The Poetical Works of John Payne :: :: University of Virginia Library

MY soul had passed the valley of the tomb
And stood before the foot of that steep hill
Whose summit held the golden-gated town.
The later way had been more hard for me
And the swift hours had left the golden noon
Far in the rearward distance, when my feet
Began to tread the lily-blossomed banks
Of that clear stream which rises from the heart
Of the eternal chrysolite and flows
Across the meadows at the mountain's foot.

I paused and turning, looked across the slopes
Of emerald, golden-blossomed, through whose grass,
Bright with celestial dews, my feet had passed
And washed away their tiredness, to the rim
Of purple sea, that bound the golden breadth
Of meadows at the uttermost extreme
Of vision; and as I, half-fearfully,
Looked back upon the perils I had passed,
The day began to fade and all the air
Grew purple with the presage of the night.

A little valley cleft the lower hill,
Where on the left the meadows rose to join
The heavenward slope, all overhung with trees;
And through its cool wood-glens and moss-grown dells
The living stream ran over diamond sands,
Flooding the tree-stems with its stainless lymph.
Celestial quiet held the luminous glades,
A calm engendered of untroubled peace;
And as the waters rippled o'er the stones,
Their song was as the everlasting harps,
That cease not from the choirs of Paradise.

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Thither I turned me, till the assaining sun
Should quicken Nature; for that the ascent
Were hopeless in the darkness of the night,
Under the vague direction of the moon;
And as I reached its shades, the light died out
And the blue heaven grew golden-flowered with stars.

All night I lay upon a bed of moss,
Whose hidden violets gave out sweetest scents,
Like breath of some divinest soul in pain,
And watched the clear stars keep the ward of heaven:
And all night long I heard the throb of harps
From out the city and the distant swell
Of sweet unearthly singing from within
The ramparts of the heavenly town and saw,
Reflected in the mirror of the sky,
The glory of that inocciduous light
Which burns at heart of the Eternal's throne.
My soul was not alone in that fair shade;
For, as the starlight pierced the dusky air,
Across the darkness I was ware of shapes,
Whose vaporous semblance wore a human form
And flitted through the shadow, and I felt
The rush of pinions fan my lips and brow.

The thought of ended toil and bliss to be,
Half-tempered by a dim and formless doubt,
Held back the balms of slumber from mine eyes;
And in the peopled stillness of the night,
My spirit trod the accomplished paths again,
Hoped its dead hopes and feared past fears anew
And fought afresh the battle of the years.

Beneath my resting-place the endless plains,
Through which my weary way but late had lain,
Were visible to my unsleeping eyes;
And when the dusk had blended all the hues

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Of various nature to one russet-gray,
I saw my path of years defined in fire,
A glimmering line that led athwart the night;
And here and there a point flamed beacon-wise,
Emblazoning the epochs of my life,
Where had my soul been turned, for good or ill,
Out of the years' worn channel. So I lay,
Revolving all the chances of the past
In fancy, till the silver-spangled gloom
Of night began to merge into the grey
Of early morning and the purple dusk
Fled from the golden arrows of the light:
The hills put on cloud-panoply of dawn
And through the mists the amaranth of day
Broke into flower across the Eastern crests.

As soon as in the cool sweet morning air
The sun had rounded out his golden globe,
I rose and took my way, beside the stream,
To where descent for it, for me ascent
Of that high hill began, whereon my hope
Incarnate rested, and with careful steps,
Followed its course, with feet set contrary.
Rugged and very toilsome was the way,
Compelling my impatient feet to sloth;
And oftentimes the windings of the stream,
To whose direction instinct bade me trust,
Hid from my sight all glimpse of heaven's bliss.
The path ran through a tangle of dark woods
And frowning cliffs; and ever, as I rose,
The golden pinnacles seemed risen too
And towered ever far above my head.

At length, when light had passed the house of noon
And the hot hours, that hold the rearward day,
Flamed in the golden air, I, suddenly,
Emerging from a thick and thorny brake,
Stood on the threshold of those gates of gold
That had so long been lodestars to my soul.

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Long expectation had not armed my hopes
'Gainst their long-wished fruition: very long
I stood and in a trance of wonderment,
Gazed mutely on those great resplendent leaves,
Beneath whose bases, in a glittering sheet
Of liquid crystal, ran the living stream.
So rapt was I, my senses noted not
A postern's soft unfolding and the approach
Of one who came from innerward, until
The glory of his visage warned my sight
Of a celestial presence and his voice,
Awful and sweet, made challenge to my soul
Of why it stood before the gates of heaven.

