QUESTIONINGS

There is a sorrow in the wind to-nightThat haunteth me; she, like a penitent,Heaps on rent hair the snow’s thin ashes white,And moans and moans, her swaying body bent.And Superstition, gliding softly, shakesWith wasted hands, that vainly grope and seek,The rustling curtains; of each cranny makesWild, ghostly lips that, wailing, fain would speak.

There is a sorrow in the wind to-nightThat haunteth me; she, like a penitent,Heaps on rent hair the snow’s thin ashes white,And moans and moans, her swaying body bent.

And Superstition, gliding softly, shakesWith wasted hands, that vainly grope and seek,The rustling curtains; of each cranny makesWild, ghostly lips that, wailing, fain would speak.

Now that wan sunsets, winteryWith icy gold, paint bleak the sky;Now nights are starless utterly,And snow and sleet cut moaning by,One’s memory keeps one company,And sorrow puts its “when” and “why.”Such inquisition, when alone,Leads on to ways of doubt and dread,Despair has miled with many a stone,Carved with the faces of our dead,Stamped on whose brows we read, “Unknown!No further look, nor seek to tread.”And, oh! that weariness of soulThat leans upon our dead, the clodAnd air have taken, as a whole,Through some mysterious period!—Life! with its questions of control!Death! with its unguessed laws of God!

Such inquisition, when alone,Leads on to ways of doubt and dread,Despair has miled with many a stone,Carved with the faces of our dead,Stamped on whose brows we read, “Unknown!No further look, nor seek to tread.”

And, oh! that weariness of soulThat leans upon our dead, the clodAnd air have taken, as a whole,Through some mysterious period!—Life! with its questions of control!Death! with its unguessed laws of God!

The curtains of my couch sway heavily:’Tis death, who parts the curtains of my soul.—Sleep, like a gray expression of ghost lipsHeard through the moonlight of a haunted room,Seems near yet far away. Would God ’twere day!

“Stay not too long, love, stay not long away!”Lightly my heart said when we kissed farewell.But now my heart is heavy with hard news—Oh! bitterness of kisses that were sweet!

Tear from my heart and under furious feetTrample the golden record of our love,Love’s book of golden days, despair! despair!

Night is a grave physician, who contrivesThe drug of sleep to heal day’s bruises with,The drug of death for life’s delirium.—

On lost expanses of a phantom landLife stands; and, overhead, one sinister star,A baleful beacon, burns: heav’n seems a handOf jeweled darkness pointing her her way,Mournful, through shadows of lugubrious hillsAnd rising tempest, to a house, a shapePlacid and pale and silent utterly.

O undivulging, unresponsive fate,Is gold another name for power and crime?Life, dust long dedicated unto death?And death? is it all darkness without light?Whereto all things go groping, love and joyAnd beauty, glow-worms, flickering each its spark?Precious as gold does anything avail?Steadfast as tablets of the eternal stars,What deeds of man, when time hath touched them, last?

No personal! No God divinely crownedWith gold and raised upon a golden throne,Deep in a golden glory,—whence he nodsMan this or that,—and little more than man!Thus I divine Him: When the soul, refinedThrough love and wisdom through a thousand years,Shall mount as pure intelligence and pierceThe separate cycles singing under God,—Their iridescent evolutions orbedOf wild electric splendor,—it shall see(Through God-propinquity become a god)Resplendencies of empyrean lightSwift-lightening out of spheric harmonies:Prisms and facets of ten million beamsStarring a crystal of wild-rainbowed rays:And in it—eyes: of burning sapphire, eyesDeep as the music of the beautiful:And o’er the eyes, limpid, hierarchal brows,As they were lilies of seraphic fire:Lips underneath of trembling ruby—lips,Whose smile is light and each expression, song.In multiplying myriads, forms of fire,Cherubic faces of intensity,Waiting His look, that is electric thought,To work His will, spirits on spirits standCircling the Unit, God: SupremityCreative and eternal.And from HimMan’s intellect, detached, expelled and breathedExaltant into flesh endowed with soul,—One sparkle of the Essence clothed with clay,—Is given to Earth for something more than earth,Some purpose, some divine development,—That protoplasmic evolution proves,—That lifts him upward, heart and soul and mind,From matter to ideal potencies,Up to the source and fountain of all mind,Beauty and truth and everlasting love,To be resumed and re-absorbed in them—One more expression of Eternity.

