Songs of Consolation :: :: University of Virginia Library

Songs of Consolation

New Poems by John Payne

Payne, John (1842-1916)

THE DESCENT OF THE DOVE.

I. Praeludium.

II.

II. In Domo Joachimi.

III.

III. Postludium.

LIFE'S RECHEAT.

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THE DESCENT OF THE DOVE.

I. Praeludium.

Voces in aere.

GENII TERRESTRES loq.

THE world is white in the mild moon's light;
The lilies bloom in her silver sight;
Meseems some wonder is waking under
The star-flowered quiet of middle night.

From pole to pole, like a singing scroll,
The spheral sounds of the star-songs roll:
The air is gleaming with shapes of dreaming;
A mystic music is on my soul.

The wonder grows, like an opening rose;
The face of heaven with a halo glows;
For joy or fearing, some charm is nearing;
I feel its wings o'er the world unclose.

It fills me: there, in the middle air,
A splendour as of a meteor's hair!
The gates of heaven are open; the seven
Great angels glitter upon the stair.

The flower-flame flies through the utmost skies;
The glory of heaven is in mine eyes;
I see, descending, a stair unending;
From pole to zenith its pillars rise.

And lo! in the core of the lights, that soar
And banner heaven from shore to shore,
Far fiercelier glowing, a glory's growing,
Is beaming and brightening evermore.

The lights unfold, as a bud leaf-scrolled,
And forth of them flowers a dove of gold:
My weak sight's failing, such glory's hailing
On earth and ocean, on wood and wold.

It spreads its wings; to a thousand strings
And pipes, the height of the heavens rings:
The world rejoices with myriad voices,
The night is a living lute that sings.

The angels fly through the welking high;
The dove sinks down through the spangled sky;
Its wings are bright'ning; like awful lightning,
Its sight is nearing, is rushing nigh.

The air burns bright with its streaming light;
New noontides flower in the middest night;
Its wings wax nearer, more dread and clearer,
A meteor hailing from heaven's height.

I faint for fear, as the sign draws near;
The glory is all too great to bear:
Is there no hiding from the abiding
Of that divineness so fierce and fair?

The world is wide, yet I cannot hide;
The splendours flood me on every side;
The ocean's riven with gold of heaven,
Its deeps and caverns are glorified.

Fast, fast it nighs through the streaming skies;
The great earth quakes as a God that dies:
My face is paling, my sight is failing,
The lids fall down on my blinded eyes.

II. In Domo Joachimi.

MARIA VIRGO loq.

THE diamond shimmer of the dawn
Is faded out from hill and lawn;
And in the vanward of the day,
The bridal hours have cast away
Their virgin veils of gold and pearl.
Yonder the cuckoo pipes; the merle
Flutes on the blossomed figs, aglow
With bees, where, but an hour ago,
The nightingale did sit and sing,
That all the woods made echoing
Unto her soft complaining note;
There, in the dawn, with quivering throat,
She sat and sang of love and pain,
Till up the sun leapt and the plain
Surged of a sudden into red;
Then knew she that the night was dead
And flitted after with shy wing.

I know not what foreshadowing
Is on my sense; a haze of dreams
Hovers about my head: meseems,
The glamour of some grace to be,
Some strange fair fate encircleth me;
For, all about me, far and wide,
The workday world is glorified:
The common things of daily use,

Well-rope and bucket, cup and cruse,
Platter and trencher, wheel and loom,
Are lit with some unearthly bloom,
Some light of loveliness arcane,
That purges them of breach and stain
And as with a celestial birth
Blazons the creatures of the earth.
Some mystery haloes me, some sweet
Strange homage follows on my feet,
Whereof, meseems, all creatures wot
And I alone, I know it not.
Nay, in the wood-ways to and fro
Or in the meadows as I go,
The herbs, the lilies in the grass,
The leaves gaze at me, as I pass;
The meek sheep raise their eyes to mine;
The kidlings and the couchant kine
Lift up their heads to look on me:
The woodlands whisper, “This is she!”
The very birds break off their song,
As I go by, the meads along,
And follow me with wondering eyes.
The skylarks flutter from the skies,
To settle on my head and neck;
And in the ripples of the beck,
That prattles o'er the pebbles white,
Athwart the mosses, in the light
Lythe waftings of the upland breeze,
The winds that tremble through the trees,
The dove-notes in the olive-close,
I hear a murmur; “There she goes,
The maid of mystery, the rose
Of reverence without compare,
The happy heaven-affected fair!”

