Since you have waned from us,Fairest of women,I am a darkened cageSong cannot hymn in.My songs have followed you,Like birds the summer;Ah! bring them back to me,Swiftly, dear comer!Seraphim,Her to hymn,Might leave their portals;And at my feet learnThe harping of mortals!Whereso your angel is,My angel goeth;I am left guardianless,Paradise knoweth!I have no Heaven leftTo weep my wrongs to;Heaven, when you went from us,Went with my songs too.Seraphim,Her to hymn,Might leave their portals;And at my feet learnThe harping of mortals!I have no angels leftNow, Sweet, to pray to:Where you have made your shrineThey are away to.They have struck Heaven's tent,And gone to cover you:Whereso you keep your stateHeaven is pitched over you!Seraphim,Her to hymn,Might leave their portals;And at my feet learnThe harping of mortals!She that is Heaven's QueenHer title borrows,For that she, pitiful,Beareth our sorrows.So thou,Regina mi,Spes infirmorum;With all our grieving crownedMater dolorum!Seraphim,Her to hymn,Might leave their portals;And at my feet learnThe harping of mortals!Yet, envious coveterOf other's grieving!This lonely longing yet'Scapeth your reaving.Cruel to take from aSinner his Heaven!Think you with contrite smilesTo be forgiven?Seraphim,Her to hymn,Might leave their portals;And at my feet learnThe harping of mortals!Penitent! give me backAngels, and Heaven;Render your stolen self,And be forgiven!How frontier Heaven from you?For my soul prays, Sweet,Still to your face in Heaven,Heaven in your face, Sweet!Seraphim,Her to hymn,Might leave their portals;And at my feet learnThe harping of mortals!
Since you have waned from us,Fairest of women,I am a darkened cageSong cannot hymn in.My songs have followed you,Like birds the summer;Ah! bring them back to me,Swiftly, dear comer!Seraphim,Her to hymn,Might leave their portals;And at my feet learnThe harping of mortals!
Whereso your angel is,My angel goeth;I am left guardianless,Paradise knoweth!I have no Heaven leftTo weep my wrongs to;Heaven, when you went from us,Went with my songs too.Seraphim,Her to hymn,Might leave their portals;And at my feet learnThe harping of mortals!
I have no angels leftNow, Sweet, to pray to:Where you have made your shrineThey are away to.They have struck Heaven's tent,And gone to cover you:Whereso you keep your stateHeaven is pitched over you!Seraphim,Her to hymn,Might leave their portals;And at my feet learnThe harping of mortals!
She that is Heaven's QueenHer title borrows,For that she, pitiful,Beareth our sorrows.So thou,Regina mi,Spes infirmorum;With all our grieving crownedMater dolorum!Seraphim,Her to hymn,Might leave their portals;And at my feet learnThe harping of mortals!
Yet, envious coveterOf other's grieving!This lonely longing yet'Scapeth your reaving.Cruel to take from aSinner his Heaven!Think you with contrite smilesTo be forgiven?Seraphim,Her to hymn,Might leave their portals;And at my feet learnThe harping of mortals!
Penitent! give me backAngels, and Heaven;Render your stolen self,And be forgiven!How frontier Heaven from you?For my soul prays, Sweet,Still to your face in Heaven,Heaven in your face, Sweet!Seraphim,Her to hymn,Might leave their portals;And at my feet learnThe harping of mortals!
Oh, but the heavenly grammar did I holdOf that high speech which angels' tongues turn gold!So should her deathless beauty take no wrong,Praised in her own great kindred's fit and cognate tongue.Or if that language yet with us abodeWhich Adam in the garden talked with God!But our untempered speech descends—poor heirs!Grimy and rough-cast still from Babel's bricklayers:Curse on the brutish jargon we inherit,Strong but to damn, not memorise, a spirit!A cheek, a lip, a limb, a bosom, theyMove with light ease in speech of working-day;And women we do use to praise even so.But here the gates we burst, and to the temple go.Their praise were her dispraise; who dare, who dare,Adulate the seraphim for their burning hair?How, if with them I dared, here should I dare it?How praise the woman, who but know the spirit?How praise the colour of her eyes, uncaughtWhile they were coloured with her varying thought?How her mouth's shape, who only use to knowWhat tender shape her speech will fit it to?Or her lips' redness, when their joinèd veilSong's fervid hand has parted till it wore them pale?If I would praise her soul (temerarious if!)All must be mystery and hieroglyph.Heaven, which not oft is prodigal of its moreTo singers, in their song too great before—By which the hierarch of large poesy isRestrained to his one sacred benefice—Only for her the salutary aweRelaxes and stern canon of its law;To her alone concedes pluralities,In her alone to reconcile agreesThe Muse, the Graces, and the Charities;To her, who can the trust so well conduct,To her it gives the use, to us the usufruct.What of the dear administress then mayI utter, though I spoke her own carved perfect way?What of her daily gracious converse known,Whose heavenly despotism must needs dethroneAnd subjugate all sweetness but its own?Deep in my heart subsides the infrequent word,And there dies slowly throbbing like a wounded bird.What of her silence, that outsweetens speech?What of her thoughts, high marks for mine own thoughts to reach?Yet (Chaucer's antique sentence so to turn),Most gladly will she teach, and gladly learn;And teaching her, by her enchanting art,The master threefold learns for all he can impart.Now all is said, and all being said,—aye me!There yet remains unsaid the very She.Nay, to conclude (so to conclude I dare),If of her virtues you evade the snare,Then for her faults you'll fall in love with her.Alas, and I have spoken of her Muse—Her Muse, that died with her auroral dews!Learn, the wise cherubim from harps of goldSeduce a trepidating music manifold;But the superior seraphim do knowNone other music but to flame and glow.So she first lighted on our frosty earth,A sad musician, of cherubic birth,Playing to alien ears—which did not prizeThe uncomprehended music of the skies—The exiled airs of her far Paradise.But soon, from her own harpings taking fire,In love and light her melodies expire.Now Heaven affords her, for her silenced hymn,A double portion of the seraphim.At the rich odours from her heart that rise,My soul remembers its lost Paradise,And antenatal gales blow from Heaven's shores of spice;I grow essential all, uncloaking meFrom this encumbering virility,And feel the primal sex of heaven and poetry:And parting from her, in me linger onVague snatches of Uranian antiphon.How to the petty prison could she shrinkOf femineity?