A PRAYER FOR THE PAST.
All sights and sounds of every year,
All groups and forms, each leaf and gem,
Are thine, O God, nor need I fear
To speak to Thee of them.
Too great thy heart is to despise;
Thy day girds centuries about;
From things which we count small, thine eyes
See great things looking out.
Therefore this prayerful song I sing
May come to Thee in ordered words;
Therefore its sweet sounds need not cling
In terror to their chords.
* * * * *
I know that nothing made is lost;
That not a moon hath ever shone,
That not a cloud my eyes hath crost,
But to my soul hath gone.
That all the dead years garnered lie
In this gem-casket, my dim soul;
And that thy hand may, once, apply
The key that opes the whole.
But what lies dead in me, yet lives
In Thee, whose Parable is—Time,
And Worlds, and Forms, and Sound that gives
Words and the music-chime.
And after my next coming birth,
The new child's prayer will rise to Thee:
To hear again the sounds of Earth,
Its sights again to see.
With child's glad eyes to see once more
The visioned glories of the gloom,
With climbing suns, and starry store,
Ceiling my little room.
O call again the moons that glide
Behind old vapours sailing slow;
Lost sights of solemn skies that slide
O'er eyelids sunken low.
Show me the tides of dawning swell,
And lift the world's dim eastern eye,
And the dark tears that all night fell
With radiance glorify.
First I would see, oh, sore bereft!
My father's house, my childhood's home;
Where the wild snow-storms raved, and left
White mounds of frozen foam.
Till, going out one dewy morn,
A man was turning up the mould;
And in our hearts the spring was born,
Crept hither through the cold.
And with the glad year I would go,
The troops of daisies round my feet;
Flying the kite, or, in the glow
Of arching summer heat,
Outstretched in fear upon the bank,
Lest gazing up on awful space,
I should fall down into the blank
From off the round world's face.
And let my brothers be with me
To play our old games yet again;
And all should go as lovingly
As now that we are men.
If over Earth the shade of Death
Passed like a cloud's wide noiseless wing,
We'd tell a secret, in low breath:
"Mind, 'tis a dream of Spring.
"And in this dream, our brother's gone
Upstairs; he heard our father call;
For one by one we go alone,
Till he has gathered all."
Father, in joy our knees we bow;
This earth is not a place of tombs:
We are but in the nursery now;
They in the upper rooms.
For are we not at home in Thee,
And all this world a visioned show;
That, knowing what Abroad is, we
What Home is, too, may know?
And at thy feet I sit, O Lord,
As years ago, in moonlight pale,
I sat and heard my father's word
Reading a lofty tale.
So in this vision I would go
Still onward through the gliding years,
Reaping great Noontide's joyous glow,
Still Eve's refreshing tears.
One afternoon sit pondering
In that old chair, in that old room,
Where passing pigeon's sudden wing
Flashed lightning through the gloom.
There, try once more with effort vain,
To mould in one perplexed things;
And find the solace yet again
Faith in the Father brings.
Or on my horse go wandering round,
Mid desert moors and mountains high;
While storm-clouds, darkly brooding, found
In me another sky.
For so thy Visible grew mine,
Though half its power I could not know;
And in me wrought a work divine,
Which Thou hadst ordered so;
Filling my brain with form and word
From thy full utterance unto men;
Shapes that might ancient Truth afford,
And find it words again.
Till Spring, in after years of youth,
Wove its dear form with every form;
Now a glad bursting into Truth,
Now a low sighing storm.
But in this vision of the Past,
Spring-world to summer leading in,
Whose joys but not whose sorrows last,
I have left out the sin.
I picture but development,
Green leaves unfolding to their fruits,
Expanding flowers, aspiring scent,
But not the writhing roots.
Then follow English sunsets, o'er
A warm rich land outspread below;
A green sea from a level shore,
Bright boats that come and go.
And one beside me in whose eyes
Old Nature found a welcome home,
A treasury of changeful skies
Beneath a changeless dome.
But will it still be thus, O God?
And shall I always wish to see
And trace again the hilly road
By which I went to Thee?
We bend above a joy new given,
That gives new feelings gladsome birth;
A living gift from one in heaven
To two upon the earth.
Are no days creeping softly on
Which I should tremble to renew?
I thank thee, Lord, for what is gone—
Thine is the future too.
And are we not at home in Thee,
And all this world a visioned show;
That knowing what Abroad is, we
What Home is, too, may know?
FAR AND NEAR.
[The fact to which the following verses refer, is related by
Dr. Edward Clarke in his Travels.]
Blue sunny skies above; below,
A blue and sunny sea;
A world of blue, wherein did blow
One soft wind steadily.
In great and solemn heaves, the mass
Of pulsing ocean beat,
Unwrinkled as the sea of glass
Beneath the holy feet.
With forward leaning of desire,
The ship sped calmly on,
A pilgrim strong that would not tire,
Nor hasten to be gone.
The mouth of the mysterious Nile,
Full thirty leagues away,
Breathed in his ear old tales to wile
Old Ocean as he lay.
Low on the surface of the sea
Faint sounds like whispers glide
Of lovers talking tremulously,
Close by the vessel's side.
Or as within a sleeping wood
A windy sigh awoke,
And fluttering all the leafy brood,
The summer-silence broke.
A wayward phantasy might say
That little ocean-maids
Were clapping little hands of play,
Deep down in ocean-glades.
The traveller by land and flood,
The man of ready mind,
Much questioning the reason, stood—
No answer could he find.
That day, on Egypt's distant land,
And far from off the shore,
Two nations fought with armed hand,
With bellowing cannon's roar.
That fluttering whisper, low and near,
Was the far battle-blare;
An airy rippling motion here,
The blasting thunder there.
And so this aching in my breast,
Dim, faint, and undefined,
May be the sound of far unrest,
Borne on the spirit's wind;
The uproar of the battle fought
Betwixt the bond and free;
The thundering roll in whispers brought
From Heaven's artillery.
MY ROOM.
To G.E.M.
'Tis a little room, my friend;
A baby-walk from end to end;
All the things look sadly real,
This hot noontide's Unideal.
