Part 4

I fled Him, down the nights and down the days; I fled Him down the arches of the years; I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears I hid from Him, and under running laughter. Up vistaed hopes I sped; And shot, precipitated, Adown Titanic glooms of chasmèd fears, From those strong Feet that followed, followed after. But with unhurrying chase, And unperturbèd pace, Deliberate speed, majestic instancy, They beat--and a Voice beat More instant than the Feet-- "All things betray thee, who betrayest Me."

I pleaded, outlaw-wise, By many a hearted casement, curtained red, Trellised with intertwining charities; (For, though I knew His love Who followèd, Yet was I sore adread Lest, having Him, I must have naught beside); But, if one little casement parted wide, The gust of His approach would clash it to. Fear wist not to evade, as Love wist to pursue. Across the margent of the world I fled, And troubled the gold gateways of the stars, Smiting for shelter on their clangèd bars; Fretted to dulcet jars And silvern chatter the pale ports o' the moon. I said to dawn, Be sudden; to eve, Be soon; With thy young skiey blossoms heap me over From this tremendous Lover! Float thy vague veil about me, lest He see! I tempted all His servitors, but to find My own betrayal in their constancy, In faith to Him their fickleness to me, Their traitorous trueness, and their loyal deceit. To all swift things for swiftness did I sue; Clung to the whistling mane of every wind. But whether they swept, smoothly fleet, The long savannahs of the blue; Or whether, Thunder-driven, They clanged his chariot 'thwart a heaven Plashy with flying lightnings round the spurn o' their feet:-- Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue. Still with unhurrying chase, And unperturbèd pace, Deliberate speed, majestic instancy, Came on the following Feet, And a Voice above their beat-- "Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me."

I sought no more that after which I strayed In face of man or maid; But still within the little children's eyes Seems something, something that replies; _They_ at least are for me, surely for me! I turned me to them very wistfully; But, just as their young eyes grew sudden fair With dawning answers there, Their angel plucked them from me by the hair. "Come then, ye other children, Nature's--share With me" (said I) "your delicate fellowship; Let me greet you lip to lip, Let me twine with you caresses, Wantoning With our Lady-Mother's vagrant tresses, Banqueting With her in her wind-walled palace, Underneath her azured daïs, Quaffing, as your taintless way is, From a chalice Lucent-weeping out of the dayspring." So it was done: _I_ in their delicate fellowship was one-- Drew the bolt of Nature's secrecies. _I_ knew all the swift importings On the wilful face of skies; I knew how the clouds arise Spumèd of the wild sea-snortings; All that's born or dies Rose and drooped with--made them shapers Of mine own moods, or wailful or divine-- With them joyed and was bereaven. I was heavy with the even, When she lit her glimmering tapers Round the day's dead sanctities. I laughed in the morning's eyes. I triumphed and I saddened with all weather, Heaven and I wept together, And its sweet tears were salt with mortal mine; Against the red throb of its sunset-heart I laid my own to beat, And share commingling heat; But not by that, by that, was eased my human smart. In vain my tears were wet on Heaven's grey cheek. For ah! we know not what each other says, These things and I; in sound _I_ speak-- _Their_ sound is but their stir, they speak by silences. Nature, poor stepdame, cannot slake my drouth; Let her, if she would owe me, Drop yon blue bosom-veil of sky, and show me The breasts o' her tenderness: Never did any milk of hers once bless My thirsting mouth. Nigh and nigh draws the chase, With unperturbèd pace, Deliberate speed, majestic instancy; And past those noisèd Feet A voice comes yet more fleet-- "Lo! naught contents thee, who content'st not Me."

