Legends of the Morrow :: :: University of Virginia Library

Legends of the Morrow

By Thomas Gordon Hake

Hake, Thomas Gordon (1809-1895)

THE LOST FUTURE.

THE POET'S ALMS-HOUSE.

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THE LOST FUTURE.

I

Here in the isles of Araby, sun-stained,
Where ashen waters scorch in paler skies,—
A marble heaven by the red lightnings veined
Till the cool stars in the blue night arise,—
Man is the lord of all, the seer
Of summer's ceaseless year.

II

Here the wise watch the sunbeams as they spot
The flowers, the fruit-pods as they suck the dew;
And all is seen, for Nature clotheth not,
As in cold climes; her secrets all may view;
The stars throw open to the gaze
The course of coming days.

III

Nature wears no disguise; the heavy air
Reeks with her waste of lore; the seer may pry
Into her heart, may pluck out wisdom there,
And learn her warnings never to defy.
For those who war against her will
Time stops; their souls stand still.

IV

Her magic lights, that flush to over-flow,
Blind not the seer, though gossamers they weave
For foolish eyes, that they may nothing know,
And all things, 'mid all wonders, disbelieve.
So with a chief whose lawless love
For him this dim veil wove.

V

He calls into his silken tent a seer:
To-day, he cries, the mountain-bride I wed:
Let men the good or ill it bodeth hear
Ere the few moments, yet unpast, have sped.
You are the watcher and foresee
The things that are to be.

VI

The seer replies: She tarries on our isle:
And you will rob a brother of his bride:
Be warned in time, and suffer for awhile,
That in your faith we may again confide;
Or blindly the swift moments go
Into your hour of woe.

VII

Hold not your purpose, or within your soul
Time will collapse; a shrinking year set in:
An hourless day without a morrow's goal;
A memory stopping where its woes begin;
A still-born future like the past
Into the time-grave cast.

VIII

Love's load without its object on your breast!
No change; as when the thought doth not appear
On things that give the eye a transient rest:
One vacant hour, not gone, but always near;
A soul that severed from its springs
To the void body clings.

IX

The chief smiles at the seer's prophetic speech;
He takes the bride; the moments swiftly run,
The passing days to deeper blisses reach;
Love, sleep-renewed, and life anew begun:
A sky's blue folds still hung above
The even-tide of love.

X

What thinks she of her plight, the mountain-maid?
She hath her fears, for well she loves her chief;
And musing on the morrow is afraid.
A mother's joy then sweeps away her grief:
A crowing child is on her arm
And silences alarm.

XI

With sunset comes and goes a golden sail:
Where is the seer, where is the vessel gone?
No wind sprang up, no ripple marked the trail;
The purple waters flashed and were alone.
Did not a cloud its sail unfold?
Was it a cloud of gold?

XII

The chief is resting 'neath a broad-leaved tree,
Shaded by deep-green boughs and blood-red flowers,
And sitting with his love beside the sea
Where but a rosy wave-plush tells the hours.
Her arm so fair, its infant-stem—
His heart o'ershadows them!

XIII

Change threats; the air breaks into purple glow;
Its moving mist dyes blue the grassy ground;
The gum-trees split and give their juices flow;
The full-hatched pods burst with a crackling sound.
These signs upon his dozings creep,
But only turn to sleep.

XIV

The golden sail that folded round the seer,
He, drowsing, now recalls with sudden flash
That sweeps across his heart, and in his fear
He feels a throb that seems a tempest's crash:
So loud the thought of thunder's roll
Sounds to the sleepy soul.

XV

A golden sail, that seems at first a speck,
Upon the mid-sea flutters; now is nigh:
Two forms stand up, then vanish on the deck;
The sail appears a phantom in the sky.
All purple are the waves; one cloud—
Not ship, nor mast, nor shroud.

XVI

But while he dozes there with half-closed eyes,
The mother open-mouthed beholds the seer:
If to her soul she screams, her piercing cries
Glide noiseless past the chief's enchanted ear;
Though straightway to his spirit go
Those looks of woman's woe.

XVII

He sees, unstirred, his brother's angry wrist
Upon the mother; o'er the deck they move;
The child with her has flitted through the mist:
On the chief lies the heavy load of love!
Lost is his power the shout to raise
The load so heavy weighs.

XVIII

She and her child, charmed to the purple deck,
Seem sky-tinged shadows fast departing hence;
Far off from land the sail is now a speck.
True things act dreams on his bewildered sense.
When he awakes a golden sail
Swells vast before the gale.

XIX

“The hourless day without a morrow's goal,”
Is come: he lisps the words, he bows his head.
To stone is turned the outlook of his soul;
He lives, but changes places with the dead.
The past is now a purple blot,
The morrow cometh not.

XX

The golden sail that child and mother bore
Comes ever to his sight; and ever flies;
Still starting, still on the horizon's shore:
The woeful scene is shipwrecked on his eyes.
He watches, frighted from his tears
Into his old, grey years.

XXI

His soul set fast, it has no outer range,
As when a moment flew, another crept;
As when he took a sorrow in exchange;
As when at morn he laughed, at sundown wept.
Time stops before his eyes to show
The man his hour of woe.

XXII

For years his sight can find no other rest
Than on his absent bride, who ever young
Holds up her child between her arms and breast:
They still depart; his heart afresh is wrung.
They vanished at the vessel's prow,
And there they vanish now.

XXIII

In time the child seeks out her father's home:
She seems the bride—he knows her not apart;
All things have changed; o'er him no change has come:
She left him, she returns unto his heart.
Young as the bride of other years,
Her mother's face she bears.

XXIV

His heart is turned to her, he meets the maid
Not in surprise but with his olden smile;
As though on some late errand she had stayed;
Then after fondly gazing a brief while,
Where is the child? he asks and this
She answers with her kiss.

XXV

Lent to his spirit is a joy of yore,
The child in her forgotten, at his side
The mother seems she, and he sees no more
The golden sail upon the purple tide.
But on the void before her breast
His eyes uneasy rest.

XXVI

His child soon wedded to an honoured sheik,
She tells him her own love; he listens well;
Though strange her words, he loves to hear her speak:
His joy he knows; but hers 'tis vain to tell.
The olden hour is in his mind;
The new he cannot find.

XXVII

Within his tent, his daughter's hand on his,
Silent he sits; but there a longing thought
Still stays, else happy in divided bliss;
As if through clouded consciousness he sought
One he beheld not; the lost child
That once upon him smiled.

XXVIII

Where is my child, he asks at times; and sinks
Back to his olden hour; for no reply
Can touch the yearning soul that never thinks:
His life too weak to move in reverie.
So his head bows, the longing stops,
And like a shadow drops.

XXIX

A child is born; the old chief's spirit warms;
He deems that his beloved one proudly stands
Before him, with her infant in her arms.
To her, as if to Heaven, he lifts his hands:
The blest delusion of that day
Was not to pass away.