Part 2

_A Voice._ By Pompey’s certain pillar, he’s a Christian! The prancing gesture, see: the head upcast, The bosom all in a white wrath, and yet Bridled and bitted: that’s their duplex way.

_The Prefect._ I hesitate.

_The Crowd._ Eustratius Proculus, We take him for a Christian!

_The Prefect._ Prisoner, Attend, and ease our cares. Obediently Unto the known gods wilt thou sacrifice?

[Didymus _is silent_.

Art thou a Christian: nay?

_Didymus._ Tell me.

_The Prefect._ Alas, Why loath to sacrifice? Do thou but so, Irreverence to the law shall be condoned, And for the brave adventure of a night, No tax be laid.

_Didymus._ I sacrifice no more. Who hath inspired me? I can but attest One Infinite loved her for her confident eyes. Would we were open to the heart of things! For if He keeps without spot, as some say, Those leal to Him, is it not wonderful? And Him thus fair reputed, Him untried, Shall I reject? I sacrifice no more, Save to the Living: save to Him who died, And rose again.

_The Bailiff._ Ye hear.

_A Voice._ A leprous word!

_The Prefect._ It is a difficult hour: I must comport Myself within mine office, steadfastly. Bring me the writ. One act is mine to do: Another time for fond alternatives! Though fain to spare, fain to respect in thee, Arms, broadening empire, and invincible Rome, I that would never, fighting civic harm, See Diocletian fail, nor have it said Great Decius and Valerian failed before, Rise to the common weal, and so bar out Contagion from our long inviolate air.

_Didymus._ I feel the little lovely kiss of death Breathe at my temples, softer than a bride.

_The Prefect._ Octavius Didymus, bound in triple cords, Shall be at sunrise, on the appointed plain, Beheaded. Gracious Cæsar, hail! all hail!

_The Crowd._ Hail, Cæsar!

_Didymus._ These have made me Thine, O Christ!

_The Prefect._ Reflect: I can revoke, I would revoke. Name but thy young confederate’s hiding-place.

_Didymus._ I know not, sir, where Theodora is. She passed: and I remain.... Demonic laughter! I would I had said less: it saddens me. In all this swarm, there figures verily Not one that will believe; not one kind soul But is so sodden with the slime of life, (Life pagan, and without our Star,) that he Must read awry, and slander my fair deed. Ah, if they knew: but wherefore should they know? Lord, fold amid the leafage of my heart Her lilied memory! I will strive no more; But turn to Thee, away from time and tears, A melting snowflake in Thy mercy’s sea.

_The Prefect._ Disperse.

[_The trumpets sound._

_A Voice._ Our novel damsel, fallen dumb, On the good public flint shall soon strike fire; And we may trap that masking man-at-arms, Before a lizard gets his inch of sun. Ho, ho! Away: lead on!

_The Crowd._ Huzza! huzza!

V

_Dawn. The place of execution, west of the city, looking seaward. The same crowd, leading_ Didymus.

_A Voice._ A long march is well ended. How fares he?

_The Bailiff._ He thrives; I hear him murmuring idle spells.

_Didymus._ Soft is the twilight breeze, soaked full of sea. The veiled isle yonder rears her breathing lamp; And under us, in hollows of the crags, Each washing wave goes like a gentle gong. Across the hills, there brims a lucent tide, Inaudible, yet lovelier; living gray Ridges the pulsing east, a surf of light; And doubling ever on itself, a glow Now near, now far, breaks up the crested sky, As children, pink against the green sea-garden, Play in the earthly waters, unafraid, And ruddier than all roses, race ashore. So come, so come, gracile and glorious, O rose unborn, my Day!

_The Bailiff._ We’ll halt awhile, And shortly see our way to honest work.... Listen! Do others follow us, or no? It seemed our concourse emptied all the town. Who stirs through this dim weather?

_A slave rushes in._

_A Slave._ Theodora! They are bringing Theodora here to die.

_The Crowd._ Victory!

_Didymus._ Lord my God, what hast Thou wrought? I tremble with the sorrow and the joy. The shouts, the trampling feet, renew for me A sacrifice I thought to make no more.

_The Bailiff._ Drag her yet nigher.

_The Crowd._ She is welcome!

_A Woman._ See: Her knees are white; the gold hair brushes them; The glimmering breastplate, in the breaking dark, Shows comely.