Naked I wait Thy love's uplifted stroke! My harness piece by piece Thou hast hewn from me, And smitten me to my knee; I am defenceless utterly. I slept, methinks, and woke, And, slowly gazing, find me stripped in sleep. In the rash lustihead of my young powers, I shook the pillaring hours And pulled my life upon me; grimed with smears, _I_ stand amid the dust o' the mounded years-- My mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap. My days have crackled and gone up in smoke, Have puffed and burst as sun-starts on a stream. Yea, faileth now even dream The dreamer, and the lute the lutanist; Even the linked fantasies, in whose blossomy twist I swung the earth a trinket at my wrist, Are yielding; cords of all too weak account For earth with heavy griefs so overplussed. Ah! is Thy love indeed A weed, albeit an amaranthine weed, Suffering no flowers except its own to mount? Ah! must-- Designer infinite!-- Ah! must Thou char the wood ere Thou canst limn with it? My freshness spent its wavering shower i' the dust; And now my heart is as a broken fount, Wherein tear-drippings stagnate, spilt down ever From the dank thoughts that shiver Upon the sighful branches of my mind. Such is; what is to be? The pulp so bitter, how shall taste the rind? I dimly guess what Time in mists confounds; Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds From the hid battlements of Eternity; Those shaken mists a space unsettle, then Round the half-glimpsèd turrets slowly wash again. But not ere him who summoneth I first have seen, enwound With glooming robes purpureal, cypress-crowned; His name I know, and what his trumpet saith. Whether man's heart or life it be which yields Thee harvest, must Thy harvest fields Be dunged with rotten death?

Now of that long pursuit Comes on at hand the bruit; That Voice is round me like a bursting sea: "And is thy earth so marred, Shattered in shard on shard? Lo, all things fly thee, for thou fliest Me! Strange, piteous, futile thing, Wherefore should any set thee love apart? Seeing none but I makes much of naught" (He said), "And human love needs human meriting: How hast thou merited-- Of all man's clotted clay the dingiest clot? Alack, thou knowest not How little worthy of any love thou art! Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee Save Me, save only Me? All which I took from thee I did but take, Not for thy harms, But just that thou might'st seek it in My arms. All which thy child's mistake Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home: Rise, clasp My hand, and come!"

Halts by me that footfall: Is my gloom, after all, Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly? "Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest, I am He Whom thou seekest! Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me."

TO THE DEAD CARDINAL OF WESTMINSTER

I will not perturbate Thy Paradisal state With praise Of thy dead days;

To the new-heavened say,-- "Spirit, thou wert fine clay": This do, Thy praise who knew.

Therefore my spirit clings Heaven's porter by the wings, And holds Its gated golds

Apart, with thee to press A private business;-- Whence, Deign me audience.

Anchorite, who didst dwell With all the world for cell, My soul Round me doth roll

A sequestration bare. Too far alike we were, Too far Dissimilar.

For its burning fruitage I Do climb the tree o' the sky; Do prize Some human eyes.

_You_ smelt the Heaven-blossoms, And all the sweet embosoms The dear Uranian year.

Those Eyes my weak gaze shuns, Which to the suns are Suns, Did Not affray your lid.

The carpet was let down (With golden moultings strown) For you Of the angels' blue.

But I, ex-Paradised, The shoulder of your Christ Find high To lean thereby.

So flaps my helpless sail, Bellying with neither gale, Of Heaven Nor Orcus even.

Life is a coquetry Of Death, which wearies me, Too sure Of the amour;

A tiring-room where I Death's divers garments try, Till fit Some fashion sit.

It seemeth me too much I do rehearse for such A mean And single scene.

The sandy glass hence bear-- Antique remembrancer; My veins Do spare its pains.

With secret sympathy My thoughts repeat in me Infirm The turn o' the worm

Beneath my appointed sod; The grave is in my blood; I shake To winds that take

Its grasses by the top; The rains thereon that drop Perturb With drip acerb

My subtly answering soul; The feet across its knoll Do jar Me from afar.

As sap foretastes the spring; As Earth ere blossoming Thrills With far daffodils,

And feels her breast turn sweet With the unconceivèd wheat; So doth My flesh foreloathe

The abhorrèd spring of Dis, With seething presciences Affirm The preparate worm.

I have no thought that I, When at the last I die, Shall reach To gain your speech.

But you, should that be so, May very well, I know, May well To me in hell

With recognising eyes Look from your Paradise-- "God bless Thy hopelessness!"

Call, holy soul, O call The hosts angelical, And say,-- "See, far away

"Lies one I saw on earth; One stricken from his birth With curse Of destinate verse.

