Chapter 3

Not to this man, but Man,— Universe in a span; Point Of the spheres conjoint;

In whom eternally Thou, Light, dost focus Thee!— Didst pave The way o’ the wave;

Rivet with stars the Heaven, For causeways to Thy driven Car In its coming far

Unto him, only him; In Thy deific whim Didst bound Thy works’ great round

In this small ring of flesh; The sky’s gold-knotted mesh Thy wrist Did only twist

To take him in that net.— Man! swinging-wicket set Between The Unseen and Seen;

Lo, God’s two worlds immense, Of spirit and of sense, Wed In this narrow bed;

Yea, and the midge’s hymn Answers the seraphim Athwart Thy body’s court!

Great arm-fellow of God! To the ancestral clod Kin, And to cherubin;

Bread predilectedly O’ the worm and Deity! Hark, O God’s clay-sealed Ark,

To praise that fits thee, clear To the ear within the ear, But dense To clay-sealed sense.

All the Omnific made When in a word he said, (Mystery!) He uttered _thee_;

Thee His great utterance bore, O secret metaphor Of what Thou dream’st no jot!

Cosmic metonymy! Weak world-unshuttering key! One Seal of Solomon!

Trope that itself not scans Its huge significance, Which tries Cherubic eyes.

Primer where the angels all God’s grammar spell in small, Nor spell The highest too well.

Point for the great descants Of starry disputants; Equation Of creation.

Thou meaning, couldst thou see, Of all which dafteth thee; So plain, It mocks thy pain;

Stone of the Law indeed, Thine own self couldst thou read; Thy bliss Within thee is.

Compost of Heaven and mire, Slow foot and swift desire! Lo, To have Yes, choose No;

Gird, and thou shalt unbind; Seek not, and thou shalt find; To eat, Deny thy meat;

And thou shalt be fulfilled With all sweet things unwilled: So best God loves to jest

With children small—a freak Of heavenly hide-and-seek Fit For thy wayward wit,

Who art thyself a thing Of whim and wavering; Free When His wings pen thee;

Sole fully blest, to feel God whistle thee at heel; Drunk up As a dew-drop,

When He bends down, sun-wise, Intemperable eyes; Most proud, When utterly bowed.

To feel thyself and be His dear nonentity— Caught Beyond human thought

In the thunder-spout of Him, Until thy being dim, And be Dead deathlessly.

Stoop, stoop; for thou dost fear The nettle’s wrathful spear, So slight Art thou of might!

Rise; for Heaven hath no frown When thou to thee pluck’st down, Strong clod! The neck of God.

ASSUMPTA MARIA

‘_Thou needst not sing new songs_, _but say the old_.’—COWLEY.

_Mortals_, _that behold a Woman_, _Rising ’twixt the Moon and Sun_; _Who am I the heavens assume_? _an_ _All am I_, _and I am one_.

Multitudinous ascend I, Dreadful as a battle arrayed, For I bear you whither tend I; Ye are I: be undismayed! I, the Ark that for the graven Tables of the Law was made; Man’s own heart was one, one Heaven, Both within my womb were laid. For there Anteros with Eros Heaven with man conjoinèd was,— Twin-stone of the Law, _Ischyros_, _Agios Athanatos_.

I, the flesh-girt Paradises Gardenered by the Adam new, Daintied o’er with sweet devices Which He loveth, for He grew. I, the boundless strict savannah Which God’s leaping feet go through; I, the heaven whence the Manna, Weary Israel, slid on you! He the Anteros and Eros, I the body, He the Cross; He upbeareth me, _Ischyros_, _Agios Athanatos_!

I am Daniel’s mystic Mountain, Whence the mighty stone was rolled; I am the four Rivers’ fountain, Watering Paradise of old; Cloud down-raining the Just One am, Danae of the Shower of Gold; I the Hostel of the Sun am; He the Lamb, and I the Fold. He the Anteros and Eros, I the body, He the Cross; He is fast to me, _Ischyros_, _Agios Athanatos_!