—Nay, but I thinkIn a dear courtesy her spirit wouldWoman assume, for grace to womanhood.Or, votaress to the virgin SanctitudeOf reticent withdrawal's sweet, courted pale,She took the cloistral flesh, the sexual veil,Of her sad, aboriginal sisterhood;The habit of cloistral flesh which founding Eve indued.Thus do I know her: but for what men callBeauty—the loveliness corporeal,Its most just praise a thing unproper wereTo singer or to listener, me or her.She wears that body but as one induesA robe, half careless, for it is the use;Although her soul and it so fair agree,We sure may, unattaint of heresy,Conceit it might the soul's begetter be.The immortal could we cease to contemplate,The mortal part suggests its every trait.God laid His fingers on the ivoriesOf her pure members as on smoothèd keys,And there out-breathed her spirit's harmonies.I'll speak a little proudly:—I disdainTo count the beauty worth my wish or gain,Which the dull daily fool can covet or obtain.I do confess the fairness of the spoil,But from such rivalry it takes a soil.For her I'll proudlier speak:—how could it beThat I should praise the gilding on the psaltery?'Tis not for her to hold that prize a prize,Or praise much praise, though proudest in its wise,To which even hopes of merely women rise.Such strife would to the vanquished laurels yield,Againsthersuffered to have lost a field.Herself must with herself be sole compeer,Unless the people of her distant sphereSome gold migration send to melodise the year.Yet I have felt what terrors may consortIn women's cheeks, the Graces' soft resort;My hand hath shook at gentle hands' access,And trembled at the waving of a tress;My blood known panic fear, and fled dismayed,Where ladies' eyes have set their ambuscade.The rustle of a robe hath been to meThe very rattle of love's musketry;Although my heart hath beat the loud advance,I have recoiled before a challenging glance,Proved gay alarms where warlike ribbons dance.And from it all, this knowledge have I got,—The whole that others have, is less than they have not;All which makes other women noted fair,Unnoted would remain and overshone in her.How should I gauge what beauty is her dole,Who cannot see her countenance for her soul,As birds see not the casement for the sky?And, as 'tis check they prove its presence by,I know not of her body till I findMy flight debarred the heaven of her mind.Hers is the face whence all should copied be,Did God make replicas of such as she;Its presence felt by what it does abate,Because the soul shines through tempered and mitigate:Where—as a figure labouring at nightBeside the body of a splendid light—Dark Time works hidden by its luminousness;And every line he labours to impressTurns added beauty, like the veins that runAthwart a leaf which hangs against the sun.There regent Melancholy wide controls;There Earth- and Heaven-Love play for aureoles;There Sweetness out of Sadness breaks at fits,Like bubbles on dark water, or as flitsA sudden silver fin through its deep infinites;There amorous Thought has sucked pale Fancy's breath,And Tenderness sits looking towards the lands of death;There Feeling stills her breathing with her hand,And Dream from Melancholy part wrests the wandAnd on this lady's heart, looked you so deep,Poor Poetry has rocked himself to sleep:Upon the heavy blossom of her lipsHangs the bee Musing; nigh, her lids eclipseEach half-occulted star beneath that lies;And in the contemplation of those eyes,Passionless passion, wild tranquillities.
Oh, but the heavenly grammar did I holdOf that high speech which angels' tongues turn gold!So should her deathless beauty take no wrong,Praised in her own great kindred's fit and cognate tongue.Or if that language yet with us abodeWhich Adam in the garden talked with God!But our untempered speech descends—poor heirs!Grimy and rough-cast still from Babel's bricklayers:Curse on the brutish jargon we inherit,Strong but to damn, not memorise, a spirit!A cheek, a lip, a limb, a bosom, theyMove with light ease in speech of working-day;And women we do use to praise even so.But here the gates we burst, and to the temple go.Their praise were her dispraise; who dare, who dare,Adulate the seraphim for their burning hair?How, if with them I dared, here should I dare it?How praise the woman, who but know the spirit?How praise the colour of her eyes, uncaughtWhile they were coloured with her varying thought?How her mouth's shape, who only use to knowWhat tender shape her speech will fit it to?Or her lips' redness, when their joinèd veilSong's fervid hand has parted till it wore them pale?
If I would praise her soul (temerarious if!)All must be mystery and hieroglyph.Heaven, which not oft is prodigal of its moreTo singers, in their song too great before—By which the hierarch of large poesy isRestrained to his one sacred benefice—Only for her the salutary aweRelaxes and stern canon of its law;To her alone concedes pluralities,In her alone to reconcile agreesThe Muse, the Graces, and the Charities;To her, who can the trust so well conduct,To her it gives the use, to us the usufruct.What of the dear administress then mayI utter, though I spoke her own carved perfect way?What of her daily gracious converse known,Whose heavenly despotism must needs dethroneAnd subjugate all sweetness but its own?Deep in my heart subsides the infrequent word,And there dies slowly throbbing like a wounded bird.What of her silence, that outsweetens speech?What of her thoughts, high marks for mine own thoughts to reach?Yet (Chaucer's antique sentence so to turn),Most gladly will she teach, and gladly learn;And teaching her, by her enchanting art,The master threefold learns for all he can impart.Now all is said, and all being said,—aye me!There yet remains unsaid the very She.Nay, to conclude (so to conclude I dare),If of her virtues you evade the snare,Then for her faults you'll fall in love with her.
Alas, and I have spoken of her Muse—Her Muse, that died with her auroral dews!Learn, the wise cherubim from harps of goldSeduce a trepidating music manifold;But the superior seraphim do knowNone other music but to flame and glow.So she first lighted on our frosty earth,A sad musician, of cherubic birth,Playing to alien ears—which did not prizeThe uncomprehended music of the skies—The exiled airs of her far Paradise.
But soon, from her own harpings taking fire,In love and light her melodies expire.Now Heaven affords her, for her silenced hymn,A double portion of the seraphim.At the rich odours from her heart that rise,My soul remembers its lost Paradise,And antenatal gales blow from Heaven's shores of spice;I grow essential all, uncloaking meFrom this encumbering virility,And feel the primal sex of heaven and poetry:And parting from her, in me linger onVague snatches of Uranian antiphon.
How to the petty prison could she shrinkOf femineity?—Nay, but I thinkIn a dear courtesy her spirit wouldWoman assume, for grace to womanhood.Or, votaress to the virgin SanctitudeOf reticent withdrawal's sweet, courted pale,She took the cloistral flesh, the sexual veil,Of her sad, aboriginal sisterhood;The habit of cloistral flesh which founding Eve indued.
Thus do I know her: but for what men callBeauty—the loveliness corporeal,Its most just praise a thing unproper wereTo singer or to listener, me or her.She wears that body but as one induesA robe, half careless, for it is the use;Although her soul and it so fair agree,We sure may, unattaint of heresy,Conceit it might the soul's begetter be.The immortal could we cease to contemplate,The mortal part suggests its every trait.God laid His fingers on the ivoriesOf her pure members as on smoothèd keys,And there out-breathed her spirit's harmonies.I'll speak a little proudly:—I disdainTo count the beauty worth my wish or gain,Which the dull daily fool can covet or obtain.I do confess the fairness of the spoil,But from such rivalry it takes a soil.For her I'll proudlier speak:—how could it beThat I should praise the gilding on the psaltery?'Tis not for her to hold that prize a prize,Or praise much praise, though proudest in its wise,To which even hopes of merely women rise.Such strife would to the vanquished laurels yield,Againsthersuffered to have lost a field.Herself must with herself be sole compeer,Unless the people of her distant sphereSome gold migration send to melodise the year.