Seek not refuge at the casement,
There's no pasture for amazement
But a house most dim and rusty,
And a street most dry and dusty;
Seldom here more happy vision
Than water-cart's blest apparition,
We'll shut out the staring space,
Draw the curtains in its face.
Close the eyelids of the room,
Fill it with a scarlet gloom:
Lo! the walls on every side
Are transformed and glorified;
Ceiled as with a rosy cloud
Furthest eastward of the crowd,
Blushing faintly at the bliss
Of the Titan's good-night kiss,
Which her westward sisters share,—
Crimson they from breast to hair.
'Tis the faintest lends its dye
To my room—ah, not the sky!
Worthy though to be a room
Underneath the wonder-dome:
Look around on either hand,
Are we not in fairy-land?
In the ruddy atmosphere
All familiar things appear
Glowing with a mystery
In the red light shadowy;
Lasting bliss to you and me,
Colour only though it be.
Now on the couch, inwrapt in mist
Of vapourized amethyst,
Lie, as in a rose's heart;
Secret things I will impart;
Any time you would receive them;
Easier though you will believe them
In dissolving dreamy red,
Self-same radiance that is shed
From the summer-heart of Poet,
Flushing those that never know it.
Tell me not the light thou viewest
Is a false one; 'tis the truest;
'Tis the light revealing wonder,
Filling all above and under;
If in light you make a schism,
'Tis the deepest in the prism.
The room looks common; but the fact is
'Tis a cell of magic practice,
So disguised by common daylight,
By its disenchanting grey light,
Only spirit-eyes, mesmeric,
See its glories esoteric.
There, that case against the wall,
Glowingly purpureal!
A piano to the prosy—
Not to us in twilight rosy:
'Tis a cave where Nereids lie.
Naiads, Dryads, Oreads sigh,
Dreaming of the time when they
Danced in forest and in bay.
In that chest before your eyes,
Nature's self enchanted lies;
Awful hills and midnight woods;
Sunny rains in solitudes;
Deserts of unbounded longing;
Blessed visions, gladness thronging;
All this globe of life unfoldeth
In phantom forms that coffer holdeth.
True, unseen; for 'tis enchanted—
What is that but kept till wanted?
Do you hear that voice of singing?
'Tis the enchantress that is flinging
Spells around her baby's riot,
Music's oil the waves to quiet:
She at once can disenchant them,
To a lover's wish to grant them;
She can make the treasure casket
Yield its riches, as that basket
Yielded up the gathered flowers;
Yet its mines, and fields, and bowers,
Full remain, as mother Earth
Never tired of giving birth.
Do you doubt me? Wait till night
Brings black hours and white delight;
Then, as now, your limbs outstretching,
Yield yourself to her bewitching.
She will bring a book of spells
Writ like crabbed oracles;
Wherewith necromantic fingers
Raise the ghosts of parted singers:
Straight your senses will be bound
In a net of torrent sound.
For it is a silent fountain,
Fed by springs from unseen mountain.
Till with gestures cabalistic,
Crossing, lining figures mystic,
(Diagram most mathematic,
Simple to these signs erratic,)
O'er the seals her quick hands going
Loose the rills and set them flowing:
Pent up music rushing out
Bathes thy spirit all about;
Spell-bound nature, freed again,
Joyous revels in thy brain.
On a mountain-top you stand,
Looking o'er a sunny land;
Giant forces marching slow,
Rank on rank, the great hills go,
On and on without a stay,
Melting in the blue away.
Wondrous light, more wondrous shading;
High relief in faintness fading;
Branching streams, like silver veins,
Meet and part in dells and plains.
There a woody hollow lies,
Dumb with love, and bright with eyes;
Moorland tracks of broken ground
Rising o'er, it all around:
Traveller climbing from the grove
Needs the tender heavens above.
"Ah, my pictured life," you cry,
"Fading into sea and sky!"
Lost in thought that gently grieves you,
All the fairy landscape leaves you;
Sinks the sadness into rest,
Ripple-like on water's breast;
Mother's bosom rests the daughter,—
Grief the ripple, Love the water.
All the past is strangely blended
In a mist of colours splendid,
But chaotic as to form,
An unfeatured beauty-storm.
Wakes within, the ancient mind
For a gloriousness defined:
As she sought and knew your pleasure,—
Wiling with a dancing measure,
Underneath your closed eyes
She calls the shapes of clouded skies;
White forms flushing hyacinthine
Twine in curvings labyrinthine;
Seem with godlike graceful feet,
For such mazy motion meet,
To press from air each lambent note,
On whose throbbing fire they float;
With an airy wishful gait
On each others' motion wait;
Naked arms and vesture free
Fill up the dance of harmony.
Gone the measure polyhedral!
Springs aloft a high cathedral;
Every arch, like praying arms
Upward flung in love's alarms,
Knit by clasped hands o'erhead,
Heaves to heaven the weight of dread.
Underneath thee, like a cloud,
Gathers music, dim not loud,
Swells thy bosom with devotion,
Floats thee like a wave of ocean;
Vanishes the pile away,—
In heaven thou kneelest down to pray.
Let the sounds but reach thy heart,
Straight thyself magician art;
Walkest open-eyed through earth;
Seest wonders in their birth,
Whence they come and whither go;
Thou thyself exalted so,
Nature's consciousness, whereby
On herself she turns her eye.
Only heed thou worship God;
Else thou stalkest on thy sod,
Puppet-god of picture-world,
For thy foolish gaze unfurled;
Mirror-thing of things below thee.
Thy own self can never know thee;
Not a high and holy actor;
A reflector, and refractor;
Helpless in thy gift of light,
Self-consuming into night.
Lasting yet the roseate glory!
I must hasten with my story
Of the little room's true features,
Seldom seen by mortal creatures;
Lest my prophet-vision fading
Leave me in the darkness wading.
What are those upon the wall,
Ranged in rows symmetrical?
They are books, an owl would say;
But the owl's night is the day:
Of these too, if you have patience,
I can give you revelations:
Through the walls of Time and Sight,
Doors they are to the Infinite;
Through the limits that embrace us,
Openings to the eternal spaces,
Round us all the noisy day,
Full of silences alway;
Round us all the darksome night,
Ever full of awful light:
And, though closed, may still remind us
There is mystery behind us.
That, my friend? Now, it is curious,
You should hit upon the spurious!
