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Title: Shylock reasons with Mr. Chesterton, and other poems
Author: Humbert Wolfe
Release date: February 18, 2020 [eBook #61440]
Most recently updated: October 17, 2024
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Chuck Greif, MWS and the Online Distributed
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHYLOCK REASONS WITH MR. CHESTERTON, AND OTHER POEMS ***
SHYLOCK REASONS WITH
MR. CHESTERTON
AND OTHER POEMS
BY
HUMBERT WOLFE
Author of
“LONDON SONNETS.”
OXFORD
BASIL BLACKWELL
MDCCCCXX
DEDICATION.
ONLY this—that when I’ve done with wearing
Gold words upon my heart and reaching after
My immortality, I shall be hearing
Then, and long afterwards (be sure!) your laughter.
Gold words upon my heart and reaching after
My immortality, I shall be hearing
Then, and long afterwards (be sure!) your laughter.
Some of these poems have appeared in “The Saturday Review,” “The Westminster Gazette,” and “The Saturday Westminster Gazette.” They are republished by the courtesy of the editors of those journals.
CONTENTS.
PERSONALITIES.
SHYLOCK REASONS WITH MR. CHESTERTON.
JEW-BAITING still! Two thousand years are run
And still, it seems, good Master Chesterton,
Nothing’s abated of the old offence.
Changing its shape, it never changes tense.
Other things were, this only was and is.
And whether Judas murder with a kiss,
Or Shylock catch a Christian with a gin,
All all’s the same—the first enormous sin
Traps Judas in the moneylender’s mesh
And cuts from Jesus’ side the pound of flesh.
Nor is this all the punishment. For still
Through centuries to suffer were no ill
If we in human axes and the rod
Discerned the high pro-consulate of God
Chastening his people. But we are not chastened.
Age after age upon our hearts is fastened
The same cold malice, and for all they bleed
They burn for ever with unchanging greed.
Grosser with suffering we grow, and one
Calls to another “If in Babylon
Are gold and silver, be content with them,
Better found gold than lost Jerusalem.”
They forget Zion; in the market place
Rebuild the Temple for the Jewish race,
And thus from age to age do Jews like me
Have their revenge on Christianity,
Since thus from age to age Christians like you
Unchristian grow in hounding down the Jew.
And thus from age to age His will is done,
And Shylock’s sins produce a Chesterton.
And still, it seems, good Master Chesterton,
Nothing’s abated of the old offence.
Changing its shape, it never changes tense.
Other things were, this only was and is.
And whether Judas murder with a kiss,
Or Shylock catch a Christian with a gin,
All all’s the same—the first enormous sin
Traps Judas in the moneylender’s mesh
And cuts from Jesus’ side the pound of flesh.
Nor is this all the punishment. For still
Through centuries to suffer were no ill
If we in human axes and the rod
Discerned the high pro-consulate of God
Chastening his people. But we are not chastened.
Age after age upon our hearts is fastened
The same cold malice, and for all they bleed
They burn for ever with unchanging greed.
Grosser with suffering we grow, and one
Calls to another “If in Babylon
Are gold and silver, be content with them,
Better found gold than lost Jerusalem.”
They forget Zion; in the market place
Rebuild the Temple for the Jewish race,
And thus from age to age do Jews like me
Have their revenge on Christianity,
Since thus from age to age Christians like you
Unchristian grow in hounding down the Jew.
And thus from age to age His will is done,
And Shylock’s sins produce a Chesterton.
But since we both must suffer and both are
Bound in the orb of one outrageous star,
Hater and hated, for a little while
Let us together watch how mile on mile
The heavenly moon, all milky white, regains
Her gentle empery, and smooths the stains
Of red our star left in her heaven, thus
Bringing a respite even unto us
Before the red star strikes again. The riot
Of the heart for a moment sinks, and in the quiet
Like a cool bandage on the forehead be
Content a second with tranquillity.
And from your lips the secular taunt of dog
Banish, to hear what in the synagogue
We heard once at Barmitzvah (as we call
The confirmation, when the praying shawl
Is for the first time worn, and the boy waits
For law and manhood at the altar gates).
Whether ’tis true or no, it shall be true
just long enough to build a bridge to you,
That hangs a shining second till your laughter
Reminds me of my ducats and my daughter.
