Part 6

The Potter’s finger shaping me.... Praise, praise! the clay curves up Not for dishonour, though it be God’s least adornèd cup.

V

Sins grew a heavy load and cold, And pressed me to the dust; “Whither,” I cried, “can this be rolled Ere I behold the Just?”

But now I claim them for my own; Thy face I needs must find; Lo! thus I wrought, yea, I alone, Not weak, beguiled, or blind.

See my full arms, my heaped-up shame, An evil load I bring: Thou, God, art a consuming flame, Accept the hateful thing.

Pronounce the dread condemning word, I stand in blessed fear; Dear is Thy cleansing wrath, O Lord, The fire that burns is dear.

VI

I found Thee in my heart, O Lord, As in some secret shrine; I knelt, I waited for Thy word, I joyed to name Thee mine.

I feared to give myself away To that or this; beside Thy altar on my face I lay, And in strong need I cried.

Those hours are past. Thou art not mine, And therefore I rejoice, I wait within no holy shrine, I faint not for the voice.

In Thee we live; and every wind Of heaven is Thine; blown free To west, to east, the God unshrined Is still discovering me.

IN THE CATHEDRAL CLOSE

In the Dean’s porch a nest of clay With five small tenants may be seen, Five solemn faces, each as wise As though its owner were a Dean;

Five downy fledglings in a row, Packed close, as in the antique pew The school-girls are whose foreheads clear At the _Venite_ shine on you.

Day after day the swallows sit With scarce a stir, with scarce a sound, But dreaming and digesting much They grow thus wise and soft and round.

They watch the Canons come to dine, And hear the mullion-bars across, Over the fragrant fruit and wine Deep talk of rood-screen and reredos.

Her hands with field-flowers drench’d, a child Leaps past in wind-blown dress and hair, The swallows turn their heads askew-- Five judges deem that she is fair.

Prelusive touches sound within, Straightway they recognize the sign, And, blandly nodding, they approve The minuet of Rubinstein.

They mark the cousins’ schoolboy talk, (Male birds flown wide from minster bell), And blink at each broad term of art, Binomial or bicycle.

Ah! downy young ones, soft and warm, Doth such a stillness mask from sight Such swiftness? can such peace conceal Passion and ecstasy of flight?

Yet somewhere ’mid your Eastern suns, Under a white Greek architrave At morn, or when the shaft of fire Lies large upon the Indian wave,

A sense of something dear gone-by Will stir, strange longings thrill the heart For a small world embowered and close, Of which ye some time were a part.

The dew-drench’d flowers, the child’s glad eyes Your joy unhuman shall control, And in your wings a light and wind Shall move from the Maestro’s soul.

FIRST LOVE

My long first year of perfect love, My deep new dream of joy; She was a little chubby girl, I was a chubby boy.

I wore a crimson frock, white drawers, A belt, a crown was on it; She wore some angel’s kind of dress And such a tiny bonnet,

Old-fashioned, but the soft brown hair Would never keep its place; A little maid with violet eyes, And sunshine in her face.

O my child-queen, in those lost days How sweet was daily living! How humble and how proud I grew, How rich by merely giving!

She went to school, the parlour-maid Slow stepping to her trot; That parlour-maid, ah, did she feel How lofty was her lot!

Across the road I saw her lift My Queen, and with a sigh I envied Raleigh; my new coat Was hung a peg too high.

A hoard of never-given gifts I cherished,--priceless pelf; ’Twas two whole days ere I devour’d That peppermint myself.

In Church I only prayed for her-- “O God bless Lucy Hill;” Child, may His angels keep their arms Ever around you still.

But when the hymn came round, with heart That feared some heart’s surprising Its secret sweet, I climb’d the seat ’Mid rustling and uprising;

And there against her mother’s arm The sleeping child was leaning, While far away the hymn went on, The music and the meaning.

Oh I have loved with more of pain Since then, with more of passion, Loved with the aching in my love After our grown-up fashion;

Yet could I almost be content To lose here at your feet A year or two, you murmuring elm, To dream a dream so sweet.

