The monk was praying in his cell,And he did pray full sore;He had been praying on his kneesFor two long hours and more.
And in the midst, and suddenly,He felt his eyes ope wide;And he lifted not his head, but sawA man's feet him beside.
And almost to his feet there reachedA garment strangely knit;Some woman's fingers, ages agone,Had trembled, in making it.
The monk's eyes went up the garment,Until a hand they spied;A cut from a chisel was on it,And another scar beside.
Then his eyes sprang to the faceWith a single thirsty bound;'Twas He, and he nigh had fainted;His eyes had the Master found.
On his ear fell the convent bell,That told him the poor did waitFor his hand to divide the daily bread,All at the convent-gate.
And a storm of thoughts within himBlew hither and thither long;And the bell kept calling all the timeWith its iron merciless tongue.
He looked in the Master's eyes,And he sprang to his feet in strength:"Though I find him not when I come back,I shall find him the more at length."
He went, and he fed the poor,All at the convent-gate;And like one bereft, with heavy feetWent back to be desolate.
He stood by the door, unwillingTo see the cell so bare;He opened the door, and lo!The Master was standing there.
"I have waited for thee, becauseThe poor had not to wait;And I stood beside thee all the time,In the crowd at the convent-gate."
* * * * *
But it seems to me, though the storySayeth no word of this,If the monk had stayed, the Lord would have stayed,Nor crushed that heart of his.
For out of the far-off timesA word sounds tenderly:"The poor ye have always with you,And ye have not always me."
Alas! 'tis cold and dark;The wind all night has sung a wintry tune;Hail from black clouds that swallowed up the moonHas beat against my bark.
Oh! when will it be spring?The sap moves not within my withered veins;Through all my frozen roots creep numbing pains,That they can hardly cling.
The sun shone out last morn;I felt the warmth through every fibre float;I thought I heard a thrush's piping note,Of hope and sadness born.
Then came the sea-cloud driven;The tempest hissed through all my outstretched boughs,Hither and thither tossed me in its snows,Beneath the joyless heaven.
O for the sunny leaves!Almost I have forgot the breath of June!Forgot the feathery light-flakes from the moon!The praying summer-eves!
O for the joyous birds,Which are the tongues of us, mute, longing trees!O for the billowy odours, and the beesAbroad in scattered herds!
The blessing of cool showers!The gratefulness that thrills through every shoot!The children playing round my deep-sunk root,Shadowed in hot noon hours!
Alas! the cold clear dawnThrough the bare lattice-work of twigs around!Another weary day of moaning soundOn the thin-shadowed lawn!
Yet winter's noon is past:I'll stretch my arms all night into the wind,Endure all day the chill air and unkind;My leaveswillcome at last.
I sought the long clear twilights of the North,When, from its nest of trees, my father's houseSees the Aurora deepen into dawnFar northward in the East, o'er the hill-top;And fronts the splendours of the northern West,Where sunset dies into that ghostly gleamThat round the horizon creepeth all the nightBack to the jubilance of gracious morn.I found my home in homeliness unchanged;For love that maketh home, unchangeable,Received me to the rights of sonship still.O vaulted summer-heaven, borne on the hills!Once more thou didst embrace me, whom, a child,Thy drooping fulness nourished into joy.Once more the valley, pictured forth with sighs,Rose on my present vision, and, behold!In nothing had the dream bemocked the truth:The waters ran as garrulous as before;The wild flowers crowded round my welcome feet;The hills arose and dwelt alone in heaven;And all had learned new tales against I came.Once more I trod the well-known fields with himWhose fatherhood had made me search for God's;And it was old and new like the wild flowers,The waters, and the hills, but dearer far.
Once on a day, my cousin Frank and I,Drove on a seaward road the dear white mareWhich oft had borne me to the lonely hills.Beside me sat a maiden, on whose faceI had not looked since we were boy and girl;But the old friendship straightway bloomed anew.The heavens were sunny, and the earth was green;The harebells large, and oh! so plentiful;While butterflies, as blue as they, danced on,Borne purposeless on pulses of clear joy,In sportive time to their Aeolian clang.That day as we talked on without restraint,Brought near by memories of days that were,And therefore are for ever—by the joyOf motion through a warm and shining air,By the glad sense of freedom and like thoughts,And by the bond of friendship with the dead,She told the tale which I would mould anewTo a more lasting form of utterance.
For I had wandered back to childish years;And asked her if she knew a ruin old,Whose masonry, descending to the waves,Faced up the sea-cliff at whose rocky feetThe billows fell and died along the coast.'Twas one of my child marvels. For, each year,We turned our backs upon the ripening corn,And sought the borders of the desert sea.O joy of waters! mingled with the fearOf a blind force that knew not what to do,But spent its strength of waves in lashing ayeThe rocks which laughed them into foam and flight.
But oh, the varied riches of that port!For almost to the beach, but that a wallInclosed them, reached the gardens of a lord,His shady walks, his ancient trees of state;His river, which, with course indefinite,Wandered across the sands without the wall,And lost itself in finding out the sea:Within, it floated swans, white splendours; layBeneath the fairy leap of a wire bridge;Vanished and reappeared amid the shades,And led you where the peacock's plumy heavenBore azure suns with green and golden rays.Ah! here the skies showed higher, and the cloudsMore summer-gracious, filled with stranger shapes;And when they rained, it was a golden rainThat sparkled as it fell, an odorous rain.
But there was one dream-spot—my tale must waitUntil I tell the wonder of that spot.It was a little room, built somehow—howI do not know—against a steep hill-side,Whose top was with a circular temple crowned,Seen from far waves when winds were off the shore—So that, beclouded, ever in the nightOf a luxuriant ivy, its low door,Half-filled with rainbow hues of deep-stained glass,Appeared to open right into the hill.Never to sesame of mine that doorYielded that room; but through one undyed pane,Gazing with reverent curiosity,I saw a little chamber, round and high,Which but to see, was to escape the heat,And bathe in coolness of the eye and brain;For it was dark and green. Upon one sideA window, unperceived from without,Blocked up by ivy manifold, whose leaves,Like crowded heads of gazers, row on row,Climbed to the top; and all the light that cameThrough the thick veil was green, oh, kindest hue!But in the midst, the wonder of the place,Against the back-ground of the ivy bossed,On a low column stood, white, pure, and still,A woman-form in marble, cold and clear.I know not what it was; it may have beenA Silence, or an Echo fainter still;But that form yet, if form it can be called,So undefined and pale, gleams vision-likeIn the lone treasure-chamber of my soul,Surrounded with its mystic temple dark.