Bound in the orb of one outrageous star,
Hater and hated, for a little while
Let us together watch how mile on mile
The heavenly moon, all milky white, regains
Her gentle empery, and smooths the stains
Of red our star left in her heaven, thus
Bringing a respite even unto us
Before the red star strikes again. The riot
Of the heart for a moment sinks, and in the quiet
Like a cool bandage on the forehead be
Content a second with tranquillity.
And from your lips the secular taunt of dog
Banish, to hear what in the synagogue
We heard once at Barmitzvah (as we call
The confirmation, when the praying shawl
Is for the first time worn, and the boy waits
For law and manhood at the altar gates).
Whether ’tis true or no, it shall be true
just long enough to build a bridge to you,
That hangs a shining second till your laughter
Reminds me of my ducats and my daughter.
It happened thus. When the last “adonoi”
Had faltered into silence of some boy
Whose voice was all a silver miracle
Of water, a voice echoed “Israel,”
A sweeter voice than even his, but broken
With a sorrowful thrill, as though the heart had spoken
Of countless generations doomed to pain
And none to ease them found. It cried again,
Or so we thought who listened, “Ye do well
To let the children come, O Israel,
But even these are lost and unforgiven,
Since not of these His kingdom and His heaven
Who at their fathers’ fathers’ hands was sold
In Calvary; and not their voice, though gold,
Nor innocent eyes, nor ways that children have
Of magic in their reaching hands, can save.
For, though ye offer these as sacrifice,
A nation’s childhood is too small a price
To pay the interest upon the debt
That all your sorrows cannot liquidate.
O what a usury our God has made
On thirty pieces that the high priest paid!
Profit was none, but from the first the loss
That grew of the fourth ghost upon the Cross.
Two on the Cross were seen at Jesus’ side,
The fourth, the fourth unseen and crucified
With piercéd hands and feet, and heart as well,
The ghost betrayed of traitor Israel.
Yourselves ye bought and sold, yourselves decreed
To the end of the world your doom. For who will heed
The prayer or utter mercy on a child,
However sweet he call? The heart is wild
Of your own ghost, and not the softest lamb
Of God escapes his sentence. For I am
The wraith of all your children from the first
Long ere their birth inexorably cursed.”
None saw the ghost. Some said it was the boy
That spoke. Yet someone answered “adonoi,
Thy will be done” and it was finished. All
Closer about their foreheads drew the shawl
Fearing to see, and as the darkness grows
Deeper save where above the altar glows
One lamp, in hearts that Pharoah would unharden
For pity rises not a cry for pardon,
But to the Mills of God a bitter call
“Grind quickly, since ye grind exceeding small!”
Had faltered into silence of some boy
Whose voice was all a silver miracle
Of water, a voice echoed “Israel,”
A sweeter voice than even his, but broken
With a sorrowful thrill, as though the heart had spoken
Of countless generations doomed to pain
And none to ease them found. It cried again,
Or so we thought who listened, “Ye do well
To let the children come, O Israel,
But even these are lost and unforgiven,
Since not of these His kingdom and His heaven
Who at their fathers’ fathers’ hands was sold
In Calvary; and not their voice, though gold,
Nor innocent eyes, nor ways that children have
Of magic in their reaching hands, can save.
For, though ye offer these as sacrifice,
A nation’s childhood is too small a price
To pay the interest upon the debt
That all your sorrows cannot liquidate.
O what a usury our God has made
On thirty pieces that the high priest paid!
Profit was none, but from the first the loss
That grew of the fourth ghost upon the Cross.
Two on the Cross were seen at Jesus’ side,
The fourth, the fourth unseen and crucified
With piercéd hands and feet, and heart as well,
The ghost betrayed of traitor Israel.
Yourselves ye bought and sold, yourselves decreed
To the end of the world your doom. For who will heed
The prayer or utter mercy on a child,
However sweet he call? The heart is wild
Of your own ghost, and not the softest lamb
Of God escapes his sentence. For I am
The wraith of all your children from the first
Long ere their birth inexorably cursed.”
None saw the ghost. Some said it was the boy
That spoke. Yet someone answered “adonoi,
Thy will be done” and it was finished. All
Closer about their foreheads drew the shawl
Fearing to see, and as the darkness grows
Deeper save where above the altar glows
One lamp, in hearts that Pharoah would unharden
For pity rises not a cry for pardon,
But to the Mills of God a bitter call
“Grind quickly, since ye grind exceeding small!”
THE UNKNOWN GOD.
“Whom you ignorantly worship, him I declare unto you.”
