In the solemn twilight, centuries ago,
God walked in His Garden, all His stars below;
God was very lonely, so He caused to grow
Man, in some ways like Him, centuries ago.
Man roamed through the twilight, centuries ago,
Always thinking, thinking—wishing he might know
Who it was that made him; then God caused to
grow
Woman, who was half-God, centuries ago.
These, within God's Garden, centuries ago,
Stood beneath the twilight calling very low
To some voice to answer, whereby they might
know
Had God really made them—centuries ago.
Thus whilst they were listening, centuries ago,
Solemn feet drew nigh them, treading very slow;
Solemn hands so touched them that they caused to
grow
Something that was All-God, centuries ago.
Then they left God's Garden, centuries ago.
Scarcely dared to question, never hoped to know,
Who it was that touched them, causing thus to
grow
That small child, so like them—centuries ago.
I bore him in my breast—
Yes, it was I.
My mother's hands impressed
Stars of the sky
On to his infant sight,
As we watched night by night,
Jesus and I.
I taught him how to pray;
Yes, it was I
Gave him the words to say.
God drawing nigh,
We two walked hand-in-hand
Close to God's Hidden Land,
Jesus and I.
This little son of mine
Fell from the sky;
God made him all divine—
Yet there was I.
I came to bear his loss,
He came to take his cross—
He came to die.
Thus we went hand-in-hand,
My son and I,
Up to God's Hidden Land—
Went up to die.
He entered in to reign
And came not back again—
Yet there was I.
"Perhaps tomorrow, but not today.
I am young and life is long," she said;
And she smiled to herself and tossed her head—
She scarcely cared that he went away.
Perhaps tomorrow, but not today."
Perhaps tomorrow, perhaps today,"
She laughed; and the green things rose from bed
And lived their moment. But still she said,
Till the sky grew old and the world grew gray,
Perhaps tomorrow, but not today."
Neither tomorrow, nor yet today."
Night fell. She heard the voice and sped,
And followed his steps, till she found Love dead.
The forest muttered, as it would say,
Neither tomorrow, nor any day."
Oh, the romance of it,
Soul-thrilling trance of it,
Though lives are lost which no love can restore!
Hearts ride a-prance at it,
Taking their chance at it—
Wing-thriven hearts to the seat of Love's War.
Sorrow is theirs in store;
This they know well before,
Yet do they ride from the West and the East
Hoping for this at least,
Out from the West and East,
Glory with death at the end of the war.
Should they return again,
Life sings the old refrain,
Mystery, madness and mirth at the core:
Patter of falling rain,
Dawnings which wax and wane,
Life which is war at the end of Love's War.
Thunders have ceased to roar,
Terrors they knew before
When they rode out from the East and the West.
Though passions will not rest,
Love, which is always best,
Honours brave lips at the end of the war.
She sits in God's garden,
Queen Mary of Heaven,
Where birds sing their steven
Hid in the cool tree;
And all the gold day-time,
From morning till even,
Earth's little strange children
Play round her knee.
Earth's lost little children
She binds to her bosom,
Each wind-gathered blossom,
Till mothers are free
To steal to God's Garden
And name them and loose them—
In Eden's green garden,
'Neath Mary's tree.
The arid loneliness of life he knew,
The doubtful darkness of the starless night,
And fear lest he should never see the sight
Of dawn and God the Father breaking through.
Brave offspring of a disenchanted age
He lived as though illusion were not dead;
His was the pain of faiths discredited
Which with new knowledge civil battles wage.
In all his deeds for righteous quests he stood
And we, who watched his face and heard his voice,
Dreamed of the Christ; we had not any choice,
In loving him we knew that God was good—
We knew. And thus, beneath the hooded sky,
Lightly we followed where his pain had made
A path for us; if one should fall, he stayed
To raise him, lest his frailer hope should die.
Ofttimes when summer's day had ceased to shine
And on our London roofs the moon looked down,
We two would wander through the gas-lit town
Speaking in whispers of the things divine;
Or in love's stillness, high above the strife,
We found our spirits strangely catching fire,
And told of that "unspeakable desire
After the knowledge of the buried life."
He knows its secret now; the morning mist
Drifts up the road where his last footprint lies;
And I, as ever when a Christ-man dies,
Stand awe-struck, asking, "Was not this the
Christ?"
His soul craved God. I think we always knew
He would be with us but a little while.