No personal! No God divinely crownedWith gold and raised upon a golden throne,Deep in a golden glory,—whence he nodsMan this or that,—and little more than man!

Thus I divine Him: When the soul, refinedThrough love and wisdom through a thousand years,Shall mount as pure intelligence and pierceThe separate cycles singing under God,—Their iridescent evolutions orbedOf wild electric splendor,—it shall see(Through God-propinquity become a god)Resplendencies of empyrean lightSwift-lightening out of spheric harmonies:Prisms and facets of ten million beamsStarring a crystal of wild-rainbowed rays:And in it—eyes: of burning sapphire, eyesDeep as the music of the beautiful:And o’er the eyes, limpid, hierarchal brows,As they were lilies of seraphic fire:Lips underneath of trembling ruby—lips,Whose smile is light and each expression, song.In multiplying myriads, forms of fire,Cherubic faces of intensity,Waiting His look, that is electric thought,To work His will, spirits on spirits standCircling the Unit, God: SupremityCreative and eternal.

And from HimMan’s intellect, detached, expelled and breathedExaltant into flesh endowed with soul,—One sparkle of the Essence clothed with clay,—Is given to Earth for something more than earth,Some purpose, some divine development,—That protoplasmic evolution proves,—That lifts him upward, heart and soul and mind,From matter to ideal potencies,Up to the source and fountain of all mind,Beauty and truth and everlasting love,To be resumed and re-absorbed in them—One more expression of Eternity.

Hush! she is dead. Tread gently as the lightSteals in the weary room. Thou shalt behold.Look:—in death’s ermine pomp of awful white,Pale passion of pulseless slumber, very cold,Her beautiful youth!—Proud as heroic might,—Brought low by him whose touch is shadow and mold.Old earth she is now: energy of birthHath fledged glad wings and tried them suddenly:The eyes that held have freed their maiden mirth:The spark of spirit, which made this to be,Shines in some fairer star than this of Earth,Some Fairy-star of far eternity.A sod is this; whence, what were once those eyes,Will grow blue wildflowers in some happier air!Some weed with flossy blossoms will surprise,Haply, some summer with her affluent hair!Some rose reveal her cheeks: and the wise skiesWill clasp her beauty in some young tree there.The chastity of death hath filled her soNo dreams of life may reach her in her rest;No dreams the heart exhausted here below,Hopes built within the romance of her breast.Now she will sleep, like music, silent, slow,—That wakes the buds, to golden life caressed.The winds of spring, that whisper to the grass;The rain, that sets the red roots harping; sound,And gleam and color of the dews that glassGlobes of concentric beauty on the ground;Shall hint of her; and she herself shall pass,Like prayer, into each flower with memory crowned.So, though she’s dead, you see she is not dead:All things are vocal of her: lost in sleepShe lies: its narrow house the soul hath fled;Her soul, still near us, haply; while the deepRemains unvoyaged: waiting to be ledIt still delays, held here by us who weep.We should restrain our anguish;—(merciless,Albeit it is, and bitter cruel the grave:)—Grief wrings our dead with more than grief’s distress,Earth chaining love, bound by the lips that rave.And curse not death!—Yea, rather let us blessThat conqueror who makes us less a slave!To principles of passion and of pride;To sin and circumstance and lust and law!Slave to all these, like rags now flung aside!—Wouldst have the soul resume them, and withdrawFrom its inheritance, where, as a bride,It stands arrayed in glory and in awe?“Unjust”?—God is not. Yea, hast thou not all,All that thou ever hadst when this dull clay,Thy well belovéd, made the spiritualA restless vassal of the night and day?This hath been thine and is: the cosmic callRang through this house, and took its own away.But man, in selfishness, from its estate,—Won with what pains and devastating cares,What bootless battling with resistless fate,What mailed endeavor with unyielding years,—Would bar the soul, Heaven grants him here as mate,And being compelled, returns Heaven’s loan with tears.