I, the presence-hall where Angels Do enwheel their placèd King— Even my thoughts which, without change else, Cyclic burn and cyclic sing. To the hollow of Heaven transplanted, I a breathing Eden spring, Where with venom all outpanted Lies the slimed Curse shrivelling. For the brazen Serpent clear on That old fangèd knowledge shone; I to Wisdom rise, _Ischyron_, _Agion Athanaton_!

See in highest heaven pavilioned Now the maiden Heaven rest, The many-breasted sky out-millioned By the splendours of her vest. Lo, the Ark this holy tide is The un-handmade Temple’s guest, And the dark Egyptian bride is Whitely to the Spouse-Heart prest! He the Anteros and Eros, Nail me to Thee, sweetest Cross! He is fast to me, _Ischyros_, _Agios Athanatos_!

‘Tell me, tell me, O Belovèd, Where Thou dost in mid-day feed! For my wanderings are reprovèd, And my heart is salt with need.’ ‘Thine own self not spellest God in, Nor the lisping papyrus reed? Follow where the flocks have trodden, Follow where the shepherds lead.’ He, the Anteros and Eros, Mounts me in Ægyptic car, Twin-yoked; leading me, _Ischyros_, Trembling to the untempted Far.

‘Make me chainlets, silvern, golden, I that sow shall surely reap; While as yet my Spouse is holden Like a Lion in mountained sleep.’ ‘Make her chainlets, silvern, golden, She hath sown and she shall reap; Look up to the mountains olden, Whence help comes with lioned leap.’ By what gushed the bitter Spear on, Pain, which sundered, maketh one; Crucified to Him, _Ischyron_, _Agion Athanaton_!

Then commanded and spake to me He who framed all things that be; And my Maker entered through me, In my tent His rest took He. Lo! He standeth, Spouse and Brother; I to Him, and He to me, Who upraised me where my mother Fell, beneath the apple-tree. Risen ’twixt Anteros and Eros, Blood and Water, Moon and Sun, He upbears me, He _Ischyros_, I bear Him, the _Athanaton_!

Where is laid the Lord arisen? In the light we walk in gloom; Though the sun has burst his prison, We know not his biding-room. Tell us where the Lord sojourneth, For we find an empty tomb. ‘Whence He sprung, there He returneth, Mystic Sun,—the Virgin’s Womb.’ Hidden Sun, His beams so near us, Cloud enpillared as He was From of old, there He, _Ischyros_, Waits our search, _Athanatos_.

Who will give Him me for brother, Counted of my family, Sucking the sweet breasts of my Mother?— I His flesh, and mine is He; To my Bread myself the bread is, And my Wine doth drink me: see, His left hand beneath my head is, His right hand embraceth me! Sweetest Anteros and Eros, Lo, her arms He leans across; Dead that we die not, stooped to rear us, _Thanatos Athanatos_.

Who is She, in candid vesture, Rushing up from out the brine? Treading with resilient gesture Air, and with that Cup divine? She in us and we in her are, Beating Godward: all that pine, Lo, a wonder and a terror! The Sun hath blushed the Sea to Wine! He the Anteros and Eros, She the Bride and Spirit; for Now the days of promise near us, And the Sea shall be no more.

Open wide thy gates, O Virgin, That the King may enter thee! At all gates the clangours gurge in, God’s paludament lightens, see! Camp of Angels! Well we even Of this thing may doubtful be,— If thou art assumed to Heaven, Or is Heaven assumed to thee! _Consummatum_. Christ the promised, Thy maiden realm is won, O Strong! Since to such sweet Kingdom comest, Remember me, poor Thief of Song!

Cadent fails the stars along:— _Mortals_, _that behold a woman_ _Rising ’twixt the Moon and Sun_; _Who am I the heavens assume_? _an_ _All am I_, _and I am one_.

