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The lily of Malud is born in secret mud.It is breathed like a word in a little dark ravineWhere no bird was ever heard and no beast was ever seen,And the leaves are never stirred by the panther's velvet sheen.It blooms once a year in summer moonlight,In a valley of dark fear full of pale moonlight:It blooms once a year, and dies in a night,And its petals disappear with the dawn's first light;And when that night has come, black small-breasted maids,With ecstatic terror dumb, steal fawn-like through the shadesTo watch, hour by hour, the unfolding of the flower.When the world is full of night, and the moon reigns aloneAnd drowns in silver light the known and the unknown,When each hut is a mound, half blue-silver and half black,And casts upon the ground the hard shadow of its back,When the winds are out of hearing and the tree-tops never shake,When the grass in the clearing is silent but awake'Neath a moon-paven sky: all the village is asleepAnd the babes that nightly cry dream deep:From the doors the maidens creep,Tiptoe over dreaming curs, soft, so soft, that not one stirs,And stand curved and a-quiver, like bathers by a river,Looking at the forest wall, groups of slender naked girls,Whose black bodies shine like pearls where the moonbeams fall.They have waked, they knew not why, at a summons from the night,They have stolen fearfully from the dark to the light,Stepping over sleeping men, who have moved and slept again:And they know not why they go to the forest, but they know,As their moth-feet pass to the shore of the grassAnd the forest's dreadful brink, that their tender spirits shrink:They would flee, but cannot turn, for their eyelids burnWith still frenzy, and each maid, ere she leaves the moonlit space,If she sees another's face is thrilled and afraid.Now like little phantom fawns they thread the outer lawnsWhere the boles of giant trees stand about in twos and threes,Till the forest grows more dense and the darkness more intense,And they only sometimes see in a lone moon-rayA dead and spongy trunk in the earth half-sunk,Or the roots of a tree with fungus grey,Or a drift of muddy leaves, or a banded snake that heaves.And the towering unseen roof grows more intricate, and soonIt is featureless and proof to the lost forgotten moon.But they could not look above as with blind-drawn feet they moveOnwards on the scarce-felt path, with quick and desperate breath,For their circling fingers dread to caress some slimy head,Or to touch the icy shape of a hunched and hairy ape,And at every step they fear in their very midst to hearA lion's rending roar or a tiger's snore....And when things swish or fall, they shiver but dare not call.O what is it leads the way that they do not stray?What unimagined arm keeps their bodies from harm?What presence concealed lifts their little feet that yieldOver dry ground and wet till their straining eyes are metWith a thinning of the darkness?And the foremost faintly cries in awed surprise:And they one by one emerge from the gloom to the vergeOf a small sunken vale full of moonlight pale.And they hang along the bank, clinging to the branches dank,A shadowy festoon out of sight of the moon;And they see in front of them, rising from the mud,A single straight stem and a single pallid budIn that little lake of light from the moon's calm height.A stem, a ghostly bud, on the moon-swept mudThat shimmers like a pond; and over there beyondThe guardian forest high, menacing and strange,Invades the empty sky with its wild black range.And they watch hour by hour that small lonely flowerIn that deep forest place that hunter never found.It shines without sound, as a star in space.And the silence all around that solitary placeIs like silence in a dream; till a sudden flashing gleamDown their dark faces flies; and their lips fall apartAnd their glimmering great eyes with excitement dartAnd their fingers, clutching the branches they were touching,Shake and arouse hissing leaves on the boughs.And they whisper aswoon: Did it move in the moon?O it moved as it grew!It is moving, opening, with calm and gradual willAnd their bodies where they cling are shadowed and still,And with marvel they mark that the mud now is dark,For the unfolding flower, like a goddess in her power,Challenges the moon with a light of her own,That lovelily grows as the petals unclose,Wider, more wide with an awful inward prideTill the heart of it breaks, and stilled is their breath,For the radiance it makes is as wonderful as death.The morning's crimson stain tinges their ashen browsAs they part the last boughs and slowly step againOn to the village grass, and chill and languid passInto the huts to sleep.Brief slumber, yet so deepThat, when they wake to day, darkness and splendour seemBroken and far-away, a faint miraculous dream;And when those maidens rise they are as they ever wereSave only for a rare shade of trouble in their eyes.And the surly thick-lipped men, as they sit about their hutsMaking drums out of guts, grunting gruffly now and then,Carving sticks of ivory, stretching shields of wrinkled skin,Smoothing sinister and thin squatting gods of ebony,Chip and grunt and do not see.But each mother, silently,Longer than her wont stays shut in the dimness of her hut,For she feels a brooding cloud of memory in the air,A lingering thing there that makes her sit bowedWith hollow shining eyes, as the night-fire dies,And stare softly at the ember, and try to remember,Something sorrowful and far, something sweet and vaguely seenLike an early evening star when the sky is pale green:A quiet silver tower that climbed in an hour,Or a ghost like a flower, or a flower like a queen:Something holy in the past that came and did not last....But she knows not what it was.
