s: Outside the world goes laughing lest it weep,


s: With here and there some happy child at play;


s: Or two young lovers dreaming 'neath the May.


s: Within, the soul of love broods o'er the place;


s: Still lifts to heaven his rapt adoring face


s: To pray, for those who leave him lonely here,


s: That once again the silent church may ring


s: With songs of joy triumphant over pain--


s: Ah! God, who makest the miracle of spring


s: Make Thou dead faith and love to rise again.


s: WHEN the star in the East was lit to shine


s: They came from the uttermost parts of earth


s: With long trains laden with gifts of worth.


s: He came from the land where the kings are black,


s: He came from the land of the sun-rising,


s: With broidered raiment for kings to wear.


s: The third king came without steed or train


s: From the misty land where the white kings reign.


s: He bore no gifts save the myrrh in his hand,


s: For he came on foot from a far-off land.


s: Through tangled forests and desert ways,


s: Made dark the star they had travelled by.


s: Then the first king spake and he frowned and said:


s: "By some ill spell have our feet been led,


s: "Now I see in the darkness the fools we are


s: "Let us fool no more, but like kings and men


s: Then the second king with the weary face,


s: Gold-tinct as the sun of his reigning place,


s: "It was but a dream and the dream is sped.


s: "We dreamed of a star that rose new and fair,


s: But it sets in the night of the old despair.


s: "Yet night is faithful though stars betray,


s: From the far-off kingdom, the white-hung throne:


s: Ye have followed the light of the radiant star,


s: Shall its faithful shining be all forgot?


s: "On the spirit's pathway the light still lies


s: Though the star be hid from our longing eyes.


s: "To-morrow our star will be bright once more


s: Our feet to the throne of the new-born King!"


s: And the first king heard and the second heard


s: And their hearts grew humble before the third.


s: And they laid them down beside bale and beast


s: and their sleeping eyes saw light in the East.


s: For the Angels fanned them with starry wings


s: And the waft of visions of unseen things.


s: And the next gold day waned trembling and white


s: And the star was born of the waxing night.


s: And the three kings came where the Great King lay,


s: Then low in the litter the kings bowed down,


s: And frankincense for a great God's breath


s: And she took from the manger her little child.


s: On the dark king's head she laid His hand


s: She laid His hand on the gold king's head


s: But when the pale king knelt in the stall


s: She heard on the straw his tears down fall.


s: And she stooped where he knelt beside her feet


s: Felt the little lips through the tears on his face.


s: And give the white king my soul, Thy soul,


s: And the Star, the Spirit, He leads us by.


s: And to God's dear Son, the Babe who was born


s: And laid in the manger on Christmas morn!


s: IF we must part, this parting is the best:


s: Your head on some warm pillow far away--


s: Your head, so used to lying on my breast?


s: Your hands have flowers, and not my hands, to hold;


s: I have put the death-money upon your eyes,


s: So that you should not wake up in the night.


s: I have washed you, yes, with water and not with tears,--


s: Those arms wherein I have slept so many years,


s: Those feet that hastened when they came to me,


s: And there is nothing left to say for you


s: And nothing left to fear or pray for you;


s: And I have got the rest of life to bear:


s: Thank God it is you, not I, who are lying there.


s: Where the white, scented, horrible flowers are spread,--


s: And I thank God that He has spared you this.


s: Who had to live and bear to see you die,


s: Who have to live, and bear to see you dead.


s: You will have nothing of it all to bear:


s: You lie alone. You will not miss my head


s: So soft in the grave you will not miss my breast.


s: But I--but I--Your pillow and your place--


s: And only the darkness laid against my face,


s: And only my anguish pressed against my side--


s: Thank God, thank God, that it was you who died!


s: NIGHT wind sighing through the poplar leaves,


s: Trembling of the aspen, shivering of the willow,


s: Every leafy voice of all the night-time grieves,


s: Fairer than the larches in their young spring glory,


s: Brighter than the glow-worms on the dewy lawn,


s: Hear the dirge the green trees sing to end your story:--


s: "Chloe lived and Chloe loved: she brought new gladness,


s: Hope and life and all things good to all who met her;


s: Only, dying, wept to know the lifelong sadness


s: Willed, against her will, to those who can't forget her."


s: Come with the scent of the night in your hair,


s: Blue and white of your eyes and your face,


s: What--this hope left? this way not barred?


s: Thou knowest what tears They bade thee weep,


s: But, when peace comes, 'tis thou wilt sleep, not They.


s: To lay them on his shoulders as he stands


s: First gain of his at which his Mother's voice


s: Has not been first to bless and to rejoice--


s: A man, set lonely between gain and loss.


s: A Son whose kingdom Death's arm lies across,


s: A King whose Mother lies alone with Death


s: Wrapped in the folds of white implacable sleep.


s: O God, who seest the tears Thy children weep,


s: O God, who countest each sad heart-beat, see


s: How our King needs the grace we ask of Thee!


s: Thou knowest how little and how vain a thing


s: Is Empire, when the heart is sick with pain--


s: The Queen is dead. The splendour of her days,


s: In the new aureole that lights her brow.


s: The clamour of her people's voice in praise


s: Must hush itself to the still voice that prays


s: In the holy chamber of Death. Tread softly here,


s: The black bells toll unceasing in their ear,


s: Like a black ring the voice of mourning goes,


s: With eyes downbent, and brotherly bared head,


s: Keep mourning watch with us. This is the hour


s: To speed grief's arrows from the bow of Death,


s: O Mother of your people, sleep is sweet,


s: No more Life's thorny ways will wound your feet.


s: Your brows freed from the crown that made them ache


s: So many a time, and wear the heavenly crown,


s: The love of earth will breathe with us our prayer,


s: Our prayer prayed here, joined to your prayer prayed there:


s: Who knows what radiant answer it may bring?


s: From heartless service and from selfish sway,


s: Of evil counsellors, and the noisome breed


s: God, by our memories of his Mother's face,


s: By the love that makes our heart her dwelling-place,


s: This is no hour when joy has leave to sing;


s: Only, amid our tears, we are bold to pray,


s: Who driest the tears with which Thy children mourn,


s: Look down on him whose crown is wet with tears


s: In which its splendour fades and disappears--


s: His tears, our tears, tears out of all her lands.


s: Your feet should know each turn of the way


s: Before the old love was put out of its pain,


s: You ought to know each turn of the phrase,--


s: You learned them all in the poor old days


s: Where you teach your new love the old delight,


s: With the lips that your old love kissed.


s: No child shall stir the inmost heart of her


s: And teach her heaven by that first faint stir;


s: No little lips shall lie against her breast


s: Save the cold lips that now lie there at rest;


s: No little voice shall rouse her from her sleep


s: As though even death drew back before the face


s: Of Motherhood in this white stilly place,


s: The gathered bud lies waxen white and cold,


s: As ever a flower your winter gardens hold.


s: She bore the pain, she never wore the crown,


s: But all she won thereby is here laid down


s: With dreams, while we must starve our hearts on clay,


s: Dream of a glorious white-winged sun-crowned day


s: When you shall see her once more face to face


s: Beside Christ's Mother in the blessed place!


s: But while you dream, they carry her from here,


s: Not hear those ghoul-like bells that crowd so near,


s: When from her home, the home she made for ours


s: And that day made a nightmare of white flowers


s: And folk in black who whispered pityingly,


s: And empty, yet with such a store to hold


s: Of sodden grief the slow drops still ooze out,


s: And, falling on all fair things, they wither these.


s: Tears came with time--but not with time went by.


s: The poor changed house, the garden and the croft,


s: Warm kitchen, sunny parlour, with the soft


s: Of her whose face and voice made melodies,


s: Sweet unforgotten songs of mother-love--


s: Dear songs of all the little joys that were.


s: We see the sun, and have no joy thereof,


s: And carried with her to the fair far lands


s: The flower of all our joy, because she went


s: Out of the garden where her days were spent,


s: Over her breast, that loving mother-breast,


s: Close buds of pansies purple and white are pressed.


s: For happy folded sleep; but ah, not there,


s: Not there, not there, our hardest tears are shed,


s: But in the house made empty for her sake.


s: The hungry passionate pains of Love still strong


s: To fight with death the bitter slow night long.


s: Then the rich price that poor Love has to pay


s: Is paid, slow drop by drop, till the new day


s: With thin cold fingers pushes back night's wings,


s: That sting, and barb their stings with memory.


s: O Love--and is the price too hard to give?


s: Thine is the splendour of all things that live,


s: And this thy pain the price of life to thee--


s: The sacrament that binds to the beloved,


s: The chain that holds though mountains be removed,


s: Endure our bondage, and work out our time,


s: Nor seek from out our dungeon walls to climb--


s: Bondsmen, who would not, if we could, be free.


s: Thank God, our hands still hold Love's cord--and she--


s: Do not her hands still clasp the cord we hold,


s: Drawing us near, coiling bright fold on fold,


s: Till the far day when it shall draw us near


s: To the sight of her--her living hands, her dear


s: Tired face, grown weary of watching for our face?


s: And we shall hold her, in the happy place,


s: And hear her voice, the old same voice we knew--


s: "Ah! children, I am tired of wanting you!"


s: Or, in some world more beautiful and dear


s: Where time is changed, does she await the day


s: She longed for, and so little a while away,


s: When all the love we watered with our tears


s: Shall bloom, transplanted by the kindly years?


s: Dreaming through her new garden does she go,


s: Tending new flowers more fair than those that grow


s: In this sad garden where such sad flowers blow;


s: And, fondly touching bud and leaf and shoot,


s: Training her flowers to perfect branch and root,


s: Does she sometimes entreat some darling flower


s: Can you not hear her voice: "Ah, not to-day,


s: While my dear flowers, my own, are far away.


s: Be patient, bud! to-morrow soon will come:


s: Ah! blossom when my little girl comes home!"


s: The empty house, the always empty place--


s: The black remembrance that no night blots out,


s: The memories, white, unbearable, and dear


s: That no white sunlight makes less cruel and clear?


s: Of cruel conquering thoughts, the night, the day?


s: Love is immortal: this the price to pay.


s: Worse than all pain it would be to forget--


s: On Love's brave brow the crown of thorns is set.


s: Into God's market Love goes forth to buy


s: With royal meed God's greatest gifts and gain,


s: Love offers up his whole rich store of pain,


s: I WILL not wake you, dear; no tears shall creep


s: To chill the still bed where you lie asleep;


s: No cry, no word, shall break the sanctity


s: Of the great silence where God lets you lie.


s: I will not tease your grave with flower or stone;


s: You are tired, my heart; you shall be left alone.


s: And even the kisses that my lips must lay


s: Shall be so soft--like those a mother lays


s: You will not feel my kisses, will not hear;


s: You are tired: sleep on, I will not wake you, dear!


s: But when the good day comes, you will hear me cry,


s: "Ah, make a little place where I can lie!"


s: And half awakened, you will feel me creep


s: And draw them round us, with a tender moan,


s: "How could you let me sleep so long alone?"


s: The author acknowledges the courtesy of the editors of THE POETRY


s: Rows of street lamps are saints in bright garments


s: They lift pale heads nimbussed with golden spikes.


s: Amidst the asphodel and anemones of dawn.


s: Featureless people glide with dim motion through a quivering


s: Boats merge with the bronze-gold welters about their keels.