THE AFTER WOMAN

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

Give me song, as She is, new, Earth should turn in time thereto! New, and new, and thrice so new, All old sweets, New Sweet, meant you! Fair, I had a dream of thee, When my young heart beat prophecy, And in apparition elate Thy little breasts knew waxèd great, Sister of the Canticle, And thee for God grown marriageable. How my desire desired your day, That, wheeled in rumour on its way, Shook me thus with presentience! Then Eden’s lopped tree shall shoot again: For who Christ’s eyes shall miss, with those Eyes for evident nuncios? Or who be tardy to His call In your accents augural?

Who shall not feel the Heavens hid Impend, at tremble of your lid, And divine advent shine avowed Under that dim and lucid cloud; Yea, ’fore the silver apocalypse Fail, at the unsealing of your lips? When to love _you_ is (O Christ’s Spouse!) To love the beauty of His house; Then come the Isaian days; the old Shall dream; and our young men behold Vision—yea, the vision of Thabor mount, Which none to other shall recount, Because in all men’s hearts shall be The seeing and the prophecy. For ended is the Mystery Play, When Christ is life, and you the way; When Egypt’s spoils are Israel’s right, And Day fulfils the married arms of Night. But here my lips are still. Until You and the hour shall be revealed, This song is sung and sung not, and its words are sealed.

GRACE OF THE WAY

‘MY brother!’ spake she to the sun; The kindred kisses of the stars Were hers; her feet were set upon The moon. If slumber solved the bars

Of sense, or sense transpicuous grown Fulfillèd seeing unto sight, I know not; nor if ’twas my own Ingathered self that made her night.

The windy trammel of her dress, Her blown locks, took my soul in mesh; God’s breath they spake, with visibleness That stirred the raiment of her flesh:

And sensible, as her blown were, Beyond the precincts of her form I felt the woman flow from her— A calm of intempestuous storm.

I failed against the affluent tide; Out of this abject earth of me I was translated and enskied Into the heavenly-regioned She.

Now of that vision I bereaven This knowledge keep, that may not dim:— Short arm needs man to reach to Heaven, So ready is Heaven to stoop to him.

Which sets, to measure of man’s feet, No alien Tree for trysting-place; And who can read, may read the sweet Direction in his Lady’s face.

And pass and pass the daily crowd, Unwares, occulted Paradise; Love the lost plot cries silver-loud, Nor any know the tongue he cries.

The light is in the darkness, and The darkness doth not comprehend: God hath no haste; and God’s sons stand Yet a Day, tarrying for the end.

Dishonoured Rahab still hath hid, Yea still, within her house of shame, The messengers by Jesus bid Forerun the coming of His Name.

The Word was flesh, and crucified, From the beginning, and blasphemed: Its profaned raiment men divide, Damned by what, reverenced, had redeemed.

Thy Lady, was thy heart not blind, One hour gave to thy witless trust The key thou go’st about to find; And thou hast dropped it in the dust.

Of her, the Way’s one mortal grace, Own, save thy seeing be all forgot, That truly, God was in this place, And thou, unblessèd, knew’st it not.

But some have eyes, and will not see; And some would see, and have not eyes; And fail the tryst, yet find the Tree, And take the lesson for the prize.

RETROSPECT

ALAS, and I have sung Much song of matters vain, And a heaven-sweetened tongue Turned to unprofiting strain Of vacant things, which though Even so they be, and throughly so, It is no boot at all for thee to know, But babble and false pain.

What profit if the sun Put forth his radiant thews, And on his circuit run, Even after my device, to this and to that use; And the true Orient, Christ, Make not His cloud of thee? I have sung vanity, And nothing well devised.

And though the cry of stars Give tongue before his way Goldenly as I say, And each from wide Saturnus to hot Mars He calleth by its name, Lest that its bright feet stray; And thou have lore of all, But to thine own Sun’s call Thy path disorbed hast never wit to tame; It profits not withal, And my rede is but lame.