THE SECRET OF THE UNIVERSE: AN ODE

(_By a Western Spinning Dervish_)

I spin, I spin, around, around, And close my eyes, And let the bile arise From the sacred region of the soul’s Profound; Then gaze upon the world; how strange! how new! The earth and heaven are one, The horizon-line is gone, The sky how green! the land how fair and blue! Perplexing items fade from my large view, And thought which vexed me with its false and true Is swallowed up in Intuition; this, This is the sole true mode Of reaching God, And gaining the universal synthesis Which makes All--One; while fools with peering eyes Dissect, divide, and vainly analyse. So round, and round, and round again! How the whole globe swells within my brain, The stars inside my lids appear, The murmur of the spheres I hear Throbbing and beating in each ear; Right in my navel I can feel The centre of the world’s great wheel. Ah peace divine, bliss dear and deep, No stay, no stop, Like any top Whirling with swiftest speed, I sleep. O ye devout ones round me coming, Listen! I think that I am humming; No utterance of the servile mind With poor chop-logic rules agreeing Here shall ye find, But inarticulate burr of man’s unsundered being. Ah, could we but devise some plan, Some patent jack by which a man Might hold himself ever in harmony With the great Whole, and spin perpetually, As all things spin Without, within, As Time spins off into Eternity, And Space into the inane Immensity, And the Finite into God’s Infinity, Spin, spin, spin, spin.

BEAU RIVAGE HOTEL

SATURDAY EVENING

Below there’s a brumming and strumming And twiddling and fiddling amain, And sweeping of muslins and laughter, And pattering of luminous rain.

Fair England, resplendent Columbia, Gaul, Teuton,--how precious a smother! But the happiest is brisk little Polly To galop with only her brother.

And up to the fourth étage landing, Come the violins’ passionate cries, Where the pale femme-de-chambre is sitting With sleep in her beautiful eyes.

IN A JUNE NIGHT

(_A Study in the manner of Robert Browning_)

I

See, the door opens of this alcove, Here we are now in the cool night air Out of the heat and smother; above The stars are a wonder, alive and fair, It is a perfect night,--your hand,-- Down these steps and we reach the garden, An odorous, dim, enchanted land, With the dusk stone-god for only warden.

II

Was I not right to bring you here? We might have seen slip the hours within Till God’s new day in the East were clear, And His silence abashed the dancers’ din, Then each have gone away, the pain And longing greatened, not satisfied, By a hand’s slight touch or a glance’s gain,-- And now we are standing side by side!

III

Come to the garden’s end,--not so, Not by the grass, it would drench your feet; See, here is a path where the trees o’ergrow And the fireflies flicker; but, my sweet, Lean on me now, for one cannot see Here where the great leaves lie unfurled To take the whole soul and the mystery Of a summer night poured out for the world.

IV

Into the open air once more! Yonder’s the edge of the garden-wall Where we may sit and talk,--deplore This half-hour lost from so bright a ball, Or praise my partner with the eyes And the raven hair, or the other one With her flaxen curls, and slow replies As near asleep in the Tuscan sun.

V

Hush! do you hear on the beach’s cirque Just below, though the lake is dim, How the little ripples do their work, Fall and faint on the pebbled rim, So they say what they want, and then Break at the marge’s feet and die; It is so different with us men Who never can once speak perfectly.

VI

Yet hear me,--trust that they mean indeed Oh, so much more than the words will say Or shall it be ’twixt us two agreed That all we might spend a night and day In striving to put in a word or thought, Which were then from ourselves a thing apart, Shall be just believed and quite forgot, When my heart is felt against your heart.

VII

Ah, but that will not tell you all, How I am yours not thus alone, To find how your pulses rise and fall, And winning you wholly be your own, But yours to be humble, could you grow The Queen that you are, remote and proud, And I with only a life to throw Where the others’ flowers for your feet were strowed.

VIII

Well, you have faults too! I can blame If you choose: this hand is not so white Or round as a little one that came On my shoulder once or twice to-night Like a soft white dove. Envy her now! And when you talked to that padded thing And I passed you leisurely by, your brow Was cold, not a flush nor fluttering.

