AFTER long years of all that too sweet sinThat held her ever in the far strange land,She felt her heart was stricken, felt beginGreat strokes of sorrow smiting like a hand.She turned away from all the long delightWhich had so filled and blinded all the past;The sweet sin rose up bitter in the nightAnd turned the love to sickness at the last.She and her lover in their goodly hallsGazed on each other no more the old way;About the face of each clung shadowy pallsOf sadness all unchanged through many a day.And now, along the fair courts marble-floored,Each met the looks of other all aghastWith rueful thoughts unstanched yet ne’er outpoured;And their trailed robes touched mournful as they passed.Into the lonely paths of Ida sweetFor sorrow, dark and very sweet with leaves,Came Helen: weary at her bosom beatThe sad thoughts all the summer noons and eves.Strange: as her eyes sought where the sea was heldGathered into dim distances of blue,Down in her heart a dim Past she beheld,Wherein were memories like an ocean too.And strange, there, long up-pent, the memories stirredLike waves long rolling: in her heart at lengthAll the fair time from which her years had erredCame up against her now with all its strength.Back from the earliest love-time there was sentA tide of all the long untasted sweetOf days forgotten, summers that were spent,And eves when love and lover used to meet;And heavy wafts of perfume that was knownE’en from those dark familiar laurel treesThat hid where love and lover were aloneRolled back upon the heart with sore disease:And from the early home there came no lessThan the reproach of each remembered gazeOf friends, and want of all the happinessThey gave her in their simple Spartan ways.And now her heart strove, longing, to divineThe several thoughts of her they had devisedIn separate years that passed by with no sign;Yea, to have known their pain she would have prized:For now when toward them her heart was wroughtQuite weak, and from no tenderness forbore,They seemed all strong against her, with hard thoughtAnd faces turning from her evermore.And with the vision of them so deceivedCame piteous memories of the waning faceOf the Old man who sat all shamed and grievedLonely beside the hearth’s familiar place.Before her soon in very semblance gleamedThe Spartan homestead there unaltered, plain,With all the household things; yea, till she dreamedAll were yet to begin that way again,And Menelaus the next golden mornWere still to come for her with wedlock blest,As though not all deserted and forlornHe strayed—the lone man without love or rest.But most she yearned between her fear and love,To see him now—divining what was dueTo wrath and sorrowing to change and moveHis features from the fashion that she knew:For now the first time after all those yearsThe face seemed anyhow her way to seek;—But turned upon her now with all its tearsAnd vengeance of reproach at length to wreak;—And seemed to hold her through her love come back,Unforeseen, and how come, she could not tell;So that the wrath of it, the grief could rackHer heart,—yet her heart craved therewith to dwell.He was her husband—it should ever seem;And that home, surely it was still her home;And years since some long voyage or a dream;And now no more the heart was fain to roam:Nay, but was true to where it felt beginLove and the rosy ecstasies so brief;And that was surely love and the rest sin,That all delight and all the other grief.And now though none should render her heart’s rightIn any fair place where she used to sit,She would have prayed for a mere alien’s sightOf all it was so little pain to quit:Just to draw near, some silent hour, alone,Unheralded, unwelcomed, and beholdHer husband and remember him her own,And be quite near him only as of old:And perchance, for some grief that was exprestPlainly upon his face, she might have daredTo enter in, and after all been blestSome remnant of his pity to have shared.—Alas, too surely, for long years, all thoughtAnd love of her had perished from his heart;Until on all her memory were wroughtDishonour, and with him she had no part;—And this the while, so held of alien joys,She spared no thought for him and for his pain,Nor fancied the least echo of his voiceSent forth a thousand times to her in vain;When, might-be many a time, his earnest griefSent it so truly seeking her quite near,Vainly it fell on some dumb flower or leafBeside her, never cherished in her ear.And she thought how one day—she heeding nought—The last voice on the fruitless air was borneAnd died almost a taunt, and the last thoughtOf her was changed to hate or utter scorn.And she thought how since that time, day by day,The man had learnt to live without her need,And been quite happy perhaps many a way,All without loving her or taking heed.And that which was the great woe had scarce grownIn any gradual way; but with a burstHer life was torn apart from peace, and thrownFar from the love that seemed its own at firstAll for a mere girl’s fancy too—a whimFor foreign faces and some ruddier south,And no real choice to die away from himWho won the truest troth in love and youth.Now it was bitter to be quite outcast,And bitter—when this thought of dying crostHer heart—to reach him no more at the lastThan in mere rumour, as of one long lost.She looked upon the great sea rolled betweenHerself and Lacedæmon: but the Past,The sins and all the falseness that had beenSeemed like an ocean deeper and more vast.
AFTER long years of all that too sweet sinThat held her ever in the far strange land,She felt her heart was stricken, felt beginGreat strokes of sorrow smiting like a hand.She turned away from all the long delightWhich had so filled and blinded all the past;The sweet sin rose up bitter in the nightAnd turned the love to sickness at the last.She and her lover in their goodly hallsGazed on each other no more the old way;About the face of each clung shadowy pallsOf sadness all unchanged through many a day.And now, along the fair courts marble-floored,Each met the looks of other all aghastWith rueful thoughts unstanched yet ne’er outpoured;And their trailed robes touched mournful as they passed.Into the lonely paths of Ida sweetFor sorrow, dark and very sweet with leaves,Came Helen: weary at her bosom beatThe sad thoughts all the summer noons and eves.Strange: as her eyes sought where the sea was heldGathered into dim distances of blue,Down in her heart a dim Past she beheld,Wherein were memories like an ocean too.And strange, there, long up-pent, the memories stirredLike waves long rolling: in her heart at lengthAll the fair time from which her years had erredCame up against her now with all its strength.Back from the earliest love-time there was sentA tide of all the long untasted sweetOf days forgotten, summers that were spent,And eves when love and lover used to meet;And heavy wafts of perfume that was knownE’en from those dark familiar laurel treesThat hid where love and lover were aloneRolled back upon the heart with sore disease:And from the early home there came no lessThan the reproach of each remembered gazeOf friends, and want of all the happinessThey gave her in their simple Spartan ways.And now her heart strove, longing, to divineThe several thoughts of her they had devisedIn separate years that passed by with no sign;Yea, to have known their pain she would have prized:For now when toward them her heart was wroughtQuite weak, and from no tenderness forbore,They seemed all strong against her, with hard thoughtAnd faces turning from her evermore.And with the vision of them so deceivedCame piteous memories of the waning faceOf the Old man who sat all shamed and grievedLonely beside the hearth’s familiar place.Before her soon in very semblance gleamedThe Spartan homestead there unaltered, plain,With all the household things; yea, till she dreamedAll were yet to begin that way again,And Menelaus the next golden mornWere still to come for her with wedlock blest,As though not all deserted and forlornHe strayed—the lone man without love or rest.But most she yearned between her fear and love,To see him now—divining what was dueTo wrath and sorrowing to change and moveHis features from the fashion that she knew:For now the first time after all those yearsThe face seemed anyhow her way to seek;—But turned upon her now with all its tearsAnd vengeance of reproach at length to wreak;—And seemed to hold her through her love come back,Unforeseen, and how come, she could not tell;So that the wrath of it, the grief could rackHer heart,—yet her heart craved therewith to dwell.He was her husband—it should ever seem;And that home, surely it was still her home;And years since some long voyage or a dream;And now no more the heart was fain to roam:Nay, but was true to where it felt beginLove and the rosy ecstasies so brief;And that was surely love and the rest sin,That all delight and all the other grief.And now though none should render her heart’s rightIn any fair place where she used to sit,She would have prayed for a mere alien’s sightOf all it was so little pain to quit:Just to draw near, some silent hour, alone,Unheralded, unwelcomed, and beholdHer husband and remember him her own,And be quite near him only as of old:And perchance, for some grief that was exprestPlainly upon his face, she might have daredTo enter in, and after all been blestSome remnant of his pity to have shared.—Alas, too surely, for long years, all thoughtAnd love of her had perished from his heart;Until on all her memory were wroughtDishonour, and with him she had no part;—And this the while, so held of alien joys,She spared no thought for him and for his pain,Nor fancied the least echo of his voiceSent forth a thousand times to her in vain;When, might-be many a time, his earnest griefSent it so truly seeking her quite near,Vainly it fell on some dumb flower or leafBeside her, never cherished in her ear.And she thought how one day—she heeding nought—The last voice on the fruitless air was borneAnd died almost a taunt, and the last thoughtOf her was changed to hate or utter scorn.And she thought how since that time, day by day,The man had learnt to live without her need,And been quite happy perhaps many a way,All without loving her or taking heed.And that which was the great woe had scarce grownIn any gradual way; but with a burstHer life was torn apart from peace, and thrownFar from the love that seemed its own at firstAll for a mere girl’s fancy too—a whimFor foreign faces and some ruddier south,And no real choice to die away from himWho won the truest troth in love and youth.Now it was bitter to be quite outcast,And bitter—when this thought of dying crostHer heart—to reach him no more at the lastThan in mere rumour, as of one long lost.She looked upon the great sea rolled betweenHerself and Lacedæmon: but the Past,The sins and all the falseness that had beenSeemed like an ocean deeper and more vast.