Yet I have felt what terrors may consortIn women's cheeks, the Graces' soft resort;My hand hath shook at gentle hands' access,And trembled at the waving of a tress;My blood known panic fear, and fled dismayed,Where ladies' eyes have set their ambuscade.The rustle of a robe hath been to meThe very rattle of love's musketry;Although my heart hath beat the loud advance,I have recoiled before a challenging glance,Proved gay alarms where warlike ribbons dance.And from it all, this knowledge have I got,—The whole that others have, is less than they have not;All which makes other women noted fair,Unnoted would remain and overshone in her.
How should I gauge what beauty is her dole,Who cannot see her countenance for her soul,As birds see not the casement for the sky?And, as 'tis check they prove its presence by,I know not of her body till I findMy flight debarred the heaven of her mind.Hers is the face whence all should copied be,Did God make replicas of such as she;Its presence felt by what it does abate,Because the soul shines through tempered and mitigate:Where—as a figure labouring at nightBeside the body of a splendid light—Dark Time works hidden by its luminousness;And every line he labours to impressTurns added beauty, like the veins that runAthwart a leaf which hangs against the sun.
There regent Melancholy wide controls;There Earth- and Heaven-Love play for aureoles;There Sweetness out of Sadness breaks at fits,Like bubbles on dark water, or as flitsA sudden silver fin through its deep infinites;There amorous Thought has sucked pale Fancy's breath,And Tenderness sits looking towards the lands of death;There Feeling stills her breathing with her hand,And Dream from Melancholy part wrests the wandAnd on this lady's heart, looked you so deep,Poor Poetry has rocked himself to sleep:Upon the heavy blossom of her lipsHangs the bee Musing; nigh, her lids eclipseEach half-occulted star beneath that lies;And in the contemplation of those eyes,Passionless passion, wild tranquillities.
Wherein he excuseth himself for the Manner of the Portrait
Alas! now wilt thou chide, and say (I deem)My figured descant hides the simple theme:Or, in another wise reproving, sayI ill observe thine own high reticent way.Oh, pardon, that I testify of theeWhat thou couldst never speak, nor others be!Yet (for the book is not more innocentOf what the gazer's eyes makes so intent),She will but smile, perhaps, that I find my fairSufficing scope in such strait theme as her."Bird of the sun! the stars' wild honey bee!Is your gold browsing done so thoroughly?Or sinks a singèd wing to narrow nest in me?"(Thus she might say: for not this lowly veinOut-deprecates her deprecating strain.)Oh, you mistake, dear lady, quite; nor knowEther was strict as you, its loftiness as low!The heavens do not advance their majestyOver their marge; beyond his emperyThe ensigns of the wind are not unfurled,His reign is hooped in by the pale o' the world.'Tis not the continent, but the contained,That pleasaunce makes or prison, loose or chained.Too much alike or little captives me,For all oppression is captivity.What groweth to its height demands no higher;The limit limits not, but the desire.We, therefore, with a sure instinctive mind,An equal spaciousness of bondage findIn confines far or near, of air or our own kind.Our looks and longings, which affront the stars,Most richly bruised against their golden bars,Delighted captives of their flaming spears,Find a restraint restrainless which appearsAs that is, and so simply natural,In you;—the fair detention freedom call,And overscroll with fancies the loved prison-wall.Such sweet captivity, and only such,In you, as in those golden bars, we touch!Our gazes for sufficing limits knowThe firmament above, your face below;Our longings are contented with the skies,Contented with the heaven, and your eyes.My restless wings, that beat the whole world through,Flag on the confines of the sun and you;And find the human pale remoter of the two.
Alas! now wilt thou chide, and say (I deem)My figured descant hides the simple theme:Or, in another wise reproving, sayI ill observe thine own high reticent way.Oh, pardon, that I testify of theeWhat thou couldst never speak, nor others be!
Yet (for the book is not more innocentOf what the gazer's eyes makes so intent),She will but smile, perhaps, that I find my fairSufficing scope in such strait theme as her."Bird of the sun! the stars' wild honey bee!Is your gold browsing done so thoroughly?Or sinks a singèd wing to narrow nest in me?"(Thus she might say: for not this lowly veinOut-deprecates her deprecating strain.)Oh, you mistake, dear lady, quite; nor knowEther was strict as you, its loftiness as low!
The heavens do not advance their majestyOver their marge; beyond his emperyThe ensigns of the wind are not unfurled,His reign is hooped in by the pale o' the world.'Tis not the continent, but the contained,That pleasaunce makes or prison, loose or chained.Too much alike or little captives me,For all oppression is captivity.What groweth to its height demands no higher;The limit limits not, but the desire.
We, therefore, with a sure instinctive mind,An equal spaciousness of bondage findIn confines far or near, of air or our own kind.Our looks and longings, which affront the stars,Most richly bruised against their golden bars,Delighted captives of their flaming spears,Find a restraint restrainless which appearsAs that is, and so simply natural,In you;—the fair detention freedom call,And overscroll with fancies the loved prison-wall.
Such sweet captivity, and only such,In you, as in those golden bars, we touch!Our gazes for sufficing limits knowThe firmament above, your face below;Our longings are contented with the skies,Contented with the heaven, and your eyes.My restless wings, that beat the whole world through,Flag on the confines of the sun and you;And find the human pale remoter of the two.
The after-even! Ah, did I walk,Indeed, in her or even?For nothing of me or aroundBut absent She did leaven,Felt in my body as its soul,And in my soul its heaven."Ah me! my very flesh turns soul,Essenced," I sighed, "with bliss!"And the blackbird held his lutany,All fragrant-through with bliss;And all things stilled were as a maidSweet with a single kiss.For grief of perfect fairness, eveCould nothing do but smile;The time was far too perfect fair,Being but for a while;And ah, in me, too happy griefBlinded herself with smile!The sunset at its radiant heartHad somewhat unconfest:The bird was loath of speech, its songHalf-refluent on its breast,And made melodious toyings withA note or two at best.And she was gone, my sole, my Fair,Ah, sole my Fair, was gone!Methinks, throughout the world 'twere rightI had been sad alone;And yet, such sweet in all things' heart,And such sweet in my own!
The after-even! Ah, did I walk,Indeed, in her or even?For nothing of me or aroundBut absent She did leaven,Felt in my body as its soul,And in my soul its heaven.
"Ah me! my very flesh turns soul,Essenced," I sighed, "with bliss!"And the blackbird held his lutany,All fragrant-through with bliss;And all things stilled were as a maidSweet with a single kiss.
For grief of perfect fairness, eveCould nothing do but smile;The time was far too perfect fair,Being but for a while;And ah, in me, too happy griefBlinded herself with smile!
The sunset at its radiant heartHad somewhat unconfest:The bird was loath of speech, its songHalf-refluent on its breast,And made melodious toyings withA note or two at best.
And she was gone, my sole, my Fair,Ah, sole my Fair, was gone!Methinks, throughout the world 'twere rightI had been sad alone;And yet, such sweet in all things' heart,And such sweet in my own!
