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POEMS WRITTEN AT 19.
TO THE ANGEL OF DEATH
Thou art cold with acquaintance of sorrow
Our cries are but sounds of a sleep
Thine ears and thine eyes hast thou hardened
And with time hast forgotten to weep
Our cries are but sounds of a sleep
Thine ears and thine eyes hast thou hardened
And with time hast forgotten to weep
Yet at first was there never repining
When the fresh young world was born
Ere the years brought strength and silence
And the centuries gave thee scorn?
When the fresh young world was born
Ere the years brought strength and silence
And the centuries gave thee scorn?
Did no prayer from thee rise to the heavens
Nor one sigh that it might not be,
Oh! at first when thine ears must hearken,
Oh! at first when thine eyes must see
Nor one sigh that it might not be,
Oh! at first when thine ears must hearken,
Oh! at first when thine eyes must see
Nor some look of a child on the mother
In that idle last embrace
Bring a strange imperfect pity
To thy calm and perfect face?
In that idle last embrace
Bring a strange imperfect pity
To thy calm and perfect face?
Then I deem there was something of anguish
O'er the early hopeless bier
Tho' divine thou wast touched for a moment
To a vain terrestrial tear
O'er the early hopeless bier
Tho' divine thou wast touched for a moment
To a vain terrestrial tear
It may be that strong in thy wisdom
Thy hand makes the wild heart cease
Like the hand of an infinite pity
With the cool of an infinite peace
Thy hand makes the wild heart cease
Like the hand of an infinite pity
With the cool of an infinite peace
Ah no! when we ask of a Father
What region of light we shall reach
Cometh o'er thee some silence of knowledge
Some sorrow too strong for speech
What region of light we shall reach
Cometh o'er thee some silence of knowledge
Some sorrow too strong for speech
Then at length in thine eyes comes the pity
In thine ears comes the anguish of old
For a moment thou wouldest have spoken
It is past—thou art still, thou art cold—
In thine ears comes the anguish of old
For a moment thou wouldest have spoken
It is past—thou art still, thou art cold—
ORESTES.
Me in far lands
Did Justice call, cold queen among the dead,
Who, after hurry, heat, and fret, at length
Have leisure for her calm immortal voice
That gathers peace from the great deeps of GOD.
She called me saying, “I heard a cry by night—
Go thou, and question not—my will awaits
Fulfilment in thy halls—e'en now the dead
Cries out before me in the under-world—
Seek not to justify thyself—be strong
In me, and I will shew thee wise in time;
For, though my face be dark to men, yet they
Who truly follow me through storm or shine
For them the veil shall fall, and they shall see
They walked with Wisdom, though they knew her not.”
Did Justice call, cold queen among the dead,
Who, after hurry, heat, and fret, at length
Have leisure for her calm immortal voice
That gathers peace from the great deeps of GOD.
She called me saying, “I heard a cry by night—
Go thou, and question not—my will awaits
Fulfilment in thy halls—e'en now the dead
Cries out before me in the under-world—
Seek not to justify thyself—be strong
In me, and I will shew thee wise in time;
For, though my face be dark to men, yet they
Who truly follow me through storm or shine
For them the veil shall fall, and they shall see
They walked with Wisdom, though they knew her not.”
So sped I home, and from the under-world.
For ever came a wind that filled my sails
Cold, like a spirit; and ever Her still voice
Spake over shoreless seas and fathomless deeps
And in great calms, as from a colder world;
Nor slacked I sail by day nor yet when night
Fell on my running keel and shut me in
All filled with flying faces of revenge.
So sped I on, filled with a voice divine—
And hardly wist I whom I was to slay,—
My Mother—but a vague heroic dream
Possessed me; fired to do the will of gods—
I lost the man in ministers of heaven—
Nor took I note of sandbank, nor of storm,
Nor of the ocean's thunders, when the shores
All round had faded—leaving me alone,
I knew I could not die till I had slain—
But, when I came once more upon the land
That reared me, all the sweetness of old days
Came back upon me: I stood as from a dream
Waked to a sudden sad reality—
And when far off I saw those ancient towers,
The palaces and places of my youth,
I longed to fall into my mother's arms
And tell a thousand tales of near escapes
And lo! the nurse that fondled me of yore
Fell with glad tears upon my neck, and told
Of how she and my mother all this while
Had dreamed of all I was to do—and said
How dear I should be to my mother' eyes
Her words that shook me, shook not my resolves,
For even then there came that sterner voice
Echoing to what was highest in the soul.
Then, like to those who have a work on earth
And put far from them lips of wife or child
And gird them to the accomplishment—so I
Strode in—nor saw at all mine ancient halls
And struck—my father's murderess—not my mother.
And when I had smitten, lo, the strength of gods
Passed from me, and the old familiar halls
Reeled back on me—dim statues that of old,
Holding my mother's hand. I marvelled at—
And questioned her of each—and she lies there—
My mother; aye my mother now, O hair
That once I played with in these halls—O eyes
That for a moment knew me as I came
And lightened up and trembled into love
The next—were darkened by my hand. Ah me!
Ye will not look upon me in that world
Yet thou perchance art happier if thou goest
Into some land of winds and drifting leaves
To sleep without a star, without a sound
For ever and for ever—but for me
Hell hungers—and the restless Furies wait—
Then the dark Curse that sits upon the towers
Bowed down her awful head—thus satisfied—
And I fled forth—a murderer—thro' the world.
