Part 7

In nescientness, in nescientness, Mother, we put these fleshly lendings on Thou yield'st to thy poor children; took thy gift Of life, which must, in all the after days Be craved again with tears,-- With fresh and still petitionary tears. Being once bound thine almsmen for that gift, We are bound to beggary; nor our own can call The journal dole of customary life, But after suit obsequious for 't to thee. Indeed this flesh, O Mother, A beggar's gown, a client's badging, We find, which from thy hands we simply took, Naught dreaming of the after penury, In nescientness. In a little thought, in a little thought, We stand and eye thee in a grave dismay, With sad and doubtful questioning, when first Thou speak'st to us as men: like sons who hear Newly their mother's history, unthought Before, and say--"She is not as we dreamed: Ah me! we are beguiled!" What art thou, then, That art not our conceiving? Art thou not Too old for thy young children? Or perchance, Keep'st thou a youth perpetual-burnishable Beyond thy sons decrepit? It is long Since Time was first a fledgling; Yet thou may'st be but as a pendant bulla Against his stripling bosom swung. Alack! For that we seem indeed To have slipped the world's great leaping-time, and come Upon thy pinched and dozing days: these weeds, These corporal leavings, thou not cast'st us new, Fresh from thy craftship, like the lilies' coats, But foist'st us off With hasty tarnished piecings negligent, Snippets and waste From old ancestral wearings, That have seen sorrier usage; remainder-flesh After our father's surfeits; nay with chinks, Some of us, that if speech may have free leave Our souls go out at elbows. We are sad With more than our sires' heaviness, and with More than their weakness weak; we shall not be Mighty with all their mightiness, nor shall not Rejoice with all their joy. Ay, Mother! Mother! What is this Man, thy darling kissed and cuffed, Thou lustingly engender'st, To sweat, and make his brag, and rot, Crowned with all honour and all shamefulness? From nightly towers He dogs the secret footsteps of the heavens, Sifts in his hands the stars, weighs them as gold-dust, And yet is he successive unto nothing But patrimony of a little mould, And entail of four planks. Thou hast made his mouth Avid of all dominion and all mightiness, All sorrow, all delight, all topless grandeurs, All beauty, and all starry majesties, And dim transtellar things;--even that it may, Filled in the ending with a puff of dust, Confess--"It is enough." The world left empty What that poor mouthful crams. His heart is builded For pride, for potency, infinity, All heights, all deeps, and all immensities, Arrased with purple like the house of kings, To stall the grey-rat, and the carrion-worm Statelily lodge. Mother of mysteries! Sayer of dark sayings in a thousand tongues, Who bringest forth no saying yet so dark As we ourselves, thy darkest! We the young, In a little thought, in a little thought, At last confront thee, and ourselves in thee, And wake disgarmented of glory: as one On a mount standing, and against him stands, On the mount adverse, crowned with westering rays, The golden sun, and they two brotherly Gaze each on each; He faring down To the dull vale, his Godhead peels from him Till he can scarcely spurn the pebble-- For nothingness of new-found mortality-- That mutinies against his gallèd foot. Littly he sets him to the daily way, With all around the valleys growing grave, And known things changed and strange; but he holds on, Though all the land of light be widowèd, In a little thought.

In a little dust, in a little dust, Earth, thou reclaim'st us, who do all our lives Find of thee but Egyptian villeinage. Thou dost this body, this enhavocked realm, Subject to ancient and ancestral shadows; Descended passions sway it; it is distraught With ghostly usurpation, dinned and fretted With the still-tyrannous dead; a haunted tenement, Peopled from barrows and outworn ossuaries. Thou giv'st us life not half so willingly As thou undost thy giving; thou that teem'st The stealthy terror of the sinuous pard, The lion maned with curlèd puissance, The serpent, and all fair strong beasts of ravin, Thyself most fair and potent beast of ravin; And thy great eaters thou, the greatest, eat'st. Thou hast devoured mammoth and mastodon, And many a floating bank of fangs, The scaly scourges of thy primal brine, And the tower-crested plesiosaure. Thou fill'st thy mouth with nations, gorgest slow On purple æons of kings; man's hulking towers Are carcase for thee, and to modern sun Disglutt'st their splintered bones. Rabble of Pharaohs and Arsacidæ Keep their cold house within thee; thou hast sucked down How many Ninevehs and Hecatompyloi And perished cities whose great phantasmata O'erbrow the silent citizens of Dis:-- Hast not thy fill? Tarry awhile, lean Earth, for thou shalt drink Even till thy dull throat sicken, The draught thou grow'st most fat on; hear'st thou not The world's knives bickering in their sheaths? O patience! Much offal of a foul world comes thy way, And man's superfluous cloud shall soon be laid In a little blood.