It seemed corrival of the world's great prime,Made to un-edge the scythe of Time,And last with stateliest rhyme.No tender Dryad ever did indueThat rigid chiton of rough yew,To fret her white flesh through:But some god, like to those grim Asgard lordsWho walk the fables of the hordesFrom Scandinavian fjords,Upheaved its stubborn girth, and raised unriven,Against the whirl-blast and the levin,Defiant arms to Heaven.When doom puffed out the stars, we might have said,It would decline its heavy head,And see the world to bed.For this firm yew did from the vassal leas,And rain and air, its tributaries,Its revenues increase,And levy impost on the golden sun,Take the blind years as they might run,And no fate seek or shun.But now our yew is strook, is fallen—yeaHacked like dull wood of every dayTo this and that, men say.Never!—To Hades' shadowy shipyards gone,Dim barge of Dis, down AcheronIt drops, or Lethe wan.Stirred by its fall—poor destined bark of Dis!—Along my soul a bruit there isOf echoing images,Reverberations of mortality:Spelt backward from its death, to meIts life reads saddenedly.Its breast was hollowed as the tooth of eld;And boys, there creeping unbeheld,A laughing moment dwelled.Yet they, within its very heart so crept,Reached not the heart that courage keptWith winds and years beswept.And in its boughs did close and kindly nestThe birds, as they within its breast,By all its leaves caressed.But bird nor child might touch by any artEach other's or the tree's hid heart,A whole God's breadth apart;The breadth of God, the breadth of death and life!Even so, even so, in undreamed strifeWith pulseless Law, the wife,—The sweetest wife on sweetest marriage-day,—Their soul at grapple in mid-way,Sweet to her sweet may say:"I take you to my inmost heart, my true!"Ah, fool! but there is one heart youShall never take him to!The hold that falls not when the town is got,The heart's heart, whose immurèd plotHath keys yourself keep not!Its ports you cannot burst—you are withstood—For him that to your listening bloodSends precepts as he would.Its gates are deaf to Love, high summoner;Yea, Love's great warrant runs not there:You are your prisoner.Yourself are with yourself the sole consortressIn that unleaguerable fortress;It knows you not for portress.Its keys are at the cincture hung of God;Its gates are trepidant to His nod;By Him its floors are trod.And if His feet shall rock those floors in wrath,Or blest aspersion sleek His path,Is only choice it hath.Yea, in that ultimate heart's occult abodeTo lie as in an oubliette of God;Or in a bower untrod,Built by a secret Lover for His Spouse;—Sole choice is this your life allows,Sad tree, whose perishing boughsSo few birds house!
It seemed corrival of the world's great prime,Made to un-edge the scythe of Time,And last with stateliest rhyme.
No tender Dryad ever did indueThat rigid chiton of rough yew,To fret her white flesh through:
But some god, like to those grim Asgard lordsWho walk the fables of the hordesFrom Scandinavian fjords,
Upheaved its stubborn girth, and raised unriven,Against the whirl-blast and the levin,Defiant arms to Heaven.
When doom puffed out the stars, we might have said,It would decline its heavy head,And see the world to bed.
For this firm yew did from the vassal leas,And rain and air, its tributaries,Its revenues increase,
And levy impost on the golden sun,Take the blind years as they might run,And no fate seek or shun.
But now our yew is strook, is fallen—yeaHacked like dull wood of every dayTo this and that, men say.
Never!—To Hades' shadowy shipyards gone,Dim barge of Dis, down AcheronIt drops, or Lethe wan.
Stirred by its fall—poor destined bark of Dis!—Along my soul a bruit there isOf echoing images,
Reverberations of mortality:Spelt backward from its death, to meIts life reads saddenedly.
Its breast was hollowed as the tooth of eld;And boys, there creeping unbeheld,A laughing moment dwelled.
Yet they, within its very heart so crept,Reached not the heart that courage keptWith winds and years beswept.
And in its boughs did close and kindly nestThe birds, as they within its breast,By all its leaves caressed.
But bird nor child might touch by any artEach other's or the tree's hid heart,A whole God's breadth apart;
The breadth of God, the breadth of death and life!Even so, even so, in undreamed strifeWith pulseless Law, the wife,—
The sweetest wife on sweetest marriage-day,—Their soul at grapple in mid-way,Sweet to her sweet may say:
"I take you to my inmost heart, my true!"Ah, fool! but there is one heart youShall never take him to!
The hold that falls not when the town is got,The heart's heart, whose immurèd plotHath keys yourself keep not!
Its ports you cannot burst—you are withstood—For him that to your listening bloodSends precepts as he would.
Its gates are deaf to Love, high summoner;Yea, Love's great warrant runs not there:You are your prisoner.
Yourself are with yourself the sole consortressIn that unleaguerable fortress;It knows you not for portress.
Its keys are at the cincture hung of God;Its gates are trepidant to His nod;By Him its floors are trod.
And if His feet shall rock those floors in wrath,Or blest aspersion sleek His path,Is only choice it hath.
Yea, in that ultimate heart's occult abodeTo lie as in an oubliette of God;Or in a bower untrod,
Built by a secret Lover for His Spouse;—Sole choice is this your life allows,Sad tree, whose perishing boughsSo few birds house!