I looked and knew the angel of the Lord,
That stood before me, fair and terrible
In unimpassioned wisdom, and my tongue
Awhile for awe clave to my mouth. At last
I spoke. “O thou that hast the keys of heaven,
Thou knowest all; thou knowest I am one
Who through the tangles of the world hath striven,
To sue for entrance at the gates of life.”
But he, “Thou knowest, God gives nought for nought.
What hast thou done for Him that merits heaven?”
And I, “I have been careless of the world,
Have counted earth and its delights as nought
And set my hope on those eternal things
That lie beyond the ether and the stars.”
But he, “'Twas not well done of thee; the world,
No less than heaven's glory, is the Lord's.
Thou hast contemned God's creatures and thy sin
Hast counted righteousness. Thy life was vain;
Thou mayst not enter.” The hot tears gushed forth
From my sad eyes and in a blind despair,
I turned and fled upon the downward path
Into the lower valley. With my hope,
The day had faded and the gloom of night
Enshrouded all the landscape, as I sank

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Again upon the violet-hearted moss,
Worn with fierce toil and pain of my crushed hopes.

“Despair not: hope and wait!” These words to me
Were wafted through the thin and fluent air.
I looked around, but saw no living thing
Save those dim shapes, that flitted through the gloom,
Incessant; and indeed it seemed as if
No voice had spoken, but my formless hope
Had taken shape and spoken to my thought.
But, as I lay, the touch of two soft lips,
—As soft as summer rose-leaves,—swept my brow
And sleep fell down upon my weary soul.
The shafts of dawn aroused me; in the air,
All golden with the tender morning-glow,
The balms of Spring breathed perfume and my soul
Gathered new vigour with each liberal breath.
Despair had left me with the waning night
And hope, full-flowered, bloomed in my heart again.
A hidden influence seemed to bend my steps
Once more into the mountain-circling path
And the cool grass was yet with golden dews
Bejewelled nor the thirsty sun had drained
The wine of heaven from flower-chalices,
When on the heavenly threshold once again
I stood and felt that shining one anew
Challenge my purpose with his eyes of light.
My spirit gathered courage, for meseemed
His gaze was friendlier than of yesterday,
Less rigid in its stainless clarity
And awe of pure perfection. So, with less
Of the first fear and trepidation, I
To the grave question of his eloquent eyes,
That in their starry silence clearliest spoke,
Made answer, “I for mine own soul have solved
The mazy tangles of the opposing faiths,
That hinder many of the love of God,
Have found the aim of the concentric creeds

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And seen how all are reconciled in Him,
Who only is their centre and the fount
Of their beneficent being. I have thought
No one belief unblesséd, but have striven
To find in each the hidden saving soul
That medicines its weakness.” Thus I spoke
And paused; but still the enquiring look ceased not
From those angelic eyes; and I again,
With added earnest emphasis, as 'twere
Beseechingly, “I have been wise and strong,
Have seen in all the interfusing good,
Have known how every soul is very God,
How life is death and death is life indeed,
Have sucked the honey from the flowers of earth
And sought for nectar from the blooms of heaven,
That I might melt its sweetness into song
And with the wilding balsam bless the world.”
But he to me, “It is not yet enough;
Thou mayst not enter yet.” My agony
O'ermastered life and in a deathly swoon,
I fell to earth; nor did recurrent sense
Restore the motion to my palsied limbs,
What while the daylight glittered in the sky.

When I awoke, I felt the velvet moss
Beneath me and I knew I lay again
Upon the valley's sward. The day was gone;
The gold and crimson standards of the West
Had followed on the footsteps of the sun
And all the hills and plains were overstrewn
With twilight gloom; I saw the brooding dusk
Hover above and the pale sapphire stars
Kindle to splendour in the luminous air.
That night I slept not; for alternate hope
And fear held contestation in my breast.
And in the quiet, the celestial choirs
Sounded more clearly and their chanting seemed
To strike a chord of triumphing, as 'twere

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Rejoicing o'er some new-beatified soul,
About to cast off sorrow like a cloak
And put on glory with the crown of life.

