Part 6

Two days agone, and love was one with pity When love gave thought wings toward the glimmering goal Where, as a shrine lit in some darkling city, Shone soft the shrouded image of thy soul: And now thou art healed of life; thou art healed, and whole.

Yea, two days since, all we that loved thee pitied: And now with wondering love, with shame of face, We think how foolish now, how far unfitted, Should be from us, toward thee who hast run thy race, Pity--toward thee, who hast won the painless place;

The painless world of death, yet unbeholden Of eyes that dream what light now lightens thine And will not weep. Thought, yearning toward those olden Dear hours that sorrow sees and sees not shine, Bows tearless down before a flameless shrine:

A flameless altar here of life and sorrow Quenched and consumed together. These were one, One thing for thee, as night was one with morrow And utter darkness with the sovereign sun: And now thou seest life, sorrow, and darkness done.

And yet love yearns again to win thee hither; Blind love, and loveless, and unworthy thee: Here where I watch the hours of darkness wither, Here where mine eyes were glad and sad to see Thine that could see not mine, though turned on me.

But now, if aught beyond sweet sleep lie hidden, And sleep be sealed not fast on dead men's sight For ever, thine hath grace for ours forbidden, And sees us compassed round with change and night: Yet light like thine is ours, if love be light.

THRENODY

Watching here alone by the fire whereat last year Sat with me the friend that a week since yet was near, That a week has borne so far and hid so deep, Woe am I that I may not weep, May not yearn to behold him here.

Shame were mine, and little the love I bore him were, Now to mourn that better he fares than love may fare Which desires, and would not have indeed, its will, Would not love him so worse than ill, Would not clothe him again with care.

Yet can love not choose but remember, hearts but ache, Eyes but darken, only for one vain thought's poor sake, For the thought that by this hearth's now lonely side Two fast friends, on the day he died, Looked once more for his hand to take.

Let thy soul forgive them, and pardon heal the sin, Though their hearts be heavy to think what then had been, The delight that never while they live may be-- Love's communion of speech with thee, Soul and speech with the soul therein.

O my friend, O brother, a glory veiled and marred! Never love made moan for a life more evil-starred. Was it envy, chance, or chance-compelling fate, Whence thy spirit was bruised so late, Bowed so heavily, bound so hard?

Now released, it may be,--if only love might know-- Filled and fired with sight, it beholds us blind and low With a pity keener yet, if that may be, Even than ever was this that we Felt, when love of thee wrought us woe.

None may tell the depths and the heights of life and death. What we may we give thee: a word that sorrow saith, And that none will heed save sorrow: scarce a song. All we may, who have loved thee long, Take: the best we can give is breath.

A DIRGE

A bell tolls on in my heart As though in my ears a knell Had ceased for awhile to swell, But the sense of it would not part From the spirit that bears its part In the chime of the soundless bell.

Ah dear dead singer of sorrow, The burden is now not thine That grief bade sound for a sign Through the songs of the night whose morrow Has risen, and I may not borrow A beam from its radiant shrine.

The burden has dropped from thee That grief on thy life bound fast; The winter is over and past Whose end thou wast fain to see. Shall sorrow not comfort me That is thine no longer--at last?

Good day, good night, and good morrow, Men living and mourning say. For thee we could only pray That night of the day might borrow Such comfort as dreams lend sorrow: Death gives thee at last good day.

A REMINISCENCE

The rose to the wind has yielded: all its leaves Lie strewn on the graveyard grass, and all their light And colour and fragrance leave our sense and sight Bereft as a man whom bitter time bereaves Of blossom at once and hope of garnered sheaves, Of April at once and August. Day to night Calls wailing, and life to death, and depth to height, And soul upon soul of man that hears and grieves.

Who knows, though he see the snow-cold blossom shed, If haply the heart that burned within the rose, The spirit in sense, the life of life be dead? If haply the wind that slays with storming snows Be one with the wind that quickens? Bow thine head, O Sorrow, and commune with thine heart: who knows?

VIA DOLOROSA

The days of a man are threescore years and ten. The days of his life were half a man's, whom we Lament, and would yet not bid him back, to be Partaker of all the woes and ways of men. Life sent him enough of sorrow: not again Would anguish of love, beholding him set free, Bring back the beloved to suffer life and see No light but the fire of grief that scathed him then.

We know not at all: we hope, and do not fear. We shall not again behold him, late so near, Who now from afar above, with eyes alight And spirit enkindled, haply toward us here Looks down unforgetful yet of days like night And love that has yet his sightless face in sight.