AFTER long years of all that too sweet sinThat held her ever in the far strange land,She felt her heart was stricken, felt beginGreat strokes of sorrow smiting like a hand.
She turned away from all the long delightWhich had so filled and blinded all the past;The sweet sin rose up bitter in the nightAnd turned the love to sickness at the last.
She and her lover in their goodly hallsGazed on each other no more the old way;About the face of each clung shadowy pallsOf sadness all unchanged through many a day.
And now, along the fair courts marble-floored,Each met the looks of other all aghastWith rueful thoughts unstanched yet ne’er outpoured;And their trailed robes touched mournful as they passed.
Into the lonely paths of Ida sweetFor sorrow, dark and very sweet with leaves,Came Helen: weary at her bosom beatThe sad thoughts all the summer noons and eves.
Strange: as her eyes sought where the sea was heldGathered into dim distances of blue,Down in her heart a dim Past she beheld,Wherein were memories like an ocean too.
And strange, there, long up-pent, the memories stirredLike waves long rolling: in her heart at lengthAll the fair time from which her years had erredCame up against her now with all its strength.
Back from the earliest love-time there was sentA tide of all the long untasted sweetOf days forgotten, summers that were spent,And eves when love and lover used to meet;
And heavy wafts of perfume that was knownE’en from those dark familiar laurel treesThat hid where love and lover were aloneRolled back upon the heart with sore disease:
And from the early home there came no lessThan the reproach of each remembered gazeOf friends, and want of all the happinessThey gave her in their simple Spartan ways.
And now her heart strove, longing, to divineThe several thoughts of her they had devisedIn separate years that passed by with no sign;Yea, to have known their pain she would have prized:
For now when toward them her heart was wroughtQuite weak, and from no tenderness forbore,They seemed all strong against her, with hard thoughtAnd faces turning from her evermore.
And with the vision of them so deceivedCame piteous memories of the waning faceOf the Old man who sat all shamed and grievedLonely beside the hearth’s familiar place.
Before her soon in very semblance gleamedThe Spartan homestead there unaltered, plain,With all the household things; yea, till she dreamedAll were yet to begin that way again,
And Menelaus the next golden mornWere still to come for her with wedlock blest,As though not all deserted and forlornHe strayed—the lone man without love or rest.
But most she yearned between her fear and love,To see him now—divining what was dueTo wrath and sorrowing to change and moveHis features from the fashion that she knew:
For now the first time after all those yearsThe face seemed anyhow her way to seek;—But turned upon her now with all its tearsAnd vengeance of reproach at length to wreak;
—And seemed to hold her through her love come back,Unforeseen, and how come, she could not tell;So that the wrath of it, the grief could rackHer heart,—yet her heart craved therewith to dwell.
He was her husband—it should ever seem;And that home, surely it was still her home;And years since some long voyage or a dream;And now no more the heart was fain to roam:
Nay, but was true to where it felt beginLove and the rosy ecstasies so brief;And that was surely love and the rest sin,That all delight and all the other grief.
And now though none should render her heart’s rightIn any fair place where she used to sit,She would have prayed for a mere alien’s sightOf all it was so little pain to quit:
Just to draw near, some silent hour, alone,Unheralded, unwelcomed, and beholdHer husband and remember him her own,And be quite near him only as of old:
And perchance, for some grief that was exprestPlainly upon his face, she might have daredTo enter in, and after all been blestSome remnant of his pity to have shared.
—Alas, too surely, for long years, all thoughtAnd love of her had perished from his heart;Until on all her memory were wroughtDishonour, and with him she had no part;
—And this the while, so held of alien joys,She spared no thought for him and for his pain,Nor fancied the least echo of his voiceSent forth a thousand times to her in vain;
When, might-be many a time, his earnest griefSent it so truly seeking her quite near,Vainly it fell on some dumb flower or leafBeside her, never cherished in her ear.
And she thought how one day—she heeding nought—The last voice on the fruitless air was borneAnd died almost a taunt, and the last thoughtOf her was changed to hate or utter scorn.
And she thought how since that time, day by day,The man had learnt to live without her need,And been quite happy perhaps many a way,All without loving her or taking heed.
And that which was the great woe had scarce grownIn any gradual way; but with a burstHer life was torn apart from peace, and thrownFar from the love that seemed its own at first
All for a mere girl’s fancy too—a whimFor foreign faces and some ruddier south,And no real choice to die away from himWho won the truest troth in love and youth.
Now it was bitter to be quite outcast,And bitter—when this thought of dying crostHer heart—to reach him no more at the lastThan in mere rumour, as of one long lost.
She looked upon the great sea rolled betweenHerself and Lacedæmon: but the Past,The sins and all the falseness that had beenSeemed like an ocean deeper and more vast.
—SO, Woman! I possess you. Yes, at length.Once wholly and for ever you are mine!That cursèd burden on my memory,Your whole past life’s betrayal—let it go:Ay, let it perish, and, for me at least,Let life begin this moment, though we dieBut three hours hence!Is this your little voiceMy Love, enthralling, winning my whole faithWith mere increasing sweetness in its tones,Dissolving, exorcising, as it used,Ah too infallibly, the phantom thing,The doubt, the dread within me? ah, my Sweet,Is this once more your voice assuring me—With some rare music rather than one wordOf those fair whispered oaths of constancy;Yea, till, as ever, I am come to smileAnd glory in you, and believe you pure—All mine, for ever, past a change in thought?But no!It is the little voice of the SteelHere safe against my breast and fairly hid:The Steel is singing to me, very low,A tender song entrancing me;—O joy!The Steel says you will ne’er escape me more;You will be true to me; you will be mine;No man shall touch you after me; no face,However strangely fair, shall have the artTo draw one look from you, to charm and rouseThat wondrous little snake of treacheryThat was for ever lurking for me—sureTo spring upon me out of the least lookOr promise, safe to be curled up beneathThe simplest seeming offering in your hand.Yes, ’tis a thing at length as good as thisThe steel is singing to me: did you hear,You should but love it—since it pleads so wellIt makes me put whole faith in you once more.For now three days and nights indeed—while I,Contending for you with the love I gaveAgainst the curse I owed you, raged and thoughtIt was my madness—O this little voiceWas striving with me, singing all the time,Upon a low sweet soothing tune, strange wordsOf promise that seemed like the distant tauntsOf all my past beliefs, and that I soughtTo cover with my curses; till, last night,My soul grew faint with hearing them—how sweet,How full of good they were. Then I fell still,Yea, stunned, and with my head upon the ground;And through the shut bleared darkness of my eyes,I seemed to see the room about me litAnd fearful, and the Sword from off the wallUnscabbarded before me in the midst,Most terrible and living, and in light—Just like a great archangel with the glareOf burning expiations full on him.O then my soul did call upon the Steel;And the Steel heard and swore to me. My soulTore forth the hidden-rooted love of thee,Thy treasured words—each one a cruel wormThat gnaws me through for ever, thy fair faceFrom the first inmost shrine, thy early kiss,Thy separate falsenesses, all my despair,My utter helplessness—and flung them down,The very writhing entrails of my lifeBecome one inward horror to be borneNo longer. And there came about me, loud,The mocking of a thousand impious tongues,That seemed to clash and rattle hideouslyFrom ancient hollow sepulchres of menLong buried and forgotten; for my loveTheir gibe was, for my faith, for my despair,For my long blindness: and at last I knew,And, understanding, called with a great voiceUpon the Steel: and the Steel heard me there,And swore to me—for you and me and God!Sing on, O little voice: She cannot hear;There is a pact between us.Now I standAnd feel her eyes’ soft element within,Upon, around me, melting away lifeInto these few full throbbing moments.—Lo!Her tears again—her disavowal cleanOf any thought of falseness. Lo! her words—I might have lived beside her all these daysIn perfect joy; words, blandishments and tearsAlready staggering me with their old mightOf coiling fascinations; and one tearA drop that, falling straight into my heart,Fills it too full for speaking a long timeThe ready thing of pardon and of love.See! am I Lord here?—This fair sight of Her,Working the whole impassioned prodigyAs ’twere of all her beauty, just to winMethis time and, at any cost, be queenOf this one present, as of many pasts—Hath ever it been fairer, more complete?Who else hath had her more and called her hisThan here I have her calling herself mine?I would indeed he might draw near just now,Yea, void of feigning, in some wonted way,And feel a cold look from her plant him thereOutside the circle where this molten loveOf her whole smile is showered upon me,And know her no more his now than mine then.But what do I here with a thought like this?Those men I deemed my rivals—what are theyTo me now? Why I could put them to shameAnd taunt them now myself for insolentPretenders who have never known what ’tisTo conquer love.