Collected Poems: With Autobiographical and Critical Fragments By Frederic W. H. Myers: Edited by his Wife Eveleen Myers |
 |
|
|
| I. |
|
| I. |
| II. |
| III. | III |
|
| I. |
| II. |
| II. |
|
 | Collected Poems: With Autobiographical and Critical Fragments |  |
152
III
At that strange speech the sons of men amazed
Each on the other tremulously gazed,
When lo, herself,—herself the age to close,—
From where she lay the very Faith arose;
She stood as never she shall stand again,
And for an instant manifest to men:—
In figure like the Mother-maid who sees
The deepest heart of hidden mysteries,
On that strange night when from her eyes she shed
A holy glory on the painter's bed,
And Agnes and the angels hushed awhile,
Won by her sadness sweeter than a smile.
Such form she wore, nor yet henceforth will care
That form, or form at all, on earth to wear;
For those sweet eyes, which once, with flag unfurled,
So many a prince would follow through the world,—
That face, the light of dreams, the crown of day,
Lo, while we looked on her, was rapt away;
O mystic end and o evanished queen!
When shall we see thee as our sires have seen?
Each on the other tremulously gazed,
When lo, herself,—herself the age to close,—
From where she lay the very Faith arose;
She stood as never she shall stand again,
And for an instant manifest to men:—
In figure like the Mother-maid who sees
The deepest heart of hidden mysteries,
On that strange night when from her eyes she shed
A holy glory on the painter's bed,
And Agnes and the angels hushed awhile,
Won by her sadness sweeter than a smile.
Such form she wore, nor yet henceforth will care
That form, or form at all, on earth to wear;
For those sweet eyes, which once, with flag unfurled,
So many a prince would follow through the world,—
That face, the light of dreams, the crown of day,
Lo, while we looked on her, was rapt away;
O mystic end and o evanished queen!
When shall we see thee as our sires have seen?
And yet, translated from the Pontiff's side,
She did not die, o say not that she died!
She died not, died not, o the faint and fair!
She could not die, but melted into air.
She did not die, o say not that she died!
153
She could not die, but melted into air.
In that high dome I neither know nor say
What Power and Presence was alive that day,
No, nor what Faith, in what transfigured form,
Rode on the ghostly spaces of the storm:
For sight of eyes nor ear with hearing knew
That windless wind that where it listed blew;
Yet seeing eyes and ears that hear shall be
As dust and nothingness henceforth for me,
Who once have felt the blowing Spirit roll
Life on my life, and on my soul a Soul.
What Power and Presence was alive that day,
No, nor what Faith, in what transfigured form,
Rode on the ghostly spaces of the storm:
For sight of eyes nor ear with hearing knew
That windless wind that where it listed blew;
Yet seeing eyes and ears that hear shall be
As dust and nothingness henceforth for me,
Who once have felt the blowing Spirit roll
Life on my life, and on my soul a Soul.
And first the conclave and the choir, and then
The immeasurable multitude of men,
Bowed and fell down, bowed and fell down, as though
A rushing mighty wind had laid them low;
Yea to all hearts a revelation came,
As flying thunder and as flying flame;
A moment then the vault above him seemed
To each man as the heaven that he had dreamed;
A moment then the floor whereon he trod
Became the pavement of the courts of God;
And in the aisles was silence, in the dome
Silence, and no man knew that it was Rome.
The immeasurable multitude of men,
Bowed and fell down, bowed and fell down, as though
A rushing mighty wind had laid them low;
Yea to all hearts a revelation came,
As flying thunder and as flying flame;
A moment then the vault above him seemed
To each man as the heaven that he had dreamed;
A moment then the floor whereon he trod
Became the pavement of the courts of God;
And in the aisles was silence, in the dome
Silence, and no man knew that it was Rome.
| Collected Poems: With Autobiographical and Critical Fragments | |