Chapter 2

The heavens do not advance their majesty Over their marge; beyond his empery The ensigns of the wind are not unfurled, His reign is hooped in by the pale o’ the world. ’Tis not the continent, but the contained, That pleasaunce makes or prison, loose or chained. Too much alike or little captives me, For all oppression is captivity. What groweth to its height demands no higher; The limit limits not, but the desire. Give but my spirit its desirèd scope,— A giant in a pismire, I not grope; Deny it,—and an ant, with on my back A firmament, the skiey vault will crack. Our minds make their own Termini, nor call The issuing circumscriptions great or small; So high constructing Nature lessons to us all: Who optics gives accommodate to see Your countenance large as looks the sun to be, And distant greatness less than near humanity.

We, therefore, with a sure instinctive mind, An equal spaciousness of bondage find In confines far or near, of air or our own kind. Our looks and longings, which affront the stars, Most richly bruised against their golden bars, Delighted captives of their flaming spears, Find a restraint restrainless which appears As that is, and so simply natural, In you;—the fair detention freedom call, And overscroll with fancies the loved prison-wall.

Such sweet captivity, and only such, In you, as in those golden bars, we touch! Our gazes for sufficing limits know The firmament above, your face below; Our longings are contented with the skies, Contented with the heaven, and your eyes. My restless wings, that beat the whole world through, Flag on the confines of the sun and you; And find the human pale remoter of the two.

Miscellaneous Poems.

TO THE DEAD CARDINAL OF WESTMINSTER.

I WILL not perturbate Thy Paradisal state With praise Of thy dead days;

To the new-heavened say,— “Spirit, thou wert fine clay:” This do, Thy praise who knew.

Therefore my spirit clings Heaven’s porter by the wings, And holds Its gated golds

Apart, with thee to press A private business;— Whence, Deign me audience.

Anchorite, who didst dwell With all the world for cell My soul Round me doth roll

A sequestration bare. Too far alike we were, Too far Dissimilar.

For its burning fruitage I Do climb the tree o’ the sky; Do prize Some human eyes.

_You_ smelt the Heaven-blossoms, And all the sweet embosoms The dear Uranian year.

Those Eyes my weak gaze shuns, Which to the suns are Suns. Did Not affray your lid.

The carpet was let down (With golden mouldings strown) For you Of the angels’ blue.

But I, ex-Paradised, The shoulder of your Christ Find high To lean thereby.

So flaps my helpless sail, Bellying with neither gale, Of Heaven Nor Orcus even.

Life is a coquetry Of Death, which wearies me, Too sure Of the amour;

A tiring-room where I Death’s divers garments try, Till fit Some fashion sit.

It seemeth me too much I do rehearse for such A mean And single scene.

The sandy glass hence bear— Antique remembrancer; My veins Do spare its pains.

With secret sympathy My thoughts repeat in me Infirm The turn o’ the worm

Beneath my appointed sod: The grave is in my blood; I shake To winds that take

Its grasses by the top; The rains thereon that drop Perturb With drip acerb

My subtly answering soul; The feet across its knoll Do jar Me from afar.

As sap foretastes the spring; As Earth ere blossoming Thrills With far daffodils,

And feels her breast turn sweet With the unconceivèd wheat; So doth My flesh foreloathe

The abhorrèd spring of Dis, With seething presciences Affirm The preparate worm.

I have no thought that I, When at the last I die, Shall reach To gain your speech.

But you, should that be so, May very well, I know, May well To me in hell

With recognising eyes Look from your Paradise— “God bless Thy hopelessness!”

Call, holy soul, O call The hosts angelical, And say,— “See, far away

“Lies one I saw on earth; One stricken from his birth With curse Of destinate verse.

“What place doth He ye serve For such sad spirit reserve,— Given, In dark lieu of Heaven,

“The impitiable Dæmon, Beauty, to adore and dream on, To be Perpetually

“Hers, but she never his? He reapeth miseries, Foreknows His wages woes;

“He lives detachèd days; He serveth not for praise; For gold He is not sold;

“Deaf is he to world’s tongue; He scorneth for his song The loud Shouts of the crowd;

“He asketh not world’s eyes; Not to world’s ears he cries; Saith,—‘These Shut, if ye please;’

“He measureth world’s pleasure, World’s ease as Saints might measure; For hire Just love entire

“He asks, not grudging pain; And knows his asking vain, And cries— ‘Love! Love!’ and dies;

“In guerdon of long duty, Unowned by Love or Beauty; And goes— Tell, tell, who knows!