s: The trees float upward in gray and green flames.


s: Clouds, swans, boats, trees, all gliding up a hillside


s: After some gray old women who lift their gaunt forms


s: Thin fingered twigs clutch darkly at nothing.


s: Along the smutted horizon of Fifth Avenue


s: Its fading defiance sounds in the umber and red of autumn leaves.


s: We emerge from a tunnel into a sky of thin blue morning glories


s: The paths run swiftly away under the lamp glow


s: The park is an ocean of fawn-colored plush,


s: My shadow moves after me on the rumpled grass--


s: Grass like a pillow worn by a dear head.


s: The lights trickle grayly down from the hoary palisades


s: The shell-colored sky is lustrous with the fading sun.


s: And rushing invisible toward me through the fog,


s: Black brooms of trees sweep the sky clean;


s: Melts against the hot sides of the city,


s: Has sickly leaves glistening against her


s: The thick-witted drunkard on the park bench


s: That throbs with its own ruthless and stupid delight.


s: The new-born child crawls in his mother's filth.


s: Pressing the bodies back into the earth.


s: The warm contiguous crowd in the street below


s: Drifts past those hungry eyes of Eternity,


s: The sky along the street a gauzy yellow:


s: The narrow lights burn tall in the twilight.


s: And because we can never know each other,


s: I sell so much of me that could bring a better price.


s: As if all the birds rushed up in the air,


s: I never knew such a monster even in child dreams.


s: The soft, sticky patter of falling drops in the silence.


s: Still the song of the sweet succulent patter.


s: --Or maybe it drips from the brow of Jesus.


s: Male sexual fluid trickling through the darkness


s: And setting fire to whatever it touches.


s: I lean my heart against the soft bosomed night:


s: Melt in the peaceful stagnance of the bath.


s: The red fountain of shame gushes up from my heart.


s: I throw back my long hair and the fountain floats it out


s: My wide stretched arms are white coral branches.


s: The liquid shadows seek between my amber breasts.


s: The moon made a burning shadow on my brow.


s: Oh, that mysterious singing sadness of youth!


s: Exotic colors in the lamplit darkness of wet streets,


s: The moon in the park like a golden balloon...


s: Then to awaken and find the shadows fled,


s: My soul has grown very small and shriveled in my body.


s: At the strange place in which it finds itself.


s: Helpless before its mouthing tenderness.


s: One ripple of silence spreads out from another.


s: I hold up the stars no longer with the pupils of my eyes.


s: I was looking for a hill of a hundred breasts,


s: A hill modeled after the statues of Diana of the Ephesians.


s: I was looking for a hill of mounds hairy with grass,


s: With fingers like strong twigs flowering


s: Have finger tips that balance the almond white moon.


s: White hands of God gather the blossoms with fingers that hold me,


s: No sound but the far-off tinkle of stars,


s: I listen to the harsh tinkle of the far-off stars,


s: Feel the clammy shadows about my shoulders.


s: We are the separate centers of consciousness


s: We vibrate statically on a trillion golden wires.


s: Our trillion golden fingers twine in the weltering darkness,


s: Antiseptic smells that corrode the nostrils


s: Leaving my naked arms and legs disjointed,


s: Sprawled about the bed in postures meaningless to the point of


s: But I strain and flicker trying to escape from it.


s: Sap crashes suddenly through dead roots:


s: My God, my sisters, how dark, how silent, how heavy is earth!


s: Earth dropped on the heart like a nerveless hand:


s: The black ragged palm fronds flung themselves against


s: The moon stared up from the water like a fish's eye.


s: Is it the dust and the iron railings and the blank red brick


s: Shrill screams of children scrape the iron sky.


s: Let the sun nail us to the hot earth with his spikes of fire,


s: And perhaps when the darkness rushes past


s: How can I bear the sunrise and the sunset,


s: Abruptly, from a wall of clear cold silence


s: Tentacles thrust imperceptibly into the future


s: Impelled to lengthen itself generation after generation


s: Holding you in sweet and final darkness.


s: Like strangers surprised at a road's turning


s: And we have only touched each other's bodies


s: The blanched stars are withered with light.


s: The moon is pale with trying to remember something.


s: Curling petals of rain lick silver tongues.


s: Fluffy spray is blown loosely up between thin silver lips


s: And slithers, tinkling in hard green ice, down the gray rocks.


s: An expressionless horizon stares with stone eyes.


s: The emptiness is like a death of which no one shall ever know.


s: Spun glass daisies float on a gold-washed mirror.


s: Bare white feet are running across the water.


s: They are clinging along the silver ladders of rain;


s: They are climbing with ivory lamps held high,


s: The drift of shadows on the mountainside,


s: Purple dust sifting through fingers of ivory:


s: Slanting through the dust of purple leaves:


s: And surge against the side of the mountain.


s: The trees in the twilight are naked old women.


s: The moon is an old woman at the door of her tomb.


s: Are gray hair she has wound about her neck.


s: The water is an old gray face that mirrors the springtime.


s: Pale golden feathers drift across the sky,


s: Riding the weightless billows of back velvet


s: And I glide downward along the dripping rays


s: That clings to the bleakest side of the mountain,


s: A young girl moon in a mist of almond flowers,


s: Creeps hungrily with its silver belly to the earth.


s: Women are flitting around in their shells.


s: Pale dilutions of the waters of the world


s: Back and forth the women glide in their little waters;


s: Winding in and out under door arches and down passages,


s: You may come in the shell to overpower her,


s: She cannot be torn from the shell without dying;


s: And what is the pleasure of intercourse with the dead?


s: Old ladies with gray moss on their chins,


s: Old men with camphor and cotton packed around their heads,


s: Thin child spirits, sharp and shrill as whistles.


s: You, when You poured the measure of agony into them.


s: The sword is uplifted in the hands of the monster.


s: Did you think you could stand out against this?


s: Pierrot and Columbine breeding in the flowers....


s: Masculine souls pass across the mirrors:


s: Winking golden eyes in the twinkles of light,


s: Have the shapes and the shadows been swallowed up


s: Weaving with the crafty fibers of your souls;


s: Nothing was given you but those impalpable threads.


s: That you began to drop the filmy threads


s: Sitting back there in the hollow shadows of your wombs.


s: Sometimes women with eyes like wet green berries


s: Glide across the slick mirror of their own smiles


s: And vanish through lengths of gold and marble drawing rooms.


s: Who look from the shadows of opera boxes;


s: Or elegant ladies in novels of eighteen thirty,


s: In sleep one vision retreating through another,


s: Like mirrors being doors to other mirrors,


s: Covered with tight coiled springs of hair:


s: You can bury your face in her thick soul of cotton batting


s: And smell candle wax and church incense.


s: Laid in the ground she would only soak up moisture


s: As now she has a way of soaking up tears


s: And I saw through the old maid, as through a shadow,


s: A young girl in a white muslin dress running to meet her lover.


s: And the flash of nereids' arms in autumn leaves.


s: A sharp high note died out like an ascending light.


s: Something sweet and wanton faded from the old maid's lips--


s: Something of Pierrot chasing after love,


s: He lies in cool shadows safe under rocks,


s: To tickle the silver bellies of the little blind fish


s: As we stare through the lucid gold water


s: He gazes up at us from his shadowy retreat


s: There are times when he pretends to himself that he is a god,


s: We are wistful before the pathetic gallantries of his


s: And a little maid with a tidy white apron.


s: And a cool spirit with slanting green eyes,


s: Who peers at me through the screen of plants


s: I have placed in the corner between the hearth and the window.


s: I am thinking of the peace in one's own little home


s: When the afternoon sunshine drips on the shiny floor,


s: And the roses in the bowl plunge into shadow


s: While there is no sound to be heard above the hum


s: Save the benevolent buzzing of flies in the clean sash curtain.


s: With the dignity of comprehensible pathos,


s: With the impalpable lightness of May breezes


s: Cowering in the primrose whirlwind his lips have blown,


s: The little grotesque with the shattered heart,


s: The man body jumbled out of the earth, half formed,


s: Heavy with the lingering might of chaos.


s: The veins that beat heavily with the music they but half


s: To taunt, baffle, and stir me to revolt.


s: But my cries, grown thin in all this space,


s: What was it that went away in the night?


s: The little brown hen is huddled in the fence corner,


s: How should she know what came out of the night,


s: Because a shadow passed across the moon,


s: And the wind rustled in the mango trees.


s: Emanates from their mistily blinking eyes.


s: The chickens are at home in the barnyard,


s: There is that rosy glow on the mountain's edge;


s: Tosses her gold braceleted arms into the air--


s: Along the filthy crooked streets of the little town,


s: One by one the grim peaks sink into the cold arms


s: The little town with the pink and white houses


s: A shaggy donkey, cropping grass in the sequestered church yard,


s: The sun sets amidst the agued trembling of the leaves,


s: There in the midst of the hollow clammy circle.


s: Cleave through the scampering yellow Latin crowd,


s: As white and clean as the blade of an archangel;


s: And, as he reeled along, gloriously drunk,


s: Those little black and gold dung beetles


s: Seemed to be pushing and racing over his body.


s: A pale face looks from a window in the sky.


s: O Moon, is it because you have seen her that you are beautiful?


s: Are they the blossoms that lie scattered along the horizon,


s: So you give my flowers back to me, do you, Bella Dona?


s: I might gather the petals and carry them to Antonietta to trim


s: Eleven thousand white-faced virgins in the sky.


s: I see Sister Maria da Gloria's fat shadow


s: Pass across the whitewashed wall by the window....


s: Her glance dropped on her golden globe of breast,


s: Are as sad a sight as wild geese in the winter--


s: There was one boy with those strange young blue eyes


s: And a long, long time after he had passed


s: What makes you look so lonesome, Blue Eyes?


s: For a moment the night is filled with rice powder


s: The pains in my palms are threads of sightless fire


s: Drawn like fiery veins through blackened marble walls,


s: Moonlight trembles as the silk of her garment,


s: He shows them hell fields that are bright


s: All this desolate and shining sea is no place for you,


s: And the wind, that does not know death from life,


s: Will leap upon you and leer into your eyes


s: You go farther and farther away from me,


s: Though your love songs are as feeble as a winter fly's


s: When they nailed him to a clean white cross,


s: And the muslin curtains rustled in white secrecy,


s: And through the thin brown glass like onion skin


s: I could see the bright moon sag to the tree tops


s: While the haggard branches gauntly strained,


s: I was rocked in an orange and umber cradle,


s: And my little brother was burning merrily,


s: There are little blood flecks on the snow.


s: There is blood in the heart of the white hyacinth.


s: I saw her pale body harsh as a flash of lightning


s: She went quickly through the dim forest.


s: Where she ran there are little red tracks.


s: Little Columbine ghosts, wrinkled and old,


s: Prim arms folded over immaculate breasts....


s: A mad conflagration of worlds on ardent nights--


s: The little goat child dances motionless.


s: Little kid feet make a circle around the world:


s: Little stone goats capering across the clouds.


s: Then Her flower clouds the woods with white blossoms,


s: These are the flowers that drift in the hair of the dead.


s: On the rocky hillside and the long stems of trees.