'Tis a blind, a painted door:
Knock at it for evermore,
Never vision it affords
But its panelled gilded boards;
Behind it lieth nought at all,
But the limy, webby wall.
Oh no, not a painted block—
Not the less a printed mock;
A book, 'tis true; no whit the more
A revealing out-going door.
There are two or three such books
For a while in others' nooks;
Where they should no longer be,
But for reasons known to me.
Do not open that one though.
It is real; but if you go
Careless to it, as to dance,
You'll see nothing for your glance;
Blankness, deafness, blindness, dumbness,
Soon will stare you to a numbness.
No, my friend; it is not wise
To open doors into the skies,
As into a little study,
Where a feeble brain grows muddy.
Wait till night, and you shall be
Left alone with mystery;
Light this lamp's white softened ray,
(Another wonder by the way,)
Then with humble faith and prayer,
Ope the door with patient care:
Yours be calmness then, and strength
For the sight you see at length.
Sometimes, after trying vainly,
With much effort, forced, ungainly,
To entice the rugged door
To yield up its wondrous lore,
With a sudden burst of thunder
All its frame is dashed asunder;
The gulfy silence, lightning-fleet,
Shooteth hellward at thy feet.
Take thou heed lest evil terror
Snare thee in a downward error,
Drag thee through the narrow gate,
Give thee up to windy fate,
To be blown for evermore
Up and down without a shore;
For to shun the good as ill
Makes the evil bolder still.
But oftener far the portal opes
With the sound of coming hopes;
On the joy-astonished eyes
Awful heights of glory rise;
Mountains, stars, and dreadful space,
The Eternal's azure face.
In storms of silence self is drowned,
Leaves the soul a gulf profound,
Where new heavens and earth arise,
Rolling seas and arching skies.
Gathers slow a vapour o'er thee
From the ocean-depths before thee:
Lo! the vision all hath vanished,
Thou art left alone and banished;
Shut the door, thou findest, groping,
Without chance of further oping.
Thou must wait until thy soul
Rises nearer to its goal;
Till more childhood strength has given—
Then approach this gate of Heaven:
It will open as before,
Yielding wonders, yet in store
For thee, if thou wilt turn to good
Things already understood.
Why I let such useless lumber
Useful bookshelves so encumber?
I will tell thee; for thy question
Of wonders brings me to the best one.
There's a future wonder, may be—
Sure a present magic baby;
(Patience, friend, I know your looks—
What has that to do with books?)
With her sounds of molten speech
Quick a parent's heart to reach,
Though uncoined to words sedate,
Or even to sounds articulate;
Yet sweeter than the music's flowing,
Which doth set her music going.
Now our highest wonder-duty
Is with this same wonder-beauty;
How, with culture high and steady,
To unfold a magic-lady;
How to keep her full of wonder
At all things above and under;
Her from childhood never part,
Change the brain, but keep the heart.
She is God's child all the time;
On all the hours the child must climb,
As on steps of shining stairs
Leading up the path of prayers.
So one lesson from our looks,
Must be this: to honour books,
As a strange and mystic band
Which she cannot understand;
Scarce to touch them without fear,
Never, but when I am near,
As a priest, to temple-rite
Leading in the acolyte.
But when she has older grown,
And can see a difference shown,
She must learn, 'tis not appearing
Makes a book fit for revering;
To distinguish and divide
'Twixt the form and soul inside;
That a book is more than boards,
Leaves and words in gathered hordes,
Which no greater good can do man
Than the goblin hollow woman,
Or a pump without a well,
Or priest without an oracle.
Form is worthless, save it be
Type of an infinity;
Sign of something present, true,
Though unopened to the view,
Heady in its bosom holding
What it will be aye unfolding,
Never uttering but in part,
From an unexhausted heart.
Sight convincing to her mind,
I will separate kind from kind,
Take those books, though honoured by her
Lay them on the study fire,
For their form's sake somewhat tender,
Yet consume them to a cinder;
Years of reverence shall not save them
From the greedy flames that crave them.
You shall see this slight Immortal,
Half-way yet within life's portal;
Gathering gladness, she looks back,
Streams it forward on her track;
Wanders ever in the dance
Of her own sweet radiance.
Though the glory cease to burn,
Inward only it will turn;
Make her hidden being bright,
Make herself a lamp of light;
And a second gate of birth
Will take her to another earth.
But, my friend, I've rattled plenty
To suffice for mornings twenty;
And I must not toss you longer
On this torrent waxing stronger.
Other things, past contradiction,
Here would prove I spoke no fiction,
Did I lead them up, choragic,
To reveal their nature magic.
There is that machine, glass-masked,
With continual questions tasked,
Ticking with untiring rock:
It is called an eight-day clock.
But to me the thing appears
Made for winding up the years,
Drawing on, fast as it can,
The day when comes the Son of Man.
On the sea the sunshine broods,
And the shining tops of woods;
We will leave these oracles,
Finding others 'mid the hills.
SYMPATHY.
Grief held me silent in my seat,
I neither moved nor smiled:
Joy held her silent at my feet,
My little lily-child.
She raised her face; she seemed to feel
That she was left outside;
She said one word with childish zeal
That would not be denied.
Twice more my name, with infant grace;
Sole word her lips could mould!
Her face was pulling at my face—
She was but ten months old.
I know not what were my replies—
I thought: dost Thou, O God,
Need ever thy poor children's eyes,
To ease thee of thy load?
They find not Thee in evil case,
But, raised in sorrow wild,
Bring down from visiting thy face
The calmness of a child.
Thou art the depth of Heaven above—
The springing well in her;
Not Father only in thy love,
But daily minister.
And this is how the comfort slid
From her to me the while,—
It was thy present face that did
Smile on me from her smile.
LITTLE ELFIE.
I have an elfish maiden child;
She is not two years old;
Through windy locks her eyes gleam wild,
With glances shy and bold.
Like little imps, her tiny hands
Dart out and push and take;
Chide her—a trembling thing she stands,
And like two leaves they shake.
But to her mind a minute gone
Is like a year ago;
So when you lift your eyes anon,
They're at it, to and fro.
