In frenzied haste, by legioned shadows pressed,
The Chariot of Charity in flight
Glittered along the Parapet of Night,
With wheels of gold fast whirling to the West.
Bridging with flame the barricaded Deep,
It strove with sparking hoof and spangled heat,
Where those twin rivers, Death and Life, retreat,
And surge across the Agony of Sleep.
I, to my casement, stark with horror crept;
Day tottered tall, and breathed a shuddering
breath:
Wading, knee-deep, the turgid fords of Death,
He clomb the cloven cliff of Dawn—and leapt.
A hand of ivory caught up the rein;
The Chariot rolled back superb again.
We shall not always dwell as now we dwell,
Together 'neath one home-protecting roof.
For some of us our lives may not go well:
'Gainst such small perils courage will be proof,
'Gainst stronger ills these memories may be proof;
To some of us this life may say farewell—
We cannot always dwell as now we dwell.
What though we dwell not then as now we dwell?
Hearts can recover hearts, when hearts are fain;
While love stays with us everything is well;
The roof of love is proof against the rain,
Dead hands will guard our hearts against the rain—
Love will abide when all have said farewell:
Our hearts may ever dwell as now they dwell.
When my love was nigh me
Naught had I to say:
Then I feigned a false love—
And turned my lips away.
When my love lay dying,
Sorrowing I said,
'Soon shall I wear scarlet,
Because my love is dead.'
When my love had vanished,
Then was nothing said:
I forgot the scarlet
For tears—and bowed my head.
Not with a cry, nor with the stifled sound
Of one who 'neath Death's billows of Despair
Thrusts up blue lips toward the outer air,
Searching if any breathing may be found;
Who plucks with groping finger-tips to rend
The water's edges for a fraction's space,
Through which he may push up his haggard face
For one last look—the last before the end.
As a broad river, having journeyed far
Constrained by banks—too often fretfully—
'Neath a full moon goes rocking out to sea
Sombred by night, cheered by a rising star,
So may my days move murmurously to rest,
Throbbed through with Death who knew Life's
sorrows best.
Untriend to man and darkly passionate,
Sneering in solitude, wide-winged for flight
Lest one, from all our world, should read thee right
And pity thee thy self-lured madman's fate,
Why did'st thou strive so well to tempt our hate?
Are we not comrades through the self-same night?
The Caravan of Kindness, out of sight,
We also follow—and arrive o'erlate.
Thou, having failed thy Heaven, did'st scoff in
Hell.
Fiercely disguising, too much thou did'st dare;
We caught the jangle of the cap and bell,
And seeking, saw a quivering heart laid bare
When thou wast dead—a sequel which did spell
The pangs of love—"only a woman's hair."
[N. B. "In a note in his biography, Scott says that his friend, Doctor Tuke of Dublin, has a lock of Stella's hair, enclosed in a paper by Swift, on which are written, in the Dean's hand, the words: 'Only a woman's hair.' An instance, says Scott, of the Dean's desire to veil his feelings under the mask of cynical indifference."—Thackeray in his Essay on Dean Swift.]
Years hence we two—I who wept yesterday,
You who with death-chilled hands unheeding lay—
Gazing from Heaven adown the sky's wild face,
Seeing this pigmy planet churning space,
Do you remember?" then we two shall say,
Quite in the dear old-fashioned worldly way,
Do you remember, in a former age,
What happened in that girdled finite cage?"
And you, through joy having forgot your pain,
Laughing will shake your head and rack your brain,
Clasping my hand and thinking all in vain.
No," you will say, "it is a distant way
From grief to God; my memories go astray."
Then, I, staring athwart the jewelled pit
Which God hath dug between the infinite
And the great little loss of death's decay,
Will tell you all that happened yesterday.
Don't you recall, dear, how the fierce blow came?
Earth was at Spring-tide, all the fields aflame;
Hope was just freed from Winter's servitude
And songsters through the tree-tops he had strewed,
And promises of greenness in the wood,
While you, dear, grew in grace to womanhood."
Then you: "I would remember if I could,
But all is vague. Faint, like a far off strain,
I catch the rustle of field-flowers again
And hear the muffled skirmish of the rain."
Don't you recall, dear, anything of pain?"
Nothing," you whisper.
Then I tell to you
How in a week from life to death you grew,
Your spirit yearning Godward, as did fail
The strength of your white body, lily-pale;
How through long nights and seven too brief
days
I held you fast, and flattered God with praise,
Calling Him every kind endearing name,
Hoping my love would fill His heart with shame
Of doing that deed which He meant to do.
What happened?"
God was wise and He took you."
Strange!"
"Ah yes, dearest, human loves are strange;
Change seems so final in a world of change.
Through the last night I watched your fluttering
breath,
Desperate lest the unseen hand of Death
Should touch you, still you e'er I was aware,
Leaving me nothing save your golden hair
And the wide doors of an abandoned place,
And the wise smiling of your quiet face—
The perishable chalice of your grace.