I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;I fled Him down the arches of the years;I fled Him, down the labyrinthine waysOf my own mind; and in the mist of tearsI hid from Him, and under running laughter.Up vistaed hopes I sped;And shot, precipitated,Adown Titanic glooms of chasmèd fears,From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.But with unhurrying chase,And unperturbèd pace,Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,They beat—and a Voice beatMore instant than the Feet—"All things betray thee, who betrayest Me."I pleaded, outlaw-wise,By many a hearted casement, curtained red,Trellised with intertwining charities;(For, though I knew His love Who followèd,Yet was I sore adreadLest, having Him, I must have naught beside);But, if one little casement parted wide,The gust of His approach would clash it to.Fear wist not to evade, as Love wist to pursue.Across the margent of the world I fled,And troubled the gold gateways of the stars,Smiting for shelter on their clangèd bars;Fretted to dulcet jarsAnd silvern chatter the pale ports o' the moon.I said to dawn, Be sudden; to eve, Be soon;With thy young skiey blossoms heap me overFrom this tremendous Lover!Float thy vague veil about me, lest He see!I tempted all His servitors, but to findMy own betrayal in their constancy,In faith to Him their fickleness to me,Their traitorous trueness, and their loyal deceit.To all swift things for swiftness did I sue;Clung to the whistling mane of every wind.But whether they swept, smoothly fleet,The long savannahs of the blue;Or whether, Thunder-driven,They clanged his chariot 'thwart a heavenPlashy with flying lightnings round the spurn o' their feet:—Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue.Still with unhurrying chase,And unperturbèd pace,Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,Came on the following Feet,And a Voice above their beat—"Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me."I sought no more that after which I strayedIn face of man or maid;But still within the little children's eyesSeems something, something that replies;Theyat least are for me, surely for me!I turned me to them very wistfully;But, just as their young eyes grew sudden fairWith dawning answers there,Their angel plucked them from me by the hair."Come then, ye other children, Nature's—shareWith me" (said I) "your delicate fellowship;Let me greet you lip to lip,Let me twine with you caresses,WantoningWith our Lady-Mother's vagrant tresses,BanquetingWith her in her wind-walled palace,Underneath her azured daïs,Quaffing, as your taintless way is,From a chaliceLucent-weeping out of the dayspring."So it was done:Iin their delicate fellowship was one—Drew the bolt of Nature's secrecies.Iknew all the swift importingsOn the wilful face of skies;I knew how the clouds ariseSpumèd of the wild sea-snortings;All that's born or diesRose and drooped with—made them shapersOf mine own moods, or wailful or divine—With them joyed and was bereaven.I was heavy with the even,When she lit her glimmering tapersRound the day's dead sanctities.I laughed in the morning's eyes.I triumphed and I saddened with all weather,Heaven and I wept together,And its sweet tears were salt with mortal mine;Against the red throb of its sunset-heartI laid my own to beat,And share commingling heat;But not by that, by that, was eased my human smart.In vain my tears were wet on Heaven's grey cheek.For ah! we know not what each other says,These things and I; in soundIspeak—Theirsound is but their stir, they speak by silences.Nature, poor stepdame, cannot slake my drouth;Let her, if she would owe me,Drop yon blue bosom-veil of sky, and show meThe breasts o' her tenderness:Never did any milk of hers once blessMy thirsting mouth.Nigh and nigh draws the chase,With unperturbèd pace,Deliberate speed, majestic instancy;And past those noisèd FeetA voice comes yet more fleet—"Lo! naught contents thee, who content'st not Me."Naked I wait Thy love's uplifted stroke!My harness piece by piece Thou hast hewn from me,And smitten me to my knee;I am defenceless utterly.I slept, methinks, and woke,And, slowly gazing, find me stripped in sleep.In the rash lustihead of my young powers,I shook the pillaring hoursAnd pulled my life upon me; grimed with smears,Istand amid the dust o' the mounded years—My mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap.My days have crackled and gone up in smoke,Have puffed and burst as sun-starts on a stream.Yea, faileth now even dreamThe dreamer, and the lute the lutanist;Even the linked fantasies, in whose blossomy twistI swung the earth a trinket at my wrist,Are yielding; cords of all too weak accountFor earth with heavy griefs so overplussed.Ah! is Thy love indeedA weed, albeit an amaranthine weed,Suffering no flowers except its own to mount?Ah! must—Designer infinite!—Ah! must Thou char the wood ere Thou canst limn with it?My freshness spent its wavering shower i' the dust;And now my heart is as a broken fount,Wherein tear-drippings stagnate, spilt down everFrom the dank thoughts that shiverUpon the sighful branches of my mind.Such is; what is to be?The pulp so bitter, how shall taste the rind?I dimly guess what Time in mists confounds;Yet ever and anon a trumpet soundsFrom the hid battlements of Eternity;Those shaken mists a space unsettle, thenRound the half-glimpsèd turrets slowly wash again.But not ere him who summonethI first have seen, enwoundWith glooming robes purpureal, cypress-crowned;His name I know, and what his trumpet saith.Whether man's heart or life it be which yieldsThee harvest, must Thy harvest fieldsBe dunged with rotten death?Now of that long pursuitComes on at hand the bruit;That Voice is round me like a bursting sea:"And is thy earth so marred,Shattered in shard on shard?Lo, all things fly thee, for thou fliest Me!Strange, piteous, futile thing,Wherefore should any set thee love apart?Seeing none but I makes much of naught" (He said),"And human love needs human meriting:How hast thou merited—Of all man's clotted clay the dingiest clot?Alack, thou knowest notHow little worthy of any love thou art!Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble theeSave Me, save only Me?All which I took from thee I did but take,Not for thy harms,But just that thou might'st seek it in My arms.All which thy child's mistakeFancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home:Rise, clasp My hand, and come!"Halts by me that footfall:Is my gloom, after all,Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly?"Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest,I am He Whom thou seekest!Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me."
I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;I fled Him down the arches of the years;I fled Him, down the labyrinthine waysOf my own mind; and in the mist of tearsI hid from Him, and under running laughter.Up vistaed hopes I sped;And shot, precipitated,Adown Titanic glooms of chasmèd fears,From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.But with unhurrying chase,And unperturbèd pace,Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,They beat—and a Voice beatMore instant than the Feet—"All things betray thee, who betrayest Me."
I pleaded, outlaw-wise,By many a hearted casement, curtained red,Trellised with intertwining charities;(For, though I knew His love Who followèd,Yet was I sore adreadLest, having Him, I must have naught beside);But, if one little casement parted wide,The gust of His approach would clash it to.Fear wist not to evade, as Love wist to pursue.Across the margent of the world I fled,And troubled the gold gateways of the stars,Smiting for shelter on their clangèd bars;Fretted to dulcet jarsAnd silvern chatter the pale ports o' the moon.I said to dawn, Be sudden; to eve, Be soon;With thy young skiey blossoms heap me overFrom this tremendous Lover!Float thy vague veil about me, lest He see!I tempted all His servitors, but to findMy own betrayal in their constancy,In faith to Him their fickleness to me,Their traitorous trueness, and their loyal deceit.To all swift things for swiftness did I sue;Clung to the whistling mane of every wind.But whether they swept, smoothly fleet,The long savannahs of the blue;Or whether, Thunder-driven,They clanged his chariot 'thwart a heavenPlashy with flying lightnings round the spurn o' their feet:—Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue.Still with unhurrying chase,And unperturbèd pace,Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,Came on the following Feet,And a Voice above their beat—"Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me."
I sought no more that after which I strayedIn face of man or maid;But still within the little children's eyesSeems something, something that replies;Theyat least are for me, surely for me!I turned me to them very wistfully;But, just as their young eyes grew sudden fairWith dawning answers there,Their angel plucked them from me by the hair."Come then, ye other children, Nature's—shareWith me" (said I) "your delicate fellowship;Let me greet you lip to lip,Let me twine with you caresses,WantoningWith our Lady-Mother's vagrant tresses,BanquetingWith her in her wind-walled palace,Underneath her azured daïs,Quaffing, as your taintless way is,From a chaliceLucent-weeping out of the dayspring."So it was done:Iin their delicate fellowship was one—Drew the bolt of Nature's secrecies.Iknew all the swift importingsOn the wilful face of skies;I knew how the clouds ariseSpumèd of the wild sea-snortings;All that's born or diesRose and drooped with—made them shapersOf mine own moods, or wailful or divine—With them joyed and was bereaven.I was heavy with the even,When she lit her glimmering tapersRound the day's dead sanctities.I laughed in the morning's eyes.I triumphed and I saddened with all weather,Heaven and I wept together,And its sweet tears were salt with mortal mine;Against the red throb of its sunset-heartI laid my own to beat,And share commingling heat;But not by that, by that, was eased my human smart.In vain my tears were wet on Heaven's grey cheek.For ah! we know not what each other says,These things and I; in soundIspeak—Theirsound is but their stir, they speak by silences.Nature, poor stepdame, cannot slake my drouth;Let her, if she would owe me,Drop yon blue bosom-veil of sky, and show meThe breasts o' her tenderness:Never did any milk of hers once blessMy thirsting mouth.Nigh and nigh draws the chase,With unperturbèd pace,Deliberate speed, majestic instancy;And past those noisèd FeetA voice comes yet more fleet—"Lo! naught contents thee, who content'st not Me."