_February 15, 1887._

I

TRANSFIGURATION

But half a man's days--and his days were nights. What hearts were ours who loved him, should we pray That night would yield him back to darkling day, Sweet death that soothes, to life that spoils and smites? For now, perchance, life lovelier than the light's That shed no comfort on his weary way Shows him what none may dream to see or say Ere yet the soul may scale those topless heights Where death lies dead, and triumph. Haply there Already may his kindling eyesight find Faces of friends--no face than his more fair-- And first among them found of all his kind Milton, with crowns from Eden on his hair, And eyes that meet a brother's now not blind.

II

DELIVERANCE

O Death, fair Death, sole comforter and sweet, Nor Love nor Hope can give such gifts as thine. Sleep hardly shows us round thy shadowy shrine What roses hang, what music floats, what feet Pass and what wings of angels. We repeat Wild words or mild, disastrous or divine, Blind prayer, blind imprecation, seeing no sign Nor hearing aught of thee not faint and fleet As words of men or snowflakes on the wind. But if we chide thee, saying "Thou hast sinned, thou hast sinned, Dark Death, to take so sweet a light away As shone but late, though shadowed, in our skies," We hear thine answer--"Night has given what day Denied him: darkness hath unsealed his eyes."

III

THANKSGIVING

Could love give strength to thank thee! Love can give Strong sorrow heart to suffer: what we bear We would not put away, albeit this were A burden love might cast aside and live. Love chooses rather pain than palliative, Sharp thought than soft oblivion. May we dare So trample down our passion and our prayer That fain would cling round feet now fugitive And stay them--so remember, so forget, What joy we had who had his presence yet, What griefs were his while joy in him was ours And grief made weary music of his breath, As even to hail his best and last of hours With love grown strong enough to thank thee, Death?

IV

LIBITINA VERTICORDIA

Sister of sleep, healer of life, divine As rest and strong as very love may be, To set the soul that love could set not free, To bid the skies that day could bid not shine, To give the gift that life withheld was thine. With all my heart I loved one borne from me: And all my heart bows down and praises thee, Death, that hast now made grief not his but mine.

O Changer of men's hearts, we would not bid thee Turn back our hearts from sorrow: this alone We bid, we pray thee, from thy sovereign throne And sanctuary sublime where heaven has hid thee, Give: grace to know of those for whom we weep That if they wake their life is sweet as sleep.

V

THE ORDER OF RELEASE

Thou canst not give it. Grace enough is ours To know that pain for him has fallen on rest. The worst we know was his on earth: the best, We fain would think,--a thought no fear deflowers-- Is his, released from bonds of rayless hours. Ah, turn our hearts from longing; bid our quest Cease, as content with failure. This thy guest Sleeps, vexed no more of time's imperious powers, The spirit of hope, the spirit of change and loss, The spirit of love bowed down beneath his cross, Nor now needs comfort from the strength of song. Love, should he wake, bears now no cross for him: Dead hope, whose living eyes like his were dim, Has brought forth better comfort, strength more strong.

VI

PSYCHAGOGOS

As Greece of old acclaimed thee God and man, So, Death, our tongue acclaims thee: yet wast thou Hailed of old Rome as Romans hail thee now, Goddess and woman. Since the sands first ran That told when first man's life and death began, The shadows round thy blind ambiguous brow Have mocked the votive plea, the pleading vow That sought thee sorrowing, fain to bless or ban.

But stronger than a father's love is thine, And gentler than a mother's. Lord and God, Thy staff is surer than the wizard rod That Hermes bare as priest before thy shrine And herald of thy mercies. We could give Nought, when we would have given: thou bidst him live.

VII

THE LAST WORD

So many a dream and hope that went and came, So many and sweet, that love thought like to be, Of hours as bright and soft as those for me That made our hearts for song's sweet love the same, Lie now struck dead, that hope seems one with shame. O Death, thy name is Love: we know it, and see The witness: yet for very love's sake we Can hardly bear to mix with thine his name.

Philip, how hard it is to bid thee part Thou knowest, if aught thou knowest where now thou art Of us that loved and love thee. None may tell What none but knows--how hard it is to say The word that seals up sorrow, darkens day, And bids fare forth the soul it bids farewell.

IN MEMORY OF AURELIO SAFFI

The wider world of men that is not ours Receives a soul whose life on earth was light. Though darkness close the date of human hours, Love holds the spirit and sense of life in sight, That may not, even though death bid fly, take flight. Faith, love, and hope fulfilled with memory, see As clear and dear as life could bid it be The present soul that is and is not he.

He, who held up the shield and sword of Rome Against the ravening brood of recreant France, Beside the man of men whom heaven took home When earth beheld the spring's first eyebeams glance And life and winter seemed alike a trance Eighteen years since, in sight of heaven and spring That saw the soul above all souls take wing, He too now hears the heaven we hear not sing.

