(Introductory Poem)
I
On Sunday in the sunlight
With brightness round her strown
And murmuring beauty of the sky
At last her very own,
She who had loved all children
And all high things and clean
Turned away to silentness
And bliss unseen.
Rending, blinding anguish,
Is all a man can know;
Yet still I kneel beside her
For she would have it so,
Kneel and pray beside her
In light she left behind—
Light and love in silentness,
Sight to the blind.
Oh living light burn through me!
Oh speak, as spoke to me
Her deep sweet eyes and faithful,
Voice on Calvary!
Oh light be near and shining,
Nearer than I guess,
And teach me that true language
Of silentness!
II
If now I fall away
From faith, may never day
Shine as it shone
With inmost sanctities
Of those sun-glittering trees—
We two alone.
The darkness toils and heaves.
The Wood of Glittering Leaves
You gave—you gave,
Dearest in life and death,
Dearest with every breath,
Lamp of the brave!
You came in sunlight, still
As God, with Whom your will
Was always one.
You knew me, and you knew
I read your presence through
That sacred sun.
League upon league of light,
As the train raced the night,
With night on me,
With pain that gripped and wrung
As the cars clashed and swung,—
I yet could see
The slim trees of that wood
Brighter than tears or blood,
Fairy with day;
That dark marsh land made bright,
Veiled in miraculous light,—
Your way!
I hold it fast. I hold
All that mysterious gold,
All that it weaves
Of Heaven to understand—
Our radiant bridal land
Of glittering leaves.
III
Honest hands to help, honest eyes to see,
Light that lives in God:
Such our dearest was, such will ever be
Under Heaven.
Nothing in this life gives to you and me
Such a sunlight-shod,
Sunlight-crowned delight in our memory
As was given.
There was not a harm in these roaring hours
That could touch Her head
Perfect was Her charm borne against the powers
Gnashing still.
In her heart a field laughed with golden flowers
Where Her soul could tread.
Swift, serene, she passed all that snarls and cowers,
White of will.
Song can give her nothing. We who brave the night
Say Her name again
Raise it like a cup full of sacred light
Up to Heaven.
Now we know our pain blinding, burning bright
In the world of men.
Yet we know our joy, knowing now aright
What was given.
IV
Base rewards and glamours, the beating tide of hours,
The crying and clamors and the surge of silent powers
Pass me and pass me now. Silently I go
The one road, the only road I know.
Oh, bare and bright as dreams
And laced with silver streams
Lies the land on either hand, past the darkness and dread.
Though a man must grip his soul lest it start from all control,
And must bow his head.
Where are your footprints on air that I may find them?
Where your radiant garments that I may hide behind them?
No, it is my own road, straight and black
That turns not back.
I will search till the darkness sears on either hand
With the drifting sparkles of some fiery brand,
Of some pain that lights me nearer to the land of your endeavor.
I will search forever.
The torrent of the hours like a veil veiling heaven,
The war with bitter powers—I am given.
But light that you left me—light, your own decision,
Your secret and your vision.
Time? What is Time now. Standing to the thong
And the dream that is passing, time is not long.
And I shall find the valley past the mountains that defeat me,
And see you come to meet me.
V
Not all the spoils you cast, not all the dark was bearing
In dream across the sea, across the murmurous sea;
Not beauty that has passed or crowns the stars were wearing
Or flame that fierce and fast through darkness hunted me;
Not the frustrate desire, the web of memory broken,
The silence where your speech dizzies through all the air;
Not these elude my reach when the dark hours have spoken
As does that priceless token, your soul of passionate prayer.
Oh race that falters on, the striving and the stricken
Passing with fruits and garlands and dust upon the head;
Oh burning sunset gone wherein was hope to quicken
The surge of starry dawn rising above the dead;
Oh clamor over shame, yoke of the little-wiser
On the unwilling shoulders, clenched by the quivering hands;
Patience and proof that were and are your still appriser
Now veil her and disguise her, gone from the spectral lands.
The spectral lands of time, the eternal torrent pouring
Of dark and light around us, who fear both dark and light;
And grief that wails in rhyme, and flesh the soul abhorring,
And dismal pantomine played on a stage moon-bright;
Why should such things as these assail her happy meadow,
Creep on the court of children, come crying through the shine?