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(
To Robert Graves
)
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To these I turn, in these I trust;Brother Lead and Sister Steel.To his blind power I make appeal;I guard her beauty clean from rust.He spins and burns and loves the air,And splits a skull to win my praise;But up the nobly marching daysShe glitters naked, cold and fair.Sweet Sister, grant your soldier this;That in good fury he may feelThe body where he sets his heelQuail from your downward darting kiss.
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All night the flares go up; the Dragon singsAnd beats upon the dark with furious wings;And, stung to rage by his own darting fires,Reaches with grappling coils from town to town;He lusts to break the loveliness of spires,And hurls their martyred music toppling down.Yet, though the slain are homeless as the breeze,Vocal are they, like storm-bewilder'd seas.Their faces are the fair, unshrouded night,And planets are their eyes, their ageless dreams.Tenderly stooping earthward from their height,They wander in the dusk with chanting streams;And they are dawn-lit trees, with arms up-flung,To hail the burning heavens they left unsung.
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Return to greet me, colours that were my joy,Not in the woeful crimson of men slain,But shining as a garden; come with the streamingBanners of dawn and sundown after rain.I want to fill my gaze with blue and silver,Radiance through living roses, spires of greenRising in young-limbed copse and lovely wood,Where the hueless wind passes and cries unseen.I am not sad; only I long for lustre, —Tired of the greys and browns and the leafless ash.I would have hours that move like a glitter of dancersFar from the angry guns that boom and flash.Return, musical, gay with blossom and fleetness,Days when my sight shall be clear and my heart rejoice;Come from the sea with breadth of approaching brightness,When the blithe wind laughs on the hills with up-lifted voice.
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The Bishop tells us: 'When the boys come backThey will not be the same; for they'll have foughtIn a just cause: they lead the last attackOn Anti-Christ; their comrades' blood has boughtNew right to breed an honourable race.They have challenged Death and dared him face to face.''We're none of us the same!' the boys reply.For George lost both his legs; and Bill's stone blind;Poor Jim's shot through the lungs and like to die;And Bert's gone syphilitic; you'll not findA chap who's served that hasn't foundsomechange.'And the Bishop said: 'The ways of God are strange!'
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So Davies wrote: 'This leaves me in the pink.'Then scrawled his name: 'Your loving sweet-heart, Willie'With crosses for a hug. He'd had a drinkOf rum and tea; and, though the barn was chilly,For once his blood ran warm; he had pay to spend.Winter was passing; soon the year would mend.He couldn't sleep that night. Stiff in the darkHe groaned and thought of Sundays at the farm,When he'd go out as cheerful as a larkIn his best suit to wander arm-in-armWith brown-eyed Gwen, and whisper in her earThe simple, silly things she liked to hear.And then he thought: to-morrow night we trudgeUp to the trenches, and my boots are rotten.Five miles of stodgy clay and freezing sludge,And everything but wretchedness forgotten.To-night he's in the pink; but soon he'll die.And still the war goes on;hedon't know why.
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Evening was in the wood, louring with storm.A time of drought had sucked the weedy poolAnd baked the channels; birds had done with song.Thirst was a dream of fountains in the moon,Or willow-music blown across the waterLeisurely sliding on by weir and mill.Uneasy was the man who wandered, brooding,His face a little whiter than the dusk.A drone of sultry wings flicker'd in his head.The end of sunset burning thro' the boughsDied in a smear of red; exhausted hoursCumber'd, and ugly sorrows hemmed him in.He thought: 'Somewhere there's thunder,' as he stroveTo shake off dread; he dared not look behind him,But stood, the sweat of horror on his face.He blundered down a path, trampling on thistles,In sudden race to leave the ghostly trees.And: 'Soon I'll be in open fields,' he thought,And half remembered starlight on the meadows,Scent of mown grass and voices of tired men,Fading along the field-paths; home and sleepAnd cool-swept upland spaces, whispering leaves,And far off the long churring night-jar's note.But something in the wood, trying to daunt him,Led him confused in circles through the brake.He was forgetting his old wretched folly,And freedom was his need; his throat was choking;Barbed brambles gripped and clawed him round his legs,And he floundered over snags and hidden stumps.Mumbling: 'I will get out! I must get out!'Butting and thrusting up the baffling gloom,Pausing to listen in a space 'twixt thorns,He peers around with boding, frantic eyes.An evil creature in the twilight loopingFlapped blindly in his face. Beating it off,He screeched in terror, and straightway something clamberedHeavily from an oak, and dropped, bent double,To shamble at him zigzag, squat and bestial.Headlong he charges down the wood, and fallsWith roaring brain — agony — the snapt spark —And blots of green and purple in his eyes.Then the slow fingers groping on his neck,And at his heart the strangling clasp of death.