IX

Such foolish talk! while that one star still Dwells o’er the mountain’s margin-line Till the dawn takes all; one may drink one’s fill Of such quiet; there’s a whisper fine In the leaves a-tremble, and now ’tis dumb; We have lived long years, love, you and I, And the heart grows faint; your lips, then: come,-- It were not so very hard to die.

FROM APRIL TO OCTOBER

I. BEAUTY

The beauty of the world, the loveliness Of woodland pools, which doves have coo’d to sleep, Dreaming the noontide through beneath the deep Of heaven; the radiant blue’s benign caress When April clouds are rifted; buds that bless Each little nook and bower, where the leaves keep Dew and light shadow, and quick lizards peep For sunshine,--these, and the ancient stars no less, And the sea’s mystery of dusk and bright Are but the curious characters that lie, Priestess of Beauty, in thy robe of light. Ah, where, divine One, is thy veiled retreat, That I may creep to it and clasp thy feet, And gaze in thy pure face though I should die?

II. TWO INFINITIES

A lonely way, and as I went my eyes Could not unfasten from the Spring’s sweet things, Lush-sprouted grass, and all that climbs and clings In loose, deep hedges, where the primrose lies In her own fairness, buried blooms surprise The plunderer bee and stop his murmurings, And the glad flutter of a finch’s wings Outstartle small blue-speckled butterflies. Blissfully did one speedwell plot beguile My whole heart long; I loved each separate flower, Kneeling. I looked up suddenly--Dear God! There stretched the shining plain for many a mile, The mountains rose with what invincible power! And how the sky was fathomless and broad!

III. THE DAWN

The Dawn,--O silence and wise mystery! Was it a dream, the murmurous room, the glitter, The tinkling songs, the dance, and that fair sitter I talk’d æsthetics to so rapturously? Sweet Heaven, thy silentness and purity, Thy sister-words of blame, not railings bitter, With these great quiet leaves, and the light twitter Of small birds wakening in the greenery, And one stream stepping quickly on its way So well it knows the glad work it must do, Reclaim a wayward heart scarce answering true To that sweet strain of hours that closes May; How the pale marge quickens with pulsings new, O welcome to thy world thou fair, great day!

IV. THE SKYLARK

There drops our lark into his secret nest! All is felt silence and the broad blue sky; Come, the incessant rain of melody Is over; now earth’s quietudes invest, In cool and shadowy limit, that wild breast Which trembled forth the sudden ecstasy Till raptures came too swift, and song must die Since midmost deeps of heaven grew manifest. My poet of the garden-walk last night Sang in rich leisure, ceased and sang again, Of pleasure in green leaves, of odours given By flowers at dusk, and many a dim delight; The finer joy was thine keen-edged with pain, Soarer! alone with thy own heart and heaven.

V. THE MILL-RACE

“Only a mill-race,” said they, and went by, But we were wiser, spoke no word, and stayed; It was a place to make the heart afraid With so much beauty, lest the after sigh, When one had drunk its sweetness utterly, Should leave the spirit faint; a living shade From beechen branches o’er the water played To unweave that spell through which the conquering sky Subdues the sweet will of each summer stream; So this ran freshlier through the swaying weeds. I gazed until the whole was as a dream, Nor should have waked or wondered had I seen Some smooth-limbed wood-nymph glance across the green, Or Naiad lift a head amongst the reeds.

VI. IN THE WOOD

A place where Una might have fallen asleep Assured of quiet dreams, a place to make Sad eyes bright with strange tears; a little lake In the green heart of a wood; the crystal deep Of heaven so wide if there should chance to stray Into that stainless field some thin cloud-flake, When not a breeze the trance of noon dare break, About the middle it must melt away. Lilies upon the water in their leaves, Stirr’d by faint ripples that go curving on To little reedy coves; a stream that grieves To the fine grasses and wild flowers around; And we two in a golden silence bound, Not a line read of rich _Endymion_.