Old earth she is now: energy of birthHath fledged glad wings and tried them suddenly:The eyes that held have freed their maiden mirth:The spark of spirit, which made this to be,Shines in some fairer star than this of Earth,Some Fairy-star of far eternity.

A sod is this; whence, what were once those eyes,Will grow blue wildflowers in some happier air!Some weed with flossy blossoms will surprise,Haply, some summer with her affluent hair!Some rose reveal her cheeks: and the wise skiesWill clasp her beauty in some young tree there.

The chastity of death hath filled her soNo dreams of life may reach her in her rest;No dreams the heart exhausted here below,Hopes built within the romance of her breast.Now she will sleep, like music, silent, slow,—That wakes the buds, to golden life caressed.

The winds of spring, that whisper to the grass;The rain, that sets the red roots harping; sound,And gleam and color of the dews that glassGlobes of concentric beauty on the ground;Shall hint of her; and she herself shall pass,Like prayer, into each flower with memory crowned.

So, though she’s dead, you see she is not dead:All things are vocal of her: lost in sleepShe lies: its narrow house the soul hath fled;Her soul, still near us, haply; while the deepRemains unvoyaged: waiting to be ledIt still delays, held here by us who weep.

We should restrain our anguish;—(merciless,Albeit it is, and bitter cruel the grave:)—Grief wrings our dead with more than grief’s distress,Earth chaining love, bound by the lips that rave.And curse not death!—Yea, rather let us blessThat conqueror who makes us less a slave!

To principles of passion and of pride;To sin and circumstance and lust and law!Slave to all these, like rags now flung aside!—Wouldst have the soul resume them, and withdrawFrom its inheritance, where, as a bride,It stands arrayed in glory and in awe?

“Unjust”?—God is not. Yea, hast thou not all,All that thou ever hadst when this dull clay,Thy well belovéd, made the spiritualA restless vassal of the night and day?This hath been thine and is: the cosmic callRang through this house, and took its own away.

But man, in selfishness, from its estate,—Won with what pains and devastating cares,What bootless battling with resistless fate,What mailed endeavor with unyielding years,—Would bar the soul, Heaven grants him here as mate,And being compelled, returns Heaven’s loan with tears.

Look in my eyes!—Oh, the mild and mysteriousDeeps of thine eyes that are holy with rest!—Sigh to me! yea, as thy kinsman, imperiousLove, might, with lips that are soft and delirious,Soft with such comfort as blesses the blessed.Fold all my soul in the mild and mysteriousMight of thy rest.All the night for thy love, all the night! while the gladdeningPresence of darkness, as legends of old,Wraps me in poesy: none of the saddeningProse of the day that is sad with the maddeningSoul of unrest that is heartless and cold.All the night for thy love, all the night! and its gladdeningBeauty of old.Scorn is not thine nor is hate; but the bubblingFountains of strength that are youthful as morn’s:Hurt is not thine of remembrance; nor troublingSorrows of waking whose fingers keep doubling—Pressing on temples life’s cares that are thorns.Thine are the hours of the stars and the bubblingWells of the morns.Pride and the passions and labors that worry usMix with and brutalize; envy and spiteOf the heart; and the griefs of the soul that oft hurry usOn, with the iron of anguish, and bury us,—Touch them and calm with thy fingers of white.Make all these passions and pains, that oft worry us,Night with the night.Silence hath built thee a mansion, where floweryFields of the visions are poppied with dreams;Where the high mountains of quiet loom showeryUnder the stars; and the valleys of boweryLotus and moly gleam, misty with streams:Where slumber’s halcyon waters thrid floweryPastures of dreams.Come to me, Spirit!—Ah, wilt thou not stay for me?Stay for me! fill me with rest as with prayer!Mother of hope, let thy touch soothe away for meAll of life’s weariness! make all the day for meDim with forgetting! the day and its care!Come to me! Mix with the soul of me! Stay for me,Cure me like prayer!