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He drowsed and was aware of silence heapedRound him, unshaken as the steadfast walls;Aqueous like floating rays of amber light,Soaring and quivering in the wings of sleep, —Silence and safety; and his mortal shoreLipped by the inward, moonless waves of death.Some one was holding water to his mouth.He swallowed, unresisting; moaned and droppedThrough crimson gloom to darkness; and forgotThe opiate throb and ache that was his wound.Water — calm, sliding green above the weir;Water — a sky-lit alley for his boat,Bird-voiced, and bordered with reflected flowersAnd shaken hues of summer: drifting down,He dipped contented oars, and sighed, and slept.Night, with a gust of wind, was in the ward,Blowing the curtain to a glimmering curve.Night. He was blind; he could not see the starsGlinting among the wraiths of wandering cloud;Queer blots of colour, purple, scarlet, green,Flickered and faded in his drowning eyes.Rain; he could hear it rustling through the dark;Fragrance and passionless music woven as one;Warm rain on drooping roses; pattering showersThat soak the woods; not the harsh rain that sweepsBehind the thunder, but a trickling peaceGently and slowly washing life away.* * * * *He stirred, shifting his body; then the painLeaped like a prowling beast, and gripped and toreHis groping dreams with grinding claws and fangs.But some one was beside him; soon he layShuddering because that evil thing had passed.And Death, who'd stepped toward him, paused and stared.Light many lamps and gather round his bed.Lend him your eyes, warm blood, and will to live.Speak to him; rouse him; you may save him yet.He's young; he hated war; how should he dieWhen cruel old campaigners win safe through?But Death replied: 'I choose him.' So he went,And there was silence in the summer night;Silence and safety; and the veils of sleep.Then, far away, the thudding of the guns.
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Ah, Koelue!Had you embalmed your beauty, soIt could not backward go,Or change in any way,What were the use, if on my eyesThe embalming spices were not laidTo keep us fixed,Two amorous sculptures passioned endlessly?What were the use, if my sight grew,And its far branches were cloud-hung,You small at the roots, like grass,While the new lips my spirit would kissWere not red lips of flesh,But the huge kiss of power?Where yesterday soft hair through my fingers fell,A shaggy mane would entwine,And no slim form work fire to my thighs,But human Life's inarticulate massThrob the pulse of a thingWhose mountain flanks awryBeg my mastery — mine!Ah! I will ride the dizzy beast of the worldMy road — my way!
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Asleep within the deadest hour of nightAnd turning with the earth, I was awareHow suddenly the eastern curve was bright,As when the sun arises from his lair.But not the sun arose: it was thy hairShaken up heaven in tossing leagues of light.Since then I know that neither night nor dayMay I escape thee, O my heavenly hell!Awake, in dreams, thou springest to waylay;And should I dare to die, I know full wellWhose voice would mock me in the mourning bell,Whose face would greet me in hell's fiery way.