Naked I wait Thy love's uplifted stroke!My harness piece by piece Thou hast hewn from me,And smitten me to my knee;I am defenceless utterly.I slept, methinks, and woke,And, slowly gazing, find me stripped in sleep.In the rash lustihead of my young powers,I shook the pillaring hoursAnd pulled my life upon me; grimed with smears,Istand amid the dust o' the mounded years—My mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap.My days have crackled and gone up in smoke,Have puffed and burst as sun-starts on a stream.Yea, faileth now even dreamThe dreamer, and the lute the lutanist;Even the linked fantasies, in whose blossomy twistI swung the earth a trinket at my wrist,Are yielding; cords of all too weak accountFor earth with heavy griefs so overplussed.Ah! is Thy love indeedA weed, albeit an amaranthine weed,Suffering no flowers except its own to mount?Ah! must—Designer infinite!—Ah! must Thou char the wood ere Thou canst limn with it?My freshness spent its wavering shower i' the dust;And now my heart is as a broken fount,Wherein tear-drippings stagnate, spilt down everFrom the dank thoughts that shiverUpon the sighful branches of my mind.Such is; what is to be?The pulp so bitter, how shall taste the rind?I dimly guess what Time in mists confounds;Yet ever and anon a trumpet soundsFrom the hid battlements of Eternity;Those shaken mists a space unsettle, thenRound the half-glimpsèd turrets slowly wash again.But not ere him who summonethI first have seen, enwoundWith glooming robes purpureal, cypress-crowned;His name I know, and what his trumpet saith.Whether man's heart or life it be which yieldsThee harvest, must Thy harvest fieldsBe dunged with rotten death?
Now of that long pursuitComes on at hand the bruit;That Voice is round me like a bursting sea:"And is thy earth so marred,Shattered in shard on shard?Lo, all things fly thee, for thou fliest Me!Strange, piteous, futile thing,Wherefore should any set thee love apart?Seeing none but I makes much of naught" (He said),"And human love needs human meriting:How hast thou merited—Of all man's clotted clay the dingiest clot?Alack, thou knowest notHow little worthy of any love thou art!Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble theeSave Me, save only Me?All which I took from thee I did but take,Not for thy harms,But just that thou might'st seek it in My arms.All which thy child's mistakeFancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home:Rise, clasp My hand, and come!"
Halts by me that footfall:Is my gloom, after all,Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly?"Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest,I am He Whom thou seekest!Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me."
I will not perturbateThy Paradisal stateWith praiseOf thy dead days;To the new-heavened say,—"Spirit, thou wert fine clay":This do,Thy praise who knew.Therefore my spirit clingsHeaven's porter by the wings,And holdsIts gated goldsApart, with thee to pressA private business;—Whence,Deign me audience.Anchorite, who didst dwellWith all the world for cell,My soulRound me doth rollA sequestration bare.Too far alike we were,Too farDissimilar.For its burning fruitage IDo climb the tree o' the sky;Do prizeSome human eyes.Yousmelt the Heaven-blossoms,And all the sweet embosomsThe dearUranian year.Those Eyes my weak gaze shuns,Which to the suns are Suns,DidNot affray your lid.The carpet was let down(With golden moultings strown)For youOf the angels' blue.But I, ex-Paradised,The shoulder of your ChristFind highTo lean thereby.So flaps my helpless sail,Bellying with neither gale,Of HeavenNor Orcus even.Life is a coquetryOf Death, which wearies me,Too sureOf the amour;A tiring-room where IDeath's divers garments try,Till fitSome fashion sit.It seemeth me too muchI do rehearse for suchA meanAnd single scene.The sandy glass hence bear—Antique remembrancer;My veinsDo spare its pains.With secret sympathyMy thoughts repeat in meInfirmThe turn o' the wormBeneath my appointed sod;The grave is in my blood;I shakeTo winds that takeIts grasses by the top;The rains thereon that dropPerturbWith drip acerbMy subtly answering soul;The feet across its knollDo jarMe from afar.As sap foretastes the spring;As Earth ere blossomingThrillsWith far daffodils,And feels her breast turn sweetWith the unconceivèd wheat;So dothMy flesh foreloatheThe abhorrèd spring of Dis,With seething presciencesAffirmThe preparate worm.I have no thought that I,When at the last I die,Shall reachTo gain your speech.But you, should that be so,May very well, I know,May wellTo me in hellWith recognising eyesLook from your Paradise—"God blessThy hopelessness!"Call, holy soul, O callThe hosts angelical,And say,—"See, far away"Lies one I saw on earth;One stricken from his birthWith curseOf destinate verse."What place doth He ye serveFor such sad spirit reserve,—Given,In dark lieu of Heaven,"The impitiable Dæmon,Beauty, to adore and dream on,To bePerpetually"Hers, but she never his?He reapeth miseries;ForeknowsHis wages woes;"He lives detachèd days;He serveth not for praise;For goldHe is not sold;"Deaf is he to world's tongue;He scorneth for his songThe loudShouts of the crowd;"He asketh not world's eyes;Not to world's ears he cries;Saith,—'TheseShut, if you please';"He measureth world's pleasure,World's ease, as Saints might measure;For hireJust love entire"He asks, not grudging pain;And knows his asking vain,And cries—'Love! Love!' and dies,"In guerdon of long duty,Unowned by Love or Beauty;And goes—Tell, tell, who knows!"Aliens from Heaven's worth,Fine beasts who nose i' the earth,Do thereReward prepare."But arehisgreat desiresFood but for nether fires?Ah me,A mystery!"Can it be his alone,To find, when all is known,That whatHe solely sought"Is lost, and thereto lostAll that its seeking cost?That heMust finally,"Through sacrificial tears,And anchoretic years,TrystWith the sensualist?"So ask; and if they tellThe secret terrible,Good friend,I pray thee sendSome high gold embassageTo teach my unripe age.Tell!Lest my feet walk hell.
I will not perturbateThy Paradisal stateWith praiseOf thy dead days;
To the new-heavened say,—"Spirit, thou wert fine clay":This do,Thy praise who knew.
Therefore my spirit clingsHeaven's porter by the wings,And holdsIts gated golds
Apart, with thee to pressA private business;—Whence,Deign me audience.