We who are too unskilled even to taunt the shadow
Groan only in the darkness and spill the precious wine!
For round us beating, beating her wings are in the mirror
Of sleep, the mirror of silence built up with perilous breath.
And in our conscience meeting her smile is on the terror
That chains us round with error and desperate fear of death;
Kind as a child's small hands her faithfulness is round us
With swift and fading gestures, wise as a child is wise;
Out of the gathering clouds that curtain and confound us,
Ecstasy and enchantment—sudden and swift, her eyes!
The hills shall lay away their sombreness unspoken,
The seas shall hush their murmur, the saddened wind be still,
When the long league of silence 'twixt earth and beast is broken
When at the end of all things the stones speak on the hill.
Then Calvary shall cry with glorious joy to heaven,
Aceldama be hearkened and purged by words aware,—
For that in days gone by her voice to His was given,
And to the joy of heaven her soul of passionate prayer.
VI
I listened to the wind who speaks of finding
Among the litter of his blown leaves of days
All rainbow gold of tears that are so blinding;
And then again he says
Something of glittering jewels in the haze,
Incense of praise, myrtles and bays for binding
The wounds that blossom blood upon his ways.
I listened to the sun who can recover
Miraculous instants of an earlier time
Surprise Her eyes alinger on her lover
And run like rhyme
On leaf and stream. He spoke of dream and clime
Sacred with everlasting Spring, ahover
With light more cadenced than bright bells in chime.
I listened to the earth and sea. Their voices,
Too mixed with men, came sombrer and more sad.
They droned awhile of all the tangled choices
That every man has had,
And moaned like ancients with mere age gone mad
And left me nothing that reasons or rejoices—
That seemed so reasonless in being glad.
I listened starward where the ghostly weaving
Of wandering lights is all of Heaven we know
And worlds are lamps and darkness comes bereaving
The world of ebb and flow,
And 'tis as if a bosom were heaving slow
With firmamental care,—ah, heaving, heaving
With an unfathomable earlier woe.
"Listener at many doors,—for what disaster?—"
Her spirit murmur crept into my ears.
"Brooder on pictures breathed on by the Master,
Listen at the heart that hears,—
Ah, listen softly, breathing low!" The years
Were not—for there She was—and, gazing past her,
I saw the Vision raised by blood and tears.
VII
For the eyes loved,
For the face lifted
In that still light,
Dark trees are groved,
The snow drifted,
And the mound white.
And the grave dug
And the words spoken
And the flowers shed—
And the eyes tearless
But the heart broken
For the brave dead.
Though a soul thrill
To the stars' fire
And a mind sing
To a keen will
Of a high desire
And a great thing,—
Ah, who listens?
Who—who hearkens
Or answer makes,—
Though the moon glistens
And the night darkens
And the heart breaks?
Lay her sword by her,
Her steel of spirit,
Her phantom blade,
Lest the loud liar
In his hell inherit
What her soul made!
Sweet sword, she came
To pierce and quicken
My heart to grace,—
Oh, white flame,
Oh, heart life-stricken,
Oh, deathless face!
VIII
Now the snow drives. The day
Goes on in whirling gray.
Still the world roars,
As if no striving flame
Had gone, as it suddenly came,
Passing blind doors;
As if no eyes, no smile,
No heart that could beguile
Evil from earth,
Had hovered just a space
To light one holy place
In the dark and the dearth.
Was it always as fierce and strange—
This blank and sudden change
Men have known ever?
This veil as hard and keen
As the blade of a guillotine
Flashing to sever?
Oh, ears that hark in the night,
Eyeballs that strain for sight,
Pulses that know
The same dull burning ache,
Though a man sleep, though he wake,—
Was it always so?
IX
True love runs wild and wildly understands.
I took the bread of Heaven once from your two hands.
And your eyes are upon me even as I sing,
Saying, "Be of comfort. Death is a little thing."
Oh, magic child and woman, who crept into my heart,
Who hold me with strong arms from all the world apart—
No, I will not say it—for your eyes grieve;
I will say you draw us all to Heaven—your Heaven, by your
leave!
