University of Virginia Library

VINDICATIO VITÆ MEÆ.

They say my life is marred and all misspent
With this unceasing song and babblement
Of builded words, that range in order fine
Tier upon tier, and measured line on line;
For thus appears to me the pictured strength
Of edificial words in linked length
And rhythmic revels that go on, go on,
With dreadful depths on which light never shone;
Great sudden doors that open into space
And catch a glimpse of some sweet flying face,
With tossing hair and eyes of burning blue;
And endless climbing stairs devoid of clue
In labyrinths of gold and azure lost,
Bestarred with rosy forms astray and tost
From shadow unto shadow, by hot hands
That scourge and follow into love-sick lands.
And yet they rise by other vaster powers
Than mine, these misty and enchanted bowers
Floating like silver clouds in summer air,
With columned fronts and carven porches fair
And finished. For I have no master's gift,
Whereby these pillared palaces uplift
Their lofty brows in studied insolence
Of grace and marble cold magnificence.
They are not my creations, though they rise
In rapture, when my fancy otherwise
Would shape the shining phantoms and dispose
The passion of the petals that unclose
Like flowers in spring. I am the instrument
Of over-ruling heavenly discontent
Which murmurs through me, but is never mine,
With a strange human melody divine
And architectural force that moulds and makes
Storey on storey, till it laughs and wakes
In sculptured scorn and calculated fire,
Kindled from quarries of earth's old desire.
So I must labour on, the tool and toy
Of some calm crownèd Destiny, whose joy
Fulfilled in me yet may not be my own,
And wrought by me is yet to me unknown.
But this I know, the purpose of the plan
Which blossoms from my will, with rainbow span
Of splendid words, to build a worthy dome
For Him who hitherto has found no home
On earth or sea in miracle of art,
Nor in the praises of one perfect heart,
And all unhoused by sunshine or by shade
Still wanders homeless through the world He made,
And though awhile He lodged in Mary's womb
His universe now gives Him but a tomb.
And thus I build, or Somewhat builds through me
Of all past sorrows and new bliss to be,
In words of worship and rock-hewn romance
The symmetry and solemn circumstance
Of a proportioned temple pure and meet
Where He may pause and rest His passing feet,
With glamoured windows glimpsing forth blue skies
And blood-red passions and Christophanies.
Necessity lies on me and my arm,
That chisels here a face and there the charm
Of shy sweet shoulders rising warm and white
From scas of purple, calm and infinite,
Beneath a yellow moon hung large and low
Where never sunbeams walk or breezes blow;
Then a young head with sad and solemn brow
Bent by the awful burden of the vow
Of ages past the orb of earthly aid,
With hecatombs of helpless lives unpaid;
And then the rush of aimless wings, that fly
For ever through a lost eternity.
Fate holds my hand with iron will, and paints
No dying glory round the dying saints
Who meet the bier as bridal kisses, lone
But strong as figures wrought of rugged stone;
And writes, in flame and tempest and hot tears,
The insufferable message of the years.
I mark the glimmer of the pearly morn,
And at my heart the fretting of the thorn
I feel, who know not whither I must wend
Whirled to some dark inevitable end.
I lie upon the naked breasts of fire
Of palpitating Nature, my desire
And my delight, and drinking of those wells
I gather of the spirit of all spells
And mysteries, and mixed with her I burn
In the same fount that is the funeral urn
And cradle of the worlds, where thoughts and things
Arise and melt in varied vanishings
Through birth and death. By many a shadowed shoal
I drift to some unutterable goal,
That is the starting of yet other strife
Afar in other lands and other life.
But still I seek the beautiful, the best,
And gather precious stones and red unrest
Of blushing poppies kneeling on the sod
That hang their faces down before their God,
The galaxy of grapes, the silver spume
Tost by dim waves on shores of faint perfume,
Soft tresses twined like snakes in golden braids
And mocking scarlet lips of lily maids,
White blossoms murmuring low to secret chimes,
All fruits and fairness of all spheres and times,
And silences and songs together bound
By rills of praise that gush from holy ground;
To clothe, in colours of the earth and sky,
The houseless Presence of Divinity.
