Poems

SUNSETS

Did your eyes watch the mystic sunset splendoursThrough evenings of old summers, slow of parting,—Wistful while loveliest gains and fair surrendersHallow’d the West,—till tremulous tears came starting?Did your soul wing her way on noiseless pinionThrough lucid fields of air, and penetratedWith light and silence roam the wide dominionWhere Day and Dusk embrace,—serene, unmated?And they are past the shining hours and tender,And snows are fallen between, and winds are driven?Nay, for I find across your face the splendour,And in your wings the central winds of heaven.They reach me, those lost sunsets. UndiviningYour own high mysteries you pause and ponder;See, in my eyes the vanished light is shining,Feel, through what spaces of clear heaven I wander!

OASIS

Let them go by—the heats, the doubts, the strife;I can sit here and care not for them now,Dreaming beside the glimmering wave of lifeOnce more,—I know not how.There is a murmur in my heart, I hearFaint, O so faint, some air I used to sing;It stirs my sense; and odours dim and dearThe meadow-breezes bring.Just this way did the quiet twilights fadeOver the fields and happy homes of men,While one bird sang as now, piercing the shade,Long since,—I know not when.

FOREIGN SPEECH

Ah, do not tell me what they mean,The tremulous brook, the scarcely stirredJune leaves, the hum of things unseen,This sovran bird.Do they say things so deep, and rare,And perfect? I can only tellThat they are happy, and can bearSuch ignorance well;Feeding on all things said and sungFrom hour to hour in this high woodArticulate in a strange, sweet tongueNot understood.

IN THE TWILIGHT

A noise of swarming thoughts,A muster of dim cares, a foil’d intent,With plots and plans, and counterplans and plots;And thus along the city’s edges greyUnmindful of the darkening autumn dayWith a droop’d head I went.My face rose,—through what spell?—Not hoping anything from twilight dumb:One star possessed her heaven. Oh! all grew wellBecause of thee, and thy serene estate:Silence … I let thy beauty make me great;What though the black night come.

THE INNER LIFE

I. A DISCIPLE

Master, they argued fast concerning Thee,Proved what Thou art, denied what Thou art not,Till brows were on the fret, and eyes grew hot,And lip and chin were thrust out eagerly;Then through the temple-door I slipped to freeMy soul from secret ache in solitude,And sought this brook, and by the brookside stoodThe world’s Light, and the Light and Life of me.It is enough, O Master, speak no word!The stream speaks, and the endurance of the skyOutpasses speech: I seek not to discernEven what smiles for me Thy lips have stirred;Only in Thy hand still let my hand lie,And let the musing soul within me burn.

II. THEISTS

Who needs God most? That man whose pulses playWith fullest life-blood; he whose foot dare climbTo Joy’s high limit, solitude sublimeUnder a sky whose splendour sure must slayIf Godless; he who owns the sovereign swayOf that small inner voice and still, what timeHis whole life urges toward one blissful crime,And Hell confuses Heaven, and night, the day.It is he whose faithfulness of love puts byTime’s anodyne, and that gross palliative,A Stoic pride, and bears all humanly;He whose soul grows one long desire to giveMeasureless gifts; ah! let him quickly dieUnless he lift frail hands to God and live.

III. SEEKING GOD

I said “I will find God,” and forth I wentTo seek Him in the clearness of the sky,But over me stood unendurablyOnly a pitiless, sapphire firmamentRinging the world,—blank splendour; yet intentStill to find God, “I will go and seek,” said I,“His way upon the waters,” and drew nighAn ocean marge weed-strewn and foam-besprent;And the waves dashed on idle sand and stone,And very vacant was the long, blue sea;But in the evening as I sat alone,My window open to the vanishing day,Dear God! I could not choose but kneel and prayAnd it sufficed that I was found of Thee.

