Part 4

And respite from pain;

Whiteness of raiment,

Freedom from stain.

Love unto thee,

Remembrance of Heaven,

Tokens of Jesus

By angels given.

Peace unto thee

Wherever thou art,

Christlike companion

Made for my heart.

WE MEET

We meet

In a lamp-lit street,

You and I--

Life is sweet.

Clouds' tumultuous feet

Shake the sky;

They are all in retreat--

Death draws nigh.

Life is sweet--

With anonymous beat

Crowds surge by.

Only I

And my sweet

Dare to linger and greet.

Your lips sigh, "Time is fleet."

Stars repeat,

"Life is sweet--

Kiss her," they cry; "In an unlit street

One day you must die."

Thus we meet.

HEART-BREAK

Lord God of Cities, how long must we wait

Bound in our Babylons of tawdry sin;

Hast Thou so many other stars to win,

Is greed of conquest so insatiate?

Or does Omnipotence design to take

Example from the flaws of childhood's years,

And what of folly in Thy work appears

Thou studiest for newer worlds' sweet sake?

Nay, Thou art shamed of Thy first dwelling-place,

And we are wearied; neither of us know

How we may remedy Thy fault, and so

With slow tired hands Thou coverest Thy face.

Poor Man! foredoomed to spurn such love as this!

Sad God! what grief to make a world amiss!

UP AGAIN

Down in the mud again!

Thank God I'm up again,

On through the rife of rain.

Clouds, in their height,

Gleam where some moon shines whit<

Thank God I'm up again!

Stars are in sight,

Or will be in sight

This night or next night.

God be praised for the sight!

It's brave to be up again.

If I should fall again,

Why, I'll rise up again--

On through the rush of rain

Search out some light.

Somewhere on wings of white--

Praise God I'm up again--

Something's in flight,

Star-flight or dawn-flight,

Hereward through the night.

God be praised for such flight!

It's glad to be up again.

MASTERLESS

With tattered sail, as ships which driven are

On whatsoever course the winds may list,

Which every peaceful waterway have missed,

And drift on open seas with shattered spar

And gaping seam, which toss and sway and nod,

Remote from sight of land and hope of aid,

So is the canvassed, crude conveyance made

In which Man journeys to the port of God.

No pillow in his vessel rests the head

Of one who, sleeping, has the power to save--

Who, when the clouds fly far, can calm the wave

And send it sobbing to the ocean bed.

Storm follows storm, the waters run more high;

Across the vain and vacant void of death

We lilt with lifeless motion to each breath,

And grope grotesquely on, yet cannot die.

Oh, for a respite from this weary place,

Or else to see but once the Master's face!

FROM THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD

With you the world's at evening-light,

With me the world's at day;

Yet in my heart I think 'tis night

While you are far away:

While you are far away, dear lad,

While you are far away,

There comes no dawn, nor change of light,

Nor any hope in day.

With you it nears the hour of sleep;

With me 'tis time to pray,

That God may guide you o'er His deep

Back from the Far-Away;

Home from the Far-Away, dear lad,

Back from the Far-Away,

That God may drift you home in sleep,

And bring me back my day.

Christ placed his hand in mine and said,

Come, little child, for thou art mine."

I kissed him', raising up my head,

And whispered, "Yea, Lord, I am thine."

We wandered through white clover-flowers

Beside a murmuring brook all day;

When night led back the dream-tide hours

Within his shepherd arms I lay.

Older I grew, until at last

Unto a clanging town we came;

Christ wept for me, but in I passed

Alone. It was the town of Fame,

Wherein are lands of diverse name--

The Saffron East, the Purple West,

Whose walls enclose a Crimson Shame

But hold no Land of Quiet Rest.

Weary I grew and sad, and lame,

Until in scorn I heard one say,

How to the gate there seeking came

A wounded shepherd yesterday.

Painfully at the stroke of dawn

I to the open country crept;

And on a distant dewy lawn

I found Christ, while the city slept.