Then came the thought, too joyous to keep joy,Turning to very sadness for relief:To sit and dream through long hot summer days,Shrouded in coolness and sea-murmurings,Forgot by all till twilight shades grew dark;And read and read in the Arabian Nights,Till all the beautiful grew possible;And then when I had read them every one,To find behind the door, against the wall,Old volumes, full of tales, such as in dreamsOne finds in bookshops strange, in tortuous streets;Beside me, over me, soul of the place,Filling the gloom with calm delirium,That wondrous woman-statue evermore,White, radiant; fading, as the darkness grew,Into a ghostly pallour, that put on,To staring eyes, a vague and shifting form.
But the old castle on the shattered shore—Not the green refuge from the summer heat—Drew forth our talk that day. For, as I said,I asked her if she knew it. She replied,"I know it well;" and added instantly:"A woman used to live, my mother tells,In one of its low vaults, so near the sea,That in high tides and northern winds it wasNo more a castle-vault, but a sea-cave!""I found there," I replied, "a turret stairLeading from level of the ground aboveDown to a vault, whence, through an opening square,Half window and half loophole, you look forthWide o'er the sea; but the dim-sounding wavesAre many feet beneath, and shrunk in sizeTo a great ripple. I could tell you nowA tale I made about a little girl,Dark-eyed and pale, with long seaweed-like hair,Who haunts that room, and, gazing o'er the deep,Calls it her mother, with a childish glee,Because she knew no other." "This," said she,"Was not a child, but woman almost old,Whose coal-black hair had partly turned to grey,With sorrow and with madness; and she dwelt,Not in that room high on the cliff, but down,Low down within the margin of spring tides."And then she told me all she knew of her,As we drove onward through the sunny day.It was a simple tale, with few, few facts;A life that clomb one mountain and looked forth;Then sudden sank to a low dreary plain,And wandered ever in the sound of waves,Till fear and fascination overcame,And led her trembling into life and joy.Alas! how many such are told by night,In fisher-cottages along the shore!
Farewell, old summer-day; I lay you by,To tell my story, and the thoughts that riseWithin a heart that never dared believeA life was at the mercy of a sea.
Aye as it listeth blows the listless wind,Filling great sails, and bending lordly masts,Or making billows in the green corn fields,And hunting lazy clouds across the blue:Now, like a vapour o'er the sunny sea,It blows the vessel from the harbour's mouth,Out 'mid the broken crests of seaward waves,And hovering of long-pinioned ocean birds,As if the white wave-spots had taken wing.But though all space is full of spots of white,The sailor sees the little handkerchiefThat flutters still, though wet with heavy tearsWhich draw it earthward from the sunny wind.Blow, wind! draw out the cord that binds the twain,And breaks not, though outlengthened till the maidCan only say,I know he is not here.Blow, wind! yet gently; gently blow, O wind!And let love's vision slowly, gently die;And the dim sails pass ghost-like o'er the deep,Lingering a little o'er the vanished hull,With a white farewell to the straining eyes.For never more in morning's level beam,Will the wide wings of her sea-shadowing sailsFrom the green-billowed east come dancing in;Nor ever, gliding home beneath the stars,With a faint darkness o'er the fainter sea,Will she, the ocean-swimmer, send a cryOf home-come sailors, that shall wake the streetsWith sudden pantings of dream-scaring joy.Blow gently, wind! blow slowly, gentle wind!
Weep not, oh maiden! tis not time to weep;Torment not thou thyself before thy time;The hour will come when thou wilt need thy tearsTo cool the burning of thy desert brain.Go to thy work; break into song sometimes,To die away forgotten in the lapseOf dreamy thought, ere natural pause ensue;Oft in the day thy time-outspeeding heart,Sending thy ready eye to scout the east,Like child that wearies of her mother's pace,And runs before, and yet perforce must wait.
The time drew nigh. Oft turning from her work,With bare arms and uncovered head she clombThe landward slope of the prophetic hill;From whose green head, as on the verge of time,Seer-like she gazed, shading her hope-rapt eyesFrom the bewilderment of work-day light,Far out on the eternity of waves;If from the Hades of the nether worldHer prayers might draw the climbing skyey sailsUp o'er the threshold of the horizon line;For when he came she was to be his wife,And celebrate with rites of church and homeThe apotheosis of maidenhood.
Time passed. The shadow of a fear that hungFar off upon the horizon of her soul,Drew near with deepening gloom and clearing form,Till it o'erspread and filled her atmosphere,And lost all shape, because it filled all space,Reaching beyond the bounds of consciousness;But ever in swift incarnations dartingForth from its infinite a stony stare,A blank abyss, an awful emptiness.Ah, God! why are our souls, lone helpless seas,Tortured with such immitigable storm?What is this love, that now on angel wingSweeps us amid the stars in passionate calm;And now with demon arms fast cincturing,Drops us, through all gyrations of keen pain,Down the black vortex, till the giddy whirlGives fainting respite to the ghastly brain?Not these the maiden's questions. Comes he yet?Or am I widowed ere my wedding day?
Ah! ranged along our shores, on peak or cliff,Or stone-ribbed promontory, or pier head,Maidens have aye been standing; the same painDeadening the heart-throb; the same gathering mistDimming the eye that would be keen as death;The same fixed longing on the changeless face.Over the edge he vanished—came no more:There, as in childhood's dreams, upon that line,Without a parapet to shield the sense,Voidness went sheer down to oblivion:Over that edge he vanished—came no more.