There breathe around me everywhere
Celestial savours in the air
And viewless hands about me are
Busied to fend and keep afar
Whatever is not wholly good.
I have no use of earthly food;
No mortal meats my needs suffice;
The herbs and fruits of Paradise
By messengers invisible
Are broughten to my virgin cell
And the clear streams of heaven, to still
My thirst, do well for me at will.
A breath of bliss, a light of love
Celestial, hovers me above;
The airs of heaven about me stray,
Encompassing me night and day.

I am fulfilled of heavenly things:
The shadow of angelic wings
Is to my couch a canopy;
And as awake anights I lie,
I see the birds of heaven fleet
Across the skies and hear the beat
Of plume and pinion on the air.
So filled I am with visions fair
And votive fantasies that nought
Of otherwhat is in my thought.
I have no care to mark the flight
Of this our world of day and night.
The seasons' lapse uneath I note,
The ripening plums, the blossomed lote,
The flush of dawn, the shadows' fall:
My dreams to me are all in all.
Yet more and more on me they press,

Till with their thronging rapturousness
My every thought and sense is thrilled,
My days and nights with visions filled
So sweet, so real, I can keep
Scant reckoning 'twixt wake and sleep
Nor know if I have lived or dreamed.
Nay, yestermorn at day, meseemed,
Whilst yet I slumbered in my bed,
When in the dawn the first faint red
Began upon the East to be,
The scent of lilies startled me
And opening my sleep-sealed eyes,
— Where, through the casement's space, the skies
Poured the pale opal light that brings
The chill and early day, — with wings,
Star-sprinkled, fleecy, snowy-white,
Half-folded, as a bird's from flight
New lit, and shape as 'twere one sweet
Soft flame of fire from head to feet, —
I saw the angel of the Lord:
Not that stern servant of His sword,
Michael, nor Raphaël, His rod,
But Gabriel, the Breath of God,
The holy bird, that on the height
Of heaven nesteth day and night,
The Faithful Spirit, that He chose
His messenger to be to those
Whom He on earth would fain rejoice,
His will incarnate, bodied voice.
Seven lilies in his hand he had,
So wonder-sweet of scent and glad
That whoso smelt thereof might not
Except rejoice: no garden-plot
On earth lent life unto the seven;

But in the garths they grew of heaven.

Then, looking on me with mild face,
“Hail, Mary,” said he, “great of grace!
The Lord Almighty is with thee.
Blesséd to all eternity,
Above all womankind, art thou,
O'er all that have been and are now,
O happy, heaven-accepted maid!”

Withal meseemed that not afraid
I was nor at the angel's sight
Or at the greatness of the light
Astonied, that about his face
And presence played and filled the place,
But troubled was in very deed
Anent the manner of his rede
Alone and filled with wonderment
Of what so strange a greeting meant
And what in fine should come of it.
But he, as if indeed forewit
He had of what was in my thought,
Straight, “Mary,” answered, “fear thou nought
Nor in my greeting deem of thee
Is aught against thy chastity.
Thou hast found favour with the Lord,
For that thou hast, of thine accord,
Of clean virginity made choice;
Wherefore I say to thee, Rejoice!
The Lord about thee and within
Is verily; and without sin,
Thou shalt conceive and bear a son,
Whose name shall be for benison
To all upon the earth that be.”

Withal great wonderment on me
There fell to hear him speak so mild
And strange; and “How shall I with child
Be gotten, sir,” to him I said,
“And bear, that am a clean poor maid
Nor ever had with man to do?”
Whereat he looked on me anew
With shining face and said, “Fear not;
A child on thee shall be begot,
Withouten breach of maidenhead,
Of God, the Lord of quick and dead.”
And I, yet wondered more and more
At what he said, — for passing sore
And grievous to me to believe
It seemed, — “Sir, shall I then conceive
And by the Living God, indeed,
Without the addition of man's seed,
With child, as other women, go
And bear as they?” But he, “Not so,
O Mary! It with thee shall not
Be as of other women's lot:
Thou shalt with child, as I have said,
Be and bring forth, whilst yet a maid;
Yea, shalt give suck and yet remain
A maid with whom no man hath lain
Nor handled. For the Holy Spright
Shall come upon thee and alight;
The power of God Most High shall be
About and overshadow thee.
Since unto God, thou wottest well,
There nothing is impossible.
So, yet a maid, a son shalt thou
Bear, unto whom all knees shall bow.
Great, great and holy shall he be,

For he shall reign from sea to sea;
Yea, unto him the Lord shall give
His father David's throne; and live
And over Jacob's house hold sway
Shall he; nor of his kingdom aye
Shall be an ending. Wherewithal
The child's name Jesus shalt thou call,
For that his people, all as one,
He from their sins shall save; and Son
Shall he be hight of the Most High,
The One, the Living God.” And I,
“Behold the handmaid of the Lord!
Be it according to thy word.”