VII. THE PAUSE OF EVENING

Nightward on dimmest wing in Twilight’s train The grey hours floated smoothly, lingeringly; A solemn wonder was the western sky Rich with the slow forsaking sunset-stain, Barred by long violet cloud; hillside and plain The feet of Night had touched; a wind’s low sigh Told of whole pleasure lapsed,--then rustled by With soft subsidence in the rippling grain. Why in dark dews, unready to depart, Did Evening pause and ponder, nor perceive Star follow star into the central blue? What secret was the burden of her heart? What grave, sweet memory grew she loath to leave? What finer sense, no morrow may renew?

VIII. IN JULY

Why do I make no poems? Good my friend Now is there silence through the summer woods, In whose green depths and lawny solitudes The light is dreaming; voicings clear ascend Now from no hollow where glad rivulets wend, But murmurings low of inarticulate moods, Softer than stir of unfledged cushat broods, Breathe, till o’erdrowsed the heavy flower-heads bend. Now sleep the crystal and heart-charmèd waves Round white, sunstricken rocks the noontide long, Or ’mid the coolness of dim lighted caves Sway in a trance of vague deliciousness; And I,--I am too deep in joy’s excess For the imperfect impulse of a song.

IX. IN SEPTEMBER

Spring scarce had greener fields to show than these Of mid September; through the still warm noon The rivulets ripple forth a gladder tune Than ever in the summer; from the trees Dusk-green, and murmuring inward melodies, No leaf drops yet; only our evenings swoon In pallid skies more suddenly, and the moon Finds motionless white mists out on the leas. Dear chance it were in some rough wood-god’s lair A month hence, gazing on the last bright field, To sink o’er-drowsed, and dream that wild-flowers blew Around my head and feet silently there, Till Spring’s glad choir adown the valley pealed, And violets trembled in the morning dew.

X. IN THE WINDOW

A still grey evening: Autumn in the sky, And Autumn on the hills and the sad wold; No congregated towers of pearl and gold In the vaporous West, no fiend limned duskily, No angel whose reared trump must soon be loud, Nor mountains which some pale green lake enfold Nor islands in an ocean glacial-cold; Hardly indeed a noticeable cloud. Yet here I lingered, all my will asleep, Gazing an hour with neither joy nor pain, No noonday trance in midsummer more deep; And wake with a vague yearning in the dim, Blind room, my heart scarce able to restrain The idle tears that tremble to the brim.

XI. AN AUTUMN MORNING

O what a morn is this for us who knew The large, blue, summer mornings, heaven let down Upon the earth for men to drink, the crown Of perfect human living, when we grew Great-hearted like the Gods! Come, we will strew White ashes on our hair, nor strive to drown In faint hymn to the year’s fulfilled renown The sterile grief which is the season’s due. Lightly above the vine-rows of rich hills Where the brown peasant girls move amid grapes The swallow glances; let him cry for glee! But yon pale mist diffused ’twixt paler shapes,-- Once sovereign trees,--my spirit also fills, And an east-wind comes moaning from the sea.

SEA VOICES

Was it a lullaby the Sea went singing About my feet, some old-world monotone, Filled full of secret memories, and bringing Not hope to sting the heart, but peace alone, Sleep and the certitude of sleep to be Wiser henceforth than all philosophy?

Truth! did we seek for truth with eye and brain Through days so many and wasted with desire? Listen, the same long gulfing voice again: Tired limbs lie slack as sands are, eyes that tire Close gently, close forever, twilight grey Receives you, tenderer than the glaring day.

[_He sleeps, and after an interval awakes._]

Ah terror, ah delight! A sudden cry, Anguish, or hope, or triumph. Awake, arise,-- The winds awake! Is ocean’s lullaby This clarion-call? Her kiss, the spray that flies Salt to the lip and cheek? Her motion light Of nursing breasts, this swift pursuit and flight?

O wild sea-voices! Victory and defeat, But ever deathless passion and unrest, White wings upon the wind and flying feet, Disdain and wrath, a reared and hissing crest, The imperious urge, and last, a whole life spent In bliss of one supreme abandonment.