O happy those for whom the PossibleOpens its gates of madness, and becomesThe Real around them! those to whom henceforthThere is but one to-morrow, the next morn,Their wedding day, ever one step removed;The husband's foot ever upon the vergeOf the day's threshold; whiteness aye, and flowers,Ready to meet him, ever in a dream!But faith and expectation conquer still;And so her morrow comes at last, and leadsThe death-pale maiden-ghost, dazzled, confused,Into the land whose shadows fall on ours,And are our dreams of too deep blessedness.May not some madness be a kind of faith?Shall not the Possible become the Real?Lives not the God who hath created dreams?So stand we questioning upon the shore,And gazing hopeful towards the Unrevealed.
Long looked the maiden, till the visibleHalf vanished from her eyes; the earth had ceasedThat lay behind her, and the sea was all;Except the narrow shore, which yet gave roomFor her sea-haunting feet; where solid land,Where rocks and hills stopped, frighted, suddenly,And earth flowed henceforth on in trembling waves,A featureless, a half re-molten world,Halfway to the Unseen; the InvisibleHalf seen in the condensed and flowing skyWhich lay so grimly smooth before her eyesAnd brain and shrinking soul; where power of manCould never heap up moles or pyramids,Or dig a valley in the unstable gulfFighting for aye to make invisible,To swallow up, and keep her smooth blue smileUnwrinkled and unspotted with the land;Not all the changes on the restless wave,Saving it from a still monotony,Whose only utterance was a dreary songOf stifled wailing on the shrinking shore.
Such frenzy slow invaded the poor girl.Not hers the hovering sense of marriage bellsTuning the air with fragrance of sweet sound;But the low dirge that ever rose and died,Recurring without pause or any close,Like one verse chaunted aye in sleepless brain.Down to the shore it drew her from the heights,Like witch's demon-spell, that fearful moan.She knew that somewhere in the green abyssHis body swung in curves of watery force,Now in a circle slow revolved, and nowSwaying like wind-swung bell, when surface wavesSank their roots deep enough to reach the waif,Hither and thither, idly to and fro,Wandering unheeding through the heedless sea.A kind of fascination seized her brain,And drew her onward to the ridgy rocksThat ran a little way into the deep,Like questions asked of Fate by longing hearts,Bound which the eternal ocean breaks in sighs.Along their flats, and furrows, and jagged backs,Out to the lonely point where the green massArose and sank, heaved slow and forceful, sheWent; and recoiled in terror; ever drawn,Ever repelled, with inward shudderingAt the great, heartless, miserable depth.She thought the ocean lay in wait for her,Enticing her with horror's glittering eye,And with the hope that in an hour sure fixedIn some far century, aeons remote,She, conscious still of love, despite the sea,Should, in the washing of perennial waves,Sweep o'er some stray bone, or transformed dustOf him who loved her on this happy earth,Known by a dreamy thrill in thawing nerves.For so the fragments of wild songs she sungBetokened, as she sat and watched the tide,Till, as it slowly grew, it touched her feet;When terror overcame—she rose and fledTowards the shore with fear-bewildered eye;And, stumbling on the rocks with hasty steps,Cried, "They are coming, coming at my heels."
Perhaps like this the songs she used to wailIn the rough northern tongue of Aberdeen:—
Ye'll hae me yet, ye'll hae me yet,Sae lang an' braid, an' never a hame!Its nae the depth I fear a bit,But oh, the wideness, aye the same!
The jaws[1] come up, wi' eerie bark;Cryin' I'm creepy, cauld, an' green;Come doon, come doon, he's lyin' stark,Come doon an' steek his glowerin' een.
Syne wisht! they haud their weary roar,An' slide awa', an' I grow sleepy:Or lang, they're up aboot my door,Yowlin', I'm cauld, an' weet, an' creepy!
O dool, dool! ye are like the tide—Ye mak' a feint awa' to gang;But lang awa' ye winna bide,—An' better greet than aye think lang.
[Footnote 1: Jaws:English, breakers.]
Where'er she fled, the same voice followed her;Whisperings innumerable of water-dropsGrowing together to a giant voice;That sometimes in hoarse, rushing undertones,Sometimes in thunderous peals of billowy shouts,Called after her to come, and make no stay.From the dim mists that brooded seaward far,And from the lonely tossings of the waves,Where rose and fell the raving wilderness,Voices, pursuing arms, and beckoning hands,Reached shorewards from the shuddering mystery.Then sometimes uplift, on a rocky peak,A lonely form betwixt the sea and sky,Watchers on shore beheld her fling wild armsHigh o'er her head in tossings like the waves;Then fix them, with clasped hands of prayer intense,Forward, appealing to the bitter sea.Then sudden from her shoulders she would tearHer garments, one by one, and cast them farInto the roarings of the heedless surge,A vain oblation to the hungry waves.Such she did mean it; and her pitying friendsClothed her in vain—their gifts did bribe the sea.But such a fire was burning in her brain,The cold wind lapped her, and the sleet-like sprayFlashed, all unheeded, on her tawny skin.As oft she brought her food and flung it far,Reserving scarce a morsel for her need—Flung it—with naked arms, and streaming hairFloating like sea-weed on the tide of wind,Coal-black and lustreless—to feed the sea.But after each poor sacrifice, despair,Like the returning wave that bore it far,Rushed surging back upon her sickening heart;While evermore she moaned, low-voiced, between—Half-muttered and half-moaned: "Ye'll hae me yet;Ye'll ne'er be saired, till ye hae ta'en mysel'."