s: There are no shadows in this happy light:


s: Chiseled across the clouds in motionless delight,


s: While suns fade behind crumbling hillsides


s: She sits in the sky like a blind white stone,


s: As she caresses his face with her contemptuous light.


s: She reaches her long white shivering fingers


s: Her tender superfluous probing into all that pollutes


s: Her ecstasy is that of a cold and sensual child.


s: A wax bubble moon trembles on the honey-blue horizon.


s: Pearl wax languorously unfolds her lily lips of mist,


s: Weaves you into herself through each moist pore,


s: The lovers throw back the scented coverlet


s: But when they could no longer find the bones


s: Moldy draperies flutter back and forth through the light.


s: The trees have put on a thin green pretense.


s: Toothless jaws widen in a smile of real mirth.


s: THOU couldst not look on me and live: so runs


s: The mortal legend--thou that couldst not live


s: That saw'st me in the cloud, the wave, the bough,


s: The clod commoved with April, and the shapes


s: Lurking 'twixt lid and eye-ball in the dark.


s: Mocked I thee not in every guise of life,


s: Hid in girls' eyes, a naiad in her well,


s: Wooed through their laughter, and like echo fled,


s: Nay, was not I the tide that drew thee out


s: Forth from the home-lights and the hailing voices,


s: Forth from the last faint headland's failing line,


s: Till I enveloped thee from verge to verge


s: And still, because between us hung the veil,


s: The myriad-tinted veil of sense, thy feet


s: Refused their rest, thy hands the gifts of life,


s: Thy heart its losses, lest some lesser face


s: Should blur mine image in thine upturned soul


s: Ere death had stamped it there. This was thy thought.


s: This have they--flocks on every hill, the blue


s: First-chosen weanlings, doves immaculate,


s: Man's wealth, man's servitude, but not himself!


s: And so they pale, for lack of warmth they wane,


s: Through the thick sacrificial haze discern


s: Unheeding lives and loves, as some cold peak


s: Warm vales unzoned to the all-fruitful sun.


s: Of endless-envistaed homage strain their gaze,


s: But light of foot, with all-adventuring hand,


s: Break rank, fling past the people and the priest,


s: Up the last step, on to the inmost shrine,


s: And there, the sacred curtain in his clutch,


s: Drop dead of seeing--while the others prayed!


s: Yes, this we wait for, this renews us, this


s: Incarnates us, pale people of your dreams,


s: Who are but what you make us, wood or stone,


s: Or cold chryselephantine hung with gems,


s: Or else the beating purpose of your life,


s: Your sword, your clay, the note your pipe pursues,


s: The face that haunts your pillow, or the light


s: Scarce visible over leagues of labouring sea!


s: _O thus through use to reign again, to drink_


s: So dream the gods upon their listless thrones.


s: With death-affronting forehead and glad eyes,


s: _Too young_, they rather muse, _too frail thou art,_


s: _And shall we rob some girl of saffron veil_


s: _And nuptial garland for so slight a thing?_


s: Not so with thee; for some indeed there are


s: Who would behold the truth and then return


s: Divined in thee the questing foot that never


s: Beheld thee fashioned for one hour's high use,


s: Nor meant to slake oblivion drop by drop.


s: Long, long hadst thou inhabited my dreams,


s: Stealing to drink at midnight; I divined


s: Thee rash to reach the heart of life, and lie


s: And said: _Because I love thee thou shalt die!_


s: But this--to drink fate's utmost at a draught,


s: Nor feel the wine grow stale upon the lip,


s: To scale the summit of some soaring moment,


s: Nor know the dulness of the long descent,


s: To snatch the crown of life and seal it up


s: And this was thine: to lose thyself in me,


s: The light of other lives, a quenchless torch


s: Passed on from hand to hand, till men are dust


s: And the last garland withers from my shrine.


s: NAY, lift me to thy lips, Life, and once more


s: I quivered in the reed-bed with my kind,


s: Moving among us, that with random stroke


s: Severed, and rapt me from my silent tribe,


s: Pierced, fashioned, lipped me, sounding for a voice,


s: Laughing on Lethe-bank--and in my throat


s: I felt the wing-beat of the fledgeling notes,


s: The bubble of godlike laughter in my throat.


s: They trickled from me like a slender spring


s: That strings frail wood-growths on its crystal thread,


s: Nor dreams of glassing cities, bearing ships.


s: She sang, and bore me through the April world


s: Matching the birds, doubling the insect-hum


s: In the meadows, under the low-moving airs,


s: And breathings of the scarce-articulate air


s: When it makes mouths of grasses--but when the sky


s: Burst into storm, and took great trees for pipes,


s: She thrust me in her breast, and warm beneath


s: Her cloudy vesture, on her terrible heart,


s: Those early days, we moved in charmed woods,


s: Where once, at dusk, she piped against a faun,


s: Listening; and trembled; and Life laughed and passed.


s: And once we came to a great stream that bore


s: And ships like stars; so to the sea we came.


s: And there she raised me to her lips, and sent


s: One swift pang through me; then refrained her hand,


s: And whispered: "Hear--" and into my frail flanks,


s: Into my bursting veins, the whole sea poured


s: Its spaces and its thunder; and I feared.


s: Flung cries that fired the captive brain of youth,


s: Curse us for a cracked hurdy-gurdy; Life


s: Mimicked the hurdy-gurdy, and we passed.


s: We climbed the slopes of solitude, and there


s: Life met a god, who challenged her and said:


s: "Thy pipe against my lyre!" But "Wait!" she laughed,


s: And wrung new music from it. Ah, the pain!


s: We climbed and climbed, and left the god behind.


s: We saw the earth spread vaster than the sea,


s: With infinite surge of mountains surfed with snow,


s: And a silence that was louder than the deep;


s: Hid me, and I heard the terror in her hair.


s: Safe in new vales, I ached for the old pang,


s: And clamoured "Play me against a god again!"


s: "Poor Marsyas-mortal--he shall bleed thee yet,"


s: She breathed and kissed me, stilling the dim need.


s: But evermore it woke, and stabbed my flank


s: With yearnings for new music and new pain.


s: I clamoured; and she answered: "Bide my time.


s: Of every heart-wound I will make a stop,


s: And drink thy life in music, pang by pang,


s: But first thou must yield the notes I stored in thee


s: At dawn beside the river. Take my lips."


s: Remembering that high song against the god,


s: With harpy-wings, and sulphurous with the glare


s: Of sinful furnaces--where hunger toiled,


s: And pleasure gathered in a starveling prey,


s: And death fed delicately on young bones.


s: "Now sing!" cried Life, and set her lips to me.


s: "Here are gods also. Wilt thou pipe for Dis?"


s: My cry was drowned beneath the furnace roar,


s: Choked by the sulphur-fumes; and beast-lipped gods


s: Laughed down on me, and mouthed the flutes of hell.


s: "Now sing!" said Life, reissuing to the stars;


s: And wrung a new note from my wounded side.


s: So came we to clear spaces, and the sea.


s: And my heart waxed with it, and Life played on me


s: The song of the Infinite. "Now the stars," she said.


s: She poured me on the wild sidereal stream,


s: And I grew with her great breathings, till we swept


s: Cold, cold we rested on black peaks again,


s: Under black skies, under a groping wind;


s: And Life, grown old, hugged me to a numb breast,


s: A blade of silver severed the black peaks


s: From the black sky, and earth was born again,


s: Breathing and various, under a god's feet.


s: Leap under me, and my cold flanks shook again.


s: He bore no lyre, he rang no challenge out,


s: But Life warmed to him, warming me with her,


s: And as he neared I felt beneath her hands


s: The stab of a new wound that sucked my soul


s: Forth in a new song from my throbbing throat.


s: "His name--his name?" I whispered, but she shed


s: Clung lip to lip, and I from her wrung song


s: Till she became the flute and I the player.


s: And lo! the song I played on her was more


s: The stars, the peaks, the cities, and the sea,


s: The faun's catch, the nymph's tremor, and the heart


s: Of dreaming girls, of toilers at the desk,


s: Apollo's challenge on the sunrise slope,


s: And the hiss of the night-gods mouthing flutes of hell--


s: All, to the dawn-wind's whisper in the reeds,


s: When Life first came, a shape of mystery,


s: Severed, and rapt me from my silent tribe.


s: All this I wrung from her in that deep hour,


s: While Love stood murmuring: "Play the god, poor grass!"


s: Forever, Life, however spent and clogged,


s: And tossed back useless to my native mud!


s: Yea, groping for new reeds to fashion thee


s: Thy hand shall leap to me, thy broken reed,


s: With the old subjection, then when Love and I


s: Held thee, and fashioned thee, and made thee dance


s: Like a slave-girl to her pipers--yea, thou yet


s: Shalt hear my call, and dropping all thy toys


s: Thou'lt lift me to thy lips, Life, and once more


s: SET wide the window. Let me drink the day.


s: I loved light ever, light in eye and brain--


s: No tapers mirrored in long palace floors,


s: But just the common dusty wind-blown day


s: In that thrice-sifted air that princes breathe,


s: Nor felt the heaven-wide jostling of the winds


s: They call a penance--let them call it that!


s: I set my face to the East to shrive my soul


s: Once questioned living flesh, if once I tore


s: See what the torn page yielded ere the light


s: Had paled its buried characters--and judge!


s: The girl they brought me, pinioned hand and foot


s: That trance had not yet darkened into death,


s: And held my scalpel. Well, suppose I _knew?_


s: Sum up the facts--her life against her death.


s: Her life? The scum upon the pools of pleasure


s: Breeds such by thousands. And her death? Perchance


s: The obolus to appease the ferrying Shade,


s: Think what she purchased with that one heart-flutter


s: That whispered its deep secret to my blade!


s: For, just because her bosom fluttered still,


s: It told me more than many rifled graves;


s: Because I spoke too soon, she answered me,


s: Her vain life ripened to this bud of death


s: As the whole plant is forced into one flower,


s: All her blank past a scroll on which God wrote


s: His word of healing--so that the poor flesh,


s: Which spread death living, died to purchase life!


s: Ah, no! The sin I sinned was mine, not theirs.


s: Not _that_ they sent me forth to wash away--


s: None of their tariffed frailties, but a deed


s: So far beyond their grasp of good or ill


s: That, set to weigh it in the Church's balance,


s: Scarce would they know which scale to cast it in.


s: But I, I know. I sinned against my will,


s: Myself, my soul--the God within the breast:


s: I walked the hospice with a Spanish monk,


s: To hold the walls of dogma against fact,


s: Experience, insight, his own self, if need be!


s: Straight in the level beams of Truth, who groped


s: Ay, but he held his own, the monk--more man


s: Charles's spent shafts; for what he willed he willed,


s: As those do that forerun the wheels of fate,


s: Not take their dust--that force the virgin hours,


s: Hew life into the likeness of themselves


s: And wrest the stars from their concurrences.


s: So firm his mould; but mine the ductile soul


s: And hangs obsequious on its suzerain's eye.


s: For who rules now? The twilight-flitting monk,


s: Or I, that took the morning like an Alp?


s: He held his own, I let mine slip from me,


s: The birthright that no sovereign can restore;


s: Master and slave--he lord of half the earth,


s: For there's the sting! My kingdom knows me not.


s: Reach me that folio--my usurper's title!


s: Fallopius reigning, _vice_--nay, not so:


s: My throne stood empty; he was heir to it.