IV. DARWINISM IN MORALS

High instincts, dim previsions, sacred fears,—Whence issuing? Are they but the brain’s amassedTradition, shapings of a barbarous past,Remoulded ever by the younger years,Mixed with fresh clay, and kneaded with new tears?No more? The dead chief’s ghost a shadow castAcross the roving clan, and thence at lastComes God, who in the soul His law uprears?Is this the whole? Has not the Future powersTo match the Past,—attractions, pulsings, tides,And voices for purged ears? Is all our lightThe glow of ancient sunsets and lost hours?Advance no banners up heaven’s eastern sides?Trembles the margin with no portent bright?

V. AWAKENING

With brain o’erworn, with heart a summer clod,With eye so practised in each form around,—And all forms mean,—to glance above the groundIrks it, each day of many days we plod,Tongue-tied and deaf, along life’s common road.But suddenly, we know not how, a soundOf living streams, an odour, a flower crownedWith dew, a lark upspringing from the sod,And we awake. O joy and deep amaze!Beneath the everlasting hills we stand,We hear the voices of the morning seas,And earnest prophesyings in the land,While from the open heaven leans forth at gazeThe encompassing great cloud of witnesses.

VI. FISHERS

We by no shining Galilean lakeHave toiled, but long and little fruitfullyIn waves of a more old and bitter seaOur nets we cast; large winds, that sleep and wakeAround the feet of Dawn and Sunset, makeOur spiritual inhuman company,And formless shadows of water rise and fleeAll night around us till the morning break.Thus our lives wear—shall it be ever thus?Some idle day, when least we look for grace,Shall we see stand upon the shore indeedThe visible Master, and the Lord of us,And leave our nets, nor question of His creed,Following the Christ within a young man’s face?

VII. COMMUNION

Lord, I have knelt and tried to pray to-night,But Thy love came upon me like a sleep,And all desire died out; upon the deepOf Thy mere love I lay, each thought in lightDissolving like the sunset clouds, at restEach tremulous wish, and my strength weakness, sweetAs a sick boy with soon o’erwearied feetFinds, yielding him unto his mother’s breastTo weep for weakness there. I could not pray,But with closed eyes I felt Thy bosom’s loveBeating toward mine, and then I would not moveTill of itself the joy should pass away;At last my heart found voice,—“Take me, O Lord,And do with me according to Thy word.”

VIII. A SONNET FOR THE TIMES

What! weeping? Had ye your Christ yesterday,Close wound in linen, made your own by tears,Kisses, and pounds of myrrh, the sepulchre’sMere stone most venerable? And now ye say“No man hath seen Him, He is borne awayWe wot not where.” And so, with many a sigh,Watching the linen clothes and napkin lie,Ye choose about the grave’s sad mouth to stay.Blind hearts! Why seek the living amongst the dead?Better than carols for the babe new-bornThe shining young men’s speech “He is not here;”Why question where the feet lay, where the head?Come forth; bright o’er the world breaks Easter morn,He is arisen, Victor o’er grief and fear.

IX. EMMAUSWARD

Lord Christ, if Thou art with us and these eyesAre holden, while we go sadly and say“We hoped it had been He, and now to-dayIs the third day, and hope within us dies,”Bear with us, O our Master, Thou art wiseAnd knowest our foolishness; we do not pray“Declare Thyself, since weary grows the wayAnd faith’s new burden hard upon us lies.”Nay, choose Thy time; but ah! whoe’er Thou artLeave us not; where have we heard any voiceLike Thine? Our hearts burn in us as we go;Stay with us; break our bread; so, for our partEre darkness falls haply we may rejoice,Haply when day has been far spent may know.

X. A FAREWELL

Thou movest from us; we shall see Thy faceNo more. Ah, look below these troubled eyes,This woman’s heart in us that faints and dies,Trust not our faltering lips, our sad amaze;Glance some time downward from Thy golden place,And know how we rejoice. It is meet, is wise;High tasks are Thine, surrenders, victories,Communings pure, mysterious works and ways.Leave us: how should we keep Thee in these blownGrey fields, or soil with earth a Master’s feet?Nor deem us comfortless: have we not knownThee once, for ever. Friend, the pain is sweetSeeing Thy completeness to have grown complete,Thy gift it is that we can walk alone.