—Ay, what compared with meSeem all the famous lovers of great queensOr splendid cruel mistresses, whose woes—Deceived, betrayed, reviled—have made them shineWith some bright share of every age’s tears?What but mere fools? weak sufferers of wrongFrom creatures whom they held in their own hands?Or passionless, or lacking any strengthTo seize their fair worlds passing them so nighRather than linger in some sickly trailOf sweetness left behind and die of shame?O all ye Messalinas of old time—Ye Helens, Cleopatras, ye Dalilahs,Ye Maries, ye Lucrezias, Catharines—Fair crowned or uncrowned—courtezans alikeWho played with men a calculated game—Your moves their heart-wounds, deaths and ruins—sureOf your inconstancy and their soft loves,Had I been lover in the stead of them,Methinks the histories of you had been changed,And some of your worst falsenesses redeemedBy flawless faithfulness to one last love.But now I am content, I have love here;And I thank God for love—yea, is it sweet?Yea, is it best of all his gifts to man?—I see her splendid smile there—feel her armsAlready coming round me!—Who but ICan answer? Who but I have had it wholeLike this?(The Steel is singing to me now,Still hidden in my breast—a low sweet song.)Ah, this time there is no doubt! ’tis all true:Her arms may fold me—fondle me, and IMay wholly yield myself to their caressQuite sure it leaves no atom in reserveFor any other after me. And lo,She is right worthy of a greater oneThan all the lovers that have ever lovedAnd, trembling, lost their women and themselves:For splendour—such as stains for me and turnsMy eyes disgusted from the vaunted whiteOf many a bosom impudently bared—Is in that bosom closely veiled, whose veilsI may undo—yea now, and with these hands;It is my right. And then, O joy, to knowThat this, so much more wonderful than those,Shall ne’er be seen by anyone but me!(Ah, sing on little voice!) But, as I said,—Yes, she is worthy!—Come to me, my Sweet:You have the greatest beauty God has made.I think that. Let me kiss your forehead once,Twice, thrice, and say it is diviner white,And hallowed with a brighter radiant graceThan Cleopatra’s was, and swear therewithI kiss it with a passion greater farThan Antony’s was: yea, let me write thereThis thing in kisses that none can efface.“Ah, you believe me now, dear love?” she says:Yes: I say yes.(Sing on! ’Twas you sang: yes;You bade me answer so. I trust you most.)“Dear Love, let us go lie upon that bed.I should delight to know it just the grave,So I might keep this faith and happiness,That yours—this mine—both safe for evermore,So I might lie down sure that no mischance,No doubt, no calumny, could come to changeMe—yours, you—mine, and peace for evermore.”She says this, and she leads me by the hand.Her head is like a lily drooping down.—My passion! Yea I will not baulk thee now:I need not: for I feel that what I amIs something more than man, that conquers man.What is it? I know not: a flame, a thought;But cold, but calm, unalterable, pure,As far above the fume of the base lustThat dulls and levels all men, as, perhaps,Was that strange flame or thought that made Man firstAnd Woman then to bring the man to nought,Which fate I, who indeed am not a god,Who am not Hercules, nor Samson, no,Nor Antony—which fate I yet will change.Nay, passion, rather I will urge thee on;For I shall be above thee all the timeA cold impartial watcher, hard to foil,Attentive that thou gettest all thine ownNot tampered with—lest, in some little thing,Thou art betrayed, or with a semblance served,Yea, for a blind fool as thou ever wert.—O take thy fill of looking on this snowIn which thy heart finds such delicious death;Do out thine utmost revel on the bloomOf this rare flower’s beauty, now at full;Whose summer is just perfected to-nightAnd laid before thee, heightened with the tintOf first mysterious sadness, like a touchOf far-off autumns. Do not shun that mouth:For there, indeed, a thing most dainty-sweet—The last kiss that was sown a precious seedBy Love at the beginning—waits for thee,The fullest, the most perfect of them all.The earth will never fashion forth, and LoveWill never with his summer paint againSo beautiful a flower.I am claspedWith such arms as I would might hold me soFor evermore in heaven. All around,The strange unearthly fragrance of her hairIs coming up, and, with an elementDivine as some transparent rosy cloud,Enwrapping both of us; ay, and, as though—A very cloud of magic—it had borneUs, lifted far away from thought, and life,And days, and earthliness—we seem to voyageThrough most ethereal atmospheres, and seasUpon whose soft sustaining waves we drift,And draw no sound from either distant shoreOf ending or beginning: and the bliss,Unspeakable and perfect, that we feelSeems making and remaking evermoreOur souls through this eternity.Alas!One little thread—I strive in vain to break—Is holding me: a memory, a thought,The pricking of a half-numbed wound through sleep,The constant teazing of a wingéd thing,The bitterness wherewith some ceaseless fangOf life gnaws through, and breaks our dream of it—Some such pursues and racks me. But ’tis well:I know the dream is mine to make my own;I know what dragon guards this paradise,And with what paltry lies he fools mankind.Ah, how the universe must jeer to seeAll men so smoothly cheated of their own!—And when I slay this dragon, I have all.I cannot stir now. Many a knotted tressIs on me, like a thousand-threaded chainTwined many times about my limbs. I dreamNo more: I feel her small and gliding handsSeek mine; and while the burning rapid wordsHer full heart furnishes hiss in mine ear,My sight is peering blindly through the darkOf her vast hair—a cavernous abyssOf blackness traversed by mad shooting sparksOr fearful gleams of blood.—What things she says!“—Let this be as it were my bridal night,If you doubt all the Past. I am yours now;Take this for the beginning, and trust me;I will be yours for ever,—not a look,A word, a thought shall e’er dishonour you.”—And, if I had not heard this very thingBefore, once, twice, innumerable times,I should not plunge as I do now, my headStill deeper in the fathomless dark hair,And see tears falling from me—as it seems—To fall on through a drear eternity.But, hark, another voice! Whence comes it?—Whence?From here, beneath the pillow; yes, ’tis harshAnd not like hers; but speaks a sweet thing—this:I swear for Her it shall be so: trust Me!Ah, yes—my Love, my own, I answer you;I part with all the Past, forgive, deny,Refuse to see it. All my soul is yours;I never loved a moment in this world,But what was love was wholly meant for you.Yea, even before I saw you as you are,Or knew your name, the vaguest breaths of loveWere but sent forward to me from the daysWhen you should come, preparing me for you.I know in truth there never was a timeWherein I saw no part of you—nor signTo love you by; for all my sun, my light,My flowers, my world would be the saddest blank,The day you were not; you have these in you,And are yourself in them; and, on the dayYou go, you take them all away with you;And so ’twas you I saw when I saw themAnd said:—“That Lady mineshall have a headLike yonder drooping lily on whose whiteThe summer’s breath may never set a stain;And She shall have a heaven for her hairAs deep, and dark, and splendid, as the oneI dream beneath; and She shall have such eyesAs ever seem to me those still blue lakesI come on in the twilight of the woodsAnd find wide open under the thick fringeOf violets—that fascinate me soWith gazing on me; yes, and, for her smile,She shall but use that magic of the sunThat so transfigures all the day with light,And gives my heart already such a thrillAs if She smiled at me:”—my Love, ’twas youI saw then, dreamed of, waited for; ’twas you;My heart attests it, looking on you now.—So this of mine is such a perfect loveYou see, it could not change nor turn away;—It is the only love God made for you,As you He made for me and from the firstRevealed to me. Therefore it cannot beThat you are false to me,—that I no wayCan save and keep you mine—you whom He gaveTo me for ever, to be brought as mineBefore Him at the last. My precious one,You are all worthy of me—are my crownUntarnished, perfect, for you have not sinned;’Tis I have sinned,—not being strong at onceTo save both pure in you. Did not your lipsCompletely make you mine of your own will?Did you not swear yourself to me at first,Yea, in God’s name, before him? So that I—Yes, I, have let you, all against your heart,Be brought to do sad things you would have shunned;Because I had the way, and used it not,To keep you from them.—Ah, I curse myself!—My own, my Love!—those gentle words of yours,Those promises—repeat them; yes, once more:You will be mine; you are mine; yes, my Love,I do believe you now; I may, I can—(Forthatsings under the pillow; believe Me!