Sometimes, though not oppressed with thought,
She has her sleepless fits;
Then to my room in blanket brought,
In round-backed chair she sits;
Where, if by chance in graver mood,
A hermit she appears,
Seated in cave of ancient wood,
Grown very still with years.
Then suddenly the pope she is,
A playful one, I know;
For up and down, now that, now this,
Her feet like plash-mill go.
Why like the pope? She's at it yet,
Her knee-joints flail-like go:
Unthinking man! it is to let
Her mother kiss each toe.
But if I turn away and write,
Then sudden look around,
I almost tremble; tall and white
She stands upon the ground.
In long night-gown, a tiny ghost,
She stands unmoving there;
Or if she moves, my wits were lost
To meet her on the stair!
O Elfie, make no haste to lose
Thy lack of conscious sense;
Thou hast the best gift I could choose,
A God-like confidence.
THE THANK OFFERING.
My little child receives my gift,
A simple piece of bread;
But to her mouth she doth not lift
The love in bread conveyed,
Till on my lips, unerring, swift,
The morsel first is laid.
This is her grace before her food,
This her libation poured;
Uplift, like offering Aaron good
Heaved up unto the Lord;
More riches in the thanks than could
A thousand gifts afford!
My Father, every gift of thine,
Teach me to lift to Thee;
Not else know I the love divine,
With which it comes to me;
Not else the tenfold gift is mine
Of taking thankfully.
Yea, all my being I would lift,
An offering of me;
Then only truly mine the gift,
When so received by Thee;
Then shall I go, rejoicing, swift,
Through thine Eternity.
THE BURNT OFFERING.
Is there a man on earth, who, every night,
When the day hath exhausted each strong limb,
Lays him upon his bed in chamber dim,
And his heart straightway trembling with delight,
Begins to burn up towards the vaulted height
Of the great peace that overshadows him?
Like flakes of fire his thoughts within him swim,
Till all his soul is radiant, blazing bright.
The great earth under him an altar is,
Upon whose top a sacrifice he lies,
Burning to God up through the nightly skies,
Whose love, warm-brooding o'er him, kindled his;
Until his flaming thoughts, consumed, expire,
Sleep's ashes covering the yet glowing fire.
FOUR SONNETS
Inscribed to S.F.S., because the second is about her father.
I.
They say that lonely sorrows do not chance.
I think it true, and that the cause I know:
A sorrow glideth in a funeral show
Easier than if it broke into a dance.
But I think too, that joy doth joy enhance
As often as an added grief brings low;
And if keen-eyed to see the flowers that grow,
As keen of nerve to feel the thorns that lance
The foot that must walk naked in one way—
Blest by the lily, white from toils and fears,
Oftener than wounded by the thistle-spears,
We should walk upright, bold, and earnest-gay.
I'll tell you how it fared with me one day
After noon in a world, so-called, of tears.
II.
I went to listen to my teacher friend.
O Friend above, thanks for the friend below!
Who having been made wise, deep things to know,
With brooding spirit over them doth bend,
Until they waken words, as wings, to send
Their seeds far forth, seeking a place to grow.
The lesson past, with quiet foot I go,
And towards his silent room, expectant wend,
Seeking a blessing, even leave to dwell
For some eternal minutes in his eyes.
And he smiled on me in his loving wise;
His hand spoke friendship, satisfied me well;
My presence was some pleasure, I could tell.
Then forth we went beneath the smoky skies.
III.
I, strengthened, left him. Next in a close place,
Mid houses crowded, dingy, barred, and high,
Where men live not except to sell and buy,
To me, leaving a doorway, came a grace.
(Surely from heaven she came, though all that race
Walketh on human feet beneath the sky.)
I, going on, beheld not who was nigh,
When a sweet girl looked up into my face
With earnest eyes, most maidenly sedate—
Looked up to me, as I to him did look:
'Twas much to me whom sometimes men mistook.
She asked me where we dwelt, that she might wait
Upon us there. I told her, and elate,
Went on my way to seek another nook.
IV.
And there I found him whom I went to find,
A man of noble make and head uplift,
Of equal carriage, Nature's bounteous gift;
For in no shelter had his generous mind
Grown flowers that need the winds, rough not unkind.
The joiner's bench taught him, with judgment swift,
Seen things to fashion, unseen things to sift;
From all his face a living soul outshined,
Telling of strength and inward quietude;
His great hand shook mine greatly, and his eyes
Looked straight in mine with spiritual replies:
I left him, rich with overflowing good.
Such joys within two hours of happy mood,
Met me beneath the everlasting skies.
SONNET.
(Exodus xxxiii. 18-23.)
"I do beseech Thee, God, show me thy face."
"Come up to me in Sinai on the morn:
Thou shalt behold as much as may be borne."
And Moses on a rock stood lone in space.
From Sinai's top, the vaporous, thunderous place,
God passed in clouds, an earthly garment worn
To hide, and thus reveal. In love, not scorn,
He put him in a cleft in the rock's base,
Covered him with his hand, his eyes to screen,
Then passed, and showed his back through mists of years.
Ah, Moses! had He turned, and hadst thou seen
The pale face crowned with thorns, baptized with tears,
The eyes of the true man, by men belied,
Thou hadst beheld God's face, and straightway died.
EIGHTEEN SONNETS,
About Jesus.
I.
If Thou hadst been a sculptor, what a race
Of forms divine had ever preached to men!
Lo, I behold thy brow, all glorious then,
(Its reflex dawning on the statue's face)
Bringing its Thought to birth in human grace,
The soul of the grand form, upstarting, when
Thou openest thus thy mysteries to our ken,
Striking a marble window through blind space.
But God, who mouldeth in life-plastic clay,
Flashing his thoughts from men with living eyes,
Not from still marble forms, changeless alway,
Breathed forth his human self in human guise:
Thou didst appear, walking unknown abroad,
The son of man, the human, subject God.
II.
"There, Buonarotti, stands thy statue. Take
Possession of the form; inherit it;
Go forth upon the earth in likeness fit;
As with a trumpet-cry at morning, wake
The sleeping nations; with light's terror, shake
The slumber from their hearts; and, where they sit,
Let them leap up aghast, as at a pit
Agape beneath." I hear him answer make:
"Alas! I dare not; I could not inform
That image; I revered as I did trace;
I will not dim the glory of its grace,
Nor with a feeble spirit mock the enorm
Strength on its brow." Thou cam'st, God's thought thy form,
Living the large significance of thy face.