Lady Simplicitas, who hummed like any bee
Little quaint and olden rhymes to keep simplicity,
Lady of the downcast eyes and sudden starry mirth,
And eloquence by torchlight for the wronged of all the earth,
True love runs wild and wildly understands!
I took the wine of Heaven once from your two hands;
And when your eyes were darkened for the world's red smart
You made a violet twilight as you pressed against my heart.
For that coiled hair's brown crown, for that sweet and seemly way,
The straight thoughts, the eager words, the dazzle of your day,
Shall I turn base then and learn to whine and curse?
Not though daggers of memory flicker through this verse!
For true love runs wild and wildly understands.
I took the sacrament of love from your two hands.
So shall I cross the sunset hill and climb the pasture bars
And meet you in our porch at last, in the Village of the Stars.
X
One thing only I can say to you
Whatever be the things men do;
Let one love make May to you,
Hold one love true.
Who but hears the querulous
Sigh and the heavy groan,—
Yet stand for the one love perilous,
Though you stand alone.
Yes, and though beaten and beaten
By the ravings of the blood;
Though with dust and ashes eaten,
Be one thing understood.
The battle in the cloud overthrows you,
Your lips are dashed with foam,—
Yet the one love lives and knows you
And leads you home.
Home—ah, God!—to the slumber
At last and the waking peace,
Where wars without name or number
Give last release;
Where her whisper again is more to you
Than the angels' flaming wars,
And proud Death's hands can pour to you
The cold of the stars.
XI
The selfishness of grief! … and yet each turning
And questing after some new brave relief
Shows other steel stretched forth and on me burning
The selfishness of grief.
Till self who was my God and love, my chief,
Even these turn from my side with footsteps spurning
As, stooping low, I lift the heavy sheaf
Of our flowered hours gathered with our yearning,
Gathered so wildly in our happy fief
And glimmering beautiful beyond belief,
With dazing fragrance, till my dim discerning
Sees them the legend dropped for my unlearning
The selfishness of grief!
THE LONG ABSENCE
I
ACCOSTED
"If you saw blue eyes that could light and darkle
With merriment or pain;
If you saw a face that was only heart—lonely
In the cities of the plain;
If you felt a kindness that was happy as the daybreak,
Patient as night,
And saw the eyes lift and—the dawn in May break,
You have seen her aright.
"Blue-cloaked archangel, rein your steed a little,
Though cities flame!
Messenger of night, though my words are brittle,
Though I know not your name,
Though your steed paw sparkles and your pinions quiver
With colors like the sea,
Tell me if you saw her, if you saw my love ever!
She is lost to me.
"That is why I walk this windy highway
And stop and hark
And peer through the moonlight—always my way!
And listen up the dark
And knuckle my forehead to remember her truly,
The very She;
And that is why I cling your rein unduly
To answer me!"
But the eyes were deep and dark, though somehow tender.
Haste was manifest
In the gauntlet, the greaves, the irid splendor
That pulsed on his breast.
He did not even gesture to the night grown holy,
But shook his rein
As his steed leapt forth; while I—turned slowly
To the cities of the plain.
II
THE HOUSE AT EVENING
Across the school-ground it would start
To light my eyes, that yellow gleam,—
The window of the flaming heart,
The chimney of the tossing dream,
The scuffed and wooden porch of Heaven,
The voice that came like a caress,
The warm kind hands that once were given
My carelessness.
It was a house you would not think
Could hold such sacraments in things
Or give the wild heart meat and drink
Or give the stormy soul high wings
Or chime small voices to such mirth
Or crown the night with stars and flowers
Or make upon this quaking earth
Such steady hours.
Yet, that in storm it stood secure,
And in the cold was warm with love,
Shall its similitude endure
Past trophies that men weary of,
When two were out of fortune's reach,
Building great empires round a name
And ushering into casual speech
Dim worlds aflame.
III
FOR THINKING EVIL
For thinking evil and planning shame
The fire licked upward—at first a name,
Then star-devouring rebellious flame.
The dread light lingered high on the sky.
It grew and reddened—a voiceless cry.
It spread and touched us, we knew not why.
And a man sat staring out to the night,
Through tender silence, in warm lamplight,
Thinking always, "The fire at height!"
That fire blowing with growing roar
Saw us going, closing the door;
Saw us parted—who meet no more.