—)I bless and kiss you for them all.She sleeps.The Steel is singing to me now; its voiceCreeps through and through;—go on, she cannot hear—The things it sings are death and love; ay, loveThat death keeps true;—She sleeps, she cannot hear.There is no sort of madness in my brain;But rather a great strength, a calm, as thoughA more than human spirit dwelt with mine.And yet I do perceive that, since last night,My eyes have been bewildered with the glareOf mighty blades and swords that seem to whirlAnd strike around me, and transform the worldWith an exceeding splendour cold and bare;A thousand films are as it were cut through;And all the beauty, supernaturalAnd real of things seems only to endure.The Steel is an immense magician: yes—Love, Beauty, Life—a touch can change them allAnd make them wholly fit for me and great.See now whereitis gleaming through her hair!’Tis like a fair barbaric ornamentAblaze with glancing points of diamondsStuck in and out between the writhing black.Or, rather, ’tis as fearful and as brightAs some fierce snake of azure lightning curledSinister under the dark mass of night,That ever, with his sudden forkéd flashPiercing some crevice, doth illumine it.I could be gazing on this sight for hours.O, Woman!—you are greatest in the world:You have all fairest things; all joy is yoursTo give and take away; you have all love;Your beauty is to man’s heart as the sunThat doles out day and night to the whole earth;You have strange gifts of passion and sweet words:In truth you are right splendid,—and well fit,I think, to be the leman of a god;But all too fair, and yet not good enough,To be the spouse and helpmate of one man.—For this: there is a serpent in you hid;It dwells in the invisible of thought,Or crouches in some corner of your heart,Or is engendered in the ardent flameOf your quick passions,—where, it matters not;But never doth it cease so to distilIts wily poison into all you areOr do or feel, it makes you turn and stabWhere most you thought to love,—it sets your lipsIn league with falsehood to betray your heart,Puts plotting in your heart against your lips.You cannot will your heart to any manBut you must seek, for very wantonness—As tempts the snake within you—just the straightBetrayal of that man—his love, his faith,As though you had not willed yourself at first:And if you did not this somehow, your lifeWould seem to you a nipped and withered thing,Your beauty good for nought. You are made so.—Therefore, my Love, I will not let you wake.Nay—though you are so pure now and have sworn—Lest you betray me as you did last time,And times before that, having sworn as now.But you are mine—my beautiful, my own!And your lips said it while your heart beat hereAgainst mine—thrilling with a thought of me;Your looks were almost piteous with a prayerThat I—that God would save you. Shall your mouth,The chaste, the holy one that I have kissedBe desecrate once more? Shall your own armsEmbrace and hug the very shame of you?Shall this, your heart that made you mine, be false—Go once more seeking out adulteries?Not so: I strike the holy steel in it.—It was the only way to keep her mine.
—SO, Woman! I possess you. Yes, at length.Once wholly and for ever you are mine!That cursèd burden on my memory,Your whole past life’s betrayal—let it go:Ay, let it perish, and, for me at least,Let life begin this moment, though we dieBut three hours hence!Is this your little voiceMy Love, enthralling, winning my whole faithWith mere increasing sweetness in its tones,Dissolving, exorcising, as it used,Ah too infallibly, the phantom thing,The doubt, the dread within me? ah, my Sweet,Is this once more your voice assuring me—With some rare music rather than one wordOf those fair whispered oaths of constancy;Yea, till, as ever, I am come to smileAnd glory in you, and believe you pure—All mine, for ever, past a change in thought?But no!It is the little voice of the SteelHere safe against my breast and fairly hid:The Steel is singing to me, very low,A tender song entrancing me;—O joy!The Steel says you will ne’er escape me more;You will be true to me; you will be mine;No man shall touch you after me; no face,However strangely fair, shall have the artTo draw one look from you, to charm and rouseThat wondrous little snake of treacheryThat was for ever lurking for me—sureTo spring upon me out of the least lookOr promise, safe to be curled up beneathThe simplest seeming offering in your hand.Yes, ’tis a thing at length as good as thisThe steel is singing to me: did you hear,You should but love it—since it pleads so wellIt makes me put whole faith in you once more.For now three days and nights indeed—while I,Contending for you with the love I gaveAgainst the curse I owed you, raged and thoughtIt was my madness—O this little voiceWas striving with me, singing all the time,Upon a low sweet soothing tune, strange wordsOf promise that seemed like the distant tauntsOf all my past beliefs, and that I soughtTo cover with my curses; till, last night,My soul grew faint with hearing them—how sweet,How full of good they were. Then I fell still,Yea, stunned, and with my head upon the ground;And through the shut bleared darkness of my eyes,I seemed to see the room about me litAnd fearful, and the Sword from off the wallUnscabbarded before me in the midst,Most terrible and living, and in light—Just like a great archangel with the glareOf burning expiations full on him.O then my soul did call upon the Steel;And the Steel heard and swore to me. My soulTore forth the hidden-rooted love of thee,Thy treasured words—each one a cruel wormThat gnaws me through for ever, thy fair faceFrom the first inmost shrine, thy early kiss,Thy separate falsenesses, all my despair,My utter helplessness—and flung them down,The very writhing entrails of my lifeBecome one inward horror to be borneNo longer. And there came about me, loud,The mocking of a thousand impious tongues,That seemed to clash and rattle hideouslyFrom ancient hollow sepulchres of menLong buried and forgotten; for my loveTheir gibe was, for my faith, for my despair,For my long blindness: and at last I knew,And, understanding, called with a great voiceUpon the Steel: and the Steel heard me there,And swore to me—for you and me and God!Sing on, O little voice: She cannot hear;There is a pact between us.Now I standAnd feel her eyes’ soft element within,Upon, around me, melting away lifeInto these few full throbbing moments.—Lo!Her tears again—her disavowal cleanOf any thought of falseness. Lo! her words—I might have lived beside her all these daysIn perfect joy; words, blandishments and tearsAlready staggering me with their old mightOf coiling fascinations; and one tearA drop that, falling straight into my heart,Fills it too full for speaking a long timeThe ready thing of pardon and of love.See! am I Lord here?—This fair sight of Her,Working the whole impassioned prodigyAs ’twere of all her beauty, just to winMethis time and, at any cost, be queenOf this one present, as of many pasts—Hath ever it been fairer, more complete?Who else hath had her more and called her hisThan here I have her calling herself mine?I would indeed he might draw near just now,Yea, void of feigning, in some wonted way,And feel a cold look from her plant him thereOutside the circle where this molten loveOf her whole smile is showered upon me,And know her no more his now than mine then.But what do I here with a thought like this?Those men I deemed my rivals—what are theyTo me now? Why I could put them to shameAnd taunt them now myself for insolentPretenders who have never known what ’tisTo conquer love.—Ay, what compared with meSeem all the famous lovers of great queensOr splendid cruel mistresses, whose woes—Deceived, betrayed, reviled—have made them shineWith some bright share of every age’s tears?What but mere fools? weak sufferers of wrongFrom creatures whom they held in their own hands?Or passionless, or lacking any strengthTo seize their fair worlds passing them so nighRather than linger in some sickly trailOf sweetness left behind and die of shame?O all ye Messalinas of old time—Ye Helens, Cleopatras, ye Dalilahs,Ye Maries, ye Lucrezias, Catharines—Fair crowned or uncrowned—courtezans alikeWho played with men a calculated game—Your moves their heart-wounds, deaths and ruins—sureOf your inconstancy and their soft loves,Had I been lover in the stead of them,Methinks the histories of you had been changed,And some of your worst falsenesses redeemedBy flawless faithfulness to one last love.But now I am content, I have love here;And I thank God for love—yea, is it sweet?Yea, is it best of all his gifts to man?—I see her splendid smile there—feel her armsAlready coming round me!—Who but ICan answer? Who but I have had it wholeLike this?(The Steel is singing to me now,Still hidden in my breast—a low sweet song.)Ah, this time there is no doubt! ’tis all true:Her arms may fold me—fondle me, and IMay wholly yield myself to their caressQuite sure it leaves no atom in reserveFor any other after me. And lo,She is right worthy of a greater oneThan all the lovers that have ever lovedAnd, trembling, lost their women and themselves:For splendour—such as stains for me and turnsMy eyes disgusted from the vaunted whiteOf many a bosom impudently bared—Is in that bosom closely veiled, whose veilsI may undo—yea now, and with these hands;It is my right. And then, O joy, to knowThat this, so much more wonderful than those,Shall ne’er be seen by anyone but me!(Ah, sing on little voice!) But, as I said,—Yes, she is worthy!—Come to me, my Sweet:You have the greatest beauty God has made.I think that. Let me kiss your forehead once,Twice, thrice, and say it is diviner white,And hallowed with a brighter radiant graceThan Cleopatra’s was, and swear therewithI kiss it with a passion greater farThan Antony’s was: yea, let me write thereThis thing in kisses that none can efface.“Ah, you believe me now, dear love?” she says:Yes: I say yes.(Sing on! ’Twas you sang: yes;You bade me answer so. I trust you most.)