In a little peace, in a little peace, Thou dost rebate thy rigid purposes Of imposed being, and relenting, mend'st Too much, with nought. The westering Phoebus' horse Paws i' the lucent dust as when he shocked The East with rising; O how may I trace In this decline that morning when we did Sport 'twixt the claws of newly-whelped existence, Which had not yet learned rending? we did then Divinely stand, not knowing yet against us Sentence had passed of life, nor commutation Petitioning into death. What's he that of The Free State argues? Tellus! bid him stoop, Even where the low _hic jacet_ answers him; Thus low, O Man! there's freedom's seignory, Tellus' most reverend sole free commonweal, And model deeply-policied: there none Stands on precedence, nor ambitiously Woos the impartial worm, whose favours kiss With liberal largesse all; there each is free To be e'en what he must, which here did strive So much to be he could not; there all do Their uses just, with no flown questioning. To be took by the hand of equal earth They doff her livery, slip to the worm, Which lacqueys them, their suits of maintenance, And that soiled workaday apparel cast, Put on condition: Death's ungentle buffet Alone makes ceremonial manumission; So are the heavenly statutes set, and those Uranian tables of the primal Law. In a little peace, in a little peace, Like fierce beasts that a common thirst makes brothers, We draw together to one hid dark lake; In a little peace, in a little peace, We drain with all our burthens of dishonour Into the cleansing sands o' the thirsty grave. The fiery pomps, brave exhalations, And all the glistering shows o' the seeming world, Which the sight aches at, we unwinking see Through the smoked glass of Death; Death, wherewith's fined The muddy wine of life; that earth doth purge Of her plethora of man; Death, that doth flush The cumbered gutters of humanity; Nothing, of nothing king, with front uncrowned, Whose hand holds crownets; playmate swart o' the strong; Tenebrous moon that flux and refluence draws Of the high-tided man; skull-housèd asp That stings the heel of kings; true Fount of Youth, Where he that dips is deathless; being's drone-pipe; Whose nostril turns to blight the shrivelled stars, And thicks the lusty breathing of the sun; Pontifical Death, that doth the crevasse bridge To the steep and trifid God; one mortal birth That broker is of immortality. Under this dreadful brother uterine, This kinsman feared, Tellus, behold me come, Thy son stern-nursed; who mortal-motherlike, To turn thy weanlings' mouth averse, embitter'st Thine over-childed breast. Now, mortal-sonlike, I thou hast suckled, Mother, I at last Shall sustenant be to thee. Here I untrammel, Here I pluck loose the body's cerementing, And break the tomb of life; here I shake off The bur o' the world, man's congregation shun, And to the antique order of the dead I take the tongueless vows: my cell is set Here in thy bosom; my little trouble is ended In a little peace.

CONTEMPLATION

This morning saw I, fled the shower, The earth reclining in a lull of power: The heavens, pursuing not their path, Lay stretched out naked after bath, Or so it seemed; field, water, tree, were still, Nor was there any purpose on the calm-browed hill.

The hill, which sometimes visibly is Wrought with unresting energies, Looked idly; from the musing wood, And every rock, a life renewed Exhaled like an unconscious thought When poets, dreaming unperplexed, Dream that they dream of nought. Nature one hour appears a thing unsexed, Or to such serene balance brought That her twin natures cease their sweet alarms, And sleep in one another's arms. The sun with resting pulses seems to brood, And slacken its command upon my unurged blood.