Therewith he stinted: then, with voice,
As 'twere a trumpet's sound, “Rejoice,
O thrice, o four times blesséd maid,
O happy child of Eve,” he said,
“In this thy favour without price!
For that the gates of paradise,
Erst for thy mother's sin shut to,
Through thee shall opened be anew
And barred by thee the gates of Hell,
That art the joy of Israël,
The glory of Jerusalem!”

Withal he kissed my kirtle's hem
And presently was gone from sight:
And I awoke and saw no wight;
But on the faldstool by my side
A pot of graven gold I spied,
Wherein seven golden lilies stood,
Whose savour was so glad and good
That all the chamber reeked of it,

And on the leaves did shine and sit
The sparkles yet of heaven's dew,
As stars they were; whereby I knew
That this which I had seen no dream
Had been indeed, as I did deem,
But Gabriel had stood me by
And brought me speech of God Most High.

But, see, the day draws on apace
And yonder, from the winnowing-place,
Methinks I hear the nearing sound
Of labourers' voices, homeward bound.
The time draws near the forenoon-meal,
And in the nook the spinning-wheel
Stands idle, idle yet the rock,
Whereon the purple, lock on lock,
Tarries the spinning, being meant,
When spun and weft, to ornament
The ark upon the festal day,
And fringed and knotted with orfray,
To deck the Mercy-Seat for Him
Who sits between the Cherubim.

Quick! In its place the spinning-wheel
I set and order pirn and reel;
Then, seated on the spinning-stool,
The treadle press and ply the spool.
The spindle swirls, the wheel runs round,
The place hums with the pleasant sound,
The trill and chirp of cheerful toil,
That solves the thought of stain and soil
And holds both soul and body sweet.
So, being stablished in my seat,
I ply my task with hands and feet

Nor from my labour slacken may
Until the darkening of the day.

But lo! what light is this that grows
And greatens round me, as there rose
The sun from out my window-sill?
What savours sweet are these that fill
My every sense with Heaven's airs?
What voices vie me round allwheres,
What smitten lutes that wane and swell,
Fulfilling all my virgin cell
With sights, scents, sounds past earth's device,
Airs, flames and flowers of Paradise?
And yet more lustrous than the light,
Rarer and greater of delight
Than all the sights and sounds and scents
That overflood my ravished sense,
And yet more glorious to behold,
A wonder-dove, with wings of gold
And feathers each a flowering flame,
With eyes as heaven from whence it came
Coerulean, and in its bill
An almond-spray, upon the sill
Is lighted down and with its gaze
Holds all my senses in amaze.
Then, as, with eyes that fear to lose
Some sight of splendour, if they close,
With ears attent and thought and brain,
Upon the miracle I strain,
Of wonder such fulfilled as fear
Forthcasteth all, a voice I hear,
(Though none but that bright bird is near),
Gracious and grave, — no mortal breath,
In this our world of life and death,

The lips e'er drew from which it came,
— That calleth on me by my name,
“Hail, Mary,” saying, “maiden bright!
Thou hast found favour in My sight.
Fear not, to all eternity
For God the Lord shall be with thee.”
And therewithal the wonder-dove
Wings up and hovering above
My head, sinks down upon my breast,
With folded plumes, as in a nest,
Fulfilling me with such a flood
Of rapture that, for ill and good,
My every thought, my every sense
Is bound and fettered with suspense:
Enforced I am to sit and wait,
Nor can I stir, the coming fate
To fend from me: I cannot say,
“Take, Lord, this cup from me away!”
Nay, all my sense strains rather out,
In ecstasy excluding doubt,
Toward that flowerage of fire,
That fount celestial of desire;
And with wide arms outstretched and eye
Brimmed with desireful tears, I cry,
“Thy handmaid, Lord, behold and see!
I give, I grant myself to Thee.”

III. Postludium.

Voces in coelo.

GENII UNIVERSALES loq.

THE air is ablaze With the sunsetting haze, With the westering rays of the sun;
A faint little breeze From the slumbering seas In the tops of the trees there doth run;
The world is a-dream With the glamour and gleam Of the day that is nigh to be done.