_A Voice._ Take it off!

_Theodora._ Not so; not yet.

_The Bailiff._ Then tell thine own night’s tale: there’s privilege.

_Theodora._ A simplest tale. When dedicated hands Gave me this dress, lest I should suffer wrong, The strong disguise bred courage; but I went Only a mile: the armor was too heavy. Where blossomed almonds shade the roadside well, Did I fall down, aswoon; I think I swooned For long; and some late revelers, passing by, Found me, and with a tumult took me hither. Fulfill your will in pity; I would rest.

_The Bailiff._ Half of the warrant drawn for Didymus, Is yet to read: thy fate and his are one.

_Theodora._ On Didymus? Most miserable I, If he must suffer, being kind to me! What have ye done with Didymus?

_Didymus._ I am nigh.

_Voices._ Look: they have run together! Miscreants!

_Theodora._ O strange ordaining! Tell me: by what right Art thou encountered on the fatal ground?

_Didymus._ By right more fair than thine, because, forsooth, Not punished for thy planned deliverance, But rather for the sacred Name, I stand Thus ready to the headsman. Aye: give thanks; Yet thou, too rash, hast clouded my last hour. Did I not guard thee? Was my prayer in vain? For into horror’s mouth thou hast returned.

_Theodora._ Nay: chide not. Test their changed intent, and mark That in it lurks for me no word but “Death,” No word at all but dear dispassionate “Death.” Were I, still helpless, in dread peril caught, To thy releasing hand I still had cried, Who could not yield mine honor up; but this, The debt of life, I can myself discharge. And if I die not so for Christ, to-morrow Will these be angered less with me? and then For taking flight, for guiltiness of thy guilt, My helper, shall I not less nobly die? Was it from martyrdom erewhile I ran, Or only from the maw of wickedness? And lightly I relinquished unto thee My girlish raiment, not my soul and self: My fond profession of the Christian name. Would he deprive me now of my last due, Greatly deceives me one I thought my friend! What will become of me if thou shouldst go, Alone? That cruel hour would strike away My second sentence, glad, desirable, And lower me to the insupportable first. Leave me not to the torment; rather share The blessedness; be jealous even for me! Let it forevermore of thee be told How from the thousand hands of a brute foe Thou savedst once the spouse of Christ for Him. Ah, Didymus, Didymus! of the eternal crown Rob me not thou: for thine to thee I gave.

_Didymus._ Thy sovereign pinion overmasters harm, Life, Death, and me: and if I feared, I erred. We shall not be divided: and therefore Blessèd be One who hath despised me not, And, of His clemency, absolved from ill His handmaid Theodora.

_Theodora._ Blessèd He, Towards only children twain, most merciful Both in the olden time, and unto us, Who so, in triumph, wait our vigil’s close. O Light from Heaven, break, break!

_The Bailiff._ Attend, all men: Heed how to deal with perished Christian swine, For much the law doth vary, touching them. And since, too oft, their kind do set a watch, And, ere the wild beasts from their lairs descend, Conceal their bodies elsewhere, ’tis decreed That these upon the bordering desert straight, Shall, after death, be burned.

_The Crowd._ It suits us well.

_Theodora._ Then not to secret chambers of the rock, Our own, with hymnal rite, shall lead us home; Not to our natural nest beside the sea, Above blown Pharos and the trader’s sail, Where, day and night, the Eucharistic Love Broods over us, shall thou and I be borne, And laid amid our fathers in the Faith, Sleep the good sleep of immortality. Not one small tress of ours shall reverence save; No fragment of our interchangèd garb Be shrined forever, nor ascetic lips Embrace, in our carved names, the Crucified. God’s Will be done, and done with all accord In all! and may He grant that unto thee, (Who art both more and less than neophyte,) Denial of that quiet sepulture Be not so keen a pain.--His look’s afar: He has not answered.

_Didymus._ ... Whole on every side! Whole, boundless, and immingled: not a chink In tremulous textures of this bubbly world, Where spirits might slip through. O spacious hour Of ocean-distances, air-altitudes, Pearl cloudless rounding over waveless pearl: Pure Mediterranean! bland Africa! Ignoble are the dreams that make of you Mere ante-room; and ante-room to--what? True to original and terminal earth, Rather may royal man, ensphered so fair, His chemic end not thanklessly salute, When too soon, from our arc of known content, We blunder, poor blithe faces, to the Void. That spark once fallen, can it live again? If poets weep, if just Aurelius Evade, if wistful Plato pause unsure, Ah, who art Thou that biddest me believe?