And as the night grew thick upon the sea,Quenching it all, except its voice of storm;Blotting it from the region of the eye,Though still it tossed within the haunted brain,Entering by the portals of the ears,—She step by step withdrew; like dreaming man,Who, power of motion all but paralysed,With an eternity of slowness, dragsHis earth-bound, lead-like, irresponsive feetBack from a living corpse's staring eyes;Till on the narrow beach she turned her round.Then, clothed in all the might of the Unseen,Terror grew ghostly; and she shrieked and fledUp to the battered base of the old tower,And round the rock, and through the arched gap,Cleaving the blackness of the vault within;Then sank upon the sand, and gasped, and raved.This was her secret chamber, this her placeOf refuge from the outstretched demon-deep,All eye and voice for her, Argus more dreadThan he with hundred lidless watching orbs.There, cowering in a nook, she sat all night,Her eyes fixed on the entrance of the cave,Through which a pale light shimmered from the sea,Until she slept, and saw the sea in dreams.Except in stormy nights, when all was dark,And the wild tempest swept with slanting wingAgainst her refuge; and the heavy sprayShot through the doorway serpentine cold armsTo seize the fore-doomed morsel of the sea:Then she slept never; and she would have died,But that she evermore was stung to lifeBy new sea-terrors. Sometimes the sea-gullWith clanging pinions darted through the arch,And flapped them round her face; sometimes a wave,If tides were high and winds from off the sea,Rushed through the door, and in its watery meshClasped her waist-high, then out again to sea!Out to the devilish laughter and the fog!While she clung screaming to the bare rock-wall;Then sat unmoving, till the low grey dawnGrew on the misty dance of spouting waves,That mixed the grey with white; picture one-hued,Seen in the framework of the arched door:Then the old fascination drew her out,Till, wrapt in misty spray, moveless she stoodUpon the border of the dawning sea.
And yet she had a chamber in her soul,The innermost of all, a quiet place;But which she could not enter for the loveThat kept her out for ever in the storm.Could she have entered, all had been as stillAs summer evening, or a mother's arms;And she had found her lost love sleeping there.Thou too hast such a chamber, quiet place,Where God is waiting for thee. Is it gain,Or the confused murmur of the seaOf human voices on the rocks of fame,That will not let thee enter? Is it careFor the provision of the unborn day,As if thou wert a God that must foresee,Lest his great sun should chance forget to rise?Or pride that thou art some one in the world,And men must bow before thee? Oh! go madFor love of some one lost; for some old voiceWhich first thou madest sing, and after sob;Some heart thou foundest rich, and leftest bare,Choking its well of faith with thy false deeds;Not like thy God, who keeps the better wineUntil the last, and, if He giveth grief,Giveth it first, and ends the tale with joy.Madness is nearer God than thou: go mad,And be ennobled far above thyself.Her brain was ill, her heart was well: she loved.It was the unbroken cord between the twainThat drew her ever to the ocean marge;Though to her feverous phantasy, unfit,'Mid the tumultuous brood of shapes distort,To see one simple form, it was the fearOf fixed destiny, unavoidable,And not the longing for the well-known face,That drew her, drew her to the urgent sea.Better to die, better to rave for love,Than to recover with sick sneering heart.
Or, if that thou art noble, in some hour,Maddened with thoughts of that which could not be,Thou mightst have yielded to the burning wind,That swept in tempest through thy scorching brain,And rushed into the thick cold night of the earth,And clamoured to the waves and beat the rocks;And never found the way back to the seatOf conscious rule, and power to bear thy pain;But God had made thee stronger to endureFor other ends, beyond thy present choice:Wilt thou not own her story a fit themeFor poet's tale? in her most frantic mood,Not call the maniacsister, tenderly?For she went mad for love and not for gold.And in the faded form, whose eyes, like sunsToo fierce for freshness and for dewy bloom,Have parched and paled the hues of tender spring,Cannot thy love unmask a youthful shapeDeformed by tempests of the soul and sea,Fit to remind thee of a story oldWhich God has in his keeping—of thyself?
But God forgets not men because they sleep.The darkness lasts all night and clears the eyes;Then comes the morning and the joy of light.O surely madness hideth not from Him;Nor doth a soul cease to be beautifulIn His sight, when its beauty is withdrawn,And hid by pale eclipse from human eyes.Surely as snow is friendly to the spring,A madness may be friendly to the soul,And shield it from a more enduring loss,From the ice-spears of a heart-reaching frost.So, after years, the winter of her life,Came the sure spring to her men had forgot,Closing the rent links of the social chain,And leaving her outside their charmed ring.Into the chill wind and the howling night,God sent out for her, and she entered inWhere there was no more sea. What messengersRan from the door of love-contented heaven,To lead her towards the real ideal home?The sea, her terror, and the wintry wind.For, on a morn of sunshine, while the windYet blew, and heaved yet the billowy seaWith memories of the night of deep unrest,They found her in a basin of the rocks,Which, buried in a firmament of seaWhen ocean winds heap up the tidal waves,Yet, in the respiration of the surge,Lifts clear its edge of rock, full to the brimWith deep, clear, resting water, plentiful.There, in the blessedness of sleep, which GodGives his beloved, she lay drowned and still.O life of love, conquered at last by fate!O life raised from the dead by Saviour Death!O love unconquered and invincible!The sea had cooled the burning of that brain;Had laid to rest those limbs so fever-tense,That scarce relaxed in sleep; and now she liesSleeping the sleep that follows after pain.'Twas one night more of agony and fear,Of shrinking from the onset of the sea;One cry of desolation, when her fearBecame a fact, and then,—God knows the rest.O cure of all our miseries—God knows!
O thou whose feet tread ever the wet sandsAnd howling rocks along the wearing shore,Roaming the confines of the endless sea!Strain not thine eyes across, bedimmed with tears;No sail comes back across that tender line.Turn thee unto thy work, let God alone;He will do his part. Then across the wavesWill float faint whispers from the better land,Veiled in the dust of waters we call storms,To thine averted ears. Do thou thy work,And thou shalt follow; follow, and find thine own.
O thou who liv'st in fear of theTo come!Around whose house the storm of terror breaksAll night; to whose love-sharpened ear, all day,The Invisible is calling at thy door,To render up that which thou can'st not keep,Be it a life or love! Open thy door,And carry forth thy dead unto the margeOf the great sea; bear it into the flood,Braving the cold that creepeth to thy heart,And lay thy coffin as an ark of hopeUpon the billows of the infinite sea.Give God thy dead to keep: so float it back,With sighs and prayers to waft it through the dark,Back to the spring of life. Say—"It is dead,But thou, the life of life, art yet alive,And thou can'st give the dead its dear old life,With new abundance perfecting the old.God, see my sadness; feel it in thyself."