So lay I through the unenlightened hours
And in the middle watches of the night,
When the moon's silver held the purple plains,
One stood beside me, robed in living light,
And spake sweet words to me, that were not sad,
But fair and wise and comforting as flowers,
When woodlands blossom in the break of May.
I knew the piteous sweetness of that face,
Which still on earth had been my type of heaven;
I knew the tender radiance of those eyes,
Which had in life been lodestars to my soul
And drawn it to all manner of good work,
And now, new-liberate from the clogs of earth,
Shone with that stainless splendour they had sought
And longed for in the life beyond the grave.
Of many things she reasoned, comforting
My troubled spirit with the golden speech,
That lent fair vesture to the rapturous grace
And beauty of her heaven-annealéd spright,
And drew me back along my way of life,
Making the sense of all things clear to me,
So that I knew what had been fair in it
And sweet and true and faithful and approved
Of God and what ill-omened and unblest.
And as I hearkened, lifting up mine eyes,
I saw, where, on the far horizon's marge,
The slant sky's azure joined the purple sea,
A star that seemed to grow toward my sight,
With an unresting swiftness, and before
Its path of light, the clinging veils of mist
Fled, as the dawn clouds flee before the sun;
And whilst its passage clove the untroubled air,
Leaving behind a wake of silver light,
(As in the phosphorescent waves at night

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The keel's ploughed pathway glitters,) all the fair
And seeming merits of my pictured life,
Whereon I used to build my hopes of heaven,
Fell in the shadow of that ceaseless light,
Shade blacker for the brilliance of its cause,
And dwindled into unenlightened gloom.
But from the shadow many a modest flower,
That erst had lain unnoticed in the blaze
Of more pretentious blossoms, showed itself,
Freed from the screen of interwoven mists,
And put the roses of the world to shame.
The things unreal withered from the light,
Whilst, bright and constant, the eternal things
Shone out, full-statured, in the silver flood.
The ship of heaven failed not in its course,
Until it reached the summit of a wood,
Where, nestling in its inmost heart of green,
The holiest holy of my being lay,
All overshrouded with the webs of years.
Here stayed the heavenly messenger its vans
And pierced the dim recesses with the shafts
Of its ethereal radiance. From my sight
The mystery of life was no more hid;
The secret place lay open, flooded full
Of light; and in the deepest deep of green,
I saw a fair white flower, that lay asleep,
Within its sleeping silver-fronded leaves,
And in the silence brimmed the air with balm.
I knew the symbol of a deathless love,
A love I scarce had heeded, but whose charm
Hallowed my handwork with its quiet chrism
And purified my yearnings in the life
That lies to worldward of the icy flood.
My eyes were opened to the eternal truth
And a new knowledge overflowed my soul.

A moment, anchored in the deep serene,
The planet glittered; then, as suddenly

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As it had dawned upon me, disappeared
And all the landscape wore the night again.
I turned to look for that belovéd shape;
But the swart air was void and in the calm
No sound of voice or footstep smote my ear,
But only that clear rillet o'er the stones
Whispered in music to the listening stars.
And now the signs of dawning flashed across
The purple of the interstellar air;
The day began to break the chains of night;
And as the morning reddened all the sky,
One spake to me, albeit none was near,
And said, “Delay not; see, the sign of hope
Undying glisters even at thy feet.”
I looked and saw, enchased in emerald
And gold of moss, a clear pellucid bell,
That, for the vivid brilliance of its hue,
Seemed moulded from the living diamond
And bore at heart a tongue of golden flame,
That through the petals blended with the light.
I knew the asphodel of Paradise;
And as I stooped to gather its sweet scent's
Regeneration closelier, in the span
Of my two palms, I saw another bell,
Twin to the first, but even goodlier
In seeming sheen, had cloven the green earth
And beckoned to me with its spire of flame.
I moved to pluck it, when, o wonderment!
Beyond the attainéd blossom sprang a third,
A fourth and after that, a host of blooms,
Each of a fairer semblance than the last,
And drew my feet upon the upward path,
Regardless of the rigours of the way.

So did I follow on the flowered track,
With downcast eyes bent on the lavish blooms,
As one who gathers cowslips, unawares,
Is tempted by the richer-seeming bells

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That stand in endless sequence, till he finds
He has, unknowing, wandered far away;
Till suddenly the trail of blossoms ceased
And I was ware of an increase of light,
That drew mine eyes up from the spangled grass
And made them quickly fall to earth again
With its exceeding splendour; for there stood
Before me he that held the gate of heaven
And gazed upon me with his radiant eyes,
In whose clear deeps a smileless sweetness shone,
That raised my hopes to rapture. “Hast thou found,
At last, the secret of Eternity,
The chiefest crown and attribute of God?
Holdest, at last, the very key of heaven,
The word that opens life? Hast learnt, at last,
What was most worthy in unworthiness
Of thy probation-strife?” Thus he to me;
And I, grown wise at last, “I have but loved,
A little, oh, how little!” answer made;
And the gold gates swung open at my touch.

Agnus est felicis urbis lumen inocciduum.— Peter Damian's Latin Hymn.

A crash of song aroused me. In the porch
Of an old church I sat, whilst out of doors
The quiring birds made carol to the May.
Usque ad portas sang the inner choir;
And from the gates of heaven came down my soul.