Part 2

I hang 'mid men my needless head, And my fruit is dreams, as theirs is bread: The goodly men and the sun-hazed sleeper Time shall reap; but after the reaper The world shall glean of me, me the sleeper!

Love, love! your flower of withered dream In leavèd rhyme lies safe, I deem, Sheltered and shut in a nook of rhyme, From the reaper man, and his reaper Time.

Love! _I_ fall into the claws of Time: But lasts within a leavèd rhyme All that the world of me esteems-- My withered dreams, my withered dreams.

TO MONICA THOUGHT DYING

You, O the piteous you! Who all the long night through Anticipatedly Disclose yourself to me Already in the ways Beyond our human comfortable days; How can you deem what Death Impitiably saith To me, who listening wake For your poor sake? When a grown woman dies, You know we think unceasingly What things she said, how sweet, how wise; And these do make our misery. But you were (you to me The dead anticipatedly!) You--eleven years, was 't not, or so?-- Were just a child, you know; And so you never said Things sweet immeditatably and wise To interdict from closure my wet eyes: But foolish things, my dead, my dead! Little and laughable, Your age that fitted well. And was it such things all unmemorable, Was it such things could make Me sob all night for your implacable sake?

Yet, as you said to me, In pretty make-believe of revelry, So, the night long, said Death With his magniloquent breath; (And that remembered laughter, Which in our daily uses followed after, Was all untuned to pity and to awe). "_A cup of chocolate, One farthing is the rate, You drink it through a straw._"

How could I know, how know Those laughing words when drenched with sobbing so? Another voice than yours, than yours, he hath! My dear, was 't worth his breath, His mighty utterance?--yet he saith, and saith! This dreadful Death to his own dreadfulness Doth dreadful wrong, This dreadful childish babble on his tongue! That iron tongue, made to speak sentences And wisdom insupportably complete, Why should it only say the long night through, In mimicry of you,-- "_A cup of chocolate, One farthing is the rate, You drink it through a straw, a straw, a straw!_"

Oh, of all sentences, Piercingly incomplete! Why did you teach that fatal mouth to draw, Child, impermissible awe From your old trivialness? Why have you done me this Most unsustainable wrong, And into Death's control Betrayed the secret places of my soul? Teaching him that his lips, Uttering their native earthquake and eclipse, Could never so avail To rend from hem to hem the ultimate veil Of this most desolate Spirit, and leave it stripped and desecrate,-- Nay, never so have wrung From eyes and speech weakness unmanned, unmeet; As when his terrible dotage to repeat Its little lesson learneth at your feet; As when he sits among His sepulchres, to play With broken toys your hand has cast away, With derelict trinkets of the darling young. Why have you taught--that he might so complete His awful panoply From your cast playthings--why, This dreadful childish babble to his tongue, Dreadful and sweet?

THE MAKING OF VIOLA

I

_The Father of Heaven._ Spin, daughter Mary, spin, Twirl your wheel with silver din; Spin, daughter Mary, spin, Spin a tress for Viola.

_Angels._ Spin, Queen Mary, a Brown tress for Viola!

II

_The Father of Heaven._ Weave, hands angelical, Weave a woof of flesh to pall-- Weave, hands angelical-- Flesh to pall our Viola.

_Angels._ Weave, singing brothers, a Velvet flesh for Viola!

III

_The Father of Heaven._ Scoop, young Jesus, for her eyes, Wood-browned pools of Paradise-- Young Jesus, for the eyes, For the eyes of Viola.

_Angels._ Tint, Prince Jesus, a Duskèd eye for Viola!

IV

_The Father of Heaven._ Cast a star therein to drown, Like a torch in cavern brown, Sink a burning star to drown Whelmed in eyes of Viola.

_Angels._ Lave, Prince Jesus, a Star in eyes of Viola!

V

_The Father of Heaven._ Breathe, Lord Paraclete, To a bubbled crystal meet-- Breathe, Lord Paraclete-- Crystal soul for Viola.

_Angels._ Breathe, Regal Spirit, a Flashing soul for Viola!

VI

_The Father of Heaven._ Child-angels, from your wings Fall the roseal hoverings, Child-angels, from your wings On the cheeks of Viola.

_Angels._ Linger, rosy reflex, a Quenchless stain, on Viola!

VII

_All things being accomplished, saith the Father of Heaven_: Bear her down, and bearing, sing, Bear her down on spyless wing, Bear her down, and bearing, sing, With a sound of viola.

_Angels._ Music as her name is, a Sweet sound of Viola!