Anchorite, who didst dwellWith all the world for cell,My soulRound me doth roll
A sequestration bare.Too far alike we were,Too farDissimilar.
For its burning fruitage IDo climb the tree o' the sky;Do prizeSome human eyes.
Yousmelt the Heaven-blossoms,And all the sweet embosomsThe dearUranian year.
Those Eyes my weak gaze shuns,Which to the suns are Suns,DidNot affray your lid.
The carpet was let down(With golden moultings strown)For youOf the angels' blue.
But I, ex-Paradised,The shoulder of your ChristFind highTo lean thereby.
So flaps my helpless sail,Bellying with neither gale,Of HeavenNor Orcus even.
Life is a coquetryOf Death, which wearies me,Too sureOf the amour;
A tiring-room where IDeath's divers garments try,Till fitSome fashion sit.
It seemeth me too muchI do rehearse for suchA meanAnd single scene.
The sandy glass hence bear—Antique remembrancer;My veinsDo spare its pains.
With secret sympathyMy thoughts repeat in meInfirmThe turn o' the worm
Beneath my appointed sod;The grave is in my blood;I shakeTo winds that take
Its grasses by the top;The rains thereon that dropPerturbWith drip acerb
My subtly answering soul;The feet across its knollDo jarMe from afar.
As sap foretastes the spring;As Earth ere blossomingThrillsWith far daffodils,
And feels her breast turn sweetWith the unconceivèd wheat;So dothMy flesh foreloathe
The abhorrèd spring of Dis,With seething presciencesAffirmThe preparate worm.
I have no thought that I,When at the last I die,Shall reachTo gain your speech.
But you, should that be so,May very well, I know,May wellTo me in hell
With recognising eyesLook from your Paradise—"God blessThy hopelessness!"
Call, holy soul, O callThe hosts angelical,And say,—"See, far away
"Lies one I saw on earth;One stricken from his birthWith curseOf destinate verse.
"What place doth He ye serveFor such sad spirit reserve,—Given,In dark lieu of Heaven,
"The impitiable Dæmon,Beauty, to adore and dream on,To bePerpetually
"Hers, but she never his?He reapeth miseries;ForeknowsHis wages woes;
"He lives detachèd days;He serveth not for praise;For goldHe is not sold;
"Deaf is he to world's tongue;He scorneth for his songThe loudShouts of the crowd;
"He asketh not world's eyes;Not to world's ears he cries;Saith,—'TheseShut, if you please';
"He measureth world's pleasure,World's ease, as Saints might measure;For hireJust love entire
"He asks, not grudging pain;And knows his asking vain,And cries—'Love! Love!' and dies,
"In guerdon of long duty,Unowned by Love or Beauty;And goes—Tell, tell, who knows!
"Aliens from Heaven's worth,Fine beasts who nose i' the earth,Do thereReward prepare.
"But arehisgreat desiresFood but for nether fires?Ah me,A mystery!
"Can it be his alone,To find, when all is known,That whatHe solely sought
"Is lost, and thereto lostAll that its seeking cost?That heMust finally,
"Through sacrificial tears,And anchoretic years,TrystWith the sensualist?"
So ask; and if they tellThe secret terrible,Good friend,I pray thee send
Some high gold embassageTo teach my unripe age.Tell!Lest my feet walk hell.
(Stephen Perry, S.J.)
Starry amorist, starward gone,Thou art—what thou didst gaze upon!Passed through thy golden garden's bars,Thou seest the Gardener of the Stars.She, about whose moonèd browsSeven stars make seven glows,Seven lights for seven woes;She, like thine own Galaxy,All lustres in one purity:—What said'st thou, Astronomer,When thou did'st discoverher?When thy hand its tube let fall,Thou found'st the fairest star of all!
Starry amorist, starward gone,Thou art—what thou didst gaze upon!Passed through thy golden garden's bars,Thou seest the Gardener of the Stars.
She, about whose moonèd browsSeven stars make seven glows,Seven lights for seven woes;She, like thine own Galaxy,All lustres in one purity:—What said'st thou, Astronomer,When thou did'st discoverher?When thy hand its tube let fall,Thou found'st the fairest star of all!
Hearken my chant,—'tisAs a Bacchante's,A grape-spurt, a vine-splash, a tossed tress, flown vaunt 'tis!Suffer my singing,Gipsy of Seasons, ere thou go winging;Ere Winter throwsHis slaking snowsIn thy feasting-flagon's impurpurate glows!Tanned maiden! with cheeks like apples russet,And breast a brown agaric faint-flushing at tip,And a mouth too red for the moon to buss itBut her cheek unvow its vestalship;Thy mists enclipHer steel-clear circuit illuminous,Until it crustRubiginousWith the glorious gules of a glowing rust.Far other saw we, other indeed,The crescent moon, in the May-days dead,Fly up with its slender white wings spreadOut of its nest in the sea's waved mead!How are the veins of thee, Autumn, laden?Umbered juices,And pulpèd oozesPappy out of the cherry-bruisesFroth the veins of thee, wild, wild maiden!With hair that mustersIn globèd clusters,In tumbling clusters, like swarthy grapes,Round thy brow and thine ears o'ershaden;With the burning darkness of eyes like pansies,Like velvet pansiesWherethrough escapesThe splendid might of thy conflagrate fancies;With robe gold-tawny not hiding the shapesOf the feet whereunto it falleth down,Thy naked feet unsandallèd;With robe gold-tawny that does not veilFeet where the redIs meshed in the brown,Like a rubied sun in a Venice-sail.The wassailous heart of the Year is thine!His Bacchic fingers disentwineHis coronalAt thy festival;His revelling fingers disentwineLeaf, flower, and all,And let them fallBlossom and all in thy wavering wine.The Summer looks out from her brazen tower,Through the flashing bars of July,Waiting thy ripened golden shower;Whereof there cometh, with sandals fleet,The North-west flying viewlessly,With a sword to sheer, and untameable feet,And the gorgon-head of the Winter shownTo stiffen the gazing earth as stone.In crystal Heaven's magic spherePoised in the palm of thy fervid hand,Thou seest the enchanted shows appearThat stain Favonian firmament;Richer than ever the OccidentGave up to bygone Summer's wand.Day's dying dragon lies drooping his crest,Panting red pants into the West.Or a butterfly sunset claps its wingsWith flitter alit on the swinging blossom,The gusty blossom, that tosses and swings,Of the sea with its blown and ruffled bosom;Its ruffled bosom wherethrough the wind singsTill the crispèd petals are loosened and strownOverblown on the sand;Shed, curling as deadRose-leaves curl, on the fleckèd strand.Or higher, holier, saintlier when, as now,All Nature sacerdotal seems, and thou.The calm hour strikes on yon golden gong,In tones of floating and mellow light,A spreading summons to even-song:See how thereThe cowlèd NightKneels on the Eastern sanctuary-stair.What is this feel of incense everywhere?Clings it round folds of the blanch-amiced clouds,Upwafted by the solemn thurifer,The mighty Spirit unknown,That swingeth the slow earth before the embannered Throne?Or is't the Season, under all these shroudsOf light, and sense, and silence, makes her knownA presence everywhere,An inarticulate prayer,A hand on the soothed tresses of the air?But there is one hour scantOf this Titanian, primal liturgy,—As there is but one hour for me and thee,Autumn, for thee and thine hierophant,Of this grave ending chant.Round the earth still and starkHeaven's death-lights kindle, yellow spark by spark,Beneath the dreadful catafalque of the dark.And I had ended there:But a great wind blew all the stars to flare,And cried, "I sweep a path before the moon!Tarry ye now the coming of the moon,For she is coming soon";Then died before the coming of the moon.And she came forth upon the trepidant air,In vesture unimagined-fair,Woven as woof of flag-lilies;And, curdled as of flag-lilies,The vapour at the feet of her;And a haze about her tinged in fainter wise;As if she had trodden the stars in press,Till the gold wine spurted over her dress,Till the gold wine gushed out round her feet;Spouted over her stainèd wear,And bubbled in golden froth at her feet,And hung like a whirlpool's mist round her.Still, mighty Season, do I see't,Thy sway is still majestical!Thou hold'st of God, by title sure,Thine indefeasible investiture,And that right round thy locks are native to;The heavens upon thy brow imperial,This huge terrene thy ball,And o'er thy shoulders thrown wide air's depending pall.What if thine earth be blear and bleak of hue?Still, still the skies are sweet!Still, Season, still thou hast thy triumphs there!How have I, unaware,Forgetful of my strain inaugural,Cleft the great rondure of thy reign complete,Yielding thee half, who hast indeed the all?I will not think thy sovereignty begunBut with the shepherd SunThat washes in the sea the stars' gold fleeces;Or that with Day it ceases,Who sets his burning lips to the salt brine,And purples it to wine;While I behold how ermined ArtemisOrdainèd weed must wear,And toil thy business;Who witness am of her,Her too in Autumn turned a vintager;And, laden with its lampèd clusters bright,The fiery-fruited vineyard of this night.