I. Pheidias.
PHEIDIAS, the sculptor, dying bade them set
His last-cut marble near lest he forget,
Travelling, where beauty ends, what beauty is
In the world and the light no longer his.
And while they brought it, women, as they use,
Sang in the house the litany of Zeus
That is the god of gods, yet could not save
His own beloved lady from the grave.
“The dearest head” they sung, “yea even her’s,
Whose hair was like a harp, when the wind stirs
Upon the strings and wakes them, golden hair,
Must droop upon the ground and perish there—
Even her hair (the women sung), alas
For loveliness! wherein Olympus was
Lost for a god and found, when he, with mist
About him of its glory twist on twist,
Found on her mouth, more passionate for this,
Mortality, that trembled in the kiss
—Even that hair, for all a high god’s art,
Long since is dust, and dust that was her heart.”
This song of ending in the darkness came
To Pheidias in the courtyard, where the flame
Of torches threw a final light and shewed
Two pillars of the house, a turn of road
That led (he thought) beyond all sight, and he
Must walk it with a quiet company
—The cold imagined gods, no prayer might cozen
To help him on the way, immortal, frozen
Glimpses of deity his hand, creating
In marble out of his heart where they were waiting
For life, had carved, and given them instead
Of life the eternal gesture of the dead.
He with those gods must walk, since he had grown
Into their silence, and had made his own
Their longings thus imprisoned, and their heart
On one beat fixed for ever. He must start
To follow, but before his striving spirit
Steps out upon the road or falters near it,
One god, that guards the passage, waiting stands—
His latest marble, made like those, with hands,
Fashioned, like those, of a man’s dreams, but overstepping
His maker’s mind, and into a glory sweeping
No man might share. For the great forehead lifted
Out of the shade of life, and light had shifted
Her quality, whose radiant indecision
Found, though the eyes were closed, consummate vision.
This was the god that dying Pheidias
Had beaten out of marble. This he was,
And would not share with other gods their death
In beauty, but was living with the breath
Of his creator, who with death at strife
Laid down his own to give his creature life.
This god they brought to Pheidias, for whom
The whole great world had been a little room,
Which he had used, as others use, but he
Looked through the window on eternity.
And seeing his god, upon his mind the cloud
Faded an instant, and he cried aloud,
As though all Hellas heard him, “O be proud
Of beauty, Hellas, nor be curious
Of what the secret is that haunted us
Your poets, who had strained to it, and after
Lay down to sleep, sealing their lips with laughter.
For laughter is the judgment of the wise,
Who measure equally with level eyes
What the world is, what gods, and what are men,
And twixt too great a joy, too sharp a pain,
Strikes on a balance, so that tears are shot
With laughter, laughter with tears, and these are not
Themselves, but greater than themselves, and each
From other learns and doth to other teach.
We are content with beauty thus, who find
That when all’s done—sculpture or song—behind
What we have carved or sung, a greater thing
Startles the heart with movement of a wing
We neither see nor dare see. For our thought
Is larger than we know, and what we sought
Passes and has forgotten; what we do,
The truth we did not guess at pierces through,
If what was done was well done. This last bust
Of mine not as I willed but as I must
I carved, and now, at the end of all, I can
See that the dream he does not dream is man.
The earlier gods I carved and knew, they wait
My coming as their master at the gate
Of death, for what I knew is mine to have,
Live with my life, and wither in my grave.
Thus beauty known is fading, known love fades,
And the truth we know a shadow in the shades,
And only that which lies beyond our hands,
Beauty, no earth-bound spirit understands,
But guesses at and faints for in desire;
And love, that does not burn, because the fire
Is lit beyond the world, and truth that dies
Beyond our thoughts in unimagined lies
That are the truth beyond truth, only these
Are lasting and outwit our memories.
But the familiar gods that I have made—
With those I will not walk. O be afraid
Of beauty attainable and love attained
And limited immortality. Unchained
The greatest soul must walk and walk alone
With what it has not seen and has not known!”
Thus Pheidias spoke and presently the flame
Of torches died, his god that had no name
—His latest statue—watched his spirit pass
And the dawn came that knew not Pheidias.
His last-cut marble near lest he forget,
Travelling, where beauty ends, what beauty is
In the world and the light no longer his.
And while they brought it, women, as they use,
Sang in the house the litany of Zeus
That is the god of gods, yet could not save
His own beloved lady from the grave.
