An Epic of Women and Other Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Alas! we should not have known,
For all his strange ethereal calm,
And thoughts so little like our own
And presence like a shed-forth balm,
He was some Spirit from a zone
Of light, and ecstasy, and psalm,
Radiant and near about God's throne:
Now he hath flown!

The heaven did cleave on him alv;
And for what thing he chose to dwell
In a mere tenement of clay
With mortal seeming—who can tell?

But there in some unearthly way
He wrought, and, with an inner spell,
Miraculously did array
That house of clay.

The very walls were in some sort
Made beautiful, with many a fresque
Or carven filigree of Thought,
Now seen a clear and statuesque
Accomplishment of dreams—now sought
Through many a lovely arabesque
And metaphor, that seemed to sport
With what it taught.

Most bright and marvellously fair
Those things did seem to all mankind;
And some indeed, with no cold stare
Beholding them, could lift their mind
Through swee ransfigurement to share
Their inward light: the rest were blind,
And wondered much, yet had small care
Whence such things were.

And, day by day, he did invent
—As though nought golden were enough,
In manner of an ornament—
Some high chivalrous deed, above
All price, whereof the element
Was the most stainless ore of Love;
A boundless store of it he spent
With lavishment.

And when therewith that house became
All in a strange sort glorified;
For through whole beauty, as of flame,
Those things, resplendent far and wide,
Did draw unto them great acclaim;
Lo, many a man there was who tried
With base alloys to do the same,
And gat men's shame.

But all about that house he set
A wondrous flowering thing—his speech,
That without ceasing did beget
Such fair unearthly blossoms, each

Seemed from some paradise, and wet
As with an angel's tears, and each
Gave forth some long perfume to let
No man forget.

A new delicious music erred
For ever through the devious ways
Tangled with blooming of each word;
As though in that enchanted maze
Some sweet and most celestial bird
Were caught, and, hid from every gaze,
Did there pour forth such song as stirred
All men who heard.

Before him was perpetual birth
Of flowers whereof, aye, more and more,
The world begetteth a sad dearth;
And those rare balms man searcheth for,
Fair ecstasy, and the soul's mirth:
Half grudgingly the angels bore
That one should waste on a lost earth
Things of such worth.

It may be, with a strange delight,
After an age of gazing through
That mirror of things infinite
That well nigh burns the veil of blue
Drawn down between it and our sight—
It may be, with a joy all new,
He sought the darkness and the light
Of day and night.

It may be, that, upon some wave
Which through the incense-laden skies
Scarce forced its ripple, there once clave
A thin earth-fragrance—in such wise
It smote his sense and made him crave
For that strange sweet: maybe, likewise,
The leaves their subtle perfume gave
Up from some grave:

And pleasant did it seem to heap
About the heart dim spells that lull
Profoundly between death and sleep,
To feel mid earthly soothings, dull

And sweet, upon the whole sense creep
The dream—life-long and wonderful,
That hath all souls of men to keep
Lest they should weep.

But often, when there seemed to fall
Bright shadows of half-blindness, thin,
And like fine films wrought over all
The flashing sights of Heaven within;
While that fair perishable wall
Of flesh so barred and shut him in
That scarce a silver spirit-call
Reached him at all—

O then the Earth failed not to bring,
Indeed through many a day and eve—
The strength of all her flowering
About him; nor forgot to weave,
With soft perpetual murmuring,
Her spells, that such a sweet way grieve,
And hold the heart to each fair thing,
Yea, with a sting:

And, sometimes, with strange prevalence
He felt those dim enchantments float
Most soothingly upon his sense;
While faint in memory remote,
Brought down the heart knew not from whence,
The thought of heaven within him smote—
And many a yearning did commence
Vague and intense—

Fair part of that unknown disease
Of dull material love, whereby
The luring flower-semblances
Of earthliness and death would try
To bind his heart beyond release
To each fair mortal sympathy,
That Death at length might wholly seize
Him with all these.

And, surely, on some shining bed
Of flowers in full summer's gleam;
Or when the autumn time had shed
Its wealth of perfume and its dream

On some rich eve—no thing of dread
To all his spirit did it seem,
To dream on, feeling sweet earth spread
Over his head.

But, one long twilight—hushed and dim—
The blue unfathomable clime
Of heaven seemed wholly to o'erbrim
With presence of the Lord—sublime;
And voices of the Seraphim
Fell through the ether like a chime:
He rose: his past way seemed to him
Like a child's whim.