III.
Some men I have beheld with wonderment,
Noble in form and feature, God's design,
In whom the thought must search, as in a mine,
For that live soul of theirs, by which they went
Thus walking on the earth. And I have bent
Frequent regard on women, who gave sign
That God willed Beauty, when He drew the line
That shaped each float and fold of Beauty's tent;
But the soul, drawing up in little space,
Thus left the form all staring, self-dismayed,
A vacant sign of what might be the grace
If mind swelled up, and filled the plan displayed:
Each curve and shade of thy pure form were Thine,
Thy very hair replete with the divine.
IV.
If Thou hadst been a painter, what fresh looks,
What shining of pent glories, what new grace
Had burst upon us from the great Earth's face!
How had we read, as in new-languaged books,
Clear love of God in lone retreating nooks!
A lily, as thy hand its form would trace,
Were plainly seen God's child, of lower race;
And, O my heart, blue hills! and grassy brooks!
Thy soul lay to all undulations bare,
Answering in waves. Each morn the sun did rise,
And God's world woke beneath life-giving skies,
Thou sawest clear thy Father's meanings there;
'Mid Earth's Ideal, and expressions rare,
The ideal Man, with the eternal eyes.
V.
But I have looked on pictures made by man,
Wherein, at first, appeared but chaos wild;
So high the art transcended, it beguiled
The eye as formless, and without a plan;
Until the spirit, brooding o'er, began
To see a purpose rise, like mountains piled,
When God said: Let the dry earth, undefiled,
Rise from the waves: it rose in twilight wan.
And so I fear thy pictures were too strange
For us to pierce beyond their outmost look;
A vapour and a darkness; a sealed book;
An atmosphere too high for wings to range:
At God's designs our spirits pale and change,
Trembling as at a void, thought cannot brook.
VI.
And is not Earth thy living picture, where
Thou utterest beauty, simple and profound,
In the same form by wondrous union bound;
Where one may see the first step of the stair,
And not the next, for brooding vapours there?
And God is well content the starry round
Should wake the infant's inarticulate sound,
Or lofty song from bursting heart of prayer.
And so all men of low or lofty mind,
Who in their hearts hear thy unspoken word,
Have lessons low or lofty, to their kind,
In these thy living shows of beauty, Lord;
While the child's heart that simply childlike is,
Knows that the Father's face looks full in his.
VII.
If Thou hadst been a Poet! On my heart
The thought dashed. It recoiled, as, with the gift,
Light-blinded, and joy-saddened, so bereft.
And the hot fountain-tears, with sudden start,
Thronged to mine eyes, as if with that same smart
The husk of vision had in twain been cleft,
Its hidden soul in naked beauty left,
And we beheld thee, Nature, as thou art.
O Poet, Poet, Poet! at thy feet
I should have lien, sainted with listening;
My pulses answering aye, in rhythmic beat,
Each parting word that with melodious wing
Moved on, creating still my being sweet;
My soul thy harp, thy word the quivering string.
VIII.
Thou wouldst have led us through the twilight land
Where spirit shows by form, form is refined
Away to spirit by transfiguring mind,
Till they are one, and in the morn we stand;
Treading thy footsteps, children, hand in hand,
With sense divinely growing, till, combined,
We heard the music of the planets wind
In harmony with billows on the strand;
Till, one with Earth and all God's utterance,
We hardly knew whether the sun outspake,
Or a glad sunshine from our spirits brake;
Whether we think, or windy leaflets dance:
Alas, O Poet Leader! for this good,
Thou wert God's tragedy, writ in tears and blood.
IX.
So if Thou hadst been scorned in human eyes,
Too bright and near to be a glory then;
If as Truth's artist, Thou hadst been to men
A setter forth of strange divinities;
To after times, Thou, born in midday skies,
A sun, high up, out-blazing sudden, when
Its light had had its centuries eight and ten
To travel through the wretched void that lies
'Twixt souls and truth, hadst been a Love and Fear,
Worshipped on high from Magian's mountain-crest,
And all night long symbol'd by lamp-flames clear;
Thy sign, a star upon thy people's breast,
Where now a strange mysterious shape doth lie,
That once barred out the sun in noontide sky.
X.
But as Thou earnest forth to bring the Poor,
Whose hearts were nearer faith and verity,
Spiritual childhood, thy philosophy,—
So taught'st the A, B, C of heavenly lore;
Because Thou sat'st not, lonely evermore,
With mighty thoughts informing language high;
But, walking in thy poem continually,
Didst utter acts, of all true forms the core;
Instead of parchment, writing on the soul
High thoughts and aspirations, being so
Thine own ideal; Poet and Poem, lo!
One indivisible; Thou didst reach thy goal
Triumphant, but with little of acclaim,
Even from thine own, escaping not their blame.
XI.
The eye was shut in men; the hearing ear
Dull unto deafness; nought but earthly things
Had credence; and no highest art that flings
A spirit radiance from it, like the spear
Of the ice-pointed mountain, lifted clear
In the nigh sunrise, had made skyey springs
Of light in the clouds of dull imaginings:
Vain were the painter or the sculptor here.
Give man the listening heart, the seeing eye;
Give life; let sea-derived fountain well,
Within his spirit, infant waves, to tell
Of the far ocean-mysteries that lie
Silent upon the horizon,—evermore
Falling in voices on the human shore.
XII.
So highest poets, painters, owe to Thee
Their being and disciples; none were there,
Hadst Thou not been; Thou art the centre where
The Truth did find an infinite form; and she
Left not the earth again, but made it be
One of her robing rooms, where she doth wear
All forms of revelation. Artists bear
Tapers in acolyte humility.
O Poet! Painter! soul of all! thy art
Went forth in making artists. Pictures? No;
But painters, who in love should ever show
To earnest men glad secrets from God's heart.
So, in the desert, grass and wild flowers start,
When through the sand the living waters go.
XIII.
So, as Thou wert the seed and not the flower,
Having no form or comeliness, in chief
Sharing thy thoughts with thine acquaintance Grief;
Thou wert despised, rejected in thine hour
Of loneliness and God-triumphant power.