Night vanished; dawn broke—when he saw God
smile
Back like a homing-bird to God he flew.
The world is a child who roams all day
Through windswept meadows of gold and gray.
The gold flowers fade; he foils to sleep,
And night is his cradle wide and deep.
The moon-mother creeps from behind God's throne
And steals up the skies to protect her own.
She leans her breast 'gainst his cradle-rim
While her small star-children gaze down on him.
Stars are his brothers; clouds his dreams;
His mother's arms are the pale moon-beams.
When meadows again grow gold and gray,
He wakes from sleep and runs forth to play.
But every night from behind God's throne
The moon-mother steals to protect her own.
It's not her hair and it's not her feet,
Nor the way she walks with her head held high;
It's not because her eye-brows meet
Like a bird's wings over a glimpse of sky;
And it isn't her voice like April bloom
Rustling through an orchard's gloom—
It's none of these; not her wide gray eye,
Nor her crumpled mouth like a rose-bud red
Round which the snows of the jasmine spread.
Though her long white hands
Are like lilies of Lent,
Palely young and purely bent
O'er her breast, where God stands,
It's none of these.
Flowers and trees
With her to compare
Are too little rare.
Though the grass yearns up to touch her feet,
She is loved for this—she is sweet, sweet, sweet.
Hark to the patter of the rain,
Voices of dead things come again:
Feet that rustle the lush wet grass,
Lips that mutter, "Alas! Alas!"
And shadows that grope o'er my window-pane.
Poor outcast souls, you saw my light
And thought that I, on such a night,
Would pity take and bid you in
To warm your hands, so palely thin,
Before my fire which blazeth bright.
You come from hells of ice-cold clay
So pent that, striving every way,
You may not stir the coffin-lid;
And well you know that, if you did,
Darkness would come and not the day.
Darkness! With you 'tis ever dark;
No joy of skyward-mounting lark
Or blue of swallow on the wing
Can penetrate and comfort bring
You, where you lie all cramp'd and stark.
Deep sunk beneath the secret mould,
You hear the worm his length unfold
And slime across your frail roof-plank,
And tap, and vanish, like the rank
Foul memory of a sin untold.
And this your penance in the tomb:
To weave upon the mind's swift loom
White robes, to garb remorsefully
ABetter Life—which may not be
Or, when it comes, may seal your doom.
Thus, side by side, through all the year,
Yet just apart, you wake and hear,
As men on land the ocean's strum,
Your Dead World's hushed delirium
Which, sounding distant, yet is near.
So near that, could he lean aside,
The bridegroom well might touch his bride
And reach her flesh, which once was fair,
And, slow across the pale lips where
He kissed her, feel his fingers glide.
So distant, that he can but weep
Whene'er she moans his name in sleep:
A cold-grown star, with light all spent,
She gropes the abyssmal firmament.
He hears her surging in the Deep.
Ever throughout the year 'tis thus
Till drones the dream-toned Angelus
Of Hallowe'en; then, underground,
Unto dead ears its voice doth sound
Like Christ's voice, crying, "Lazarus."
Palsied with haste the dead men rise
Groaning, because their unused eyes
Can scarce endure Earth's blackest night;
It wounds them as 'twere furious light
And stars were flame-clouds in the skies.
What tenderness and sad amaze
Must grieve lost spirits when they gaze
Beneath a withered moon, and view
The ancient happiness they knew—
The live, sweet world and all its ways!
Ho, Deadmen! for a night you're free
Till Dawn leads back Captivity.
To make your respite seem more dear
Mutter throughout your joy this fear:
"Who knows, within the coming year,
That God, our gaoler, may not die;
Then, who'll remember where we lief
Who then will come to set us free f
Through all the ages this may be
Our final night of liberty."
Aye, hoard your moments miserly.
And yet .... and yet, it is His rain
That drives against my window-pane.
Oh, surely all Earth's dead have rest
And stretch at peace in God's own breast,
And never can return again!
And yet . . . .
Oh mother, why are you weeping
When aLl the world's asleeping?
Rest ye, rest ye, mother,
I am near, dear, near.
Not beneath the moon-drenched grass
Do I turn to hear you pass—
You would see me walk beside you, if your eyes
saw dear.
Oh mother, why are you crying?
There was no loss in dying.
Rest ye, rest ye, mother,
Have no fear, no fear.