For thinking evil—all men drawn
Against a devil that dusked the dawn.
Each to his station. All men gone.
Some for the hilltop, fire to its brow,—
Death, long torture,—some for the plough,—
Some for the silence—that I know now.
IV
TRAVEL
You and I dreaming
Planned the far-away,
Cities and hedgerows,
Distant summer day,
When, the sun sinking,—
But oh, a distant sun!—
We would be thinking,
"Think what we have done!"
You and I whispering
Held the isles in fee
By a chain of grasses,
By your smile to me,
Visioning some clime—
But long years between—
When we should say, sometime,
"Think what we have seen!"
You and I wondering
Of our old age,
Turned a page pondering,
And turned a page …
Now, my hands pluck ravelled
Strands I can't untie.
Yet—you always travelled
Farther than I!
V
HER WAY
You loved the hay in the meadow,
Flowers at noon,
The high cloud's long shadow,
Honey of June,
The flaming woodways tangled
With Fall on the hill,
The towering night star-spangled
And winter-still.
And you loved firelit faces,
The hearth, the home,—
Your mind on golden traces,
London or Rome,—
On quaintly-colored spaces
Where heavens glow
With his quaint saints' embraces,—
Angelico.
In cloister and highway
(Gold of God's dust!)
And many an elfin byway
You put your trust,—
A crock and a table,
Love's end of day,
And light of a storied stable
Where kings must pray.
Somewhere there is a village
For you and me,
Hay field, hearth and tillage,—
Where can it be?
Prayers when birds awake,
Daily bread,
Toil for His sunlit sake
Who raised us dead.
With this in mind you moved
Through love and pain.
Hard though the long road proved,
You turned again
With a heart that knew its trust
Not ill-bestowed.
With this you light the dust
That clouds my road.
BY THE COUNSEL OF HER HANDS
"Propter veritatem, et mansuetudinem, et justitiam: et deducet te mirabiliter dextera tua. Alleluia."
With her clear eyes lifted,
Dreaming, lighting, swift and quelling
On all darkness drifted
From this earth, a vacant dwelling,—
With her haste flashing, flowing
Bright above all fear or scorning,—
I have seen my darling going
Up the mountains of the morning!
Oh, like harps wrung thrilling,
Like those viols that voice their answer
To the wild still willing
Of the heavens' necromancer,
From the flowers around her rises
Music—gold, more gold in glory—
First of all those pure surprises
At the ending of the story.
Through the trees she passes
Where the purple spreads in shadow,
Through the dew-bright grasses
Of that heaven-quiet meadow,
Up the way of climbing vines,
Never faltering, never failing,
Where the blue of heaven shines
Through the sun for only veiling.
Flowers and leaves together sing
Like those birds in clouds that choir.
Aching-sweet from silver string,
Purling flute and golden wire
Music flows no mortal knows
Even in April thronged with voices.
Deeper glory throbs and glows
Till the trembling air rejoices.
Sweet and deep, sweet and deep
In the heart dark and aching,
Glamorous waves across my sleep
Is that tide of splendor breaking.
Pure and high, pure and high,
Shaking every star to chiming,
Till the wonder-stricken sky
Thrills and trembles to the rhyming!
Seraphim and cherubim
On their wings' immaculate wonder
Rise in whirlwinds from the dim,
Pass through voids of rolling thunder,
Mount from lightning into light,
One great surge of praise awaking,
White and white into the height—
And the music trembling—breaking—!
But above the wood of fear,
On one white road forever,
From the darkness mounts my dear
In her still and bright endeavor,
With her kind brave eyes,
Honest hands and heart of healing,—
Lips that rapturously surmise—
Little smiles upon them stealing.
For—a violet twilight now
Spreads—as arms had cast a shadow
And the Godhead stooped to bow
Over phantom hill and meadow!
And—again—a field
Floats before her—as her choice is—
Where her heaven is revealed
In those small and rippling voices.
Elfin flowers invoked alive,
Fairy clouds from hives of honey
Like no angry human hive,
Billows of brightness swift and sunny,
Pattering, chuckling, panting haste,
Rosy-shy—though never sweeter
Than the three her arms embraced—
Heaven's children flock to meet her!