All the night for thy love, all the night! while the gladdeningPresence of darkness, as legends of old,Wraps me in poesy: none of the saddeningProse of the day that is sad with the maddeningSoul of unrest that is heartless and cold.All the night for thy love, all the night! and its gladdeningBeauty of old.

Scorn is not thine nor is hate; but the bubblingFountains of strength that are youthful as morn’s:Hurt is not thine of remembrance; nor troublingSorrows of waking whose fingers keep doubling—Pressing on temples life’s cares that are thorns.Thine are the hours of the stars and the bubblingWells of the morns.

Pride and the passions and labors that worry usMix with and brutalize; envy and spiteOf the heart; and the griefs of the soul that oft hurry usOn, with the iron of anguish, and bury us,—Touch them and calm with thy fingers of white.Make all these passions and pains, that oft worry us,Night with the night.

Silence hath built thee a mansion, where floweryFields of the visions are poppied with dreams;Where the high mountains of quiet loom showeryUnder the stars; and the valleys of boweryLotus and moly gleam, misty with streams:Where slumber’s halcyon waters thrid floweryPastures of dreams.

Come to me, Spirit!—Ah, wilt thou not stay for me?Stay for me! fill me with rest as with prayer!Mother of hope, let thy touch soothe away for meAll of life’s weariness! make all the day for meDim with forgetting! the day and its care!Come to me! Mix with the soul of me! Stay for me,Cure me like prayer!

“I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous boy,The sleepless soul that perished in his pride.”—Wordsworth.

He dreamed of Mendip Hills, and woodsSo deep, storm-barriers on the skyAre not more dark, that rain their floodsFrom clouds of sullen dye:And Somerset, where sparsely grewGnarled, iron-colored oaks, with rifts,Between old boughs, of April blue:Ways where the speedwell liftsIts bit of heav’n; and, spreading far,—The gold, the fallen gold of dawnHeld captive in each cowslip’s star,—The meadows led him on.Where, round his feet, the lady-smockAnd pearl-pale lady-slipper crept;Where butterflies, pied-wing’d, did rock,Or, seal-brown, sucked and slept.O’er which the west shot crooked fireAthwart a half-moon leaning low;While one white, arrowy star throbbed higherIn curdled honey-glow.Was it some elfin euphrasyThat purged his sight and said, “Prepare!See where the daisies beckon thee;The harebells ring to prayer?“Come here and dream! far from the roofs,The grime and smoke of London Town,That monster, with its myriad hoofs,That grinds the poet down!”Not different from his days our days,That break the poet’s heart. No loveOr pity after death repaysThe soul that failed and strove.They found him dead his songs beside,Long stairs above the din and dustOf life: and that for which he diedDenied him even a crust.

He dreamed of Mendip Hills, and woodsSo deep, storm-barriers on the skyAre not more dark, that rain their floodsFrom clouds of sullen dye:

And Somerset, where sparsely grewGnarled, iron-colored oaks, with rifts,Between old boughs, of April blue:Ways where the speedwell lifts

Its bit of heav’n; and, spreading far,—The gold, the fallen gold of dawnHeld captive in each cowslip’s star,—The meadows led him on.

Where, round his feet, the lady-smockAnd pearl-pale lady-slipper crept;Where butterflies, pied-wing’d, did rock,Or, seal-brown, sucked and slept.

O’er which the west shot crooked fireAthwart a half-moon leaning low;While one white, arrowy star throbbed higherIn curdled honey-glow.

Was it some elfin euphrasyThat purged his sight and said, “Prepare!See where the daisies beckon thee;The harebells ring to prayer?