Oh, not three days alone, glad slumber brief,
That from thy travail brought Thee sweet relief,
Lay'st Thou, outworn, beneath thy stony bower;
But three and thirty years, a living seed,
Thy body lay as in a grave indeed;
A heavenly germ dropt in a desert wide;
Buried in fallow soil of grief and need;
'Mid earthquake-storms of fiercest hate and pride,
By woman's tears bedewed and glorified.
XIV.
All divine artists, humble, filial,
Turn therefore unto Thee, the poet's sun;
First-born of God's creation, only done
When from Thee, centre-form, the veil did fall,
And Thou, symbol of all, heart, coronal,
The highest Life with noblest Form made one,
To do thy Father's bidding hadst begun;
The living germ in this strange planet-ball,
Even as thy form in mind of striving saint.
So, as the one Ideal, beyond taint,
Thy radiance unto all some shade doth yield,
In every splendour shadowy revealed:
But when, by word or hand, Thee one would paint,
Power falls down straightway, speechless, dim-eyed, faint.
XV.
Men may pursue the Beautiful, while they
Love not the Good, the life of all the Fair;
Keen-eyed for beauty, they will find it where
The darkness of their eyes hath power to slay
The vision of the good in beauty's ray,
Though fruits the same life-giving branches bear.
So in a statue they will see the rare
Beauty of thought moulded of dull crude clay,
While loving joys nor prayer their souls expand.
So Thou didst mould thy thoughts in Life not Art;
Teaching with human voice, and eye, and hand,
That none the beauty from the truth might part:
Their oneness in thy flesh we joyous hail—
The Holy of Holies' cloud-illumined veil!
XVI.
And yet I fear lest men who read these lines,
Should judge of them as if they wholly spake
The love I bear Thee and thy holy sake;
Saying: "He doth the high name wrong who twines
Earth's highest aim with Him, and thus combines
Jesus and Art." But I my refuge make
In what the Word said: "Man his life shall take
From every word:" in Art God first designs,—
He spoke the word. And let me humbly speak
My faith, that Art is nothing to the act,
Lowliest, that to the Truth bears witness meek,
Renownless, even unknown, but yet a fact:
The glory of thy childhood and thy youth,
Was not that Thou didst show, but didst the Truth.
XVII
The highest marble Sorrow vanishes
Before a weeping child.[2] The one doth seem,
The other is. And wherefore do we dream,
But that we live? So I rejoice in this,
That Thou didst cast Thyself, in all the bliss
Of conscious strength, into Life's torrent stream,
(Thy deeds fresh life-springs that with blessings teem)
Acting, not painting rainbows o'er its hiss.
Forgive me, Lord, if in these verses lie
Mean thoughts, and stains of my infirmity;
Full well I know that if they were as high
In holy song as prophet's ecstasy,
'Tis more to Thee than this, if I, ah me!
Speak gently to a child for love of Thee.
[Footnote 2: John Sterling.]
XVIII.
Thou art before me, and I see no more
Pilate or soldiers, but the purple flung
Around the naked form the scourge had wrung,
To naked Truth thus witnessing, before
The False and trembling True. As on the shore
Of infinite Love and Truth, I kneel among
Thy footprints on that pavement; and my tongue
Would, but for reverence, cry: "If Thou set'st store
By feeble homage, Witness to the Truth,
Thou art the King, crowned by thy witnessing!"
I die in soul, and fall down worshipping.
Art glories vanish, vapours of the morn.
Never but Thee was there a man in sooth,
Never a true crown but thy crown of thorn.
DEATH AND BIRTH.
A Symbol.
[Sidenote: He looks from his window on the midnight town.]
'Tis the midnight hour; I heard
The city clocks give out the word.
Seldom are the lamp-rays shed
On the quick foot-farer's head,
As I sit at my window old,
Looking out into the cold,
Down along the narrowing street
Stretching out below my feet,
From base of this primeval block,
My old home's foundation rock.
[Sidenote: He renounces Beauty the body for Truth the soul.]
How her windows are uplighted!
God in heaven! for this I slighted,
Star-profound immensity
Brooding ever in the sky!
What an earthly constellation
Fills those chambers with vibration!
Fleeting, gliding, weaving, parting;
Light of jewels! flash of eyes!
Meeting, changing, wreathing, darting,
In a cloud of rainbow-dyes.
Soul of light, her eyes are floating
Hither, thither, through the cloud,
Wandering planets, seeking, noting
Chosen stars amid the crowd.
Who, as centre-source of motion
Draws those dark orbs' spirit-ocean?
All the orbs on which they turn
Sudden with shooting radiance burn;
Mine I felt grow dim with sheen,
Sending tribute to their queen:
Queen of all the slaves of show—
Queen of Truth's free nobles—no.
She my wandering eyes might chain,
Fill my throbbing burning brain:
Beauty lacking Truth within
Spirit-homage cannot win.
Will is strong, though feeling waver
Like the sea to its enslaver—
Strong as hills that bar the sea
With the word of the decree.
[Sidenote: The Resentment of Genius at the thumbscrews of worldly talent.]
That passing shadow in the street!
Well I know it, as is meet!
Did he not, before her face,
Seek to brand me with disgrace?
From the chiselled lips of wit
Let the fire-flakes lightly flit,
Scorching as the snow that fell
On the damned in Dante's hell?
With keen-worded opposition,
playful, merciless precision,
Mocking the romance of Youth,
Standing on the sphere of Truth,
He on worldly wisdom's plane
Rolled it to and fro amain.—
Doubtless there it could not lie,
Or walk an orbit but the sky.—
I, who glowed in every limb,
Knowing, could not answer him;
But I longed yet more to be
What I saw he could not see.
So I thank him, for he taught
What his wisdom never sought.
It were sweet to make him burn
With his poverty in turn,
Shaming him in those bright eyes,
Which to him are more than skies!
Whither? whither? Heart, thou knowest
Side by side with him thou goest,
If thou lend thyself to aught
But forgiving, saving thought.
[Sidenote: Repentance.]
[Sidenote: The recess of the window a niche, wherein he beholds all the world of his former walk as the picture of a vain slave.]
Ah! come in; I need your aid.