XI. DELIVERANCE

I prayed to be delivered, O true God,Not from the foes that compass us about,—Them I might combat; not from any doubtThat wrings the soul; not from Thy bitter rodSmiting the conscience; not from plagues abroad,Nor my strong inward lusts; nor from the routOf worldly men, the scourge, the spit, the flout,And the whole dolorous way the Master trod.All these would rouse the life that lurks within,Would save or slay; these things might be defiedOr strenuously endured; yea, pressed by sinThe soul is stung with sudden, visiting gleams;Leave these, if Thou but scatter, Lord, I cried,The counterfeiting shadows and vain dreams.

XII. PARADISE LOST

O would you read that Hebrew legend trueLook deep into the little children’s eyes,Who walk with naked souls in Paradise,And know not shame; who, with miraculous dewTo keep the garden ever fair and new,Want not our sobbing rains in their blue skies.Among the trees God moves, and o’er them riseAll night in deeper heavens great stars to view.Ah, how we wept when through the gate we came!What boots it to look back? The world is ours,Come, we will fare, my brothers, boldly forth;Let that dread Angel wave the sword of flameForever idly round relinquished bowers—Leave Eden there; we will subdue the earth.

THE RESTING PLACE

How all things transitory, all things vainDesert me! Whither am I sinking slowOn the prone wing, to what predestined home,What peace beyond all peace, what ultimate joy?Nay, cease from questioning, care not to know,Let bliss dissolve each thought, all function cease,Fold close the wing, let the soft-flowing lightPermeate, and merely once uplift drooped lidsTo mark the world remote, the abandoned shore,Fretted with much vain pleasure, futile pain,Far, far.The deepening peace! a dawn of essencesAwful and incommunicably dear!Grace opening into grace, joy quenching joy!Thy waves and billows have gone over meBlissful and calm, and still the dreams drop off,And true things grow more true, and larger orbsThe strong salvation which has seized my soul.The stream of the attraction draws me onToward some centre; all will quickly end,All be attained. The sweetness of reposeAnd this swift motion slay the consciousnessOf being, and bind up the will in sleep.Silence and light accept my soul—I touch....Is it death’s centre or the breast of God?

NEW HYMNS FOR SOLITUDE

I

I come to Thee not asking aught; I craveNo gift of Thine, no grace;Yet where the suppliants enter let me haveWithin Thy courts a place.My hands, my heart contain no offering;Thy name I would not blessWith lips untouched by altar-fire; I bringOnly my weariness.These are the children, frequent in Thy home;Grant, Lord, to each his share;Then turn, and merely gaze on me, who comeTo lay my spirit bare.

II

Yet one more step—no flightThe weary soul can bear—Into a whiter light,Into a hush more rare.Take me, I am all Thine,Thine now, not seeking Thee,—Hid in the secret shrine,Lost in the shoreless sea.Grant to the prostrate soulProstration new and sweet,Make weak the weak, controlThy creature at Thy feet.Passive I lie: shine down,Pierce through the will with straightSwift beams, one after one,Divide, disintegrate,Free me from self,—resumeMy place, and be Thou there;Yet also keep me. ComeThou Saviour and Thou Slayer!

III

Nothing remains to say to Thee, O Lord,I am confessed,All my lips’ empty crying Thou hast heard,My unrest, my rest.Why wait I any longer? Thou dost stay,And therefore, Lord, I would not go away.Let me be at Thy feet a little space,Forget me here;I will not touch Thy hand, nor seek Thy face,Only be near,And this hour let Thy nearness feed the heart,And when Thou goest I also will depart.Then when Thou seekest Thy way, and I, mineLet the World beNot wide and cold after this cherishing shrineIllum’d by Thee,Nay, but worth worship, fair, a radiant star,Tender and strong as Thy chief angels are.Yet bid me not go forth: I cannot nowTake hold on joy,Nor sing the swift, glad song, nor bind my brow;Her wise employBe mine, the silent woman at Thy kneeIn the low room in little Bethany.

