Part 4

There regent Melancholy wide controls; There Earth-and Heaven-Love play for aureoles; There Sweetness out of Sadness breaks at fits, Like bubbles on dark water, or as flits A sudden silver fin through its deep infinites; There amorous Thought has sucked pale Fancy's breath, And Tenderness sits looking towards the lands of death; There Feeling stills her breathing with her hand, And Dream from Melancholy part wrests the wand And on this lady's heart, looked you so deep, Poor Poetry has rocked himself to sleep: Upon the heavy blossom of her lips Hangs the bee Musing; nigh, her lids eclipse Each half-occulted star beneath that lies; And in the contemplation of those eyes, Passionless passion, wild tranquillities.

EPILOGUE TO THE POET'S SITTER

_Wherein he excuseth himself for the Manner of the Portrait_

Alas! now wilt thou chide, and say (I deem) My figured descant hides the simple theme: Or, in another wise reproving, say I ill observe thine own high reticent way. Oh, pardon, that I testify of thee What thou couldst never speak, nor others be!

Yet (for the book is not more innocent Of what the gazer's eyes makes so intent), She will but smile, perhaps, that I find my fair Sufficing scope in such strait theme as her. "Bird of the sun! the stars' wild honey bee! Is your gold browsing done so thoroughly? Or sinks a singèd wing to narrow nest in me?" (Thus she might say: for not this lowly vein Out-deprecates her deprecating strain.) Oh, you mistake, dear lady, quite; nor know Ether was strict as you, its loftiness as low! 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.

* * * * *

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.

AFTER HER GOING

The after-even! Ah, did I walk, Indeed, in her or even? For nothing of me or around But absent She did leaven, Felt in my body as its soul, And in my soul its heaven.

"Ah me! my very flesh turns soul, Essenced," I sighed, "with bliss!" And the blackbird held his lutany, All fragrant-through with bliss; And all things stilled were as a maid Sweet with a single kiss.

For grief of perfect fairness, eve Could nothing do but smile; The time was far too perfect fair, Being but for a while; And ah, in me, too happy grief Blinded herself with smile!

The sunset at its radiant heart Had somewhat unconfest: The bird was loath of speech, its song Half-refluent on its breast, And made melodious toyings with A note or two at best.

And she was gone, my sole, my Fair, Ah, sole my Fair, was gone! Methinks, throughout the world 'twere right I had been sad alone; And yet, such sweet in all things' heart, And such sweet in my own!

Miscellaneous Poems

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, there 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, the 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 soul 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 in 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!

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 chasmèd fears, From those strong Feet that followed, followed after. But with unhurrying chase, And unperturbèd 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 followèd, 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 clangèd 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."

Naked I wait Thy love's uplifted stroke! My harness piece by piece Thou hast hewn from me, And smitten me to my knee; I am defenceless utterly. I slept, methinks, and woke, And, slowly gazing, find me stripped in sleep. In the rash lustihead of my young powers, I shook the pillaring hours And pulled my life upon me; grimed with smears, _I_ stand amid the dust o' the mounded years-- My mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap. My days have crackled and gone up in smoke, Have puffed and burst as sun-starts on a stream. Yea, faileth now even dream The dreamer, and the lute the lutanist; Even the linked fantasies, in whose blossomy twist I swung the earth a trinket at my wrist, Are yielding; cords of all too weak account For earth with heavy griefs so overplussed. Ah! is Thy love indeed A weed, albeit an amaranthine weed, Suffering no flowers except its own to mount? Ah! must-- Designer infinite!-- Ah! must Thou char the wood ere Thou canst limn with it? My freshness spent its wavering shower i' the dust; And now my heart is as a broken fount, Wherein tear-drippings stagnate, spilt down ever From the dank thoughts that shiver Upon the sighful branches of my mind. Such is; what is to be? The pulp so bitter, how shall taste the rind? I dimly guess what Time in mists confounds; Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds From the hid battlements of Eternity; Those shaken mists a space unsettle, then Round the half-glimpsèd turrets slowly wash again. But not ere him who summoneth I first have seen, enwound With glooming robes purpureal, cypress-crowned; His name I know, and what his trumpet saith. Whether man's heart or life it be which yields Thee harvest, must Thy harvest fields Be dunged with rotten death?

Now of that long pursuit Comes on at hand the bruit; That Voice is round me like a bursting sea: "And is thy earth so marred, Shattered in shard on shard? Lo, all things fly thee, for thou fliest Me! Strange, piteous, futile thing, Wherefore should any set thee love apart? Seeing none but I makes much of naught" (He said), "And human love needs human meriting: How hast thou merited-- Of all man's clotted clay the dingiest clot? Alack, thou knowest not How little worthy of any love thou art! Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee Save Me, save only Me? All which I took from thee I did but take, Not for thy harms, But just that thou might'st seek it in My arms. All which thy child's mistake Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home: Rise, clasp My hand, and come!"

Halts by me that footfall: Is my gloom, after all, Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly? "Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest, I am He Whom thou seekest! Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me."

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 moultings 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 you 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 DEAD ASTRONOMER

(STEPHEN PERRY, S.J.)

Starry amorist, starward gone, Thou art--what thou didst gaze upon! Passed through thy golden garden's bars, Thou seest the Gardener of the Stars.

She, about whose moonèd brows Seven stars make seven glows, Seven lights for seven woes; She, like thine own Galaxy, All lustres in one purity:-- What said'st thou, Astronomer, When thou did'st discover _her_? When thy hand its tube let fall, Thou found'st the fairest star of all!

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!

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 a 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.