Still long hangs my golden hair,
But the body that I wear
Treads more kindly and more lightly, could you
hear, dear, hear.
She has stayed her eyes from weeping;
She is sleeping, sweetly sleeping.
Rest ye, weary mother,
I am here, dear, here.
Now the dawn-wind fans her cheek,
And she knows not that I speak—
But my arms are warm about her, could her eyes
see clear.
So kindly was His love to us,
(We had not heard of love before),
That all our life grew glorious
When He had halted at our door.
So meekly did He love us men,
Though blind we were with shameful sin,
He touched our eyes with tears, and then
Led God's tall angels flaming in.
He dwelt with us a little space,
As mothers do in childhood's years;
And still we can discern His face
Wherever Joy or Love appears.
He made our virtues all His own,
And lent them grace we could not give;
And now our world seems His alone,
And while we live He seems to live.
He took our sorrows and our pain,
And hid their torture in His breast;
Till we received them back again
To find on each His grief impressed.
He clasped our children in His arms,
And showed us where their beauty shone;
He took from us our gray alarms,
And put Death's icy armor on.
So gentle were His ways with us
That crippled souls had ceased to sigh;
On them He laid His hands, and thus
They gloried at His passing by.
Without reproof or word of blame,
As mothers do in childhood's years,
He kissed our lips, in spite of shame,
And stayed the passage of our tears.
So tender was His love to us,
(We had not learnt to love before),
That we grew like to Him, and thus
Men sought His grace in us once more.
April fields and England's flowers,
English friends and April showers,
April voices o'er the sea
Calling, calling unto me:
Oh, why tarry, why delay!
Hither lies the meadow-way;
No such meadows shalt thou see,
Oh, come back to Arcady."
Happy English Arcady
Thou art calling, calling me
Through thin flutes as frail as Pan
Fingered, when long since he ran
Careless as these foreign flowers,
Trailing through these tropic bowers
All their largess of gold leaf,
Piling splendors sheaf on sheaf.
Some there be who think Pan dead,
Say his nymphs and flutings sped;
I know better, I have seen
Where his racing feet have been.
Still I hear the dead god's voice—
England's; Had my soul the choice,
It should wade through starry bloom
Knee-deep to the brown-burnt broom.
April fields and April flowers,
April friends and April showers,
England shouting o'er the sea,
Calling, calling unto me.
Ah, little child, as you lie in my breast,
Leaning your hair of gold close to my face,
Flushed in the gathering glow of the West,
Where shall we travel—to what joyous place?
Shall we refashion our castles in Spain,
Or sail to the Indies with Sinbad again,
Or noiselessly drift to where tired stars wane—
Shall it be Africa, Sinbad or Spain?
Speak, little child, and together we'll go
Back to the musical dreamlands we know.
Dear little child, you have wandered to rest.
While you are sleeping I wonder and think
Where you will go, and what land will be best
Treading for such baby feet, and I shrink.
Should they be hillsides of laughing and song,
Or gardens of mercy and righting of wrong,
Of weeping, or triumph, or love growing strong,
Journeys of shouting, of sorrow or song?
I can but love you and kiss your gold hair,
Happy in hoping that Christ may be there.
Rattle the Ivory Latch of Love
And who will unbar the gate?
Ask no questions, my dearest love,
But wait—wait—wait.
Ah, will she be haughty Isabeau,
Pale Isodore, or Kate?
Hush, dearest dear, some day you'll know,
Be not importunate.
Perchance I might love Isodore,
I think I could love Kate;
I have no fears for Isabeau
Should she unbar the gate.
Perchance she may be Isabeau,
Perhaps she will be Kate;
But which, dear heart, you'll never know,
Till you have learned to wait.
Christ along the Road to Fame,
When all birds were singing,
Pluck't white lilies as He came,
Set the blue-bells ringing;
Poppies flared in strident flame
When they heard His singing.
Further up the Road to Fame
Birds grew still in sorrow;
Though His feet were very lame
Courage did He borrow,
Singing as He onward came,
Dreaming of the morrow.
Crimsoned by the Road of Fame
Christ passed sick and dying.
Through the hedges, red with shame,
Crippled men there lying,
Seeing how He singing came,
Marvelled at their sighing.
Distant down the Road to Fame,
When all else ceased singing,
Messengers of music came—
Little echoes winging
Withered hearts with wings of flame—
Fragments of Christ's singing.