VIII

Wheeling angels, past espial, Danced her down with sound of viol; Wheeling angels, past espial, Descanting on "Viola."

_Angels._ Sing, in our footing, a Lovely lilt of "Viola!"

IX

Baby smiled, mother wailed, Earthward while the sweetling sailed; Mother smiled, baby wailed, When to earth came Viola.

_And her elders shall say_: So soon have we taught you a Way to weep, poor Viola!

X

Smile, sweet baby, smile, For you will have weeping-while; Native in your Heaven is smile,-- But your weeping, Viola?

Whence your smiles, we know, but ah! Whence your weeping, Viola?-- Our first gift to you is a Gift of tears, my Viola!

TO MY GODCHILD

FRANCIS M. W. M.

This labouring, vast, Tellurian galleon, Riding at anchor off the orient sun, Had broken its cable, and stood out to space Down some frore Arctic of the aerial ways: And now, back warping from the inclement main, Its vapourous shroudage drenched with icy rain, It swung into its azure roads again; When, floated on the prosperous sun-gale, you Lit, a white halcyon auspice, 'mid our frozen crew.

To the Sun, stranger, surely you belong, Giver of golden days and golden song; Nor is it by an all-unhappy plan You bear the name of me, his constant Magian. Yet ah! from any other that it came, Lest fated to my fate you be, as to my name. When at the first those tidings did they bring, My heart turned troubled at the ominous thing: Though well may such a title him endower, For whom a poet's prayer implores a poet's power. The Assisian, who kept plighted faith to three, To Song, to Sanctitude, and Poverty, (In two alone of whom most singers prove A fatal faithfulness of during love!); He the sweet Sales, of whom we scarcely ken How God he could love more, he so loved men; The crown and crowned of Laura and Italy; And Fletcher's fellow--from these, and not from me, Take you your name, and take your legacy!

Or, if a right successive you declare When worms, for ivies, intertwine my hair, Take but this Poesy that now followeth My clayey best with sullen servile breath, Made then your happy freedman by testating death. My song I do but hold for you in trust, I ask you but to blossom from my dust. When you have compassed all weak I began, Diviner poet, and ah! diviner man-- The man at feud with the perduring child In you before song's altar nobly reconciled-- From the wise heavens I half shall smile to see How little a world, which owned you, needed me. If, while you keep the vigils of the night, For your wild tears make darkness all too bright, Some lone orb through your lonely window peeps, As it played lover over your sweet sleeps, Think it a golden crevice in the sky, Which I have pierced but to behold you by!

And when, immortal mortal, droops your head, And you, the child of deathless song, are dead; Then, as you search with unaccustomed glance The ranks of Paradise for my countenance, Turn not your tread along the Uranian sod Among the bearded counsellors of God; For, if in Eden as on earth are we, I sure shall keep a younger company: Pass where beneath their rangèd gonfalons The starry cohorts shake their shielded suns, The dreadful mass of their enridgèd spears; Pass where majestical the eternal peers, The stately choice of the great Saintdom, meet-- A silvern segregation, globed complete In sandalled shadow of the Triune feet; Pass by where wait, young poet-wayfarer, Your cousined clusters, emulous to share With you the roseal lightnings burning 'mid their hair; Pass the crystalline sea, the Lampads seven:-- Look for me in the nurseries of Heaven.

EX ORE INFANTIUM

Little Jesus, wast Thou shy Once, and just so small as I? And what did it feel like to be Out of Heaven, and just like me? Didst Thou sometimes think of _there_, And ask where all the angels were? I should think that I would cry For my house all made of sky; I would look about the air, And wonder where my angels were; And at waking 'twould distress me-- Not an angel there to dress me!

Hadst Thou ever any toys, Like us little girls and boys? And didst Thou play in Heaven with all The angels, that were not too tall, With stars for marbles? Did the things Play _Can you see me?_ through their wings?

Didst Thou kneel at night to pray, And didst Thou join Thy hands, this way? And did they tire sometimes, being young, And make the prayer seem very long? And dost Thou like it best, that we Should join our hands to pray to Thee? I used to think, before I knew, The prayer not said unless we do. And did Thy Mother at the night Kiss Thee, and fold the clothes in right? And didst Thou feel quite good in bed, Kissed, and sweet, and Thy prayers said?

Thou canst not have forgotten all That it feels like to be small: And Thou know'st I cannot pray To Thee in my father's way-- When Thou wast so little, say, Couldst Thou talk Thy Father's way?-- So, a little Child, come down And hear a child's tongue like Thy own; Take me by the hand and walk, And listen to my baby-talk. To Thy Father show my prayer (He will look, Thou art so fair), And say: "O Father, I, Thy Son, Bring the prayer of a little one."