“Dear Love, let us go lie upon that bed.I should delight to know it just the grave,So I might keep this faith and happiness,That yours—this mine—both safe for evermore,So I might lie down sure that no mischance,No doubt, no calumny, could come to changeMe—yours, you—mine, and peace for evermore.”She says this, and she leads me by the hand.Her head is like a lily drooping down.—My passion! Yea I will not baulk thee now:I need not: for I feel that what I amIs something more than man, that conquers man.What is it? I know not: a flame, a thought;But cold, but calm, unalterable, pure,As far above the fume of the base lustThat dulls and levels all men, as, perhaps,Was that strange flame or thought that made Man firstAnd Woman then to bring the man to nought,Which fate I, who indeed am not a god,Who am not Hercules, nor Samson, no,Nor Antony—which fate I yet will change.Nay, passion, rather I will urge thee on;For I shall be above thee all the timeA cold impartial watcher, hard to foil,Attentive that thou gettest all thine ownNot tampered with—lest, in some little thing,Thou art betrayed, or with a semblance served,Yea, for a blind fool as thou ever wert.—O take thy fill of looking on this snowIn which thy heart finds such delicious death;Do out thine utmost revel on the bloomOf this rare flower’s beauty, now at full;Whose summer is just perfected to-nightAnd laid before thee, heightened with the tintOf first mysterious sadness, like a touchOf far-off autumns. Do not shun that mouth:For there, indeed, a thing most dainty-sweet—The last kiss that was sown a precious seedBy Love at the beginning—waits for thee,The fullest, the most perfect of them all.The earth will never fashion forth, and LoveWill never with his summer paint againSo beautiful a flower.I am claspedWith such arms as I would might hold me soFor evermore in heaven. All around,The strange unearthly fragrance of her hairIs coming up, and, with an elementDivine as some transparent rosy cloud,Enwrapping both of us; ay, and, as though—A very cloud of magic—it had borneUs, lifted far away from thought, and life,And days, and earthliness—we seem to voyageThrough most ethereal atmospheres, and seasUpon whose soft sustaining waves we drift,And draw no sound from either distant shoreOf ending or beginning: and the bliss,Unspeakable and perfect, that we feelSeems making and remaking evermoreOur souls through this eternity.Alas!One little thread—I strive in vain to break—Is holding me: a memory, a thought,The pricking of a half-numbed wound through sleep,The constant teazing of a wingéd thing,The bitterness wherewith some ceaseless fangOf life gnaws through, and breaks our dream of it—Some such pursues and racks me. But ’tis well:I know the dream is mine to make my own;I know what dragon guards this paradise,And with what paltry lies he fools mankind.Ah, how the universe must jeer to seeAll men so smoothly cheated of their own!—And when I slay this dragon, I have all.I cannot stir now. Many a knotted tressIs on me, like a thousand-threaded chainTwined many times about my limbs. I dreamNo more: I feel her small and gliding handsSeek mine; and while the burning rapid wordsHer full heart furnishes hiss in mine ear,My sight is peering blindly through the darkOf her vast hair—a cavernous abyssOf blackness traversed by mad shooting sparksOr fearful gleams of blood.—What things she says!“—Let this be as it were my bridal night,If you doubt all the Past. I am yours now;Take this for the beginning, and trust me;I will be yours for ever,—not a look,A word, a thought shall e’er dishonour you.”—And, if I had not heard this very thingBefore, once, twice, innumerable times,I should not plunge as I do now, my headStill deeper in the fathomless dark hair,And see tears falling from me—as it seems—To fall on through a drear eternity.But, hark, another voice! Whence comes it?—Whence?From here, beneath the pillow; yes, ’tis harshAnd not like hers; but speaks a sweet thing—this:I swear for Her it shall be so: trust Me!Ah, yes—my Love, my own, I answer you;I part with all the Past, forgive, deny,Refuse to see it. All my soul is yours;I never loved a moment in this world,But what was love was wholly meant for you.Yea, even before I saw you as you are,Or knew your name, the vaguest breaths of loveWere but sent forward to me from the daysWhen you should come, preparing me for you.I know in truth there never was a timeWherein I saw no part of you—nor signTo love you by; for all my sun, my light,My flowers, my world would be the saddest blank,The day you were not; you have these in you,And are yourself in them; and, on the dayYou go, you take them all away with you;And so ’twas you I saw when I saw themAnd said:—“That Lady mineshall have a headLike yonder drooping lily on whose whiteThe summer’s breath may never set a stain;And She shall have a heaven for her hairAs deep, and dark, and splendid, as the oneI dream beneath; and She shall have such eyesAs ever seem to me those still blue lakesI come on in the twilight of the woodsAnd find wide open under the thick fringeOf violets—that fascinate me soWith gazing on me; yes, and, for her smile,She shall but use that magic of the sunThat so transfigures all the day with light,And gives my heart already such a thrillAs if She smiled at me:”—my Love, ’twas youI saw then, dreamed of, waited for; ’twas you;My heart attests it, looking on you now.—So this of mine is such a perfect loveYou see, it could not change nor turn away;—It is the only love God made for you,As you He made for me and from the firstRevealed to me. Therefore it cannot beThat you are false to me,—that I no wayCan save and keep you mine—you whom He gaveTo me for ever, to be brought as mineBefore Him at the last. My precious one,You are all worthy of me—are my crownUntarnished, perfect, for you have not sinned;’Tis I have sinned,—not being strong at onceTo save both pure in you. Did not your lipsCompletely make you mine of your own will?Did you not swear yourself to me at first,Yea, in God’s name, before him? So that I—Yes, I, have let you, all against your heart,Be brought to do sad things you would have shunned;Because I had the way, and used it not,To keep you from them.—Ah, I curse myself!—My own, my Love!—those gentle words of yours,Those promises—repeat them; yes, once more:You will be mine; you are mine; yes, my Love,I do believe you now; I may, I can—(Forthatsings under the pillow; believe Me!—)I bless and kiss you for them all.She sleeps.The Steel is singing to me now; its voiceCreeps through and through;—go on, she cannot hear—The things it sings are death and love; ay, loveThat death keeps true;—She sleeps, she cannot hear.There is no sort of madness in my brain;But rather a great strength, a calm, as thoughA more than human spirit dwelt with mine.And yet I do perceive that, since last night,My eyes have been bewildered with the glareOf mighty blades and swords that seem to whirlAnd strike around me, and transform the worldWith an exceeding splendour cold and bare;A thousand films are as it were cut through;And all the beauty, supernaturalAnd real of things seems only to endure.The Steel is an immense magician: yes—Love, Beauty, Life—a touch can change them allAnd make them wholly fit for me and great.See now whereitis gleaming through her hair!’Tis like a fair barbaric ornamentAblaze with glancing points of diamondsStuck in and out between the writhing black.Or, rather, ’tis as fearful and as brightAs some fierce snake of azure lightning curledSinister under the dark mass of night,That ever, with his sudden forkéd flashPiercing some crevice, doth illumine it.I could be gazing on this sight for hours.O, Woman!—you are greatest in the world:You have all fairest things; all joy is yoursTo give and take away; you have all love;Your beauty is to man’s heart as the sunThat doles out day and night to the whole earth;You have strange gifts of passion and sweet words:In truth you are right splendid,—and well fit,I think, to be the leman of a god;But all too fair, and yet not good enough,To be the spouse and helpmate of one man.—For this: there is a serpent in you hid;It dwells in the invisible of thought,Or crouches in some corner of your heart,Or is engendered in the ardent flameOf your quick passions,—where, it matters not;But never doth it cease so to distilIts wily poison into all you areOr do or feel, it makes you turn and stabWhere most you thought to love,—it sets your lipsIn league with falsehood to betray your heart,Puts plotting in your heart against your lips.You cannot will your heart to any manBut you must seek, for very wantonness—As tempts the snake within you—just the straightBetrayal of that man—his love, his faith,As though you had not willed yourself at first:And if you did not this somehow, your lifeWould seem to you a nipped and withered thing,Your beauty good for nought. You are made so.—Therefore, my Love, I will not let you wake.Nay—though you are so pure now and have sworn—Lest you betray me as you did last time,And times before that, having sworn as now.But you are mine—my beautiful, my own!And your lips said it while your heart beat hereAgainst mine—thrilling with a thought of me;Your looks were almost piteous with a prayerThat I—that God would save you. Shall your mouth,The chaste, the holy one that I have kissedBe desecrate once more? Shall your own armsEmbrace and hug the very shame of you?Shall this, your heart that made you mine, be false—Go once more seeking out adulteries?Not so: I strike the holy steel in it.—It was the only way to keep her mine.