There are harps in Heaven
That must fail against that splendor;
And the Sacred Seven
Bow their heads in mute surrender.
Holy Mother of God, tonight
Bend your star-bright eyes and brimming
On the sweetness of that sight
In that meadow, dusk and dimming!
For, with hands in grasp so small
Of the tumbling ones that follow,—
With her smile upon them all,
Up the hill and through the hollow,—
With that rich voice crooning, waking
Sparkling gusts of joy and laughter,—
Climbs the Light of my forsaking,
Mounts the Hope of my hereafter!
Harshest song, bow down!
Mutinous words!—to make immortal
How the heavens in starlight drown
As she enters in the Portal,
How the Heavenly City glows,
How the bells cry, "We have found her!"
As through tears and praise she goes
With the children crowding round her!
STRENGTH BEYOND STRENGTH
"If thou hast run with the footmen and they have wearied thee, what wilt thou do with the horsemen?"
Breathless, beaten as with whips of wonder,
Scourged and naked to the flying sky,—
Yet have I heard the hoofs of thunder,
Seen the horsemen glimmering by.
Head back, teeth bared, eyes aglitter,
Questioning still the black reply,
Laboring stride and breath grown bitter—
Phantom horsemen swerving by!
Foot on the flint and burning, parching
Death at the throat, with gall to taste.
Rank on rank are the footmen marching,
Wave on wave do the footmen haste!
Past and past me toiled and slowing,
Gasping breathing and straining limb,—
Rank on rank are the footmen going
Forward to fog and the distance dim.
Sledge on the brain and huge hands crushing
Hard on my heart that they wring at will.
Wave on wave are the footmen rushing,
Surging in silence across the hill.
Sudden lit road they run together
Just as the cloven mist-wreaths close!
Each, each strives by a stirrup-leather
Where some glimmering horseman goes!
Iron in sinew, steel persuasion
Now of the weak and sobbing will;
Scorn that beats on the old evasion;
Limbs that move for the further hill.
Teeth clenched hard on an execration,
Chin sunk deep on a laboring chest—
Racing death with a revelation,
Dead and done with—but forging abreast,
Forging past them and past, and gaining
Once again to my hard-fought place.
Lord of Runners, requite my feigning!
Help me only to run this race!
Head-down, plunged through the roiling weather,
Flinging the sweat from a straining brow,—
Now, I run by your stirrup-leather.
Golden Horseman, I see you now!
QUE SAIS-JE?
If I could answer that sob of the brave little heart,
If I could answer that silence I suddenly fear,
If I could give him truth that would set this apart
From creeping question, my dear,
There would be ground for our feet, sky for our eyes,
At least, at worst. All I can whisper is dreams
And faith I hold, being doubtful of all things "wise"
And all the outrage that seems.
We are your boys to the end, that is all I know.
I the stronger as yet, but knowing no more
For all my years than I guessed at years ago
And searched through weary lore.
I thought they knew who were older and wiser than I.
I saw them confident, grave, with their answers swift.
Till I stood in turn at the edge of earth and sky
And saw the planets adrift,
And felt my heart struggling and striving for rest
And my baffled mind groping and yearning for peace
In some great answer or on some infinite breast
Of last complete release.
And now I turn his mind to fanciful things
And grip him close and hoarsely murmur my love
And pray away from him all this pain that clings
To this mind I am weary of.
Oh, I will teach him as best a man can teach
And strive to find him all knowledge of you I hold
And make you near to him even when out of reach
Of my treacherous heart and cold.
For though I cannot see there is more to be seen,
And what I cannot know is in presciences,
And all you are is as it has ever been
Between my heart and his.
EBB-TIDE
You who were never afraid of truth or doubt,
Only saying "The light in the soul is real,
The spirit of grace is true, the lamp is not put out."
I must follow forever your white ideal.
Splendor amid the smoke and the dust and vapor,
Truth through the litter of lies and rubble of dreams,
Mutable yet immutable; changed, and the shaper
Of all that light in the mind that steadily gleams!
So—words fail, and run to ironic length;
Like panting breath the phrases quiver and fade.
And the heart unthought-of throbs its appalling strength—
Tireless—till it too in the dust is laid.
But something lives—say there is something lives!
