radiant star:
Gentle and mild was she, as maidens are
Whose souls are subtly link'd with things above
By sanctified capacities of love.
Her from the sons and daughters of the race
I chose, to lift up from her lonely place
Amidst the crowd which sees not where it goes:
I wrought love's work on her, and now she knows.

What follows?—This: that soul can soul uplift;
Those who have dwelt in light can bring that gift
To something more than isolated fruit
Within themselves, and can at will transmute

Such as they take into their heart of heart,
Making an altar set from earth apart,
Whereon is kindled an eternal flame,
And there the Incommunicable Name
Is utter'd. Or—all symbols set aside—
Learn, simple woman can be deified!
I shew this truth—when one, of light possess'd,
Has all his nature to the task address'd.
Know too the work is love's—and love's the call—
While love is also the material.
And at the end such union comes at length
As to the worker brings another strength
Those heights forsaken once again to dare,
Those realms discover which await him there,
With consciousness of ends beyond them still—
The holy palace, the eternal hill!

PLAY-SCENES

Nature is pantomime; some force bestirs
The antic struggles of her characters,
And semblances of life imparts to each,
But no true motion and no gift of speech.
Some mask unknown stands at the stage's wings
And for each mimic actor speaks or sings,
While in the galleries and stalls we sit
But do not rightly catch one word of it.

ABSOLUTION

Here to me, friends!—Have I wrong'd you?—Come to me more than all—
That which my lips would utter, with tenderer lips forestall,

Now that the wardens who watch'd me, breaking the guard they kept—
(Passion and pride)—permit me—(dry-eyed, among those that have wept,
No longer)—to share in your weeping—set free in a sense—
Human amidst the human, not as a rock of offence.
The wand has smitten the rock and a plenteous water springs,
So that my heart is link'd with the pulse at the heart of things.

Ye that are human, pardon! If any I need forgive,
Rest I wish them and joy, with the life that a man would live
Who, in spite of adverse omens written on earth and sky,
Knows well that his Saviour liveth and redemption draweth nigh.

Ye that in secret, below your coats and plumage and skins,
Shelter hearts which are human, free from our follies and sins;
Birds of the air and the beasts, I know by your moans and cries,
Your songs which pant for language, your sad, deep, eloquent eyes;
Ye also have needed love, the want of the world ye know.
Warm be the sunshine about you, soft the winds as they blow;
If I have wrong'd you—it may be—come ye also—forgive;
The life of all life uplift you, that ye may also live!

Nature, gracious of seeming, we have met perchance too late,
Truly to love each other, closely to mingle and mate;
But, in these latter days, less now than we were out of reach,
In part I divine your thought, and in part you have learn'd my speech:
So far as my life has wrong'd you—I pray you also, forgive!
Some one has wounded you surely: may you be heal'd and live!

Grace, from a world pour'd down which I knew in the times of old,
Or ever my star was barter'd, or ever my birthright sold;
Surely I loved thee always, wherever my steps have stray'd;
To leave is still to love thee; I loved thee, though I betray'd!
For all my wrongs forgive me, and here, in this empty heart,
Till it fills, pour down thine unction; the life of my life thou art.

Yet if man and brute deny me, if Nature spurn me back,
If Grace deflect her channels, bear witness, thou starry track!
I know in my heart of hearts the hills that can yet be trod;
I will take up my heart in my hands, and go up to Thee, my God—
I come to Thee last, but I come; they fail'd me in all the strife—
Those signs of help and comfort; here is the end of my life.
I find no refuge but Thee, O last and first in the wide
And empty worlds of the soul; Thou canst not cast me aside!

Yet hearts which are offer'd to anything under the sun
Are not for long rejected, at least by Nature for one;
And though the hands which are wise, high gifts may hold for a space,
We are not defrauded long of all communion with Grace;
Man never truly waited, if man could ease him a smart;
The rudest beast of the field responds to the human heart;
While those who cry, “O, my darling!” with great hearts inly stirr'd,
Are little less than the angels—that is my gospel word!

VEILS OF ISIS

Nature is naked until man's own mind
Has rainbow hues to all her form assign'd;
And she in turn provides his garments dim:
Say, who shall robe her when his hands unbind,
Who unclothe him?

INSUFFICIENCY

Thou, having seen it, art thou satisfied?—
That platform of the morning bulges wide
Above the purple gorges, in the dim,
Exalted light. Far down the sea-mews swim;
Far down the breakers on the crags expend
Their strength in gulfs where never men descend
And thou, awhile from sea and shore aloof,
Art as one issued on a palace-roof
In Esclair-Monde, from its exalted tiers
Gazing serenely-down on moving spheres,

And far above the night's infolding arch
Beholding systems in their stately march,
With dark, dead stars lamenting as they glide:
Say, having seen this, art thou satisfied?

Alas, the halting accents of thy speech
Can scarce another thine experience teach,
Nor can thy brain, by wonders overwrought,
Shape as thou wouldst the higher course of thought,
Since in reflection's hush do thoughts most come!
So pass the moods of ecstasy to some
More temper'd state, which knows not throne or crown,
And at the last thou goest slowly down,
With weaker steps, along the arduous slope,
Somewhat disorder'd with thy former hope—
A little dazed—but conscious on the whole
That these high places cannot fill the soul;
That Nature's peaks, which few before have trod,
Do not specifically lead to God,
And are not therefore of the soul's concern.
Only when recollections shall return
In after hours, the soul may then look back,
From quiet ways, up the precipitous track,
Where saffron morning o'er the sea spreads fair,
And know that the soul's ends are everywhere.

A CONFIDENCE

That which you seek for in your heart of hearts—
That which transcends both Nature and the Arts—
Great beyond conscious grasp of human mind,
But ever as the rest and goal
Acknowledged by your secret soul—
Brother, I promise, you shall surely find.

And if you ask me—knowing it so great—
The solid ground on which I dare to state
That you shall certainly attain at length;
Learn that beyond the things which seem
I have divined your dream,
And also know your hidden source of strength.

Have courage, therefore! Keep your daily road,
And after your own individual mode
Do that which comes to hand—the good, the true;
For failures sometimes made—as such—
Be not concern'd too much;
Fear not yourself—I have no fear for you.

HOW IT IS ATTAINED IN THE SUNSET

Now this is true philosophy, that sense
Is sometimes held in such a high suspense
As might a man be, ravish'd from the ground—
The world beneath him spinning round and round—
Who finds, at length permitted to descend,
Familiar scenes withdrawn to some far end,
And where the runnel by his thatch should be
Hears the loud organ of an open sea.

Of such suspension hear a little space—
That which bechanced me in an hour of grace,
When the time-limits fixing life and thought,
Like landmarks storm-effaced, to nothing brought,
Permit that in the circle of a dream
There slips, unnoticed by, a century's scheme,
Or, twixt the lark's last note and swift descent,
That years of rapture to the soul are lent.

It fell upon an eve made rich with heat
Of spikenard odours and frankincense sweet,
Which the deep-breathing earth gave forth from her—
Item—an ecstasy of nard and myrrh—
That a fair haunt which in the woods I trod
Turn'd on a sudden to a church of God,
And down the path, as down an aisle, I pass'd,
Through umbrage issuing to light at last;
An hundred feet above the plain, some crest
Attain'd, confronted by the burning West.

Scarlet and gold, how vividly, had met,
And gulfs beyond all gulfs of violet
Open'd behind; above was snowy fleece
Of stainless vapour: glory, one with peace,
Was blazon'd there. The heart of solar fire
Outdrew me by ineffable desire,
Till it flashed on me, with o'ermastering force,
That I was native to the starry course,
And that the peace of God, surpassing speech,
Through the light only could my spirit reach.
Deep, deep, I gazed, till deeps within me yearn'd;
Deep, till that light to other splendours turn'd;
Deep, till those splendours to a point drew in,
And the eye's sense alone I lived within—
Lived, from the flesh set free, the soul upcaught
Far past the heaven of stars, the heaven of thought.
And the soul died, but something greater still
Leap'd flame-like into me, her place to fill;
I was keen spirit, from the soul made free,
Which is, which hath been, and through all will be,
And then once more I was an eye which sees
Into unutterable mysteries,
While undiffused, yet limitless, thereon
The searching point of naked splendour shone—
A dreadful rapture rending through and through—
As I was known therein, I also knew.

Yes, in the light, I knew, with all made one
By the same law which poises star and sun;
For moving systems marks a single track;
Which sends forth pilgrim souls and draws them back;
From out of One the multiple evolves
And then the many in the One dissolves,
That when the end—which is no end—shall fall
Nothing be lost, but God be all in all.

Out of all time, in that great day's decline,
All love, all knowledge, for a space were mine,—
But holy words are wanting to declare;
And at the fine thereof, returning where—
Five hundred feet above the plain—that crest
I found, confronted by the burning West:
Lo, scarlet—gold—how vividly!—had met
And deeps beyond all deeps of violet,
While sinking in the lowland at my feet
The lark his brown wings hid in meadow-sweet.

PLUMES OF SABLE

Waste, waste, waste,—but the voice in the waste of the sea!
The dread, sheer height of an empty night! And the heart—Ah, the heart in me!
I know where the deep is wider, I know of a gloom more dread—
O the waste and the night of the heart, when the star from the heart has fled!

THE INTERLOCUTORY DISCOURSE

Forth on our quest, some years agone, we set:
How fares it with us? If the end is yet,
Or if we still must follow otherwhere,
Straightway in brief to each let each declare.
For me, I pause a moment on the road
To mark how far is still the heart's abode.
As one, towards morning-tide, a dream recalls
While heavy sleep as yet his sense enthrals,
I look on those long spaces over-past,
And forward, dreaming if the trance will last,
While round me move the deeper dreamers here.
Perchance for us the waking time is near
Since one advantage over these have we,
Who know how sleep expands her sorcery,
While others in their spell such comfort take
As comes to those who hold they truly wake.
Perchance we felt it from the first—who knows?—
When that bestirr'd to trouble our repose,
The grand debate which did our quest begin—
Life, and the ways of life, and how therein
Best might ambition and its force applied
Insure our getting on before we died.
In either case, whate'er the cost or pain,
Resolved were we to triumph, to attain;
And yet, despite this effort of the will,
Much, it would seem, remains to tax our skill...
Set forth the subject as we view'd it then—
That life one duty has imposed on men:
How to get on—the lesson all must learn;
By open ways if possible to earn
Their high success, if not by ways unknown.
All ends worth seeking, say, from star to stone,

We pass'd in thought before us, ere our choice
Was made; but those which earthly hearts rejoice
Look'd scarcely worth life's dedicated span,
Nor did some greater aims pursued by man
Seem likely to avail him in the end:
Such signal triumphs as on art attend;
The crowns in paths of progress seized at times;
The laurel wreaths of rhymers and their rhymes;
Devotion's guerdon for a country's weal:
Due lauds we gave them, owning their appeal,
But did with blessing true their claim dismiss.
Full long we ponder'd, weighing that with this,
Nor did the humbler walks of life disdain;
But in the end we found that trades were vain,
And all the crowded ways where men compete;
That e'en the daily bread which all must eat
'Twere better, if it might be, to forego
Than daily bread for our sole object know;
That wealth and luxury and social place,
And seats among the mighty of the race,
May in themselves be honourable things,
But insufficient for ambition's wings.
How, therefore, truly to get on? said we;
Then paused a moment, since it seem'd to be
No small achievement that, with hearts content,
We could from public interests dissent
And from all competitions stand aside.
But presently we found that ere he died
Each son of man saw vanity in these,
And now, as then, the saint their contact flees.
What true end, therefore, over and before
All these remains?—O knowledge, evermore
Follow'd and worshipp'd! O ye lights of mind!
Ye secrets of the deeps all deeps behind!
Ye hidden forces! Man—his height, his deep—
Ways of the waking world and world asleep—

Praise we invoked on all who these pursued;
For us we left them to their solitude:
How therefore truly to get on? we said.
And so it came to pass our souls were fed
With glimpses of a causeway seldom trod,
When something told us that our end was God.
Thereat we blest, as paths already tried,
The grand old faiths, but put their claims aside,
And forth upon our varied course we went—
What weary days—on God's attainment bent!
Of many men did you perchance inquire,
To saint and sage spurr'd on by one desire,
And over all the world did learn of all.
But whatsoever did your days befall,
The circle of that world has brought you round
Unto the starting point—and how much found?
How much, how little? ... I inquired of none—
Of One alone by One to seek the One,
For me at least avail'd. Absorb'd in mind,
By blessed contemplation's ruling kind,
From sleep of midnight, watch of noon and dawn
I sought the vision out of these withdrawn;
And me the circle of the deeps has brought
Back to the starting point—but how much taught?
Leastways one lesson both for me and you—
Ours is the way of the attainment true;
No better end than that we two divine
Has shone upon your pathway or on mine,
All paths attempting where all lights have shone,
And ours the only way for getting on.
So forward, therefore; somewhere lurks the end:
All in good time—His time—that's best, my friend!

GROUNDS OF UNION

There is no need to take thy hand,
To touch thy lips, or thee to greet;
Nor must I say in what far land,
Out of all time, we first did meet:
As in this russet hour we stand,
That which has parted us meseems
A curtain in some House of Dreams.

Or, in this aching scheme of things,
If memories like these delude,
My yearning towards thee, taking wings,
Doth ever in the past intrude;
From such dim halls thy picture brings,
And—since it sees thee everywhere—
Can skry no world but thou art there.

I will not speak of love to thee,
For, having look'd in eyes like thine,
Past love's inscrutable mystery,
Something more sacred, more divine
And undeclared than love I see;
And what those secret depths infold,
That, in my heart, for thee I hold.

Taught in strange schools, this earthly place
Finds task-work in my forms of speech;
But, looking on thy chasten'd face,
All hast thou learn'd which I would teach:
By thy tired eyes and tortured grace,
Surely when forming thee God sigh'd—
Thou art so wan, so mortified.

From us, whom Nature never knew,
That common health is far removed
Whereof old saints, with instinct true
But angel-mildness, disapproved:
They read our weakness through and through,
Saw that strong thews and nerves of earth
Win hardly towards the second birth.

The knots which bind our souls are such
As earthly ties would strain and start;
Each would not hold in each so much,
If ill-content on earth to part:
That once the ways we walk should touch
For consolation, not for need,
That which is merciful decreed.

Let then those ways divide, not they
Shall now conjoin or disconnect:
Thou wilt not fail me on a day,
Nor I from love's sheer height deflect
By reaching towards thy house of clay;
But when that day for me and thee
Comes, at the end, remember me!

In the great session, when They meet
For rites of union, thou wilt wait,
Knowing I follow on thy feet,
And I will pause, if thou be late,
A little at the mercy-seat;
Till God shall make us one in Him,
Hide under wings of seraphim.

THEOPHANY

Too long unmindful of the great concern,
We did from errors of our way return,
From strange side-issues and from paths involved.
Thenceforth on reasonable life resolved,
Our sins fell from us; and unloosed with these
Were many morganatic marriages,
Incurr'd regardless of the sacred things
Which life imposes on the Sons of Kings—
Who wait for restoration to their own,
Since old mischance deprived of crown and throne.
Full many plans we tried in vain since then,
Nor did neglect the arts and crafts of men
Uncertain of the ends to which they lead;
But there was little for the greater need
Which on the Sons of Kings full sadly falls,
Hearing their former country's far off calls.

Set now with steadfast feet in these new ways,
What quest might glorify our later days
Whose hearts so high were fix'd on things above?
Ah, friends! Regarding thus the place of love,
What could we seek herein to hear or see
But the sweet rumours of its mystery?
Of Him who shall at length our crown restore
Some faint reflections on this earthly shore?

And so it fell that from the dream we kept
Within our hearts, a flame of ardour leapt,
Till we, drawn forth to seek in every place
The tidings of His presence and His grace,
Did in the end, by golden legends led,
A realm of mystery and wonder tread,
Chosen from all the places of the earth,
To see God manifest by human birth.

Kings which had follow'd, from their realms afar,
The age-long portent of a certain star;
Priests of a line which since the world began
Was set to offer sacrifice for man;
And, far across the melancholy seas,
The silent keepers of the mysteries;
Met in their crowds upon that haunted ground—
And we, the King's Sons, waiting to be crown'd.

But not alone the royal and the wise,
The pontiffs with illuminated eyes,
Or those who, secretly instructed, knew
How old traditions win fulfilment true:
There also came the shepherds from the hills,
And he who sows the ground and he who tills:
From noisy marts the merchants flock'd in haste;
Came too the lawless rovers of the waste;
And from the city hied the child of sin—
To see God born and a new life begin
To make refreshment in a weary world.

So round about the holy place were furl'd
The nations' banners; peace on nations fell,
And the long strife of creeds was ended well.
The spirit of the world its pride gave up,
And kiss'd the hallows and the holy cup;
The flesh dissolving utter'd as it died
The sacred mass-words, and was purified;
And Lucifer, the Prince, who knelt with them,
Turn'd sweetly praying towards Jerusalem.

So thus it fell, upon a certain morn,
All in the hearts of men, that God was born,
And that we also knew what sacred things
Such birth imposes on the Sons of Kings.

OF FAITH AND VISION

The life of light, the light which dwells in life,
With perfect, free and undivided love,
We seers have loved for ever; have abode
In any conscious gloom of heart or mind
Unwillingly; have ever into day,
With strife and clamour of aspiration, sprung;
And when we found true sunlight we were blest.
We have not scorn'd the simpler gifts of faith,
Yet sought in knowledge, with the soul's clear sight,
That lucid world, its scatter'd rays of grace
Receiving and reflecting; but when those
Were granted not, we held to faith and hope;
And any beam diffused along the dark,
Though less than nothing to the world at large,
Our hearts collected, cherish'd, dwelt therein,
And bless'd the Giver; counting all things well;
As grateful for His silence as His speech;
Keeping His silence with the same brave heart
Which, bidden, would have trumpeted His word;
For ever waiting on that word by Him
Withheld for ever. ... To the end of all
Approaching now, we fail but do not faint:
He has not seal'd our mission or granted us
The consolation of His messengers.
We have not heard His voice; we have not work'd
His miracles, nor stood before His world
And testified that we indeed were sent;
But we have loved the light, and here and now,
Before the antechamber of the tomb—
Yea, underneath the quiet wings of death—
Faith helps us still, amidst true calm of soul,

To say: The quest is broken for a while,
But ended not; and, whether life or death,
We still desire the vision and the truth.
Bid therefore, Lord, Thy servants pass in peace,
Beholding Thy salvation with their eyes!

THE PATH

Seeing that all which lives beneath the sun
Is, in the last resource, explain'd by One;
That every will which works or star which sings
In fine goes back into the font of things;
That by a final gathering of force
The soul of man shall, to complete its course,
With a great rush return from whence it came;
The last and first can differ but in name,
And there is one beginning and one end.
How then these varied interests defend
Which now distract and dissipate the soul,
Leading it daily further from the whole—
Wherein we know there lies our only good?
Ah, we have heard but have not understood!
From the confessions of our lips the heart,
Untouch'd and unconvinced, has stood apart,
So that mere words have trick'd us over long.
But, when the soul is search'd, the soul proves strong;
Zenith and Nadir and the Sacred Hill
Shew nothing keener than the human will,
Directed wisely unto wisdom's term.
Let us be therefore bold, and here affirm
That one strong wrench and this alone man needs
To set himself apart from evil deeds;
And if in ceasing utterly from these
The true Path lies, then are all mysteries

So well within the circle of his days
That if, forsooth, there sounds a seraph's praise
About the white light of a central throne,
Not to the end shall angels serve alone.
Man's voice with theirs may join, he stand with them,
Nor fail at last of any diadem
Which can crown souls in any place unknown,
Nor—if the stars have thrones—lose star and throne.

All this, however, is but mystic speech—
Our lip-confessions shew what man must reach;
The soul its origin from One discerns,
And the soul's rest is when the soul returns.
But up that steep incline which once we trod,
When we came down—we know not why—from God,
We know indeed that none to climb begin,
Nor dare, until they cast away their sin.

Now, is it hard for man to sin no more?
To say that all which drew aside before,
Henceforth for him, is of its lure bereft,
That to go upward is the one course left?
Bear with me, friends, if what I know full well,
Of all evasions free, for once I tell:
This is not hard to any heart resolved,
Since in the soul's bent is one change involved,
One simple reconstruction of the will;
Then from the soul shall pass the lust of ill.

Think that outside our end all toil is vain;
Think that who wills can to the end attain;
Know that what does not to that end belong
Is folly always, if not open wrong:
Fix this before you, and you shall not err;
Nothing shall tempt you, nothing shall deter.
These are plain words, but their high sense enrings
The solemn secret of acquiring wings,

And from a complex to a simple mode
Can bring the soul, so that it knows the road;
So, seal'd with all simplicity, discerns
How what was many to the One returns.

VALE

Good-night; the hour is late, the house is cold,
The fires have smoulder'd down, the lamps are spent,
And all the visitors that came and went,
Sleep—which I also need—doth now enfold.
Late, late it grows: how long before we meet—
Beyond the fells, the fastness, the abyss?
O ways too far for over-weary feet!
O heart uncertain what the true goal is!
Somehow, somewhere, in darkness or rich gleam,
Yet shall we meet! Till then—good-night, sweet dream!

A BOOK OF MYSTERY AND VISION

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

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,

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?

I. PART I
OF SINGLE CHORDS AND OF MONOLOGUES

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

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.

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,

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.

100

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?

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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,

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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;

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,

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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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THE QUEST OF THE GOLDEN GATE

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“Benedictus Deus hæc sua sapientia mirabiliter ordinavit.”—Scala Philosophorum.

189

WOODLAND MYSTICS

The Blessed Master from the world beyond
Came in the morning redness of my life;
He singled me from all my name and race
For ministry in secret through the world,
And I have never left Him, night or day,
Through all the lonely wanderings and ways.
Great is the enterprise, the end is sure:
In very truth the Blessed Master came!

You ask how first the Blessed Master came:
When first my heart was stirr'd to choose the path
Of quest, the Venerable Master came.
How came the Venerable Master? Say,
What other likeness could He wear but ours?
A man of men, of royal aspect He:
By just so much as man, aspiring, shapes
The Ends Divine and them in heart conceives
Do those Great Ends assume the man himself,
And so as man the Blessed Master came.
Where met the Master and the friend He loves?
Where should they meet but in familiar scenes?
The cotter need not look beyond his gate,
Nor woodman fare beyond the fallen tree,
Nor any turn the corner of a street;

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In East or West or Zenith seek him not:
O Blessed Master, he is here and now!

To me at eve the Blessed Master came;
Thee haply call'd He with the morn's first bird
And other some at middle night or noon:
With Nature round, to me at eve He came.
The sunset's scarlet heart had fix'd mine eyes,
And when they moved, intincted mist and flame
Seem'd rolling round me: a majestic shape,
Dilated in it, suddenly I saw
Beside me, and my spirit by His voice—
The Master's blessed voice—was inly thrill'd.

The Blessed Master came in evening's hush;
He bade me follow; in the autumn cold
I cross'd still fields, and through an old swing-gate
Pass'd into spongy marshes. Still my mind
Recalls one copse of willows where the moon
Through naked boughs look'd at us. As I cross'd
The crumbling stile, a minute's space I paused,
For who had stood there set apart so far
In all the world, O Blessed Master, say?
From mine old house had ever maid or youth,
At the star-promise of Thy word most true,
Gone forth at night to follow far on Thee,
And paused, as I, in that familiar copse,
Where late and early on my face the moon
Had look'd so oft, which would not know me more,
Yet all its woodland mystics spell the same
In calm and wind, while I was call'd away
The hallow'd bound of all man's life to win?
O Venerable Master, pausing there,
What marvel is it if my human heart
Shall keep the memory of that dreaming copse,
In yellow moonlight lying, fresh for ever,
Though over stars exalted?