“The dearest head” they sung, “yea even her’s,
Whose hair was like a harp, when the wind stirs
Upon the strings and wakes them, golden hair,
Must droop upon the ground and perish there—
Even her hair (the women sung), alas
For loveliness! wherein Olympus was
Lost for a god and found, when he, with mist
About him of its glory twist on twist,
Found on her mouth, more passionate for this,
Mortality, that trembled in the kiss
—Even that hair, for all a high god’s art,
Long since is dust, and dust that was her heart.”
This song of ending in the darkness came
To Pheidias in the courtyard, where the flame
Of torches threw a final light and shewed
Two pillars of the house, a turn of road
That led (he thought) beyond all sight, and he
Must walk it with a quiet company
—The cold imagined gods, no prayer might cozen
To help him on the way, immortal, frozen
Glimpses of deity his hand, creating
In marble out of his heart where they were waiting
For life, had carved, and given them instead
Of life the eternal gesture of the dead.
He with those gods must walk, since he had grown
Into their silence, and had made his own
Their longings thus imprisoned, and their heart
On one beat fixed for ever. He must start
To follow, but before his striving spirit
Steps out upon the road or falters near it,
One god, that guards the passage, waiting stands—
His latest marble, made like those, with hands,
Fashioned, like those, of a man’s dreams, but overstepping
His maker’s mind, and into a glory sweeping
No man might share. For the great forehead lifted
Out of the shade of life, and light had shifted
Her quality, whose radiant indecision
Found, though the eyes were closed, consummate vision.
This was the god that dying Pheidias
Had beaten out of marble. This he was,
And would not share with other gods their death
In beauty, but was living with the breath
Of his creator, who with death at strife
Laid down his own to give his creature life.
This god they brought to Pheidias, for whom
The whole great world had been a little room,
Which he had used, as others use, but he
Looked through the window on eternity.
And seeing his god, upon his mind the cloud
Faded an instant, and he cried aloud,
As though all Hellas heard him, “O be proud
Of beauty, Hellas, nor be curious
Of what the secret is that haunted us
Your poets, who had strained to it, and after
Lay down to sleep, sealing their lips with laughter.
For laughter is the judgment of the wise,
Who measure equally with level eyes
What the world is, what gods, and what are men,
And twixt too great a joy, too sharp a pain,
Strikes on a balance, so that tears are shot
With laughter, laughter with tears, and these are not
Themselves, but greater than themselves, and each
From other learns and doth to other teach.
We are content with beauty thus, who find
That when all’s done—sculpture or song—behind
What we have carved or sung, a greater thing
Startles the heart with movement of a wing
We neither see nor dare see. For our thought
Is larger than we know, and what we sought
Passes and has forgotten; what we do,
The truth we did not guess at pierces through,
If what was done was well done. This last bust
Of mine not as I willed but as I must
I carved, and now, at the end of all, I can
See that the dream he does not dream is man.
The earlier gods I carved and knew, they wait
My coming as their master at the gate
Of death, for what I knew is mine to have,
Live with my life, and wither in my grave.
Thus beauty known is fading, known love fades,
And the truth we know a shadow in the shades,
And only that which lies beyond our hands,
Beauty, no earth-bound spirit understands,
But guesses at and faints for in desire;
And love, that does not burn, because the fire
Is lit beyond the world, and truth that dies
Beyond our thoughts in unimagined lies
That are the truth beyond truth, only these
Are lasting and outwit our memories.
But the familiar gods that I have made—
With those I will not walk. O be afraid
Of beauty attainable and love attained
And limited immortality. Unchained
The greatest soul must walk and walk alone
With what it has not seen and has not known!”
Thus Pheidias spoke and presently the flame
Of torches died, his god that had no name
—His latest statue—watched his spirit pass
And the dawn came that knew not Pheidias.
II. Paul.
PAUL the apostle, on the sacred hill
Of Mars at Athens, felt a hidden will
Working against his gospel. That was old
(It seemed), yet had the thrust of boyhood cold,
Yet tempered in wild fires, and sensing this
He prayed in silence. The Acropolis,
Making a final bid for beauty, took
The dying sun to her heart with the wild look
As of a woman yielding to her lover;
And he in flame confederate leaning over
With armfuls of clouded roses, blossom on blossom,
Rifled the sweets of evening, and for her bosom
Dismantling heaven’s high pavilion
With tumbled beauties wooed her thus and won.