"What place doth He ye serve For such sad spirit reserve,-- Given, In dark lieu of Heaven,

"The impitiable Dæmon, Beauty, to adore and dream on, To be Perpetually

"Hers, but she never his? He reapeth miseries; Foreknows His wages woes;

"He lives detachèd days; He serveth not for praise; For gold He is not sold;

"Deaf is he to world's tongue; He scorneth for his song The loud Shouts of the crowd;

"He asketh not world's eyes; Not to world's ears he cries; Saith,--'These Shut, if you please';

"He measureth world's pleasure, World's ease, as Saints might measure; For hire Just love entire

"He asks, not grudging pain; And knows his asking vain, And cries-- 'Love! Love!' and dies,

"In guerdon of long duty, Unowned by Love or Beauty; And goes-- Tell, tell, who knows!

"Aliens from Heaven's worth, Fine beasts who nose i' the earth, Do there Reward prepare.

"But are _his_ great desires Food but for nether fires? Ah me, A mystery!

"Can it be his alone, To find, when all is known, That what He solely sought

"Is lost, and thereto lost All that its seeking cost? That he Must finally,

"Through sacrificial tears, And anchoretic years, Tryst With the sensualist?"

So ask; and if they tell The secret terrible, Good friend, I pray thee send

Some high gold embassage To teach my unripe age. Tell! Lest my feet walk hell.

A DEAD ASTRONOMER

(STEPHEN PERRY, S.J.)

Starry amorist, starward gone, Thou art--what thou didst gaze upon! Passed through thy golden garden's bars, Thou seest the Gardener of the Stars.

She, about whose moonèd brows Seven stars make seven glows, Seven lights for seven woes; She, like thine own Galaxy, All lustres in one purity:-- What said'st thou, Astronomer, When thou did'st discover _her_? When thy hand its tube let fall, Thou found'st the fairest star of all!

A CORYMBUS FOR AUTUMN

Hearken my chant,--'tis As a Bacchante's, A grape-spurt, a vine-splash, a tossed tress, flown vaunt 'tis!

Suffer my singing, Gipsy of Seasons, ere thou go winging; Ere Winter throws His slaking snows In thy feasting-flagon's impurpurate glows!

Tanned maiden! with cheeks like apples russet, And breast a brown agaric faint-flushing at tip, And a mouth too red for the moon to buss it But her cheek unvow its vestalship; Thy mists enclip Her steel-clear circuit illuminous, Until it crust Rubiginous With the glorious gules of a glowing rust.

Far other saw we, other indeed, The crescent moon, in the May-days dead, Fly up with its slender white wings spread Out of its nest in the sea's waved mead! How are the veins of thee, Autumn, laden? Umbered juices, And pulpèd oozes Pappy out of the cherry-bruises

Froth the veins of thee, wild, wild maiden! With hair that musters In globèd clusters, In tumbling clusters, like swarthy grapes, Round thy brow and thine ears o'ershaden; With the burning darkness of eyes like pansies, Like velvet pansies Wherethrough escapes The splendid might of thy conflagrate fancies; With robe gold-tawny not hiding the shapes Of the feet whereunto it falleth down, Thy naked feet unsandallèd; With robe gold-tawny that does not veil Feet where the red Is meshed in the brown, Like a rubied sun in a Venice-sail.

The wassailous heart of the Year is thine! His Bacchic fingers disentwine His coronal At thy festival; His revelling fingers disentwine Leaf, flower, and all, And let them fall Blossom and all in thy wavering wine. The Summer looks out from her brazen tower, Through the flashing bars of July, Waiting thy ripened golden shower; Whereof there cometh, with sandals fleet, The North-west flying viewlessly, With a sword to sheer, and untameable feet, And the gorgon-head of the Winter shown To stiffen the gazing earth as stone.

In crystal Heaven's magic sphere Poised in the palm of thy fervid hand, Thou seest the enchanted shows appear That stain Favonian firmament; Richer than ever the Occident Gave up to bygone Summer's wand. Day's dying dragon lies drooping his crest, Panting red pants into the West. Or a butterfly sunset claps its wings With flitter alit on the swinging blossom, The gusty blossom, that tosses and swings, Of the sea with its blown and ruffled bosom; Its ruffled bosom wherethrough the wind sings Till the crispèd petals are loosened and strown Overblown on the sand; Shed, curling as dead Rose-leaves curl, on the fleckèd strand.

