Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

NATURA VERTICORDIA.

Sed ubi oris aurei Sol radiantibus oculis
Lustravit aethera album, sola dura, mare ferum,
Pepulitque noctis umbras vegetis sonipedibus,
Ita de quiete molli, rabidâ sine rabie,
Simul ipsa pectore Atys sua facta recoluit,
Liquidâque mente vidit sine quîs ubique foret,
Animo æstuante rursum reditum ad vada tetulit:
Ibi maria vasta visens lacrymantibus oculis
Patriam allocuta mœsta est ita voce miseriter.
Catullus.

I

Ah, on that morning how I cursed the light!
Let it be nameless—all the shameless night,
The spent fleet pleasure, fanged by hound-swift pain.
The pitiless morning smote mine aching sight,
And would not let me hide in sleep again.

II

No spongy East—no slough of soiled grey sky:
I could have borne that well. But splendidly,
Pitilessly pure, and pitilessly fair,
I knew the Eöan rose-light—sordid I,
Unclean in all that wash of radiant air.

III

The day-spring crushed me with its voiceless scorn,
Burning towards God, nor heeding me forlorn,
Dumb and cast out from all that infinite choir—
That Titan praise—the pæan of the morn,
Scaling God's throne with a thunder of colour and fire.

IV

Ah, there outside, the splendour and the blaze!
The soft sun, crimsoning through an amber haze,
Was flushing all the far fair orient sea.
And I shrank, and cried, ‘My right is gone to gaze,
Alas, with these polluted eyes, on thee!

V

‘Guiltily now I tremble as I behold
That beauty which I yearned so for of old,
Cringe now with shame in the old clear love's stead—
Cower from yon glory of molten misty gold,
Sublimed in fervent fumes of rose and red.

VI

‘Then is the colour hushed a space; and higher,
Splinters and glittering flakes of scarlet fire
In wastes of clearest saffron, pale and rare;
And over all, in many a crown-like gyre,
Pink fleeces floating faint in purple air.

VII

‘Oh, love estranged! oh, sweet, lost paradise
Of light and colour! To my shame-shrunk eyes,
Those great pure things—how alien now they are!
How do they scorn me, these intense blue skies,
And clear white chasteness of the morning star!

VIII

‘How am I fallen and changed since yesterday,
When yonder sun was clouded soft and grey,
From this same place I watched with silent sight
The shifting sunlights on the shadowy bay,
And faint horizons flash with lengths of light;

IX

‘And felt my heart, so standing here alone,
Throb, and my whole soul on a sudden grown
Yearning and glad and wild and sad in me,
For love of those far happy clouds that shone,
Grey fleeced with silver, o'er the silver sea.

X

‘Then ghosts of unknown longings swelled my breast,
Measureless love and infinite unrest,
A reaching after some withdrawn Delight,
I knew was somewhere, lured me to the quest,
Lost parent of an orphan appetite—

XI

‘Of a longing that lay ever in wait for me,
To sweep me far, far off, aërially,
Out of myself, away from all mean things,
Strong as the sea-bound wind, whereon to sea
Is swept the sea-mew's sweet white width of wings.

XII

‘Vague, vast, at sundry times 'twould drift me—yea,
The vaster for its vagueness—far away,
I wist not whitherward, in the stream thereof;
Tinged with the many moods of night and day,
Changeful of shape, yet still one changeless love.

XIII

‘Oh, how it filled me, lured me, evermore!
Now in the intricate forest's foliaged core—
Green ravelled lights, and rich-barked boughs of trees:
‘Now in the noon's bright foam-flash showered to shore,
And blue, soft distances of sunlit seas:

XIV

‘Now in fierce night-falls o'er the desolate main,
When death was in the weird waves' mad refrain,
And the lightning shook its wild hair on the sweep
Of the great free foam-fraught sea-going hurricane,
Over the hoary darkness of the deep.

XV

‘And now, when skies were faint and stars were few,
'Twould thrill me, shaped like sadness, through and through—
Times when the low winds lisped their tenderest tune;
Dim sorrow-slaking seasons of soft dew,
And lulled seas silvering slowly to the moon.

XVI

‘Yes, everywhere I felt, at every hour,
Through my soul's lulls or tumults, one same Power
Drawing my whole self open by degrees;
My love seemed greetening towards that perfect flower
Whereof the strange witch sang to Socrates.

XVII

‘Then these things made me noble. Then they teemed
For me with voices. Voices, or I dreamed,
Lured me at all times and on every side,
Wordlessly crying, “Come! come!” and they seemed
The voices of the Spirit and the Bride.

XVIII

‘But now—ah, fallen, fallen!—I do not dare
To raise myself and hearken. Alas! I bear
A great weight, heavier than a millstone is—
Bitterer than any terrible proud despair—
Self's scorn of self, God's bitterest Nemesis.