Of Mars at Athens, felt a hidden will
Working against his gospel. That was old
(It seemed), yet had the thrust of boyhood cold,
Yet tempered in wild fires, and sensing this
He prayed in silence. The Acropolis,
Making a final bid for beauty, took
The dying sun to her heart with the wild look
As of a woman yielding to her lover;
And he in flame confederate leaning over
With armfuls of clouded roses, blossom on blossom,
Rifled the sweets of evening, and for her bosom
Dismantling heaven’s high pavilion
With tumbled beauties wooed her thus and won.
This Paul from prayer rising saw, nor cared,
Watching a Cross in the East, if these had snared
The West with meshes trailing from the wrist
Of Venus, also an Evangelist.
“So little is the conquest of the flesh,
So like a spinner, weaving her small mesh
—And a boy tears it as he passes by—
Embroiders fruitlessly her tapestry
The Paphian woman, and the threads are thin
And ghostly as the new light enters in—
The tapestry that was the world and all
The curtain Jesus tears aside” says Paul:
“What is there worshipful here? These skies are fleeting,
This beauty made by hands of the sun is beating
Into the night that swallows her, and none
Is warm, when night has fallen, with the sun;
And the whole frame of the celestial
Firmament, though dusted with the stars, must fall
As being under death, and change in Hell,
When death is conquered, her corruptible
Beauty, and at the trumpet’s sound put on,
As ye must also, incorruption.”
And while he spoke the curtain of the sky
Night fretted with the cool embroidery
Of stars, and the moon upon her silent spindle
Did all the velvet warp to silver kindle.
But a young man of the philosophers,
Who stood about him, said “The moonlight stirs
With beauty in the heart, and in the mind
The things that seem do such a glory find
Lit with this wonder of the moon and star,
As almost to persuade us that they are,
But these we know are broken images
Of patterns laid-up in heaven. Socrates,
A citizen of Athens, was betrayed
To death for teaching this, and smiling laid
His cup of hemlock down, because his heart
Already of eternity was part,
And death for such is freedom. Yet for this
He did surrender the Acropolis,
That had all Hellas for a coronet
About her forehead radiantly set,
Island on island, and for this forsook
The friendship of his friends, his dreams, the look
Of hesitating spring that dare not stay
Yet will not leave the hills of Attica.
For this all gifts, all memories, he gave
Freely believing that the narrow grave
Was the end of all. Thus he passed out alone,
Content to face the gods no man had known
Because they beggar knowledge, and persuaded
It was enough, that, when for him had faded
The light, for us his death a light had lit
Would shew a path and we might walk by it.
‘This is the spirit of man; in vain it reaches
Beyond the limits ordained and vainly stretches
To where truth, beauty, goodness, three in one,
Find each in all supreme communion.
For what is greater than we know,’ he said
‘It is well to die,’ and smiling he was dead.
This he believed, all this he sacrificed.
Did he teach better, Jew, whom you call Christ?”
Watching a Cross in the East, if these had snared
The West with meshes trailing from the wrist
Of Venus, also an Evangelist.
“So little is the conquest of the flesh,
So like a spinner, weaving her small mesh
—And a boy tears it as he passes by—
Embroiders fruitlessly her tapestry
The Paphian woman, and the threads are thin
And ghostly as the new light enters in—
The tapestry that was the world and all
The curtain Jesus tears aside” says Paul:
“What is there worshipful here? These skies are fleeting,
This beauty made by hands of the sun is beating
Into the night that swallows her, and none
Is warm, when night has fallen, with the sun;
And the whole frame of the celestial
Firmament, though dusted with the stars, must fall
As being under death, and change in Hell,
When death is conquered, her corruptible
Beauty, and at the trumpet’s sound put on,
As ye must also, incorruption.”
And while he spoke the curtain of the sky
Night fretted with the cool embroidery
Of stars, and the moon upon her silent spindle
Did all the velvet warp to silver kindle.
But a young man of the philosophers,
Who stood about him, said “The moonlight stirs
With beauty in the heart, and in the mind
The things that seem do such a glory find
Lit with this wonder of the moon and star,
As almost to persuade us that they are,
But these we know are broken images
Of patterns laid-up in heaven. Socrates,
A citizen of Athens, was betrayed
To death for teaching this, and smiling laid
His cup of hemlock down, because his heart
Already of eternity was part,
And death for such is freedom. Yet for this
He did surrender the Acropolis,
That had all Hellas for a coronet
About her forehead radiantly set,
Island on island, and for this forsook
The friendship of his friends, his dreams, the look
Of hesitating spring that dare not stay
Yet will not leave the hills of Attica.