Far out in the West, O'er an ocean at rest, Float the Isles of the Blest in the air;
The lands of the light, In the heavenly height, To the rapturous sight are laid bare;
The sunsetting glory Builds, story on story, From earth unto heaven its stair.

The meadows are mute; Not a nightingale's flute, Not a pipe, not a lute, not a chord;
The birds are asleep In the bowery deep, The kine and the sheep on the sward;
The moon in the gate Of the night is await To take up her watch and her ward.

No sound in the air, Save a sigh here and there From the windwafts that fare through the trees;
The forests are dumb; Not an answering hum To the voices that come on the breeze;
A silence of gloom, In the presence of doom, Is over the lands and the seas.

What aileth the day That it passeth away, With a blight of affray on its bloom?
What is it that stirr'th The air and the earth With a boding of birth and of doom?
The world is await With a feeling of fate, Of a wonder that wakes in its womb.

Ah, there the last ray Of the darkening day There fadeth away from afar!
Down falleth the dew; Out by darkness the blue And the gold of heaven's hue blotted are;
The night flashes out With a rutilant rout, A flowerage of star upon star.

And lo! with night's fall, As it were at a call, The high-columned hall of the sky
Is riven in sunder With shapes of wonder, That lighten and thunder on high:
The word is spoken, The silence broken With trumpetings far and nigh.

The gates of heaven In twain are riven, Its portals seven unbound;
With trumps and lyres, With harps and choirs, Its towers and spires resound;
With acclamation Of jubilation Its walls are compassed round.

The sound of the bells Of heaven's citadels Yet loudlier swells and higher;
The lift grows lighter, The flower-flames brighter, They waxen whiter, nigher:
And lo! in the strait Of the heavenly gate I see, as I wait, aspire
A dove of wonder, With wings of thunder And form as a flame of fire.

Straight, straight is its flight To the Throne of White; 'Tis lost in the light, 'tis gone:
The great gates close: But athwart them glows The light, like a rose of dawn.
As the sphere is whirled, 'Tis cast and hurled And scattered the world upon;
Its glory streams, Like a sun in dreams, On meadow and hill and lawn.

I know not what choice is In earth and her voices, That thus she rejoices, with glee
And rapture receiving The chains that are weaving For gladness or grieving to be.
The world is all gladness; I sit in sadness; For Midsummer madness to me
The mirth without meaning, The wild overweening Of heaven, Of earth and of sea.

Whilst all things sing To the coming King Of Summer and Spring to be,
Whilst heaven in mirth For the new time's birth Consents with earth and sea,
Apart from them, Our requiem For that which must die chant we.

An epoch endeth, A new descendeth, Which all-to rendeth the old;
Our age so hale, With its weal and its bale, Is past as a tale that is told;
A new comes after, Of lack of laughter, Of care and slaughter and cold;
An age of sowing For no man's mowing, Of grieving and greed of gold.

From land and from sea Must the old Gods flee: I weep as I see and sigh

How each sweet sprite From the air and the light, The day and the night, must fly,
The nymph from the wood, The hoof-footed brood, The ill and the good, pass by.
Ah woe's me for Pan, The lover of man! The end of his span is nigh.
When bloweth the flower Of the newborn power, The God in that hour must die
And we, fair brothers, Must yield to others The keys of the earth and sky.

I grieve as I go, Forsooth for I know The travail and woe untold,
The wrack and the war, The stressfulness sore, That the future in store doth hold,
The horror of hate 'Twixt the small and the great, In the scriptures of Fate enscrolled,
The dearth and the death, The sorrow and scaith, That the forthcoming faith enfold,
The frost that shall fall On the hut and the hall, On great and on small, young and old,
The bale that shall brood On the ill and the good, On weald and on wood and on wold,
When the breeze shall be bare Of the sylphs of the air Nor the elves shall set share in the mould,
When the Dryad the brake And the Naiad the lake And the Faun shall forsake the fold,
When the smile from the sea And the laugh from the lea And the green from the tree shall be polled,
When, for sorrowful thought, Men rejoice not in aught And all shall be bought and sold.
And well I know, well, That the spirits, in hell And in heaven that dwell, shall behold

The dawn of the day When the folk, for dismay Of their summerless way, heavy-souled,
Shall, dumb in their doom, In their lives without bloom, Look back from their gloom and their cold,
From the blood-boltered maze Of their faiths and their frays, And sigh for the days of old,
When the Gods debonair, The frank and the fair, Yet governed the age of gold.