University of Virginia Library

THE RIVER OF TEARS.

I came to the River of Tears,
Where the maidens watched and wept
And the thistles with threatening spears
Through the shivering shadows crept.
I said to myself, “I will track
This dolorous tide to its source,
I will follow the windings back
By the snares of the snaky course.”
But the thorns arose in their might
And they thrust with maligant arms,
And white bosoms of warm delight
Met mine with voluptuous charms.
And white hands like the clambering vine
With the scent of the drowsy grape,
Caught my own, and through dews divine
Burst the bloom of each shining shape.
But I hurried along in haste,
Though the small feet glimmered white
And the sinuous easy waist
Had a joy that was infinite.
While the languorous hot breath came
And went on my very cheek,
And the lips with their scarlet flame
Made my purpose wan and weak.
O the bliss of the fragrant face,
O, the passion of clinging hands,
O the madness of naked grace
In the loves of those poppied lands!
But I passed through the purple air
And the limbs that disdained their 'tire,
And the gold of the gloried hair,
Like a brand redeemed from fire.
I refused the eyes, though they flashed
With a cruel and conquering light,
Through their curtains heavily lashed,
In the quest of a vaster sight.
They were only a dream to me,
A dream of the summer south,
Bare shoulder and amorous knee
And the ravishing rosy mouth.
So I came to the Holy Mount,
In a dim and delicious land;
And lo, there was a silvery Fount
That gushed from a Baby's hand.
And I said to myself, “O this
At last is the blessed Source
Of the tide with the sad abyss,
And its never-ending course;
I have traversed the world of the dead
And the world of the beautiful fears,
I have come to the solemn head
Of the sacred River of Tears.”
But the Baby pointed up
To the misty peaks of blue,
For the hand with its lily cup
Was not the rejoicing clue.
So I looked, and again the stream
Brake full on my troubled gaze,
Like a ghastly tide in a dream
That is seen through a mocking haze.
But the pathway grew to a height
And the bounding walls were steep,
And the waves in their weary flight
Did nothing but wail and weep.
And I struggled yet sternly on
Up the arduous narrowing space,
Through the garish gleam that shone,
Like the smile on a dying face.
And the rocks were terrible swords
As if human flesh were sweet,
And the briars were gins and cords
That gript at my tottering feet.
And they turned into loathsome shapes,
Now in glimmer and now in gloom,
As if scowling fiends or apes
Were shutting me in to doom;
Till I closed my desperate eyes
With the torturing stress and strain,
For the lurid and scornful skies
Beat down on my haunted brain.
Then I came with my burden of care
To a bar on the bitter road,
Where a skeleton bleached and bare
Lay crushed by a heavier load;
And a gurgling groaning thread
Trickled down, but could scarce escape
From the mouldering sides of the dead,
As it rotted with ribs agape.
And I said to myself, “At length
I arrive at the evil Source,
Which saps our desires and strength
With the blight of its barren course;
For here in this mortal mass
Is the taint of the murmuring years,
That smothers the smiles that pass
With the rolling River of Tears.”
But a fleshless hand uprose,
While the bones with a gruesome thrill
Seemed to sigh in their grim repose,
And it pointed me forward still.
Yes, it beckoned me higher yet
To the home of the thunder cloud,
Where the sun was about to set
In the shade of a crimson shroud.
But now I could hardly scale
The fence of the iron crags,
As they loomed before me pale
With their horrible juts and jags.
And the lightning leapt and fell
On the track of the trembling peaks,
Till I seemed like a soul in hell
In the rain that the judgment wreaks;
For it toyed with my draggled hair
And I bathed in the quivering fire,
While the boding sulphurous air
Was the breath of a funeral pyre.
But above me yet the tide
Dropt down in a dwindling flood,
From the toppling mountain side
In a blazing streak of blood.
I could scarcely climb and crawl
Up the threatening thwart sheer path,
That rose a forbidding wall
With ruin and woe and wrath.
But I still toiled feebler on
With trouble of foot and hand,
Till the setting sun was gone
Burnt out like a smouldering brand.
And I said to myself, “The Night
With its cloak is the fatal Source,
I have followed the stream aright
Through the maze of its upward course;
In its mould is the mischief cast
Of the withering joys and ears,
I have solved the riddle at last
And the truth of the River of Tears.”
But from out of the shadowy womb
With its terrors grim and great,
As a voice from a sealed tomb
Came a message of fearful fate.
And the lightning made a sign
With its crooked finger of red,
And it scrabbled a score malign
On the darkness overhead;
And it pointed me still more far
To the infinite depths of Space,
To the dim and distant star
And the planet's dwelling place.
So I mounted the ladder of air,
And it felt beneath my feet
Like the steps of a giant stair
Where the stone of the iron meet.
But the stream was my comrade still
With its gossamer thread of fire,
Like an almost viewless rill
Or the ghost of a dead desire.
And the breezes buoyed me up
When I stumbled upon the brink,
And the cloud was an ebon cup
That gave of its treasures to drink.
Lo, my weakness passed away
And my paces refused to halt,
As I climbed without one delay
To the purple spangled vault.
For the waft as of sweeter lips
And the hold as of stronger hands,
Dispelled the last weary eclipse,
While I traversed those wonder lands.
Till at last in my journey I came
To a marvellous Gate of Light,
And a bubbling Fount of Flame
That arose from the realms of Night.
But, behold, as I stricken stopt,
At the porch of the blasting flood,
From the dreadful threshold dropt
Little globes as of living blood.
And I said to myself, “Ah, here
Lies the seat of the very Source,
In the breast of the burning sphere,
Is unravelled the endless course;
I see the beginning of all
The sorrow that flows and sears,
I descry the fount of the fall
Of the terrible River of Tears.”
But then from the mystery broke
The sound of a sudden breath,
And the awful Silence spoke
The enigma of life and death.
“The stream has the blessed start
That you sought, as you blindly trod,
In the riven and bleeding Heart
Of the homeless crucified God.”