For this all gifts, all memories, he gave
Freely believing that the narrow grave
Was the end of all. Thus he passed out alone,
Content to face the gods no man had known
Because they beggar knowledge, and persuaded
It was enough, that, when for him had faded
The light, for us his death a light had lit
Would shew a path and we might walk by it.
‘This is the spirit of man; in vain it reaches
Beyond the limits ordained and vainly stretches
To where truth, beauty, goodness, three in one,
Find each in all supreme communion.
For what is greater than we know,’ he said
‘It is well to die,’ and smiling he was dead.
This he believed, all this he sacrificed.
Did he teach better, Jew, whom you call Christ?”
A cloud passed by the moon, and no one spoke,
Till suddenly her silver spear-head broke
The cloudy targe, and leaning from the place
She has in heaven struck with light the face
Of Pheidias’ god. And Paul cried “Even thus
Ye have your answer, superstitious
Who set this idol up, and worshipped it
In darkness, and behold the face is lit
With fire from on high. A period
Is set to ignorance and to the god
Ye ignorantly worship, and the stone
Or marble of the god ye have not known,
Changes beneath my hand and in my speech
Unto the living god I know and preach.
Do you rejoice because that Socrates
Died facing death and dark? I tell you these
In Christ are conquered. Death has lost her sting,
The dark her victory, and angels sing
At the empty mouth of the grave, because my king
Has made the grave a refuge and protection
From the pain of living by His resurrection.
Socrates sleeps; the god he did not know
Sleeps with him, and long since the grasses grow
Above their resting place, but flowers reach
In vain their roots to find Him whom I preach.
He is not there, but though we darkly see,
As in a glass, his immortality
Waits for us all, and beckons in the place
Where we who find Him see Him face to face.
Socrates, to death a prisoner, did well,
But death was all; Christ by the miracle
Of the open grave, his deity forsaken,
For all the world has death a prisoner taken.
Nor Socrates in vain all sacrificed
If here his fruitless death has pled for Christ.”
Dionysius the Areopagite
Cried loudly unto Paul “Were it not right
To shatter on his marble pedestal
This idol that has stood for death?” and Paul
Answered “What say ye brethren, for His sake
Who vanquished death shall we the idol break?”
But even as Paul raised his hand the light
Faded upon the sculptured face. The night
Cloaked it, and, though Paul pressed, the threatened blow
Hung in the air and fell not. For a low
Strange glory changed upon the face, and seemed
A face that Paul had seen before or dreamed
To see when near Damascus, and instead
Of Pheidias’ god unknown another Head
Sorrowful-sweet on Paul astonished shone
And, ere his threatening hand could fall, was gone.
But a voice whispered “Art thou after all
Thine unknown God still persecuting, Saul?”
Till suddenly her silver spear-head broke
The cloudy targe, and leaning from the place
She has in heaven struck with light the face
Of Pheidias’ god. And Paul cried “Even thus
Ye have your answer, superstitious
Who set this idol up, and worshipped it
In darkness, and behold the face is lit
With fire from on high. A period
Is set to ignorance and to the god
Ye ignorantly worship, and the stone
Or marble of the god ye have not known,
Changes beneath my hand and in my speech
Unto the living god I know and preach.
Do you rejoice because that Socrates
Died facing death and dark? I tell you these
In Christ are conquered. Death has lost her sting,
The dark her victory, and angels sing
At the empty mouth of the grave, because my king
Has made the grave a refuge and protection
From the pain of living by His resurrection.
Socrates sleeps; the god he did not know
Sleeps with him, and long since the grasses grow
Above their resting place, but flowers reach
In vain their roots to find Him whom I preach.
He is not there, but though we darkly see,
As in a glass, his immortality
Waits for us all, and beckons in the place
Where we who find Him see Him face to face.
Socrates, to death a prisoner, did well,
But death was all; Christ by the miracle
Of the open grave, his deity forsaken,
For all the world has death a prisoner taken.
Nor Socrates in vain all sacrificed
If here his fruitless death has pled for Christ.”
Dionysius the Areopagite
Cried loudly unto Paul “Were it not right
To shatter on his marble pedestal
This idol that has stood for death?” and Paul
Answered “What say ye brethren, for His sake
Who vanquished death shall we the idol break?”