Ah God! the earth is full of cries and moans,And dull despair, that neither moans nor cries;Thousands of hearts are waiting the last day,For what they know not, but with hope of change,Of resurrection, or of dreamless death.Raise thou the buried dead of springs gone byIn maidens' bosoms; raise the autumn fruitsOf old men feebly mournful o'er the lifeWhich scarce hath memory but the mournfulness.There is no Past with thee: bring back once moreThe summer eves of lovers, over whichThe wintry wind that raveth through the worldHeaps wretched leaves, half tombed in ghastly snow;Bring back the mother-heaven of orphans lone,The brother's and the sister's faithfulness;Bring forth the kingdom of the Son of Man.
They troop around me, children wildly crying;Women with faded eyes, all spent of tears;Men who have lived for love, yet lived alone;And worse than so, whose grief cannot be said.O God, thou hast a work to do indeedTo save these hearts of thine with full content,Except thou give them Lethe's stream to drink,And that, my God, were all unworthy thee.
Dome up, O Heaven! yet higher o'er my head;Back, back, horizon! widen out my world;Rush in, O infinite sea of the Unknown!For, though he slay me, I will trust in God.
I heard, in darkness, on my bed,The beating of my heartTo servant feet and regnant headA common life impart,By the liquid cords, in every threadUnbroken as they start.
Night, with its power to silence day,Filled up my lonely room;All motion quenching, save what layBeyond its passing doom,Where in his shed the workman gayWent on despite the gloom.
I listened, and I knew the sound,And the trade that he was plying;For backwards, forwards, bound and bound,'Twas a shuttle, flying, flying;Weaving ever life's garment round,Till the weft go out with sighing.
I said, O mystic thing, thou goestOn working in the dark;In space's shoreless sea thou rowest,Concealed within thy bark;All wondrous things thou, wonder, showest,Yet dost not any mark.
For all the world is woven by thee,Besides this fleshly dress;With earth and sky thou clothest me,Form, distance, loftiness;A globe of glory spouting freeAround the visionless.
For when thy busy efforts fail,And thy shuttle moveless lies,They will fall from me, like a veilFrom before a lady's eyes;As a night-perused, just-finished taleIn the new daylight dies.
But not alone dost thou unrollThe mountains, fields, and seas,A mighty, wonder-painted scroll,Like the Patmos mysteries;Thou mediator 'twixt my soulAnd higher things than these.
In holy ephod clothing meThou makest me a seer;In all the lovely things I see,The inner truths appear;And the deaf spirit without theeNo spirit-word could hear.
Yet though so high thy mission is,And thought to spirit brings,Thy web is but the chrysalis,Where lie the future wings,Now growing into perfectnessBy thy inwoven things.
Then thou, God's pulse, wilt cease to beat;But His heart will still beat on,Weaving another garment meet,If needful for his son;And sights more glorious, to completeThe web thou hast begun.
O do not leave me, mother, till I sleep;Be near me until I forget; sit there.And the child having prayed lest she should weep,Sleeps in the strength of prayer.
O do not leave me, lover, brother, friends,Till I am dead, and resting in my place.And the girl, having prayed, in silence bendsDown to the earth's embrace.
Leave me not, God, until—nay, until when?Not till I have with thee one heart, one mind;Not till the Life is Light in me, and thenLeaving is left behind.
Of old, with goodwill from the skies,The holy angels came;They walked the earth with human eyes,And passed away in flame.
But now the angels are withdrawn,Because the flowers can speak;With Christ, we see the dayspring dawnIn every snowdrop meek.
God sends them forth; to God they tend;Not less with love they burn,That to the earth they lowly bend,And unto dust return.
No miracle in them hath place,For this world is their home;An utterance of essential graceThe angel-snowdrops come.
O sister, God is very good—Thou art a woman now:O sister, be thy womanhoodA baptism on thy brow!
For what?—Do ancient stories lieOf Titans long ago,The children of the lofty skyAnd mother earth below?
Nay, walk not now upon the groundSome sons of heavenly mould?Some daughters of the Holy, foundIn earthly garments' fold?
He said, who did and spoke the truth:"Gods are the sons of God."And so the world's Titanic youthStrives homeward by one road.
Then live thou, sister, day and night,An earth-child of the sky,For ever climbing up the heightOf thy divinity.
Still in thy mother's heart-embrace,Waiting thy hour of birth,Thou growest by the genial graceOf the child-bearing earth.
Through griefs and joys, each sad and sweet,Thou shalt attain the end;Till then a goddess incomplete—O evermore my friend!
Nor is it pride that striveth so:The height of the DivineIs to be lowly 'mid the low;No towering cloud—a mine;
A mine of wealth and warmth and song,An ever-open door;For when divinely born ere long,A woman thou the more.
For at the heart of womanhoodThe child's great heart doth lie;At childhood's heart, the germ of good,Lies God's simplicity.
So, sister, be thy womanhoodA baptism on thy browFor something dimly understood,And which thou art not now;
But which within thee, all the time,Maketh thee what thou art;Maketh thee long and strive and climb—The God-life at thy heart.
Sad-hearted, be at peace: the snowdrop liesUnder the cold, sad earth-clods and the snow;But spring is floating up the southern skies,And the pale snowdrop silent waits below.
O loved if known! in dull December's dayOne scarce believes there is a month of June;But up the stairs of April and of MayThe dear sun climbeth to the summer's noon.
Dear mourner! I love God, and so I rest;O better! God loves thee, and so rest thou:He is our spring-time, our dim-visioned Best,And He will help thee—do not fear theHow.
My heart is full of inarticulate pain,And beats laboriously. Ungenial looksInvade my sanctuary. Men of gain,Wise in success, well-read in feeble books,Do not come near me now, your air is drear;'Tis winter and low skies when ye appear.
Beloved, who love beauty and love truth!Come round me; for too near ye cannot come;Make me an atmosphere with your sweet youth;Give me your souls to breathe in, a large room;Speak not a word, for see, my spirit liesHelpless and dumb; shine on me with your eyes.