—SO, Woman! I possess you. Yes, at length.Once wholly and for ever you are mine!
That cursèd burden on my memory,Your whole past life’s betrayal—let it go:Ay, let it perish, and, for me at least,Let life begin this moment, though we dieBut three hours hence!
Is this your little voiceMy Love, enthralling, winning my whole faithWith mere increasing sweetness in its tones,Dissolving, exorcising, as it used,Ah too infallibly, the phantom thing,The doubt, the dread within me? ah, my Sweet,Is this once more your voice assuring me—With some rare music rather than one wordOf those fair whispered oaths of constancy;Yea, till, as ever, I am come to smileAnd glory in you, and believe you pure—All mine, for ever, past a change in thought?
But no!It is the little voice of the SteelHere safe against my breast and fairly hid:The Steel is singing to me, very low,A tender song entrancing me;—O joy!The Steel says you will ne’er escape me more;You will be true to me; you will be mine;No man shall touch you after me; no face,However strangely fair, shall have the artTo draw one look from you, to charm and rouseThat wondrous little snake of treacheryThat was for ever lurking for me—sureTo spring upon me out of the least lookOr promise, safe to be curled up beneathThe simplest seeming offering in your hand.
Yes, ’tis a thing at length as good as thisThe steel is singing to me: did you hear,You should but love it—since it pleads so wellIt makes me put whole faith in you once more.For now three days and nights indeed—while I,Contending for you with the love I gaveAgainst the curse I owed you, raged and thoughtIt was my madness—O this little voiceWas striving with me, singing all the time,Upon a low sweet soothing tune, strange wordsOf promise that seemed like the distant tauntsOf all my past beliefs, and that I soughtTo cover with my curses; till, last night,My soul grew faint with hearing them—how sweet,How full of good they were. Then I fell still,Yea, stunned, and with my head upon the ground;And through the shut bleared darkness of my eyes,I seemed to see the room about me litAnd fearful, and the Sword from off the wallUnscabbarded before me in the midst,Most terrible and living, and in light—Just like a great archangel with the glareOf burning expiations full on him.
O then my soul did call upon the Steel;And the Steel heard and swore to me. My soulTore forth the hidden-rooted love of thee,Thy treasured words—each one a cruel wormThat gnaws me through for ever, thy fair faceFrom the first inmost shrine, thy early kiss,Thy separate falsenesses, all my despair,My utter helplessness—and flung them down,The very writhing entrails of my lifeBecome one inward horror to be borneNo longer. And there came about me, loud,The mocking of a thousand impious tongues,That seemed to clash and rattle hideouslyFrom ancient hollow sepulchres of menLong buried and forgotten; for my loveTheir gibe was, for my faith, for my despair,For my long blindness: and at last I knew,And, understanding, called with a great voiceUpon the Steel: and the Steel heard me there,And swore to me—for you and me and God!
Sing on, O little voice: She cannot hear;There is a pact between us.
Now I standAnd feel her eyes’ soft element within,Upon, around me, melting away lifeInto these few full throbbing moments.—Lo!Her tears again—her disavowal cleanOf any thought of falseness. Lo! her words—I might have lived beside her all these daysIn perfect joy; words, blandishments and tearsAlready staggering me with their old mightOf coiling fascinations; and one tearA drop that, falling straight into my heart,Fills it too full for speaking a long timeThe ready thing of pardon and of love.
See! am I Lord here?—This fair sight of Her,Working the whole impassioned prodigyAs ’twere of all her beauty, just to winMethis time and, at any cost, be queenOf this one present, as of many pasts—Hath ever it been fairer, more complete?
Who else hath had her more and called her hisThan here I have her calling herself mine?I would indeed he might draw near just now,Yea, void of feigning, in some wonted way,And feel a cold look from her plant him thereOutside the circle where this molten loveOf her whole smile is showered upon me,And know her no more his now than mine then.
But what do I here with a thought like this?Those men I deemed my rivals—what are theyTo me now? Why I could put them to shameAnd taunt them now myself for insolentPretenders who have never known what ’tisTo conquer love.—Ay, what compared with meSeem all the famous lovers of great queensOr splendid cruel mistresses, whose woes—Deceived, betrayed, reviled—have made them shineWith some bright share of every age’s tears?What but mere fools? weak sufferers of wrongFrom creatures whom they held in their own hands?Or passionless, or lacking any strengthTo seize their fair worlds passing them so nighRather than linger in some sickly trailOf sweetness left behind and die of shame?O all ye Messalinas of old time—Ye Helens, Cleopatras, ye Dalilahs,Ye Maries, ye Lucrezias, Catharines—Fair crowned or uncrowned—courtezans alikeWho played with men a calculated game—Your moves their heart-wounds, deaths and ruins—sureOf your inconstancy and their soft loves,Had I been lover in the stead of them,Methinks the histories of you had been changed,And some of your worst falsenesses redeemedBy flawless faithfulness to one last love.
But now I am content, I have love here;And I thank God for love—yea, is it sweet?Yea, is it best of all his gifts to man?—I see her splendid smile there—feel her armsAlready coming round me!—Who but ICan answer? Who but I have had it wholeLike this?(The Steel is singing to me now,Still hidden in my breast—a low sweet song.)
Ah, this time there is no doubt! ’tis all true:Her arms may fold me—fondle me, and IMay wholly yield myself to their caressQuite sure it leaves no atom in reserveFor any other after me. And lo,She is right worthy of a greater oneThan all the lovers that have ever lovedAnd, trembling, lost their women and themselves:For splendour—such as stains for me and turnsMy eyes disgusted from the vaunted whiteOf many a bosom impudently bared—Is in that bosom closely veiled, whose veilsI may undo—yea now, and with these hands;It is my right. And then, O joy, to knowThat this, so much more wonderful than those,Shall ne’er be seen by anyone but me!(Ah, sing on little voice!) But, as I said,—Yes, she is worthy!—Come to me, my Sweet:You have the greatest beauty God has made.I think that. Let me kiss your forehead once,Twice, thrice, and say it is diviner white,And hallowed with a brighter radiant graceThan Cleopatra’s was, and swear therewithI kiss it with a passion greater farThan Antony’s was: yea, let me write thereThis thing in kisses that none can efface.“Ah, you believe me now, dear love?” she says:Yes: I say yes.(Sing on! ’Twas you sang: yes;You bade me answer so. I trust you most.)
“Dear Love, let us go lie upon that bed.I should delight to know it just the grave,So I might keep this faith and happiness,That yours—this mine—both safe for evermore,So I might lie down sure that no mischance,No doubt, no calumny, could come to changeMe—yours, you—mine, and peace for evermore.”
She says this, and she leads me by the hand.
Her head is like a lily drooping down.
—My passion! Yea I will not baulk thee now:I need not: for I feel that what I amIs something more than man, that conquers man.What is it? I know not: a flame, a thought;But cold, but calm, unalterable, pure,As far above the fume of the base lustThat dulls and levels all men, as, perhaps,Was that strange flame or thought that made Man firstAnd Woman then to bring the man to nought,Which fate I, who indeed am not a god,Who am not Hercules, nor Samson, no,Nor Antony—which fate I yet will change.Nay, passion, rather I will urge thee on;For I shall be above thee all the timeA cold impartial watcher, hard to foil,Attentive that thou gettest all thine ownNot tampered with—lest, in some little thing,Thou art betrayed, or with a semblance served,Yea, for a blind fool as thou ever wert.
—O take thy fill of looking on this snowIn which thy heart finds such delicious death;Do out thine utmost revel on the bloomOf this rare flower’s beauty, now at full;Whose summer is just perfected to-nightAnd laid before thee, heightened with the tintOf first mysterious sadness, like a touchOf far-off autumns. Do not shun that mouth:For there, indeed, a thing most dainty-sweet—The last kiss that was sown a precious seedBy Love at the beginning—waits for thee,The fullest, the most perfect of them all.The earth will never fashion forth, and LoveWill never with his summer paint againSo beautiful a flower.