But even as Paul raised his hand the light
Faded upon the sculptured face. The night
Cloaked it, and, though Paul pressed, the threatened blow
Hung in the air and fell not. For a low
Strange glory changed upon the face, and seemed
A face that Paul had seen before or dreamed
To see when near Damascus, and instead
Of Pheidias’ god unknown another Head
Sorrowful-sweet on Paul astonished shone
And, ere his threatening hand could fall, was gone.
But a voice whispered “Art thou after all
Thine unknown God still persecuting, Saul?”
CASSIO HEARS OTHELLO.
THUS for the last last time with the first kiss!
O my white bird, here is the precipice!
I throw you like a homing carrier
Into the footless spaces of the air!
And your spread wings, set free, beat up and out
In mounting circles, storming death’s redoubt
And the cloudy fortress of Avilion.
Gone, my white bird, beyond all dreaming, gone!
And my hands warm that held her. Cassio
It was well done! Always to let her go
In the grave they shall be open thus, and yet
Feeling the half-poised wings—poor hands! Forget
My madness, Cassio, and think of me
As of a man who set his sea-bird free
From the prison of his heart to see her win
The deep blue floors of heaven and enter in.
O I am glad, I am glad, I dared this thing.
Even now my bird is home, awakening
Among her shining sisters, far—so far,
Not even the thoughts I have can trouble her.
So carve upon the stone that marks my grave:
“All that he had to death Othello gave,
And has kept nothing back but the sweet wound
Of life, that grew so dear, because he found
The mortal knife, that stabbed him, slit the strings
That gave his bird the guerdon of her wings.”
O my white bird, here is the precipice!
I throw you like a homing carrier
Into the footless spaces of the air!
And your spread wings, set free, beat up and out
In mounting circles, storming death’s redoubt
And the cloudy fortress of Avilion.
Gone, my white bird, beyond all dreaming, gone!
And my hands warm that held her. Cassio
It was well done! Always to let her go
In the grave they shall be open thus, and yet
Feeling the half-poised wings—poor hands! Forget
My madness, Cassio, and think of me
As of a man who set his sea-bird free
From the prison of his heart to see her win
The deep blue floors of heaven and enter in.
O I am glad, I am glad, I dared this thing.
Even now my bird is home, awakening
Among her shining sisters, far—so far,
Not even the thoughts I have can trouble her.
So carve upon the stone that marks my grave:
“All that he had to death Othello gave,
And has kept nothing back but the sweet wound
Of life, that grew so dear, because he found
The mortal knife, that stabbed him, slit the strings
That gave his bird the guerdon of her wings.”
THE FIRST AIRMAN.
GIVE me the wings, magician. I will know
What blooms on airy precipices grow
That no hand plucks, large unexpected blossoms,
Scentless, with cry of curlews in their bosoms,
And the great winds like grasses where their stems
Spangle the universe with diadems.
I will pluck those flowers and those grasses, I,
Icarus, drowning upwards through the sky
With air that closes underneath my feet
As water above the diver. I will meet
Life with the dawn in heaven, and my fingers
Dipped in the golden floss of hair that lingers
Across the unveiled spaces and makes them colder,
As a woman’s hair across her naked shoulder.
Death with the powdered stars will walk and pass
Like a man’s breath upon a looking-glass,
For a suspended heart-beat making dim
Heaven brighter afterwards because of him.
What blooms on airy precipices grow
That no hand plucks, large unexpected blossoms,
Scentless, with cry of curlews in their bosoms,
And the great winds like grasses where their stems
Spangle the universe with diadems.
I will pluck those flowers and those grasses, I,
Icarus, drowning upwards through the sky
With air that closes underneath my feet
As water above the diver. I will meet
Life with the dawn in heaven, and my fingers
Dipped in the golden floss of hair that lingers
Across the unveiled spaces and makes them colder,
As a woman’s hair across her naked shoulder.
Death with the powdered stars will walk and pass
Like a man’s breath upon a looking-glass,
For a suspended heart-beat making dim
Heaven brighter afterwards because of him.
Give me the wings, magician. So their tune
Mix with the silver trumpets of the moon
And, beyond music mounting, clean outrun
The golden diapason of the sun.
There is a secret that the birds are learning
Where the long lanes in heaven have a turning
And no man yet has followed; therefore these
Laugh hauntingly across our usual seas.
I’ll not be mocked by curlews in the sky;
Give me the wings magician, or I die.
Mix with the silver trumpets of the moon
And, beyond music mounting, clean outrun
The golden diapason of the sun.