s: Ay, but who hewed his kingdom from the waste,


s: Cleared, inch by inch, the acres for his sowing,


s: Won back for man that ancient fief o' the Church,


s: His body? Who flung Galen from his seat,


s: And see their answer: just a wondering stare


s: To learn things were not always as they are--


s: The very fight forgotten with the fighter;


s: Ay, and so meet--hold fast to that, Vesalius.


s: The inch of ground they camped on over-night,


s: Have right of foothold on this crowded earth.


s: I left mine own; he seized it; with it went


s: My name, my fame, my very self, it seems,


s: The sign-board creaking o'er an empty inn.


s: He names me--true! _Oh, give the door its due_


s: _Had door been none, a shoulder-thrust of mine_


s: So meet--and yet a word of thanks, of praise,


s: Seized, followed, clung to, by some hand now dust--


s: Had this obscured his quartering of my shield?


s: How the one weakness stirs again! I thought


s: I had done with that old thirst for gratitude


s: No; but because the idlers sneered and shrugged,


s: The envious whispered, the traducers lied,


s: And friendship doubted where it should have cheered


s: I flung aside the unfinished task, sought praise


s: Outside my soul's esteem, and learned too late


s: That victory, like God's kingdom, is within.


s: The hurrying traveller does not ask the name


s: Of him who points him on his way; and this


s: Cuts a straight furrow to the end in view,


s: Cares not who oped the fountain by the way,


s: But drinks to draw fresh courage for his journey.


s: That was the lesson that Ignatius taught--


s: The one I might have learned from him, but would not--


s: That we are but stray atoms on the wind,


s: Till we become one with our purpose, merged


s: In that vast effort of the race which makes


s: _His life shall find it":_ so the Scripture runs.


s: But I so hugged the fleeting self in me,


s: So kissed myself to death upon their lips,


s: That on one pyre we perished in the end--


s: A grimmer bonfire than the Church e'er lit!


s: Yet all was well--or seemed so--till I heard


s: And, like a wanderer turning to his home,


s: Who finds another on the hearth, and learns,


s: Half-dazed, that other is his actual self


s: In name and claim, as the whole parish swears,


s: So strangely, suddenly, stood dispossessed


s: Of that same self I had sold all to keep,


s: A baffled ghost that none would see or hear!


s: _"Vesalius? Who's Vesalius? This Fallopius_


s: _It is who dragged the Galen-idol down,_


s: _Who rent the veil of flesh and forced a way_


s: Than lapse from life's long lethargy to death


s: Without one conscious interval. At least


s: No courtier med'cining the whims of kings


s: In muffled palace-chambers, but the free


s: Friendless Vesalius, with his back to the wall


s: And all the world against him. O, for that


s: Best gift of all, Fallopius, take my thanks--


s: That, and much more. At first, when Padua wrote:


s: The chair even he could not completely fill,


s: And see what usury age shall take of youth


s: In honours forfeited"--why, just at first,


s: To think the old life stood ajar for me,


s: But now that death waylays me--now I know


s: This isle is the circumference of my days,


s: And I shall die here in a little while--


s: The gods may give anew, but not restore;


s: And though I think that, in my chair again,


s: I might have argued my supplanters wrong


s: With all his hot-foot blundering in the dark,


s: Fabricius, with his over-cautious clutch


s: Of Truth's mysterious heart!)--yet, other ways,


s: It may be that this dying serves the cause.


s: For Truth stays not to build her monument


s: But props it with her servants' failures--nay,


s: Cements its courses with their blood and brains,


s: A living substance that shall clinch her walls


s: Against the assaults of time. Already, see,


s: I but the accepted premiss whence must spring


s: Nor could the bricks it rests on serve to build


s: A different substance for a different end--


s: Though men, agape at dome and pinnacles,


s: Guess not, the whole must crumble like a dream


s: _Let others say it!_--Ah, but will they guess


s: Just the one word--? Nay, Truth is many-tongued.


s: What one man failed to speak, another finds


s: In some vast utterance, of which you and I,


s: So knowledge come, no matter how it comes!


s: No matter whence the light falls, so it fall!


s: Truth's way, not mine--that I, whose service failed


s: In action, yet may make amends in praise.


s: Not yours, or mine, but Truth's, as you receive it!


s: You miss a point I saw? See others, then!


s: Misread my meaning? Yet expound your own!


s: Obscure one space I cleared? The sky is wide,


s: For thus I read the meaning of this end:


s: There are two ways of spreading light: to be


s: The candle or the mirror that reflects it.


s: I let my wick burn out--there yet remains


s: To spread an answering surface to the flame


s: The window darkens as the hours swing round;


s: But yonder, look, the other casement glows!


s: Let me face westward as my sun goes down.


s: FRA PAOLO, since they say the end is near,


s: And you of all men have the gentlest eyes,


s: Most like our father Francis; since you know


s: How I have toiled and prayed and scourged and striven,


s: Mothered the orphan, waked beside the sick,


s: Given bread for stones in famine years, and channelled


s: With vigilant knees the pavement of this cell,


s: Till I constrained the Christ upon the wall


s: To bend His thorn-crowned Head in mute forgiveness . . .


s: Three times He bowed it . . . (but the whole stands writ,


s: Sealed with the Bishop's signet, as you know),


s: Once for each person of the Blessed Three--


s: The very babes thrust forward for my blessing,


s: And either parish plotting for my bones--


s: Since this you know: sit near and bear with me.


s: I thought to pack with Credos and Hail Marys


s: So close that not a fear should force the door--


s: But still, between the blessed syllables


s: Strange questions clutch me, thrusting fiery arms,


s: As though, athwart the close-meshed litanies,


s: My dead should pluck at me from hell, with eyes


s: I have tried the saints' names and our blessed Mother's


s: Fra Paolo, I have tried them o'er and o'er,


s: And like a blade bent backward at first thrust


s: They yield and fail me--and the questions stay.


s: And so I thought, into some human heart,


s: Pure, and yet foot-worn with the tread of sin,


s: It might be that those eyes would let me rest. . .


s: The day I saw him first? (You know the one.)


s: With others like me, I the youngest there,


s: Like flies on carrion (I the youngest there!),


s: Till darkness fell; and while the other girls


s: Turned this way, that way, as perdition beckoned,


s: I, wondering what the night would bring, half hoping:


s: _If not, this once, a child's sleep in my garret,_


s: _At least enough to buy that two-pronged coral_


s: _The others covet 'gainst the evil eye,_


s: _Since, after all, one sees that I'm the youngest_--


s: (The only prayer I knew that was not Latin),


s: Felt on my arm a touch as kind as yours,


s: And heard a voice as kind as yours say "Come."


s: I turned and went; and from that day I never


s: So much is known; so much effaced; the sin


s: Cast like a plague-struck body to the sea,


s: Deep, deep into the unfathomable pardon--


s: (The Head bowed thrice, as the whole town attests).


s: What more, then? To what purpose? Bear with me!--


s: It seems that he, a stranger in the place,


s: First noted me that afternoon and wondered:


s: _How grew so white a bud in such black slime,_


s: _And why not mine the hand to pluck it out?_


s: Why, so Christ deals with souls, you cry--what then?


s: Not so! Not so! When Christ, the heavenly gardener,


s: Plucks flowers for Paradise (do I not know?),


s: He snaps the stem above the root, and presses


s: The ransomed soul between two convent walls,


s: But when my lover gathered me, he lifted


s: Stem, root and all--ay, and the clinging mud--


s: And set me on his sill to spread and bloom


s: After the common way, take sun and rain,


s: And make a patch of brightness for the street,


s: Though raised above rough fingers--so you make


s: A weed a flower, and others, passing, think:


s: "Next ditch I cross, I'll lift a root from it,


s: And dress my window" . . . and the blessing spreads.


s: Well, so I grew, with every root and tendril


s: Grappling the secret anchorage of his love,


s: And so we loved each other till he died. . . .


s: Ah, that black night he left me, that dead dawn


s: To gasp my name out and his life-blood with it,


s: As though the murderer's knife had probed for me


s: In his hacked breast and found me in each wound. . .


s: Well, it was there Christ came to me, you know,


s: And led me home--just as that other led me.


s: _(Just as that other?_ Father, bear with me!)


s: My lover's death, they tell me, saved my soul,


s: And gather sinners to the knees of grace.


s: All this, you say, the Bishop's signet covers.


s: But stay! Suppose my lover had not died?


s: (At last my question! Father, help me face it.)


s: Think you I ever would have left him living,


s: --We lived in sin? Why, to the sin I died to


s: Walks there at eventide, the air pure gold,


s: And angels treading all the grass to flowers!


s: He was my Christ--he led me out of hell--


s: He died to save me (so your casuists say!)--


s: Could Christ do more? Your Christ out-pity mine?


s: Why, _yours_ but let the sinner bathe His feet;


s: Mine raised her to the level of his heart. . .


s: And then Christ's way is saving, as man's way


s: Is squandering--and the devil take the shards!


s: The cup that once had slaked a passing thirst;


s: This man declared: "The same clay serves to model


s: A devil or a saint; the scribe may stain


s: The same fair parchment with obscenities,


s: Or gild with benedictions; nay," he cried,


s: And fouled the grasses with carousing foot,


s: Shall not a hermit build his chapel here


s: And cleanse the echoes with his litanies?


s: The sodden grasses spring again--why not


s: Than nature, good more fugitive than grass?"


s: And suddenly that door should know his hand,


s: And with that voice as kind as yours he said:


s: "Come, Margaret, forth into the sun again,


s: Back to the life we fashioned with our hands


s: Out of old sins and follies, fragments scorned


s: Of more ambitious builders, yet by Love,


s: The patient architect, so shaped and fitted


s: Think you my bones would not arise and walk,


s: This bruised body (as once the bruised soul)


s: Turn from the wonders of the seventh heaven


s: If this could be (as I so oft have dreamed),


s: I, who have known both loves, divine and human,


s: Think you I would not leave this Christ for that?


s: --I rave, you say? You start from me, Fra Paolo?


s: Go, then; your going leaves me not alone.


s: I marvel, rather, that I feared the question,


s: Since, now I name it, it draws near to me


s: Fra Paolo, I have cried on all the saints--


s: If this be devil's prompting, let them drown it


s: And, for the Christ there--is He silent too?


s: _Your_ Christ? Poor father; you that have but one,


s: He will not answer? Will not help you cast


s: The devil out? But hangs there on the wall,


s: I, whom He talks with, as the town attests?


s: That its wings failed and dropped me in Thy breast,


s: Christ, I adjure Thee! By that naked hour


s: Contained Thee as the paten holds the host,


s: Judge Thou alone between this priest and me;


s: Nay, rather, Lord, between my past and present,


s: Thy Margaret and that other's--whose she is


s: By right of salvage--and whose call should follow!


s: Thine? Silent still.--Or his, who stooped to her,


s: And drew her to Thee by the bands of love?


s: Bends . . . bends again . . . down on your knees,


s: GREAT cities rise and have their fall; the brass


s: That held their glories moulders in its turn.


s: Hard granite rots like an uprooted weed,


s: Impatient Time rubs out the word he writ.


s: But one thing makes the years its pedestal,


s: Springs from the ashes of its pyre, and claps


s: The will of man willing immortal things.