I am claspedWith such arms as I would might hold me soFor evermore in heaven. All around,The strange unearthly fragrance of her hairIs coming up, and, with an elementDivine as some transparent rosy cloud,Enwrapping both of us; ay, and, as though—A very cloud of magic—it had borneUs, lifted far away from thought, and life,And days, and earthliness—we seem to voyageThrough most ethereal atmospheres, and seasUpon whose soft sustaining waves we drift,And draw no sound from either distant shoreOf ending or beginning: and the bliss,Unspeakable and perfect, that we feelSeems making and remaking evermoreOur souls through this eternity.
Alas!One little thread—I strive in vain to break—Is holding me: a memory, a thought,The pricking of a half-numbed wound through sleep,The constant teazing of a wingéd thing,The bitterness wherewith some ceaseless fangOf life gnaws through, and breaks our dream of it—Some such pursues and racks me. But ’tis well:I know the dream is mine to make my own;I know what dragon guards this paradise,And with what paltry lies he fools mankind.Ah, how the universe must jeer to seeAll men so smoothly cheated of their own!—And when I slay this dragon, I have all.
I cannot stir now. Many a knotted tressIs on me, like a thousand-threaded chainTwined many times about my limbs. I dreamNo more: I feel her small and gliding handsSeek mine; and while the burning rapid wordsHer full heart furnishes hiss in mine ear,My sight is peering blindly through the darkOf her vast hair—a cavernous abyssOf blackness traversed by mad shooting sparksOr fearful gleams of blood.—What things she says!“—Let this be as it were my bridal night,If you doubt all the Past. I am yours now;Take this for the beginning, and trust me;I will be yours for ever,—not a look,A word, a thought shall e’er dishonour you.”—And, if I had not heard this very thingBefore, once, twice, innumerable times,I should not plunge as I do now, my headStill deeper in the fathomless dark hair,And see tears falling from me—as it seems—To fall on through a drear eternity.
But, hark, another voice! Whence comes it?—Whence?From here, beneath the pillow; yes, ’tis harshAnd not like hers; but speaks a sweet thing—this:I swear for Her it shall be so: trust Me!
Ah, yes—my Love, my own, I answer you;I part with all the Past, forgive, deny,Refuse to see it. All my soul is yours;I never loved a moment in this world,But what was love was wholly meant for you.Yea, even before I saw you as you are,Or knew your name, the vaguest breaths of loveWere but sent forward to me from the daysWhen you should come, preparing me for you.I know in truth there never was a timeWherein I saw no part of you—nor signTo love you by; for all my sun, my light,My flowers, my world would be the saddest blank,The day you were not; you have these in you,And are yourself in them; and, on the dayYou go, you take them all away with you;And so ’twas you I saw when I saw themAnd said:—“That Lady mineshall have a headLike yonder drooping lily on whose whiteThe summer’s breath may never set a stain;And She shall have a heaven for her hairAs deep, and dark, and splendid, as the oneI dream beneath; and She shall have such eyesAs ever seem to me those still blue lakesI come on in the twilight of the woodsAnd find wide open under the thick fringeOf violets—that fascinate me soWith gazing on me; yes, and, for her smile,She shall but use that magic of the sunThat so transfigures all the day with light,And gives my heart already such a thrillAs if She smiled at me:”—my Love, ’twas youI saw then, dreamed of, waited for; ’twas you;My heart attests it, looking on you now.—So this of mine is such a perfect loveYou see, it could not change nor turn away;—It is the only love God made for you,As you He made for me and from the firstRevealed to me. Therefore it cannot beThat you are false to me,—that I no wayCan save and keep you mine—you whom He gaveTo me for ever, to be brought as mineBefore Him at the last. My precious one,You are all worthy of me—are my crownUntarnished, perfect, for you have not sinned;’Tis I have sinned,—not being strong at onceTo save both pure in you. Did not your lipsCompletely make you mine of your own will?Did you not swear yourself to me at first,Yea, in God’s name, before him? So that I—Yes, I, have let you, all against your heart,Be brought to do sad things you would have shunned;Because I had the way, and used it not,To keep you from them.—Ah, I curse myself!—My own, my Love!—those gentle words of yours,Those promises—repeat them; yes, once more:
You will be mine; you are mine; yes, my Love,I do believe you now; I may, I can—(Forthatsings under the pillow; believe Me!—)I bless and kiss you for them all.
She sleeps.
The Steel is singing to me now; its voiceCreeps through and through;—go on, she cannot hear—The things it sings are death and love; ay, loveThat death keeps true;—She sleeps, she cannot hear.
There is no sort of madness in my brain;But rather a great strength, a calm, as thoughA more than human spirit dwelt with mine.And yet I do perceive that, since last night,My eyes have been bewildered with the glareOf mighty blades and swords that seem to whirlAnd strike around me, and transform the worldWith an exceeding splendour cold and bare;A thousand films are as it were cut through;And all the beauty, supernaturalAnd real of things seems only to endure.The Steel is an immense magician: yes—Love, Beauty, Life—a touch can change them allAnd make them wholly fit for me and great.See now whereitis gleaming through her hair!’Tis like a fair barbaric ornamentAblaze with glancing points of diamondsStuck in and out between the writhing black.Or, rather, ’tis as fearful and as brightAs some fierce snake of azure lightning curledSinister under the dark mass of night,That ever, with his sudden forkéd flashPiercing some crevice, doth illumine it.
I could be gazing on this sight for hours.
O, Woman!—you are greatest in the world:You have all fairest things; all joy is yoursTo give and take away; you have all love;Your beauty is to man’s heart as the sunThat doles out day and night to the whole earth;You have strange gifts of passion and sweet words:In truth you are right splendid,—and well fit,I think, to be the leman of a god;But all too fair, and yet not good enough,To be the spouse and helpmate of one man.—For this: there is a serpent in you hid;It dwells in the invisible of thought,Or crouches in some corner of your heart,Or is engendered in the ardent flameOf your quick passions,—where, it matters not;But never doth it cease so to distilIts wily poison into all you areOr do or feel, it makes you turn and stabWhere most you thought to love,—it sets your lipsIn league with falsehood to betray your heart,Puts plotting in your heart against your lips.
You cannot will your heart to any manBut you must seek, for very wantonness—As tempts the snake within you—just the straightBetrayal of that man—his love, his faith,As though you had not willed yourself at first:And if you did not this somehow, your lifeWould seem to you a nipped and withered thing,Your beauty good for nought. You are made so.—Therefore, my Love, I will not let you wake.Nay—though you are so pure now and have sworn—Lest you betray me as you did last time,And times before that, having sworn as now.But you are mine—my beautiful, my own!And your lips said it while your heart beat hereAgainst mine—thrilling with a thought of me;Your looks were almost piteous with a prayerThat I—that God would save you. Shall your mouth,The chaste, the holy one that I have kissedBe desecrate once more? Shall your own armsEmbrace and hug the very shame of you?Shall this, your heart that made you mine, be false—Go once more seeking out adulteries?
Not so: I strike the holy steel in it.
—It was the only way to keep her mine.
OWOMAN whose familiar face I holdIn my most sacred thought as in a shrine,Who in my memories art become divine—Dost thou remember now those years of oldWhen out of all thine own life thou didst mouldThis life and breathe thy heart in this of mine,Winning, for faith in that fair work of thine,To rest and be in heaven?—Alas, behold!—Another woman coming after theeHath had small pity,—with a wanton kissHath quite consumed my heart and ruined thisThe life that was thy work: O, Mother, see;Thou hast lived all in vain, done all amiss;Come down from heaven again, and die with me!
OWOMAN whose familiar face I holdIn my most sacred thought as in a shrine,Who in my memories art become divine—Dost thou remember now those years of oldWhen out of all thine own life thou didst mouldThis life and breathe thy heart in this of mine,Winning, for faith in that fair work of thine,To rest and be in heaven?—Alas, behold!—Another woman coming after theeHath had small pity,—with a wanton kissHath quite consumed my heart and ruined thisThe life that was thy work: O, Mother, see;Thou hast lived all in vain, done all amiss;Come down from heaven again, and die with me!
OWOMAN whose familiar face I holdIn my most sacred thought as in a shrine,Who in my memories art become divine—Dost thou remember now those years of oldWhen out of all thine own life thou didst mouldThis life and breathe thy heart in this of mine,Winning, for faith in that fair work of thine,To rest and be in heaven?—Alas, behold!—Another woman coming after theeHath had small pity,—with a wanton kissHath quite consumed my heart and ruined thisThe life that was thy work: O, Mother, see;Thou hast lived all in vain, done all amiss;Come down from heaven again, and die with me!