“Aliens from Heaven’s worth, Fine beasts who nose i’ the earth, Do there Reward prepare.

“But are _his_ great desires Food but for nether fires? Ah me, A mystery!

“Can it be his alone, To find when all is known, That what He solely sought

“Is lost, and thereto lost All that its seeking cost? That he Must finally,

“Through sacrificial tears, And anchoretic years, Tryst With the sensualist?”

So ask; and if they tell The secret terrible, Good friend, I pray thee send

Some high gold embassage To teach my unripe age. Tell! Lest my feet walk hell.

A FALLEN YEW.

IT seemed corrival of the world’s great prime, Made to un-edge the scythe of Time, And last with stateliest rhyme.

No tender Dryad ever did indue That rigid chiton of rough yew, To fret her white flesh through:

But some god like to those grim Asgard lords, Who walk the fables of the hordes From Scandinavian fjords,

Upheaved its stubborn girth, and raised unriven, Against the whirl-blast and the levin, Defiant arms to Heaven.

When doom puffed out the stars, we might have said, It would decline its heavy head, And see the world to bed.

For this firm yew did from the vassal leas, And rain and air, its tributaries, Its revenues increase,

And levy impost on the golden sun, Take the blind years as they might run, And no fate seek or shun.

But now our yew is strook, is fallen—yea Hacked like dull wood of every day To this and that, men say.

Never!—To Hades’ shadowy shipyards gone, Dim barge of Dis, down Acheron It drops, or Lethe wan.

Stirred by its fall—poor destined bark of Dis!— Along my soul a bruit there is Of echoing images,

Reverberations of mortality: Spelt backward from its death, to me Its life reads saddenedly.

Its breast was hollowed as the tooth of eld; And boys, their creeping unbeheld, A laughing moment dwelled.

Yet they, within its very heart so crept, Reached not the heart that courage kept With winds and years beswept.

And in its boughs did close and kindly nest The birds, as they within its breast, By all its leaves caressed.

But bird nor child might touch by any art Each other’s or the tree’s hid heart, A whole God’s breadth apart;

The breadth of God, he breadth of death and life! Even so, even so, in undreamed strife With pulseless Law, the wife,—

The sweetest wife on sweetest marriage-day,— Their souls at grapple in mid-way, Sweet to her sweet may say:

“I take you to my inmost heart, my true!” Ah, fool! but there is one heart you Shall never take him to!

The hold that falls not when the town is got, The heart’s heart, whose immurèd plot Hath keys yourself keep not!

Its ports you cannot burst—you are withstood— For him that to your listening blood Sends precepts as he would.

Its gates are deaf to Love, high summoner; Yea, Love’s great warrant runs not there: You are your prisoner.

Yourself are with yourself the sole consortress In that unleaguerable fortress; It knows you not for portress

Its keys are at the cincture hung of God; Its gates are trepidant to His nod; By Him its floors are trod.

And if His feet shall rock those floors in wrath, Or blest aspersion sleek His path, Is only choice it hath.

Yea, in that ultimate heart’s occult abode To lie as in an oubliette of God, Or as a bower untrod,

Built by a secret Lover for His Spouse;— Sole choice is this your life allows, Sad tree, whose perishing boughs So few birds house!

DREAM-TRYST.

THE breaths of kissing night and day Were mingled in the eastern Heaven: Throbbing with unheard melody Shook Lyra all its star-chord seven: When dusk shrunk cold, and light trod shy, And dawn’s grey eyes were troubled grey; And souls went palely up the sky, And mine to Lucidé.

There was no change in her sweet eyes Since last I saw those sweet eyes shine; There was no change in her deep heart Since last that deep heart knocked at mine. Her eyes were clear, her eyes were Hope’s, Wherein did ever come and go The sparkle of the fountain-drops From her sweet soul below.

The chambers in the house of dreams Are fed with so divine an air, That Time’s hoar wings grow young therein, And they who walk there are most fair. I joyed for me, I joyed for her, Who with the Past meet girt about: Where our last kiss still warms the air, Nor can her eyes go out.

A CORYMBUS FOR AUTUMN.