“Come here and dream! far from the roofs,The grime and smoke of London Town,That monster, with its myriad hoofs,That grinds the poet down!”

Not different from his days our days,That break the poet’s heart. No loveOr pity after death repaysThe soul that failed and strove.

They found him dead his songs beside,Long stairs above the din and dustOf life: and that for which he diedDenied him even a crust.

The soul of love is harmony: as suchAll melodies, that with wide pinions beatAgainst the heart’s red gateway to the soul,—That, opening, bids them enter in and sing,—Are portions of the soul, and while they stay,Lords of its action molding all at will.There is a symphony, I know not whose,That seems to bear my spirit far away,To regions not of Earth nor yet of Heaven,Where neither am I I, nor air, nor clay,My soul, a portion of the waves of song,Reverberating ’twixt the earth and moon.First, sweeping marches, loud with martial boast,Triumphal clamors and the shout of joy,As when,—in bannered cities, welcoming home,—Bright ranks of victory and cavalcadesOf splendid battle march to roll of drumsAnd clang of cymbals and sonorous horns.Then sudden thunder; adverse hosts of storm;And lightning cleaving the tempestuous gloom;Earthquake, and roar of ruin as if ThebesAnd Karnac crashed their Titan temples down,Pillar and groinéd nave and fretted dome,On all their gods of gold and worshippers.Then from the wreck, unutterably slow,An exhalation seems to beat, of sound,An audible perfume; slowly as the fangOf dusty gold the lily’s cone puts forthTo drink the sunlight and to lure the bee:A mist of music, delicate as the shapesWho ride the rainbow bubbles of the foamOf mountain cataracts; or, who, heeled with flame,Wing-tipped with fire, make couriers of the winds,And, zoned with opal, chariot the morning star.Then soft complaints that fill the waiting heartWith dreams of love long-cherished; love-dreams foundOn morning mountains, splendid with the dawn.Then tender chords that weigh the eyelids downWith sleep’s pale kisses, softer than the budsThat open to the spring, the kiss of May;And sweeter than sweet vows of fondest faithKept evermore; or looks, whose witcheryMight lure old saints down to the lowest HellFor one last glance: then notes like haunting eyes,Great, melancholy eyes of love long lost,Darker than night, and brimming o’er with dreams;Or faces, stooping in a silver mistAt Care’s thin brow, and gazing in his eyes,Sad where he sits before the smouldering logs,At Yuletide, when the sleet taps on the pane,And all the loved are gone, and he’s alone,Alone, save for the memories that riseFaint in the ashes and the spark-starred smoke.Then, from these chords, these mortal ecstasies,Dim as the half-forgotten dreams of youth,Voices of expectation chorus up,—The diapason of a mighty choir,—’Mid organ throbbings, ever beating lowLike the huge heart of Ocean; pulsings woveOf deep, æolian thunders: and my soulSeems wafted far beneath the sea of seas,To chasms and caves of crystal, ocean-carved,Filled with dark lamentations of the deep,Deep, dolorous seas, that throb like some vast harp,Wild, oceanic, and with stormy sighsOf labyrinthine music shake the world.One with the tumult,—under circling tiersOf beryl and chrysoberyl, splashed and hungPale with pelagian gems and feathery shells,And spars of moony radiance,—on I drift,A voice ’mid voices, chord amid the chords,A wave, a wild vibration of the strain,Part of the ray, the rose of melody,An utterance amid that utteranceOf choral harmony: now rising up,—As ’twere a spire of silver symphonyBlown from a reed of hollow pearl and fireBy some still spirit dwelling within the moon,—To the vast vault of echoes: dying nowDown to the underworld of silence, deepWith wild, unburdened sobbings; then, once more,Sweeping the vault with tumult, like a birdWith maddened wings, that beat and bleed in vainAgainst the bars; or like the human soul,Oppressed and bulked within its cage of clay,That longs and strains to burst its bonds and soar.Then tones that shape before my inner sightThe moonlit gardens of the spirit, Sleep,Far on a star man’s eyes have never seen:White Sleep, who leads me ’mid her poppies, weighedWith dewy slumber; from whose chalicesShe culls white dreams to lay on human heartsIn pearly clusters sparkling now with tearsAnd now with smiles; the blossoms of her soul.She, on her shadowy pinions, winging high,Bears me from pole to pole of her white star,The continents like clouds beneath our feet,The seas like mists; then drops me, meteor-like,A million leagues, through all the gulfs of God,Down, down to Earth again; a sound of stars,Streaming from burning orbits into night,About my soul, about my soul like fire.Oh, then what agony and bitter woe,Regret and noise of desolation, vastAs when all that one loves is torn awayForever with “farewell forevermore”!Oh, strife and panic of impending doom!Wherein rush by pale brows with tresses torn;Pale faces browed with raven, rended hair,That cringe or fly before the wrath of God,Or stand white-lifted to the bolts of Heaven,Ploughing the tempest, chasmed with torrent flameAs ’twere with rocking earthquake. All aroundRuin and terror, moans and awful eyes,Fierce, moveless eyes that seem to curse their God:Then sounds, as ’twere, of burning tears that fallThrough blinding blackness: then—long thunder strokesAs of a bell that tolls “’Tis Judgment Day!”Sonorous bell-beats heard through night and storm,O’er hands high lifted as it were in prayerOr battling with their doom: still tolling on,The knell of dying Earth and of the Dawn;The Dawn that will not break, that comes no more;Never again; the beautiful, wild Dawn,The young, the holy, radiant and wonderful,First born of Heaven’s children, daughters of Light:The Rose of God, the dream and youth of Day,Whom Night hath slain and Darkness laid away,Crying, “No more shall she awake the world!No more! no more!—The Dawn, aurora-wreathed,Lies dead with all her flow’rs! and Death and I,Darkness and Death, Lords of Oblivion,Heart-shaking monarchs of the universe,Throned on the ruins of the world, shall ruleFrom everlasting unto everlasting now!—Look on our faces, Nations, and despair!”