s: The thread of some strong lives--and one slight wrist


s: Becomes the globe and sceptre of the great.


s: But who are these that, linking hand in hand,


s: Transmit across the twilight waste of years


s: The flying brightness of a kindled hour?


s: Not always, nor alone, the lives that search


s: How they may snatch a glory out of heaven


s: That in the still fulfilment of each day's


s: Pacific order hold great deeds in leash,


s: That in the sober sheath of tranquil tasks


s: Hide the attempered blade of high emprise,


s: And leap like lightning to the clap of fate.


s: So greatly gave he, nurturing 'gainst the call


s: Of joy distilled from the acquitted task,


s: And that deliberate rashness which bespeaks


s: The pondered action passed into the blood;


s: That, with the wind of ruin in his hair,


s: Soul sprang full-statured from the broken flesh,


s: And at one stroke he lived the whole of life,


s: Poured all in one libation to the truth,


s: A brimming flood whose drops shall overflow


s: By the brute hoof of habit, till they spring


s: Re-echo splendidly through high-piled vaults


s: And make the grave their spokesman--such as he


s: Are as the hidden streams that, underground,


s: Sweeten the pastures for the grazing kine,


s: Or as spring airs that bring through prison bars


s: The scent of freedom; or a light that burns


s: Where else were darkness and a glutted shore.


s: BECAUSE the currents of our love are poured


s: Through the slow welter of the primal flood


s: From some blind source of monster-haunted mud,


s: And flung together by random forces stored


s: Ere the vast void with rushing worlds was scored--


s: Because we know ourselves but the dim scud


s: Tossed from their heedless keels, the sea-blown bud


s: That wastes and scatters ere the wave has roared--


s: Because we have this knowledge in our veins,


s: Shall we deny the journey's gathered lore--


s: The great refusals and the long disdains,


s: The stubborn questing for a phantom shore,


s: The sleepless hopes and memorable pains,


s: That circles brain with sense, and bids us be


s: Shall kinship with the dim first-moving clod


s: Not draw the folded pinion from the soul,


s: And shall we not, by spirals vision-trod,


s: Reach upward to some still-retreating goal,


s: As earth, escaping from the night's control,


s: Drinks at the founts of morning like a god?


s: All, all is sweet in that commingled draught


s: Mysterious, that life pours for lovers' thirst,


s: And I would meet your passion as the first


s: Wild woodland woman met her captor's craft,


s: Or as the Greek whose fearless beauty laughed


s: And doffed her raiment by the Attic flood;


s: Flow all the warring potions love has quaffed.


s: How can I be to you the nymph who danced


s: Smooth by Ilissus as the plane-tree's bole,


s: Or how the Nereid whose drenched lashes glanced


s: Like sea-flowers through the summer sea's long roll--


s: Who night-long held her Bridegroom in her soul?


s: "And all her grey brood banished from the soul;


s: Life, like the earth, is now a rounded whole,


s: The orb of man's dominion. Live to-day."


s: Seeing the routed phantoms backward roll;


s: But from their waning throng a whisper stole,


s: And touched the morning splendour with decay.


s: The funeral train that bear her to her grave.


s: In hearts of men, and some will always see


s: The skull beneath the wreath, yet always crave


s: No more to you than what my lips may give,


s: And the loud murmur of our blood shall weave


s: We live enough. Let this for all requite.


s: Do I not know, some winged things from far


s: To dance their lives out in a single flight


s: Between the moonrise and the setting star?


s: Lifted--and all the vault of life grew bright


s: My face before the wonder. Down the slope


s: I heard her feet in irretrievable flight,


s: And when I looked again, my stricken sight


s: Saw night and rain in a dead world agrope.


s: Now walks her ghost beside me, whispering


s: With lips derisive: "Thou that wouldst forego--


s: What god assured thee that the cup I bring


s: Globes not in every drop the cosmic show,


s: All that the insatiate heart of man can wring


s: From life's long vintage?--Now thou shalt not know."


s: Shall I not know? I, that could always catch


s: The nests of June in April's mating call,


s: And ruinous autumn in the wind's first snatch


s: That always knew far off the secret fall


s: Of a god's feet across the city's brawl,


s: The touch of silent fingers on my latch?


s: Not thou, vain Moment! Something more than thou


s: Shall write the score of what mine eyes have wept,


s: The touch of kisses that have missed my brow,


s: The murmur of wings that brushed me while I slept,


s: And some mute angel in the breast even now


s: Measures my loss by all that I have kept.


s: Strive we no more. Some hearts are like the bright


s: Tree-chequered spaces, flecked with sun and shade,


s: Where gathered in old days the youth and maid


s: To woo, and weave their dances: with the night


s: They cease their flutings, and the next day's light


s: Finds the smooth green unconscious of their tread,


s: And ready its velvet pliancies to spread


s: Under fresh feet, till these in turn take flight.


s: But other hearts a long long road doth span,


s: From some far region of old works and wars,


s: And the weary armies of the thoughts of man


s: Have trampled it, and furrowed it with scars,


s: LIKE Crusoe with the bootless gold we stand


s: Upon the desert verge of death, and say:


s: Whose currency is strange unto our hand?


s: In life's small market they had served to pay


s: Some late-found rapture, could we but delay


s: Till Time hath matched our means to our demand."


s: But otherwise Fate wills it, for, behold,


s: Our gathered strength of individual pain,


s: When Time's long alchemy hath made it gold,


s: Dies with us--hoarded all these years in vain,


s: Since those that might be heir to it the mould


s: Renew, and coin themselves new griefs again.


s: O Death, we come full-handed to thy gate,


s: Rich with strange burden of the mingled years,


s: Gains and renunciations, mirth and tears,


s: And love's oblivion, and remembering hate.


s: Nor know we what compulsion laid such freight


s: Upon our souls--and shall our hopes and fears


s: Buy nothing of thee, Death? Behold our wares,


s: And sell us the one joy for which we wait.


s: Had we lived longer, life had such for sale,


s: With the last coin of sorrow purchased cheap,


s: But now we stand before thy shadowy pale,


s: And all our longings lie within thy keep--


s: Death, can it be the years shall naught avail?


s: "Not so," Death answered, "they shall purchase sleep."


s: Grief holds her high dominion. Bold the feet


s: That climb unblenching to that stern retreat


s: Whence, looking down, man knows himself but dust.


s: There lie the mightiest passions, earthward thrust


s: Beneath her regnant footstool, and there meet


s: Pale ghosts of buried longings that were sweet,


s: With many an abdicated "shall" and "must."


s: For there she rules omnipotent, whose will


s: Who holds the world, and lo! it cannot fill


s: Her mighty hand; who will be served apart


s: She holds the world within her mighty hand,


s: To those that in her awful presence stand;


s: That lies below, they send their gaze across


s: Watches too long the whirling of the spheres


s: Through dim eternities, descending thence


s: Journeys alone through all the after years.


s: IMMENSE, august, like some Titanic bloom,


s: The mighty choir unfolds its lithic core,


s: Petalled with panes of azure, gules and or,


s: And stamened with keen flamelets that illume


s: The pale high-altar. On the prayer-worn floor,


s: By worshippers innumerous thronged of yore,


s: A few brown crones, familiars of the tomb,


s: The stranded driftwood of Faith's ebbing sea--


s: For these alone the finials fret the skies,


s: The topmost bosses shake their blossoms free,


s: While from the triple portals, with grave eyes,


s: The crimson panes like blood-drops stigmatise


s: The western floor. The aisles are mute and cold.


s: The Virgin of the Pillar, with blank eyes,


s: The rest is solitude; the church, grown old,


s: Stands stark and grey beneath the burning skies.


s: Well-nigh again its mighty framework grows


s: To be a part of nature's self, withdrawn


s: The floor is ridged like some rude mountain lawn,


s: Bosomed in tilth and vintage to her walls,


s: A tower-crowned Cybele in armoured sleep


s: With calm parochial spires that hold in fee


s: The friendly gables clustered at their base,


s: And, equipoised o'er tower and market-place,


s: And in that narrow burgh, with equal mood,


s: Two placid hearts, to all life's good resigned,


s: Might, from the altar to the lych-gate, find


s: Long years of peace and dreamless plenitude.


s: Yon strange blue city crowns a scarped steep


s: No mortal foot hath bloodlessly essayed:


s: Dreams and illusions beacon from its keep.


s: But at the gate an Angel bares his blade;


s: And tales are told of those who thought to gain


s: At dawn its ramparts; but when evening fell


s: Lit with wild lightnings from the heaven of pain;


s: Yet there two souls, whom life's perversities


s: Had mocked with want in plenty, tears in mirth,


s: Might meet in dreams, ungarmented of earth,


s: And drain Joy's awful chalice to the lees.


s: That death would fain disown thee, grief made wise


s: With prophecy thy husband's widowed eyes,


s: And bade him call the master's art to rear


s: Thy perfect image on the sculptured bier,


s: With dreaming lids, hands laid in peaceful guise


s: Beneath the breast that seems to fall and rise,


s: And lips that at love's call should answer "Here!"


s: First-born of the Renascence, when thy soul


s: Cast the sweet robing of the flesh aside,


s: Into these lovelier marble limbs it stole,


s: Regenerate in art's sunrise clear and wide,


s: As saints who, having kept faith's raiment whole,


s: ONE grief there is, the helpmeet of my heart,


s: That shall not from me till my days be sped,


s: That walks beside me in sunshine and in shade,


s: At first I feared it, and would often start


s: Till usage slowly dulled the edge of dread,


s: And one cold night I cried: _How warm thou art!_


s: Since then we two have travelled hand in hand,


s: Whose speech young Joy had failed to understand,


s: Plucking me tribute of red gold and myrrh


s: From desolate whirlings of the desert sand.


s: THINK you we slept within the Delphic bower,


s: What time our victim sought Apollo's grace?


s: Nay, drawn into ourselves, in that deep place


s: Where good and evil meet, we bode our hour.


s: Soonest gain ground on them that flee apace,


s: And draw temerity from hearts that cower.


s: Shuddering we gather in the house of ruth,


s: But they to whom the ways of doom are clear


s: Our feet are faithful in the paths of truth,


s: And in the constant heart we house at peace.


s: _Love will make men dare to die for their beloved. . . Of this


s: Alcestis is a monument . . . for she was willing to lay down her


s: Besought for parley with a shade within,


s: Dearer to him than life itself had been,


s: Or bloom of myrtle, or murmur of laden bee,


s: Whom lately from his unconsenting breast


s: The Fates, at some capricious blind behest,


s: Sweet as the murmur of bees, or myrtle bloom--


s: Strayed her dear feet, the shadow of his own,


s: Since, 'mid the desolate millions who have died,


s: Each phantom walks its crowded path alone;


s: And there her head, that slept upon his breast,


s: No more had such sweet harbour for its rest,


s: Nor her swift ear from those disvoiced throats


s: Could catch one echo of his living notes,


s: And, dreaming nightly of her pallid doom,


s: No solace had he of his own young bloom,


s: But yearned to pour his blood into her veins


s: To whom the Shepherd of the Shadows said:


s: "Yea, many thus would bargain for their dead;


s: But when they hear my fatal gateway clang


s: Life quivers in them with a last sweet pang.