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Long ago—
O long ago! And I have follow'd far—
With Thee, still with Thee, ever, Friend, with Thee!
And the old house from the old roof-tree leans,
For death and change have been at work in all;
But still that woodland spells its mystic speech
In calm and wind, and all its speech I know:
'Tis ever fresh within my human heart.
Since thus the Blessed Master came at eve,
That dreaming copse, in yellow moonlight lying,
Bears witness in me through eternity
How in His very truth the Master came!

VISTAS OF COMPASSION

A lullaby heard in a sunlit glade
And a voice in a forest bower;
The tender tones of a youth or maid,
And the wistful want of the world display'd
Comes over the heart with power.

Their message of hunger and aching deep
No tongue can in words translate;
But pity flows over for paths so steep,
For the dreadful height where the white worlds sweep
And the cloud on the golden gate.

O lullaby, soothe the babe's repose!
O voice, on the huntsman call!
A tenderness lives in the heart of the rose—
O sweet-lipp'd lovers! Who knows, who knows,
The secret measure of all?

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KNOWING THY LIKENESS

Not at the gate of heaven, not in the land
Of psychic dream, pours forth thy soul in song,
Lark of the marshes, of the pastures rich!
Enough thou singest in a pearl-grey sky;
The still'd sea rimpling on the hush'd sea-sand
Pauses in sunlight with uplifted crests
And listens. . . . Ever in a dream at noon
Lie lake-like, croon upon the crimpled shore
And languish, shallow sea! There shall not fail
Slow flights of solan geese with flashing wings,
And round the fosses, over dykes and meads
The martin ever with a plaintive note,
And doleful mew, shall call. So still wash on!
With mazy melodies of winds and birds
Mingle, thou mystery-voice!...Life-breathing tract,
Amidst composing magic of a faint,
Ethereal haze, upon that silent verge
Mix with the silent sky! O lambent blue!
Blue of the ocean, glass'd from heaven above,
Still draw the soul, alike on marsh and height,
Where the mole burrows, where the eagle soars;
On bleak, high crests, on the precipitous crests,
Whence torrents plunge to meet thee, draw the soul.
Amid the lonely walks of daily life,
Right on the summits of exalted thought,
Attract her still, and give the wild, white wings
Which o'er thee bear thy furthest-flighted bird.
Then in some vastness of thine underworld
She shall abide with thee—till twilight falls,
Possess thy splendour, thine immensity,
And compass all thy bounds in loving thought—
Yea, in adoring thought—shall so awhile

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Be satisfied and deem at length she rests,
Made one with being which is vast as her's.
Yet thou shalt fail, for twilight shuts thee in;
Thy strong spell utterly dissolves; thy voice
Grows hoarse and ominous, cold vapours brood
About the shining beauty of thy breast.
And, when the shifting wind begins to chafe,
Thy bitter discontent of brooding depths
Spumes upward; a vain madness passes through
Thy barren nature; on the rocks, the beach,
Thou ragest, passionful and anguish-tost.
Grand art thou then, yet peace is far from thee!
But when the startled moon among the clouds
Begins to scurry, and with fitful rays
Thine eager waste illumines, dire thou art,
With wretchedness full-voiced in all thy waves;
And then we know thee in the want thou hast.
O for the footsteps of the Prince of Peace
To still thy tumult, for His voice to still
Our stormy hearts! There is no help in thee;
Our need is thine; and what, O sea, thou art,
All Nature is, a message to the soul,
Assuagement sometimes and some ministry,
But not true rest or true beatitude!

Yet in the sweet peace of a day to come
There shall be no more sea of storm and pain,
But splendid calm, lucidity and depth,
With gladness in immensity like thine,
O royal ocean whom we hail and love!

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TO YOU IN ABSENCE

When I have seen thy sunset smoke,
How I have long'd for thee!
When through the fire and light
A deeper heart of light and fire
Has open'd from the infinite,
Deep as that void was my desire—
O heart of light! O heart of fire!—
Thy very self to feel and see
In ecstasy of sense and sight—
In nuptials of the depth and height:
Beyond the outward beauty's show,
The evanescent gleam and glow,
Ah, thee to know, ah, thee to know!

We do but see thy painted face,
Symbol and vesture of thy grace:
The long-drawn forests trail and bend,
The great paths wind and have no end,
The swimming floods their founts pour out,
The tides of the mysterious sea
That writhing vastness turns about,
And all draw out our souls to thee.

When darkness on the earth and ocean
Only unfolds the sense of motion,
Sound, and the echo of all sound,
Surging sharpen'd senses round,
There seems a closer contact made
Than when thy features stand display'd
But oh, not thee, ah no, not thee!
The portrait of a face conceal'd,
An absent person's picture shining;
And we before it stand divining
What thou art like and where art thou.
Does the light fall thus on thy brow?

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And do thy sweet eyes glance like this?
Thy lips seem as the lips we kiss,
And has thy voice, to cheer and bless,
Our music's dulcet tenderness?

We know thy picture well, ah well!
From out the blazon'd frame of things
It almost steps at times to tell
How close our heart's imaginings,
Beata Pulchra, reach to thee!
About thy country's shrouded sphere
Gather we tidings far and near;
And through the sunset and the star,
Through all the fields of space afar,
Through long-drawn fire of light which fills
The openings beyond the hills,
We pass in flight of thought to see—
O antitype of all things fair,
If thou art there, if thou art there!

Surely thy country is our home,
And all is exile here;
And surely we shall reach thy place:
We must be meant to see thy face—
Who also from afar have come,
With faces veil'd, as thine is now,
And other than our looks appear—
We know not how, we know not how!
While still we tarry far away,
And still pursue the anxious quest,
In beauty let thy picture stay,
In beauty and in light express'd
Throughout this long dream-haunted day—
On sea and land, on land and sea,
Long haunted with the dreams of thee—
And therefore, till the light shall fail,
O thou in absence, thee we hail!

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FOUNDATIONS OF SAPPHIRE

A keeper's stray shot suddenly divides
This evening's silence, then the dogs respond,
And up the steep hill's moist and rutted road
Hardly the waggon horses toil and strain.
An ancient beech is by me, broad of girth
And all about its roots enrich'd with moss,
While through the wooded vista of the slope
Only the bush makes dark the rover's way.

Now pleasant pools, with basking swans beside,
In dim recesses spread their brown expanse,
While East and South the spell of sunset light
Has visibly transfigured and enrich'd
Those golden slopes of uplands far away.

Her priestly function so the soul assumes—
Invoking, praising. Here the peace without
Makes peace within; the peace profound within
Sheds deeper peace without than Nature knows,
Save in the mystic equipoise of man's
Immortal part with her essential life,
Exalting both; then both repose therein,
In common bliss dependent each on each,
And unified.

Sweet Spirit of the sky—
So speaks the Soul, vibrating, brimm'd with song—
May peace of God o'er all thy broad expanse
Be spread for ever! May thy roving clouds,
Which carry coolness and life-yielding showers,
From zone to zone, to freshen every field,
To swell the streams and seas, thyself invest
With beauties new! May each returning eve

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From one new star, more bright than all before,
Enrich thy gem-set crown with silver gleam,
Thy lucid spaces purify and fill—
As with the lenity and grace of God!
O may thy peace and beauty's broad increase
On hearts distil in other showers and dew!
May all bright eyes beneath thy glance uplifted
Be with thine azure, with thine argent rays,
Suffused, and melted towards love's mildest mood,
Yet thy full joy reflect in every glance!

Ascending still this winding woodland road,
I see thy gentle blue to golden green,
Like shapes in sleep, transfigure. Then it seems
Thine answer comes; thy splendour passing down
Invests the soul and blesses in return;
Man's love for Nature on himself devolves
In lucid gifts; he sees, he feels, he knows,
And inspiration to a throne of thought
Uplifts him. Take, sweet Nature, take thy child!
Speak in the winds of evening, speak in mists,
Speak in the revelation of the stars!
And in the tremor of the midnight hush,
Wherein the lone sea washes far away,
Reveal and speak!

“So art thou child no more”—
This mystic Nature utters to the soul—
“But, one in essence, thou art old like me,
Yet ever young, for ever changed and born,
As through the pageant of created things
Thou passest slowly towards the utmost point;
And all my light goes with thee, all my hopes
Spread wings before thee, while the end, the end,
Is not so distant but its glory streams
Far and away, not from the East or West—
O not from star or sun!—far and away,
Where the heart rests—all in the light, the light—

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Truth-light and love-light, splendour of over-soul,
Making the soul a splendour; and my form,
Which is the circle of created things,
Glows in thy glory, in thy change transmutes.
For what divides us, whether dark or day?
What makes our union? Ever that which joins
The God encompassing to thee within!”

And in the fading splendour of the West,
When spent larks drop, when waters merge in mist,
Who wills may read this message of God's light
And find already in his inmost self
The first faint gleams of that effulgence shine.

A SONG OF THE SLEEPING WORLD

O not of the hush when a wind sinks down,
And the sea on its shore lies still,
As a winding highway broad and brown
Which clambers the crest of the hill;
Or as moonshaft struck through a cloven cloud
To repose on a mist impearl'd,
Where slips some stream through a valley of dream,
Is the song of the sleeping world!

For the world still sleeps when the rack goes past
And the heart of Nature fails
At the bolt's reply to the moaning blast,
As the scattering storm assails;
Sleeps in the stir which the morning brings,
Sleeps through the Spring's new birth—
O the joyous word of the loudest bird
Is a song of the sleeping earth!

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All Nature is steep'd in a trance intense
And strangely moves in a dreamer's round,
As those that walk in their sleep, with sense
And soul unconscious to sight and sound;
At times to the waking point approaching,
Sinks she again into slumber deep;
An earthquake rends or a star descends—
She stirs or cries in her sleep.

It is man alone, in a world of spell,
Wakes or believes that he wakes and sees
More than this tremulous pendant bell,
Rock'd in the arms of an evening breeze;
More than that rack of a sea, distraught
As a dreamer's vision, of darkness born:
He too perchance in an anxious trance
Tosses and waits for the coming morn.

Sleep that has kiss'd us too long, too long,
Where is the prince with the kiss that wakes?
What will he bring to us, sorrow or song?
What more sad than the sleep he takes?
Mournfully, smouldering sunset, fade,
Mournfully kindle, O morning blue!
But a day is at hand for the sea and land,
And a day for the soul is due!

When shall it come with a trumpet's blare,
Fife and tocsin and roll of drum,
Tramp of cavalcades filling the air,
And the prince of all in the morning come?
Come in the morning or come in the night,
Whence we know not, O Lord of bliss!
Come at our call, and the lips of all
Will be life of life to Thy kiss!

200

Wake us; we sleep, but we dream of Thee:
Dreams, we have known them at board and bed:
Sleep and its rest on the earth or sea
To the heart of Thy heart are wed!
And hark through the wide earth, flushing and stirr'd,
A whisper, a rumour, a hint goes by,
And the breeze falls soft, as Thy lips shall oft—
O kiss us then lest we die!

Burden

For that light is the gleam of Thine eye,
And waking, as yet we must wake, how bright
Is the light in which we shall see Thy light!

MIRRORS OF LIFE

Night deepen'd round me on those upland slopes;
The phosphor dome of heaven diffused its green
And failing glow; yet all the ghostly hills
Loom'd through the dusk distinctly. On the loose
And yielding soil of some fresh-furrow'd field,
Uncertain, lost, I fared, then, stricken, paused;
For, lo, the dread arc of a flaming disc
Rose o'er the hill, as if an angry eye
Unfolded, loom'd—unradiating, red—
And with an awful aspect seem'd to watch
My doubting steps!

Unwittingly—I thought—
Here have I stepp'd perchance on ghostly ground,
And now some presence of the phantom scene
Comes with accusing front. My steps intrude

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One moment more to see that face unveil'd,
Then will I fly!

Advancing there, I met
The lifting moon, who raised her weeds of mist
And sweetly turn'd a bright, benignant brow
To greet me.

Poet, whether peace or storm
Prevail, is Nature ever fair to thee;
And, Man, in her abyss of very dread,
Bares thee a midmost heart of pure goodwill!

The setting sun, an orb of lurid fire
Enring'd with golden mist, stood clear below
A sea-born cloud, with loose serrated fringe
And purple folds, involving heaven in gloom,
While on the earth the patter of the rain
Fell audibly. A sudden rainbow spann'd
Both sea and sky, then as in dream dissolved,
While slowly round, to join the train of night,
With twilight mixing, moved that sombre cloud,
And pass'd at length left bare the heaven o'erhead—
A lucid lilac soon with stars besprent.
Once more there rose a huge and angry form,
Like that which first came up out of the sea;
With front appalling, ask'd, it seem'd, of earth
Some vanish'd brother; but the world was mute,
Whereat the rended inmost heart sent forth
Its shaft of lightning; scream'd a riven oak;
Then, shorn of strength, the vapour-pile dissolved
In gentle tears, and, merged with evening dews,
Call'd forth new lives to compensate for life
Destroy'd.

So ever out of wrath and wreck
The living spirit which abides in all
Still reconstructs the plastic house of life:
There is no loss, no waste, rejection none.

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Pass to the height, O Soul, pass to the height!
But in the dregs and depth of very death
The very life shall find and work in thee.

Night on the waters of the deep! Those loud
And sullen voices, with the rising wind
Combining, made a roar of sound—confused
And far prolong'd. The zenith of the sky
Was clear and blue; but hazy vapour dwelt
Along the soft horizon; and above
The ocean eastward rose fantastic heaps
Of livid haze. Mine eyes were fixed thereon,
When in the midmost heart began to glow
A ruddy point of light. The sinking moon,
September's crescent moon, her golden horn
Protruded, brightening. On a wall I lean'd;
Its base was in a terrace built above
The loud, besieging sea. With reverend gaze
I watch'd the pregnant struggle in the sky
Of moon descending and of mist which strove
To quench that slanting gift of light, to earth
So welcome, and those eager, moaning waves.
O ever and anon the golden arm,
Again thrust upward, for the queen of stars
Made passage, who emerged at times to fair
But hasty view! And so, with varying chance,
This war endured, until the wearied orb
Defeated ceased to tinge her sullen foe.
The shallow water shimmer'd in the light
Of harbour lamps, and evermore the main,
From out the depth and vastness of the dark,
Brought voices wild which stirr'd within the soul
All heights, all depths; which spoke and speaketh still—
One message to the future as the past,

203

Prolong'd from age to age; and there are none
On earth to understand it.

Nay, man's heart
Interprets all the voices of the main,
The low, light whisper under skies serene,
The swell at middle night beneath the stars,
And all the dread and strident trumpet-roar
Of the storm-stricken water's waste distress;
For there is nowhere any voice or sound
Which does not offer in the midst thereof
The hidden secret of a hope ungain'd,
But very sure. The moon shall shine once more,
All clouds shall melt, the light shall fill the world,
The summer glow lead on to rosy dawn
And rosy dawn to perfect noon of bliss;
While this most bright procession of the world
But dimly limns, O soul, thine own romance!
Not only we to reach our end in God
Are moving on, but the divine great ends
Make flight towards us on eager wings of time,
And somewhere surely in the wonder-gleam
Life and that crown of life shall meet and join.

TO COME INTO THY PRESENCE

Forth! Through the great free world unknown
Of the wonderful, measureless mind,
As who goes sailing over the sea
Till the shore dissolves in the mist behind!
For the soul is free and the sail is free—
Slipping through many a mystic zone
On the light curl'd crests of the sea,
In the lightsome arms of the wind—
On the dancing waves of the fancy-sea,
At the will of the wings of mind.

204

Blythely the voyage begins—ahoy!
Shout to the ships with their sails all shrouded,
Safely moor'd in the harbour wide;
Over the bar and beyond the buoy,
Hail to the craft, with its canvas crowded,
Taking the turn of the tuneful tide!
How many ships in the roadstead ride!
Tarry who will till the skies are clouded—
Over the great sea, hearts of joy,
Over the ocean far and wide!

Some for a pilot pause, and some
For convoy tarry, but some slip round
From point to point of the shining shore;
Some will perchance to destruction come
Where, black reefs over, the breakers roar,
Or not far out on the sand-banks ground;
But sail we further and dare we more,
Where never the dripping lead took sound,
Or the look-out sighted a distant shore,
Or a sail in front was found!

Who strives to follow our viewless track?
Who watches for tidings of how we fare?
One God-speed bid us, and so good-bye!
For this is the voyage, whence none comes back,
To the other side of the world so fair.
We cleave the main and we cleave the sky,
And we follow the tide of the starry track,
Through the shining isles of the stars so high;
But whatever befalls us we turn not back—
O we turn not back lest we die!

We hurry in front of the speeding world,
And our flight transcends all flights of time,
For our quest is the end of all.

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The sails are spread and the sails are furl'd,
As make we here for a distant clime
And linger we there at a port of call,
With the flush and rush of the quest on all;
Till at length we have lost the speeding world,
Till somehow slipping from space and time,
We are moor'd at the end of all.

Swift sky, over our heads run past;
Swift sea, under our keels slide through;
Swift worlds, circle about, away!
We cannot travel too fast, too fast,
With thought still chiding the long delay;
Deep sea's greenness and far sky's blue,
When will you open the pathway true,
Out of the night time and out of the day,
Which, when the worlds and their light are past,
To the light of the end leads through?

EVEN LIFE FOR EVERMORE

One inward hope reads import into life:
We shall not wholly die, our best persists,
And we therein are of eternity.
Seek, it will yield not, through the ample range
Of circumstance, some perfect end of mind
Which man achieving, may desist, and say:
Should I die now and wholly cease to be,
I count it blessed to have lived. Is time
A foreword of eternity? Is that
Which men call life some transitory mode
Assumed by conscious and eternal truth
Of real being? Then are all things good.
Does the soul live? Then is there nothing mean
Or void of worth. Eternity abides

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No trivial and no transitory act,
And time itself, which is a dream thereof,
Has issues passing through the infinite.
But if the testifying voice within,
Which utters forth the watchwords of the soul,
Lies in the dark place of our mystery,
Then life is nothing, for behold it ends!
And love is nothing, for that ends with life;
And sacrifice put up for others' weal
Is folly at white heat. A little while
And death shall swallow up our offering,
While that for which the sacrifice is made
Shall perish too. What then is left of all?
And what shall profit? To upraise the race
Is nothing, serves no purpose at the close;
For in a little age the race itself
Will also vanish—when the stars shall fall
And, drawn into the red sun's flaming font,
This earth shall feed her father and shall end.
Bold minds may face it, striving to extract
Some ghost of joy from very woe thereof,
But all is artifice and counterfeit—
All-worthless that which into nothing leads.

Black frost binds hard and holds the waste of life;
No phantom sun can warm it. Ah, perchance
There shall be morning on the hills! A light
All-proudly bursting from the eternal sun!
No frost is then too black to melt therein.
Nay, mark, it glistens: that is rime alone,
And all the bulbs and buds of blessed spring
Are waiting only the descending ray
To burst and blossom! It is here, the light
Which draws the tender plant of rising life
Up from some dark but serviceable soil
Wherein the sower's hand hath planted it;
And earth no more is barren: from the seed

207

A harvest springs, and the whole land is fill'd
With plenty.

On the winter of the mind
So also rises spiritual light,
And all our seeds of hope and thought begin
To germinate; the wilderness becomes
A planted ground which fructifies and blooms,
And this is presently a paradise
Wherein the soul descends, whose angel rule
Draws all the bitter order of the world
Full sweetly round into a perfect way.

Then not in vain shall man, forsaking sense,
Abide by choice in the domain of mind;
And not in vain shall soaring mind ascend
The solemn summits of uplifted thought—
There is the mead of souls. The crown is there.
No quest can fail whereof the end is this;
Wings shall not want when weary feet give way,
Angels shall bear us when our pinions tire,
And if the angels falter in the white
Flame of the holy place, One shall be there,
And under us the Everlasting Arms.

A SONG OF SOUND AND OF SILENCE

The groves are fill'd with murmurs and the ways
With sound;
The choric birds sing canticles of praise;
Along the stony ground
The hoofs of horses clatter and resound,
Waking reverberations strange and deep;
E'en in the dead of night
Is Nature ever stirring in her sleep,
And the sea, far and near,
With stress and tumult shouts into the ear:

208

The winds take up the message and repeat;
O'er far-off meadows peals their anthem sweet.
A thousand cries
Are round us; ever, when a hush succeeds,
Stars in the circle of the moving skies
Float whispers down, and upon flowers and weeds
Not without murmur does the dew descend.

O chants and litanies intoned so loud,
O medley'd minstrelsy of pain and mirth,
Ascending—a confusèd crowd—
And echoing from end to end
Of all the resonant earth!
Some spell upon your music lies,
As hangs enchantment upon drooping eyes,
And howsoe'er your founts are stirr'd
There issues not the saving Word;
The music's volume and the organ's roll—
In place of voice, that melody of soul.
Stars seem to strive at speech and birds at rhyme,
And pregnant rumours pass at even-time,
While out on the tremendous main
The surges break and shout, and break again;
We seem to wait
For ever at the opening gate
Of resonant, intelligible speech,
And ever still the Word is out of reach.

When in the higher moments of the soul,
Ascending from divided things,
Almost it seems to snatch the whole
Of that which Nature's chorus sings,
Yet comes there neither note nor tone
It all rejects or all can own—
A subtle something proving short
Of base and bond subtending all:
How deep is here the chord's report,
How shallow there the notes may fall;

209

So ever on profounder meaning's brink
The oracles back into vagueness sink,
And wanting the true Word, or dispossess'd,
Nature is consolation but not rest!

Maintaining still a solemn state
And pageant, inarticulate
At every gateway of our dreams
Her echo or her rumour seems;
A tale upon the point of telling,
A prophecy for ever spelling
And yet not wholly spell'd,
Because the application is withheld;
The matter of the Word on every side
Resounding, but the sense denied.

Perchance in some far epoch of the past,
O Nature's music, to the Word thou wast
More closely wedded than is speech to man!
Perchance thy measure moveth still
To meet the meaning which shall fill
Thy widely resonant span.
Howe'er this be, we know the Word is ours,
Though not in all the fulness of its powers;
And in the great concerted plan
Perchance thy strings and tones are lent
As an accompanying instrument
By man alone interpreted,
And from his voice and speech, in tone and string,
Reflected meaning borrowing.
Sound to us therefore as we dream and drift,
Thou who dost aid the soul her voice to lift,
By her unseen conductor taught and led;
And when time's gates flow open, still prolong—
Great Leader, past these measures—her supernal song!

210

PHASES

Wintry and wild and wasting and above
All winds in woe, out of a bleak grey sky,
With sharp-tooth'd wings, it blows—the eastern wind—
And like a two-edged sword that sleety breath
Cuts and drives through. The bitter sea beneath
Assumes a kindred mood, and, wrought thereby,
Responds in fury, raging on the rocks—
All quiet coves, where sunny shallows smiled,
And plash'd and rippled, in a milder mood,
Filling with savage voices. Pause and watch
The troubled morning ripen far across
Those spuming billows; through this lifting mist
The lone and dreadful ocean shews no life
Of bird or boat. One presence on the peak
Of yon sea-splinter'd spur, with bony arms
Incites all winds and waters on to war;
She only calm, the foe of peace and man,
Bids strife and tempest still possess the world.
An elemental battle, as of old,
Deepens about her. Who shall break her spells?
Who bid the baleful fury hold henceforth
The shafts and fatal watchwords of the fight?