HEARKEN my chant, ’tis As a Bacchante’s, A grape-spurt, a vine-splash, a tossed tress, flown vaunt ’tis! Suffer my singing, Gipsy of Seasons, ere thou go winging; Ere Winter throws His slaking snows In thy feasting-flagon’s impurpurate glows! The sopped sun—toper as ever drank hard— Stares foolish, hazed, Rubicund, dazed, Totty with thine October tankard. Tanned maiden! with cheeks like apples russet, And breast a brown agaric faint-flushing at tip, And a mouth too red for the moon to buss it, But her cheek unvow its vestalship; Thy mists enclip Her steel-clear circuit illuminous, Until it crust Rubiginous With the glorious gules of a glowing rust. Far other saw we, other indeed, The crescent moon, in the May-days dead, Fly up with its slender white wings spread Out of its nest in the sea’s waved mead! How are the veins of thee, Autumn, laden? Umbered juices, And pulpèd oozes Pappy out of the cherry-bruises, Froth the veins of thee, wild, wild maiden! With hair that musters In globèd clusters, In tumbling clusters, like swarthy grapes, Round thy brow and thine ears o’ershaden; With the burning darkness of eyes like pansies, Like velvet pansies Wherethrough escapes The splendid might of thy conflagrate fancies; With robe gold-tawny not hiding the shapes Of the feet whereunto it falleth down, Thy naked feet unsandallèd; With robe gold-tawny that does not veil Feet where the red Is meshed in the brown, Like a rubied sun in a Venice-sail.

The wassailous heart of the Year is thine! His Bacchic fingers disentwine His coronal At thy festival; His revelling fingers disentwine Leaf, flower, and all, And let them fall Blossom and all in thy wavering wine. The Summer looks out from her brazen tower, Through the flashing bars of July, Waiting thy ripened golden shower; Whereof there cometh, with sandals fleet, The North-west flying viewlessly, With a sword to sheer, and untameable feet, And the gorgon-head of the Winter shown To stiffen the gazing earth as stone.

In crystal Heaven’s magic sphere Poised in the palm of thy fervid hand, Thou seest the enchanted shows appear That stain Favonian firmament; Richer than ever the Occident Gave up to bygone Summer’s wand. Day’s dying dragon lies drooping his crest, Panting red pants into the West. Or the butterfly sunset claps its wings With flitter alit on the swinging blossom, The gusty blossom, that tosses and swings, Of the sea with its blown and ruffled bosom; Its ruffled bosom wherethrough the wind sings Till the crispèd petals are loosened and strown Overblown, on the sand; Shed, curling as dead Rose-leaves curl, on the fleckèd strand. Or higher, holier, saintlier when, as now, All nature sacerdotal seems, and thou. The calm hour strikes on yon golden gong, In tones of floating and mellow light A spreading summons to even-song: See how there The cowlèd night Kneels on the Eastern sanctuary-stair. What is this feel of incense everywhere? Clings it round folds of the blanch-amiced clouds, Upwafted by the solemn thurifer, The mighty spirit unknown, That swingeth the slow earth before the embannered Throne? Or is’t the Season under all these shrouds Of light, and sense, and silence, makes her known A presence everywhere, An inarticulate prayer, A hand on the soothed tresses of the air? But there is one hour scant Of this Titanian, primal liturgy; As there is but one hour for me and thee, Autumn, for thee and thine hierophant, Of this grave ending chant. Round the earth still and stark Heaven’s death-lights kindle, yellow spark by spark, Beneath the dreadful catafalque of the dark.

And I had ended there: But a great wind blew all the stars to flare, And cried, “I sweep the path before the moon! Tarry ye now the coming of the moon, For she is coming soon;” Then died before the coming of the moon. And she came forth upon the trepidant air, In vesture unimagined-fair, Woven as woof of flag-lilies; And curdled as of flag-lilies The vapour at the feet of her, And a haze about her tinged in fainter wise. As if she had trodden the stars in press, Till the gold wine spurted over her dress, Till the gold wine gushed out round her feet; Spouted over her stainèd wear, And bubbled in golden froth at her feet, And hung like a whirlpool’s mist round her. Still, mighty Season, do I see’t, Thy sway is still majestical! Thou hold’st of God, by title sure, Thine indefeasible investiture, And that right round thy locks are native to; The heavens upon thy brow imperial, This huge terrene thy ball, And o’er thy shoulders thrown wide air’s depending pall. What if thine earth be blear and bleak of hue? Still, still the skies are sweet! Still, Season, still thou hast thy triumphs there! How have I, unaware, Forgetful of my strain inaugural, Cleft the great rondure of thy reign complete, Yielding thee half, who hast indeed the all? I will not think thy sovereignty begun But with the shepherd sun That washes in the sea the stars’ gold fleeces Or that with day it ceases, Who sets his burning lips to the salt brine, And purples it to wine; While I behold how ermined Artemis Ordainèd weed must wear, And toil thy business; Who witness am of her, Her too in autumn turned a vintager; And, laden with its lampèd clusters bright, The fiery-fruited vineyard of this night.