Or higher, holier, saintlier when, as now, All Nature sacerdotal seems, and thou. The calm hour strikes on yon golden gong, In tones of floating and mellow light, A spreading summons to even-song: See how there The cowlèd Night Kneels on the Eastern sanctuary-stair. What is this feel of incense everywhere? Clings it round folds of the blanch-amiced clouds, Upwafted by the solemn thurifer, The mighty Spirit unknown, That swingeth the slow earth before the embannered Throne? Or is't the Season, under all these shrouds Of light, and sense, and silence, makes her known A presence everywhere, An inarticulate prayer, A hand on the soothed tresses of the air? But there is one hour scant Of this Titanian, primal liturgy,-- As there is but one hour for me and thee, Autumn, for thee and thine hierophant, Of this grave ending chant. Round the earth still and stark Heaven's death-lights kindle, yellow spark by spark, Beneath the dreadful catafalque of the dark.

And I had ended there: But a great wind blew all the stars to flare, And cried, "I sweep a path before the moon! Tarry ye now the coming of the moon, For she is coming soon"; Then died before the coming of the moon. And she came forth upon the trepidant air, In vesture unimagined-fair, Woven as woof of flag-lilies; And, curdled as of flag-lilies, The vapour at the feet of her; And a haze about her tinged in fainter wise; As if she had trodden the stars in press, Till the gold wine spurted over her dress, Till the gold wine gushed out round her feet; Spouted over her stainèd wear, And bubbled in golden froth at her feet, And hung like a whirlpool's mist round her.

Still, mighty Season, do I see't, Thy sway is still majestical! Thou hold'st of God, by title sure, Thine indefeasible investiture, And that right round thy locks are native to; The heavens upon thy brow imperial, This huge terrene thy ball, And o'er thy shoulders thrown wide air's depending pall. What if thine earth be blear and bleak of hue? Still, still the skies are sweet! Still, Season, still thou hast thy triumphs there! How have I, unaware, Forgetful of my strain inaugural, Cleft the great rondure of thy reign complete, Yielding thee half, who hast indeed the all? I will not think thy sovereignty begun But with the shepherd Sun That washes in the sea the stars' gold fleeces; Or that with Day it ceases, Who sets his burning lips to the salt brine, And purples it to wine; While I behold how ermined Artemis Ordainèd weed must wear, And toil thy business; Who witness am of her, Her too in Autumn turned a vintager; And, laden with its lampèd clusters bright, The fiery-fruited vineyard of this night.

_From_ "THE MISTRESS OF VISION"

* * * * *

On Ararat there grew a vine, When Asia from her bathing rose; Our first sailor made a twine Thereof for his prefiguring brows. Canst divine Where, upon our dusty earth, of that vine a cluster grows?

On Golgotha there grew a thorn Round the long-prefigured Brows. Mourn, O mourn! For the vine have we the spine? Is this all the Heaven allows?

On Calvary was shook a spear; Press the point into thy heart-- Joy and fear! All the spines upon the thorn into curling tendrils start.

O dismay! I, a wingless mortal, sporting With the tresses of the sun? I, that dare my hand to lay On the thunder in its snorting? Ere begun, Falls my singed song down the sky, even the old Icarian way.

From the fall precipitant These dim snatches of her chant[B] Only have remainèd mine;-- That from spear and thorn alone May be grown For the front of saint or singer any divinizing twine.

Her song said that no springing Paradise but evermore Hangeth on a singing That has chords of weeping, And that sings the after-sleeping To souls which wake too sore. "But woe the singer, woe!" she said; "beyond the dead his singing-lore, All its art of sweet and sore, He learns, in Elenore!"

Where is the land of Luthany, Where is the tract of Elenore? I am bound therefor.

"Pierce thy heart to find the key; With thee take Only what none else would keep; Learn to dream when thou dost wake, Learn to wake when thou dost sleep. Learn to water joy with tears, Learn from fears to vanquish fears; To hope, for thou dar'st not despair, Exult, for that thou dar'st not grieve; Plough thou the rock until it bear; Know, for thou else couldst not believe; Lose, that the lost thou may'st receive; Die, for none other way canst live. When earth and heaven lay down their veil, And that apocalypse turns thee pale; When thy seeing blindeth thee To what thy fellow-mortals see; When their sight to thee is sightless; Their living, death; their light, most lightless; Search no more-- Pass the gates of Luthany, tread the region Elenore."

Where is the land of Luthany, And where the region Elenore? I do faint therefor.