O all wide places, far from feverous towns!Great shining seas! pine forests! mountains wild!Rock-bosomed shores! rough heaths! and sheep-cropt downs!Vast pallid clouds! blue spaces undefiled!Room! give me room! give loneliness and air!Free things and plenteous in your regions fair.
White dove of David, flying overhead,Golden with sunlight on thy snowy wings,Outspeeding thee my longing thoughts have fledTo find a home afar from men and things;Where in his temple, earth o'erarched with sky,God's heart to mine may speak, my heart reply.
O God of mountains, stars, and boundless spaces!O God of freedom and of joyous hearts!When thy face looketh forth from all men's faces,There will be room enough in crowded marts;Brood thou around me, and the noise is o'er;Thy universe my closet with shut door.
Heart, heart, awake! the love that loveth allMaketh a deeper calm than Horeb's cave.God in thee, can his children's folly gall?Love may be hurt, but shall not love be brave?—Thy holy silence sinks in dews of balm;Thou art my solitude, my mountain-calm.
Ah me! in ages far away,The good, the heavenly land,Though unbeheld, quite near them lay,And men could understand.
The dead yet find it, who, when here,Did love it more than this;They enter in, are filled with cheer,And pain expires in bliss.
Oh, fairly shines the blessed land!Ah, God! I weep and pray—The heart thou holdest in thy handLoves more this sunny day.
I see the hundred thousand waitAround the radiant throne:To me it is a dreary state,A crowd of beings lone.
I do not care for singing psalms;I tire of good men's talk;To me there is no joy in palms,Or white-robed solemn walk.
I love to hear the wild winds meet,The wild old winds at night;To watch the starlight throb and beat,To wait the thunder-light.
I love all tales of valiant men,Of women good and fair;If I were rich and strong, ah then,I would do something rare.
I see thy temple in the skiesOn pillars strong and white;I cannot love it, though I riseAnd try with all my might.
Sometimes a joy lays hold on me,And I am speechless then;Almost a martyr I could be,And join the holy men.
But soon my heart is like a clod,My spirit wrapt in doubt—"A pillar in the house of God,And never more go out!"
No more the sunny, breezy morn;No more the speechless moon;No more the ancient hills, forlorn,A vision, and a boon.
Ah, God! my love will never burn,Nor shall I taste thy joy;And Jesus' face is calm and stern—I am a hapless boy.
Heavily lay the warm sunlightUpon the green blades shining bright,An outspread grassy sea:She through the burnished yellow flowersWent walking in the golden hoursThat slept upon the lea.
The bee went past her with a hum;The merry gnats did go and comeIn complicated dance;Like a blue angel, to and fro,The splendid dragon-fly did go,Shot like a seeking glance.
She never followed them, but stillWent forward with a quiet will,That got, but did not miss;With gentle step she passed along,And once a low, half-murmured songUttered her share of bliss.
It was a little maiden-child;You see, not frolicsome and wild,As such a child should be;For though she was just nine, no more,Another little child she bore,Almost as big as she.
With tender care of straining arms,She kept it circled from all harms,With face turned from the sun;For in that perfect tiny heart,The mother, sister, nurse, had part,Her womanhood begun.
At length they reach an ugly ditch,The slippery sloping bank of whichFlowers and long grasses line;Some ragged-robins baby spied,And spread his little arms out wide,As he had found a mine.
What baby wants, that baby has:A law unalterable as—The poor shall serve the rich;She kneeleth down with eager eyes,And, reaching far out for the prize,Topples into the ditch.
And slanting down the bank she rolled,But in her little bosom's foldShe clasps the baby tight;And in the ditch's muddy flow,No safety sought by letting go,At length she stands upright.
Alas! her little feet are wet;Her new shoes! how can she forget?And yet she does not cry.Her scanty frock of dingy blue,Her petticoat wet through and through!But baby is quite dry.
And baby laughs, and baby crows;And baby being right, she knowsThat nothing can be wrong;And so with troubled heart, yet stout,She plans how ever to get out,With meditations long.
The bank is higher than her head,And slippery too, as I have said;And what to do with baby?For even the monkey, when he goes,Needs both his fingers and his toes.—She is perplexed as may be.
But all her puzzling was no good,Though staring up the bank she stood,Which, as she sunk, grew higher;Until, invaded with dismay,Lest baby's patience should give way,She frees her from the mire.
And up and down the ditch, not glad,But patient, she did promenade;Splash! splash! went her poor feet.And baby thought it rare good fun,And did not want it to be done;And the ditch flowers were sweet.
But, oh! the world that she had left,The meads from her so lately reft,An infant Proserpine,Lay like a fabled land above,A paradise of sunny love,In warmth and light divine.
While, with the hot sun overhead,She her low watery way did tread,'Mid slimy weeds and frogs;While now and then from distant fieldThe sound of laughter faintly pealed,Or bark of village dogs.
And once the ground began to shake,And her poor little heart to quakeFor fear of added woes;Till, looking up, at last, perforce,She saw the head of a huge horseGo past upon its nose.
And with a sound of tearing grass,And puffing breath that awful was,And horns of frightful size,A cow looked through the broken hedge,And gazed down on her from the edge,With great big Juno eyes.
And so the sun went on and on,And horse and cow and horns were gone,And still no help came near;Till at the last she heard the soundOf human footsteps on the ground,And then she cried: "I'm here!"
It was a man, much to her joy,Who looked amazed at girl and boy,And reached his hand so strong."Give me the child," he said; but no,She would not let the baby go,She had endured too long.
So, with a smile at her alarms,He stretched down both his lusty arms,And lifted them together;And, having thanked her helper, sheDid hasten homeward painfully,Wet in the sunny weather.
At home at length, lo! scarce a speckWas on the child from heel to neck,Though she was sorely mired;Nor gave she sign of grief's unrest,Till, hid upon her mother's breast,She wept till she was tired.
And intermixed with sobbing wail,She told her mother all the tale,—"But"—here her wet cheeks glow—"Mother, I did not, through it all,I did not once let baby fall—I never let him go."