An answer comes: the Rose is in the East;
There at the source of strife comes the Lord Day;
Comes splendid Sun, dispersing dark and cloud;
The driven mists before his rays dissolve,
The phantom flees, a sudden stillness steeps
The weary space of air; the ocean springs
Lightsome and gladsome, blue beneath the blue—
Clear depth and lucent height.

O dark and storm,
O peace and glow, your phases haunt the soul,

211

The world unknown of man within himself!
And from this pageantry of Nature we
May learn the mystic lesson of the East!
Whence first the darkness comes, first comes the light;
Whence bitter winds, the morning's fragrant joy;
And so the desolation and the gloom
Obscure of souls are visitants of God,
From the same world unknown of that dread will
Which brings His morning beam of life and grace
To soothe, to comfort and to purify.

When on the aspirations of our heart
A darkness falls and, all her aids withdrawn,
No comfort comes to cheer thee, lonely soul,
God is not with thee less in dark than light;
So in aridity and drought discern
His ministry and one true way to Him!
A little while He leaves thee, to return
In fuller sweetness—ah, He leaves thee not!
His consolation, not His ward or watch,
Withdraws awhile, and thus He leads thee on,
That thou through dereliction and great pain
Mayest pass forth into felicity.
God waits behind the darkness of thy soul,
As waits the sun to gladden earth and sea;
And bitter winds, possessing all the East,
Can hinder not—nor darkness bar the way.

THERE AND HERE

The sunset floods these ways with flames,
A glister fills the air,
And sudden pomp of mystic names
Shines burnish'd everywhere:
Far out of sight a lark proclaims
That what we seek is there.

212

The sward contracts beneath our feet,
And softly whispers: “Here!”
Those dingles, full of dim retreat,
Murmur: “Conceal'd, but near!”
The further vistas all repeat:
“This way it shall be clear!”

A shoal stream lispers: “Forward still!
You cannot seek in vain;
Beyond the hollow and the hill
I hear and hear again!”
The flood cries: “That resistless will
Draws all my springs amain!”

The ocean, hurtling far away
Beyond the bay and bar,
Alone moans ever night and day:
“For ever far and far!”
And yet beyond the spume and spray
Hope brightens in the star.

BE YE COMFORTED

For every man the tangled skein of life
Betrays one leading thread, one Gordian knot
Secures that clue; but howsoe'er we strive,
Twine and untwine the labyrinthine mesh,
Its grand Tantalian maze and mystery,
Line upon line, to more fantastic shape
Is twisted. Baffled ingenuity
Returns upon itself, a vain expense;
For still the leading thread that Fate assign'd
At each one's birth remains within his hands,
Unused: the knot which ties it is himself. . . .
Say, is there any man, however far

213

He ventures down into his nature's depths,
Has yet unravell'd his own mystery?

Mournful it is amidst the night to sit
And spell the doubtful message of the stars;
To place what vague construction best appeals
On half-caught voices speaking in the wind;
Mournful to wait until a wiser hand
Unties the knot, or lets the mesh fall down.
Stars, teach us patience; lift upon the wind
Your voices, ministers unseen; and thou,
Take heart, O Soul! Emancipated, wing'd,
Thou shalt come forth and raise into the light
The guiding line which somehow led thee on
Where mazes end, where oracles declare
Their purport, where the light speaks clear and loud.
To-day perchance, to-morrow is not long,
Yet at an age's end, nigh is the time!

But order now the temple of the mind,
That we be ready when the hour arrives;
And let no crookedness or twist within
Prevent the correspondence of the soul
With the best order that the soul has dream'd.
O be we inly rectified and right,
And stand we clear before the mystery,
And open we in all to gain our sun;
But if the light should tarry, be we still
Patient and purged, and not a day too late!
The cords may want some pulling at the end
To straighten them; the parting veil may need
Some happy violence to cast it quite
Aside for ever; the high light beyond
Ask something from the boldness of the eye
Which meets it first. And if indeed there be
God's wisdom latent in life's parables,
Then all the unsolved problem of ourselves,

214

Subtended by the sapience of God,
Is sacred through the presence of the King;
There dwells His secret, there His rumours stir,
And there be sure the royal voice shall first
Proclaim the great arcanum over which
We dream and brood. O long and dolorous way,
Thine end is all within! O life-long search,
Thy crown is there! O light of all desired,
There art thou shrouded, there wilt manifest!
O God, our end, if we can meet with Thee
In any place apart from all the world,
It is there only, and abiding there,
Waiting for Thee, our mystic comfort comes—
That none shall lose Thee who makes search within,
If, O our God, Thou art!

And hark, the soul
Speaks in the depths of man and testifies!
Prophets may fail us and the Christs may die,
And many Calvaries and Golgothas
Be waiting still the saviours of the race;
But never has the sibyl soul adjured
Made any answer from her oracle,
Save—God is with me, and within me God!

QUIET NIGHT AND PERFECT END

The desert cries for the city,
The city, from strife and stress
Of the weary weeks, for a refuge seeks
In the cave and the wilderness.

I know that the marsh, exhaling
White mists to a liquid star,
In the windless night to a sacred height
Aspires, and the light afar.

215

I know that the woods wind-driven
Send thoughts—with a bird on high—
Through white cloud-clusters, when young March blusters,
For the peace of a purple sky.

The torrents pour through their chasms
To the unplumb'd wells below,
And to ocean's vastness, with a sure flight's fastness,
All eager waters flow.

But O the city, the desert,
The founts, the marshes, the streams,
Wild waters falling, which are crying and calling
As they roll, O Soul, in thy dreams!

Earth knows not what it is seeking,
Though still to the search impell'd;
But thou can'st divine what an end is thine
And the course to that end withheld.

Thou hast sought in the city and desert;
Thou hast sought in the height and deep;
Though the goal to win is not found therein;
Yet a certain trance or sleep,

'Twixt space and time, gives issue
By a wonderful path and lone,
Leading keen and straight to a mystical gate,
And beyond the gate it is known.

It is known, the end of the vision
Which is neither to East nor West,
And the North cannot tell it, nor the sweet South spell it,
But the end of that path is rest.

The high thoughts reel and waver,
And sense in that realm untrod
Has bonds unbelted and cinctures melted,
But the end of the path is God!

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THE VOICE OF THE TURTLE

When valiant souls have climb'd the furthest heights,
And hear beyond all stir of mortal man
A dimmest echo, Thou art far away!
We strive to reach Thee with uplifted heads;
Our straiten'd natures, bursting bar and bond,
From all of self set free, by yearning's strength
And the fierce energy of consuming will,
Divide this blackness of the night of sense—
The mystic night obscure which parts the Soul,
Ascending Carmel's mount, from her true Spouse.
So upward, upward; seems there light at hand!
The darkness whitens, morning comes apace!
Faint shines already on her straining sight
The Blessed Master's hills and fair demesne;
And soon in bush or bower or garden close,
In dighted hold or chamber shall we meet
The Blessed Spouse and Master face to face.

Resplendent Vision of eternal joy,
Best, brightest, dearest, holy, holy One—
Life's measure, life's totality, life's end—
We cannot reach Thee, till Thou come to us,
Nor dwell with Thee, till Thou abide in us,
Nor see Thee, till Thou art reveal'd in us,
Nor any way, till Thou art known in us,
Can we Thy saving beauty's fulness know!
But we must reach Thee, know Thee and possess;
Thou art our nature's one necessity,
And whatsoe'er we lose, in life or death,
No part in us of body, mind, or soul
Renounces Thee. All good which works in us,

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All yearning towards Thee—these are part of Thee,
And Thou art in us when we know it not.
Be more in us, that we may more be Thine;
Be with us ever till the soul, enlarged
And fortified, grow fit to gaze on Thee!
Then let the night melt on the mountain tops—
Star of the Morning, rise; lighten us then!
The time is surely near; our part is done:
Lo, we have search'd the world, crying on Thee!
Lo, we have mounted every steep of mind,
And now we wait upon the utmost range:
Horeb and Calvary and Sinai,
All peaks where man has suffer'd and has seen
Some little corner of the mystery,
Are far below; they profit nothing more:
We must have all of truth, O Lord, and Thee!

So call we Thee, the infinite between:
We can no more; therefore Thy time has come.
O Thou, desired of the eternal hills,
Spirit of strength, Spirit of counsel, come,
And come, O holy God! Come, Prince of Peace!
Lo, we are saint-like, and we call on Thee,
Wasteful and wanton, but the more we call!
Whatever good or evil dwells in us,
The time hath come when Thou must all be ours.
Amen, it shall be so: we will not wait:
Maker of all desire, Thou knowest this,
Thou knowest us. We do not call alone—
The voice of Antichrist and Lucifer,
With every voice, in agonised appeal,
Invoke Thee now. And Thou, O Lord, wilt come,
Thou wilt not fail, nor tarry, nor bestow
A part again, nor offer type and sign,
But Thou wilt wholly give Thy gracious self.
So all our need shall cease, for Thine are we,
Father and Mother of the gods and men!

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I LOOK TO SEE

A SONG OF VISION

When the twilight of autumn falls, sober and grave, on the brightness;
When, pungent with mystic aroma of turf and of earth, in its lightness
The mist, from the vague ground exhaling, some zephyr's breath urges
To form in the hollows, in meadows, midst muffled dead marches and dirges,
Deploying—battalions in bosks—here a banner unfurl'd;
There a pennon, a streamer put forth; all the ghosts of the world
'Twixt the trees gather'd watching; a man, though the footway is known—
In the broad road ends yonder—uncertain, impress'd by the lone
And the sense of the vague and the dim, for some light in the distance
Looks forward, not lost nor distress'd, guessing well where the glimmer must be—
As he looks without pausing, so I to sure ends of existence,
O I look to see!

Yet perchance the unknown shall await him; white bird on the wing
From out of the mist in the coppice unthought of shall suddenly spring;

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With flight that is low and uncertain, o'er meadow and brake,
Him who sought but his home in the village shall tempt and shall take
On the chase, till the moonset may find him astray by high walls
Of a bright burnish'd palace built fair in a land of enchantment and thralls.
Then the task of the world is before him, to win the world's flower,
One maid of all maids, and behold him, the man in the magical hour!
So bent upon far-shining ends, pressing on where they gleam,
By some path unexpected, perchance what was dream'd not by me
I shall reach in my longing, and that overstanding all dream
O I look to see!

The thought in its flight may escape me, but I follow still;
The Word of my art is remote. Where the keen star broods over the hill,
Where the dark clouds hang out, flashes flame, the red flame o'er the storm-driven deep,
Where the winds have their caverns, 'tis far, but longer the way I must keep.
The heart that is flagging goes forward, the eye that is weary is bent
Where the Thought with the Word is united; and albeit the day is far spent,
The night comes when no man can labour—see, eve closes round—
O I know, where the circle is woven which hallows a glorious ground!

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In the church of all art shall its priest the high union effect
'Midst the strings and the horns and the organs, and, bent on the knee,
Shall the great Œcumenical Council confess it; so therefore erect
Do I look to see!

We clasp but the shadow of love, which is longing and thirst,
And no man possesses another, for bonds which have never been burst
Enswathe and divide us from each, and our separate life
Intervenes like a wall in all nuptials; no woman is wife,
Nor ever call'd any man husband, save only in sign;
But because of the want and the longing, the strong flame which burns in the shrine
And feeds on the heart that sustains it, I know, beyond sense,
O I know my Redeemer is living; that keen and intense,
By some change in our substance of being, the union divine,
To which all our blind motions reach out, shall the ends of all longing decree ;
And that out of the flesh I shall gaze on the love which is mine—
So I look to see!

The darkness falls over the waste; the great deep in the darkness roars;
But the shores, it would seem, have no sea, or the sea in the dark has no shores;
The God-light falls lost, if it shine, on the eye unresponsive and blind;
While the eye that would see hath no light, as we tread the dark maze of the mind.

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Who knows what is urging us forward midst shrill battle-call?
The arrows scream round; if we fall, shall we lie—can we tell?—as we fall?
O light in the darkness, upshining through a world of false-seeming and wraith,
Our trust may be cold and half-hearted, but yet all our trust is in thee,
And our peace past the fields of dissension—because of thee, Faith—
Do I look to see!

To hear and to see and to know, and, immersed where the lights never fail,
Confess that at length we have truly transcended the world of the veil;
We have pass'd through the region of omen, and enter'd a land of sight.
O thanks be to God for the pillar of smoke by day and the pillar of fire by night;
The voice in the cloud and the burning bush and the holy places trod;
For the soften'd grace of the shaded face and the back of the Lord our God;
For the shadow'd home and the light beyond, for the secret pulses stirr'd
By the parable dim and the mystic hymn and the first sense of the Word!
But O for the end and the vision, beyond the gate and the way,
The light which the eye cannot picture, repose in activity free!
The veils of the world are about me, sad dreams of the night and the day,
But I look to see!

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AT PASSING

When the day begins to break
Call us back to life and light;
Leaving sweetly now we take—
And so, good night!

Short or long we do not know,
Dark at least the night-space seems:
Hearts are weary; leave it so,
But kind be dreams!

Wish us thy good speed at end
Who, committing all to thee—
Truest love and dearest friend—
At rest would be.

And to keep us free from pain,
With the eye's light in the eye,
Thus we pray thee: Come again;
Till then, good-bye!

Sense of all things slowly slips,
Utter trust dissolves alarms—
Thus with lips against thy lips!
And arms in arms!

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A GARDEN OF SPIRITUAL FLOWERS

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“Lætabitur deserta et invia, et exsultabit solitudo, et florebit quasi lilium.” —Prophetia Isaiæ, cap. XXXV., V. I.

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WATCHES OF THE NIGHT

All day I've tarried in the burning fields,
Awaiting Night. The sun has tann'd my skin,
The heat has sapp'd my strength, an eager thirst
Consumes me. Minister in cooling dew,
In gentle rain, in vivifying wind;
Most in the shelter of thy plumage soft,
The hallow'd refuge of thy bridal breast,
Receive and hide me now, Supernal Queen!
Bid all thy plaintive nightingales begin
In vale and thicket! Droop thy mighty wings,
And quench that sudden burst of western light
Which through thy sea-born panoply of clouds
Has torn so strangely. . . . Now the splendour fades:
Where art thou now? Stoop, beautiful and grand:
Unbind thy tresses; let them fall on me:
Diffuse thine odours round! With thy bright eyes—
Thy beautiful, innumerable eyes—
While I adore thee, gaze! So thrill me through
With crooning whispers in the wind and trees.
How wonderful, how mystical thou art,
How deep thy secrets are! Thy tenderness
Surpasses all; thus am I lost in thee!
Thy cool, unconscious kisses on my mouth
Are pattering in aromatic rain;
Lean over, press me, breathe into my mouth;

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I read thine eyes like poems! Speak to me—
Speak ever to the spirit thou hast form'd
And consecrated with uranian love,
With astral chrism as thy scald elect,
O Night of odours and of sanctity!

TAKING THE VEIL

“L'esprit se revête pour descendre et se dépouille pour monter.”

Folds of flesh henceforth enwind thee,
Earthly veils thy form conceal,
Five restricted senses bind thee—
Dimly wails our vain appeal.

Wings of those that loved and knew thee
Round about thy house may throng,
But the charm of earth which drew thee
Holds thee by a spell too strong.

Soul of sweetness, thus forsaking
True life's light and love divine,
When the witch-spell fails, awaking—
Light and life and love be thine.

So the walls of sense entomb thee,
So we leave thee—born of men;
May thy sisters' hands assume thee
Born in death to life again.

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ENTRANCEMENT

I see, my God, thy scarlet sun descend!
There is no shadow on that blazing orb,
There is no mist about it; magnified,
Still-glowing, rayless—so it sinks in silence! . . .
Behold the burning circle broken now!
There is no wind on land, no wave at sea;
Behind this meadow, with the mill beside,
The day-god's head devolves! A lark's last song,
High in the lavender and opal sky,
To grey refined, through summer silence rings,
And night is held thereby; with balanced plumes,
The dusk Queen waits. Sustain, sweet mother, Earth,
Thy gifted messenger, deferring still!
Ascend, thou voice; ring on; thy parent doth
The aspiration of her evening fragrance
After thy flight direct! And I too stand;
I stand a humble, image-haunted man,
Who in that melody and madness loses
The dreamlike, rippled cadence of the sea,
Who loses earth and sea, whose soul ascends,
And, like a fragrance from the earth exhaled,
In aspiration and in ecstasy,
Where thy wings beat the air, wild bird, it dies!

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WHITHER?

The moon does not tire in the sky,
Nor that star which comes after it quail
In the paths that are high:
Do they know where they go,
While we faint and we fail?
For we know not, ah, no!
Sure light, that has lighted from time out of mind—
From what moon, from what star?
As we look from our place
Toward thy region afar,
Still we dream by thy grace
We may find!

A DIRGE AT SEA

Well hast thou chosen who hast made the sea
Thy resting place! O, all things bright and high
Claim kinship with it! By an eager moon
'Tis drawn for ever, and in turn the sea
Draws all great souls; it is the soul of earth.
Bereft thereof all stony coasts would stretch
As bleak and barren as the wilted moon,
Which has no life but that which dwells in deep
Desire of soul, which vainly strives to steal,
O earth, thy soul away!

Sleep, gentle flesh!
The cool sea water takes thee: in its blue
Thine eyes henceforth shall glisten; there thy lips
Shall tinge its groves of coral; all the white

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And delicate frame dissolving shall become
A portion of its being. So the thought—
The sacred thought of thee—shall still keep fresh
That calm, vast heart.

The sea-maids draw thee down,
To deep sea temples, there with mystic rites
Perform thine obsequies. To its true home
The flesh returns; thy spirit to its place
Is render'd too: throughout all days to come
That soul to mine inseparably join'd,
With light and beauty, like a sacrament,
Shall all my nature penetrate and change.

MYSTERIES OF EXILE

One life alone, one end, one way to reach;
But many substitutes and ghosts of each:
Lord, lest the false lights—moving round and round—
Too long bewray, do Thou, with secret speech,
Direct us truly unto stable ground!

IN ARIDITY

The road is brown; a hundred yards below
It dives full steeply—aspen, elm and ash,
Make shade and music round it. Heaven has rain'd
Through all the morn, but now the August sun
Is warm and brilliant, flooding mead and down:
Far hills are flooded, tiles of gabled farms

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And distant churches glow. . . . I gaze on all
The manifested beauties of the world,
And have not lost that vivid sense of charm
Which all can weave. The power of speech is mine,
The strength of love—why seems the tide of song
Arrested in me? Thou inspiring God,
By bard and prophet commonly invoked,
One in thy varied names, on Thee I call:
Forsake me not! Abide in song with me!
The grace of inspiration still vouchsafe!
One soul in all I see reveal'd beneath
This constant flux and sheen of outward things.
I stand by hedges, where the fern and oak
With modest hawthorn interweave and blend
Sun-metamorphosed tints of greenery;
And there the gnat, which buzzes in the air
A busy message of continual life;
The cool fresh wind, which stirs in flower and frond,
In leaf and twig, in every blade of grass—
Which tempers summer at its thirsting noon—
These wake some random thought to bless my life,
As dews bless eve. Descend once more on me—
Descend; I summon in the name of all
Which soothes and vivifies—thou fire of God!
Transform the world! Thou inner sense of sight,
Transform my soul!

The fountain seal'd awhile
Is open'd now; the speech from heaven descends—
From that intolerable, azure sky,
Which holds no cloud to stain its virgin depths,
It does descend—and Ave, Ave, Earth!
The Poet cries; the Priest of Nature puts
His vestments on, the prophet's mantle wears,
And offers praise again. A thousand trees
Take up the message; may the winds prolong—
Those distant hills re-echo—all is song!

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FLIGHT

I soothed a bird with a broken limb—
Why does a rose so sweetly smell?—
Bright were the eyes and the plumes of him:
O heart beat softer!—
Thou canst not tell.

Safe in a bower he was set to rest—
What is the secret of beauty's spell?—
He was woo'd to health in a lichen nest:
O sweet bird-singer!—
Thou canst not tell.

The bird flew out through a door ajar—
Where flies the soul with the passing bell?—
High sounds his song at the evening star:
O voice of freedom!—
Thou canst not tell.

But why the rose has a scent so sweet—
And where all secrets of beauty dwell—
When souls go up from this dim retreat
Through gates left open—
The soul shall tell.

FROM LANE TO COAST

Whene'er I pause in green of summer lane—
Perchance, as now, at evening—nothing more
I ask or need. I see the pale blue sky
Dissolved in dream by melody of larks,
And—all transfigured in the waning light—

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Far winds the path before me. If an elm
Above the hedge should rise, in the soft warm air
Its lightest branches scarcely seem to move,
And on the soothing green of either bank
The sight rests thankful. There the starwort shines,
The rabbit-parsley spreads its graceful sprays,
The modest musk amidst the grass conceals
A golden head.

When in some mead I stand,
Enring'd by clover scent, a stream mayhap
Winds by, with willows on the banks thereof
And may-trees all in blossom. Then I see,
Amidst its ancient elms, some ancient church
Facing the bright West with embattled tower
And red-tiled roof all glowing. O'er the stream
I lean to watch the dancing swarm of gnats,
And hear far off upon the broad high-road
The beat of horses' hoofs, or sounding horn
Before some thatch'd, old-fashion'd wayside inn;
And then so long as any bird will sing—
One sings all day—no more I ask than this.

But when from some strait road—as here to-night—
Forth on the lonely sea, with eager steps,
Alone I issue, when I stand thereby,
And feel the gentle winnowing of wings
About me—the soft South-wind's dove-like wings;
When all the wide expanse of crinkled sea
Expands before me—there no sail in sight,
With faces ruddy in the glare of evening
Forth come the shrimpers with their shoulder'd nets
To dredge the shallows—then my heart no more
Can rest contented. Suddenly reveal'd,
I see the vastness of the world and man,
The ample scope of life; my nature longs
For some broad sphere of action, speech and thought,
And, “Seek it, seek it now,” calls the Sea's voice.

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GREAT EXPECTATIONS

Beyond the turning in the lane
To issue on the wind-swept plain;
Across the plain to see from far
How white, how high the mountains are;
Above the everlasting hills
To watch the royal light, which spills
Such boundless glory on the grand
Expanses of the sea and land;
Then past created light to find
That which enlightens worlds of mind.

TO YOU IN GLORY

O silvery voice across the starless void!
O blessed vision, wonderful, divine!
I see thee standing, and thy radiant face
Smiles down on me through this world's gathering gloom:
I cannot look at thee, I yearn and stretch
These eager hands to reach thine own in vain.
Gulfs are between us, an eternal sea,
The aching void, an infinite abyss,
Which none may cross! Gentle and kind and true,
Son of the Morning, star of light and joy,
How fares it with thee in thy Home of Rest?
I see thee in the sunset, and thine eyes
In every star, and in the rosy morn
Thy maiden blushes; where thou art is beauty,
And wheresoe'er is beauty there art thou!
When my cleansed soul shall shine with noble deeds,

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As thou with thy virginity unstain'd,
I shall be with thee in thy glory bright;
Till then be thou beside me in my dreams,
Till then when dream and waking shall be one—
Thou always, day and night!