_Theodora._ Encased in thy so serviceable steel, Against my bosom, I have kept for thee An aromatic and a covered cup. Come hither: drain it. Sudden over me, While I lay stricken, ere my captors came, There bent the childish Shepherd of the hills, Austerer than his wont, and uttered low: “Wake, Theodora! Bear to Didymus, Whom, spent in final battle, thou shalt meet, A little draught of mingled wine and dew, For baptism, and viaticum.”

_Didymus._ I hear. A stupor, a temptation, clogged my brain: Gone evermore.--What hast thou been to me! In any of God’s halls where I may find Him, I seek thee also there: O dove! thou knowest Thy hidden heavenly way through words withheld. I kneel, but cords impede my hands. Pour thou, Till I have slaked a supersensual thirst, And, faint with salutation, drink to Him, Christ Jesu, whom in dying I adore.

_The Bailiff._ Despatch: broad daylight comes.

_The Headsman._ All is prepared.

_Theodora._ Amen: and Alleluia! Heart flown home, If thou wouldst speak, rise up.

_Didymus._ Ye worthy men, I would not stay you long. Of Didymus, Who made his port of intellectual storm At Alexandria, tell only this: That he for Christ died Christian, with clear joy. And when his comrades from their outpost ride, And, reining in abreast, ask news of him, Lay in their wondering ears, I charge you all, That word miraculous, that happy word.

_A Voice._ I ever knew it. Devil! Sorceress!

_The Bailiff._ What troubles them?

_The Crowd._ The bowl whereof he drank, Between her lifted fingers melts away! Their magic arts, and them, destroy!

_The Bailiff._ The axe: Smite first the soldier.

_Didymus._ Theodora saint, How beautiful, how more than banner-bright, Streams over the far roofs our birthday sun! Farewell, and follow me.

[Didymus _is executed_.

_The Crowd._ Blood! blood! The other!

_Theodora._ Each moment of mine exile, so distinct, So vast, so bitter, and so ever-during, Burns sweet before Our Lord: love’s last slow grain Rich as the first: for lo, the censer’s broken; And all my soul foreruns her call to climb Out of this ruin. Lest I slip, or cry, O visible form of light, dear Didymus! Turn now: give me thy hand.

SHORTER POEMS

THE SQUALL

WHILE all was glad, It seemed our birch-tree had, That August hour, intelligence of death; For warningly against the eaves she beat Her body old, lamenting, prophesying, And the hot breath Of startled ferny hollows at her feet Spread out: a toneless sighing.

Across an argent sea, Distinct unto the farthest reef and isle, The clouds began to be. Huge forms ’neath sombre draperies, awhile Made slow uncertain rally; But as their wills conjoined, and from the north The leader shook his lance, O then how fair Unvested, they stood forth, In diverse armor, plumed majestically, Each with his own esquires, a King in air!

Up moved the dark vanguard, With insolent colors that o’erdusked the skies, And trailed from beach to beach: Massed orange and mould-green; vermilion barred On bronze and mottled silver; saffron dyes, And purples migratory, Fanned each in each, As the long column broke, athirst for glory.

Sudden, the thunder! Upon the roofed verandas how it rolled, Twice, thrice: a thud and flame of doom that told New-fallen, nor far away, Some black destruction on the innocent day. And little Everard Deep in the hammock under, eyes alight With healthful fear and wonder The brave do ne’er unlearn, Clenched his soft hand, and breathing hard, Smiled there against his father, like a knight Baptized on Cressy field, or Bannockburn.

A moment gone, Into our Thessaly, from Acheron, With imperceptive sorcery, crawled ashore Odors unnamable: an exhalation Of men and ships in oozy graves. (Ah, cease, Derisive nereids! cease: Be it enough, that even ye can pour, From crystal flagons of your ancient peace, So strange obscene libation.) But with the thunder-peal Sprang the pure winds, their thuribles swung wide, To chase that tainted tide; Fresh from the pastures and the cedar-grove, They rode the ridged Atlantic’s copper plain, And rent a league of distance to reveal A sail, aslant, astrain, Impetuous for the cove; And tossing after, panic-stricken, Another, and a third: white spirits, fain to sicken, Nor out of natural harm salvation gain.