THE HOUND OF HEAVEN.

I FLED Him, down the nights and down the days; I fled Him, down the arches of the years; I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears I hid from Him, and under running laughter. Up vistaed hopes, I sped; And shot, precipitated Adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears, From those strong Feet that followed, followed after. But with unhurrying chase, And unperturbéd pace, Deliberate speed, majestic instancy, They beat—and a Voice beat More instant than the Feet— “All things betray thee, who betrayest Me.”

I pleaded, outlaw-wise, By many a hearted casement, curtained red, Trellised with intertwining charities; (For, though I knew His love Who followéd, Yet was I sore adread Lest, having Him, I must have naught beside) But, if one little casement parted wide, The gust of His approach would clash it to Fear wist not to evade, as Love wist to pursue. Across the margent of the world I fled, And troubled the gold gateways of the stars, Smiting for shelter on their changèd bars; Fretted to dulcet jars And silvern chatter the pale ports o’ the moon. I said to dawn: Be sudden—to eve: Be soon; With thy young skiey blossoms heap me over From this tremendous Lover! Float thy vague veil about me, lest He see! I tempted all His servitors, but to find My own betrayal in their constancy, In faith to Him their fickleness to me, Their traitorous trueness, and their loyal deceit. To all swift things for swiftness did I sue; Clung to the whistling mane of every wind. But whether they swept, smoothly fleet, The long savannahs of the blue; Or whether, Thunder-driven, They clanged his chariot ’thwart a heaven, Plashy with flying lightnings round the spurn o’ their feet:— Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue. Still with unhurrying chase, And unperturbèd pace, Deliberate speed, majestic instancy, Came on the following Feet, And a Voice above their beat— “Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me.”

I sought no more that, after which I strayed, In face of man or maid; But still within the little children’s eyes Seems something, something that replies, _They_ at least are for me, surely for me! I turned me to them very wistfully; But just as their young eyes grew sudden fair With dawning answers there, Their angel plucked them from me by the hair. “Come then, ye other children, Nature’s—share With me” (said I) “your delicate fellowship; Let me greet you lip to lip, Let me twine with you caresses, Wantoning With our Lady-Mother’s vagrant tresses, Banqueting With her in her wind-walled palace, Underneath her azured daïs, Quaffing, as your taintless way is, From a chalice Lucent-weeping out of the dayspring.” So it was done: _I_ in their delicate fellowship was one— Drew the bolt of Nature’s secrecies. _I_ knew all the swift importings On the wilful face of skies; I knew how the clouds arise Spumèd of the wild sea-snortings; All that’s born or dies Rose and drooped with—made them shapers Of mine own moods, or wailful or divine— With them joyed and was bereaven. I was heavy with the even, When she lit her glimmering tapers Round the day’s dead sanctities. I laughed in the morning’s eyes. I triumphed and I saddened with all weather, Heaven and I wept together, And its sweet tears were salt with mortal mine; Against the red throb of its sunset-heart I laid my own to beat, And share commingling heat; But not by that, by that, was eased my human smart. In vain my tears were wet on Heaven’s grey cheek. For ah! we know not what each other says, These things and I; in sound _I_ speak— _Their_ sound is but their stir, they speak by silences. Nature, poor stepdame, cannot slake my drouth; Let her, if she would owe me, Drop yon blue bosom-veil of sky, and show me The breasts o’ her tenderness: Never did any milk of hers once bless My thirsting mouth. Nigh and nigh draws the chase, With unperturbèd pace, Deliberate speed majestic instancy And past those noisèd Feet A voice comes yet more fleet— “Lo! naught contents thee, who content’st not Me.”