THE BLESSED LIFE

For thee, in Paradise, be perfect rest,
Cool shade, cool shelter and a fountain cool:
Swan of the snow-white breast,
I see thy plumage shining, white as wool!

A SEA PROPHECY

An infinite shimmer on the open sea—
A thousand, thousand lights! To cross thee now,
And ever—ever—ever—sail away,
Till with thy vastness, with the mighty vault
Which rounds thine urgent being, I am one—
One with the stellar ministers of night
Who throng the splendid spaces of the air
Above thy breezy bosom, one with her
Whose path of pure, illuminated state,
Through all the three-fold phases of her reign,
Is—eve and night—with blanch'd, transfigured face,
Perform'd in silent ecstasy—with these
To unify existence! . . . I am yours,
Stars, Sea, Moon—Mother of all mystic thought!
Wrap me, ye Winds, away to some wild place,
Where, in the centre of a surging world
Of crested billows, full of stormy speech,
My sea-dream bark is spell'd, awaiting me.

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There is an ecstasy which passes speech,
There is an inspiration which transcends
Expression, there is joy which deifies;
The limitations of our mortal life
Dissolve therein; through every sense enlarged
The floods of rapture pour into the soul.
All these in generous measure have been mine;
But something waits me far from every coast,
From every harbour far—alone, alone!
The promise, the prevision cannot fail;
But drifting, drifting, drifting, day by day,
And drifting, drifting, drifting—moon by moon—
Amid revolving galaxies above,
The scenic splendours and the vibrant glare
Of lissome lightnings, the great organ tones
Of rending thunder—over open seas
I go to seek the threshold of my doom.
Thereon the crests and surges and sea-winds,
There all the echoing voices of the sea,
Shall break with one precipitous music-crash,
Break and dissolve in melody, lute-speech
Which wins towards subtle silence, then the deep
And utter stillness of the anchor'd state,
White peace of sleeping sails in harbour furl'd!

THE INVOCATION OF THE SOUL

I call'd the Soul from dreamful deeps of sense:
Such silence fell as when expectant Night
Feels some faint presage of approaching light
Her secret nature fill with vague suspense.
Such silence fell—then rose one spark intense
Of purest lustre, beautiful and bright,
And calmly from the intellectual height
All earthly clouds dispersed, all darkness dense.

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The waxing glory of one sacred deed
That dormant Soul magnetically drew,
As two fond eyes through waters gazing down
Draw mild Undinè to her lover's view:
From depth to height, of all her bondage freed,
High aims lead on the Soul to starry crown.

PER SCALAS RERUM NATURALIUM

But I fared forth in thought o'er summer seas,
I paused on mountains in the morning light,
And out from forests in the night and wind
On lonely coasts I issued. Once at eve,
When stormy clouds involved a splendid West,
The sun, departing, drove one blazing shaft
Right up the sky, suffusing all its path
With angry red, and where it smote dispersing
The thin far scatt'ring phantoms of the storm;
Then glancing onward to the blue serene
It melted in the zenith. I beheld
In mine own mind, as in a magic glass,
The spectacle of Nature. “It is well!”
I cried, “Sufficient! There is rest in this,
But light I seek! Achieve, O soul, the light!”
So then my spirit in the waste alone
Her refuge sought, there dwelt and ponder'd there . . .

Was that the hoarse voice of the far-off main
Which on my refuge in the sandy rock,
And on my solitude, my silence there,
On life and death reveal'd, did break at length?
It drew me forth; I cross'd the meads and mounts,
I roved by woods and waters, till I reach'd
The coast once more. I saw the vast sky stretch
Above the vast sea to unearthly height,

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And in the West, beyond all dream remote,
A saffron sunset paled. Thither my soul
Her flight pursued, with eagle wings essay'd
That stormy path, dared winds, dared ocean deep,
Dared lightnings there. The solemn night profound,
A thousand voices speaking in the night,
Did strengthen her, the searching cold inform'd,
And more than all the mystic hope upheld;
Till, lo, the flight achieved—from West to East,
A still green land, bright morning breaking round!

Have ye not visited, in dreams at least,
The hush'd, deep place of life and peace in God?

THE SEA-FOWL

Across the wide and high
Vault of the evening sky!
One sea-fowl wings his solitary flight:
Seekest thou, Bird, thy nest,
Or wilt thou journey West,
Where yonder sun descends and clouds burn bright?

What can compare with thee,
Thou rover of the sea,
So valiant-hearted? Lo, thy breast is bare
To the wild wind, and thou,
With thine undaunted brow,
Darest the dangers of the sea and air!

The mellow sunbeams shine
On those white wings of thine,
As thou dost voyage o'er the salt sea-foam:
In port for wind and tide
The anchor'd ships abide;
Thou only can'st uncheck'd, untiring roam.

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Soul-strength which will not fail
Though wind and storm assail,
This, this supports thee! On one purpose true
Its energies unspent
Are ever kept intent,
And so thou soarest onward through the blue.

Thou dost not pause nor tire,
A subtle inward fire
Is burning in thy heart and in thy brain;
While mine eyes droop and ache,
Which follow in thy wake;
My thoughts alone pursue thee o'er the main.

Now art thou lost at length:
God give thy pinions strength!
Fair flight be thine, sweet rest on distant shore!
Thou cam'st I know not whence,
Thou hast departed hence;
In life and time I may not see thee more.

But souls which dare like thee
The sea-winds and the sea
Have depths and heights unknown to things that die;
They change but still must be,
And being will be free,
And they are kindred to eternity!

PATHS OF PILGRIMAGE

Thou lurest, ocean grey:
How thy white waves roll in. Dim, clouded sky,
Break over me; eternal blue come forth!
Dame Nature calls and ballad-voice of Spring;
Sweet mistress, mother of the life of man,

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And gentle maid who dost the world renew,
Behold, I come! A hundred stars unveil,
The clouds have vanish'd, the supernal vault,
A glass of vision and of ecstasy,
Its burnish'd surface spreads. The Moon therein
Doth, like a spirit from the seering glass,
In light pass off; and here, like angel's wings,
The winds of night among the ancient trees—
Thy trees, O God—pass in a storm of sound.

THE POWER AND THE GLORY

O well for those whose duty assumes the guise of beauty,
And well for those whose mission puts on the veils of grace;
For whom the hopes they rise on are wings Love also flies on,
And well when God leads onward by light of fairest face.
To them nine choirs of angels at dawn proclaim evangels
And words of peace at vesper time through channels such as thou;
With glory on the lowly from holy place and holy
Of altar chaste, for shining placed—one radiant vestal brow!

TITLES OF NOBILITY

The generations of immortal soul,
High soul irradiating earthly veils
With virginal translucence . . .

Once again
That pungent perfume, changing every step

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And sweet in each mutation! Does it come
From orchards nigh me, from the garden close,
Or clover meadows? . . . It is evening breath
Of Nature, lapsing towards her night's repose,
In bridal splendour of the latest spring
Right royally invested. How all life
Expands within it, and is bathed therein!—
Deep, deep it drinks. . . .

What golden gates unbar!
What cryptic springs of melody unseal!
I float serenely up life's lucent stream
Into the furthest past. I see thy soul
Serenely dwelling in its fontal home—
A spiritual mansion bright and blest,
A phœnix-home of immortality
And morning joy. The golden rule of life
Evolves from out the pure, subjective state,
A portion of thy nature into form.
The inner essence, taking outward shape
Of holy choirs made visible, accords
With that divine and individual thought
Eternal Cause had consciously express'd
To bring thee into being. . . . Is it well
To call thee fair, to say thy mien is high?
I see thy perfect, superhuman mode,
Like poetry in happy music clothed,
But thine unbonded, quintessential part
Wears human guise alone for human thought.
I sense thy presence in the sphere of mind,
Yet know not what thou art; I call on thee,
And thou respondest in the brightest shape
Supreme imagination pictures, based
On human types. I see thy haunting eyes,
Like evening's grey from Heaven's eternal hills
View'd in a holy trance. Their deeps unfold,
Like fragrant spaces. Poised on eager wings,
I see thy timeless origin express'd

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In spiritual symbols—a pure spark
In the electric ocean of God's light. . . .
Support the dreamer now, ye mighty downs,
Thou scarlet sunset, draped in formless cloud;
Pinewoods and wilderness and windy peaks;
Ye shadow-haunted prospects far prolong'd;
Thou, deep'ning night! ... An inner impulse prompts
That point of light; above the burning sea
Lifting itself, a radiant globe it grows,
And down creation's stream of forming life
So glimmers into outward consciousness.
At first one thought intent, through ages long,
Revolves about itself; the depths and heights
Of its own nature, in the stillness, spans,
While contacts form'd with God at either end,
Pulse and vibrate therein. The tide of thought
Turns outward now; sense-music charms it on,
Desire and will unite; a secret change
Gives psychic shape, and in a world of souls—
Diaphanously draped, with wide, white wings,
One torch-like star, from pale and lofty brow
Diffusing light—with auburn hair unbound
In rainbow ripples—thus I picture thee.

Still works advancing evolution's law,
And towards the circle of material things
It draws thy nature down the mighty tide.
Thou enterest the generating world—
A narrow passage with a door of night
At either end, a golden hope beyond,
Cross, combat, victory and crown betwixt.
The generations of immortal soul,
High soul in sacred and all-gracious veils,
Splendour of virgin beams, uplighting earth.

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A SPIRIT IN THE HOUSE

I saw thee serving on a winter morn,
When all within the church was shadow-dim,
And in some pauses of the priest's deep chant
Thy voice divine, o'er all the choir behind
Pre-eminent, rang out like Michael's voice.
But when the mist began to lift without
And all the windows whiten'd, thy pure face,
Thy saintly face, through clouds of incense shone,
And as that voice rose o'er the rest supreme,
Calming the bearers' bearts, till no foot moved,
Nor bead was told, nor leaf of missal turn'd,
So shone thy virgin beauty there supreme;
One form divine o'er all adoring there
Erect as Michael stood . . . Then dream'd I thus.

The Plague had stricken in the stifling town
Its thousands down;
And all day long the sun, with blazing eye,
Burn'd in a brazen sky;
There was no wind in any lane or street,
The fervid heat
Of flints and flagstones scorch'd all passers' feet;
And after sun-down, terrible to mark,
The baleful comet smoulder'd in the dark.

At length it sank; that spell which held the breeze
Was broken then; a shiver through the trees—
As through a dreamer—pass'd;
The storm's wild spirit o'er the panting town,
Through welcome clouds, long pray'd for, now look'd down;
And, in brief pauses of a rising blast,
The sultry rain fell fast;
In vivid flashes leap'd and danced on high
The steel-blue lightning through the broken sky.

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Through all that week the rain and tempest reign'd,
And then dense vapours lifting left unstain'd
Heaven's shining height;
The cold, clear air restored by slow degrees
Man's vanish'd vigour, and the dread disease
Ceased in a single night.
So I went forth one morning in the sun,—
Through cleansed and shining streets again went forth,—
A bracing wind was blowing from the North,
The Plague was done.

My steps were turn'd to seek the House of Prayer;
The scatter'd worshippers, in twos and threes
Assembled there,
Thank'd God for life, still trembling on their knees;
But in the chancel, serving, there wast thou,
With the same light upon thy pale, broad brow,
The same calm face, the same collected mien,
All in thy white array'd.
There was no trouble in thy face, thine eyes,
Still on thy book directed, neither turn'd
To left nor right; there was no motion seen
In thy mild lips—the soul adoring pray'd
Alone in thee; in thee no fever burn'd
Of fear or grief. . . . The stricken victim's cries,
The sudden seizure in the open road,
The dreadful silence where the pest abode,
The desolation and long reign of death,
Pass'd like a horror of the night alone
Before thy modest mien reserved and stately;
Sweet incense rose, no more the Plague's foul breath.
I heard God's silver Mass-Bell sweetly ringing,
A heart-felt Credo that the choir was singing,
No more the death-bell's tone,
No more the voice of mourning heard so lately;
And for the spotted, drawn and fever'd cheek,
The shrunken body, as an infant's weak,

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Erect I saw thee in thy wonted place,
A youth in vigour and a maid in grace,
With auburn hair, with visage smooth and fair,
And faintly bloom'd the Rose of Beauty there.

Immortal Nature, what is pure like thee
I know is wedded to Eternity;
I know such spirits through the starry spaces
Subsist for ever with increasing graces!
O ever thus do thou, reserved apart,
Thy chaste thoughts cherish in thine inmost heart,
May they, though stain'd, who love to see thee pure,
For that be pardon'd and in that endure!
May he that sought betimes the House of Prayer
And found thee serving when the Plague was there,
Thy gentle picture ever keep within
To save his spirit from the Plague of Sin!

STELLA

The mystic singer to a certain Star
In salutation! . . . Be thy secret name
Inscribed upon the Palace of the King,
And on the white apocalyptic stone
Engraved indelibly! I paced at night
The City's streets; an inspiration came;
And, like a tempest, suddenly it strove
With all my being. To thyself it bore
A mighty message, until now retain'd—
That from the sacred heart of sylvan things,
From woods and forests, from eternal downs,
From water-sides, the Golden Word might come—
A formal promise of the Crown of Life
Assured in poem which is prophecy.

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It bids me first recall thy nature's depths,
The heights thereof, and then those sacred arts
With whose exalted themes thy longing holds
Impassion'd correspondence. These are proofs
That things undream'd await thee. In thy hands
The future lies; conceive what end thou wilt,
And, on the honour of the angel bands,
Thou shalt attain it, thou shalt reign therefrom!

My soul is set upon an endless quest
To span the bounds of being; on the heights,
Towards which my face is set, behold, I swear
To greet thy spirit, be it late or soon!
Forth to the Light! Forth to the height of God!
The tocsin call comes from the Infinite;
All Nature taking voice, her organ tone
Has culminated in a single cry
Of clamorous accordance, urging on!
Speed on! The arrow to the Star ascends;
Through mortal channel comes immortal speech. . . .

The mystic singer to a certain Star
His salutation sends.

A ROVER'S HYMN

Once I wish'd a thousand things,
Thoughts that soar on eagle wings
Follow'd in their soaring;
Now the soul-flights rarely rise
Further than thy dear grey eyes—
There my fervours pouring.

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Oft in midnights lone and still
Fancy fleeted far at will
Through the starry spaces;
Now it dreams, both day and night,
Round about one only light,
Shining where thy grace is.

O for darksome forest haunts,
And—for him no danger daunts,—
Wilds and wildernesses!
Open seas, to sail far over,
Dizzy peaks, to draw the rover,
Draped in gleaming dresses!

O to dare both height and deep,
Where the Kraken lies asleep,
Where the last star quivers,
Where the message of existence—
Through the darkness and the distance—
Life to void delivers!

Then beyond all space and time,
Far transcending speech or rhyme,
Out of thought's dimension,
That one midmost point to win
Which all secrets centre in,
By a soul-ascension.

May God's mercy grant me these—
Nature's “primal sanities”
And high Truth's unfolding!
In such dreams my life exhaled,
Till thy tender form unveil'd
Unto my beholding.

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Then the light of rose and gold
Gather'd up from vale and wold,
From the sky descended,
Drifted off the open sea,
Came and draped thy symmetry
In a garment splendid.

All the beauty named by truth,
In thy tender human youth
Visibly inhering,
Breaks the ancient spells investing
Speculation's fields of questing,
At its first appearing.

Melody of merle in copse,
Mavis in the poplar tops,
Lark at morning's gateway—
How thy laughter's silver lightness
Robs the bird-world of its brightness,
And absorbs it straightway!

Now the sunset lights may kindle,
Now the mild moon wax and dwindle,
Voice of winds keep calling,
While the Alpine hills point o'er me,
While the long paths wind before me,
Falling, rising, falling.

But for me one dream is o'er—
Through the outer world no more
Roving and exploring;
Past the beauty of thy face
Do I look to greet Christ's grace,
In love daily soaring.

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Has the rover lost or gain'd?
Has the thinker, tax'd and strain'd,
Balancing and proving,
Lost the vista, lost the vision,
Sinking all the sense of mission
In the sense of loving?

Nay, thou art an open sea,
And a green world fair and free
Meet for love's emprising;
In the depths of thy grey eyes
Brood a thousand mysteries
Souls may sink or rise in.

So, with mystic love my guide
In thy sacred nature's wide
Magian world I enter;
There the ravish'd thinker wanders;
Ever there the rover ponders
Voyaging and venture.

A VISION OF STARS

Behold in Star-Land stood a vacant throne,
None found to fill it! On a lonely height
Raised up, the world commanding, he beheld,
Who reign'd thereon, the plane of time and change
Far reach below him. Passion and anguish there
Play parts, but the illuminated soul
From such great height—with steadfast eyes unmoved—
In silence watch'd, the issues and the end
To him reveal'd, the worth and meaning known.
Thus was it; but to distant heights undream'd

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The abstracted soul forth-issuing left below
Its ancient seat; and he, with anxious mind,
Who o'er those spheres spreads wide his sacred rule,
The Great Star-King, most solemn council held
With messengers and heralds from afar.
But not from out his own divine estate,
Nor realms beyond, was suppliant known whose eyes
Unflinching view'd the vast and varied charge,
The lonely life, the splendour, view'd unchill'd . . .
Behold in Star-Land stood that vacant throne
None found to fill it!

Then the Central Sun,
Intelligence Supreme, Eternity's
Tremendous King, by angels bright at length
Sent tidings down to Star-Land, and the Great
Star-King rose joyful from his throne sublime;
Long prayer was answer'd—found a soul unstain'd
To fill that empty seat! It dwelt on earth
Not all unconscious of its destiny,
But, dedicate to ministries most high,
In hopes—though half defined—in yearnings vague
By sacred impulse prompted aye to seek
The Source of Light, at least to gifted eyes
Made evident its origin divine—
Thy shining soul, my white one, my dear, my dove! . . .
The Star-King paused at hearing, mused a space,
Then pass'd in silence through his lonely hall,
Its pavement vast as ocean, and its dome
As heaven remote. Upon the gleaming wall
Of that most awful temple there was hung
A Magic Glass; invoking power of will
Constrain'd all souls to manifest within
Its lucent crystal. There he fix'd awhile
His eyes illuminated, clear, profound,
And soon a thin flame started, light and pure,
In brilliance, beauty waxing, till thy self
In semblance perfect shone reflected there.

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The Mighty Presence that inform'd the place
Breathed once thereon, then answer'd:—“It is well!
His phantom shews no blemish.”

There was now
The hour of earthly sunset: sank day's god.
A stealthy, secret whisper of the wind
Among the leaves and grass had call'd me forth,
And I went musing into meads and down
Dark cypress groves. Therein my thoughts were wrapp'd
Beyond the sphere of time. One Voice of Brightness,
When this creation's furthest star was pass'd,
Still call'd me onward, through unnumber'd ranks
Of radiant intelligences, priests
And princes of eternity; I paused
Before that veil which hides the Holy Place—
The light unbearable in mercy hides.
This veil was moved by agency within;
A stream of flame and scorching heat intense
Was pour'd in shafts upon me, and my soul—
Beneath it—shrivell'd like an autumn leaf,
Till one word sounding in the light made strong
My failing nature by its power divine.
Thy destiny surpassing strange, supreme,
Thy star ascending in the house of life,
With light and glory through the infinite,
That mystic word impress'd on heart and mind.
It lives in sense of mission and of high
Election, but the awful sound is lost;
For flesh-confined intelligence no more
May dare to formulate, nor human speech
Express it, nor this element too gross
Of earthly air to that most subtle sound
Give life in its vibrations. But in dreams
It searches still, and still by dreams my soul
Is lifted into Star-Land; there I see
Thy vacant throne await thee on that height

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Remote and unimagined—thine, pure gift
Of earth to Æther!

Like the hand of God
About the man it leads in spite of self,
The sense of mission circles all my life;
A herald of the stern, primeval, strong
Star-King, I gather for thy crowning day
All gentle souls together, all pure souls,
The silent spaces round thy lonely throne
To people with intelligence and love. . . .
Behold, my thought that chosen band depicts
Above the world exalted, vow'd to thee!
My spirit in eternity's most vast,
God-haunted regions loses life and thought
And sinks in dizzy circles, while thine own
There finds its eyrie, there its native air,
Translucent, tranquil. Mount, mine eagle, mount!
Thy light supreme, thy lone, uplifted state,
I see reveal'd; infinity receives
A starry prince—ascend, achieve and reign!

A WRAITH-WAY

Over the bridge and athwart the stream,
By a path that I call my own
Is another land that I visit in dream,
And dreamers term it the world unknown.
The paths are clouded, the hollows are dim,
But a pallid and misty host
Is moving there with a vacant air,
For this is the Land of Ghost.

As a Land of Ghost is the Land of Soul:
O Wraiths of the viewless bourne!
Do you hear, as I hear, the waters roll
In the rain of the tears of those who mourn?

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The darkness deepens, the darkness spreads:
We shrink from the downward track
Which far through the hollow takes those who follow,
For who that descends comes back?

But there falls a night, or a day will dawn,
When a hand unseen lays hold,
And into the hollow we slip—withdrawn
Over the grey lawns shrouded and cold.
Over the brook by the bridge we go,
Sorrowing voices still'd behind;
But dole or laughter, who knows what after,
Or what of the end assign'd?

Who knows! Who knows! From the further side
Perchance on a spectral host,
Far over a resonant, splendid tide,
Back we shall gaze on a Land of Ghost—
For a Land of Ghost is this land of life,
With its phantom joys and woes—
From a great true dream upon pomps which seem,
We shall gaze at that last: who knows?

WHEREFORE, COURAGE

Along the grey and saturated shore
A grey sea creeps. There is no wave in sight;
With gentle ripple and with sad, faint sound,
The evening tide flows in. A wind from shore
Blows cool by fits; dark clouds about the West
Take angry colours; and the blue looks dim,
When o'er the sea that pale blue light looms forth.
Will not one star above the waters shine
High over tide and coast? . . . But, see, the moon—
The moon late born—a slender line of light
Shews faintly towards the West, 'twixt stormy clouds.

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MANIFESTATION

A figure sat within the chair
Which was not previously there;
A voice spoke in the darkness then
More subtly than the voice of men:
The message in the ear it spell'd
Was one great secret long withheld;
And while I live, or when I die,
O Grave! where is thy mystery?

THE REAPER

In simple dreams, I see thy shy blue eyes
Upraised to scan thy sphere of earthly work,
Which spreads like fields all ripe with corn and wheat.
The harvest waits, be thou the reaper there;
The barns of God stand empty, fill them thou!
There is a sickle in thy strong right hand—
Reap well, reap all, that when the sheaves are bound
No single grain may lie to rot without
In autumn rain and cold. . . . The days go by;
I see the mellow moon in the starless South
Her magic disc increase. . . . Is thy work done?
Hard hast thou toil'd, thou hast not thought of self;
The priest of labour thou, by toil made priest,
Thy work accomplish'd is thy sacrifice.

The wind begins across the naked fields
To breathe and stir, among a thousand sheaves
It laps and lingers. Lo, the moon hath set!
A faint uncertain light about the East
Spreads slowly round; on thy pale face it falls

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And on thy prostrate form; shines keen and blue
The well-used sickle; at thy side it lies;
And thy right arm about the latest sheaf
This night has stiffen'd.

Now, the morning breaks;
They bear the harvest in; the barns are closed;
The grain is reckon'd; there is none left out.
Thy spirit voice repeats the festal hymn
In God's great harvest home!