Only that, ’mid vain vaunt Of wisdom ignorant, A little kiss upon the feet of Love My hasty verse has stayed Sometimes a space to plant: It has not wholly strayed, Not wholly missed near sweet, fanning proud plumes above.

Therefore I do repent That with religion vain, And misconceivèd pain, I have my music bent To waste on bootless things its skiey-gendered rain: Yet shall a wiser day Fulfil more heavenly way, And with approvèd music clear this slip I trust in God most sweet; Meantime the silent lip, Meantime the climbing feet.

A NARROW VESSEL.

BEING A LITTLE DRAMATIC SEQUENCE ON THE ASPECT OF PRIMITIVE GIRL-NATURE TOWARDS A LOVE BEYOND ITS CAPACITIES.

A GIRL’S SIN I.—IN HER EYES

CROSS child! red, and frowning so? ‘I, the day just over, Gave a lock of hair to—no! How _dare_ you say, my lover?’

He asked you?—Let me understand; Come, child, let me sound it! ‘Of course, he _would_ have asked it, and— And so—somehow—he—found it.

‘He told it out with great loud eyes— Men have such little wit! His sin I ever will chastise Because I gave him it.

‘Shameless in me the gift, alas! In him his open bliss: But for the privilege he has A thousand he shall miss!

‘His eyes, where once I dreadless laughed, Call up a burning blot: I hate him, for his shameful craft That asked by asking not!’

Luckless boy! and all for hair He never asked, you said? ‘Not just—but then he gazed—I swear He gazed it from my head!

‘His silence on my cheek like breath I felt in subtle way; More sweet than aught another saith Was what he did not say.

‘He’ll think me vanquished, for this lapse, Who should be above him; Perhaps he’ll think me light; perhaps— Perhaps he’ll think I—love him!

‘Are his eyes conscious and elate, I hate him that I blush; Or are they innocent, still I hate— They mean a thing’s to hush.

‘Before he nought amiss could do, Now all things show amiss; ’Twas all my fault, I know that true, But all my fault was his.

‘I hate him for his mute distress, ’Tis insult he should care! Because my heart’s all humbleness, All pride is in my air.

‘With him, each favour that I do Is bold suit’s hallowing text; Each gift a bastion levelled, to The next one and the next.

‘Each wish whose grant may him befall Is clogged by those withstood; He trembles, hoping one means all, And I, lest perhaps it should.

‘Behind me piecemeal gifts I cast, My fleeing self to save; And that’s the thing must go at last, For that’s the thing he’d have.

‘My lock the enforcèd steel did grate To cut; its root-thrills came Down to my bosom. It might sate His lust for my poor shame!

‘His sifted dainty this should be For a score ambrosial years! But his too much humility Alarums me with fears.

‘My gracious grace a breach he counts For graceless escalade; And, though he’s silent ere he mounts, My watch is not betrayed.

‘My heart hides from my soul he’s sweet: Ah dread, if he divine! One touch, I might fall at his feet, And he might rise from mine.

‘To hear him praise my eyes’ brown gleams Was native, safe delight; But now it usurpation seems, Because I’ve given him right.

‘Before I’d have him not remove, Now would not have him near; With sacrifice I called on Love, And the apparition’s Fear.’

Foolish to give it!—‘’Twas my whim, When he might parted be, To think that I should stay by him In a little piece of me.

‘He always said my hair was soft— What touches he will steal! Each touch and look (and he’ll look oft) I almost thought I’d feel.

‘And then, when first he saw the hair, To think his dear amazement! As if he wished from skies a star, And found it in his casement.

‘He’s kiss the lock—and I had toyed With dreamed delight of this: But ah, in proof, delight was void— I could not _see_ his kiss!’

So, fond one, half this agony Were spared, which my hand hushes, Could you have played, Sweet, the sweet spy, And blushed not for your blushes!