He too now dwells where death is dead, and stands Where souls like stars exult in life to be: Whence all who linked heroic hearts and hands Shine on our sight, and give it strength to see What hope makes fair for all whom faith makes free: Free with such freedom as we find in sleep, The light sweet shadow of death, when dreams are deep And high as heaven whence light and lightning leap.

And scarce a month yet gone, his living hand Writ loving words that sealed me friend of his. Are heaven and earth as near as sea to strand? May life and death as bride and bridegroom kiss? His last month's written word abides, and is; Clear as the sun that lit through storm and strife And darkling days when hope took fear to wife The faith whose fire was light of all his life.

A life so fair, so pure of earthlier leaven, That none hath won through higher and harder ways The deathless life of death which earth calls heaven; Heaven, and the light of love on earth, and praise Of silent memory through subsiding days Wherein the light subsides not whence the past Feeds full with life the future. Time holds fast Their names whom faith forgets not, first and last.

Forget? The dark forgets not dawn, nor we The suns that sink to rise again, and shine Lords of live years and ages. Earth and sea Forget not heaven that makes them seem divine, Though night put out their fires and bid their shrine Be dark and pale as storm and twilight. Day, Not night, is everlasting: life's full sway Bids death bow down as dead, and pass away.

What part has death in souls that past all fear Win heavenward their supernal way, and smite With scorn sublime as heaven such dreams as here Plague and perplex with cloud and fire the light That leads men's waking souls from glimmering night To the awless heights of day, whereon man's awe, Transfigured, dies in rapture, seeing the law Sealed of the sun that earth arising saw?

Faith, justice, mercy, love, and heaven-born hate That sets them all on fire and bids them be More than soft words and dreams that wake too late, Shone living through the lordly life that we Beheld, revered, and loved on earth, while he Dwelt here, and bade our eyes take light thereof; Light as from heaven that flamed or smiled above In light or fire whose very hate was love.

No hate of man, but hate of hate whose foam Sheds poison forth from tongues of snakes and priests, And stains the sickening air with steams whence Rome Now feeds not full the God that slays and feasts; For now the fangs of all the ravenous beasts That ramped about him, fain of prayer and prey, Fulfil their lust no more: the tide of day Swells, and compels him down the deathward way.

Night sucks the Church its creature down, and hell Yawns, heaves, and yearns to clasp its loathliest child Close to the breasts that bore it. All the spell Whence darkness saw the dawn in heaven defiled Is dumb as death: the lips that lied and smiled Wax white for fear as ashes. She that bore The banner up of darkness now no more Sheds night and fear and shame from shore to shore.

When they that cast her kingdom down were born, North cried on south and east made moan to west For hopes that love had hardly heart to mourn, For Italy that was not. Kings on quest, By priests whose blessings burn as curses blest, Made spoil of souls and bodies bowed and bound, Hunted and harried, leashed as horse or hound, And hopeless of the hope that died unfound.

And now that faith has brought forth fruit to time, How should not memory praise their names, and hold Their record even as Dante's life sublime, Who bade his dream, found fair and false of old, Live? Not till earth and heaven be dead and cold May man forget whose work and will made one Italy, fair as heaven or freedom won, And left their fame to shine beside her sun.

_April 1890._

THE FESTIVAL OF BEATRICE

Dante, sole standing on the heavenward height, Beheld and heard one saying, "Behold me well: I am, I am Beatrice." Heaven and hell Kept silence, and the illimitable light Of all the stars was darkness in his sight Whose eyes beheld her eyes again, and fell Shame-stricken. Since her soul took flight to dwell In heaven, six hundred years have taken flight.

And now that heavenliest part of earth whereon Shines yet their shadow as once their presence shone To her bears witness for his sake, as he For hers bare witness when her face was gone: No slave, no hospice now for grief--but free From shore to mountain and from Alp to sea.

THE MONUMENT OF GIORDANO BRUNO

I

Not from without us, only from within, Comes or can ever come upon us light Whereby the soul keeps ever truth in sight. No truth, no strength, no comfort man may win, No grace for guidance, no release from sin, Save of his own soul's giving. Deep and bright As fire enkindled in the core of night Burns in the soul where once its fire has been The light that leads and quickens thought, inspired To doubt and trust and conquer. So he said Whom Sidney, flower of England, lordliest head Of all we love, loved: but the fates required A sacrifice to hate and hell, ere fame Should set with his in heaven Giordano's name.