s: They see the smoke of home above the trees,


s: The cordage whistles on the harbour breeze;


s: The beaten path that wanders to the shore


s: Grows dear because they shall not tread it more,


s: The dog that drowsing on their threshold lies


s: Looks at them with their childhood in his eyes,


s: They read a sunrise that shall give them all."


s: "Not thus am I," the Harper smiled his scorn.


s: "I see no path but those her feet have worn;


s: And the light breaking through her long despair


s: The only sunrise that mine eyelids crave;


s: Had found life dark as death's abhorred shore."


s: The gate clanged on him, and he went his way


s: Swept like a cold mist down an unlit strand,


s: Where nameless wreckage gluts the stealthy sand,


s: Drift of the cockle-shells of hope and faith


s: Wherein they foundered on the rock of death.


s: (Less living than her semblance in his thought),


s: Who, at the summons of his thrilling notes,


s: Drew back to life as a drowned creature floats


s: Back to the surface; yet no less is dead.


s: And cold fear smote him till she spoke and said:


s: "Art thou then come to lay thy lips on mine,


s: And pour thy life's libation out like wine?


s: Shall I, through thee, revisit earth again,


s: Traverse the shining sea, the fruitful plain,


s: Behold the house we dwelt in, lay my head


s: And feel in dreams the pressure of thine arms


s: Kindle these pulses that no memory warms?


s: Nay: give me for a space upon thy breast


s: Death's shadowy substitute for rapture--rest;


s: Then join again the joyous living throng,


s: And give me life, but give it in thy song;


s: For only they that die themselves may give


s: Life to the dead: and I would have thee live."


s: Fear seized him closer than her arms; but he


s: Answered: "Not so--for thou shalt come with me!


s: I sought thee not that we should part again,


s: But that fresh joy should bud from the old pain;


s: And the gods, if grudgingly their gifts they make,


s: Yield all to them that without asking take."


s: "The gods," she said, "(so runs life's ancient lore)


s: Yield all man takes, but always claim their score.


s: When heard far off seem but a summer breeze;


s: But me thou'lt have alive on earth again


s: Then lay on my cold lips the tender ghost


s: Of the dear kiss that used to warm them most,


s: Take from my frozen hands thy hands of fire,


s: And of my heart-strings make thee a new lyre,


s: That in thy music men may find my voice,


s: And something of me still on earth rejoice."


s: Shuddering he heard her, but with close-flung arm


s: Swept her resisting through the ghostly swarm.


s: "Swift, hide thee 'neath my cloak, that we may glide


s: Past the dim warder as the gate swings wide."


s: He whirled her with him, lighter than a leaf


s: He turned to seek the sunlight in her eyes,


s: He clutched at emptiness--she was not there;


s: And the dim warder answered to his prayer:


s: "Only once have I seen the wonder wrought.


s: But when Alcestis thus her master sought,


s: Living she sought him not, nor dreamed that fate


s: Loving, she gave herself to livid death,


s: Joyous she bought his respite with her breath,


s: Came, not embodied, but a tenuous shade,


s: In whom her rapture a great radiance made.


s: Hail me with smiles: _Thou art not Death but Love!_


s: "But when the gods, frustrated, this beheld,


s: How, living still, among the dead she dwelled,


s: Because she lived in him whose life she won,


s: And her blood beat in his beneath the sun,


s: They reasoned: 'When the bitter Stygian wave


s: The sweetness of love's kisses cannot lave,


s: From mortal mind one high immortal thought,


s: Since nature suffers only what it knows.


s: If she whom we to this grey desert banned


s: Still dreams she treads with him the sunlit land


s: That for his sake she left without a tear,


s: Set wide the gates--her being is not here.'


s: "So ruled the gods; but thou, that sought'st to give


s: Thy life for love, yet for thyself wouldst live.


s: They know not for their kin; but back to earth


s: Give, pitying, one that is of mortal birth."


s: Humbled the Harper heard, and turned away,


s: Yet, as he left the Stygian shades behind,


s: He heard the cordage on the harbour wind,


s: Saw the blue smoke above the homestead trees,


s: And in his hidden heart was glad of these.


s: The wild black promontories of the coast extend


s: The motionless storm-clouds mass their sullen threats,


s: Like an advancing mob in sword-points penned,


s: Across the ensanguined ruins of the fray,


s: The silver torch-light of the evening star


s: Wherewith to search the faces of the dead.


s: Seem not those jetty promontories rather


s: The outposts of some ancient land forlorn,


s: With life's perpetually awakening breath?


s: Shall Time not ferry me to such a shore,


s: Save the sea's golden barrier and the black


s: Dead to all shames, forgotten of all glories,


s: Shall I not wander there, a shadow's shade,


s: So purged of all remembrance and sucked back


s: That should we on that shore phantasmal meet


s: I should not know the coming of your feet?


s: NOW the high holocaust of hours is done,


s: And all the west empurpled with their death,


s: How swift oblivion drinks the fallen sun,


s: Though some there were, proud hours that marched in mail,


s: And took the morning on auspicious crest,


s: Crying to fortune "Back, for I prevail!"--


s: Yet now they lie disfeatured with the rest;


s: Methought they had surprised her to a smile;


s: But these fled frozen when she turned to see,


s: And moaned and muttered through my heart awhile.


s: And night absorbs their life-blood at a draught;


s: And so my life lies, as the gods let fall


s: An empty cup from which their lips have quaffed.


s: Yet see--night is not . . . by translucent ways,


s: Steals a mild crescent, charioted in haze,


s: That trembles through the hemlocks' darkling bars,


s: And still, my heart, still some divine delay


s: Upon the threshold holds the earliest stars.


s: O pale equivocal hour, whose suppliant feet


s: Haunt the mute reaches of the sleeping wind,


s: Prayer and sepulture for thy fallen kind?


s: Poor plaintive waif of a predestined race,


s: Their ruin gapes for thee. Why linger here?


s: Go hence in silence. Veil thine orphaned face,


s: Lest I should look on it and call it dear.


s: For if I love thee thou wilt sooner die;


s: Some sudden ruin will plunge upon thy head,


s: Midnight will fall from the revengeful sky


s: And hurl thee down among thy shuddering dead.


s: Avert thine eyes. Lapse softly from my sight,


s: Call not my name, nor heed if thine I crave,


s: So shalt thou sink through mitigated night


s: And bathe thee in the all-effacing wave.


s: But upward still thy perilous footsteps fare


s: Along a high-hung heaven drenched in light,


s: That floods the dark hills to their utmost height.


s: Strange hour, is this thy waning face that leans


s: Out of mid-heaven and makes my soul its glass?


s: What victory is imaged there? What means


s: Thy tarrying smile? Oh, veil thy lips and pass.


s: Nay . . . pause and let me name thee! For I see,


s: Strange hour that wilt not loose thy hold on me,


s: Thou'rt not day's latest, but the first of night!


s: And after thee the gold-foot stars come thick,


s: From hand to hand they toss the flying fire,


s: Till all the zenith with their dance is quick


s: Dread hour that lead'st the immemorial round,


s: The thronging splendours that the day held bound,


s: And how each blue abyss enshrines its sun--


s: Be thou the image of a thought that fares


s: Forth from itself, and flings its ray ahead,


s: Leaping the barriers of ephemeral cares,


s: To where our lives are but the ages' tread,


s: And let this year be, not the last of youth,


s: But first--like thee!--of some new train of hours,


s: If more remote from hope, yet nearer truth,


s: Where the late rose hangs and the phlox delays,


s: But forth of the gate and down the road,


s: Past the church and the yews, to their dim abode.


s: For it's turn of the year and All Souls' night,


s: When the dead can hear and the dead have sight.


s: Fear not that sound like wind in the trees:


s: It is only their call that comes on the breeze;


s: Fear not the shudder that seems to pass:


s: It is only the tread of their feet on the grass;


s: Fear not the drip of the bough as you stoop:


s: It is only the touch of their hands that grope--


s: For the year's on the turn and it's All Souls' night,


s: When the dead can yearn and the dead can smite.


s: And where should a man bring his sweet to woo


s: But here, where such hundreds were lovers too?


s: Where lie the dead lips that thirst to kiss,


s: The empty hands that their fellows miss,


s: Where the maid and her lover, from sere to green,


s: Sleep bed by bed, with the worm between?


s: Let us warm their blood and give youth to the old.


s: Let them see us and hear us, and say: "Ah, thus


s: In the prime of the year it went with us!"


s: Till their lips drawn close, and so long unkist,


s: Forget they are mist that mingles with mist!


s: For the year's on the turn, and it's All Souls' night,


s: When the dead can burn and the dead can smite.


s: Till they say, as they hear us--poor dead, poor dead!--


s: "Just an hour of this, and our age-long bed--


s: Just a thrill of the old remembered pains


s: A touch, and a sight, and a floating apart,


s: As the chill of dawn strikes each phantom heart--


s: For it's turn of the year and All Souls' night,


s: When the dead can hear and the dead have sight."


s: But here in this wan white humming hive,


s: As the moon wastes down, and the dawn turns cold,


s: And one by one they creep back to the fold?


s: And where should a man hold his mate and say:


s: "One more, one more, ere we go their way"?


s: When the living can learn by the churchyard light.


s: And how should we break faith who have seen


s: Those dead lips plight with the mist between,


s: They lie thus chambered and cold to the moon?


s: How scorn, how hate, how strive, wee too,


s: For it's All Souls' night, and break of the day,


s: And behold, with the light the dead are away. . .


s: _ALL so grave and shining see they come_


s: _From the blissful ranks of the forgiven,_


s: _Though so distant wheels the nearest crystal dome,_


s: Does the heart still crave the spot it yearned on


s: The pure flame the smoky hearth it burned on,


s: Was there, in the narrow range of living,


s: Come you, from free sweep across the spaces,


s: From the all-embracing Vision, to some face's


s: Never we, imprisoned here, had sought you,


s: Lured you with the ancient bait of pain,


s: Down the silver current of the light-years brought you


s: Is it you, perchance, who ache to strain us


s: Is the labour then more glorious than the laurel,


s: The learning than the conquered thought?


s: Is the meed of men the righteous quarrel,


s: Long ago we guessed it, faithful ghosts,


s: Proudly chose the present for our scene,


s: Sit you by our hearth-stone, lone immortals,


s: Well we know, beyond the peaceful portals


s: There is nothing better than our strife,


s: Nought more thrilling than the cry that calls us,


s: Spent and stumbling, to the conflict vain,


s: And, when flood or foeman shakes the sleeper


s: Bids us fold our tents, and flee our kin, and deeper


s: Man tethered Change to his fixed star, and said:


s: "The elder races, that long since are dead,


s: Marched by that light; it swerves not from its base


s: Though all the worlds about it wax and fade."


s: She reared and said: "Long as this star holds sway


s: Revere my monuments--" and went her way.


s: The Pyramids abide; but through the shaft


s: Look now--blank nothingness! As though Change laughed


s: At man's presumption and his puny craft,


s: The star has slipped its leash and roams the sky.


s: A skyey hair's-breadth from their rooted base,


s: Ah, then again, as when the race was young,


s: Should they behold the beacon of the race!


s: Of old, men said: "The Truth is there: we rear


s: Our faith full-centred on it. It was known


s: Mapped out its circuit in the shifting sphere,


s: And found it, 'mid mutation, fixed alone."