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The beating of the guns grows louder.'Not long, boys, now.'My heart burns whiter, fearfuller, prouder.Hurricanes growAs guns redouble their fire.Through the shaken periscope peeping,I glimpse their wire:Black earth, fountains of earth rise, leaping,Spouting like shocks of meeting waves,Death's fountains are playing,Shells like shrieking birds rush over;Crash and din rises higher.A stream of lead ravesOver us from the left ... (we safe under cover!)Crash! Reverberation! Crash!Acrid smoke billowing. Flash upon flash.Black smoke drifting. The German lineVanishes in confusion, smoke. Cries, and cryOf our men, 'Gah, yer swine!Ye're for it,' dieIn a hurricane of shell.One cry:'We're comin' soon! look out!'There is opened hellOver there; fragments fly,Rifles and bits of men whirled at the sky:Dust, smoke, thunder! A sudden boutOf machine guns chattering ...And redoubled battering,As if in fury at their daring!...No good staring.Time soon now ... home ... house on a sunny hill ...Gone like a flickered page:Time soon now ... zero ... will engage....A sudden thrill —'Fix bayonets!'Gods! we have our fillOf fear, hysteria, exultation, rage,Rage to kill.My heart burns hot, whiter and whiter,Contracts tighter and tighter,Until I stifle with the willLong forged, now used(Though utterly strained) —O pounding heart,Baffled, confused,Heart panged, head singing, dizzily pained —To do my part.Blindness a moment. Sick.There the men are!Bayonets ready: click!Time goes quick;A stumbled prayer ... somehow a blazing starIn a blue night ... where?Again prayer.The tongue trips. Start:How's time? Soon now. Two minutes or less.The gun's fury mounting higher ...Their utmost. I lift a silent hand. Unseen I blessThose hearts will follow me.And beautifully,Now beautifully my will grips,Soul calm and round and filmed and white!A shout: 'Men, no such order as retire!'I nod.The whistle's 'twixt my lips ...I catchA wan, worn smile at me.Dear men!The pale wrist-watch ...The quiet hand ticks on amid the din.The guns againRise to a last fury, to a rage, a lust:Kill! Pound! Kill! Pound! Pound!Now comes the thrust!My part ... dizziness ... will ... but trustThese men. The great guns rise;Their fury seems to burst the earth and skies!They lift.Gather, heart, all thoughts that drift;Be steel, soul,Compress thyselfInto a round, bright whole.I cannot speak.Time. Time!I hear my whistle shriek,Between teeth set;I fling an arm up,Scramble up the grimeOver the parapet!I'm up. Go on.Something meets us.Head down into the storm that greets us.A wail.Lights. Blurr.Gone.On, on. Lead. Lead. Hail.Spatter. Whirr! Whirr!'Toward that patch of brown;Direction left.' Bullets a stream.Devouring thought crying in a dream.Men, crumpled, going down....Go on. Go.Deafness. Numbness. The loudening tornado.Bullets. Mud. Stumbling and skating.My voice's strangled shout:'Steady pace, boys!'The still light: gladness.'Look, sir. Look out!'Ha! ha! Bunched figures waiting.Revolver levelled quick!Flick! Flick!Red as blood.Germans. Germans.Good! O good!Cool madness.
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Was there love once? I have forgotten her.Was there grief once? grief yet is mine.Other loves I have, men rough, but men who stirMore grief, more joy, than love of thee and thine.Faces cheerful, full of whimsical mirth,Lined by the wind, burned by the sun;Bodies enraptured by the abounding earth,As whose children we are brethren: one.And any moment may descend hot deathTo shatter limbs! pulp, tear, blastBeloved soldiers who love rough life and breathNot less for dying faithful to the last.O the fading eyes, the grimed face turned bony,Oped mouth gushing, fallen head,Lessening pressure of a hand shrunk, clammed, and stony!O sudden spasm, release of the dead!Was there love once? I have forgotten her.Was there grief once? grief yet is mine.O loved, living, dying, heroic soldier,All, all, my joy, my grief, my love, are thine!