Bring-your tools, as then I said.—
There, my friend, build up that niche.
"Pardon me, my lord, but which?"
That, in which I stood this minute;
That one with the picture in it.—
"The window, do you mean, my lord?
Such, few mansions can afford!
Picture is it? 'Tis a show
Picture seldom can bestow!
City palaces and towers,
Forest depths of floating pines,
Sloping gardens, shadowed bowers;
Use with beauty here combines."
True, my friend, seen with your eyes:
But in mine 'tis other quite:
In that niche the dead world lies,
Shadowed over with the night.
In that tomb I'll wall it out;
Where, with silence all about,
Startled only by decay
As the ancient bonds give way,
Sepulchred in all its charms,
Circled in Death's nursing arms,
Mouldering without a cross,
It may feed itself on loss.
[Sidenote: The Devil Contempt whistling through the mouth of the
Saint Renunciation.]
Now go on, lay stone on stone,
I will neither sigh nor moan.—
Whither, whither, Heart of good?
[Sidenote: Repentance.]
Art thou not, in this thy mood,
One of evil, priestly band,
With dark robes and lifted hand,
Square-faced, stony-visaged men,
In a narrow vaulted den,
Watching, by the cresset dun,
A wild-eyed, pale-faced, staring nun,
Who beholds, as, row by row,
Grows her niche's choking wall,
The blood-red tide of hell below
Surge in billowy rise and fall?
[Sidenote: Dying unto sin]
Yet build on; for it is I
To the world would gladly die;
To the hopes and fears it gave me,
To the love that would enslave me,
To the voice of blame it raises,
To the music of its praises,
To its judgments and its favours,
To its cares and its endeavours,
To the traitor-self that opes
Secret gates to cunning hopes;—
Dying unto all this need,
I shall live a life indeed;
Dying unto thee, O Death,
Is to live by God's own breath.
Therefore thus I close my eyes,
Thus I die unto the world;
Thus to me the same world dies,
Laid aside, a map upfurled.
Keep me, God, from poor disdain:
When to light I rise again,
With a new exultant life
Born in sorrow and in strife,
Born of Truth and words divine,
I will see thee yet again,
Dwell in thee, old world of mine,
Aid the life within thy men,
Helping them to die to thee,
And walk with white feet, radiant, free;
Live in thee, not on thy love,
Breathing air from heaven above.
[Sidenote: Regret at the memory of Beauty, and Appreciation, and Praise.]
Lo! the death-wall grows amain;
And in me triumphant pain
To and fro and outward goes
As I feel my coffin close.—
Ah, alas, some beauties vanish!
Ah, alas, some strength I banish!
Maidens listening with a smile
In confiding eyes, the while
Truths they loved so well to hear
Left my lips. Lo, they draw near!
Lo! I see my forehead crowned
With a coronal of faces,
Where the gleam of living graces
Each to other keeps them bound;
Leaning forward in a throng,
I the centre of their eyes,
Voices mute, that erst in song
Stilled the heart from all but sighs—
Now in thirsty draughts they take
At open eyes and ears, the Truth
Spoken for their love and youth—
Hot, alas! for bare Truth's sake!
There were youths that held by me,
Youths with slightly furrowed brows,
Bent for thought like bended bows;
Youths with souls of high degree
Said that I alone could teach them,
I, one of themselves, could reach them;
I alone had insight nurst,
Cared for Truth and not for Form,
Would not call a man a worm,
Saw God's image in the worst.
And they said my words were strong,
Made their inward longings rise;
Even, of mine, a little song,
Lark-like, rose into the skies.
Here, alas! the self-same folly;
'Twas not for the Truth's sake wholly,
Not for sight of the thing seen,
But for Insight's sake I ween.
Now I die unto all this;
Kiss me, God, with thy cold kiss.
[Sidenote: "I dreamed that Allah kissed me, and his kiss was cold."]
All self-seeking I forsake;
In my soul a silence make.
There was joy to feel I could,
That I had some power of good,
That I was not vainly tost:
Now I'm empty, empty quite;
Fill me, God, or I am lost;
In my spirit shines no light;
All the outer world's wild press
Crushes in my emptiness.
Am I giving all away?
Will the sky be always grey?
Never more this heart of mine
Beat like heart refreshed with wine?
I shall die of misery,
If Thou, God, come not to me.
[Sidenote: Dead indeed unto Sin.]
Now 'tis finished. So depart
All untruth from out my heart;
All false ways of speaking, thinking;
All false ways of looking, linking;
All that is not true and real,
Tending not to God's Ideal:
Help me—how shall human breath
Word Thy meaning in this death!
[Sidenote: How is no matter, so that he wake to Life and Sight.]
Now come hither. Bring that tool.
Its name I know not; but its use
Written on its shape in full
Tells me it is no abuse
If I strike a hole withal
Through this thick opposed wall.
The rainbow-pavement! Never heed it—
What is that, where light is needed?
Where? I care not; quickest best.
What kind of window would I choose?
Foolish man, what sort of hues
Would you have to paint the East,
When each hill and valley lies
Hungering for the sun to rise?
'Tis an opening that I want;
Let the light in, that is all;
Needful knowledge it will grant.
How to frame the window tall.
Who at morning ever lies
Thinking how to ope his eyes?
This room's eyelids I will ope,
Make a morning as I may;
'Tis the time for work and hope;
Night is waning near the day.
I bethink me, workman priest;
It were best to pierce the wall
Where the thickness is the least—
Nearer there the light-beams fall,
Sooner with our dark to mix—
That niche where stands the Crucifix.
"The Crucifix! what! impious task!
Wilt thou break into its shrine?
Taint with human the Divine?"
Friend, did Godhead wear a mask
Of the human? or did it
Choose a form for Godhead fit?
[Sidenote: The form must yield to the Truth.]
Brother with the rugged crown
Won by being all divine,
This my form may come to Thine:
Gently thus I lift Thee down;
Lovingly, O marble cold,
Thee with human hands I fold,
And I set Thee thus aside,
Human rightly deified!
God, by manhood glorified!
[Sidenote: Nothing less than the Cross would satisfy the Godhead for its own assertion and vindication.]
Thinkest thou that Christ did stand
Shutting God from out the land?
Hiding from His children's eyes
Dayspring in the holy skies?