THE LIGHTER VEIN

Ready pen and easy thought,
Turning out a lilting verse;
Here a flash of fancy caught,
There an artful image wrought—
Could be better, might be worse!

Easy comes and easy goes
The too light, fantastic rhyme—
Tinkles, twitters, sparkles, flows;
Nothing matters, no one knows:
Who shall care in after time?

Saving grace, or pleasing wit
Jingling for the hour it can—
Something miss'd and something hit—
He that runs may read in it,
Vex not thou its transient plan!

Leave it—organ songs of old
Peal from out the ages gone;
Other times shall yet behold
Singers come with mouths of gold;
Till then let it babble on.

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DOOM

I know some dreadful, most exalted doom
My future waits. My soul is taken hence
And set full often by a stormy sea—
A grey, perturb'd, immeasurable sea,
The desolation of whose terrible voice
Arrests the inward being. There are clouds
Heap'd by some wild art of a winter wind
In wild confusion. There is saffron light
Through lurid rifts. The verge is tooth'd by waves,
The whole sky torn by tempest. There are sharp
And bulging headlands, promontories bleak,
And melancholy miles of winding coast,
With stones and seaweed strewn. No sea-mew cries;
I stand, wind-wrapp'd, and dream deep dreams thereby,
Or wander aimless, waiting, hush'd and white,
Some fierce convulsion in the boding sky.
Mine eyes are fixed upon the raving waste
Of whirling waves, and, utterly apart
From sympathy or voice of man, I face
The mysteries of being.

I accept
The doom. My spirit has been tested there
But has not fail'd. An inspiration comes
From wretchedness; in desolation, strength;
Through Nature in convulsed, terrific moods,
The secret hidden by external things.
I know this terrible and rending scene
Is threshold of revealment. That rent sky
Will open suddenly, in depths serene
A sunset all of majesty and light
Revealing; clouds transfigured, grouping round,

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Will lead imagination on from world
To world of thoughts ineffable. Some ray
Will fall full redly on the restless sea
And soothe its tortured surges, smoothing out
A path of magical and mystic light—
Salt breeze and rosy splendour: all its length
My soul, uplifted in a mighty trance,
With faculties made clean, with tranquil step,
Will swiftly traverse. . . . To the Land of Light
Go, favour'd Soul! The prospects open wide;
Dream preludes vision; like a flower of flame,
Unfolds high vision into truth attain'd;
Thy pinions bear thee to ecstatic rest,
In quiet seas of spiritual space
Profoundly lapp'd. . . . A magnet draws thee on;
Thou art awaken'd in the world of mind;
Where blessed hierarchies of perfect life
Are gleaming round thee, poised and sphered at length;
The heights unknown of supersensual things
Prolong their vistas. Thou art taught thereby;
Thou art inspired; an end of all is seen—
As naked and unutterable truth
Whose essence is the Deity reveal'd.

But when the vision into night recedes,
The soul descends, and in some wondrous way
I stand and look into my Lady's eyes,
The whole significance of outward things
Unrolls before me, as a scroll unwinds,
And in the hyaline and crystal depths
Of her unspotted spirit do I read
Infinities of meaning.

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A FOUNDATION OF HOPE

A little while, and we shall then be strong
To vindicate the right, reject the wrong
And follow in the path where we would go.
A little while, my friends, will that be long?
Life is so short—ah, no!

THE ROSY CROSS

I saw before me loom an ancient house;
One portal there, with mystic words inscribed,
Had in its centre graved, the single horn
Ascending—sign of the immortal mind
Which rules for ever and is ruled by none,
Because united to the Law Divine
'Tis made for ever to itself a law—
Thy burning star, dread, potent Pentagram!

Before that threshold in the morn's first light,
In wonder lost, in ecstasy of joy,
I stood: Thou spirit to the end attain'd,
Thou crown'd adept, thy long probation done.
Was that the Temple of the Rose and Cross?
Speak, hierophant!

Who stands in starry white?
Who leads me in? Smooth gleams his golden hair,
With comely features mortified and mild,
Cheeks tinged with flower-pale pink! Whose eyes are those
Which in the sunshine seem like golden grey,
Elsewhere as violets deep? His mien is high;
He bears the fragrance of the morning rose
Round all his form; his hand is raised to bless.

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Whene'er his eyes look up all heaven looks down;
About his path the snowdrop sprouts in spring,
Burst buds in blossom upon thorn and tree;
His voice all solitudes, all silent peaks,
And all the spacious, cool, translucent air,
Fills with melodious souls. His name is Spring;
His name is Eos, born of dews and light;
His are a thousand names in one contain'd.
Before the Threshold of the Mysteries,
Before the Temple of the Rose and Cross,
Before the secret, sacred, inmost shrine,
In white refulgent, as he wont, array'd,
He stands in beauty and with open hands
He welcomes in:—“The Light of Christus!” cries,
“Eternal Truth!” And ranged in lines behind,
I see the sages and the scalds of old,
A thousand pontiffs and a thousand kings!
Shines Moses there, and Plato brightly shines;
And I see the Hermes of the Burning Belt,
The “thrice great Hermes,” stand with Enoch there!

IN EXCELSIS THEMA

Voice that blesses, eyes that light,
Vision on the vestal height,
Bright One,
White One,
Lead aright!

Chaste as lily, mild as dove,
Brave as eagle, fair as love,
Fold us,
Hold us,
Lead above!

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Mystic mountains all untrod
We shall pass, with patience shod;
Featly,
Sweetly,
Lead to God!

AURELIA:

THE SPIRITUAL CHRYSALIS

So idly sailing on an August sea
From zone to zone of dream, I look'd and saw,
Through the mauve spaces of litten air at noon,
Some sudden land-breeze bear a frighten'd moth
Far and away, its frail wings beating vainly.
Could my stretch'd hand have reach'd it, I had borne
That blithesome insect gladly back to shore:
It pass'd, blown onward, in the sunlight lost
And distance. Like a death-trap gleam'd the bay
Beneath it, and the dancing waves drew down—
As magnets draw—those drooping, wearied wings.
I will not say the creature sank indeed,
For anchor'd boats rock'd softly far and near,
Where the poor, pitiful, bewilder'd thing
Might rest in truth, though not return to shore:
I think the sea received it, those light wings
Were bruised and buffeted and broken there.

God knows I prize the spirit He pours in me,
And sacred hold for this the meanest life
Which shares my treasure; so a pang pass'd through
One heart for this sea-drifted butterfly!
My soul in fancy to herself assumed
That feeble shape and beat in fancy there,
On every wind dependent; watch'd with awe

260

The swirling tide beneath her; felt the salt
And cold sea-spray her tiny wings benumb;
And sinking, shrinking, saw those shining waves
Leap up to meet her; while the death therein—
Because so foreign to a field-born life—
For her seem'd dreadful. But to-night I stand
With all man's spirit by the wind made strong,
And I see eastward an advancing cloud
Of stormy sable fill the midnight sky;
The high grey sea beats sullenly, its crests
Of seething foam a white, weird light give out.
As now that sea swells, on the wide beach chafing,
The heart expands within me, and the roar
Of breakers surging on the sand and stones
Wakes, in the deeps within, an answering voice,
Which speaks behind the soul, is clear, is loud.

Say, sorrow suffer'd may be progress made;
Say, pain can lift the nature which endures;
Bring forth the time-worn maxims of the streets:
But I believe, beyond all pain and grief,
That death lifts life. Friends, if the martyr's pangs
Exalt beyond our measure and enthrone
The stedfast spirit, through its tortures true,
Shall we not hold that hard, untimely deaths,
In some peculiar, undetermined way,
May compensate the natures wrung thereby?
Who proves it error? Does the bird whose nest
Is scorch'd about her in a burning wood,
Yet who'll not leave the five white eggs within,
Win nothing from endurance? No new sense
From that new, terrible and splendid scene
Unfolding round her? The bird's soul (believe it!)
Goes forth inform'd from those singed plumes of hers,
With some new sense indelibly endow'd
And greaten'd by it. The drown'd insect too,
Did that win nothing from the shining waste

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Of waves about it? Lord of life, thereon
The sun-born creature faced immensity;
One aspect of the vast and awful truth
Of solemn life intense this wind's light toy
Faced once and perish'd. From the sea-drench'd shell
The quicken'd essence issues forth enlarged.

I thank thee, Lord, Who hast the soul brought forth
From everlasting roots of perfect life,
That no life dies, howe'er minute or mean,
But multiplies its nature in the flesh
And individual strength by death renews;
That every crevice of the earth is fill'd
With plenitude of being, which indeed
May strive and suffer, but it grows through all.
Beyond each turn of life springs life again:
Face death then calmly, be it thine or mine;
Look onward, upward, both for beast and man—
Aye, even this sea-drifted butterfly!

THE INVOCATION

By the woodland deep and green,
By the starlight's silver sheen,
By the Moon-Queen's mystic light,
By this hush of holy night,
By the zephyr's twice-weaved spell,
Ho! ye powers invisible,
Leet of Elfin, Iris Throng,
Unto whom these groves belong
And by laws of ancient date,
Found in scrolls of Faërie Fate,
Stream and font are dedicate;
Wheresoe'er your wings may gleam—
Vistas on the verge of dream,

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Haunts beyond the rainbow set
Under walks of violet—
Hearts and hearths of human kind
Better suit the elfin mind.
We adjure you, keep no more
Homeless state on splendid shore,
But with spells of magic birth
Once again make glad the earth!

Here in glade and dingle sweet
Ye may find a close retreat:
Can ye wish for softer bed
Than the moss that here is spread?
Here the mavis' voice is heard,
Every late and early bird;
Here the tendril's slender string
Deftly hangs, a faërie swing;
Purling brooks and founts that play
Make sweet music night and day;
And in lakes which stedfast lie
Under Heaven's eternal eye,
The blown lilies waiting float,
Each to serve as elfin boat.
Never do the evening dews
Nectar to the flowers refuse;
Like the blackbird's liquid note
The wind breathes in the wind's throat:
Who shall find a fairer spot?
Linger, fairies, linger not!

Still the woods are dark and lonely!
There the throstle calleth only—
There alone the throstle calleth
As the silent twilight falleth.
All the old mage-spells are broken,
All the ancient charms unspoken:

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Who to human tongues shall teach
That forgotten sylphid speech
By whose aid the weirds of old
Did with Nature commune hold?

'Tis the darken'd human heart
Whence the Elfin Lords depart!
Ye who now this loss deplore,
All who would their reign restore,
Seek from mystic gifts of sight
Hallows for the heart of night;
Seek for depths of thoughts serene
Soften'd through the deeps of green,
For the open eye which looks
Further than the life of books,
And in any stone discerns
What a heart of wonder burns,
Finding all about it lie
Brimming wells of sorcery.
Virgin thoughts are brightest chrism
In the mystical baptism,
Which, to those elected duly,
Lifts all veils, revealing truly
Elfin worlds in rapt clairvoyance,
Elfin marvels, Elfin joyance,
Elfin vistas, Elfin vision,
Elfin voices, dreams elysian,
Fay-built isles and seas that be
Glamour all and gramarye.
Where shall point the Elfin wing?
Worlds of pure imagining;
Then where wonder rules the heart
Thence shall fairies ne'er depart!

264

AZALEA

Our sleep is over now: what morning dawns?
The beautiful and visionary night,
Moon-haunted all its length, by winds inform'd,
A worshipful and spiritual night,
Has in this daylight disillusion grey
Been sadly merged. The prose of life on earth
Begins to speak. And here I stand alone—
One billow broke upon the bay far out
This moment pass'd; it flash'd a seething crest,
Then fell. What space for inspiration now?
What magic left? What message in the sea?
The once bright-shining moon is bleak and white
And burnt to cinders. When the trees were draped
By solemn darkness, in their mien was awe,
Their aspect majesty, their rustling leaves
Dodonian prophecy—they were mighty thoughts.
Now their spell shatters; as a part once more
Of vegetative nature, they stand stripp'd
Of poetry and meaning. The lark's song
Is some mere singing of a morning lark;
That engine's drawn out, melancholy shriek
Fills all its silver pauses far prolong'd,
And drowns with dismal wail its golden close.

O bitterness! There is no human word
Which gives expression to the craving depth
Of desolation foss'd in human hearts;
All futile methods of our mortal speech
Choke sympathy by commonizing grief.
I made by magic in a winter month
An Eden-garden full of holy bloom:
The blessed lotus in its lakes abode

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With stately swans, and all its paths were lined
By lustrous lilies. Thine azaleas filled
The consecrated air with grateful light,
From myriad blooms. Thou hadst no care therein;
I spent the strength of spirit on thy dreams—
To crowd the sacred hush of mystic sleep
With all high-speaking images. I search'd
The world of mind to build thy maiden bed,
In amaranthine bowers, with purple blooms
Of dim, inviolable violets:
Their scented heads received thy psychic limbs
And soften'd moss beneath. . . . But morning broke—
Then was a latch upon the garden gate
Uplifted by thy voluntary hand
And from the aureate place of our dream-light
Thou didst go forth; thy beauty's human grace
Has chosen earth. . . .

A blush of morning bursts
Above the dim and wavering line of downs
Far flashing sanguine glory up the sky;
That lofty and immeasurable arch
Transforms from grey to lavender, and fills
With sudden ecstasy of morning birds . . . .

The charm arrested leaves thee clay once more:
Thou art not wholly false nor wholly true;
The world, God knows, may leaven thee. But me
The dream shall hearten; the earth's part dissolves,
God's part remains, whilst thou hast fallen short
Of immortality and beatitude.
There was no height beyond the power of soul
To scale for thee. There was no height beyond
Those heights to which my spirit should itself
Have lifted thee. . . .

I see thee deck'd with pearls
And turquoise rings; the splendours brought from East

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And West invest thy body. Thou art clothed
With earthly wealth instead of phantasy.
O sole and only truth of deathless mind,
And dreadful lapse from starry heaven of thought
To lower riches! Can I wish thee bless'd
In these, or mated unto man of earth,
Ascribe thee true beatitude therein?
Thou wast a spirit in these arms' embrace,
And I transfigured in thine own had dwelt
As god beside thee, deified thereby.
How art thou fallen, O Lucifera!
But ecstasy of ardour never quench'd
Suffers a golden change on heights of soul.
So upward ever! To the endless height,
Which meets the bottomless, abysmal depth
In the infinite circle of Eternity!
Light for thee still—O somewhere, somewhere Light—
If I eclipse thee in my angelhood,
O thou too pure e'er to be wholly false,
I'll clothe thee in the mantle of my soul,
And on my shoulders raise thee past myself
To heights beyond me!

DISTRACTION

Shall a poet whose office is high
For the heights, say, a moment unapt,
Descend some distraction to try
And adapt?

The thought in itself gives a touch
Of the trivial to help his descent:
Will decline be more steep overmuch
Than he meant?

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'Tis assumed he must cleave to his part
But may seek with conventions to toy,
See if flowers of the field will his heart
Offer joy:

If the pastoral landscapes can please,
And Phyllis well-favour'd may seem
When the pipes of a Colin give ease
In his dream.

There's not much in this, as we know:
Shall he turn with an amorous gaze,
Of a courtlier mistress or so
Singing praise?

Shall he find in his country a theme,
Or the party he follows advance?
Shall he give some benevolent scheme
A rhyme's chance?

We may doubt if distraction in these
Can be won from his call overlong,
Or that ways which are beaten will please
For his song.

For the things which are done may be done,
It is true, in a different way;
But the woof which is spun has been spun,
Well-a-day!

And the ends which are far out of reach,
Green earth and the sky that is blue
Exceeding, please most for our speech
Me and you.

Leave, therefore, the lambs to their fold
And the sheep to the shepherds who tend,
Since the themes which are old will be old
To the end.

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But above one and all are the peak's
Revelations, for song that can dare,
In pursuit of the high things it seeks,
To go there.

IMMANENCE

The wind without is wild on down and cliff,
But here is perfect shelter. Pause with me,
By this rude stile; and, through those mellow browns
Of autumn bushes on the broken slopes,
Behold the sea below, the vault above,
The mist's thin draperies, the ghost—scarce seen—
Of yon young moon suspended, white and thin!
I count it good to stand, as now we stand,
This resonant September afternoon,
And, past the twisted shapes of elm and beech,
To see the low, slow, sounding waves far down—
Churn'd on the rocks and stain'd by yellow sand—
Advance incessantly. The air is cool:
Now wanes the day! From this glen's marshy slope
Comes subtle fragrance; and that shelving bank,
Where oaks still hold against the stir and stress
Their sering leaves, alone from sight shuts out
A blazing autumn sunset's scene sublime.

The coastguard's cottage windows, facing West,
Are flaming strangely. Now the night descends—
At once the turf looks cold, forlorn and grey!
Our steps retrace! Once more the hill we climb—
Green, orange, crimson—is the world ablaze?
The churn'd sea burning? Are those loose black clouds,
Which, with the wind, pass off from North to East,
The smoke thereof? It is the sunset—see!
Confess the Presence—watch, but speak no more!

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THE SOUL'S LINEAGE

According to our measure and extent,
Despite long exile in these regions dim,
We must from God compute our soul's descent,
Seeing the soul on Him alone is bent,
And must in that degree partake of Him.

SUSPIRIUM

Where art thou?—Where?—Speak to me once—divide
This dreadful hush of death! Cold grave and dark,
Did that hold anything of her I love
Soul-adjuration and heart-agony
Should vitalise the remnants into life—
So should I hear of thee! Thou dost not sleep;
In the wide measures of eternity
Thou art awake, abroad: but where art thou?
Give me a sign upon the sky to know—
Or let thy tears fall, light as softest down
From dreaming swan upon a pool's still breast,
O'er mine uplifted face, if tears be thine.

Oh lady, thou didst once, a moon at night
Shine burnish'd with a pale and psychic grace,
An argent beauty, toned and soften'd down—
From all hard outlines of reality—
Into a face of dream, which melted all
And the waste world about thee fill'd with love,
As thy soul's magic fill'd the sphere of life!

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But after, stricken in a woeful time—
As sometimes night, star-panoplied, supreme
And saturate with artemisian light,
Grows wan before a vague and dreary day,
And earth's moon, dying in the mist distraught,
Turns to a pallid shadow—thou didst wane
And hence the mercy of all-patient God
Was written in agony through my grey youth,
But thou wast martyr'd more who now art crown'd.
So for thy sufferings' sake, my love, my loss
And the long dereliction of my days,
I swore to wear thenceforth a life unstain'd,
That none should suffer who environ'd me:
So did a heart of pity and pure love
With leaping pulses fill the chords of life
And there is none that I have wrong'd—not one.

Therefore, I pray thee, let this exile end:
In thy clean hands the spirit I have kept
Pure for thy sake, I place. Let the still air
Give up the soft light of thine eyes; and come—
Come in thy mildness; or, that boon denied,
Strong in my yearning, bid me go to thee!

THE BETTER WAY

Our hearts, disdainful in these days, repent
That poor ambition and unwise content,
Which, in the midst of veil and semblance, left
The soul of true realities bereft
And those prerogatives of human mind
Whereby the soul at last leaves veils behind.

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FRAGMENTUM

I look behind on all my former life,
The masque of strange succession in events,
The weirds unfinish'd, the impending dooms,
Whereon, with even mind, with chosen speech,
I muse this day; while, sunk in deepest thought,
Thou standest by me, patient, unperturb'd.
Leaf-blinds are drawn; the late sun shines without
On wide green meadows; all this bower is fill'd
With things familiar. Thou, reserved and cold,
Dost hear my tale; setting and atmosphere—
How formal, friend, and yet what secret things!
What thoughts! What dark thoughts, haunting evermore!

A sudden flash, before the eyes of mind
Passing at times, takes all our heart away,
As rapture caught Elias: we are lost
To earth and time, far in some place of dream.
As sees the warden of the castle walls,
How stretch the pastures wide and darkling woods,
How the vales dimple, how the light streams wind,
What silver shining speaks of sea beyond—
So in light richer than our landscapes know,
Yon ocean splendour, past all fair romance,
Interprets its bright pictures to the heart
By words no more, but living images.
Once, from the realms thereof, we drew that light,
Exalting Nature; but the thoughts, my friend—
The dark, dread thoughts—the deeps behind the gleam,
And in those depths abysses, gloom unpierced!

Now that this avenue of trees is pass'd,

272

Take breath. The road slopes after; its descent
Is steep to reach the streamlet, and with stones
Made rough—to save the horses. Do you mark
That little bridge which spans the burn? Our path
Goes over it. Before us to the left
An old church looms; a growth of ivy there
Shews in the evening light its splendid green
On tower and nave. A dial all the day
Tells time in silence on the southern side.
Here swirls the shallow water; did you catch
That flashing fin? See, in this hole curl'd round,
A speckled eel is sleeping. So we reach
The long white-fronted house. Who dwells therein?
Patience! The water on a single side
Washes the ample lawn; at brink thereof,
Wide spreads the walnut-tree, a stately growth,
Its broad, rich leaves above the waters drooping.
Peace, brother soul! here is the trysting-place.

Perchance things lesser in the end shall save
Things greater, and the least is also first.

WITNESSES OF SILENCE

Man's heart is for himself a volume writ
In cipher, having no true key to it;
And other hearts discourse on every side
Language, to which no lips have e'er replied.

273

A HARD SAYING

Unselfish love, which would true aims fulfil,
Must be what men call mean, must make unask'd
The first advances, and a cold response,
Rebuffs and misconceptions overlook,
To prosecute its end, which is to give,
For love's best reasons, unrequited, all
Love's heart and life's devotion.

This confess'd,
Some brief indulgence let the heart enjoy—
From thought set free, from all the weary weight
Of those great ends whereto, since early days
Elected, souls must strive and, striving, see
New fields of labour opening far beyond
Into the infinite. Then, Love, awhile,
Such heights forsaking, unto some green place,
Like this, in vernal hours or in the soft
Luxuriant summer prime, from high degrees
Exemption find—or take the grade of peace,
Renouncing not. With all our doom foreseen,
Such respite gives the greater strength to bear,
Puts by the sense of whole unworthiness,
Or lifts it up into our aid unask'd
Who cannot choose but deem our souls unmeet,
O Love of all, for love of thine and thee!
Yet only love us, and in love like thine,
Our soul's love-flaming shall be meet to hold,
O love beyond all love, the love of thee!

274

ONE REFUGE

When old convention's sad calamity
Shall, after weary days, our path permit
To issue—undeterr'd and free:
What then remains?
Forest and woodland world, the green,
Far-sparkling plains?
Or fair Romance to lead the lines of it
O'er azure seas serene?

O well for these, if they can take us where
The soul alone would be! Of old we trod,
With shackled limbs, a thousand ways of care;
What profits freedom till it ends in God?

OTHER MANHOODS

Be sure that, ever from the birth thereof,
Both earth and sea are sentiently alive
And in the cosmic harmony perform
A willing part, to holy law conform'd,
Sounding at times an individual note—
Conceived within them—through the starry hymn
Which—Ave, ave!—high creation chants.
The leaf which shrivels in the hand can feel,
Though it be feebly, and the bud which lifts
Its head to catch the sunlight or the dew—
Here something in us prompts and forces faith—
Discerns, though dimly, moisture, light and heat
As life and health and happiness. Through all
That lives some form of consciousness pulsates

275

And not all blindly struggles towards the good,
Sharing some part of our humanity,
Seeking increase thereof. That joyous bird
Which in the glare of this light-clouded sun
Pours forth a fountain-music from his soul,
Is surely conscious of the power of song,
And in a measurable way perceives
The beauty of it—in his own degree
Is therefore poet, since the gift is his,
The conscious use and simple love thereof.
In some translation of a later day,
Some evolution now on earth undream'd,
Are any heights forbidden him?—Who knows?
This only—from the deeps within ourselves,
Above the common interests of sense,
Strange pasts at times well up, of leaf and bud,
And we who know not truly what we are
Know also not, yet guess, what once we were.