There is a symphony, I know not whose,That seems to bear my spirit far away,To regions not of Earth nor yet of Heaven,Where neither am I I, nor air, nor clay,My soul, a portion of the waves of song,Reverberating ’twixt the earth and moon.

First, sweeping marches, loud with martial boast,Triumphal clamors and the shout of joy,As when,—in bannered cities, welcoming home,—Bright ranks of victory and cavalcadesOf splendid battle march to roll of drumsAnd clang of cymbals and sonorous horns.Then sudden thunder; adverse hosts of storm;And lightning cleaving the tempestuous gloom;Earthquake, and roar of ruin as if ThebesAnd Karnac crashed their Titan temples down,Pillar and groinéd nave and fretted dome,On all their gods of gold and worshippers.

Then from the wreck, unutterably slow,An exhalation seems to beat, of sound,An audible perfume; slowly as the fangOf dusty gold the lily’s cone puts forthTo drink the sunlight and to lure the bee:A mist of music, delicate as the shapesWho ride the rainbow bubbles of the foamOf mountain cataracts; or, who, heeled with flame,Wing-tipped with fire, make couriers of the winds,And, zoned with opal, chariot the morning star.

Then soft complaints that fill the waiting heartWith dreams of love long-cherished; love-dreams foundOn morning mountains, splendid with the dawn.Then tender chords that weigh the eyelids downWith sleep’s pale kisses, softer than the budsThat open to the spring, the kiss of May;And sweeter than sweet vows of fondest faithKept evermore; or looks, whose witcheryMight lure old saints down to the lowest HellFor one last glance: then notes like haunting eyes,Great, melancholy eyes of love long lost,Darker than night, and brimming o’er with dreams;Or faces, stooping in a silver mistAt Care’s thin brow, and gazing in his eyes,Sad where he sits before the smouldering logs,At Yuletide, when the sleet taps on the pane,And all the loved are gone, and he’s alone,Alone, save for the memories that riseFaint in the ashes and the spark-starred smoke.