"'In Heaven they all are serious,' so you said
In your delirium. You shake your head,
Denying what I surely heard you say.
Since then you've seen the boys and girls at
play
Climbing the knees of God.
"Listen again.
Far out across the gulf you see a stain—
Follow my hand—a smudge, a blur of gray;
That is the world. Though you forget the day,
We lived there once, suffered, had joy, laughed,
loved,
And in sweet worship of each other moved.
Then you fell sick and, while I held your hand,
One took you ....
"Ah, you do not understand!
Only field-flowers you remember well.
This seems an idle fable that I tell;
Then never trouble, dear; forget the pain.
See, here comes God; perhaps He will explain."
In the glad month of May,
When morning was breaking,
She rose from her body
And vanished away.
From a tree cloaked in gray
A shrill bird kept calling,
"Come quick. God is waiting.
He cannot delay."
We had no heart to pray,
But, seeing her glory,
Said, "Go, little sister;
God needs you to-day."
Very stilly she lay:
The bird had ceased calling—
We let in the morning
And kissed her dear clay.
The lilies bloom above her head
All unaware that she is dead.
The small brown birds, with folded wing,
Do not one whit less blithely sing.
The sun goes on his usual round,
Seeking die quiet she has found.
And God looks down on everything,
And that is why the small birds sing.
Here, sweet, we lay
Thy sorrow and pain,
Earth will resolve them to gladness again.
Lily-white hands
To lilies shall grow;
Breath of thy body in breezes shall blow.
Languor and grief,
These Death could slay;
God took the portion which cannot decay.
Thou hast thy joy,
We have thy pain;
Flame of a soul I shall know thee again.
Out of the blackness into the light,
From birth to death—a swallow's flight.
Stars burning fainter, onward we strive.
Cauldron of dawn! The East's alive.
Joy in the journey, joy at the last;
Day in its splendour—darkness past!
In life's beginning clouds to be trod;
At its brave ending, sunrise—God.
From the veiled Hereafter
Whither you have fled,
Snatches of your laughter
Vaguely wed
With rustling of field-flowers,
Angel-stirred,
Guarded by God's towers,
I have heard.
God, in His compassion,
Left Death's gate ajar
So our faith might fashion
Where you are;
God's Mother walks beside you,
Hand-in-hand,
And Lord Christ doth guide you,
Through that Land.
If God should come to me and say,
Your little maiden, whom I took away
But yesterday,
I will give back to you again,
If so you say, when you have seen the pain
I did refrain
In love from letting her endure.
I knew death's surgery the only cure
For one so pure.
Joy in my breast is sure."
Then should He show me all the way,
Weary at whiles, her feet must stray,
Had He decreed her death's delay,
How should I choose? What should I say?
I watched for her in the night,
I watched for her in the day—
But how could I hope to find her
When her body had gone away?
I spoke to her in the rooms
Where she had been wont to play—
But how could my dearest answer
When her body had gone away?
I searched for her in my heart,
And when it unfroze to pray,
I knew that we shared one mortal house
Since hers had resolved to clay.
Life without thee would be, dearest,
Eyes without sight;
Death, if thou stood'st not nearest,
Night without light.
Since thou Death's token wearest,
Freedom from strife,
This I have learnt, my dearest,
Death's name is Life.
We prayed that unto you, dear,
God's best gifts might be given;
We wished to strew for you, dear,
Earth's paths with Heaven.
We planned your life a May-day
When young flowers should be bom,
That you might stray the smooth way
Of gold-robed Morn.
We dared more than we knew, dear;
When half God's gifts were given,
He answered all our prayers, dear—
He gave you Heaven.
The shepherd is dead men tell me,
He died upon a tree
When Springtide was befalling
Field-flowers in Galilee;
But whenever the wind is blowing
Straight out from the East or West,
I can hear his brave voice calling,
"Come after me. Come after me.
Rise up, rise up and follow me—
I am Christ, thy rest."
Then, rising I quickly gird me,
For wherever Christ may be,
The land where he is staying
He turns to Galilee;
Through whose vales when the wind is blowing
From meadows his feet have blest,
He aye calls to his loved ones saying,
Come after me. Come after me.
Rise up, rise up and follow me—
Where I am, is rest."
I seek him in every day,
I travel land and sea
From dawn till dusk is falling
And God hangs lamps for me.
But whenever the wind is blowing,
'Tis then that I find him best;
For I hear his brave voice calling,
In seeking me, thou followest me;
Then where thou art is Galilee,
And I am—thy rest."
Lord, there is music in my world to-day.
For this I thank Thee; once again I hear
The foamy clash of cymbals and the grave
Hoarse-throated shout of brass which is repulsed,
And the clear triumph of unvanquished pipes—
Battles against stringed instruments and fifes
Which angels wage from organ-stops in Heaven.
I, through the hostile grating of my cell,
Can tiptoe just discern where warrior clouds
Chum smoking broken waters in their wakes,
Which unseen challengers, the winds, do chase,
Drowning their anger to a tranquil depth,
Till in blue sky-weed unrevenged they lie
Like gaunt Armada galleons long since sunk.