Our passion it is, all of our will to be—
Something in men like a rout of fugitives
Hurrying on the shore of a phantom sea,
Hurrying, wailing, questing, seeing the moon
Light that waste of beauty and terror and plangent sound;
Knowing the tide creeps on, and that soon, too soon,
All of the torches and all of the flowers lie drowned
Yet that that sea moves not of its movement only,
All of the dim vast force is motes that blend,
Each still striving and still secure and lonely
Unto some end, some great mysterious end.
You who were never afraid of truth or doubt—
Granted that truth we know!—oh, eyes of mine,
Eyes in my soul that will never glimmer out,—
This is my soul's ebb-tide, but I make the Sign!
COWARD
By her beauty stayed, by her love empowered, (Coward! Coward!) Take the honest light and pray for grace. Where her lightning struck, where her pureness flowered, (Coward! Coward!) Dare to see her face.
Through the sea of lies—skies have always lowered!— (Coward! Coward!) Be she your horizon or your mist, Make straight on, though dawn be still undowered, (Coward! Coward!) Toward the timeless tryst.
One thing now you know for truth at least,
One thing more than groan of witless beast,
One thing more than jest at mumming feast,
Pain is still increased, increased, increased
Marking life like milestones toward Love's East.
AQUILIFER
Ax and bundled rods let CÆsar's henchmen bear,
Down to the house of sods processional torchmen pass,—
When was your part with these, armed thought's aquilifer,
Turning with streaming standard where the barbarians mass!
CÆsar's screaming eagles black as Hell's vultures flew,
But birds went up our dawning splendid and wing and wing
And bright for the slaves and captives your fearless banner blew
And laughing-glad as a trumpet the faith you still could sing.
Old as the world is evil and disenchantment old.
Man's ancient heart is bitter, his hard eyes doubt of a sign.
Blown hair beneath that banner that floated in folds of gold,
In spirit I see you standing first in the battle-line.
Kind, and a girl, and little, but wiser than all their sneers;
Truer than their predictions, daring to be not base;
Daring to ride for the Captain who held through blood and tears
Life well lost for justice and love acclaimed to the race.
Still with shifting and turning, with minds and the ways of swine,
Earth is girded by CÆsar's men, life a stag in a snare,—
Yet still—your banner burning first in the battle-line,
Aye, and the trumpets blowing for dawning, Aquilifer!
THE WOMAN
You could hurt and you could heal,
You could hide and still reveal,
You were lilies, lilies and steel.
You the near and you the far
Were as lamplight and a star.
I cannot tell them what you were;
Yet, Death, you have not all of her.
No, I, the passionate nondescript,
Have wine your lips have never sipped,
Have wine of her in my heart's blood
Whom I never understood.
You were tender and benign,
Trusting—and all fire divine
And a constellation's sign.
You the far and you the near,
You heaven high and heaven here,
You the quest, and closest dear.
Ah, God, you have not all of her,
For still my cause she can prefer
Where she goes, and where You were.
You could weep and you could rise
With the Word clear in your eyes,
With a strength beyond the wise.
Girl and goddess, will and love,
Struggling, battling, winged above
Memories I have memory of!
PERVIGILIUM
Oh, not in words—for what are words to seeing;
Yet not in sight, for presence veils and hides;
Not even in sleep, though then the gates of being
Stand open to the large eternal tides;
Neither in memory, embers fading ashen;
Nor by the code, wherein the voice is dumb;
Nor wild still love, fluttered by veils of passion,
Rise summit by summit to Janiculum!
Think not to speak and tell the riddling purport;
Think not that sight of beauty caught the best;
Nor any dream furls its dim sails in her port;
Nor any memory makes her manifest;
Nor by a measure of days mete out her measure,
Nor through remembered poignance pluck her strings.
For she, like moonlight on some hidden treasure,
Steals glimmering down and renders vain these things.
Then I cried, "Love!"—but stars not even shrinking
Glittered the same and night remained the same.
Slowly I swam on dark tides of my thinking,
Yet like no moon she rose to hear her name.
I lay like sand unrimmed of sea and crisping
Under dead sunlight, parched as bleaching bone,
Till all seas shrank and dried, and the last lisping
Of beaded water vanished from the stone.