Then, from these chords, these mortal ecstasies,Dim as the half-forgotten dreams of youth,Voices of expectation chorus up,—The diapason of a mighty choir,—’Mid organ throbbings, ever beating lowLike the huge heart of Ocean; pulsings woveOf deep, æolian thunders: and my soulSeems wafted far beneath the sea of seas,To chasms and caves of crystal, ocean-carved,Filled with dark lamentations of the deep,Deep, dolorous seas, that throb like some vast harp,Wild, oceanic, and with stormy sighsOf labyrinthine music shake the world.One with the tumult,—under circling tiersOf beryl and chrysoberyl, splashed and hungPale with pelagian gems and feathery shells,And spars of moony radiance,—on I drift,A voice ’mid voices, chord amid the chords,A wave, a wild vibration of the strain,Part of the ray, the rose of melody,An utterance amid that utteranceOf choral harmony: now rising up,—As ’twere a spire of silver symphonyBlown from a reed of hollow pearl and fireBy some still spirit dwelling within the moon,—To the vast vault of echoes: dying nowDown to the underworld of silence, deepWith wild, unburdened sobbings; then, once more,Sweeping the vault with tumult, like a birdWith maddened wings, that beat and bleed in vainAgainst the bars; or like the human soul,Oppressed and bulked within its cage of clay,That longs and strains to burst its bonds and soar.

Then tones that shape before my inner sightThe moonlit gardens of the spirit, Sleep,Far on a star man’s eyes have never seen:White Sleep, who leads me ’mid her poppies, weighedWith dewy slumber; from whose chalicesShe culls white dreams to lay on human heartsIn pearly clusters sparkling now with tearsAnd now with smiles; the blossoms of her soul.She, on her shadowy pinions, winging high,Bears me from pole to pole of her white star,The continents like clouds beneath our feet,The seas like mists; then drops me, meteor-like,A million leagues, through all the gulfs of God,Down, down to Earth again; a sound of stars,Streaming from burning orbits into night,About my soul, about my soul like fire.

Oh, then what agony and bitter woe,Regret and noise of desolation, vastAs when all that one loves is torn awayForever with “farewell forevermore”!Oh, strife and panic of impending doom!Wherein rush by pale brows with tresses torn;Pale faces browed with raven, rended hair,That cringe or fly before the wrath of God,Or stand white-lifted to the bolts of Heaven,Ploughing the tempest, chasmed with torrent flameAs ’twere with rocking earthquake. All aroundRuin and terror, moans and awful eyes,Fierce, moveless eyes that seem to curse their God:Then sounds, as ’twere, of burning tears that fallThrough blinding blackness: then—long thunder strokesAs of a bell that tolls “’Tis Judgment Day!”Sonorous bell-beats heard through night and storm,O’er hands high lifted as it were in prayerOr battling with their doom: still tolling on,The knell of dying Earth and of the Dawn;The Dawn that will not break, that comes no more;Never again; the beautiful, wild Dawn,The young, the holy, radiant and wonderful,First born of Heaven’s children, daughters of Light:The Rose of God, the dream and youth of Day,Whom Night hath slain and Darkness laid away,Crying, “No more shall she awake the world!No more! no more!—The Dawn, aurora-wreathed,Lies dead with all her flow’rs! and Death and I,Darkness and Death, Lords of Oblivion,Heart-shaking monarchs of the universe,Throned on the ruins of the world, shall ruleFrom everlasting unto everlasting now!—Look on our faces, Nations, and despair!”

Now nights grow cold and colder,And north the wild vane swings,And round each tree and boulderThe driving snow-storm sings—Come, make my old heart older,O memory of lost things!Of Hope, when promise sung herBrave songs, and I was young,That banquets now on hungerSince all youth’s songs are sung;Of Love, who walks with youngerSweethearts the flowers among.Ah, well! while Life holds levee,Death’s ceaseless dance goes on.So let the curtains, heavyAbout my couch, be drawn—The curtains, dark and heavy,Where all shall sleep anon.