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(
From 'A Faun's Holiday'
)
Meanwhile, though nations in distressCower at a comet's lovelinessShaken across the midnight sky;Though the wind roars, and Victory,A virgin fierce, on vans of goldStoops through the cloud's white smother rolledOver the armies' shock and flowAcross the broad green hills below,Yet hovers and will not circle downTo cast t'ward one the leafy crown;Though men drive galleys' golden beaksTo isles beyond the sunset peaks,And cities on the sea beholdWhose walls are glass, whose gates are gold,Whose turrets, risen in an hour,Dazzle between the sun and shower,Whose sole inhabitants are kingsSix cubits high with gryphon's wingsAnd beard and mien more gloriousThan Midas or Assaracus;Though priests in many a hill-top faneLift anguished hands — and lift in vain —Toward the sun's shaft dancing throughThe bright roof's square of wind-swept blue;Though 'cross the stars nightly ariseThe silver fumes of sacrifice;Though a new Helen bring new scars,Pyres piled upon wrecked golden cars,Stacked spears, rolled smoke, and spirits spedLike a streaked flame toward the dead:Though all these be, yet grows not oldDelight of sunned and windy wold,Of soaking downs aglare, asteam,Of still tarns where the yellow gleamOf a far sunrise slowly breaks,Or sunset strews with golden flakesThe deeps which soon the stars will throng.For earth yet keeps her undersongOf comfort and of ultimate peace,That whoso seeks shall never ceaseTo hear at dawn or noon or night.Joys hath she, too, joys thin and bright,Too thin, too bright, for those to hearWho listen with an eager ear,Or course about and seek to spy,Within an hour, eternity.First must the spirit cast asideThis world's and next his own poor prideAnd learn the universe to scanMore as a flower, less as a man.Then shall he hear the lonely deadSing and the stars sing overhead,And every spray upon the heath,And larks above and ants beneath;The stream shall take him in her arms;Blue skies shall rest him in their calms;The wind shall be a lovely friend,And every leaf and bough shall bendOver him with a lover's grace.The hills shall bare a perfect faceFull of a high solemnity;The heavenly clouds shall weep, and beContent as overhead they swimTo be high brothers unto him.No more shall he feel pitched and hurledUncomprehended into this world;For every place shall be his place,And he shall recognize its face.At dawn he shall upon his path;No sword shall touch him, nor the wrathOf the ranked crowd of clamorous men.At even he shall home again,And lay him down to sleep at ease,One with the Night and the Night's peace.Ev'n Sorrow, to be escaped of none,But a more deep communionShall be to him, and Death at lastNo more dreaded than the Past,Whose shadow in the brain of earthInforms him now and gave him birth.
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(
From 'A Faun's Holiday'
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Come, ye sorrowful, and steepYour tired brows in a nectarous sleep:For our kisses lightlier runThan the traceries of the sunBy the lolling water castUp grey precipices vast,Lifting smooth and warm and steepOut of the palely shimmering deep.Come, ye sorrowful, and takeKisses that are but half awake:For here are eyes O softer farThan the blossom of the starUpon the mothy twilit waters,And here are mouths whose gentle laughtersAre but the echoes of the deepLaughing and murmuring in its sleep.Come, ye sorrowful, and seeThe raindrops flaming goldenlyOn the stream's eddies overheadAnd dragonflies with drops of redIn the crisp surface of each wingThreading slant rains that flash and sing,Or under the water-lily's cup,From darkling depths, roll slowly upThe bronze flanks of an ancient breamInto the hot sun's shattered beam,Or over a sunk tree's bubbled holeThe perch stream in a golden shoal:Come, ye sorrowful; our deepHolds dreams lovelier than sleep.But if ye sons of Sorrow comeOnly wishing to be numb:Our eyes are sad as bluebell posies,Our breasts are soft as silken roses,And our hands are tendererThan the breaths that scarce can stirThe sunlit eglantine that isMurmurous with hidden bees.Come, ye sorrowful, and steepYour tired brows in a nectarous sleep.Come, ye sorrowful, for hereNo voices sound but fond and clearOf mouths as lorn as is the roseThat under water doth disclose,Amid her crimson petals torn,A heart as golden as the morn;And here are tresses languorousAs the weeds wander over us,And brows as holy and as blandAs the honey-coloured sandLying sun-entranced belowThe lazy water's limpid flow:Come, ye sorrowful, and steepYour tired brows in a nectarous sleep.