ICLOSE my eyes and see the inward things:The strange averted spectre of my soulIs sitting undivulged, angelic, whole,Beside the dim internal flood that bringsMysterious thought or dreams or murmurings,From the immense Unknown: beneath him rollThe urging formless waves beyond controlAnd darkened by the vague foreshadowingsAs heretofore; yea, for He hath not stirred.Too weak was that my life, too poor each wordTo lure my soul from all it waiteth for:—I am with God who holds His purpose stillAnd maketh and remaketh evermore;I am with God and waiting for His will.
ICLOSE my eyes and see the inward things:The strange averted spectre of my soulIs sitting undivulged, angelic, whole,Beside the dim internal flood that bringsMysterious thought or dreams or murmurings,From the immense Unknown: beneath him rollThe urging formless waves beyond controlAnd darkened by the vague foreshadowingsAs heretofore; yea, for He hath not stirred.Too weak was that my life, too poor each wordTo lure my soul from all it waiteth for:—I am with God who holds His purpose stillAnd maketh and remaketh evermore;I am with God and waiting for His will.
ICLOSE my eyes and see the inward things:The strange averted spectre of my soulIs sitting undivulged, angelic, whole,Beside the dim internal flood that bringsMysterious thought or dreams or murmurings,From the immense Unknown: beneath him rollThe urging formless waves beyond controlAnd darkened by the vague foreshadowingsAs heretofore; yea, for He hath not stirred.Too weak was that my life, too poor each wordTo lure my soul from all it waiteth for:—I am with God who holds His purpose stillAnd maketh and remaketh evermore;I am with God and waiting for His will.
IF you go over desert and mountain,Far into the country of sorrow,To-day and to-night and to-morrow,And maybe for months and for years;You shall come, with a heart that is burstingFor trouble and toiling and thirsting,You shall certainly come to the fountainAt length,—to the Fountain of Tears.Very peaceful the place is, and solelyFor piteous lamenting and sighing,And those who come living or dyingAlike from their hopes and their fears;Full of cypress-like shadows the place is,And statues that cover their faces:But out of the gloom springs the holyAnd beautiful Fountain of Tears.And it flows and it flows with a motionSo gentle and lovely and listless,And murmurs a tune so resistlessTo him who hath suffered and hears—You shall surely—without a word spoken,Kneel down there and know your heart broken,And yield to the long curb’d emotionThat day by the Fountain of Tears.For it grows and it grows, as though leapingUp higher the more one is thinking;And ever its tunes go on sinkingMore poignantly into the ears:Yea, so blesséd and good seems that fountain,Reached after dry desert and mountain,You shall fall down at length in your weepingAnd bathe your sad face in the tears.Then, alas! while you lie there a season,And sob between living and dying,And give up the land you were tryingTo find mid your hopes and your fears;—O the world shall come up and pass o’er you;Strong men shall not stay to care for you,Nor wonder indeed for what reasonYour way should seem harder than theirs.But perhaps, while you lie, never liftingYour cheek from the wet leaves it presses,Nor caring to raise your wet tresses.And look how the cold world appears,—O perhaps the mere silences round you—All things in that place grief hath found you,Yea, e’en to the clouds o’er you drifting,May soothe you somewhat through your tears.You may feel, when a falling leaf brushesYour face, as though some one had kissed you;Or think at least some one who missed youHath sent you a thought,—if that cheers;Or a bird’s little song, faint and broken,May pass for a tender word spoken:—Enough, while around you there rushesThat life-drowning torrent of tears.And the tears shall flow faster and faster,Brim over, and baffle resistance,And roll down bleared roads to each distanceOf past desolation and years;Till they cover the place of each sorrow,And leave you no Past and no morrow:For what man is able to masterAnd stem the great Fountain of Tears?But the floods of the tears meet and gather;The sound of them all grows like thunder:—O into what bosom, I wonder,Is poured the whole sorrow of years?For Eternity only seems keepingAccount of the great human weeping:May God then, the Maker and Father—May He find a place for the tears!
IF you go over desert and mountain,Far into the country of sorrow,To-day and to-night and to-morrow,And maybe for months and for years;You shall come, with a heart that is burstingFor trouble and toiling and thirsting,You shall certainly come to the fountainAt length,—to the Fountain of Tears.Very peaceful the place is, and solelyFor piteous lamenting and sighing,And those who come living or dyingAlike from their hopes and their fears;Full of cypress-like shadows the place is,And statues that cover their faces:But out of the gloom springs the holyAnd beautiful Fountain of Tears.And it flows and it flows with a motionSo gentle and lovely and listless,And murmurs a tune so resistlessTo him who hath suffered and hears—You shall surely—without a word spoken,Kneel down there and know your heart broken,And yield to the long curb’d emotionThat day by the Fountain of Tears.For it grows and it grows, as though leapingUp higher the more one is thinking;And ever its tunes go on sinkingMore poignantly into the ears:Yea, so blesséd and good seems that fountain,Reached after dry desert and mountain,You shall fall down at length in your weepingAnd bathe your sad face in the tears.Then, alas! while you lie there a season,And sob between living and dying,And give up the land you were tryingTo find mid your hopes and your fears;—O the world shall come up and pass o’er you;Strong men shall not stay to care for you,Nor wonder indeed for what reasonYour way should seem harder than theirs.But perhaps, while you lie, never liftingYour cheek from the wet leaves it presses,Nor caring to raise your wet tresses.And look how the cold world appears,—O perhaps the mere silences round you—All things in that place grief hath found you,Yea, e’en to the clouds o’er you drifting,May soothe you somewhat through your tears.You may feel, when a falling leaf brushesYour face, as though some one had kissed you;Or think at least some one who missed youHath sent you a thought,—if that cheers;Or a bird’s little song, faint and broken,May pass for a tender word spoken:—Enough, while around you there rushesThat life-drowning torrent of tears.And the tears shall flow faster and faster,Brim over, and baffle resistance,And roll down bleared roads to each distanceOf past desolation and years;Till they cover the place of each sorrow,And leave you no Past and no morrow:For what man is able to masterAnd stem the great Fountain of Tears?But the floods of the tears meet and gather;The sound of them all grows like thunder:—O into what bosom, I wonder,Is poured the whole sorrow of years?For Eternity only seems keepingAccount of the great human weeping:May God then, the Maker and Father—May He find a place for the tears!
IF you go over desert and mountain,Far into the country of sorrow,To-day and to-night and to-morrow,And maybe for months and for years;You shall come, with a heart that is burstingFor trouble and toiling and thirsting,You shall certainly come to the fountainAt length,—to the Fountain of Tears.
Very peaceful the place is, and solelyFor piteous lamenting and sighing,And those who come living or dyingAlike from their hopes and their fears;Full of cypress-like shadows the place is,And statues that cover their faces:But out of the gloom springs the holyAnd beautiful Fountain of Tears.
And it flows and it flows with a motionSo gentle and lovely and listless,And murmurs a tune so resistlessTo him who hath suffered and hears—You shall surely—without a word spoken,Kneel down there and know your heart broken,And yield to the long curb’d emotionThat day by the Fountain of Tears.
For it grows and it grows, as though leapingUp higher the more one is thinking;And ever its tunes go on sinkingMore poignantly into the ears:Yea, so blesséd and good seems that fountain,Reached after dry desert and mountain,You shall fall down at length in your weepingAnd bathe your sad face in the tears.
Then, alas! while you lie there a season,And sob between living and dying,And give up the land you were tryingTo find mid your hopes and your fears;—O the world shall come up and pass o’er you;Strong men shall not stay to care for you,Nor wonder indeed for what reasonYour way should seem harder than theirs.
But perhaps, while you lie, never liftingYour cheek from the wet leaves it presses,Nor caring to raise your wet tresses.And look how the cold world appears,—O perhaps the mere silences round you—All things in that place grief hath found you,Yea, e’en to the clouds o’er you drifting,May soothe you somewhat through your tears.
You may feel, when a falling leaf brushesYour face, as though some one had kissed you;Or think at least some one who missed youHath sent you a thought,—if that cheers;Or a bird’s little song, faint and broken,May pass for a tender word spoken:—Enough, while around you there rushesThat life-drowning torrent of tears.
And the tears shall flow faster and faster,Brim over, and baffle resistance,And roll down bleared roads to each distanceOf past desolation and years;Till they cover the place of each sorrow,And leave you no Past and no morrow:For what man is able to masterAnd stem the great Fountain of Tears?
But the floods of the tears meet and gather;The sound of them all grows like thunder:—O into what bosom, I wonder,Is poured the whole sorrow of years?For Eternity only seems keepingAccount of the great human weeping:May God then, the Maker and Father—May He find a place for the tears!