The river has not any care Its passionless water to the sea to bear; The leaves have brown content; The wall to me has freshness like a scent, And takes half animate the air, Making one life with its green moss and stain; And life with all things seems too perfect blent For anything of life to be aware. The very shades on hill, and tree, and plain, Where they have fallen doze, and where they doze remain. No hill can idler be than I; No stone its inter-particled vibration Investeth with a stiller lie; No heaven with a more urgent rest betrays The eyes that on it gaze. We are too near akin that thou shouldst cheat Me, Nature, with thy fair deceit. In poets floating like a water-flower Upon the bosom of the glassy hour, In skies that no man sees to move, Lurk untumultuous vortices of power, For joy too native, and for agitation Too instant, too entire for sense thereof, Motion like gnats when autumn suns are low,-- Perpetual as the prisoned feet of love On the heart's floors with painèd pace that go. From stones and poets you may know, Nothing so active is, as that which least seems so.

For he, that conduit running wine of song, Then to himself does most belong, When he his mortal house unbars To the importunate and thronging feet That round our corporal walls unheeded beat; Till, all containing, he exalt His stature to the stars, or stars Narrow their heaven to his fleshly vault: When, like a city under ocean, To human things he grows a desolation, And is made a habitation For the fluctuous universe To lave with unimpeded motion. He scarcely frets the atmosphere With breathing, and his body shares The immobility of rocks; His heart's a drop-well of tranquillity; His mind more still is than the limbs of fear, And yet its unperturbed velocity The spirit of the simoon mocks. He round the solemn centre of his soul Wheels like a dervish, while his being is Streamed with the set of the world's harmonies, In the long draft of whatsoever sphere He lists the sweet and clear Clangour of his high orbit on to roll, So gracious is his heavenly grace; And the bold stars does hear, Every one in his airy soar, For evermore Shout to each other from the peaks of space, As thwart ravines of azure shouts the mountaineer.

CORRELATED GREATNESS

O nothing, in this corporal earth of man, That to the imminent heaven of his high soul Responds with colour and with shadow, can Lack correlated greatness. If the scroll Where thoughts lie fast in spell of hieroglyph Be mighty through its mighty habitants; If God be in His Name; grave potence if The sounds unbind of hieratic chants; All's vast that vastness means. Nay, I affirm Nature is whole in her least things exprest, Nor know we with what scope God builds the worm. Our towns are copied fragments from our breast; And all man's Babylons strive but to impart The grandeurs of his Babylonian heart.

JULY FUGITIVE

Can you tell me where has hid her, Pretty Maid July? I would swear one day ago She passed by, I would swear that I do know The blue bliss of her eye: "Tarry, maid, maid," I bid her; But she hastened by. Do you know where she has hid her, Maid July?

Yet in truth it needs must be The flight of her is old; Yet in truth it needs must be, For her nest, the earth, is cold. No more in the poolèd Even Wade her rosy feet, Dawn-flakes no more plash from them To poppies 'mid the wheat.

She has muddied the day's oozes With her petulant feet; Scared the clouds that floated As sea-birds they were, Slow on the coerule Lulls of the air, Lulled on the luminous Levels of air: She has chidden in a pet All her stars from her; Now they wander loose and sigh Through the turbid blue, Now they wander, weep, and cry-- Yea, and I too-- "Where are you, sweet July, Where are you?"

Who hath beheld her footprints, Or the pathway she goes? Tell me, wind, tell me, wheat, Which of you knows? Sleeps she swathed in the flushed Arctic Night of the rose? Or lie her limbs like Alp-glow On the lily's snows? Gales, that are all-visitant, Find the runaway; And for him who findeth her (I do charge you say) I will throw largesse of broom Of this summer's mintage, I will broach a honey-bag Of the bee's best vintage. Breezes, wheat, flowers sweet, None of them knows! How then shall we lure her back From the way she goes? For it were a shameful thing, Saw we not this comer Ere Autumn camp upon the fields Red with rout of Summer.

When the bird quits the cage, We set the cage outside, With seed and with water, And the door wide, Haply we may win it so Back to abide. Hang her cage of earth out O'er Heaven's sunward wall, Its four gates open, winds in watch By reinèd cars at all; Relume in hanging hedgerows The rain-quenched blossom, And roses sob their tears out On the gale's warm heaving bosom; Shake the lilies till their scent Over-drip their rims, That our runaway may see We do know her whims: Sleek the tumbled waters out For her travelled limbs; Strew and smooth blue night thereon, There will--O not doubt her!-- The lovely sleepy lady lie, With all her stars about her!