So all is calm again, and I look out
With prison'd eyes upon Thy travelling world.
A breath of flowers is in the air to-day,
Spring flowers which have not bloomed for many
months,
Which, for my sake, have come to life this day.
I cannot see them, they grow far from here
With feet entangled in the green, gray earth.
They too are prisoners from their earliest birth,
Yet they have flung their fragrance forth to me
That I, a captive mind, may share their joy.
Now, as I listen, laughter dies away;
In Earth's tall tree-tops, dim and out of sight,
I hear the mining beak of one small bird,
Striving for freedom with its puny strength.
Now the shell breaks; it struggles into life;
Its mother's wings enfold it; it is safe.
Far down beneath the nest the forest sighs,
Swaying its branches, as it too would say,
"I will protect thee from the driving rain,
My leaves shall cover thee, so have no dread"
I also in my ruined strength would pray,
"God grant thee rest, and shelter thee from fear"
If I should live the seasons round again
And God vouchsafe me one more summer's day
Of utter peace, perchance thy voice I'll hear
Trilling in confidence from some cool glade—
And thus my madman's prayer will be repaid.
Laughter breaks forth again; the world is glad.
There's music in the very rocks to-day.
Yea, through my sullen bars the red sun peers
And stains my confines with his golden smile;
God shakes His happiness abroad to-day.
See, I will rake this yellow harvest home
And treasure it against a sadder hour,
When Winter's mantled all our stars in night.
When that shall be, I'll paint my walls with gold,
Loosen my breast and let the sun's rays free,
Re-capture them and hoard them up again;
And so will halt the summer at its prime.
Lord, I am mad; but Thou canst heal my mind.
Once, not long since—long after Thou hadst made
And bastioned with grace my living soul—
Thou, in a careless hour, didst plan my frame,
Moulding my body from the oozy day;
But, just before Thy task was most complete,
Didst nod, and drowse, and waking didst forget
Thy task unfinished—so was I bom mad;
So was my perfect soul a bondsman made
To serve vile lusts of my imperfect brain.
Hast Thou to-day remembered Thy mistake?
This mom I wakened, found that I was sane,
Beheld the East as no unchartered dread
Threat'ning the world with universal fire,
But as Thy kindness held aloft for men;
Then craned I forth my hands to dutch Thy winds,
Nor shrank from them as fore-runners of Death.
Father, before the Darkness falls again,
Before my soul wends backward to the Night,
Grant unto me Thy earliest gift to Man,
Form me in image godlike to Thyself.
Is it beyond Thy power to make me well?
Thou weakling God! then send me down Thy
Christ,
He whose strong pity hath dethroned Thy might,
And made a man a worthier god than Thou:
For he in peasant lands of Galilee
Did love, and love, and love till his heart brake;
He took away the anguish of men's pain
By spending all their pain on his own life;
He drove away the shadows from men's minds
By giving them himself, who was the Light.
Ah Christ, that thou hadst not been crucified!
Wert thou still living by the fishers' lake,
Then thou hadst heard me half across the world;
Though from the Andes, I had cried to thee,
Still hadst thou heard, and come from Palestine
Only to stretch thy cooling hands on me,
Only to rest thy cooling hands in mine—
Those gentle hands, by bleeding feet borne thence.
When Pleasure's found,
Away with the tear;
Grief's a starved hound,
Pursued by lean Fear.
Life is a round
Of languor and pain;
When Joy is found,
Go forth not again.
Music's a sound
Which guides men to rest;
Love is the bound
That ends every quest.
Lie down to rest,
Slay fragile Pain,
Vanquish lean Fear,
Away with the Tear.
Finish thy quest
And strive not again.
Sick I had been, and very sore afraid,
Baffled of life, and lost to every hope,
Hounded by dread, pursued and left dismayed
Standing alone, abandoned and afraid.
Then did I ask, "What now is left to say?
Why should I question? Wherefore should I
strive?
Man was made thus, to fail and creep away;
Thus was Man made, and there is naught to say."
Oh, I was weak, and blind with too much pain,
Bankrupt and blind, all feeble in my tread;
Would I might touch one friendly hand again—
Find love to rid me of this too much pain."
I spoke in fear, and knew not what I said,
Thought not of anguish hands of love must share,
Lonely I was, because my hope was dead,
Yearning and sad. I knew not what I said.
Then did One come who laid His hands in mine,
One who did kiss my poor unseeing eyes,
Tenderly led to where the stars do shine,
Speaking kind words, He placed His hands in mine.
There did I see the trees go riding by
Moved by the wind, and heard the nightingale
Carol and slur, and sing, and sob, and sigh,
Wing-mounted moths, and angels riding by.
Then did I seek to see the healing friend;
But He had vanished. I was left alone.
There, where He stood, my body I did bend,
Weeping in prayer, to Him my healing friend.