THE POET SPEAKS

With silent steps thou movest, Moon, on high,
For ever keeping thine appointed course!
What hope of rest is thine? What native source
Dost thou for peace seek out? The days go by—
There comes no end in sight, no haven nigh:
What impulse prompts thee on thy starry road?
Ah, shine! Thy splendours bless this dark abode;
With mild effulgence fill the spacious sky.
O Solitary Lady, we have grown—
Our eyes so long on thy long journey fix'd—
Almost content to be, like thee, alone,
In steadfast thought, with other thought unmix'd:
Our paths, like thine, go upward and descend;
Aside we cannot swerve, or see the end.

277

PATHS OF ZION

278

“Amor ipse notitia est . . . Amor oculus est . . . Amare videre est.”—Confess. Sancti Augustini, Lib. vii. cap. 10.

279

MINISTRIES OF GRACE

Gates of the grace of God—a thousand gates—
Lie open round us; neither bar nor lock
Prevails; and there is nothing in the world
Which asks to keep its secrets in the heart:
All are set forth for worship. Nature's scrolls
Lie written and over-written everywhere—
Without, within; the hidden meanings sing,
Great symbols shout, till knowledge fills the soul.
Not into gold and gems are common things
Changed suddenly; the precious metal shines,
The jewel, native to the heart of each.

Bear witness, Sons of Song, that not in vain
Shall any man—with God's true gift of eyes—
Explore the windings of a bosky road,
Hedge-bound by spring-time green or summer's wealth;
Through elms and oaks behold in holt or chase
A quiet homestead; watch in welkin light
While rooks round windy nests in circles wheel
And by the symmetry of motion shame
Their own discordant notes; or contemplate
The gracious fusion of a beechen grove
With ancient, sombre, solitary firs.
From grass to star, whatever lives lays bare
Its virtues and an infinite behind.
The eye shall not be satisfied indeed
For evermore with seeing—till an eye
Turns inward, looking for the God within.

280

Yet each and all of these, or kindred boons,
Reward our sight; and thanks are therefore due—
Alike for object and for instrument—
Till God's transcendence swallows up in fine
God's immanence.

My praise is render'd now
For that white mare on pasture grazing yonder,
Her one white foal beside, with one white star
Seal'd on its forehead; for the scent inhaled
This evening early in the month of June,
From hawthorn hedge-fence and from new-mown hay,
Just after rain, ascending. . . . Here I cross
A country-stile and suddenly take note—
Above that stretch of level sward and bush—
How lifting mist leaves bare the downs beyond;
Once and again, while twilight closes round,
How—in the shadow of this old church-porch,
Old tombs beside me—I can hear, far off,
The solemn washing of an open sea,
As if the voice of everness spoke out
In time, news giving of a home for souls.

Voice and the Word for ever; timeless sense
Past all this sense of time; an issue found—
Through things that are—into the great and good!
How end then therefore, save in man himself—
That gate which ever, in the least and most,
Swings open Godward? Listen, Sons of Song:
Whoever on the grace of youth or maid
Dwells with pure eyes, heart-fill'd and moved to prayer,
Has kiss'd with worship a responding mouth,
Lays treasures for the heart up . . . Give me still
The end heroic and the term sublime!
All these may lead thereto; love most is path
And makes most also of the mountain-ways.
End, and an end in God—His end and ours!
O crown us at that last for evermore!

281

I. PART I
FACES TOWARDS JERUSALEM

282

He sits exalted in his crown's pure light,
Amongst his kindred seraphs, hid from men—
Withdrawn in burning nimbus. What remains?
This weeping world we lode for lode of him
To lift by lode of him to him we lode.

283

I
IN CIVITATE DEI MAGNA

The city is dusty, the streets are long,
And the sky overhead looks dim;
But, ah! it is fill'd with a thought of thee,
As the church with the chanted bymn.
It is fill'd with the memories bright of thee,
As the spirit with grace divine;
If a sunbeam fall upon path or wall
I know 'tis a smile of thine.

Comes there a pause in the whirl around,
Thy heartstrings there I hear;
Sounds there a voice that is sweet and low,
I know thy voice is near;
Gleams there a face that is fair to see,
Wherever thy form may dwell,
I know it is thou by the white, white brow,
Thou spirit of Israfel!

O, I shall stand in a moment more
Where oft thy feet have trod,
Which now go over the steep incline
That leads to the Mount of God!
As ever they press on their forward way
There falls on the pilgrim's face
A beam more bright of the wond'rous light
That shines in the Holy Place.

284

II
EIDOLON

No eye but mine is on the shifting waste,
As poised upon this steep cliff's utmost rim
I watch the world of waters. Many times
Have I thank'd God for that most perfect line
Wherewith the still sky rings the restless deep—
For passing ships; for tides which come and go;
For cultivated fields—with ample curves
Sloping and sweeping shoreward; for the glare
Day long on rough white chalk; for silent caves;
For shelter'd coves and shallows known to few;
For waste and lonely places unenclosed,
Which ocean peoples with a thousand voices.
But now my soul is moved by deeper thoughts:
One face transmuted in a light of mind
Is o'er the shadow'd prospects of my life
Exalted sacredly, like Dian's horn,
When—out of mists, from mead and marsh escaping—
She soars and finds the zenith.

Israfel,
That face is thine. I stand and think of thee,
Till thought evokes thine image: it is poised
In glory above these waters. To the sky
Thy face is turn'd, thy holy hands are clasp'd,
The light wind gently lifts and floats thy hair.
White vestures also by the wind are trail'd
A yard behind thee; subtle haze of light
Surrounds thy body; and its waist is girdled
With white and fragrant lilies ... I have clothed
A human form in dreams with angel-hood,
And evermore a spirit in my heart
It dwells. Transfigur'd, thou hast pass'd from earth

285

Into a world of emblems, and therein
The stature of immortal life is thine.
Exempt from passion, weakness, pain and change,
Dost thou live ever a reserved, remote,
Translated life. And having lifted thee
Above this world's modalities, meseems
That this most blessed vision—beyond all thought
By my dream fashion'd—is most truly thou.
It was thy human nature prompted it:
The meekness, modesty and grace thereof
Have nourish'd and enhanced it. Thou alone
Didst prompt the vision, and all light thereof
Is shrined in thee. That manifested life,
Before earth-eyes presented, has reveal'd
An inner self which more than fleshly form
Is thine, is thou.

Thou art not yet perchance
In full fruition of that nobler part,
For in these daily ways the man divine
Holds chiefly from the lesser self aloof;
Some beams shine o'er it and in warmth does love
Descend thereon, to link the flesh therewith;
But perfect union of the twain on earth
Is compass'd rarely. When the heart is cleansed,
The heart draws toward it; when mere life of sense
Sinks down subdued and unimpeded mind
In conquest towers, then mind and vesture both
Abide transfigured in the light thereof,
For flesh when order'd well can also shine.
Thou in such light art dwelling, and thy face
Has—like a mirror—to my inward eyes
Reveal'd the nobler self: I see thy god.
I see thee stately, stedfast, pure of heart,
While earth-born natures—with the meaner man
And mundane things contented—have so far
From true self lapsed that no ray enters in
To beautify the temple's outer courts,

286

Which never therefore to pellucid sight
Reveal the brilliant spectrum of that high,
Undying part.

I stand beside the sea:
Waves swell, wind rises, falls an autumn night;
And as that moon doth, when the darkness deepens,
Her own face brighten more, thy face grows fairer
Amidst the inward darkness of the world.
Thy nature alters, towards the self supreme
Ascending daily; and mine own shines also—
With thy great love suffused, by a most strong,
Immortal love of thee suffused, transform'd.
I look to see thee, in the world beyond,
With God made one for ever in thy soul:
May I with God be one by love for thee;
May this wide sea denote what fills with strength,
The orb'd moon witness that which cheers and leads,
Descending night portray the veils that hide
All paths henceforth but those which lead to heights
Untravell'd! May it hide all tarnish'd love,
To perfect state exalting love for thee!
May that my spirit sanctify and seal,
And—for thy love—may I the world itself
By mine own labours seal and sanctify,
Then make the guerdon of that sacred task
One new star shining in thy crown of life—
My saint, my light, my symbol, Israfel!

III
TOWARDS PERFECT DAY

I saw thy forehead touch'd with lunar beams:
Pax tecum, Sponsa Christi, Christ and God
Encompass, Bright One, and abide in thee;

287

In outward life God's Temple be thy wall
And priestly vigils keep thee free from fall!

God knows, my saint, I might have held with thee
The human intercourse of friend and friend;
Speech might have pass'd between us, our warm hands
Have clasp'd at greeting and at parting time.
Seas roll their tides between us: dost thou watch
Heaven's fair queen rising? Are thine eyes and mine
Both fix'd thereon? Does thy heart also swell?
Soars all thy nature upward, gazing there—
Pure soul, high soul? O gracious communings,
Strong love of friend and friend, by me renounced,
That in a mirror of the mind preserved
Thy sacred semblance should be free from stain!
My true reward is with me here and now,
For, like a spirit from the sea's white spume
At eve ascending, lo, thy Symbol rose
And draws me on for ever, Moon of Faith,
Vision of Christ unseen! The potent sign—
Such spells evoked—pours down its light on thee:
This is no dream; it draws thy human self;
It takes thee starward. Thou art daily raised,
Till, like a cold and shifting sea, far down
Thine eyes behold the flux of mortal things—
A restless waste below thee—toss perturb'd.
Still on the sacred height thy glorious moon
Of spirit—manifest in lambent flame—
Shall glow for ever before the veil of God.

Poise, happy moon, for ever; in the cold
And starry spaces poise thy shining shield!
Behold, as shadows on the road, are cast
Our meaner selves behind us. Earth and sea
Are in thy light transfigured; vistas bright
And paths that end not tempt us sweetly forth;
A thousand lofty hopes inspire the heart

288

Which from a lonely zenith of the soul
Thou pourest downward, as the moon her beams,
O Mystic Moon, enthroned in heaven of mind!

IV
TO OTHER ENDS

He glides before us with the torch of Christ,
Lux Christi crying in this night of time:
On his God-haunted face the grace of God
Dwells visibly; so, chaste and passionless,
His beauty utters its apocalypse,
Or lifts its glass of vision. In such depths
I read man's life anew; a soul-born glow
Has fallen on its pages; all the words
Of that close-written volume take a fresh,
Unlook'd for meaning. Evermore betwixt
The lines of its enigmas shall I read
His gracious message and the peace thereof,
His creed of hope.

I hear it even now,
Though this be dream. The opal twilight falls,
And in the silentness of mere and mead
A church-bell summons to the vesper-hymn.
Is that thy voice which bids me also forth?
Is that the music of thy heart most pure
Which in the pauses of the whirl of thought
Sends forth its summons like a bell to me?
I will not stay to take up staff and scrip,
To count the things I leave or bid farewells.
Behold, I come! Mine empty hands can bear
Whatever burdens may seem well to thee.

289

And now my soul uplifted views afar
The heights of life, desired and sought so long;
But faintly limn'd against the furthest sky
Are altitudes beyond them. Thence thy voice
Is calling, nothing I behold of thee—
A voice alone upon the mountain-tops
Which calls and calls. The road is steep and wild?
I come no less: I will not faint nor pause.
Ascend, bright spirit, with the speech of God:
My heart is strong to follow and achieve;
But when those vision'd peaks of life I win,
Return into some greater height above
And lead me thus for ever—still remote,
A voice alone on the eternal hills
Which calls and calls.

V
AND SO FORWARD

O wondrous lustre of the mountain snow,
By sacred morning's light of gold inform'd,
By golden morning's blessed light illumed,
By magian light on all the airless crests—
Whatever storms may vex the world below,
Whatever clouds may darken earth and sea—
On those proud peaks, through all and all illumed!

O saffron light of morning, on such hills
The weeping angels watch with straining eyes,
While Christ still tarries in the House of Death!
Break, Rose of Morning, break in bright array:
Thy fragrance fills the spaces of the air,
Thy blush uplights the future! And, meseems,

290

It floods my house of life for evermore—
A glory of holy soul!

The start is made:
Light, beauty, lead; and lead, thou hand of God;
Call earth and sky; calls mystic sea profound;
Life calls and death. The shining Crown of Life
And thine uplifted nature's secret heights
My strengthen'd spirit to achieve sets out,
Saint Israfel!

VI
HOW NATURE HELPS

I see this eve—o'er these familiar fields—
The sky grow blue: thy transient opal shines:
I see thine amethyst and opal deep,
Thou sky of God, and all thy West aflame!
Ensanguined clouds across that gleaming vault
Sail in the wind of sunset. Splendours bright,
Your tinctures perish while I watch, but one
Shines in achievement, in lone beauty shines.

The world unfolds in front, now cloud-involved:
Is that the early moon within the mist
Which I see southward, like a phantom light,
Hang in a rainy sky? Chirps one weak bird:
From wold and woodland, as in dream, the day—
A pallid death withdraws. The bleak wind stirs
Complaining trees. Far winds the path I take:
It is one voice invites, one star which leads,
One hope which shines through all . . .

The wide meads stretch:
Lo, all the West behind me suddenly

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Glows newly: how the blue sky clears o'erhead!
It is not night, nor seems it evening yet;
A spring sun shines, and like a tocsin beats
The heart of youth through all the smiling land.
Sing on, thou lark! O'er all these open fields
The long grass glitters in the light and wind.
Thou wind, sing on; thou clear, discoursing stream,
Make gladsome music! Neither storm nor gloom
Are round me now. Fair winds the path I take;
Spring buds of bushes upon both its banks
Are bursting forth . . .

And I shall see thy face—
Because the dream supports me, I shall see
Thy face once more. Thou wilt not fail me, nay,
The quest shall finish as it starts perchance:
This sun descending—now with vapours veil'd—
Spreads light on miles of mead and marsh, immersed
In April floods. The hedges and the trees—
Which out of waters rise—cast lengthening shades
Along the gleaming surface; all around
I hear the gentle lapse of little brooks,
While not more cool than fragrant turns awhile
The South's soft air.

VII
MASTER-BUILDING

Green earth is round thee and blue-gleaming sea
Spreads far before—so full, so bright, so fair
Its silver surface: on the beach it lies,
As a child breathing on the breast asleep.
There is no limit to the golden hopes
Which light, like lamps, the future's floral paths.
There is no path too long, no goal too far,

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No height beyond thee: thou art strong for all
And all in turn renouncest—land and sea,
Youth's kingship, youth's inheritance therein,
And towards the perfect, hidden life in God
Directest only thy desiring eyes:
May thy high soul be throned o'er space and time;
Be thine the Secret Name, the Morning Star!

Like Michael soaring from celestial strife,
I watch thee rise; through surging mists of sense
Thy strong right arm put forth, thy shapely head—
With striving face upturn'd and streaming hair—
All light itself, into the light ascends.
The rainbow-splendour of unspotted mind
Invests thee now; so sinks the flesh subdued:
Thine earnest lips the grace of soul invoke,
The secret eye which sees and searches all,
The word of spirit in the soul itself
Declared. . . .

But now, with modest eyelids droop'd,
With even pulse, with cool and indrawn mien,
I see thee stand, still in thy white array'd.
Thou speakest not: this is thy victory,
Who hast, triumphant by the strength of will,
Compass'd thine end. Henceforth the voice of God
Teaches within, the spirit of Christ inspires.

So dost thou issue from thy house of thought,
With hands uplifted: thou art priest and king.
What dost thou seek among thy weaker kind?
The priestly sacredness of thine own self
For man to offer in the name of God—
A cause divine. . . . What angel dwells on earth?
Nay, ask what earnest man of mien erect,
In whose eyes shines the troth of other worlds,
Reveals a perfect law, the Food Divine

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Administers, and spans the breathless height
'Twixt man and God, the mystic bridge makes known—
No longer narrow as a sword's sharp edge,
For all can wall thereon.

My lord, all hail!
Thy call is coming out of realms unseen;
The work is done. Put off thy garments now,
The lapse and wash of an eternal sea
Stirs in the twilight hush. So pass therein;
The waters once above thy form will close,
But when thy head divides their surface calm
Comes light, comes warmth of the eternal day.
I ask no inspiration now from earth,
Or ocean's voice, to paint in human terms
A soul transfigured by immortal being.
I see thy former nature magnified,
While other missions lead, in worlds unknown,
Most saintly missions, of thy progress born—
Of God's deep counsels born—for evermore.

And now to Him Who gives us space to dream in
Be praise for ever from our dreams and us;
May noble acts be food for dreams still nobler;
May these, ascending in a scale divine,
The scope of action and of life enlarge,
Till life with Him be one!

VIII
THE END CROWNS

O secret symbol, seen by bad and good,
Unfold for ever! May we know thee more,
And more expanding, may thy meaning high
Reveal the perfect measures of the law!

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Pass all things dark before it, pass and die;
But on the pure, regenerated, free
Ascending mind of man, on life's new age,
Shine, mellow moon unwaning; shed thy beams
Of mildness, mercy and intelligence!
Symbolic Moon, may God light man in thee!
All earthly loves have perish'd; that remains
Wherewith we love thee and are led by thee,
And that—imperishable, peerless, strong—
By which thy spirit is to God led up,
O human nature of our emblem pure,
With whom may God remain in light and love,
In life immortal and the Crown of Life!

I set my Symbol, fill'd with meanings deep,
To shine before thee—in thy face, O man,
To shine in beauty! Take it, gentle world:
Be worthy thou; fulfil what wants in me!
So as the moon, new-born in month of May,
Shall wax each night, this lamp of thine and mine
Will amplify its purport. Should it prove
That in far years the lustrous beams matured
Shall offer light beyond the light of mind,
Remember him who set a beacon-torch
On his own heights to burn, and greaten more.
Peace fill thy heart, while I go faring forth,
My part to act. May all things great be thine:
If from an apex past all dream I cry,
Believe the news I send of realms unknown—
My friends, my lovers, and judge me worthy you!

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IX
WITH HARP AND CROWN

Sons of the Morning and Eternity,
Children of Benediction and of Light,
Daughters of angels' kisses: I have wrought
A little book of melody and love—
A book against the resurrection-day—
Song mystic of humanity divine,
Achieved in one regenerated heart—
Our bright sidereal beacon, Israfel.
I swear, my brethren, by the Orphic faith,
And by the faithful prophecies inscribed
Deep in discerning souls, that starry hosts
Lead on that spirit, and his reign is nigh.
He stands erect among frankincense clouds,
A pillar of melody; his saffron hair
Is a cloud of harpstrings; as he moves in grace
And ministers, the ground beneath his feet
Quivers in music, like a sounding-board;
The parted air about him slowly streams
Into faint flute-notes. In God's Holy Place
He wears himself the aspect of a god:
Has eyes and sees celestial hierarchies,
With companies of martyrs and of saints;
Has lips which shape man's language to divine
And voice it past the common range of sound,
To traverse God's infinity as prayer;
Has ears wherein celestial harmonies
Find passage through wide galleries of soul,
Wherein they circulate and amplify,
As in white sea-shells tinged with coral pink
All ocean's vastness hollowly resounds;

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Has hands to sanctify by service meet
Among the vessels and the mysteries;
Has feet ascending to the throne of God;
And—with a clamorous music in his throat—
Utters the watchwords of eternity.

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II. PART II
FLOWERS OF PARADISE

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“Amor transformat amantem in amatum, facit amantem intrare ad interiora amati e te contra, ut nihil amati remanet non unitum.”—Doctor Angelicus.

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I
PROEMIUM

GATES OF LOVE

Is that thy voice which, deep in haunted glades,
Expounds the passion of the nightingale?
Is that thy smile which on these Kentish cliffs
Pours mellow warmth o'er miles of waving wheat?
Is that thine eyes' light on the gleaming sea?
Is that the flower-sweet fragrance of thy breath
In hyacinthine dingles, deeply sunk,
Possess'd by spells and incense? Is it thou
Whose beauty's morn, in amaranthine blue
And glory draped, looks down on joyful earth
And royal majesty of open main
From such unmeasured distance? Hast thou won
Thy dimpled whiteness from the sea-gull's wings,
Thy splendour ravish'd from a raptured sky,
Thy freedom's grace from fountains, from the depths
Of brooding ocean such unsearchable
Profundity of spirit-speaking eyes?
Or dost thou lend thy nature's secret wealth
To garnish and intinct the world without?

Sons of the Voice and Everlasting Peers,
Who look to see the Bridegroom and the Bride,
I bring you once again a little book
Of transformation on the psychic plane;
And may Lucasta's love-born litanies
Be counted as a prophecy or pledge
Of more resplendent exploits still to come—
The metamorphoses of Orphic art.

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I look to see most mighty things of God
Accomplish'd in the land of living men.
The unprepared but pure hypostasis
Is one fair-shining maid's simplicity—
A sacramental type of hidden truth,
Reality and beauty which transcend
Expression. We are born with faces veil'd
As Moses' was, to hide the god within:
May one translucid veil by Horeb's light
Be here transfigured, earth and heaven be join'd
In high Hermetic Marriage, which transmutes
The world to gold.

Discriminate between
The letter and the spirit that indwells:
Be then all lustre yours, all magian gifts,
Peace, inspiration, pure imagining,
Laurel and sacred palm and crown of life.

II
DIVINE MISSION

Imagination, vesting mortal form
With shadows cast by Deity, be thou
My minister! Immortal Mind, proclaim
Thy true intent! Magician of the Will,
Directing both, and thou, uplifted soul
Of inspiration and of poesy,
A holy task is yours: with power descend!
A life is put into your priestly hands
To lead by lone and consecrated paths
From realm to realm of ideality.

The panorama of this outward world,
Before mine eyes transfigured in a breath,
Is supernaturally glorified.

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A high entrancement dwells on earth and sky,
On that far-gleaming pageantry—that flash
Of crumbling crests—proclaiming open sea—
My other self-ness or my heritage.
So one thing more to beautify and bless—
One human soul to deify—one maid
To fill with immortality—one deep,
Illuminating, infinite dream of love!

I thank Thee for this bracing mountain-air
Which rectifies all faculties of soul,
Thou mighty God! I yearn, I yearn, to Thee.
My heart ascends in aspiration pure
To meet Thy majesty, Thy tranquil light:
Another being in these arms I bear.
Baptize her beauty in benignant beams,
Invest her with the freedom's perfect gift
Of Thine illuminated and elect.

III
WORLDS OF MINISTRY

There is no peace, no beauty in the glare
About life's low, relaxing meadow lands:
But trustfully resign thy gentle self,
And I will bear thee hence to secret hills—
From all things common, limited and base
To all uplifted, liberated, rare,
To unexplored, intelligible realms
Invested with the majesty of dream.

Across the threshold of thy glorious eyes
I gaze and see thy soul.

Exclude me not,
Nor—Mother Nature—blame a chosen priest!

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Send forth innumerable voices high
From thy four quarters, multiply above
Thy solar pageants! Worshipful, I take
And minister thy worshipful sacraments.