ANY SAINT

His shoulder did I hold Too high that I, o'erbold Weak one, Should lean thereon.

But He a little hath Declined His stately path And my Feet set more high;

That the slack arm may reach His shoulder, and faint speech Stir His unwithering hair.

And bolder now and bolder I lean upon that shoulder, So dear He is and near.

And with His aureole The tresses of my soul Are blent In wished content.

Yea, this too gentle Lover Hath flattering words to move her To pride By His sweet side.

Ah, Love! somewhat let be! Lest my humility Grow weak When Thou dost speak!

Rebate Thy tender suit, Lest to herself impute Some worth Thy bride of earth!

A maid too easily Conceits herself to be Those things Her lover sings;

And being straitly wooed, Believes herself the Good And Fair He seeks in her.

Turn something of Thy look, And fear me with rebuke, That I May timorously

Take tremors in Thy arms, And with contrivèd charms Allure A love unsure.

Not to me, not to me, Builded so flawfully, O God, Thy humbling laud!

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.

Thee God's 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.

_From_ "THE VICTORIAN ODE"

_Written for the Queen's Golden Jubilee Day_, 1897

Lo, in this day we keep the yesterdays, And those great dead of the Victorian line.[D] They passed, they passed, but cannot pass away, For England feels them in her blood like wine. She was their mother, and she is their daughter, This lady of the water, And from their loins she draws the greatness which they were. And still their wisdom sways, Their power lives in her. Their thews it is, England, that lift thy sword, They are the splendour, England, in thy song, They sit unbidden at thy council-board, Their fame doth compass all thy coasts from wrong, And in thy sinews they are strong. Their absence is a presence and a guest In this day's feast; This living feast is also of the dead, And this, O England, is thine All Souls' Day. And when thy cities flake the night with flames, Thy proudest torches yet shall be their names.

Come hither, proud and ancient East, Gather ye to this Lady of the North, And sit down with her at her solemn feast, Upon this culminant day of all her days; For ye have heard the thunder of her goings-forth, And wonder of her large imperial ways. Let India send her turbans, and Japan Her pictured vests from that remotest isle Seated in the antechambers of the Sun: And let her Western sisters for a while Remit long envy and disunion, And take in peace Her hand behind the buckler of her seas, 'Gainst which their wrath has splintered; come, for she Her hand ungauntlets in mild amity.

Victoria! Queen, whose name is victory, Whose woman's nature sorteth best with peace, Bid thou the cloud of war to cease Which ever round thy wide-girt empery Fumes, like to smoke about a burning brand, Telling the energies which keep within The light unquenched, as England's light shall be; And let this day hear only peaceful din. For, queenly woman, thou art more than woman; Thy name the often-struck barbarian shuns: Thou art the fear of England to her foemen, The love of England to her sons. And this thy glorious day is England's; who Can separate the two? Now unto thee The plenitude of the glories thou didst sow Is garnered up in prosperous memory; And, for the perfect evening of thy day, An untumultuous bliss, serenely gay, Sweetened with silence of the after-glow.

Nor does the joyous shout Which all our lips give out Jar on that quietude; more than may do A radiant childish crew, With well-accordant discord fretting the soft hour, Whose hair is yellowed by the sinking blaze Over a low-mouthed sea. Exult, yet be not twirled, England, by gusts of mere Blind and insensate lightness; neither fear The vastness of thy shadow on the world. If in the East Still strains against its leash the unglutted beast Of war; if yet the cannon's lip be warm; Thou, whom these portents warn but not alarm, Feastest, but with thine hand upon the sword, As fits a warrior race. Not like the Saxon fools of olden days, With the mead dripping from the hairy mouth, While all the South Filled with the shaven faces of the Norman horde.

[D] Who had passed before him in ghostly procession--the "holy poets," the soldiers, sailors, and men of science.

ST MONICA

At the Cross thy station keeping With the mournful mother weeping, Thou, unto the sinless Son, Weepest for thy sinful one. Blood and water from His side Gush; in thee the streams divide: From thine eyes the one doth start, But the other from thy heart.

Mary, for thy sinner, see, To her Sinless mourns with thee: Could that Son the son not heed, For whom two such mothers plead? So thy child had baptism twice, And the whitest from thine eyes.