My crippled hands in his, I said,

O Lord and art thou truly mine?"

Upon his breast he laid my head,

Yea, little child, am I not thine?"

News, sent from far away,

Came unto me to-day,

Only these words to say,

Lo, he is dead."

He, who to comfort me,

Laughing right merrily,

Said, "Think, how glad we'll be

When I return."

He, strumming out Hope's song

Wending lone lands among,

Swept Life's harp overstrong--

Felt the strings break.

I shall return, you know,"

So he spake long ago;

How brave our love must grow,"

Wrote a week since.

Then news, from far away,

Came unto me this day,

Only these words to say,

Lo, _he_ is dead."

"_The Terror by Night: the Arrow by Day: the Pestilence walking in Darkness: the Destruction wasting at Noonday._"

Thou Demon Fear, Assassin of Delight,

Who makest impotent Man's royal might,

Turning to poverty his wealth of days

With hushed pursuit of him in all his ways,

Whence art thou come, from what dead land of

Night?

Speak, only speak, occult, accursèd shade,

Who ne'er to human eyes hast yet displayed

Thine awful shape; ah, could we only hear

Thy thin, pale voice! Thy ghastly step draws

near,

But bring not _thee_--therefore we grow afraid.

What things men fear they do not dare to say

Lest, thus provoked, Fate should no more delay

But run on them and wreak those ills they dread:

To Death we kneel, to God we bow the head;

Yet of our fears we have the most dismay.

We fear our fears, but thee, Oh Fear, we hate,

For thou with all our sins art intimate

As He who made us; crimes wrought long ago,

Follies and half-faults, each one thou dost know

And dost avenge with rods deliberate.

Ah, were this all, our lives might yet go well

For, since we suffer here the pains of Hell,

Heav'n should be certain, Death--God's just

reprieve.

But thou with vain forebodings dost conceive

To break our hearts, and turn us infidel.

Oh for that silence, virgin of all sound,

Vast, uncalamitous which did abound

When Darkness, drooping from Eternity,

Trailed his slow pinions o'er Time's tideless

sea

Before Fear was called forth from underground.

Then Quiet, from the Nothingness of Space,

Gazed down on Chaos with untroubled face,

Such as babes have who enter Life still-born;

For Evening Strife, nor Hurricane of Morn,

Had then perturbed God's wonted resting-place.

Now, though through utterest lands we wend our

way,

We hear thy footstep, so we cannot stay;

Yea, though we search out Peace in dreams by

night,

Too soon we know thee following our flight,

And shrieking wake, and clamour for new-day.

Only Man's bygone days are truly sweet:

_This day_ is darkened by _To-morrow's_ threat,

_To-morrow_ by the menace of _To-day;_

From out the Past is fled away for aye

The grinding doubt of possible defeat.

Ah, were we wise, our lives 'tis thus we'd spend:

Because the Past glides onward without end,

Engulfing _our _To-day and _our_ Hereafter,

We'd greet This Day, or Next, with careless

laughter

As 'twere the Past, and so our fortunes mend.

Too weak are we, too diligent in doubt,

This fiend with sage philosophy to flout;

When all his lawful issue fail his need,

Fear doth with harlot Fancy quickly breed

Frenzy, to put Tranquillity to rout.

Nightly earth's infants, garret-roofs beneath,

Wake shuddering and hark, with indrawn breath

And small clenched hands and faces woe-begone,

Till through the creaking gloom there mounteth

one

Whom they in ignorance mistake for Death.

Nor are we braver when we older grow,

For still "'Tis Death!" we sob. "'Tis Death! Ah

woe,

Deep woe, is me!" whene'er thou drawest nigh:

Therefore, Oh Fear, full many times men die

And Dissolution's torments undergo.

Man, who was made in image like to God,

Whom angels tended wheresoe'er he trod

With glad huzzas and harpings all the way,

So that the untamed beasts allowed his sway,

Cringes a coward 'neath thine up-raised rod.