And He will smile, that children's tongue Has not changed since Thou wast young!

From "Sister Songs"

A CHILD'S KISS

Where its umbrage[A] was enrooted, Sat, white-suited, Sat, green-amiced and bare-footed, Spring, amid her minstrelsy; There she sat amid her ladies, Where the shade is Sheen as Enna mead ere Hades' Gloom fell thwart Persephone. Dewy buds were interstrown Through her tresses hanging down, And her feet Were most sweet, Tinged like sea-stars, rosied brown. A throng of children like to flowers were sown About the grass beside, or clomb her knee: I looked who were that favoured company. And one there stood Against the beamy flood Of sinking day, which, pouring its abundance, Sublimed the illuminous and volute redundance Of locks that, half dissolving, floated round her face; As see I might Far off a lily-cluster poised in sun Dispread its gracile curls of light. I knew what chosen child was there in place! I knew there might no brows be, save of one, With such Hesperian fulgence compassèd, Which in her moving seemed to wheel about her head.

_O Spring's little children, more loud your lauds upraise, For this is even Sylvia with her sweet, feat ways! Your lovesome labours lay away, And prank you out in holiday, For syllabling to Sylvia; And all you birds on branches, lave your mouths with May, To bear with me this burthen For singing to Sylvia!_

Spring, goddess, is it thou, desirèd long? And art thou girded round with this young train?-- If ever I did do thee ease in song, Now of thy grace let me one meed obtain, And list thou to one plain. Oh, keep still in thy train, After the years when others therefrom fade, This tiny, well-belovèd maid! To whom the gate of my heart's fortalice, With all which in it is, And the shy self who doth therein immew him 'Gainst what loud leaguerers battailously woo him, I, bribèd traitor to him, Set open for one kiss.

A kiss? for a child's kiss? Aye, goddess, even for this. Once, bright Sylviola! in days not far, Once--in that nightmare-time which still doth haunt My dreams, a grim, unbidden visitant-- Forlorn, and faint, and stark, I had endured through watches of the dark The abashless inquisition of each star, Yea, was the outcast mark Of all those heavenly passers' scrutiny; Stood bound and helplessly For Time to shoot his barbèd minutes at me; Suffered the trampling hoof of every hour In night's slow-wheelèd car; Until the tardy dawn dragged me at length From under those dread wheels; and, bled of strength, I waited the inevitable last. Then there came past A child; like thee, a spring-flower; but a flower Fallen from the budded coronal of Spring, And through the city-streets blown withering. She passed,--O brave, sad, lovingest, tender thing!-- And of her own scant pittance did she give, That I might eat and live: Then fled, a swift and trackless fugitive. Therefore I kissed in thee The heart of Childhood, so divine for me; And her, through what sore ways, And what unchildish days, Borne from me now, as then, a trackless fugitive. Therefore I kissed in thee Her, child! and innocency, And spring, and all things that have gone from me, And that shall never be; All vanished hopes, and all most hopeless bliss, Came with thee to my kiss. And ah! so long myself had strayed afar From child, and woman, and the boon earth's green, And all wherewith life's face is fair beseen; Journeying its journey bare Five suns, except of the all-kissing sun Unkissed of one; Almost I had forgot The healing harms, And whitest witchery, a-lurk in that Authentic cestus of two girdling arms: And I remembered not The subtle sanctities which dart From childish lips' unvalued precious brush, Nor how it makes the sudden lilies push Between the loosening fibres of the heart. Then, that thy little kiss Should be to me all this, Let workaday wisdom blink sage lids thereat; Which towers a flight three hedgerows high, poor bat! And straightway charts me out the empyreal air. Its chart I wing not by, its canon of worth Scorn not, nor reck though mine should breed it mirth: And howso thou and I may be disjoint, Yet still my falcon spirit makes her point Over the covert where Thou, sweetest quarry, hast put in from her!

_Soul, hush these sad numbers, too sad to upraise In hymning bright Sylvia, unlearn'd in such ways! Our mournful moods lay me away, And prank our thoughts in holiday, For syllabling to Sylvia; When all the birds on branches lave their mouths with May, To bear with us this burthen For singing to Sylvia!_

[A] The umbrage of an elm-tree, described earlier in the _Sister Songs_ from which this and the six succeeding poems are detached.