s: Change laughs again, again the sky is cold,


s: And down that fissure now no star-beam glides.


s: Yet they whose sweep of vision grows not old


s: Still at the central point of space behold


s: Another pole-star: for the Truth abides.


s: With all its marshalled honours, trump and drum,


s: Though to some shining festival of thought


s: Of bastioned argument, whose rampart gained


s: Yields the pure vision passionately sought,


s: How should you answer to their summons, save:


s: Though Beauty, from her fane within the soul


s: Or from the dream-lit temples of the past


s: With half-veiled face that promises the whole


s: _Woo elsewhere; for I watch beside a grave._


s: Though love of the one heart that loves you best,


s: Should beat its wings for shelter in your breast,


s: The nest you built together and made fast


s: And winged each delicate thought to minister


s: _The nest was whelmed in sorrow's rising wave,_


s: _Nor could I reach one drowning dream to save;_


s: AGE after age the fruit of knowledge falls


s: Love fails, faith sickens, like a dying tree


s: Life sheds its dreams that no new spring recalls;


s: And eyes first lose their tears and then their sleep.


s: So weary a world it lies, forlorn of day,


s: Since evermore some soul that missed the mark


s: "Courage, my brothers--I have found the way!"


s: What though the straggling rear-guard of the fight


s: _"It hurts not!"_ dying cried the Roman wife;


s: Fall on the blade of failure and exclaim:


s: WHEN you and I, like all things kind or cruel,


s: The garnered days and light evasive hours,


s: And tears and tides, in life's divine renewal,


s: If some grey eve to certain eyes should wear


s: A deeper radiance than mere light can give,


s: Some silent page abruptly flush and live,


s: Then down where the same old work's to do


s: violent opposition, not only in the Church but in the University,


s: Fallopius had meanwhile died, and the Venetian Senate is said to


s: have offered Vesalius his old chair; but on the way home from


s: Jerusalem he was seized with illness, and died at Zante in 1564.


s: And I would carry mist against my heart,


s: I should feel your beauty against my face


s: What would you have of me, my friend, in truth,


s: Into your soul's dark places? Can a word


s: Aid in your brave attempt to smother youth?


s: Of what avail that trifling circumstance,


s: In such a tumult could my voice be heard?


s: What is the beacon light that holds your eyes,


s: And through this dark confusion, what retreat?


s: For heaven is awed when comets crash to earth,


s: But we, who grope and question our soul's worth,


s: A breath, a glance, a word,--no more, my friend,


s: Within your heart those images shall live


s: And die like footsteps down an empty street.


s: Yet all the while a stifled instinct saith:


s: "Spend your souls vigour to the utmost breath


s: And let the hounds come baying at the death!"


s: Stands forth into the sea; wave on slow wave


s: Lifting against me, pouring through me, here


s: Find wafts of unforgotten chords, which rise


s: And droop like clinging sea-weed. You, so white,


s: So still, so helpless on this fathomless night


s: Float like a corpse with living, tortured eyes.


s: Deep waves wash you against me; you impart


s: Your inarticulate lips can taste the brine


s: Drowning the secret timbers of my heart.


s: Your wandering feet, your restless heart,


s: How can it hang in silent nun-like folds?


s: Where love is frozen in marble, spire on spire,


s: A snow-white nightingale with a heart of fire


s: We gaze, together, into the shining pool


s: Of beauty drowned and still in waters cool.


s: Burning so luminously in these pure white things


s: And close at hand, an unseen Moslem sings


s: Divines the secret of the Taj Mahal and you--


s: In white tranquillity, in flaming peace,


s: What is this wine you have poured for me?


s: With a tremulous smile. You have brought me a gift,


s: Could you trust my reckless hands so much?


s: Your smile replied: "Since the glass was filled


s: I walk the bridge of hours from dawn till night


s: My heart beating so loud in joyous wonder


s: To know your love, that I can scarcely breathe;


s: But in the lonely darkness, with affright


s: I faintly hear, like ominous, distant thunder


s: Heart of my heart, will you still hold me fast?


s: You touched the velvet curtains behind them,


s: There is no soul too poor to build a temple


s: Since now there is no worship nor any music,


s: You blocks of marble, sleeping in the sun,


s: We talk of all the happy things we have done,


s: "Do you remember?" is often on our lips.


s: We touch our memories and put them all away--


s: I close the book--the story has grown dim,


s: Wait sullenly for guests who never come.


s: Suppose I leave this house, suppose my feet


s: Made hideous with arcs of purple light...


s: The house is waiting, chairs, and books, and clocks.


s: I am their prisoner. I have no more chance


s: And life, and love,--and death--have gone to France.


s: Five harsh, black birds in shining bronze come crying


s: Piercing and jubilant is the shape of their flying,


s: The passionate direction of their flight,


s: Stretches their bodies taut like humming wire.


s: The cold wind blows into angry patterns the jet-bright


s: Their claws curl loosely, safely, about nothingness,


s: By which in sharp, unswerving flight they hold


s: Whereon lies carrion, their feast. A shore of gold


s: That birds wrought on a vase can never reach.


s: Dark Yesterday rises to view against her silent sky


s: Joining What-was-not with What-might-have-been,


s: With Pride and Prudence, two cranes, gaunt and tall.


s: Four lesser lions crouch and malign the cranes,


s: Cursing and gossiping they shake their manes


s: The cranes, unmoved, peck grapes and grains


s: Interior (a note quite curiously Greek).


s: Seemingly free, yet tangled in that living vine.


s: Tall, dark villains, and heroes with blonde hair


s: Nor blankness, silence, apathy, torpor--


s: And the chill of rubbers on unshod feet,


s: But to the wasteful burning of dry leaves,


s: Who tended flocks and watched the midnight sky,


s: My forebears saw the Eastern star appear


s: Are there no sheep or shepherds any more?


s: And came by night to a wide, grassy place,


s: Where I could sit and watch the stars wheel by--


s: And in the morning some one brought me here.


s: looks through leaves to the Western screen


s: has passed from love to love, till peace


s: Along the twilight road I met three women,


s: And they were neither old nor very young;


s: In her hands each bore what she most cherished,


s: For they were neither rich, nor very poor.


s: And they were neither fools nor very wise,


s: For each was troubled lest another covet


s: Her precious burden--so they walked alone.


s: While patient love followed them wearily


s: But when night came, the desert had its way,


s: Turning, they found love cold and still.


s: "Why have we kept such starveling love?" she cried,


s: Across a million graves to the sordid bier


s: Where lay their love. She said: "We will bury it here!"


s: Rose silent hills against the darkening sky,


s: Our hearts are empty. Have we not buried our dead?"


s: She said, "I fear the empty dark, be kind!"


s: He said, "I am still here, be comforted!"


s: Their love rose up and followed close behind.


s: Here they come, in pairs, carrying baskets,


s: Pale clerks with brilliant neckties, and cheap serge suits,


s: Even to yellow kid boots, laced up behind.


s: They take the electric cars far into the country,


s: They descend, gaily chattering, at the Amusement Park.


s: Under the trees they eat the lunch they have carried--


s: Salad, sausages, sandwiches, candy, warm beer.


s: They ride in the roller-coaster, two in a seat,


s: (Glorious danger! Warm, delicious proximity!)


s: The unaccustomed beer floods their veins like heady wine,


s: And smothered youth awakens with shrill screams of joy.


s: The sun sets, and evening is drowned in electric lights;


s: Everywhere meeting others, wandering arm-in-arm


s: In the same wistful wonder, seeking they know not what.


s: Two leave the park and the crowds--The stars shine out,


s: A river runs at their feet, behind them, a leafy copse,


s: Away on the other shore, the fields of grain


s: Lie sleeping peacefully in the starlight.


s: Through the night, the same earth-magic moves them


s: Which swayed those ancient ones, long-dead--


s: Drink deeply from the river, the flowing river of life.


s: Slowly they return to the crowds and the brilliant lights,


s: Dazzled, they look aside, silently climb on the cars.


s: They cling to the swaying straps, weary, inert, confused.


s: The car moves through the fields and suburbs back to the town.


s: They leave the car in pairs, the picnic basket's


s: Rattling dismally, plate and spoon and jar.


s: The boy takes his girl to her lodgings in awkward silence.


s: They look askance--"Good-night!"--the front door closes,


s: Indeed their eyes have not met, since by the river


s: Linked them to earth and night, not to each other.


s: Beauty, the dream that I have dreamed so much


s: All those brave, ardent ghosts in you arise--


s: The souls who, loving beauty, gave you birth,


s: With a chain of passion binding beauty to earth,


s: A captured dream--these souls breathe with your breath


s: Living again in beauty that knows no death.


s: Lie still in my arms, little four-years-old,


s: With more beauty and passion than it can hold,


s: The spring's red blossoms, when winter lies deep


s: They wake--and the wind strips their petals away


s: Can I keep you from blooming, whatever I say,


s: Than passion's unfulfilment, wiser than fate--


s: And when the coloured mantle of the days


s: Mingled with earth in passionless embrace,


s: By motionless hands, a floating echo hung


s: But now I wait, breathless and motionless,


s: My body is the earth from which you sprang,


s: But we are more to each other than earth and flower,


s: For the sky in me is one with the sky in you...


s: Is like sunlight shining in a quiet place,


s: For my kisses are a chain without an end;


s: My arms would smother you against my breast;


s: I will not even touch your shining head--


s: I would sweep you into my arms and hold you close!


s: In mournful whisperings that never cease,


s: You bring my tired brain a certain peace


s: Like Latin prayers to absent-minded saints.


s: Or dashed and driven in tempestuous flight


s: Like souls before God's wrath, the thirsty night,


s: The soft and fecund earth shall drink you all.


s: Somewhere in a quiet room, her soul unstirred,


s: The note of a horn, like a silver thread.


s: She has given her soul to an echo's keeping.


s: Who knows the mountain where the hunter rides


s: Which in the troubled, intricate fugue of earth


s: Her youth is landlocked as a hidden pool


s: The mirrored dream. The pool is never still,


s: The silver call has gone, but there is left to her


s: The simple mysteries of sleep and death,


s: There are faces hungry for smiles, and starving fingers


s: And like a memory are the wind-swept chords of night,


s: And over the hill lies music yet unborn.


s: Earth's arms are wide to her. What breast


s: For what are you waiting, winter valley,


s: She laughed, and shivered, and turned aside


s: She emptied her pockets bravely and passed through...


s: They gave her a golden coin in return for her silver,


s: And written in a tongue she did not know.


s: Standing like the words of an ancient prophet


s: All night long the black leaves, one by one,


s: Laughed, and shivered, and fell into darkness.


s: With the hungry night peering through them.


s: I touch joy and it crumbles under my fingers--


s: The dust from it rises and fills the world,


s: It blinds my eyes--I cannot see the sun.


s: I remember the sparkling wind on a bright autumn morning,


s: I let down my hair and danced in the golden gale,


s: Then chased the wind as the wind chased fallen leaves--


s: Wind cannot be caught and tamed like a bird.


s: I touch joy and it crumbles to dust in my fingers.


s: Lift our eyes to the altar of distant hills.


s: How can I guess the visions of your spirit,


s: Our kisses were less precious than our dreams.


s: Till earth awakens, pregnant beneath its rays--


s: Through all the dreamless, mornless, utter night!"