Cold, like a spirit; and ever Her still voice
Spake over shoreless seas and fathomless deeps
And in great calms, as from a colder world;
Nor slacked I sail by day nor yet when night
Fell on my running keel and shut me in
All filled with flying faces of revenge.
So sped I on, filled with a voice divine—
And hardly wist I whom I was to slay,—
My Mother—but a vague heroic dream
Possessed me; fired to do the will of gods—
I lost the man in ministers of heaven—
Nor took I note of sandbank, nor of storm,
Nor of the ocean's thunders, when the shores
All round had faded—leaving me alone,
I knew I could not die till I had slain—
But, when I came once more upon the land
That reared me, all the sweetness of old days
Came back upon me: I stood as from a dream
Waked to a sudden sad reality—
And when far off I saw those ancient towers,
The palaces and places of my youth,
And tell a thousand tales of near escapes
And lo! the nurse that fondled me of yore
Fell with glad tears upon my neck, and told
Of how she and my mother all this while
Had dreamed of all I was to do—and said
How dear I should be to my mother' eyes
Her words that shook me, shook not my resolves,
For even then there came that sterner voice
Echoing to what was highest in the soul.
Then, like to those who have a work on earth
And put far from them lips of wife or child
And gird them to the accomplishment—so I
Strode in—nor saw at all mine ancient halls
And struck—my father's murderess—not my mother.
And when I had smitten, lo, the strength of gods
Passed from me, and the old familiar halls
Reeled back on me—dim statues that of old,
Holding my mother's hand. I marvelled at—
And questioned her of each—and she lies there—
My mother; aye my mother now, O hair
That once I played with in these halls—O eyes
And lightened up and trembled into love
The next—were darkened by my hand. Ah me!
Ye will not look upon me in that world
Yet thou perchance art happier if thou goest
Into some land of winds and drifting leaves
To sleep without a star, without a sound
For ever and for ever—but for me
Hell hungers—and the restless Furies wait—
Then the dark Curse that sits upon the towers
Bowed down her awful head—thus satisfied—
And I fled forth—a murderer—thro' the world.
GLADYS and IRENE.
A DEATH-BED.
Gladys.“The Sun is set, and yet a light of day
Still lingers on the windows of the place.
A lifeless moon is in the clear cold heaven,
In the still radiance of the watery skies
The lonely lightnings of the evening star!
The glow of heaven hath passed: at length the voice
Of every bird hath failed, there's not a breath
In the wide world. O break not with a sound
The ecstasy of the eternal being!
E'en now He resteth, dreaming of new worlds:
And now the vault is deepening, and the stars
Burst into light each moment, till at length
Break open to the very feet of GOD
O I can hate no more—it dies away
That little fever, 'tis of the stifling air
Of this small sphere, the meanness of the world:
And only love is large enough.”
Irene.
“O my sister do not forget me!
I am alone in all the world.”
Gladys.
“Now take my hand! before there come to you
The cold breath of the dawn, and all things wake,
I shall be gone from you; O, I shall be
In heaven before the lark, and, when he wakes
And sings, and soars towards the eternal gates,
And in far skies his music's lost to you,
'Twill come to me like the last notes of earth.
O now my soul can reach to that high place;
The heaven comes down on me with all her lights—
I fear I may forget you—O farewell!”
THOUGHTS AT SUNRISE.
The summer day is waning, and the mornBreaks over steaming streams and silent fields,
With dim, far voices of the early dawn.
God and his world are now at peace; this calm,
Even now, might deepen to Eternity.
Oh, break it not! oh, stain it not! O God,
Stay thou that rising Sun, nor let him rise
Once more upon the weary sin and strife,
And cries that curse him thro' the burning blue!
Come hither, O ye sons of men! and kneel,—
Pray to a God ye never prayed to yet,
Who in his wide and wistful tenderness
Maketh each day the self-same dawn that broke
On Eden,—that, remembering what ye were,
The Dawn's sweet innocence might call ye back,—
An awful, mute appeal to turn again.
About him are the deeps, Space, with her sounds,
The Heaven, with all her dreams of star and sun,
The singing of a thousand worlds; to him,
Serene, immortal beings bow them low.
All these are perfect, yet he hears afar,
In that dim, little planet that he loves,
Man jarring ever on his harmonies.
Aye, yearning in his cold and perfect worlds
For Man who might have sympathy with him,
Move with conceptions vast and burning thoughts
From beauty unto beauty, peopling worlds,
He grieves, though not the less a God for grief.
Man is all out of tune with his design,
Who might have shared in that first splendid thought,
Conception striving with an utter Space,
Sound with eternal still that knew her not,
And light with the vague dark, till at the last
He struck his vast conception into bounds.
Still makes he for mankind the innocent dawn,
Noon, twilight, and the night, that makes the heart
Break into singing at her shining stars.
Who heeds not that world-cry from Calvary—
A God appealing to the love of man,
Laying aside all terror and all power—
That should have echoed in him, made the world
One fearless Heaven, without a thought of Hell,—
Man, who can learn not through defeat and death
Sorrow's last gift a sympathy with God.
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