Speak to me, world of waters! Thy fair breast—
All light, all beauty, like the face I love—
Exhales an efflorescence of thyself,
Thy grandeur, depth and mastery. Her height,
Thy deeps, thy vastness, seem as phases three
Of one unfathom'd wonder. Her I see
Who, distant in a city of darkling ways,
Will tarry, prayers upholding, till I come.
Here—in the vigour of this morning wind—
I stand, self-poised, upon a peak of rock,
While all thy glistering and gladsome pomp
Of hasty tide about me swirls and swells;
While every shallow on the shingled shore
Is like a boy's voice, meeting careful life
With blithesome laughter; but the distant tracks
Speak as with tidings of a mission'd man,
Who—from the heart and centre of all things—
Ascends with revelation. Thou art nigh
When in the haunted city of darkling ways
I stand, absorb'd in speculation deep
Before my vestal's shrine.

Absorb'd I stand.
Grey eyes—Madonna—sacramental world—
Immeasurable main of mighty soul!
There is no sea, no sky, no fruitful earth;
That is no lark which sings, no summer breeze
That laves and censes: it is thou in each—
Thou variously, inscrutably reveal'd;
And plunged for ever in a trance of love,
I lose myself, I melt, I merge in thee.
'Tis not the moon, with spiritual beams
Some night-sea soothing: thou art moon and sun,

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While in illimitable ocean thou
Assumest other majesty and form.
Thy grace is in acacia and in beech;
And when thy lover in a lane at noon,
Beneath some maple lays his languid limbs,
And the broad, rumour-full, benignant leaves
Give shadow-shelter in a torrid time,
And drooping low—with lissome whispering—
Fan fever'd forehead, or in ears adream
Recite dryadic rhymes and roundelays;
It is the providence of thy pure love
Which closes round him. On thy lap he lies—
Thy heart the moss which pillows and thy breath
The zephyrs, all leaf-messages thy voice,
And those dryadic roundelays and rhymes
A rhythmic efflorescence of thy soul,
Whose vaults are resonant with organ-odes
And stately epics of eternity.

IV
GREAT SACRAMENTS

One dainty, soft and fruitful shower of rain
Has purged and clarified the fragrant air
On this God-favour'd evening, late in spring.
It shines as lucent as thy virgin brow,
O thou most worshipful! To every stir
Its cool, translucent particles respond
By tremulous emotions far prolong'd.
The seething murmurs of the shifting sea
Melt in the pleasance of a mood of dreams;
The temper'd merriment and melody
Of church-bells ringing in the distance seem
A benediction of thy beautiful voice
Which lifts my soul into eternity.

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There falls a gleam upon the open main:
Nor blue, nor grey—it shines with thine eyes' light.
God bless the wonder of those waters deep;
God bless thine eyes—their beauty fills my life;
God bless that lark—his frenzy haunts the sky;
God bless thy voice—its modulated tones
Have spell'd full often many a waste of waves
And oft Astarte bound through formless nights—
When tempests scream'd—to pour her peaceful rays
On riven landscapes of the inner world.
God bless the ripples of thy music, all
My nature lifting to love's mantic heights,
High spiritual quests of life and thought:
God bless thee ever and in all thy ways!

I stand this night upon a lofty down;
The dreaming city by a dreaming sea
Beneath me spreads, bewitch'd in dreaming air:
Round me are solitude and wilderness.
I call God's rain of benediction down
To water all the Paradise of thy soul:
Descend, celestial and deific dew;
Rise, Eden-incense, and thy virtue sweet
Diffuse around thee, as the clover fills
These fields uplifted with its teeming scent.

And, lo, the darkness—like a loving mouth—
Parts in the utterance of a bell-sweet name!
The stars stand close around, the trees incline;
From every quarter of the open world
One mystic word—Madonna—softly breathes,
With meanings foreign to the land or sea.
May the strong influence of wind-swept downs,
Of aromatic odours brought from far—
Descending—fill the shining veils of her,
So made a porcelain vessel for the night's
All-sacred myrrh and essences of nard!

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V
CHOIRS MADE VISIBLE

The luminiferous and azurine,
Immeasurable vault of holy sky
Its living tincture softens slowly down—
Through hyacinthus and through heliotrope—
To opal's pallid and elusive charm.
Here too in twilight-hush my Lady's eyes,
Dilating gently—as a soul expands
By noble thought—diffuse the tender light
Of hallow'd human love. Descending dew—
So long desired—distil thy purest drops;
These scatter'd tresses cool, irradiate.
My nature quickens in a pool of love
Which spreads toward all mankind; great Nature drinks
The sacred, deifying soma-draught
Of dews and moonlight, then in every leaf,
In each light breath that stirs her magic sleep,
Vaticinates about us, pouring forth
Pontifical consecrations. These in turn
Enthrone my spirit, as its pulses beat
By thee, most blessed; while a virtue falls
In broad vibrations, from the trembling beams,
Diffused, of this orb'd moon aureoline.

An unimaginable splendour fills
My spirit with prophecy, and sight therein:
So in the floral future of the world
I stand translated—in that sanctity
After the pattern of a poet's mind
Created. On the summit far in soul
The four-square city of a Salem new
Stands high-erected, stands the House of God,

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Most perfect Temple of Humanity.
This is the bright and everlasting day
Our Lord hath made; it is the day of Christ.

Strike, harps of angels, harps of God, the Scald;
Strike, harps of kings; strike, Io Evohe:
With choral chants proclaim the coming age!

VI
TO ISLES OF LIGHT

Blest be this undergrowth! May rain and dew
Increase it still! And blest the tranquil breeze
Which—after cooling showers—has crept across
From dark, rick downs that ring the country round!
Blest too this sky of June, like April's seen:
Glory of sapphire blue, glory of cloud!

The quiet spirit into trance ascends:
I reach that world where all things dream'd may be—
If by sublimity and virtue they
Can urge a claim on life. I seek therein
That process, hidden in the psychic plane,
Whereby the beauty of a maid elect
May with the glory of essential light
Be inwardly emblazon'd . . . I have found
A secret path; I know the perfect way
Through which the stream of spiritual life
Flows down to re-create the hearts of men.

I take thee hence; I lead and lead thee on;
The aspiration, the desire, the will
Uplift us both. Thou art no more of earth;

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The troubled cosmos of created things
Remotely gleams and glimmers. O the wings
Which bear us now, that other dawn which breaks!
Sword-guarded Eden and those gardens bright,
Those shadow-palaces, those haunted mosques—
Irêm, the wandering city—are in thee
Henceforth the high possession of my soul.

VII
AN IMAGE OF THE WORLD

Beside the lone coast's utter solitude,
I fill thy spirit with the ocean's voice,
As lone sea-caves are fill'd; or haunt thy brain
With singing winds and clamour of joyful brids
In heaven afloat. Thine eyes of trust and love
Transfigure with an ardent violet
From the bright zenith's royal altitude.
Now sunset's bloom of rose has tinged thy cheeks;
The lanes and gardens, full of floral scents,
Make thy white robes magnolian. Now thy speech
To day-long melody of summer-months
Is modulated; life's harp-harmonies
Have mellow'd all the movements of thy limbs.
Behold, I face thee—with thy hair unbound—
To meet the magic of a moon at full;
High praise of Dian, the beloved, the crown'd,
The plenteous queen, has drawn her tawny light
To make thy nimbus. Now the choir of stars
Has tranquillised the waters of thy soul,
Till thou art hush'd and hallow'd and subdued.
Behind the veils of matter and of time,
The secret beauty shines, and that within
Thy gracious sacrament of outward form

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Makes answer, leaping toward the actual
With parabolic bursts of melody.

So shine that age when every maid and youth
Shall equal glories wear, such crowns assume,
And in the mystic city of the blest
No sun shall set, nor moon shall need to rise,
But there the Christ-light of the human soul
In house and street abide!

VIII
FOR THY MARRIAGE

And when for us sounds nuptial hour of souls
A mystic bridal shall be held therein;
Red morn shall lend her banners, eve her star
And night her dews and moonbeams. There shall rise
A choric grandeur of unbonded sea—
The holy, holy sea; splendour of lights
Shall gather round us and shall clothe us then.

Such splendour bursts e'en now: O sky of grey,
Which veils ineffable dyes and sundown gold,
O lonely lanes and vistas in the wood,
Which twilight fills with mystery! Wan star,
White star, first star, pure font of trembling light!
O deep, adorable, ecstatic hush,
Which fills my soul with longing for the far,
The unattainable, the sky-bound verge,
Profounder hush and higher mystery!

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IX
TALISMANIC MAGIC

Heart's truth, the moon above a hidden sea—
Above those silent waters, merged in mist—
Uplifts the splendour of her perfect disc,
With hay-time halo ring'd, and fills the sky
With golden glamour . . . Turn thy speaking eyes . . .
When on some lofty ridge, which faces North,
The wind-tide beats about us—cool and fresh,
New life infusing—there some psychic grace
Expands my faculties: the length and breadth,
The glory and resources of this world,
I realise. But when with patient, fond,
Discerning thoughts I gaze—dream-spell'd—on thee,
Thy nature's possibilities unfold,
As with resplendent blossoms all adorn'd
In everlasting May-time of the mind.

So God be praised, Who made thy gentle soul,
And under sacramental veils abides
Within thy nature's inmost sanctuary;
Bless'd all the stars that shape thy future ways;
Bless'd all who love thee and are loved by thee!
Be thy true lover in thy beauty bless'd—
His heart's ideal taking shape in thee,
In thee attain'd.

The Daughter of the Voice—
Bath-kol, the mystic Daughter of the Voice—
Makes answer through the infinite: Amen.

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THE POOR BROTHER'S MASS-BOOK

OR A DEVOUT METHOD OF ASSISTING AT THE HOLY SACRIFICE FOR CHILDREN WHO ARE NOT OF THIS WORLD. ITEM: AN IMPLIED MANNER OF SERVING, FOR CLERKS OF THE HOLY ASSEMBLIES.

When so much fails the soul; when lights in flashes
Dazzle, then die; and when the paths we trod
Shew all grcen life about them burnt to ashes—
What then remains? A new appeal to God.
Beyond the Orders and the Thurches rise
The great and secret heights. The soul descries,
Despite immeasurable distance, how
Ascent is possible at will for all
Who do no proffer'd graces disavow.
And seeing that the nearest door perchance
Is that intended for her first advance,
Less as a home at first than house of call,
She to the Thurch appeals for ministries.
Haply it follows that the soul, who there
Enters on inward offices of prayer—
Despite the letter and its grievous chain—
Shall find the Thurch has all and there remain.

I
WHEN PASSING THE THRESHOLD OF THE TEMPLE

The postulant enters the outward Church, to partake of its ministry, as one who accepts for the moment a second best, while desiring those things which are supernal.

Greater Disillusion

Behold we stand from all deceit apart!
Nothing misleads us, nothing can betray:
We have reckon'd up all vanities and seek
True life alone, asking for God through all,
Having outgrown some sacraments and types
But yet deferring to their ministry,
As to the service of green leaves at noon
And all the votive offerings Nature brings—
Odours of sweetness, myrrh, frankincense, gold.

While men are seeking for truth with many clamours, it may happen that God opens the door of the heart and comes in.

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II
WHEN TAKING SEAT

The Postulant assumes his appointed place with prefect conformity, under obedience to the instituted signs, invoking the Voice and the Word.

The Voice of the Beloved

That which we heard of old, and long to hear,
Speak in the floods once more, or, far and near,
Amidst the rushing winds reverberate;
In the sea's music, mother of thought profound
And deepest feeling, let the tidings sound;
Most in thought's silent ways, early and late!

The Second Temple was not less the House of God because the Shekinah was withdrawn. So is the Presence with us, whether It is realised or not.

III
THE FIRST RECOLLECTION

The soul exhorts herself, because paths of advance in the several grades of the Lesser and Greater Mysteries are in a certain sense narrow, and few enter the Gate which opens towards the Higher Palace.

Le Moyen de Parvenir

Straight as the path which leads in distant days
To the large issues of the narrow gate,
Be our life shaped in all its ways and aims,
And let all high intent the heart upraise;
But do not bide till we can meet all claims,
Or, with the chance of service, stand and wait!

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It is with the great matters of religion as it is with the business of life; if we looked for time and opportunity, we should do but little in the latter, and if we tarried in the other to increase worthiness, we should never go back to God. It might be written that we shall be worthy when we enter into the Divine Union.

IV
A PREFATORY MEDITATION

The sun rises in the East to restore the blessing of daylight, and another sun, rising in the soul of man, brings peace as well as justice.

And so Onward

Through earth's long day, the spirit and the flesh
Maintain their strife within; but our life's star
Illumines still the intellectual air,
Strength, beauty, brilliance gathering as it moves,
Till slowly upward soars man's nobler self
Towards calmer zones, to zeniths of the mind
Aspiring. Necessary helps vouchsafed
Our weakness strengthen—most, O mighty sea,
Thy vastness and thy voices, strength with strength
Enduing! And ye too, ye lonely roads,
Ye thickets only by the fox and bird
Frequented, and ye populous human haunts—
One whole gigantic heart, throbbing with life—
Ye also help in your own high degree!
But when these fail us, as our last resource,
The House of God remains to take us in;
And if to hearts inhibited at times

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The ministrations in the Holy Place
Seem voided, know, the Master of the House,
With signs of presence, shall at need invest
Both inward chancel and external nave.

We cannot suppose that the man is approaching God who has obviously no desire thereof; but we must hope that deep in his heart there may still be a latent capacity of that desire.

V
THE CEREMONY OF COMMENCING THE OFFICE

The Great Mysteries of Religion, as represented by their Liturgical Rites, begin invariably with invocation of the Divine Names, by the way of that substitution which signifies, in a summary, the whole mission of the Church, being the reverent and orderly communication of great auguries and tokens which stand for things not manifest: e.g. the In Nomine which opens the Mass.

The Secret Name

The letters of the Name we long to learn
Are found in sacred books at every turn,
Yet we in vain those characters may trace,
And with our eyes their outward sense discern;
For the Great Name itself, our saving grace,
Is utter'd only in the Holy Place.

The atmosphere of the Divine Secret abides in a great disinterest, and yet that secret is nearest of all things.

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VI
INTROIBO AD ALTARE DEI

It is good to enter the Path which takes the Seeker to the Altar, for Heaven comes down to the soul which cannot ascend thereto.

The Cause Pleaded

We have confess'd Thee since our days began,
Thy law discern'd in all creation's plan,
And yet unprofitable servants still
Remain, so distant from Thy holy hill,
Conscious of nothing like the dreadful want
And void within us—full of rumours dark—
Waiting Thy manifested covenant,
The refuge of Thine Altar and Thine Ark.

The youth of the soul is the King's Presence, and the joy which cometh thereof is morning's joy and the Mass-time.

VII
JUDICA ME, DEUS

He who prays to be delivered from the evil man asks to be saved from himself.

The Other Way

We prove all paths, nor find a road in one;
Seek many things beneath the wintry sun
Which shines alone on this dim earth of ours;
But when the barren strife at length is done
May grace, free-handed, come with blessed dowers
And shew the true way strewn with deathless flowers.

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Judge Thou between our part of life, which yearns
To reach Thee, and that burden of our dole—
The part of death which into death returns:
Proclaim Thy high salvation in the soul,
Fill with Thy light and in Thy love make whole!

The soul is sad and disturbed because of the great distance; but this is a part of her illusion.

VIII
THE CONFESSION

The Sanctum Sanctorum is the place of purification, and wretched is he who waits to strive with his sins before he has recourse to God.

Foundations of Victory

A little while in the ways unknown—
One little life—have I sought—
Or possibly many lives—to find
That truth of truth which can fill the mind;
Nor have I fear'd to stand alone
In the lonely ways of thought.

The false lights came and the false lights went;
I did not tarry for these;
The dreadful sense of a heart unfit—
Through its native earth—how I fought with it,
And the knowledge of days mis-spent
In face of the mysteries!

If once, but once, I have sunk and said:
“Yield, soul!” or, “The dream is done,
Because alone the untainted heart
Wins crowns I work for!” Then, Hope, depart!
But 'twas up with the stricken head,
Still looking to meet the sun!

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Therefore I trust that a soul on fire
For weal has the wine-press trod,
And though my sins upon either hand,
In witness rising, against me stand,
They shall waste not my heart's desire,
Which out of them leaps to God.

As time goes on, we desire more and more the white walls of Salem; but it should be remembered that the Eternal City is within.

IX
THE INDULGENCE

There are greater benedictions, and like these the greater evils are within, but notwithstanding that forgiveness can be always presupposed in virtue of that supernatural love which casts out fear, there is still the mal-ease of the soul in the peopled darkness and the purlieus, where the commerce of wickedness drives its several trades.

For the Crown and the Kingdom

Our hopes are Thine; to Thee our ends converge;
And all of will within us, long transferr'd,
Waits on the fiat of Thine utter'd word.
Speak in the silence; speak in the storm of sound
From which, to reach Thy silence, we emerge
Here on this holy ground;
Speak in the Rites that bless Thee; on the verge
Of all things manifest; in things unseen—
Speak. In our longing we shall find no rest
Until we know what all Thy portents mean.
O when Thy high intention stands express'd,
Speak in the heart, and we shall hear Thee best!

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With aching souls, we grieve the life of wrong
Which has from Thy life sever'd us so long:
Take us, do with us as Thou wilt;
The sad mischances of our days forgive;
From those dark paths wherein we mate with guilt
Redeem us, Saviour: teach us how to live.

It is in the suspension of earthly things that the first secret consists.

X
WHEN THE PRIEST ASCENDS TO THE ALTAR

The search after God is not the quest of joy, which itself is a counsel of the search, but the satisfaction of a craving impelled by the spur of necessity.

The Last End

When after all the strife and wearying
We come in contact with the great true thing,
Which points the term of all—will that be such
As shall make compensation overmuch
For the long disillusions and sharp sting?
But yes—God save us—its most distant touch
Thrills our heart's instrument in every string.

It is not impossible to aspire to the similitude of God, and this is the implicit of union.

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XI
AUFER A NOBIS

Man is a time-piece which never stops.

Purgation

A little space of daylight and of gloom,
Of pain and dim delight, and then the tomb,
Whereat the whole is over and is gone—
Those scenes forget us where of old we toil'd:
Sad is it surely; but the soul assoil'd
Its path appointed takes, and still goes on.
Now, therefore, where Thy Holy Place begins,
Bid us, we pray Thee, pause, and purge our sins!

Let us seek to enter with pure minds, but remember that enter we must.

XII
THE INTROIT

It is the concealment of God in humanity which causes the sleep of this life.

An Opening of the Gates

Open Thy gates; behold we open ours!
We have destroy'd our earthworks, broken down
All roofs and battlements; our Babel towers
Are rent to fragments. Give us entrance now
Within the holy precincts of Thy town!

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We have been far enough from Thee apart,
Long exiled from Thy palace and Thy throne;
Let us behold Thy face, and teach us how
The wondrous secret of the world is known
By the ineffable glory of Thy crown
And in the life eternal of Thy heart.

Believe in the great things, practise mansuetude and sweetness.

XIII
THE KYRIE ELEISON

We do not enter the Path because it is pleasant, but because it is the only track.

The Gate and the Way

A narrow gate, a straight, unbending road,
Bleak hill-tops, sudden gorges, and a load
Of sadness through the solitary track:
One comfort only—to our own abode
The one way back!
And since we needs must reach Thee, why and how
Esteeming little, shew us mercy, Thou!

It is not becoming that those who were born in the palace should build cabins in the desert.

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XIV
GLORIA IN EXCELSIS

The places of peace are also those of exaltation.

The Secret of Success

Peace in high places; on the peaks supreme,
Far over passion's mists, deep peace of love;
Light of true light, the glory and the gleam;
Far over troubled sleep, what worlds of dream
Give space for souls—yes, there is room above!

Sleep naturally passes into dream, but there is a certain repose in which dream is exalted into vision; and this at its induction is initiation, but at the end, adeptship.

XV
THE COLLECT

The consolation which carries us along is that, seeing there is but one true road no one can err therein.

Consummation

Fear not frustration of our good intent,
But fear the feeble working of our wills;
Fail'd never yet the soul which, seeking, went,
Far as soul could, upon the great ascent:
What by the Word Divine—say, God—is meant?
He that fulfils!

Do not despise the trifles, but do not let them deceive us!

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XVI
THE SUBSTITUTED EPISTLE

The way of compassion is also the way of sorrow.

Ascetic Life

The end of self-denial
Is not to rack the flesh,
Of needless pain in heart and brain
Adding yet burdens fresh.

It is to school the spirit
Till this reveals to sense
How patience meek through all must seek,
And yet through all dispense;

Must look for love the perfect,
For truth the perfect end;
Not for the prize before the eyes
But that unseen contend.

Yet must we strive, provided
To fail on earth of each;
Must nurse no doubt but still hold out
To reach what's out of reach.

The lesser purpose round us
Shall gain the lesser meed,
And take its fill; the greater, still
Go empty and in need.

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The world unfolds her treasures;
It sighs but does not stay;
O'er secret parts of human hearts
It yearns, but moves away.

Perchance its goal awaits it:
We dream but do not see;
If we but knew, our pains were few—
Ah, light our task would be!

Task, do I say? What spirit
Would pause on things of earth,
Did bright and clear that star appear
Whence all our stars draw birth?

To act as if with knowledge
Is here meanwhile our lot,
And to forego but not to know—
Asking, but answer'd not.

One thing is certain only—
That which we burn to find
Earth cannot give; for this to live
Dares not the man of mind.

And so by self-denial
His great shall school his less,
'Twixt soul and star to lift no bar—
Because the end may bless.

O well for those who labour
Their daily bread to eat,
And God at last bless those who fast,
Desiring ghostly meat!

The Path of the Cross is the Path of the Mystical Rose, though Rose and Cross are joined. That which they form together ceases to be a path of sorrow.

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XVII
THE GRADUAL

Great are the beights and great also are the deeps; the cohorts of witnesses are numberless; but beyond all is the place of benediction, and to this we look for the power and the glory also.

Benison

Thou Who dost bless us, Whom we bless, hereby
Before all men, I rise and testify
That by Thy grace alone I look to live;
That Thy dear gifts above the crowns of earth
Are precious and are mine by right of birth,
So here I freely take, as Thou dost give.

There is a certain confusion of thought concerning the Divine complacency in the dedication of our human love. Even in the spheres that we seek for, it is not entirely a question of complacency, but of the natural conjunction of things which from the beginning were meant for one another.

XVIII
MUNDA COR MEUM

Though it is impossible to recall the past, the future can at least be moulded newly in respect of our plans concerning it.

The Enkindling Stone

Come, let us pledge the heart to purer life,
Thrusting the past behind, with all it holds

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Of fair and dark! Come, take with stalwart front
The future! Thither—to the mountain heights!—
We yet shall meet the messenger divine,
Standing serene in some uplifted place,
On which the stars shed influence, whereon
Do moon and sun concur. His hands shall hold
The shining stone inscribed with secret words,
Which hallow lips for prophecy and give
Not only tidings true but sense thereof.

Man is native to the beights, and the burden of his normal life is a difficulty of respiration in the deeps to which he does not belong by his origin.

XIX
THE FIRST GOSPEL

It is therefore only on the mountains that the feet of the messenger are beautiful when he brings glad tidings near.