IV

Ah, that sharp thrill through all my frame!And yet once more! WithstandI can no longer; in Thy nameI yield me to Thy hand.Such pangs were in the soul unborn,The fear, the joy were such,When first it felt in that keen mornA dread, creating touch.Maker of man, Thy pressure sureThis grosser stuff must quell;The spirit faints, yet will endure,Subdue, control, compel.The Potter’s finger shaping me....Praise, praise! the clay curves upNot for dishonour, though it beGod’s least adornèd cup.

V

Sins grew a heavy load and cold,And pressed me to the dust;“Whither,” I cried, “can this be rolledEre I behold the Just?”But now I claim them for my own;Thy face I needs must find;Lo! thus I wrought, yea, I alone,Not weak, beguiled, or blind.See my full arms, my heaped-up shame,An evil load I bring:Thou, God, art a consuming flame,Accept the hateful thing.Pronounce the dread condemning word,I stand in blessed fear;Dear is Thy cleansing wrath, O Lord,The fire that burns is dear.

VI

I found Thee in my heart, O Lord,As in some secret shrine;I knelt, I waited for Thy word,I joyed to name Thee mine.I feared to give myself awayTo that or this; besideThy altar on my face I lay,And in strong need I cried.Those hours are past. Thou art not mine,And therefore I rejoice,I wait within no holy shrine,I faint not for the voice.In Thee we live; and every windOf heaven is Thine; blown freeTo west, to east, the God unshrinedIs still discovering me.

IN THE CATHEDRAL CLOSE

In the Dean’s porch a nest of clayWith five small tenants may be seen,Five solemn faces, each as wiseAs though its owner were a Dean;Five downy fledglings in a row,Packed close, as in the antique pewThe school-girls are whose foreheads clearAt the Venite shine on you.Day after day the swallows sitWith scarce a stir, with scarce a sound,But dreaming and digesting muchThey grow thus wise and soft and round.They watch the Canons come to dine,And hear the mullion-bars across,Over the fragrant fruit and wineDeep talk of rood-screen and reredos.Her hands with field-flowers drench’d, a childLeaps past in wind-blown dress and hair,The swallows turn their heads askew—Five judges deem that she is fair.Prelusive touches sound within,Straightway they recognize the sign,And, blandly nodding, they approveThe minuet of Rubinstein.They mark the cousins’ schoolboy talk,(Male birds flown wide from minster bell),And blink at each broad term of art,Binomial or bicycle.Ah! downy young ones, soft and warm,Doth such a stillness mask from sightSuch swiftness? can such peace concealPassion and ecstasy of flight?Yet somewhere ’mid your Eastern suns,Under a white Greek architraveAt morn, or when the shaft of fireLies large upon the Indian wave,A sense of something dear gone-byWill stir, strange longings thrill the heartFor a small world embowered and close,Of which ye some time were a part.The dew-drench’d flowers, the child’s glad eyesYour joy unhuman shall control,And in your wings a light and windShall move from the Maestro’s soul.