Ah me! if on this star-world's faceWe men and women had like graceTo bear and shield each other;Our race would soon be young again,Its heart as free of ache and painAs that of this child-mother.
A recollection and attempted completion of a prose fragment read in childhood.
"Know'st thou that sound upon the window pane?"Said the youth quietly, as outstretched he lay,Where for an hour outstretched he had lain,Pillowed upon her knees. To him did sayThe thoughtful maiden: "It is but the rainThat hath been gathering in the West all day;Be still, my dearest, let my eyes yet restAwhile upon thy face so calm and blest."
"Know'st thou that sound, from silence slowly wrought?"Said the youth, and his eyelids softly rose,Revealing to her eyes the depths of thoughtThat lay beneath her in a still repose."I know it," said the maiden; "it is noughtBut the loud wintry wind that ever blows,Swinging the great arms of the dreary pines,Which each with others in its pain entwines."
"Hear'st thou the baying of my hounds?" said he;"Draw back the lattice-bar and let them in."Through a cloud-rift the light fell noiselesslyUpon the cottage floor; and, gaunt and thin,Leaped in the stag-hounds, bounding as in glee,Shaking the rain-drops from their shaggy skin;And as the maiden closed the spattered glass,A shadow faint over the floor did pass.
The youth, half-raised, was leaning on his hand;And when again beside him sat the maid,His eyes for a slow minute moving scannedHer calm peace-lighted face; and then he said,Monotonous, like solemn-read command:"For love is of the earth, earthy, and laidDown lifeless in its mother's womb at last."The strange sound through the great pine-branches passed.
Again a shadow as it were of glass,Over the moonbeams on the cottage floor,Shapeless and dim, almost unseen, doth pass;A mingled sound of rain-drops at the door,But not a sound upon the window was.A look of sorrowing doubt the youth's face wore;And the two hounds half-rose, and gazed at him,Eyeing his countenance by the taper dim.
Now nothing of these things the maiden noted,But turned her face with half-reproachful look,As doubting whether he the words had quotedOut of some evil, earth-begotten book;Or upward from his spirit's depths had floatedThose words like bubbles in a low dead brook;But his eyes seemed to question,—Yea or No;And so the maiden answered: "'Tis not so;
"Love is of heaven, and heavenly." A faint smileParted his lips, as a thought unexpressedWere speaking in his heart; and for a whileHe gently laid his head upon her breast;His thought, a bark that by a sunny isleAt length hath found the haven of its rest,Yet must not long remain, but forward go:He lifted up his head, and answered: "No—
"Maiden, I have loved other maidens." PaleHer red lips grew. "I loved them; yes, but they,One after one, in trial's hour did fail;For after sunset, clouds again are grey."A sudden light flashed through the silken veilThat drooping hid her eyes; and then there layA stillness on her face, waiting; and thenThe little clock rung out the hour of ten.
Moaning again the great pine-branches bow,As if they tried in vain the wind to stem.Still looking in her eyes, the youth said—"ThouArt not more beautiful than some of them;But more of earnestness is on thy brow;Thine eyes are beaming like some dark-bright gemThat pours from hidden heart upon the nightThe rays it gathered from the noon-day light.
"Look on this hand, beloved; thou didst seeThe horse that broke from many, it did hold:Two hours shall pass away, and it will beAll withered up and dry, wrinkled and old,Big-veined, and skinny to extremity."Calmly upon him looked the maiden bold;The stag-hounds rose, and gazed on him, and then,With a low whine, laid themselves down again.
A minute's silence, and the youth spake on:"Dearest, I have a fearful thing to bear"(A pain-cloud crossed his face, and then was gone)"At midnight, when the moon sets; wilt thou dareTo go with me, or must I go aloneTo meet an agony that will not spare?"She spoke not, rose, and towards her mantle went;His eyes did thank her—she was well content.
"Not yet, not yet; it is not time; for seeThe hands have far to travel to the hour;Yet time is scarcely left for telling theeThe past and present, and the coming powerOf the great darkness that will fall on me:Roses and jasmine twine the bridal bower—If ever bower and bridal joy be mine,Horror and darkness must that bower entwine."
Under his head the maiden put her arm,And knelt beside, half leaning on his breast;As, soul and body, she would shield all harmFrom him whose love had made her being blest;And well the healing of her eyes might charmHis doubting thoughts again to trusting rest.He drew and hid her face his heart upon,Then spoke with low voice sounding changeless on.
Strange words they were, and fearful, that he spake;The maiden moved not once, nor once replied;And ever as he spoke, the wind did makeA feebler moan until away it died;Then the rain ceased, and not a movement brakeThe silence, save the clock that did divideThe hours into quick moments, sparks of timeScorching the soul that watcheth for the chime.
He spoke of sins that pride had caused in him;Of sufferings merciful, and wanderings wild;Of fainting noontides, and of oceans dim;Of earthly beauty that had oft beguiled;And then the sudden storm and contest grim;From each emerging new-born, more a child;Wandering again throughout the teaching earth,No rest attaining, only a new birth.
"But when I find a heart that's like to mine,With love to live through the unloving hour,Folded in faith, like violets that have lienFolded in warm earth, till the sunny showerCalleth them forth; thoughts with my thoughts to twine,Weaving around us both a fragrant bower,Where we within may sleep, together drawn,Folded in love until the morning dawn;
"Then shall I rest, my weary day's work o'er,A deep sleep bathing, steeping all my soul,Dissolving out the earth-stains evermore.Thou too shalt sleep with me, and be made whole.All, all time's billows over us shall pour,Then ebb away, and far beneath us roll:We shall behold them like a stormy lake,'Neath the clear height of peace where we awake."
Her face on his, her lips on his lips pressed,Was the sole answer that the maiden made.With both his arms he held her to his breast;'Twas but a moment; yet, before he saidOne other word, of power to strengthen, lestShe should give way amid the trial dread,The clock gave out the warning to the hour,And on the thatch fell sounds as of a shower.