There is a secret that the birds are learning
Where the long lanes in heaven have a turning
And no man yet has followed; therefore these
Laugh hauntingly across our usual seas.
I’ll not be mocked by curlews in the sky;
Give me the wings magician, or I die.
His call for wings or death was heard and thus
Came both to the first airman, Icarus.
Came both to the first airman, Icarus.
MARY.
(Sister of Martha.)
THERE was no star in the East the night I came
With spikenard in hushed Jerusalem—
But a light in an upper chamber dimly lit
Was star enough—I would have followed it
Through lonelier streets unto the smaller room
Where afterwards it blossomed in the tomb.
Light of the world, but how much more to me
The light that other women also see!
No choiring angels in gold groups adored
Their king that night, but searching for my Lord
Unchoired, uncrowned, whose Kingdom had not come,
I heard none call, but dumb, as death is dumb,
The night misled his angels, or may be
Night and the angels made a way for me.
My footfalls in the street rang very clear
As I drew on. It seemed that all must hear
My coming, eyes that peered behind the grating,
Cloaked hands to hold me at each corner waiting.
But nothing stirred till suddenly there ran
The flame of the moon in heaven for a span
Less than a heart-beat, and I saw a man
Steal out of Simon’s house, and pass me by
With such a horror on his lips that I,
Also a traitor, shrunk and knew him not—
Him that was Judas called Iscariot.
Also a traitor I, because I came
Not worshipping the Master in that Name
That his disciples called him, not the Christ
Of God for me that night. I sought a tryst
With a man of men, and if my heart had won
The Son of God had died in Mary’s son,
And he, who, knowing the appointed evil,
Sent forth Iscariot to his task, a devil,
Also accepted, though this was more hard,
The sweet betrayal of the spikenard.
He knew me what I meant and in his eyes,
That for a moment smiled, was Paradise
Lost unto love, that for the greater sin
Than even Judas’ might not enter in.
And when the disciples would have stayed my hands,
“She does but good” He said “she understands.”
And I who poured the unguent understood,
But good it was not, as a man means good.
For I forget the Master, I but see
(A woman taken in adultery
With a dream and a dream) his human face
I would have saved from God, and in the place
Of Gospel and of resurrection I
Hear him say “Mary” and behold him die.
Judas, to death who sold him for a kiss,
Sinned less than I, who’d buy him back for this.
And Christ forgave me—How shall I forgive
Jesus, my love, the man who would not live?
With spikenard in hushed Jerusalem—
But a light in an upper chamber dimly lit
Was star enough—I would have followed it
Through lonelier streets unto the smaller room
Where afterwards it blossomed in the tomb.
Light of the world, but how much more to me
The light that other women also see!
No choiring angels in gold groups adored
Their king that night, but searching for my Lord
Unchoired, uncrowned, whose Kingdom had not come,
I heard none call, but dumb, as death is dumb,
The night misled his angels, or may be
Night and the angels made a way for me.
My footfalls in the street rang very clear
As I drew on. It seemed that all must hear
My coming, eyes that peered behind the grating,
Cloaked hands to hold me at each corner waiting.
But nothing stirred till suddenly there ran
The flame of the moon in heaven for a span
Less than a heart-beat, and I saw a man
Steal out of Simon’s house, and pass me by
With such a horror on his lips that I,
Also a traitor, shrunk and knew him not—
Him that was Judas called Iscariot.
Also a traitor I, because I came
Not worshipping the Master in that Name
That his disciples called him, not the Christ
Of God for me that night. I sought a tryst
With a man of men, and if my heart had won
The Son of God had died in Mary’s son,
And he, who, knowing the appointed evil,
Sent forth Iscariot to his task, a devil,
Also accepted, though this was more hard,
The sweet betrayal of the spikenard.
He knew me what I meant and in his eyes,
That for a moment smiled, was Paradise
Lost unto love, that for the greater sin
Than even Judas’ might not enter in.
And when the disciples would have stayed my hands,
“She does but good” He said “she understands.”
And I who poured the unguent understood,
But good it was not, as a man means good.
For I forget the Master, I but see
(A woman taken in adultery
With a dream and a dream) his human face
I would have saved from God, and in the place
Of Gospel and of resurrection I
Hear him say “Mary” and behold him die.
Judas, to death who sold him for a kiss,
Sinned less than I, who’d buy him back for this.
And Christ forgave me—How shall I forgive
Jesus, my love, the man who would not live?