Stood He not with loving eye
On one side, to bring us nigh?
"Doth this form offend you still?
God is greater than you see;
If you seek to do His will,
He will lead you unto me."
Then the tender Brother's grace
Leads us to the Father's face.
As His parting form withdrew,
Burst His Spirit on the view.
Form completest, radiant white,
Sometimes must give way for light,
When the eye, itself obscure,
Stead of form is needing cure:
Washed at morning's sunny brim
From the mists that make it dim,
Set thou up the form again,
And its light will reach the brain.
For the Truth is Form allowed,
For the glory is the cloud;
But the single eye alone
Sees with light that is its own,
From primeval fountain-head
Flowing ere the sun was made;
Such alone can be regaled
With the Truth by form unveiled;
To such an eye his form will be
Gushing orb of glory free.
[Sidenote: Striving.]
Stroke on stroke! The frescoed plaster
Clashes downward, fast and faster.
Now the first stone disengages;
Now a second that for ages
Bested there as in a rock
Yields to the repeated shock.
Hark! I heard an outside stone
Down the rough rock rumbling thrown!
[Sidenote: Longing.]
Haste thee, haste! I am athirst
To behold young Morning, nurst
In the lap of ancient Night,
Growing visibly to light.
There! thank God! a faint light-beam!
There! God bless that little stream
Of cool morning air that made
A rippling on my burning head!
[Sidenote: Alive unto God.]
Now! the stone is outward flung,
And the Universe hath sprung
Inward on my soul and brain!
[Sidenote: A New Life.]
I am living once again!
Out of sorrow, out of strife,
Spring aloft to higher life;
Parted by no awful cleft
From the life that I have left;
Only I myself grown purer
See its good so much the surer,
See its ill with hopeful eye,
Frown more seldom, oftener sigh.
Dying truly is no loss,
For to wings hath grown the cross.
Dear the pain of giving up,
If Christ enter in and sup.
Joy to empty all the heart,
That there may be room for Him!
Faintness cometh, soon to part,
For He fills me to the brim.
I have all things now and more;
All that I possessed before;
In a calmer holier sense,
Free from vanity's pretence;
And a consciousness of bliss,
Wholly mine, by being His.
I am nearer to the end
Whither all my longings tend.
His love in all the bliss I had,
Unknown, was that which made me glad;
And will shine with glory more,
In the forms it took before.
[Sidenote: Beauty returned with Truth.]
Lo! the eastern vapours crack
With the sunshine at their back!
Lo! the eastern glaciers shine
In the dazzling light divine!
Lo! the far-off mountains lifting
Snow-capt summits in the sky!
Where all night the storm was drifting,
Whiteness resteth silently!
Glorious mountains! God's own places!
Surely man upon their faces
Climbeth upward nearer Thee
Dwelling in Light's Obscurity!
Mystic wonders! hope and fear
Move together at your sight.
[Sidenote: Silence and Thought.]
That one precipice, whose height
I can mete by inches here,
Is a thousand fathoms quite.
I must journey to your foot,
Grow on you as on my root;
Feed upon your silent speech,
Awful air, and wind, and thunder,
Shades, and solitudes, and wonder;
[Sidenote: The Realities of existence must seize on his soul.]
Distances that lengthening roll
Onward, on, beyond Thought's reach,
Widening, widening on the view;
Till the silence touch my soul,
Growing calm and vast like you.
I will meet Christ on the mountains;
Dwell there with my God and Truth;
[Sidenote: Baptism.]
Drink cold water from their fountains,
Baptism of an inward youth.
Then return when years are by,
To teach a great humility;
[Sidenote: Future mission.]
To aspiring youth to show
What a hope to them is given:
Heaven and Earth at one to know;
On the Earth to live in Heaven;
Winning thus the hearts of Earth
To die into the Heavenly Birth.
EARLY POEMS.
LONGING.
Away from the city's herds!
Away from the noisy street!
Away from the storm of words,
Where hateful and hating meet!
Away from the vapour grey,
That like a boding of ill
Is blotting the morning gay,
And gathers and darkens still!
Away from the stupid book!
For, like the fog's weary rest,
With anger dull it fills each nook
Of my aching and misty breast.
Over some shining shore,
There hangeth a space of blue;
A parting 'mid thin clouds hoar
Where the sunlight is falling through.
The glad waves are kissing the shore
Rejoice, and tell it for ever;
The boat glides on, while its oar
Is flashing out of the river.
Oh to be there with thee!
Thou and I only, my love!
The sparkling, sands and the sea!
And the sunshine of God above!
MY EYES MAKE PICTURES.
"My eyes make pictures, when they are shut."
COLERIDGE.
Fair morn, I bring my greeting
To lofty skies, and pale,
Save where cloud-shreds are fleeting
Before the driving gale,
The weary branches tossing,
Careless of autumn's grief,
Shadow and sunlight crossing
On each earth-spotted leaf.
I will escape their grieving;
And so I close my eyes,
And see the light boat heaving
Where the billows fall and rise;
I see the sunlight glancing
Upon its silvery sail,
Where a youth's wild heart is dancing,
And a maiden growing pale.
And I am quietly pacing
The smooth stones o'er and o'er,
Where the merry waves are chasing
Each other to the shore.
Words come to me while listening
Where the rocks and waters meet,
And the little shells are glistening
In sand-pools at my feet.
Away! the white sail gleaming!
Again I close my eyes,
And the autumn light is streaming
From pale blue cloudless skies;
Upon the lone hill falling
'Mid the sound of heather-bells,
Where the running stream is calling
Unto the silent wells.
Along the pathway lonely,
My horse and I move slow;
No living thing, save only
The home-returning crow.
And the moon, so large, is peering
Up through the white cloud foam;
And I am gladly nearing
My father's house, my home.
As I were gently dreaming
The solemn trees look out;
The hills, the waters seeming
In still sleep round about;
And in my soul are ringing
Tones of a spirit-lyre,
As my beloved were singing
Amid a sister-choir.
If peace were in my spirit,
How oft I'd close my eyes,
And all the earth inherit,
And all the changeful skies!
Thus leave the sermon dreary,
Thus leave the lonely hearth;
No more a spirit weary—
A free one of the earth!