Secret Chastiser of our secret heart,

Speak, but this once, to tell us who thou art;

Whether the hound that runs before Death's

feet,

Discrowned Imagination in retreat,

Or Echo, of our own flight the counterpart

Like God, most silent ever thou dost keep.

Thine eyes must be as God's, which never sleep

But watch, aye watch, and know us all in all.

Oh, can it be, that thou art but the call

Of God, the Shepherd, guarding o'er His sheep?

ABANDON

Just to be true to one grand swift desire

Which shall all other furious faiths outpace;

To run with strength an uncontested race

Till, knowing how the soul is catching fire

And generous flame is clambering through the

heart--

For Self, what though heroic, is not best--

I grasp my life and hurl it with the rest,

Joining myself to God--a puny part.

One holy thing to fail for--thus to die;

To give men love, who knew before remorse;

Then, meekly seek with Christ some scornful

Cross,

But leave the world more kind in passing by--

In piercing through the covering doth of night

To lodge one star, and vanish strong in flight.

Kiss me," she said, "for I must die

Ere any star his flight hath ta'en,

And cold and unperturbed shall lie

When Night doth pace our earth again.

And thou, dear love, if thou should'st weep,

And if thy heart with anguish break,

From sweet sad dreams thy solace take

And lose thy pain in painless sleep.

Kiss me, dear love, for I must die

And cold and unperturbed shall lie."

Kiss me, dear friend, for now I feel

That thou art as a glimpse of God;

More tender passions through me steal

Than when this wayward world I trod.

Lie still, dear heart, and do not speak--

God would not stoop to such as me;

With silent mouth and noiselessly

I would my grave Creator seek.

Kiss me, dear love, for now I feel

More noble passions through me steal."

Kiss me, this last, for I must flee

From all I loved and cherished here,

And now must go distressfully

Bereft, in solitude and fear.

But, when your eyes are closed in sleep,

I shall descend the starry steeps

Where Leon for her lover weeps

And tired hands have naught to reap.

Kiss me, dear love, alone I flee

To meet unknown Eternity."

MAN'S BEGINNING

When God was young and wandered through the

skies

Supreme and unadored, content to be

The only vessel on His starry sea,

He had no wish for sight of other eyes.

But, as the years flew by, He older grew,

And held less dear the loneliness He found,

When from some long-since reign He caught the

sound

Of play-mate deities, whom once He knew.

Half-heedlessly He stooped toward a star

And kissed its silver lips, when forth there came

A little god, in speech like to those same

Dear children whom in sleep He heard afar.

The Father God pulsated through His heart,

He cried, "O Child, my little son thou art."

LOVE AT LAST

When I have looked upon Thy face

I hear a wandering discontent

Wail through my living, and retrace

The leaf-strewn paths my feet frequent.

Folly abode within a glade

And saw my flight and, laughing, bade

Me greet her lips and kiss her hair,

Till I was fain to kiss her there.

But Thou art sad and dost not speak,

So sad and sorrowful art Thou;

Thine eyes are scarred, my eyes they seek,

And cruel marks have marred Thy brow.

Pleasure laid hands on me and mine,

She crowned my head with tangled vine,

Her arms about my neck lay bare;

I was constrained to kiss her there.

Yea, Thou hast suffered. This I tell

By those long wound-prints in Thy hands;

Mankind has never used Thee well,

And loves not Thee, nor Thy commands.

Bitterness found me desolate

And kissed me with the breath of hate;

Since Folly fled, she bade me wear

Her angry scarlet in my hair.

Now, as I look into Thy face,

Despised and battered though it be,

Visage of scorn in every place,

I know that I belong to Thee.

Worthless these lips to give the kiss--

And yet I dare, recalling this,

When Life's last lovers left me bare

Thy patient face was constant there.