POET AND ANCHORITE

Love and love's beauty only hold their revels In life's familiar, penetrable levels: What of its ocean-floor? I dwell there evermore. From almost earliest youth I raised the lids o' the truth, And forced her bend on me her shrinking sight; Ever I knew me Beauty's eremite, In antre of this lowly body set, Girt with a thirsty solitude of soul. Natheless I not forget How I have, even as the anchorite, I too, imperishing essences that console. Under my ruined passions, fallen and sere, The wild dreams stir, like little radiant girls, Whom in the moulted plumage of the year Their comrades sweet have buried to the curls. Yet, though their dedicated amorist, How often do I bid my visions hist, Deaf to them, pleading all their piteous fills; Who weep, as weep the maidens of the mist Clinging the necks of the unheeding hills: And their tears wash them lovelier than before, That from grief's self our sad delight grows more. Fair are the soul's uncrispèd calms, indeed, Endiapered with many a spiritual form Of blosmy-tinctured weed; But scarce itself is conscious of the store Suckled by it, and only after storm Casts up its loosened thoughts upon the shore. To this end my deeps are stirred; And I deem well why life unshared Was ordainèd me of yore. In pairing-time, we know, the bird Kindles to its deepmost splendour, And the tender Voice is tenderest in its throat: Were its love for ever nigh it, Never by it, It might keep a vernal note, The crocean and amethystine In their pristine Lustre linger on its coat. Therefore must my song-bower lone be, That my tone be Fresh with dewy pain alway; She, who scorns my dearest care ta'en, An uncertain Shadow of the sprite of May.

THE OMEN

Yet is there more, whereat none guesseth, love! Upon the ending of my deadly night (Whereof thou hast not the surmise, and slight Is all that any mortal knows thereof), Thou wert to me that earnest of day's light, When, like the back of a gold-mailèd saurian Heaving its slow length from Nilotic slime, The first long gleaming fissure runs Aurorian Athwart the yet dun firmament of prime. Stretched on the margin of the cruel sea Whence they had rescued me, With faint and painful pulses was I lying; Not yet discerning well If I had 'scaped, or were an icicle, Whose thawing is its dying. Like one who sweats before a despot's gate, Summoned by some presaging scroll of fate, And knows not whether kiss or dagger wait; And all so sickened is his countenance, The courtiers buzz, "Lo, doomed!" and look at him askance:-- At Fate's dread portal then Even so stood I, I ken, Even so stood I, between a joy and fear, And said to mine own heart, "Now if the end be here!"

They say, Earth's beauty seems completest To them that on their death-beds rest; Gentle lady! she smiles sweetest Just ere she clasps us to her breast. And I,--now _my_ Earth's countenance grew bright, Did she but smile me towards that nuptial-night? But, whileas on such dubious bed I lay, One unforgotten day, As a sick child waking sees Wide-eyed daisies Gazing on it from its hand, Slipped there for its dear amazes; So between thy father's knees I saw _thee_ stand, And through my hazes Of pain and fear thine eyes' young wonder shone. Then, as flies scatter from a carrion, Or rooks in spreading gyres like broken smoke Wheel, when some sound their quietude has broke, Fled, at thy countenance, all that doubting spawn: The heart which I had questioned spoke, A cry impetuous from its depths was drawn,-- "I take the omen of this face of dawn!" And with the omen to my heart cam'st thou. Even with a spray of tears That one light draft was fixed there for the years. And now?-- The hours I tread ooze memories of thee, Sweet, Beneath my casual feet. With rainfall as the lea, The day is drenched with thee; In little exquisite surprises Bubbling deliciousness of thee arises From sudden places, Under the common traces Of my most lethargied and customed paces.

THE MIRAGE

As an Arab journeyeth Through a sand of Ayaman, Lean Thirst, lolling its cracked tongue, Lagging by his side along; And a rusty-wingèd Death Grating its low flight before, Casting ribbèd shadows o'er The blank desert, blank and tan: He lifts by hap toward where the morning's roots are His weary stare,-- Sees, although they plashless mutes are, Set in a silver air Fountains of gelid shoots are, Making the daylight fairest fair; Sees the palm and tamarind Tangle the tresses of a phantom wind;-- A sight like innocence when one has sinned! A green and maiden freshness smiling there, While with unblinking glare The tawny-hided desert crouches watching her. 'Tis a vision: Yet the greeneries Elysian He has known in tracts afar; Thus the enamouring fountains flow, Those the very palms that grow, By rare-gummed Sava, or Herbalimar.-- Such a watered dream has tarried Trembling on my desert arid; Even so Its lovely gleamings Seemings show Of things not seemings; And I gaze, Knowing that, beyond my ways, Verily All these _are_, for these are She.