s: O hungry hearted ones, sharp-limbed, keen-eyed,


s: Eastward, it leads through cultivated fields


s: Where well-fed cattle, herding together,


s: And there ahead, the ancient, swampy way


s: Discreetly shod, yet struggling in vain--


s: Creeps ankle-high, knee-high, thigh-high,


s: Till all is swallowed save a brave silk hat


s: No wares to cry, nor any gift to bring--


s: In truth, then, what have I to do with you?


s: Waiting with patience till the soul is fled


s: And you are sweet to madden buzzing bees!


s: Too lazy for self-respect, too timid for murder,


s: Disgracefully steal the trade-mark of the fairy-tale--


s: Your spirit's coin was squandered long ago,


s: Do people stand at attention to mourn a hero


s: She sits in the park, watching the young men pass


s: One night last summer when the moon was red,


s: She crept into the warm and alien night.


s: Her trembling knees remembered the languid pace


s: Waved challenges with unforgotten grace.


s: Footsteps followed her--footsteps drew near!


s: There came hard arms and a panting kiss--


s: He felt the fraud of those withered lips,


s: Lolita huddles her shawl against the cold,


s: She sits and mumbles by the fire.  In truth


s: Has made my days adventurous, my spirit strong.


s: Lightly, relentlessly, and without rest,


s: I could not find one snowy white enough,


s: Not Hate itself could find one black enough,


s: Are not contemporaneous in my mythology)


s: Dying into ecstatic silence at the garter...


s: Man cannot forget either of his two afflictions,


s: Nourished by peaceful suns and gracious dew,


s: Your sweet youth budded and your sweet lives grew,


s: And all the world seemed rose-beset for you.


s: The rose of beauty was your mutual dower,


s: The stainless rose of love, an early flower,


s: The stately blooms of ease and wealth and power.


s: And treading thus on pathways flower-bestrewn,


s: It well might be, that, cold and careless grown,


s: You both had lived for your own joys alone.


s: But, holding all these fair things as in trust.


s: Gently you walked, still scattering on the dust


s: Of harder roads, which others tread, and must,--


s: Of noontide sought you out, but straight away


s: You caught and halved it with some darker day:


s: And as the sweet saint's loaves were turned, it is said,


s: To roses, so your roses turned to bread,


s: That hungering souls and weary might be fed.


s: Dear friends, my poor words do but paint you wrong,


s: The goodness I have honored for so long.


s: May speak the life-long love that lacks a tongue.


s: "Do their errands; enter into the sacrifice with them; be a link


s: yourself in the divine chain, and feel the joy and life of


s: Thou watchest from the heaven's brink,--


s: I'll pray: "Dear Lord, to whose great love


s: And with the words my thoughts shall climb


s: And straightened for the last good-night.


s: Three centuries brood, and strangers peep


s: And the old dusts are roused and stirred


s: Of Love, which, flowering round its cross,


s: Love me for what I am, Love. Not for sake


s: Of some imagined thing which I might be,


s: Some brightness or some goodness not in me,


s: Born of your hope, as dawn to eyes that wake


s: Imagined morns before the morning break.


s: If I, to please you (whom I fain would please),


s: Chained thought, remodelled action, very soon


s: My hand would slip from yours, and by degrees


s: The loving, faulty friend, so close to-day,


s: Would vanish, and another take her place,--


s: A stranger with a stranger's scrutinies,


s: Love me for what I am, then, if you may;


s: But, if you cannot,--love me either way.


s: All sweet and various things do lend themselves


s: And blend and intermix in her rare soul,


s: As chorded notes, which were untuneful else,


s: Clasp each the other in a perfect whole.


s: Within her spirit, dawn, all dewy-pearled,


s: Seems held and folded in by golden noons,


s: While past the sunshine gleams a further world


s: Of deep star-spaces and mysterious moons.


s: Like widths of blowing ocean wet with spray,


s: Like breath of early blooms at morning caught,


s: Like cool airs on the cheek of heated day,


s: Come the fair emanations of her thought.


s: Her movement, like the curving of a vine,


s: And like a flower's the subtle change and shine


s: And meaning of her brightly tranquil face.


s: And like a tree, unconscious of her shade,


s: She spreads her helpful branches everywhere


s: For wandering bird or bee, nor is afraid


s: Too many guests shall crowd to harbor there.


s: And weak things, sad things, gather where she dwells,


s: To reach and taste her strength and drink of her,


s: As thirsty creatures of clear water-wells.


s: Why vex with words where words are poor and vain?


s: In one brief sentence lies the riddle's key,


s: Which those who love her read and read again,


s: Finding each time new meanings: SHE IS SHE!


s: If I were told that I must die to-morrow,


s: Which sinks should bear me past all fear and sorrow


s: All the fight fought, all the short journey through:


s: I do not think that I should shrink or falter,


s: Doing my work, nor change, nor seek to alter


s: But rise and move and love and smile and pray


s: And, lying down at night for a last sleeping,


s: Which hearkens ever: "Lord, within Thy keeping


s: And when to-morrow brings Thee nearer still.


s: I might not sleep for awe; but peaceful, tender,


s: All the night long; and when the morning splendor


s: I think that I could smile--could calmly say,


s: But, if instead a hand from the blue yonder


s: On which my life was, writ, and I with wonder


s: To a long century's end its mystic clew,


s: What COULD I do, O blessed Guide and Master,


s: Still to go on as now, not slower, faster,


s: Step after step, feeling Thee close beside me,


s: Through thorns, through flowers, whether the tempest hide Thee,


s: I may not know, my God; no hand revealeth


s: Along the path a deepening shadow stealeth,


s: To all my questioning thought, the time to tell,


s: Through a long century's ripening fruition,


s: Thou canst not come too soon; and I can wait


s: And the great red flower of the light-house tower


s: On the windy cliff 'twixt the sea and skies.


s: And the white waves watch it with cruel eyes.


s: Then suddenly out of the mist-cloud dun,


s: Again into sight bursts the rose of light


s: Ah, the storm may be wild and the sea be strong,


s: But while blossoms the flower on the light-house tower


s: There still is place for a smile and a song.


s: Looked once, and, lingering, looked again,


s: Which flap like rustling wings and seek escape,


s: Left for the sharp and cruel frosts to slay,


s: It had its blossom-time, its perfumed noons;


s: Its pale-green spheres were rounded to soft runes


s: Through fragrances of June and bright July,


s: And August, hot and still, it hung on high


s: And what then is this thing has come to thee


s: Thou lonely tenant of the leafless vine,


s: Granted the right to grow thy mates beside,


s: Of lonely lives shall read their type in thine:


s: Grapes which may never swell the tale of wine,


s: Comes the thought of the gracious presence


s: Like the breath from some vase, now empty


s: So it is come! The doctor's glossy smile


s: Deceives me not. I saw him shake his head,


s: Whispering, and heard poor Giulia sob without,


s: As, slowly creaking, he went down the stair.


s: Were they afraid that I should be afraid?


s: I, who had died once and been laid in tomb?


s: Sit close, and listen. After this one day


s: How old are you, my rose? What! almost twelve?


s: Was your fair mother when she bore her bud;


s: And scarcely more was I when, long years since,


s: I left my father's house, a bride in May.


s: You know the house, beside St. Andrea's church,


s: Gloomy and rich, which stands, and seems to frown


s: And hold on high, out of the common reach,


s: The lilies and carved shields above its door;


s: And, higher yet, to catch and woo the sun,


s: And with me used to play a kinsman's son,


s: Two happy things we were, with none to chide


s: Or hint that life was anything but play.


s: "You must be wed," they told me. "What is wed?"


s: I asked; but with the word I bent my brow,


s: Let them put on the garland, smiled to see


s: And so, half-pleased, half-puzzled, was led forth


s: By my grave husband, older than my sire.


s: O the long years that followed! It would seem


s: That the sun never shone in all those years,


s: Flashed on Antonio's curls, as he went by


s: Doffing his cap, with eyes of wistful love


s: Raised to my face,--my conscious, woful face.


s: Were we so much to blame? Our lives had twined


s: They let our childish fingers drop the seed,


s: Unhindered, which should ripen to tall grain;


s: They let the firm, small roots tangle and grow,


s: Then rent them, careless that it hurt the plant.


s: Life was all shadow, but it was not sin!


s: Not for my husband's sake, but for the sake


s: Of him, my first-born child, my little child,


s: Mine for a few short weeks, whose touch, whose look


s: Thrilled all my soul and thrills it to this day.


s: I loved; but, hear me swear, I kept me pure!


s: Before thy throne to-morrow. Be not stern,


s: And weep, while all the others turn glad eyes


s: To sit in darkness while the rest had light,


s: To move to discords when the rest had song,


s: Soul said to flesh, "This I endure no more,"


s: And with the word uprose, tore clay apart,


s: And what was blank before grew blanker still.


s: The difference, or heed. Oil on my breast,


s: The garments of the grave about me wrapped,


s: They bore me forth, and laid me in the tomb.


s: The rich and beautiful and dreadful tomb,


s: Beneath the Duomo's black and towering shade.


s: Open the curtain, child. Yes, it is night.


s: That deadly chill, and see by ghostly gleams


s: Of moonlight, creeping through the grated door,


s: Strange, hollow clamors rang and echoed back,


s: As, struggling out of mine, I dropped and fell.


s: With frantic strength I beat upon the grate.


s: It yielded to my touch. Some careless hand


s: Had left the bolt half-slipped. My father swore


s: Afterward, with a curse, he would make sure


s: Next time. NEXT TIME. That hurts me even now!


s: Dead or alive I issued, scarce sure which.


s: Behind, the Duomo rose all white and black;


s: Then pealed a sudden jargoning of bells,


s: And down the darkling street I wildly fled,


s: Led by a little, cold, and wandering moon,


s: Which seemed as lonely and as lost as I.


s: I had no aim, save to reach warmth and light


s: And human touch; but still my witless steps


s: Led to my husband's door, and there I stopped,


s: A voice--t'was his--demanded: "Who is there?"


s: And called upon the saints, the while I urged,


s: I am so cold, so frightened, let me in!"


s: Then, with a crash, the window was shut fast;


s: And, though I cried and beat upon the door


s: Weeping, I turned away, and feebly strove


s: Down the hard distance towards my father's house.


s: "They will have pity and will let me in,"


s: I thought. "They loved me and will let me in."


s: They stood and trembled, while I plead and prayed:


s: "The holy saints forbid!" declared my sire.


s: My mother sobbed and vowed whole pounds of wax


s: This fearful presence from her door. Then sharp


s: Came click of lock, and a long tube was thrust


s: From out the window, and my brother cried,


s: Where should I go? Back to the ghastly tomb


s: And the cold coffined ones? Up the long street,


s: Wringing my hands and sobbing low, I went.


s: My feet were bare and bleeding from the stones;


s: My hands were bleeding too; my hair hung loose


s: Over my shroud. So wild and strange a shape


s: Saw never Florence since. The people call


s: That street through which I walked and wrung my hands


s: "Street of the Dead One," even to this day.


s: The sleeping houses stood in midnight black,


s: And not a soul was in the streets but I.


s: At last I saw a flickering point of light


s: I had lain down to die; but at the sight


s: I rose, crawled on, and with expiring strength


s: Knocked, sank again, and knew not even then