One long kiss, and the maiden rose. A fearFell like a shadow dim upon her heart,A trembling as at something ghostly near;But she was bold, for they were not to part.Then the youth rose, his cheek pale, his eyes clear;And helped the maid, whose trembling hands did thwartHer haste to tie her gathered mantle's fold;Then forth they went into the midnight cold.
The moon was sunken low in the dim west,Curled upwards on the steep horizon's brink,A leaf of glory falling to its rest.The maiden's hand, still trembling, scarce could linkHer to his side; but his arm round her waistStole gently; so she walked, and did not sink;Her hand on his right side soon held him fast,And so together wound, they onward passed.
And, clinging to his side, she felt full wellThe strong and measured beating of his heart;But as the floating moon aye lower fell,Slowly she felt its bounding force depart,Till like a throbbing bird; nor can she tellWhether it beats, at length; and with a startShe felt the arm relax around her flung,And on her circling arm he leaned and hung.
But as his steps more and more feeble grow,She feels her strength and courage rise amain.He lifted up his head; the moon was low,Almost on the world's edge. A smile of painWas on his lips, as his large eyes turned slowSeeking for hers; which, like a heavy rain,Poured love on him in many a love-lit gleam.So they walked like two souls, linked by one dream.[2]
[Footnote 2:
In a lovely garden walking,Two lovers went hand in hand;Two wan, sick figures, talking,They sat in the flowery land.
On the cheek they kissed each other,And they kissed upon the mouth;Fast clasped they one another—And back came their health and youth.
Two little bells rang shrilly,And the dream went with the hour:She lay in the cloister stilly,He far in the dungeon-tower.
Translated from Uhland.]
Hanging his head, behind each came a hound,With slow and noiseless paws upon the road.What is that shining on the weedy ground?Nought but the bright eyes of the dingy toad.The silent pines range every way around;A deep stream on the left side hardly flowed.Their path is towards the moon, dying alone—It touches the horizon, dips, is gone.
Its last gleam fell upon dim glazed eyes;An old man tottered feebly in her hold,Stooping with bended knees that could not rise;Nor longer could his arm her waist infold.The maiden trembled; but through this disguiseHer love beheld what never could grow old;And so the aged man, she, young and warm,Clasped closer yet with her supporting arm.
Till with short, dragging steps, he turned asideInto a closer thicket of tall firs,Whose bare, straight, slender stems behind them hideA smooth grey rock. Not a pine-needle stirsTill they go in. Then a low wind blows wideO'er their cone-tops. It swells until it whirrsThrough the long stems, as if aeolian chordsFor moulding mystic sounds in lack of words.
But as they entered by a narrow cleftInto the rock's heart, suddenly it ceased;And the tall pines stood still as if bereftOf a strong passion, or from pain released;Once more they wove their strange, dark, moveless weftO'er the dull midnight sky; and in the EastA mist arose and clomb the skyey stairs;And like sad thoughts the bats came unawares.
'Tis a dark chamber for the bridal night,O poor, pale, saviour bride! A faint rush-lampHe kindled with his shaking hands; its lightPainted a tiny halo on the dampThat filled the cavern to its unseen height,Like a death-candle on the midnight swamp.Within, each side the entrance, lies a hound,With liquid light his green eyes gleaming round.
A couch just raised above the rocky floor,Of withered oak and beech-leaves, that the windHad tossed about till weary, covered o'erWith skins of bears which feathery mosses lined,And last of lambs, with wool long, soft, and hoar,Received the old man's bended limbs reclined.Gently the maiden did herself unclothe,And lay beside him, trusting, and not loath.
Again the storm among the trees o'erhead;The hounds pricked up their ears, their eyes flashed fire;Seemed to the trembling maiden that a treadLight, and yet clear, amid the wind's loud ire,As dripping feet o'er smooth slabs hither sped,Came often up, as with a fierce desire,To enter, but as oft made quick retreat;And looking forth the hounds stood on their feet.
Then came, half querulous, a whisper old,Feeble and hollow as from out a chest:"Take my face on your bosom, I am cold."Straightway she bared her bosom's white soft nest;And then his head, her gentle hands, love-bold,With its grey withered face against her pressed.Ah, maiden! it was very old and chill,But thy warm heart beneath it grew not still.
Again the wind falls, and the rain-clouds pour,Rushing to earth; and soon she heard the soundOf a fierce torrent through the thick night roar;The lamp went out as by the darkness drowned;No more the morn will dawn, oh, never more!Like centuries the feeble hours went round;Dead night lay o'er her, clasping, as she lay,Within her holy place, unburied clay.
The hours stood still; her life sunk down so low,That, but for wretchedness, no life she knew.A charnel wind sung on a moaning—No;Earth's centre was the grave from which it blew;Earth's loves and beauties all passed sighing slow,Roses and lilies, children, friends, the few;But so transparent blanched in every part,She saw the pale worm lying in each heart.
And worst of all, O death of gladsome life!A voice within awoke and cried: In sooth,There is no need of sorrow, care, and strife;For all that women beauty call, and truth,Is but a glow from hearts with fancy rife,Passing away with slowly fading youth.Gaze on them narrowly, they waver, blot;Look at them fixedly, and they are not.
And all the answer the poor child could makeLay in the tightened grasp of her two hands;She felt as if she lay mouldering awakeWithin the sepulchre's fast stony bands,And cared not though she died, but for his sake.And the dark horror grew like drifting sands,Till nought seemed beautiful, not God, nor light;And yet she braved the false, denying night.
But after hope was dead, a faint, light streakCrept through a crevice in the rocky wall;It fell upon her bosom and his cheek.From God's own eye that light-glance seemed to fall.Backward he drew his head, and did not speak,But gazed with large deep eyes angelicalUpon her face. Old age had fled away—Youth everlasting in her bosom lay.
With a low cry of joy closer she crept,And on his bosom hid a face that glowed,Seeking amends for terror while he slept.She had been faithful: the beloved owedLove, youth, and gladness unto her who weptGushingly on his heart. Her warm tears flowedA baptism for the life that would not cease;And when the sun arose, they slept in peace.