THE MIRROR OF THOUGHT

When earnest-eyed we conversed through the

night,

Recalled past pleasure, followed up the hour

With plaintive music--sad memorial flower

Of melancholy and of old delight--

Rode bold as Taillefer with tossing brand

Across the hills of fancy, chanting strains

Of ancient chivalry, while loud refrains

Rumbled responsive through our faery band,

Then Courage kindled Courage, making gay

Carnage and conflict, poverty and fear;

The path to glory golden did appear,

And I was brave to wend it any day.

A far-blown cry of love and minstrelsy,

Revealed to me myself as I would be.

I'M SORRY

I'm sorry, dear--

But I did not know

That behind your eyes,

Where the joy-fields grow

And dance to the joy of dancing skies,

There were forests where graver flowers rise;

Weighted with shadow,

They stand tiptoe:

So I'm sorry, dear--

I did not know.

I'm sorry, dear.

As we older grow

There will come a day,

May its feet move slow,

When we, where the life-fields fade to gray

And the skies dance not, shall have naught to say,

Met by a Shadow,

In voices low,

But, "I'm sorry, God--

I did not know."

DREAMLAND LOVE

Here in the Far Land of our own begetting,

Crouched on the haunted cliff begirt by sea,

Hushed in the murmurous swell of dim waves

fretting

Walls and sheer rocks which cradle you and me,

How shall we lisp of older worlds and cities?

How shall we sigh for newer worlds to be?

Naught here is left of moanings or of pities,

Only the whispered silence of the sea.

We had no stars to shine our curved prows hither,

Nor had we moons to guide us fearlessly,

Only the age-long yearnings of the river

Bruised by steep banks and aching for the sea;

Rivers whose tides grow tired of earthly lilies,

Too full of splendour to last so long as we,

Rivers whose length-long craving and strong will is

Once to see space, and then to cease to be.

Hither we journeyed sunset-ways by water,

I in my phantom keel of Poesy,

You in Sleep's arms, of whom you are the daughter,

Till in my arms Sleep laid you noiselessly.

Down through the dusk our dreamland barque

drove gleaming,

Under gray sails, through gradual groves of sea,

Till from your eyes I saw the love-light streaming,

And gave the kiss which set your spirit free.

All the fair glories of our first beginnings

We did forsake to gain this quiet place;

Passions we left, and fears, and youthful sinnings;

Virtues we left, and early signs of grace.

Dreamings we brought and beauty of the May-

time,

All else we flung to where Time's whirlwinds race.

Timeless are we in this our godlike play-time,

Since Sleep has led us gently face to face.

Gray glide the mists around our ocean's edges,

Gray grope the tides across the gray-paved sea,

Gray clings the foam about our granite ledges,

Naught, naught remains to safeguard you from

me.

These axe the souls who watch us at our dreaming,

Spirits of mist, of spray-dashed crag and sea;

All, all is hushed, save your gray eyes deep gleaming,

Eyes of veiled flame in caves of mystery.

Like frozen stars, we watched each other's shining,

Wondered with pain if any time might be,

When we should lean beyond our own divining,

Touching the lips of others such as we,

Till I grew faint within my lonely heaven,

Sank through the cloudland stretched twixt you

and me,

Plunged through the thunder where firmaments

rocked riven,

So gave the kiss which set your spirit free.

We must go hence, when flames the tyrant morning,

We shall go hence at breaking of new day;

We, like the stars strange midnight lands adorning,

We must go hence, steal separately away.

Yet, like the stars, perchance we may glide burning

When round the earth the skies are growing gray;

We to our haunted cliff may sail returning,

Nearing the crags where yesternight we lay.

Thus from the Far Land of our own begetting

I must depart across Sleep's sundering sea,

Throughout the Sim Land wander inly fretting,

Till night drifts back restoring you to me;

Till through the dark I see Love's pennons streaming,

When you will kiss and set my spirit free;

Till through the dusk our dreamland barque drives

gleaming,

Under gray sails, through gradual groves of sea.

End of Project Gutenberg's Florence On A Certain Night, by Coningsby Dawson