FIRST LOVE

My long first year of perfect love,My deep new dream of joy;She was a little chubby girl,I was a chubby boy.I wore a crimson frock, white drawers,A belt, a crown was on it;She wore some angel’s kind of dressAnd such a tiny bonnet,Old-fashioned, but the soft brown hairWould never keep its place;A little maid with violet eyes,And sunshine in her face.O my child-queen, in those lost daysHow sweet was daily living!How humble and how proud I grew,How rich by merely giving!She went to school, the parlour-maidSlow stepping to her trot;That parlour-maid, ah, did she feelHow lofty was her lot!Across the road I saw her liftMy Queen, and with a sighI envied Raleigh; my new coatWas hung a peg too high.A hoard of never-given giftsI cherished,—priceless pelf;’Twas two whole days ere I devour’dThat peppermint myself.In Church I only prayed for her—“O God bless Lucy Hill;”Child, may His angels keep their armsEver around you still.But when the hymn came round, with heartThat feared some heart’s surprisingIts secret sweet, I climb’d the seat’Mid rustling and uprising;And there against her mother’s armThe sleeping child was leaning,While far away the hymn went on,The music and the meaning.Oh I have loved with more of painSince then, with more of passion,Loved with the aching in my loveAfter our grown-up fashion;Yet could I almost be contentTo lose here at your feetA year or two, you murmuring elm,To dream a dream so sweet.

THE SECRET OF THE UNIVERSE: AN ODE

(By a Western Spinning Dervish)

I spin, I spin, around, around,And close my eyes,And let the bile ariseFrom the sacred region of the soul’s Profound;Then gaze upon the world; how strange! how new!The earth and heaven are one,The horizon-line is gone,The sky how green! the land how fair and blue!Perplexing items fade from my large view,And thought which vexed me with its false and trueIs swallowed up in Intuition; this,This is the sole true modeOf reaching God,And gaining the universal synthesisWhich makes All—One; while fools with peering eyesDissect, divide, and vainly analyse.So round, and round, and round again!How the whole globe swells within my brain,The stars inside my lids appear,The murmur of the spheres I hearThrobbing and beating in each ear;Right in my navel I can feelThe centre of the world’s great wheel.Ah peace divine, bliss dear and deep,No stay, no stop,Like any topWhirling with swiftest speed, I sleep.O ye devout ones round me coming,Listen! I think that I am humming;No utterance of the servile mindWith poor chop-logic rules agreeingHere shall ye find,But inarticulate burr of man’s unsundered being.Ah, could we but devise some plan,Some patent jack by which a manMight hold himself ever in harmonyWith the great Whole, and spin perpetually,As all things spinWithout, within,As Time spins off into Eternity,And Space into the inane Immensity,And the Finite into God’s Infinity,Spin, spin, spin, spin.

BEAU RIVAGE HOTEL

SATURDAY EVENINGBelow there’s a brumming and strummingAnd twiddling and fiddling amain,And sweeping of muslins and laughter,And pattering of luminous rain.Fair England, resplendent Columbia,Gaul, Teuton,—how precious a smother!But the happiest is brisk little PollyTo galop with only her brother.And up to the fourth étage landing,Come the violins’ passionate cries,Where the pale femme-de-chambre is sittingWith sleep in her beautiful eyes.

IN A JUNE NIGHT

(A Study in the manner of Robert Browning)

I

See, the door opens of this alcove,Here we are now in the cool night airOut of the heat and smother; aboveThe stars are a wonder, alive and fair,It is a perfect night,—your hand,—Down these steps and we reach the garden,An odorous, dim, enchanted land,With the dusk stone-god for only warden.

II

Was I not right to bring you here?We might have seen slip the hours withinTill God’s new day in the East were clear,And His silence abashed the dancers’ din,Then each have gone away, the painAnd longing greatened, not satisfied,By a hand’s slight touch or a glance’s gain,—And now we are standing side by side!

III

Come to the garden’s end,—not so,Not by the grass, it would drench your feet;See, here is a path where the trees o’ergrowAnd the fireflies flicker; but, my sweet,Lean on me now, for one cannot seeHere where the great leaves lie unfurledTo take the whole soul and the mysteryOf a summer night poured out for the world.

IV

Into the open air once more!Yonder’s the edge of the garden-wallWhere we may sit and talk,—deploreThis half-hour lost from so bright a ball,Or praise my partner with the eyesAnd the raven hair, or the other oneWith her flaxen curls, and slow repliesAs near asleep in the Tuscan sun.