"When, to the new eyes of thee, All things, by immortal power, Near or far, Hiddenly To each other linkèd are, That thou canst not stir a flower Without troubling of a star; When thy song is shield and mirror To the fair snake-curlèd Pain, Where thou dar'st affront her terror That on her thou may'st attain Perséan conquest;--seek no more, O seek no more! Pass the gates of Luthany, tread the region Elenore."

So sang she, so wept she, Through a dream-night's day; And with her magic singing kept she-- Mystical in music-- That garden of enchanting In visionary May; Swayless for my spirit's haunting, Thrice-threefold walled with emerald from our mortal mornings grey.

[B] The chant of the Mistress of Vision, whom, in her secret garden, the Poet has earlier described.

THE AFTER WOMAN

Daughter of the ancient Eve We know the gifts ye gave--and give. Who knows the gifts which _you_ shall give, Daughter of the newer Eve? You, if my soul be augur, you Shall--O what shall you not, Sweet, do? The celestial traitress play, And all mankind to bliss betray; With sacrosanct cajoleries And starry treachery of your eyes, Tempt us back to Paradise! Make heavenly trespass;--ay, press in Where faint the fledge-foot seraphin, Blest fool! Be ensign of our wars, And shame us all to warriors! Unbanner your bright locks,--advance, Girl, their gilded puissance, I' the mystic vaward, and draw on After the lovely gonfalon Us to out-folly the excess Of your sweet foolhardiness; To adventure like intense Assault against Omnipotence!

Give me song, as She is, new, Earth should turn in time thereto! New, and new, and thrice so new, All old sweets, New Sweet, meant you! Fair, I had a dream of thee, When my young heart beat prophecy, And in apparition elate Thy little breasts knew waxèd great, Sister of the Canticle, And thee for God grown marriageable. How my desire desired your day, That, wheeled in rumour on its way, Shook me thus with presentience! Then Eden's lopped tree shall shoot again: For who Christ's eyes shall miss, with those Eyes for evident nuncios? Or who be tardy to His call In your accents augural? Who shall not feel the Heavens hid Impend, at tremble of your lid, And divine advent shine avowed Under that dim and lucid cloud; Yea, 'fore the silver apocalypse Fail, at the unsealing of your lips? When to love _you_ is (O Christ's spouse!) To love the beauty of His house. Then come the Isaian days; the old Shall dream; and our young men behold Vision--yea, the vision of Thabor-mount, Which none to other shall recount, Because in all men's hearts shall be The seeing and the prophecy. For ended is the Mystery Play, When Christ is life, and you the way; When Egypt's spoils are Israel's right, And Day fulfils the married arms of Night.

But here my lips are still. Until You and the hour shall be revealed, This song is sung and sung not, and its words are sealed.

LINES

To W.M.

O tree of many branches! One thou hast Thou barest not, but grafted'st on thee. Now, Should all men's thunders break on thee, and leave Thee reft of bough and blossom, that one branch Shall cling to thee, my Father, Brother, Friend, Shall cling to thee, until the end of end!

THE WAY OF A MAID

The lover, whose soul shaken is In some decuman billow of bliss, Who feels his gradual-wading feet Sink in some sudden hollow of sweet, And 'mid love's usèd converse comes Sharp on a mood which all joy sums-- An instant fine compendium of The liberal-leavèd writ of love-- His abashed pulses beating thick At the exigent joy and quick, Is dumbed, by aiming utterance great Up to the miracle of his fate. The wise girl, such Icarian fall Saved by her confidence that she's small,-- As what no kindred word will fit Is uttered best by opposite, Love in the tongue of hate exprest, And deepest anguish in a jest,-- Feeling the infinite must be Best said by triviality, Speaks, where expression bates its wings, Just happy, alien, little things; What of all words is in excess Implies in a sweet nothingness, With dailiest babble shows her sense That full speech were full impotence; And, while she feels the heavens lie bare,-- She only talks about her hair.

ODE TO THE SETTING SUN

PRELUDE

The wailful sweetness of the violin Floats down the hushèd waters of the wind; The heart-strings of the throbbing harp begin To long in aching music. Spirit-pined,

In wafts that poignant sweetness drifts, until The wounded soul ooze sadness. The red sun, A bubble of fire, drops slowly toward the hill, While one bird prattles that the day is done.