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(
From 'A Faun's Holiday'
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'Be warned! I feel the world grow old,And off Olympus fades the goldOf the simple passionate sun;And the Gods wither one by one:Proud-eyed Apollo's bow is broken,And throned Zeus nods nor may be wokenBut by the song of spirits sevenQuiring in the midnight heavenOf a new world no more forlorn,Sith unto it a Babe is born,That in a propped, thatched stable lies,While with darkling, reverent eyesDusky Emperors, coifed in gold,Kneel mid the rushy mire, and holdCaskets of rubies, urns of myrrh,Whose fumes enwrap the thuriferAnd coil toward the high dim raftersWhere, with lutes and warbling laughters,Clustered cherubs of rainbow feather,Fanning the fragrant air together,Flit in jubilant holy glee,And make heavenly minstrelsyTo the Child their Sun, whose glowBathes them His cloudlets from below....Long shall this chimed accord be heard,Yet all earth hushed at His first word:Then shall be seen Apollo's carBlaze headlong like a banished star;And the Queen of heavenly LovesDragged downward by her dying doves;Vulcan, spun on a wheel, shall trackThe circle of the zodiac;Silver Artemis be lost,To the polar blizzards tossed;Heaven shall curdle as with blood;The sun be swallowed in the flood;The universe be silent saveFor the low drone of winds that laveThe shadowed great world's ashen sidesAs through the rustling void she glides.Then shall there be a whisper heardOf the Grave's Secret and its Word,Where in black silence none shall crySave those who, dead-affrighted, spyHow from the murmurous graveyards creepThe figures of eternal sleep.Last: when 'tis light men shall behold,Beyond the crags, a flower of goldBlossoming in a golden haze,And, while they guess Zeus' halls now blaze,Shall in the blossom's heart descryThe saints of a new hierarchy!'He ceased ... and in the morning skyZeus' anger threatened murmurously.I sped away. The lightning's swordStabbed on the forest. But the wordAbides with me. I feel its powerMost darkly in the twilit hour,When Night's eternal shadow, castOver earth hushed and pale and vast,Darkly foretells the soundless NightIn which this orb, so green, so bright,Now spins, and which shall compass herWhen on her rondure nought shall stirBut snow-whorls which the wind shall rollFrom the Equator to the Pole ...For everlastingly there isSomething Beyond, Behind: I wisAll Gods are haunted, and there clings,As hound behind fled sheep, the thingsBeyond the Universe's ken:Gods haunt the Half-Gods, Half-Gods men,And Man the brute. Gods, born of Night,Feel a blacker appetiteGape to devour them; Half-Gods dreadBut jealous Gods; and mere men treadWarily lest a Half-God riseAnd loose on them from empty skiesAmazement, thunder, stark affright,Famine and sudden War's thick night,In which loud Furies hunt the PitiesThrough smoke above wrecked, flaming cities.For Pan, the Unknown God, rules all.He shall outlive the funeral,Change, and decay, of many Gods,Until he, too, lets fall his rodsOf viewless power upon that minuteWhen Universe cowers at Infinite!
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It was deep night, and over Jerusalem's low roofsThe moon floated, drifting through high vaporous woofs.The moonlight crept and glistened silent, solemn, sweet,Over dome and column, up empty, endless street;In the closed, scented gardens the rose loosed from the stemHer white showery petals; none regarded them;The starry thicket breathed odours to the sentinel palm;Silence possessed the city like a soul possessed by calm.Not a spark in the warren under the giant night,Save where in a turret's lantern beamed a grave, still light:There in the topmost chamber a gold-eyed lamp was lit —Marvellous lamp in darkness, informing, redeeming it!For, set in that tiny chamber, Jesus, the blessed and doomed,Spoke to the lone apostles as light to men en-tombed;And spreading his hands in blessing, as one soon to be dead,He put soft enchantment into spare wine and bread.The hearts of the disciples were broken and full of tears,Because their lord, the spearless, was hedgéd about with spears;And in his face the sickness of departure had spread a gloom,At leaving his young friends friendless.They could not forget the tomb.He smiled subduedly, telling, in tones soft as voice of the dove,The endlessness of sorrow, the eternal solace of love;And lifting the earthly tokens, wine and sorrowful bread,He bade them sup and remember one who lived and was dead.And they could not restrain their weeping.But one rose up to depart,Having weakness and hate of weakness raging within his heart,And bowed to the robed assembly whose eyes gleamed wet in the light.Judas arose and departed: night went out to the night.Then Jesus lifted his voice like a fountain in an ocean of tears,And comforted his disciples and calmed and allayed their fears.But Judas wound down the turret, creeping from floor to floor,And would fly; but one leaning, weeping, barred him beside the door.And he knew her by her ruddy garment and two yet-watching men:Mary of Seven Evils, Mary Magdalen.And he was frighted at her. She sighed: 'I dreamed him dead.We sell the body for silver ...'Then Judas cried out and fledForth into the night!... The moon had begun to set:A drear, deft wind went sifting, setting the dust afret;Into the heart of the city Judas ran on and prayedTo stern Jehovah lest his deed make him afraid.But in the tiny lantern, hanging as if on air,The disciples sat unspeaking. Amaze and peace were there.Forhisvoice, more lovely than song of all earthly birds,In accents humble and happy spoke slow, consoling words.Thus Jesus discoursed, and was silent, sitting up-right, and soonPast the casement behind him slanted the sinking moon;And, rising for Olivet, all stared, between love and dread,Seeing the torrid moon a ruddy halo behind his head.