Hearken my chant,—'tisAs a Bacchante's,A grape-spurt, a vine-splash, a tossed tress, flown vaunt 'tis!
Suffer my singing,Gipsy of Seasons, ere thou go winging;Ere Winter throwsHis slaking snowsIn thy feasting-flagon's impurpurate glows!
Tanned maiden! with cheeks like apples russet,And breast a brown agaric faint-flushing at tip,And a mouth too red for the moon to buss itBut her cheek unvow its vestalship;Thy mists enclipHer steel-clear circuit illuminous,Until it crustRubiginousWith the glorious gules of a glowing rust.
Far other saw we, other indeed,The crescent moon, in the May-days dead,Fly up with its slender white wings spreadOut of its nest in the sea's waved mead!How are the veins of thee, Autumn, laden?Umbered juices,And pulpèd oozesPappy out of the cherry-bruisesFroth the veins of thee, wild, wild maiden!With hair that mustersIn globèd clusters,In tumbling clusters, like swarthy grapes,Round thy brow and thine ears o'ershaden;With the burning darkness of eyes like pansies,Like velvet pansiesWherethrough escapesThe splendid might of thy conflagrate fancies;With robe gold-tawny not hiding the shapesOf the feet whereunto it falleth down,Thy naked feet unsandallèd;With robe gold-tawny that does not veilFeet where the redIs meshed in the brown,Like a rubied sun in a Venice-sail.
The wassailous heart of the Year is thine!His Bacchic fingers disentwineHis coronalAt thy festival;His revelling fingers disentwineLeaf, flower, and all,And let them fallBlossom and all in thy wavering wine.The Summer looks out from her brazen tower,Through the flashing bars of July,Waiting thy ripened golden shower;Whereof there cometh, with sandals fleet,The North-west flying viewlessly,With a sword to sheer, and untameable feet,And the gorgon-head of the Winter shownTo stiffen the gazing earth as stone.
In crystal Heaven's magic spherePoised in the palm of thy fervid hand,Thou seest the enchanted shows appearThat stain Favonian firmament;Richer than ever the OccidentGave up to bygone Summer's wand.Day's dying dragon lies drooping his crest,Panting red pants into the West.Or a butterfly sunset claps its wingsWith flitter alit on the swinging blossom,The gusty blossom, that tosses and swings,Of the sea with its blown and ruffled bosom;Its ruffled bosom wherethrough the wind singsTill the crispèd petals are loosened and strownOverblown on the sand;Shed, curling as deadRose-leaves curl, on the fleckèd strand.
Or higher, holier, saintlier when, as now,All Nature sacerdotal seems, and thou.The calm hour strikes on yon golden gong,In tones of floating and mellow light,A spreading summons to even-song:See how thereThe cowlèd NightKneels on the Eastern sanctuary-stair.What is this feel of incense everywhere?Clings it round folds of the blanch-amiced clouds,Upwafted by the solemn thurifer,The mighty Spirit unknown,That swingeth the slow earth before the embannered Throne?Or is't the Season, under all these shroudsOf light, and sense, and silence, makes her knownA presence everywhere,An inarticulate prayer,A hand on the soothed tresses of the air?But there is one hour scantOf this Titanian, primal liturgy,—As there is but one hour for me and thee,Autumn, for thee and thine hierophant,Of this grave ending chant.Round the earth still and starkHeaven's death-lights kindle, yellow spark by spark,Beneath the dreadful catafalque of the dark.
And I had ended there:But a great wind blew all the stars to flare,And cried, "I sweep a path before the moon!Tarry ye now the coming of the moon,For she is coming soon";Then died before the coming of the moon.And she came forth upon the trepidant air,In vesture unimagined-fair,Woven as woof of flag-lilies;And, curdled as of flag-lilies,The vapour at the feet of her;And a haze about her tinged in fainter wise;As if she had trodden the stars in press,Till the gold wine spurted over her dress,Till the gold wine gushed out round her feet;Spouted over her stainèd wear,And bubbled in golden froth at her feet,And hung like a whirlpool's mist round her.
Still, mighty Season, do I see't,Thy sway is still majestical!Thou hold'st of God, by title sure,Thine indefeasible investiture,And that right round thy locks are native to;The heavens upon thy brow imperial,This huge terrene thy ball,And o'er thy shoulders thrown wide air's depending pall.What if thine earth be blear and bleak of hue?Still, still the skies are sweet!Still, Season, still thou hast thy triumphs there!How have I, unaware,Forgetful of my strain inaugural,Cleft the great rondure of thy reign complete,Yielding thee half, who hast indeed the all?I will not think thy sovereignty begunBut with the shepherd SunThat washes in the sea the stars' gold fleeces;Or that with Day it ceases,Who sets his burning lips to the salt brine,And purples it to wine;While I behold how ermined ArtemisOrdainèd weed must wear,And toil thy business;Who witness am of her,Her too in Autumn turned a vintager;And, laden with its lampèd clusters bright,The fiery-fruited vineyard of this night.