II

Cover thine eyes and weep, O child of hell, Grey spouse of Satan, Church of name abhorred. Weep, withered harlot, with thy weeping lord, Now none will buy the heaven thou hast to sell At price of prostituted souls, and swell Thy loveless list of lovers. Fire and sword No more are thine: the steel, the wheel, the cord, The flames that rose round living limbs, and fell In lifeless ash and ember, now no more Approve thee godlike. Rome, redeemed at last From all the red pollution of thy past, Acclaims the grave bright face that smiled of yore Even on the fire that caught it round and clomb To cast its ashes on the face of Rome.

_June 9, 1889._

LIFE IN DEATH

He should have followed who goes forth before us, Last born of us in life, in death first-born: The last to lift up eyes against the morn, The first to see the sunset. Life, that bore us Perchance for death to comfort and restore us, Of him hath left us here awhile forlorn, For him is as a garment overworn, And time and change, with suns and stars in chorus, Silent. But if, beyond all change or time, A law more just, more equal, more sublime Than sways the surge of life's loud sterile sea Sways that still world whose peace environs him, Where death lies dead as night when stars wax dim, Above all thought or hope of ours is he.

_August 2, 1891._

EPICEDE

As a vesture shalt thou change them, said the prophet, And the raiment that was flesh is turned to dust; Dust and flesh and dust again the likeness of it, And the fine gold woven and worn of youth is rust. Hours that wax and wane salute the shade and scoff it, That it knows not aught it doth nor aught it must: Day by day the speeding soul makes haste to doff it, Night by night the pride of life resigns its trust.

Sleep, whose silent notes of song loud life's derange not, Takes the trust in hand awhile as angels may: Joy with wings that rest not, grief with wings that range not, Guard the gates of sleep and waking, gold or grey. Joys that joys estrange, and griefs that griefs estrange not, Day that yearns for night, and night that yearns for day, As a vesture shalt thou change them, and they change not, Seeing that change may never change or pass away.

Life of death makes question, "What art thou that changest? What am I, that fear should trust or faith should doubt? I that lighten, thou that darkenest and estrangest, Is it night or day that girds us round about? Light and darkness on the ways wherein thou rangest Seem as one, and beams as clouds they put to rout. Strange is hope, but fear of all things born were strangest, Seeing that none may strive with change to cast it out.

"Change alone stands fast, thou sayest, O death: I know not: What art thou, my brother death, that thou shouldst know? Men may reap no fruits of fields wherein they sow not; Hope or fear is all the seed we have to sow. Winter seals the sacred springs up that they flow not: Wind and sun and change unbind them, and they flow. Am I thou or art thou I? The years that show not Pass, and leave no sign when time shall be to show."

Hope makes suit to faith lest fear give ear to sorrow: Doubt strews dust upon his head, and goes his way. All the golden hope that life of death would borrow, How, if death require again, may life repay? Earth endures no darkness whence no light yearns thorough; God in man as light in darkness lives, they say: Yet, would midnight take assurance of the morrow, Who shall pledge the faith or seal the bond of day?

Darkness, mute or loud with music or with mourning, Starry darkness, winged with wind or clothed with calm, Dreams no dream of grief or fear or wrath or warning, Bears no sign of race or goal or strife or palm. Word of blessing, word of mocking or of scorning, Knows it none, nor whence its breath sheds blight or balm. Yet a little while, and hark, the psalm of morning: Yet a little while, and silence takes the psalm.

All the comfort, all the worship, all the wonder, All the light of love that darkness holds in fee, All the song that silence keeps or keeps not under, Night, the soul that knows gives thanks for all to thee. Far beyond the gates that morning strikes in sunder, Hopes that grief makes holy, dreams that fear sets free, Far above the throne of thought, the lair of thunder, Silent shines the word whose utterance fills the sea.

MEMORIAL VERSES ON THE DEATH OF WILLIAM BELL SCOTT

A life more bright than the sun's face, bowed Through stress of season and coil of cloud, Sets: and the sorrow that casts out fear Scarce deems him dead in his chill still shroud,

Dead on the breast of the dying year, Poet and painter and friend, thrice dear For love of the suns long set, for love Of song that sets not with sunset here,

For love of the fervent heart, above Their sense who saw not the swift light move That filled with sense of the loud sun's lyre The thoughts that passion was fain to prove

In fervent labour of high desire And faith that leapt from its own quenched pyre Alive and strong as the sun, and caught From darkness light, and from twilight fire.

Passion, deep as the depths unsought Whence faith's own hope may redeem us nought, Filled full with ardour of pain sublime His mourning song and his mounting thought.

Elate with sense of a sterner time, His hand's flight clomb as a bird's might climb Calvary: dark in the darkling air That shrank for fear of the crowning crime,

Three crosses rose on the hillside bare, Shown scarce by grace of the lightning's glare That clove the veil of the temple through And smote the priests on the threshold there.