ABOARD THE “SEA-SWALLOW”

The gloom of the sea-fronting cliffs Lay on the water, violet-dark, The pennon drooped, the sail fell in, And slowly moved our bark.

A golden day; the summer dreamed In heaven and on the whispering sea, Within our hearts the summer dreamed; The hours had ceased to be.

Then rose the girls with bonnets loosed, And shining tresses lightly blown, Alice and Adela, and sang A song of Mendelssohn.

O sweet, and sad, and wildly clear, Through summer air it sinks and swells, Wild with a measureless desire, And sad with all farewells.

SEA-SIGHING

This is the burden of the Sea, Loss, failure, sorrows manifold; Yet something though the voice sound free Remains untold.

Listen! that secret sigh again Kept very low, a whole heart’s waste; What means this inwardness of pain? This sob repressed?

Some ancient sin, some supreme wrong, Some huge attempt God brought to nought, All over while the world was young, And ne’er forgot?

Those lips, which open wide and cry, Weak as pale flowers or trembling birds, Are proud, and fixed immutably Against such words.

Confession from that burdened soul No ghostly counsellor may win; Could such as we receive its whole Passion and sin?

In this high presence priest or king, Prophet or singer of the earth, With yon cast sea-weed were a thing Of equal worth.

IN THE MOUNTAINS

Fatigued of heart, and owning how the world Is strong, too strong for will of mine, my steps Through the tall pines I led, to reach that spur Which strikes from off the mountain toward the West. I hoped to lull a fretted heart to sleep, And in the place of definite thought a sense Possessed me, dim and sweet, of Motherhood, The breasts of Nature, warmth, and soothing hands, And tender, inarticulate nursing-words Slow uttered o’er tired eyes.

But suddenly Rude waking! Suddenly the rocks, the trees Stood up in rangèd power, rigid, erect, And all cried out on me “Away with him! Away! He is not of us, has no part In ours or us! Traitor, away with him!” And the birds shrilled it “Traitor,” and the flowers Stared up at me with small, hard, insolent eyes. But I, who had been weak, was weak no more, Nor shrank at all, but with deliberate step Moved on, and with both hands waved off the throng, And feared them not, nor sent defiance back. Thus, till the pine-glooms fell away, and goats Went tinkling and no herd-boy near; glad airs With sunshine in them moved angelical Upon the solitary heights; the sky Held not a cloud from marge to marge; and now Westward the sun was treading, calm and free. I lay upon the grass, and how an hour Went past I know not. When again time was, The sun had fallen, and congregated clouds, A vision of great glories, held the West, And through them, and beyond, the hyaline Led the charm’d spirit through infinite spaces on. I think of all the men upon this earth The sight was mine alone; it for my soul, My soul for it, until all seeing died. Where did I live transfigured? through what times Of heaven’s great year? What sudden need of me For sacrifice on altar, or for priest, For soldier at the rampart, cup-bearer At feasts of God, rapt singer in the joy Of consonant praise, doom’d rebel for the fires? --I know not, but somewhere some part I held, Nor fail’d when summoned.

When the body took Its guest once more the clouds were massy-grey, The event was ended; yet a certain thing Abode with me, which still eludes its name, Yet lies within my heart like some great word A mage has taught, and he who heard it once Cannot pronounce, and never may forget. But this I dare record,--when all was past, And once again I turned to seek the vale, And moved adown the slippery pine-wood path, In the dimness every pine tree bowed to me With duteous service, and the rocks lay couched Like armèd followers round, and one bird sang The song I chose, and heavy fragrance came From unseen flowers, and all things were aware One passed who had been called and consecrate.

“THE TOP OF A HILL CALLED _CLEAR_”

(_In sight of the Celestial City_)

And all my days led on to this! the days Of pallid light, of springs no sun would warm, Of chilling rain autumnal, which decays High woods while veering south the quick wings swarm, The days of hot desire, of broken dreaming, Mechanic toil, poor pride that was but seeming, And bleeding feet, and sun-smit flowerless ways.