The selfsame hunter winds that drave The horror down, as faithful-hearted drew The sad clouds from their carnage, and up-piled Their rebel gonfalons, or jocund threw Their cannon in the wave; And subtly, with a parting whisper, gave An eve most mild: A sunset like a prayer, a world all rose and blue.

A good world, as it was, And as it shall be: clear circumferent space, Where punctual yet, for worship of their Cause, The stars came thick in choir. Sleep had our Everard in her cool embrace, Else from his cot he hardly need have stooped To see, (and laugh to see!) the headland pine Embossed on changing fire: For close behind it, cooped Within a smallest span, In fury, up and down, and round and round, The routed leopards of the lightning ran: Bright, bright, inside their dungeon-bars, malign They ran; and ran till dawn, without a sound.

MEMORIAL DAY

O DAY of roses and regret, Kissing the old graves of our own! Not to the slain love’s lovely debt Alone;

But jealous hearts that live and ache Remember, and while drums are mute, Beneath your banners’ bright outbreak, Salute:

And say for us to lessening ranks That keep the memory and the pride, On whose thinned hair our tears and thanks Abide,

Who from their saved Republic pass, Glad with the Prince of Peace to dwell: _Hail, dearest few! and soon, alas, Farewell._

ROMANS IN DORSET

TO A. B.

STUPOR was on the heath, And wrath along the sky; Space everywhere; beneath A flat and treeless wold for us, and darkest noon on high.

Sullen quiet below, But storm in upper air! A wind from long ago, In mouldy chambers of the cloud, had ripped an arras there,

And singed the triple gloom, And let through, in a flame, Crowned faces of old Rome: Regnant o’er Rome’s abandoned ground, processional they came.

Uprisen as any sun Through vistas hollow grey, Aloft, and one by one, In brazen casques the Emperors loomed large, and sank away.

In ovals of wan light Each warrior eye and mouth: A pageant brutal bright As if, once over, loudly passed Jove’s laughter in the south;

And dimmer, these among, Some cameo’d head aloof, With ringlets heavy-hung, Like yellow stonecrop comely grown around a castle roof.

An instant: gusts again, And heaven’s impacted wall, The hot insistent rain, The thunder-shock; and of the Past mirage no more at all.

No more the alien dream Pursuing, as we went, With glory’s cursèd gleam: Nor sins of Cæsar’s ruined line engulfed us, innocent.

The vision great and dread Corroded; sole in view Was empty Egdon spread, Her crimson summer weeds ashake in tempest: but we knew

What Tacitus had borne In that wrecked world we saw; And what thine heart uptorn, My Juvenal! distraught with love of violated Law.

VALSE JEUNE

ARE there favoring ladies above thee? Are there dowries and lands? Do they say Seven others are fair? But I love thee: _Aultre n’auray!_

All the sea is a lawn in our county; All the morrow, our star of delay. I am King: let me live on thy bounty! _Aultre n’auray!_

To the fingers so light and so rosy That have pinioned my heart, (welladay!) Be a kiss, be a ring with this posy: _Aultre n’auray!_

THE CHANTRY

A LOYAL lady young; a knight for honor slain: All beauty and all quiet sealed for aye upon Their images that lie in coif and morion. A moment since, through rifts and pauses of the rain, The day shot in; the lancet window showered again Its moth-like play of silver, rose, and sapphire; shone What arms of warring duchies glorious, bygone: Lombardy, Desmond, Malta, suitored Aquitaine! The while aloft in Art’s immortal summer-tide, Fair is the carven hostel, fortunate either guest, And men of moodier England pass, and hear outside Fury of toil alone, and fate’s diurnal storm, Hearts with the King of Saints, hearts beating light and warm! To these your courage give, that these attain your rest.

MONOCHROME

SHUT fast again in Beauty’s sheath Where ancient forms renew, The round world seems above, beneath, One wash of faintest blue,

And air and tide so stilly sweet In nameless union lie, The little far-off fishing fleet Goes drifting up the sky.

Secure of neither misted coast Nor ocean undefined, Our saddening sail is like the ghost Of one that served mankind,

Who in the void, as we upon This melancholy sea, Finds labor and allegiance done, And Self begin to be.