Then jagged lightning forked, the thunder shattered
Like stunning guns. Amain the trees were blown
And shrieked and writhed and whirled their branches tattered
Like patriarchs waking to some end long-known,—
All my heart's storm—assault and wild repulsion—
And hissing sand-coils swaying high and dim—
Flash blinding-bright! And through that last revulsion
I saw her passing on the desert's rim.
TIME WAS
Time was when you would enter
That door and I would be
No longer in the darkness
Upon the sea,
Sailing through lowering tempest
Of thoughts within the brain….
If that could be so
Ever again….
Time was when your slight gesture
Would bid the fairies dance
And make the world a twilight
Of woodland trance,
And wake old aching music
All honey through its pain….
If that could be so
Ever again….
Time was when I would flout you
With clever something said—
And could not live without you
When you turned your head.
With me you walked the sunlight,
With me you walked the rain….
If that could be so
Ever again….
THE MASTERS
Two with great hearts, deeply you proved them.
Laughing you loved them, childlike you said,
"Oh, but this is the part—!" Almost I reproved them
Drawing you from me, minds long dead.
Yet forever your voice, wraith that was rapture!
What great-souled spaces the while you read
Joy—pain—mirth—all I would capture,—
Dickens and Browning—your bended head …
Heaven of lamplight I long for lonely
Where all the folk of their fancy tread;
Three small faces, and mine,—and only
Dickens and Browning—your bended head!
WHEN
It is when the trees have such radiant flowers,
Such white and rosy showers,
Such fragrant whispering,—
It is when the sun lights such mellow, yellow hours,—
For lovers love the Spring!
It is when the moon is so pale and drifting,
Blossoms softly sifting
From the vines that climb and cling,
That my heart will stop to hear love's laughter lifting,—
For lovers love the Spring!
It is when the long evenings, their haze of violet wearing,
Hold the passing voices as on music's throbbing string,
By some vague open window I shall sit long staring,—
For lovers love the Spring!
CHILDREN
Children, we played at games—your laughter still is round me.
Children, we called each other's names. I hid—you found me.
Children, we went in search of death, and came back often.
Children, we prayed with equal breath—no time can soften!
Children, I loved your pretty looks, your eyebrow lifted.
Children, we wandered story-books and star-dust sifted.
Children, we plucked amazing flowers in a walled garden.
Children, we dreamed through healing hours—no time can harden!
THE RETREAT
Some sunny close hung high
In depths of sky,
Vivid presentment of your old desire;
No multitudes, but peace
And the release
From days and nights that are but pitch and fire.
Some simple garden, old
Gray walls that fold
Its fragrance in, and one slow softened bell;
The waited Face, the light
And inner sight
And the good voices that you heard so well.
There may you quaintly move,—
You whom I love,—
Sometimes, even now, and make retreat at last
With the truth known and rest
Made manifest
And all the meaning of the hurried past.
And may I find you there
When the still air
Holds yet the thrilling of His evening smile,
And stand within the gate
And watch and wait,
Till, from your prayer, you turn after a while
To see me stained and torn
And travel-worn
But yet with all my love of you held fast;
And wonder "Is it he?" and know it is—
All mysteries
Being outdone by this mysterious last.
And as the evening glows
In throbbing rose
May you lift your arms then, lift your head and cry
"Come!"—and yet sleep not wake
Nor dreaming break—
But light forever fold us, you and I.
SEALED
Man has been famed
Time out of mind
For having gone lamed
Or deaf or blind
Or weighted down
With loads that bind.
And eye and ear
Now curtained are
To see or hear
Rhyme in a star
Since you, my dear,
Have gone so far.
And limbs that go
And lips that speak
Are not to know
That which they seek….
Does Time jest so
In a madman's freak?
No, Time jests not,
Nor have I guessed
What has overshot
All bitter jest
Since first Man got
Fate's manifest.
Cold eyes averse
And stony brows
And the old curse
On Adam's house
Despite, my verse
This truth allows:
A clear light hidden,
A tower of air,
A voice unbidden,
A secret stair,
And dream long-chidden
That makes aware
Thought of a time—
Who shall say how?
Oh, burnished grime,
Star-studded plough,
Common coin of rhyme
Ringing golden now!
THE END
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