XIX

‘For now this sun-stream of clear rosy light
Serves but to show me vile in mine own sight,
All my soul's raiment spotted still with mire,
Marred by the ghastly havoc of the night,
And conquering ravage of a scorned desire.

XX

‘And now the old voices all in vain for me
Will sound; for now no proud antiphone
Dares, as of old, to answer from my soul.
How will it cease, the evangel of the sea!
How will the dawn unfold, a vain blank scroll!

XXI

‘Maimed, crawling wretch! Nay, I shall rise no more.
Poor false-fledged Icarus, wingless as before;
Maimed by the fall! To its old mortality
This mortal cleaves. What right had I to soar?
Of the earth earthy—ay, the earth for me!

XXII

‘Oh, how my tense brow aches with dull, thick care!’
Then I threw wide the window, and laid bare
My face, to realise that hour of hours.
Ah, what a gust of freshness!—morning air
With rainy scents of earth, and whiffs of flowers!

XXIII

And there the birds were, singing; and far and sweet
Came the crisp shore-song of the ebb's retreat;
And I sighed and cried as I looked towards the sea,
‘How must thy sands now swim one shining sheet,
With orange sunlight, and the breeze breathe free!

XXIV

‘And all the woods be fed with moist perfumes
Of new-blown flowers festooning green wet glooms,
Which yet the level dawn-flush filters through;
And dense drenched evergreens droop their pendulous plumes,
Grey with the diamond sparkle of all the dew!

XXV

‘But I—’ And yet I still stood gazing there,
Heavy with sorrow in my stupid stare;
As might some proud queen's scorned, unlooked-at lover,
Who, thinking so to cheat entire despair,
Keeps gazing still, though all his hopes are over.

XXVI

And thus—I know not how—a stealthy Peace,
Swathed in dim weeds like Grief's, by soft degrees,
To me, who knew her not, drew gently near;
Till my lids smarted with a coming ease,
And the dawn-light glimmered dim through a shaken tear.

XXVII

And I felt my shame's dull ice was molten through,
And hung there flickering, globed in hopeful dew:
And once again a sad, compassionate cry,
Came in the holy wordless voice I knew,—
‘Infirm of love, why hast thou left us? Why?

XXVIII

‘What hast thou found more pure, more great, more fair,
Maddened for whose sweet sake thou thus couldst dare
To blind thine eyes to us, and laugh to scorn
The flower-sweet fellowship of the early air,
And far-flushed outgoings of the even and morn?

XXIX

‘What is it?—what, thus worthier far than we?
Art thou content, and shall thy bartering be?
The Holy Spirit of dawn, with its tongues of flame,
The proud song of the sunrise and the sea,
Sold for those red lips, and their babble of shame?

XXX

‘What hast thou found more than the love we gave?
What sympathy more strong to succour and save?
Hast not thou known a deeper comfort lies
In the deep language of the wind and wave
Than in any human words, or silent eyes?

XXXI

‘Do not man's friendships fail, and fade, and fall;
And prisoned love turn weary, and weak, and pall;
Lust humble, and blind, and blast, and then grow cold?
But we change not, we overlive them all—
All lusts and loves, all young desires or old.

XXXII

‘Launch then on us thy unanchored life, for we
Sweep ever, ever on to the unknown sea,
In a river of music. Hear our call—be wise!
On sweep the floods! Say, shall they carry thee
On their broad breast of boundless harmonies?

XXXIII

‘Lo, there is no desire so wild of wing,
No strange pure nomad passion pasturing
By nameless wells and remote grass alone,
But strike our harp, and thou shalt sind some string
With these to quiver and yearn in unison.

XXXIV

‘Come now, and prove us if our words be true!
Rise, roam the fragrant deep green places through,
Where the new gospels of the wild-flowers tell
How dew-awakened scents and virgin dew
Make a whole heaven in every bending bell.

XXXV

‘Or where the wave's voice sparkles in the sun
With cold, pure foam—there make the done undone;
There spurn the past! for lo, our lovers must
Draw near as in no humbled vesture spun
Of love's threads tangled in the loom of lust.

XXXVI

‘Rise o'er thy past, and burn its routed night
Into gold fumes, and clouds of crimson light,
Sunlike!’— And as I gazed, more splendidly
Glowed, as it seemed, the dawn-flush, and more bright
Rippled the rough fresh rose-light on the sea.

XXXVII

And from mine eastward lips broke forth a cry,
‘Ah, that my flesh were but a cloud, to die
Into the infinite joy that hath no name,
As dies yon rose-mist into the blue, pure sky—
Yon almost fluttering film of rare rose flame!

XXXVIII

‘Haste—let me forth, and wander by the seas,
Or through green places, damp with flowers and trees,
And wash old stains off—cleanse my soul anew!
Yea, surely find a sacrament in these,
A second baptism in the morning dew.’

An. æt. 19.