THE VIGIL IN TYRONE

TO G. S.

“TELL it over!” Thus, in twilight, the old gamekeeper of gentle blood, To the grandchild teasing, teasing, and pink as the bedtime daisy-bud,

Tells it over.--“When that happened, I was a boy, and I sat one day By the river, in mid-morning, my drowsy cheek to the pleasant clay.

“Sudden opened, near and under, the believed-in cave on the green hillside! Thick the darkness, but I saw them: the Earl Hugh’s men that never have died,

“Men gone by, ensainted, fabled, the men unnamed in the living air: Like a taper’s flame among them, my soul and body were shaken there.

“Nine full hundred, nine and ninety, (O’Neil the thousandth when he comes back!) All a-row, asleep in armor, by horses magical white or black:

“Mighty horses satin-shouldered, with sheen of the golden stirrups grand; Mighty troopers drunk with battle, the bridle in every iron hand.

“Sunburn on their folded faces was fresh as childhood and fierce as death. Think: the sunburn got in marches against the demon Elizabeth!

“Next my knee, then, rose a hero, rose up a little, not loosening rein; Gazing steady, softly said he, and sharply said to me, over again:

“‘_Is the time come?_’ (That’s for vengeance: the clan is hungry and hot to start.) ‘_Is the time come, is the time come?_’ Thrice the sound of it stabbed my heart.

“Page or herald if he thought me, the hope that changed like a rushing sea, Failed and ebbed, and straight outbore him, and took the terror away from me;

“Sands of sleep dragged down his eyelid, and slacked his hand on the charger good, Surely, heavily, surely, slowly.--I ran till I reached our roof in the wood.

“Long ago. This thing the fathers had whispered of, I beheld and heard! Though not yet my splendid dreamer the answer win to his uttered word,

“Patience: that shall be, hereafter. The chief is late, but he seeks his own, Riding up to break the quiet in all the farm-lands of all Tyrone.

“They have hid so, they have waited; to hate that smoulders their blood is leal. O to help them crash around him true Innishowen’s unrusted steel!

“O to help them cheer and follow O’Neil, O’Neil from his foreign grave! O to throne thee, saddest, fairest, as once thou wert, on the warless wave!

“Drift of moss for many a summer conceals the door on the charmed hillside; Clouds and hail of death blow over the Earl Hugh’s men that never have died.

“Nine full hundred, nine and ninety, (O’Neil the thousandth when he comes back!) Lie a-row, asleep in armor, by horses magical white or black:

“Mighty horses satin-shouldered, with sheen of the golden stirrups grand; Mighty troopers ripe for battle, the bridle in every ready hand.

“‘_Is the time come?_’ (Long the sorrow, little isle, my love, for your sake, your sake.) ‘_Is the time come? Is the time come?_’ Ah, hush, no more: or my heart will break.”

Pretty Kathie, closer pressing, into that face in silence peers: There they fall, the sunset showers, the far-off, idle, eternal tears.

“BECAUSE NO MAN HATH HIRED US”

S. MATT. XX. 7.

I

TILL I, that am a soldier born, can find Some war so worthy, I may pledge it straight Unto my dear and virgin sword for mate, Who now lies cloistered in her sheath behind, Must I ride thus in vain; and on my mind The torment and the thirst of glory wait, And never cause with zeal inviolate Be strong enough my haughty youth to bind. Ah, readier men-at-arms! beneath the trees Where shepherd-meek, I bear mine altered part, And watch the charge far off, and think with awe: _I have seen higher, holier things than these, And therefore must to these refuse my heart_,[2]-- That heavenly pride forbids my hand to draw.

[2] Τὸ καλόν: Arthur Hugh Clough.

II

Though all your flags sweep stormily in air, And thousand hoofs are whirling fiery seed, The quiet forest hides my folly, freed From good in reach, nor leagued to aught more fair. This is my camp of tears, and doubt, and care, Where I who long to fight may soothe my greed, Full of sad liberty; and if indeed The One I lack came hither unaware,-- If sudden stood beside the saddle-bow The Outcast of all time and every land, With head drooped like the lily’s parching cup, I dare to dream that I my King should know, And lean to kiss, within that wounded Hand, My only use, my honors, folded up.

AN OUTDOOR LITANY