A GIRL’S SIN II.—IN HIS EYES

CAN I forget her cruelty Who, brown miracle, gave you me? Or with unmoisted eyes think on The proud surrender overgone, (Lowlihead in haughty dress), Of the tender tyranness? And ere thou for my joy was given, How rough the road to that blest heaven! With what pangs I fore-expiated Thy cold outlawry from her head; How was I trampled and brought low, Because her virgin neck was so; How thralled beneath the jealous state She stood at point to abdicate; How sacrificed, before to me She sacrificed her pride and thee; How did she, struggling to abase Herself to do me strange, sweet grace, Enforce unwitting me to share Her throes and abjectness with her; Thence heightening that hour when her lover Her grace, with trembling, should discover, And in adoring trouble be Humbled at her humility! And with what pitilessness was I After slain, to pacify The uneasy manes of her shame, Her haunting blushes!—Mine the blame: What fair injustice did I rue For what I—did not tempt her to? Nor aught the judging maid might win Me to assoil from _her_ sweet sin. But nought were extreme punishment For that beyond-divine content, When my with-thee-first-giddied eyes Stooped ere their due on Paradise! O hour of consternating bliss When I heavened me in thy kiss; Thy softness (daring overmuch!) Profaned with my licensed touch; Worshipped, with tears, on happy knee, Her doubt, her trust, her shyness free, Her timorous audacity!

LOVE DECLARED

I LOOKED, she drooped, and neither spake, and cold, We stood, how unlike all forecasted thought Of that desirèd minute! Then I leaned Doubting; whereat she lifted—oh, brave eyes Unfrighted:—forward like a wind-blown flame Came bosom and mouth to mine! That falling kiss Touching long-laid expectance, all went up Suddenly into passion; yea, the night Caught, blazed, and wrapt us round in vibrant fire.

Time’s beating wing subsided, and the winds Caught up their breathing, and the world’s great pulse Stayed in mid-throb, and the wild train of life Reeled by, and left us stranded on a hush. This moment is a statue unto Love Carved from a fair white silence. Lo, he stands Within us—are we not one now, one, one roof, His roof, and the partition of weak flesh Gone down before him, and no more, for ever?— Stands like a bird new-lit, and as he lit, Poised in our quiet being; only, only Within our shaken hearts the air of passion, Cleft by his sudden coming, eddies still And whirs round his enchanted movelessness.

A film of trance between two stirrings! Lo, It bursts; yet dream’s snapped links cling round the limbs Of waking: like a running evening stream Which no man hears, or sees, or knows to run, (Glazed with dim quiet), save that there the moon Is shattered to a creamy flicker of flame, Our eyes’ sweet trouble were hid, save that the love Trembles a little on their impassioned calms.

THE WAY OF A MAID

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

BEGINNING OF END

SHE was aweary of the hovering Of Love’s incessant tumultuous wing; Her lover’s tokens she would answer not— ’Twere well she should be strange with him somewhat: A pretty babe, this Love,—but fie on it, That would not suffer her lay it down a whit! Appointed tryst defiantly she balked, And with her lightest comrade lightly walked, Who scared the chidden Love to hide apart, And peep from some unnoticed corner of her heart. She thought not of her lover, deem it not (There yonder, in the hollow, that’s _his_ cot), But she forgot not that he was forgot. She saw him at his gate, yet stilled her tongue— So weak she felt her, that she would feel strong, And she must punish him for doing him wrong: Passed, unoblivious of oblivion still; And if she turned upon the brow o’ the hill, It was so openly, so lightly done, You saw she thought he was not thought upon. He through the gate went back in bitterness; She that night woke and stirred, with no distress, Glad of her doing,—sedulous to be glad, Lest perhaps her foolish heart suspect that it was sad.

PENELOPE

LOVE, like a wind, shook wide your blosmy eyes, You trembled, and your breath came sobbing-wise For that you loved me.