V

Hush! do you hear on the beach’s cirqueJust below, though the lake is dim,How the little ripples do their work,Fall and faint on the pebbled rim,So they say what they want, and thenBreak at the marge’s feet and die;It is so different with us menWho never can once speak perfectly.

VI

Yet hear me,—trust that they mean indeedOh, so much more than the words will sayOr shall it be ’twixt us two agreedThat all we might spend a night and dayIn striving to put in a word or thought,Which were then from ourselves a thing apart,Shall be just believed and quite forgot,When my heart is felt against your heart.

VII

Ah, but that will not tell you all,How I am yours not thus alone,To find how your pulses rise and fall,And winning you wholly be your own,But yours to be humble, could you growThe Queen that you are, remote and proud,And I with only a life to throwWhere the others’ flowers for your feet were strowed.

VIII

Well, you have faults too! I can blameIf you choose: this hand is not so whiteOr round as a little one that cameOn my shoulder once or twice to-nightLike a soft white dove. Envy her now!And when you talked to that padded thingAnd I passed you leisurely by, your browWas cold, not a flush nor fluttering.

IX

Such foolish talk! while that one star stillDwells o’er the mountain’s margin-lineTill the dawn takes all; one may drink one’s fillOf such quiet; there’s a whisper fineIn the leaves a-tremble, and now ’tis dumb;We have lived long years, love, you and I,And the heart grows faint; your lips, then: come,—It were not so very hard to die.

FROM APRIL TO OCTOBER

I. BEAUTY

The beauty of the world, the lovelinessOf woodland pools, which doves have coo’d to sleep,Dreaming the noontide through beneath the deepOf heaven; the radiant blue’s benign caressWhen April clouds are rifted; buds that blessEach little nook and bower, where the leaves keepDew and light shadow, and quick lizards peepFor sunshine,—these, and the ancient stars no less,And the sea’s mystery of dusk and brightAre but the curious characters that lie,Priestess of Beauty, in thy robe of light.Ah, where, divine One, is thy veiled retreat,That I may creep to it and clasp thy feet,And gaze in thy pure face though I should die?

II. TWO INFINITIES

A lonely way, and as I went my eyesCould not unfasten from the Spring’s sweet things,Lush-sprouted grass, and all that climbs and clingsIn loose, deep hedges, where the primrose liesIn her own fairness, buried blooms surpriseThe plunderer bee and stop his murmurings,And the glad flutter of a finch’s wingsOutstartle small blue-speckled butterflies.Blissfully did one speedwell plot beguileMy whole heart long; I loved each separate flower,Kneeling. I looked up suddenly—Dear God!There stretched the shining plain for many a mile,The mountains rose with what invincible power!And how the sky was fathomless and broad!

III. THE DAWN

The Dawn,—O silence and wise mystery!Was it a dream, the murmurous room, the glitter,The tinkling songs, the dance, and that fair sitterI talk’d æsthetics to so rapturously?Sweet Heaven, thy silentness and purity,Thy sister-words of blame, not railings bitter,With these great quiet leaves, and the light twitterOf small birds wakening in the greenery,And one stream stepping quickly on its waySo well it knows the glad work it must do,Reclaim a wayward heart scarce answering trueTo that sweet strain of hours that closes May;How the pale marge quickens with pulsings new,O welcome to thy world thou fair, great day!

IV. THE SKYLARK

There drops our lark into his secret nest!All is felt silence and the broad blue sky;Come, the incessant rain of melodyIs over; now earth’s quietudes invest,In cool and shadowy limit, that wild breastWhich trembled forth the sudden ecstasyTill raptures came too swift, and song must dieSince midmost deeps of heaven grew manifest.My poet of the garden-walk last nightSang in rich leisure, ceased and sang again,Of pleasure in green leaves, of odours givenBy flowers at dusk, and many a dim delight;The finer joy was thine keen-edged with pain,Soarer! alone with thy own heart and heaven.