On the Way to Jerusalem

O if the splendours of the life above
This turbid life of earth might dawn on us,
With shafts of sacred light and two-edged beams
Refracted up and down from rocks and peaks
Of spiritual precipice, to rend
This temple's veil, this temple built by flesh
To flesh for the soul's bondage and dark night;
And might the soul, among the dateless hills,
Some path discern, that—follow'd till it ends—
Should lead to Zion, the eternal town,
The endless rest! Receive thine exiled son,
High city, set upon the hills; from far,

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How far, across life's turbid, unanneal'd
And questing waters—from the murk and waste,
Where upas vapours breathe—we hail thee now,
Suspiring towards thee. And thy gospel bells
Proclaim new heights, where souls, redeem'd by God,
Shall gaze abroad, commanding life and time,
And calm in conscious strength the crown await.

Salem is on the mountain top because it is a spiritual city.

XX
THE CREDO

Those truths which most call for expression are those also which exceed it.

Inexpressible

Now, let us here in secret, as if drawn
Together in some holy place apart
To welcome in the day-star ere it dawn,
Declare the hidden matter—heart to heart:
Nay, it eludes the thought, however high,
And words still fail him who would testify.

Master, we came from Thee—Thou knowest when—
And unto Thee return; the time and mode
Are in Thy hands. There is a reason why,
And this we feel. Keep clear, we pray, the road;
Apart from Thee nothing can satisfy:
Lead, and still lead the trembling hearts of men.
This is our faith in Thee, our strong defence:
Do Thou fulfil it in experience!

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The fact that there is one issue for everything and one test by which alone it can be judged does not interfere with the other fact that there is more than one answer to most questions, or that the gifts of interpretation are various. We continue, therefore, to say: Credo in unum Deum —and all that follows thereafter—with a heart of holy aspiration.

XXI
THE OFFERTORY

It is a little thing to renounce extrinsic goods, having renounced ourselves already, the better to attain ourselves.

True Possessions

Much does he gain who much dispenses; want
Shall reach him not; a constant stream of wealth
Is round him drawn. From him who meanly hoards
His own, is true wealth taken. What in one
Centres alone is lost, and every gift—
Not in the man inherent—whether brought
From God directly or from Nature—shared,
Returns to the dispenser; we attain
All things in giving and conceding them.

With the things which are of real value we have never been asked to part, but only with those tokens which are of temporal convenience, some of which become encumbrances and even burdens.

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XXII
THE OBLATION

There is a reason why silence envelopes us within, notwithstanding the clamours that are without; yet the expression of the higher soul is the only clean offering, and this is imposed upon us.

Expression

All that once we meant to say,
Deep within the heart of each,
Rests unutter'd. Tell me, pray,
When shall man have leave for speech?

Ah, the long unspoken soul,
Thus with message overcharged,
Underneath its bonds' control
Is, in spite of bonds, enlarged!

Deeper sinks the depth within,
All horizons melt from sight,
Till life's mighty waters win
Union with the infinite.

Deep to deep and sea to sea,
Wondrous union, wondrous rest;
Still possession—so shall be
The long pent-up soul express'd.

The need of expression arises from the law of concealment, but this law is essential and inheres, rather than is prescribed. For the same reason the burden of sin is assumed, but the yoke of grace is native and so also is light.

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XXIII
THE MINGLING OF WINE AND WATER

From the circumference to the centre may be far, but the way is direct to the end. The union of elements is in motion, and therefore man goes on.

Thou Only

Eternal Priest of Mysteries Divine,
When Thou hast purified our human part
And quicken'd that which lieth cold and dead,
Place on Thine Altar—like this mystic bread—
Our hearts, to Thy most healthful service given;
And pour Thy spirit, as supernal wine,
On the inconstant waters of our soul!
Make us partakers of Thy substance thus
And in such mode shalt Thou partake of us,
Our heart united to Thy sacred heart;
And by Thy saving virtue so made whole,
Our life shall ever be withdrawn in Thine,
Thy life make heaven in us, O Lord of Heaven!

Watchman, what of the end?

XXIV
IN SPIRITU HUMILITATIS

The power of arbitration in man is between the heights and the deeps, but the place of peace is not in the middle way.

Vessels of Election

The heart is Thine, the will is turn'd to Thee:
Thou didst require them at our hands; Thou hast
Received them. At the steps of Thy White Throne

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We placed them, with a just and holy awe
That they could serve Thy purpose. Kings below,
To Thee, the King of all, that which we are
Is offer'd. O the glorious pride in free
And uncondition'd giving! Of his end
Thou hast made each the arbiter; it lies
Between his hands, that he may make it Thine,
And so all purpose of his world fulfil.
The keys of death and immortality,
With every dole and crown to these attach'd,
We hold, and yield them to Thy mastership.
Count therefore this the spirit and the term
Of our condign humility, who come
With contrite souls to be made worthy Thee,
Yet in Thy need for us are masters still,
Nor into misery and abjectness
Can ever lapse, but great in Thee through all
Must issue forth triumphant in the end!

It is not a matter of importance that the victory should be ultimately with ourselves, but the great ends must prevail, and they can prevail only in us.

XXV
IN THE BLESSING OF BREAD AND WINE

It is possible to receive God in many elements.

Venite

Weary of walking in the night alone,
Come, we beseech Thee, come unto Thine own!
Vapid are our pursuits and vain our lot
But not so foolish we as to desire Thee not.

Communication is in many kinds, but the true act of reception is only in the inmost heart.

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XXVI
THE INCENSING OF THE BREAD AND WINE

The soul is naturally fastidious and even the manna in the wilderness calls for express consecration.

Probation

Of many elements combined, we plead
For Thy great blessing to assuage our need
In this wide world of dreams!
God grant that, issuing at last from these,
We shall unlock, with certain secret keys,
Life's inmost and far curving galleries,
Where very singers find the very themes!

The opening of the Closed Palace is a great work of inspiration.

XXVII
THE INCENSING OF THE ALTAR

Seasons of inhibition are promises of seasons of fulness.

Interdiction

The time of blessing comes and goes;
Then dry days follow for a space,
That learners may their souls dispose
To walk at need apart from grace.

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Say therefore not that grace is dead,
Say not that inspiration's fount,
Henceforth to flow inhibited,
Is seal'd up in the sacred mount!
Say rather: silence full and rich
In its still depths prepares the ground
For other wells of mercy, which
In later torrents shall abound!

The soundings of the deep are beyond the plummets of the senses.

XXVIII
ACCENDAT IN NOBIS

It does not signify whether joy comes in the morning, but it is vital that the King should come.

The Unities

Diverse our passions, yet but one desire;
Much smoke, much smouldering, one cleansing fire;
Concerns unnumber'd which are little blest,
Only one rest,
One travail that is worthy of the hire:
This labour, that heart's burning and the dumb,
Unspoken longing for the King to come
And His great kingdom to be manifest!

Most of us perhaps can do little to promote its advent in the world, but we can cherish it secretly in the heart.

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XXIX
BEFORE THE LAVABO

It is well to wash with the innocent, but it is a greater thing to go through the cleansing fires which purge the guilty from their sins.

Misfits

'Tis scarcely true that souls come naked down
To take abode up in this earthly town,
Or naked pass—all that they wear denied:
We enter slipshod and with clothes awry,
And we take with us much that by and by
May prove no easy task to put aside.

Cleanse therefore that which round about us clings,
We pray Thee, Master; ere Thy sacred halls
We enter, strip from us redundant things
And meetly clothe us in pontificals!

The House of God is the House of many Lustrations.

XXX
SUSCIPE, SANCTA TRINITAS

The first consummations are only the first draughts of the everlasting cup; but the secret is to drink deeply.

Journeys in the Blue Distance

A little space to move in, and a little space for sleep,
And then a space more narrow for repose that is more deep;

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Then all the vistas open'd, and the strange high paths untrod,
With room for men to walk in who go forth to find their God.

We offer up ourselves and Thine are made;
All other bonds our wills at least evade:
But do Thou give us of Thyself, and thus
A clean oblation shall be made by us!
Thou dost not need our offerings, but we
Transmuting need, to make us gold for Thee.

The greatest quests are not those which are followed in time or space.

XXXI
SECRETA

So long as we are exiled from God, we can scarcely escape sin.

Restoration

I came into the world for love of Thee,
I left Thee at Thy bidding;
I put off my white robes and shining crown
And came into this world for love of Thee.

I have lived in the grey light for love of Thee,
In mean and darken'd houses:
The scarlet fruits of knowledge and of sin
Have stain'd me with their juice for love of Thee.

I could not choose but sin for love of Thee,
From Thee so sadly parted;
I could not choose but put away my sin
And purge and scourge those stains for love of Thee.

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My soul is sick with life for love of Thee,
Nothing can ease or fill me:
Restore me, past the frozen baths of death,
My crown and robes, desired for love of Thee:

And take me to Thyself for love of Thee;
My loss or gain counts little,
But Thou must need me since I need Thee so,
Crying through day and night for love of Thee!

The wings of the dove would not carry us into rest, for a bird's flight bears the same relation to progress that a sandcastle bears to Mont Salvatch in the Pyrenees.

XXXII
SURSUM CORDA

The exaltation of the heart takes place after many purgations.

Secret Song

O sad voice, singing close at hand,
Thy words we may not understand!
But strangely full and sweet art thou;
And thou dost soothe, we know not how.
Perchance thy low refrain reveals,
In sorrow's deeps, the well which heals.

A great pity must surge for ever in the soul of the illuminated man towards all motions and yearnings of Nature, so full of impassioned endeavour, so full of the sense of loss and inability.

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XXXIII
THE PREFACE

Nature itself is made in our own likeness.

Mirrors of Manhood

Man's soul itself beholds in every glass
And its own speech discerns in every tone;
All Nature voices what he is and was
And will be—equally in star or stone.

Man gives its parable to every stream;
If “running brooks” are books, he writes, he reads;
If stones are sermons, he provides their theme,
And with himself in these he speaks, he pleads.

No living tongue but his was ever heard;
Still Nature stood till he, an exile, came,
Bringing dim echoes of an older word
And fragments of a now unutter'd name.

For though he speaks and speech imparts to all,
That which he would he cannot hear or say,
And pale reflections of his own long call
Tortures, to draw their inward sense to day.

His outward tumult fills his ears in vain
And down his own vast depths in vain he cries:
Perchance the still profundities explain
That which exceeds all words, however wise.

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Perchance his speech withdrawn from things outside,
And all resounding caverns hush'd within,
That which the clamours from his soul divide
May to draw nigh and to commune begin.

It is a long watch to the morning, but it is also a sure one. The powers and the glories are with us in the great vigil, and the darkness of the night intervening is no ground for doubt in the heart.

XXXIV
THE CANON

All the greater laws are made in the course of our advancement.

Facilis Ascensus

What is the canon of the King's true law,
By which we know it is indeed the King's?
Ah, could we find it—faithful, free from flaw—
Clear would be all which once we dimly saw
And simple the ascent to noble things!

The official interpretations of laws are like sonorous but confused voices of great winds surging about a secret sanctuary.

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XXXV
COMMEMORATION OF THE LIVING

There is a great past behind us, and the future as great is in front.

Nunc Dimittis

How perfect is the peace of him
Whose work in life is done,
And space remains to count the gains
Of some high course outrun;
Who looking back on his past track
Can proudly lift his head
And truly claim for every aim—
This is consummated.

In spite of our dreaming and our seeming, we have begun to touch the reality in this life, because the sacramental body of man is the sum of all physical perfection which it is possible for us here to conceive.

XXXVI
THE CONSECRATION AND ELEVATION

The man who denies the sacraments is less guilty than he who dismembers them.

Of Bread and Wine

From the first dawn of things Thou hast me fed
With many substances of wine and bread,
Beyond those daily charities which bless
All men with manna in the wilderness;

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Yea, in that time when I was lifted up
Refreshment from an everlasting cup
To take with spiritual lips, Thou didst
My soul sustain, its angel-peers amidst.
Then at Thy board I sat, all sane and whole,
Clothed in the proper garment of my soul;
Then in the liturgies and rites which make
A rapture in Thy presence, did I take
A part allotted, and their calls fulfil
With a most clear conception of Thy will.

But after, for some purpose undeclared,
From Thy great temple's service I was spared;
From Thy high palace-gates and halls sent down
And precincts fair of Thine eternal town—
I know not why, who had not tired of Thee
And scarce could falter in Thy ministry,
Under Thine eyes' light, with such graces lent,
Sufficing, efficacious. But I went,
And since that time, which is earth's time outside,
Far as my paths might from Thy throne divide,
Deep as the gulfs might be which I plunged in—
Conduits and cesspools of the House of Sin—
In the strange tavern and the stranger's bed,
I do remember still Thy wine and bread.

Thus having pass'd into this low estate,
So that I cannot look up to. Thy gate;
Having withal too dim and sad an eye
To see the splendour of that chancelry,
Where, unto those who serve and those who err,
Justice or love Thou dost administer;
I have been long content Thy hands to bless
For any manna in the wilderness:
But, though all gifts within Thy hands are good,
My soul now turns and loathes the lighter food;

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Such froth upon the surface cannot feed
The man whose want demands strong meat and mead.
Therefore as one who has been raised from base
And scullion errands to a page's place,
My need has bade me from the broken meat
And brings me, crying, at Thy board to eat;
But, since all bridal garments here I lack,
I call on Thee to give those vestments back
Wherein I served in such uplifted state
Ere I was put forth from Thy palace-gate:
Still through all straits I keep my claim on them
And the bright shining of my diadem.

Perchance I fell from Thee through mine own fault;
Yet am I native to Thy temple-vault:
Perhaps, for Thine own purpose, Thou hast seen
Fit to reduce me from my primal mien;
But be my guilt in Thine eyes less or more
Now matters not: I pray—Restore, restore!
And having given, as Thou needs must give,
To one who naked can no longer live,
The proper garments of the soul, I know
That to Thy banquet hall I then shall go,
Saying: “High Master, I have fasted long;
Give me man's meat and wine of vintage strong.”
Whereat, with fitting benison and grace,
They shall set down true bread before my place
And to my lips Thy pages shall lift up—
For deep, free drinking—an eternal cup.

Therefore, by all who hear these high words said
In the King's sense be they interpreted.

We can always be sure of our commentaries, short as they fall of perfection, by uniting their intention with God.

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XXXVII
THE COMMEMORATION OF THE DEAD

The life of earth is an experience of things unfamiliar: the after life is a renewal of the old familiarity.

Restoration

As by his own fireside, in his own chair,
A man slips gently into sleep, and there
Starts up awake once more in his own room,
Recalling all things in the glow and gloom:
So when the draught of death in sleep he takes,
Perchance all suddenly the man awakes
To find him in the old familiar place—
That primal home, left for life's little space.

That which is not known is that which we have forgotten.

IBID.

[Now Autumn crisps and dries the yellow'd leaf]

We are so much on the verge of the Union that it seems almost impossible we should escape it.

In the Elegiac Manner

Now Autumn crisps and dries the yellow'd leaf,
Long since sad reapers brought the harvest in;
All which dejects us or exalts is brief—
Death in life's mask, shall life in death's begin?

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Say, one is gone—perchance a kindly face,
A voice perchance which could some hearts encheer:
Haunt not, vain elegy, his former place
And, vacant heart, forbid the falling tear!

Trite epitaphs—“Too good on earth to stay”—
Let fools inscribe. Did peace make sweet his end?
Who knows?—Implora pace! Turn away
From hackney'd thoughts of father and of friend.

Convention tolls its bell with mournful sound,
Convention plumes the hearse which bears the clay,
Convention cries that hearts in hallow'd ground
Embalm remembrances that ne'er decay.

Go to! the heart forgets, the heart shall die,
Go to, who cares that dust to dust returns?
Or that in chapels of mortality
Some little space the lamp of memory burns!

Leave these old follies! Down the silent halls
And the long avenues that soul has pass'd;
If you have strength, refrain from useless calls
To other meetings—what if this were last?

That matters nothing, so he reach his goal:
Call, therefore, in the great Augustan mood,
Once and for all such end to crown his soul,
Content, so he bear that, to bear your rood.

We have been cautious through many initiations, but a great reservation must be taken into the grade ne plus ultra of death.

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IBID.

[Look forth no more where bindweeds creep]

Those who have gone before us are so much the nearer to the Union.

To Other Ends

Look forth no more where bindweeds creep
About thy lattice bars,
And move no more where waters sweep
Entranced by musing stars!
Thy peace be full, thy rest be deep,
New light enrich thine eyes;
While night is dark on ours who weep,
Sweet Life, fill other skies:
That which God join'd to make thy wonder,
For Heaven's gain, thus He puts asunder.

The great secrets of all are not spoken, but signified.

IBID.

[Now heralds, passing through desponding Hades]

We look at the end of things for Hades to return its spoils.

Dies Venit

Now heralds, passing through desponding Hades,
Proclaim: “Salvete, O my Lords and Ladies!
Here ends the penance, here unbars the prison:
Into the light ascend, for He is risen!”

The Hades into which Christ descended was an inward world, which keeps many spirits in prison besides those

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that are ostensibly sharing our exile. The Mystery of the Passion and of that Lamb which has been slain from the foundation of things is one of the mysteries of the unseen. We do not doubt that Christ died and rose, but the material Jerusalem and the conventional holy fields have no heritage therein. The true Golgotha and Calvary are not seen with eyes of flesh, nor yet is the rock-hewn Sepulchre or the Mountain of Ascension.

XXXVIII
NOBIS QUOQUE PECCATORIBUS

The greatest work in the world is that of building bridges.

De Profundis

Though oft I have fallen by the way, Mother mine,
Yet I have not turn'd my face aside from Thee;
And Father, loving Father, in the world that is Thine
Thy great white light of glory I have look'd to see.
Take me then, for I am weary, I beseech Thee,
And I do not dread the gulfs or wastes between;
Lift me upward, being merciful, to reach Thee,
If I cannot cross the seas that intervene.

But even the intervening seas are the emanations of mercy.

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XXXIX
PATER NOSTER

The invocation of the Kingdom is also the invocation of ravishment.

The Kingdom

O Salem, City on the mountain-top!
O promised land of honey and of milk!
O Aden, Eden, land of holy dream!
O House of God! With all its gardens girt,
Far shines the mystic City of the Soul,
City of Dream, City of our Desire,
And all who look thereon do evermore
Carry strange longings in their haunted eyes.
O Temples, palaces for chosen souls!
O floral emblems! O prophetic trees!
O visionary voices—the long days
And nights enchanting—of thy streams, thy birds!
O purple dreamland, infinite ecstasy!

The food of the visible frame is also the body of God.

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XL
LIBERA NOS, QUAESUMUS

When man enters into the Holy Place, the Kingdom comes.

Fellowship

When darkness falls upon the life of mind;
When utter sickness to the heart assign'd
Makes morbid thoughts on all our days intrude;
When uncompanion'd in our need we stand,
One is still with us in the shrouded land—
Our own soul with us in the solitude.
Set therefore free the soul and let her cease
From evil, knowing what is right and wrong;
And seeing that her days in Thine are long
Grant that her endless days be also peace!

He who has found his soul is never alone.

XLI
AGNUS DEI

Both the emissary and the imputation are in one sense the symbolical embroideries of pontifical vestments.

Presages

On common auguries and omens long
Has man in legend dwelt, in tale and song,

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And under thin disguise they hold him still;
But to the body and its varied need
His signs and presages alone give heed,
Leaving those deeper symbols all unread
Which say: The soul is sick, the soul is dead,
The soul is menaced by surpassing ill.
Fear not malignant stars which may control
The outward fortunes; fear those stars within
Which on the wide horizon of the soul
With baleful rays illume the night of sin.
But that dread most which lets our evil plight
Restrain the clamour after all God's light;
Whate'er I am, whatever yet may be,
Master of all, I keep the quest of Thee.
Save me from these old stains I care not how;
Then one thing more I need—but that is Thou!

The purpose of life is that of emancipating stars. It is we who condone substitutes and accept approximations for realities.

XLII
DOMINE JESU CHRISTE

In things above, as in things below, when the King is thought to be dead, our cry should be: Long live the King!

Eucharistica

Poor, foolish penitent, whose streaming eyes
See Christus dead in agony, He lives;
Take comfort; He comes down into thy heart:
Thou hast received Him in thy sacrament.

Beyond the symbol of the, old beliefs stretch the great fields of faith.

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XLIII
DOMINE, NON SUM DIGNUS

But the prince in banishment is not less the royal prince.

Misdirection

We have falter'd in the way that they directed
Who set us first to walk in the true way;
We have palter'd with the truth which they expected
We should set so high before us,
And the banners that are o'er us
Are the ensigns of a nation gone astray.

This notwithstanding, all roads may lead to the spiritual Rome, for all converge, at one point or another, in the true and only path.

XLIV
ITE, MISSA EST

It does not really signify that the way is long, if it is that which leads home.

Stars of Empire

From East to West the soul her journey takes,
At many bitter founts her fever slakes,
Halts at strange taverns by the way to feast,
Resumes her load and painful progress makes
Back to the East.

Many travels and many metamorphoses may still remain, both within and without the long chronicles of vanity. It is only by a title of limitation that the Mass is said to be finished.

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XLV
THE SECOND GOSPEL

Undeclared

Wisdom with its trumpet word
In a myriad volumes heard;
All which unto love belongs
Chanted in uncounted songs,
Up and down the endless ages;
Things divine in sacred pages—
As the sands of the seashore—
Taught with tongues of gold of yore:
When to-morrow is to-day,
What can still remain to say?
One thing look'd for—one unheard;
Only that unutter'd word,
Echoes of the sense of which
All our spoken words enrich,
And shall yet, with clarion call,
Alter and transmute them all.

It is for this reason that literature is itself a mystery, operated by the convention of instituted rites.

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XLVI
DEO GRATIAS

There is drought and there is weariness; but so long as we go forward, it is well.

Gratias Agimus

The place of Thy peace is the place of a perfect light.
We have thank'd Thee, O Lord, in the night
For the night and the splendid day:
It is meet in the depth of the darkness and meet on the shining height.
But oh for that place of Thy peace,
For the glory which does not cease
And the star which fades not away.
Grant, at the end of all, we may give Thee our thanks as we enter
The palace of perfect union which shines in Thy light at the centre.

Et nox sicut dies illuminabitur.

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XLVII
A VALEDICTORY ASPIRATION

Let us pray, in fine, for those truly sacred offices which are not in reality conferred by any right of succession, but do at times impose themselves.

Of Priestcraft

Could God have given me my desire,
Or if God would grant it now and here,
One boon, I wot,
Should wreathe my lot
As the star is wreathed by a fire—
Fair aim, high purpose, but far, I fear!

I would put my making of songs aside—
Vain strife to utter what can't be said;
And it should be mine
The bread and wine,
By mighty mass-words deified,
To change in substance from wine and bread.

And then in some lonely fane apart,
Or—little matters—in crowded street,
With a soul contrite,
From altar's height
I would nourish the empty heart
With hidden manna and angels' meat.

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That which has hinder'd me hinders yet,
Though the higher part of faith is mine;
'Tis the gift to know
That here below,
Fair as the blazon'd signs are set
They shadow only the things divine.

Holy and grand though the Church may be,
The types it mixes with things foreshewn,
And a place denies
To the too keen eyes
Which past the mundane types can see,
And, symbols past, to the truth unknown.

Yet may I hope, is it over bold?—
Somehow, somewhere—it shall come to pass,
While I still live,
That my King shall give
To me, like Lancelot, Knight of old,
Grace, and a twelvemonth to sing my Mass.

END OF VOL. I