And so I build, held by no mortal hand,
A frescoed fane that stayed in prayer may stand
A little space and be a robe inspired
By One who treads the earth yet unattired
And outcast, if at length I may be clothed
Myself with Love to whom I was betrothed,
Since first I heard the bitter cry of Him
Disowned by earth left therefore lost and dim.
And so I lay the polished line on line,
Stanza on stanza cut of shade and shine,
Poem on poem bodied out of thought,
And book on book in one grand temple wrought
With radiant moulding to its columned height,
Whose corridors are fire and dew and light.
Each verse in His great vesture is a stone,
Or but the rubbish cast beneath His throne
For its foundation, every word fits in
And finds some part of His dear beauty kin.
The spider spinning gossamers, the leaf
Unfolding to the sun, the tawny sheaf
With drooping head, the dew that breaks the cloud,
The baby bursting from the womb, the proud
Confession of pure lips that part with bliss
In the red rapture of the first love kiss,
The blush on virgin cheek of girl or grape,
The tears of love that from the heart escape
Scarcely, the noontide chant of larks, the strong
Free buffet of the breeze, the evensong
Of passing souls that through a door of flame
And faith step from their outworn earthly frame
Into the liberty of larger being — all,
Like me in measure do obey the call
To work, which binds us in a common guild,
And by the same grand impulse wafted build
The web or wonder of a painted shrine,
To make this mortal dwelling-house divine.
And thus I own the universal breath
Of passion, shaping out of life and death
My duty to the God I only know
And touch in toil that trembles in His glow,
Shed on the castled pile and baby's whim;
And labour on, and stretch blind hands to Him.
But still I see, though with the inward eye,
The hidden gleam of a theophany
In every little speck of space or large
Event of many sides without a marge
Or measure, in the worm's obscure intents,
As in the upheaval of the continents;
And still I know I am most surely led
By devious dusky roads, where blood is shed
And horrors hang, to a predestined port
For which no voyage may be smooth and short
Or free from perils. So I sail and sing
Down life's dark river, as I strike the string
Of this impassioned lute, though leaving here
An altar light that gilds the atmosphere
Of some torn bosom, there a blessèd thought
Which scatters roses on rough paths unsought.
The night is not all night, if thorny whin
And stabbing stones do mock me; for within
Wavers the troubled dawn of truer day;
While hours have wings and bosoms much to say,
That yet cannot be said unless in song—
When one small word might do the Maker wrong,
For whom with verse on verse I dimly raise
My humble house whose only robe is praise.
And still I feel the swathing of a Love
That works inside my being, not above,
Though far beyond my efforts blind and rude,
In all the passion of its plenitude
And awfulness of pure perfection, Light
Invisible, and armed with maiden might
Of dew and bloom and tenderness and power,
The gold on breasts of butterfly and flower,
The strongest frailty and the flame that tries
And all the holy sweet virginities;
A verity of vastness, and a grace
More than the grandeur of a woman's face
Just bathed in heaven and fresh from that white fount
Where spirit talks with spirit on the Mount;
A fearful beauty that is Life, a spell
Of unimagined peace, ineffable;
If I but catch mere glimpses of the wave
That rolls alike through cradles and the grave
And thrills through all with pulse of equal sweep,
Blue gardens of the air, dark gates of sleep.
I offer no divided love, I give
Myself, my heart, my hope whereby I live.
Thus driven by soft Omnipotence I dip
My pen in dreams, and slake my thirsty lip
With draughts of moonlight music and the night,
And snare the starbeams ere they can take flight;
While with my lonely heart I walk at will
And plan new worlds and build and babble still,
A child and yet a man, a penitent—
And yet a pardoned soul, an instrument
Of many strings whereon each passing air
Awakes a note of something fond and fair,
For dear dread God who shadows what must be
And through the silence lays bright hands on me.