Now nights grow cold and colder,And north the wild vane swings,And round each tree and boulderThe driving snow-storm sings—Come, make my old heart older,O memory of lost things!

Of Hope, when promise sung herBrave songs, and I was young,That banquets now on hungerSince all youth’s songs are sung;Of Love, who walks with youngerSweethearts the flowers among.

Ah, well! while Life holds levee,Death’s ceaseless dance goes on.So let the curtains, heavyAbout my couch, be drawn—The curtains, dark and heavy,Where all shall sleep anon.

When the wine-cup at the lipSlants its ruby fire,O’er its level, while you sip,Have you marked the finger-tipOf the god Desire slip,Of the god Desire?Saying—“Lo, the hours run!Live your day before ’tis done!”When the empty goblet liesAt the ended revel,In the glass, the wine-stain dyes,Have you marked the hollow eyesOf a mocking Devil rise,Of a mocking Devil?Saying—“Lo, the pleasure’s done!Look on me whose hour’s begun!”

When the empty goblet liesAt the ended revel,In the glass, the wine-stain dyes,Have you marked the hollow eyesOf a mocking Devil rise,Of a mocking Devil?Saying—“Lo, the pleasure’s done!Look on me whose hour’s begun!”

Her life was bound to crutches: pale and bent,But smiling ever, she would go and come:For of her soul God made an instrumentOf strength and comfort to an humble home.Better a life of toil and slow diseaseThat Love companions through the patient years,Than one whose heritage is loveless ease,That never knows the blessedness of tears.

Her life was bound to crutches: pale and bent,But smiling ever, she would go and come:For of her soul God made an instrumentOf strength and comfort to an humble home.

Better a life of toil and slow diseaseThat Love companions through the patient years,Than one whose heritage is loveless ease,That never knows the blessedness of tears.

The wine-loud laughter of indulged desireUpon his lips, and, in his eyes, the fireOf uncontrol, he takes in reckless hands,—And interrupts with discords,—the sad lyreOf Love’s deep soul, and never understands.

In ages dead, a troglodyte,At the hollow roots of a monster height,—That grew from the heart of the world to light,—I dwelt in caverns: Over meWere mountains older than the moon;And forests, vaster than the sea,And gulfs, that the earthquake’s hand had hewn,Hung under me. And late and soonI heard the Dæmon of Change that sighedA cosmic language of mystery;Where I sat silent, primeval-eyed,With the infant Spirit of Prophecy.Gaunt stars glared down on the Titan peaks;And the gaunter glare of the cratered streaksOf the sunset’s ruin heard condor shrieks:The roar of cataracts hurled in air,And the hurricane, laying its thunders bare,And the rush of battling beasts,—whose lairWas the antechamber of nadir-gloom,—Were my outworld joys. But who can tellThe awe of the depths whence rose the boomOf the iron rivers that fashioned Hell!

Gaunt stars glared down on the Titan peaks;And the gaunter glare of the cratered streaksOf the sunset’s ruin heard condor shrieks:The roar of cataracts hurled in air,And the hurricane, laying its thunders bare,And the rush of battling beasts,—whose lairWas the antechamber of nadir-gloom,—Were my outworld joys. But who can tellThe awe of the depths whence rose the boomOf the iron rivers that fashioned Hell!

Day after day, young with eternal beauty,Pays flowery duty to the month and clime;Night after night erects a vasty portalOf stars immortal for the march of Time.But where are now the glory and the rapture,That once did capture me in cloud and stream?Where now the joy, that was both speech and silence?Where the beguilance that was fact and dream?I know that Earth and Heaven are as goldenAs they of olden made me feel and see;Not in themselves is lacking aught of powerThrough star and flower—something’s lost in me.“Return! return!” I cry, “O visions vanished,O voices banished, to my soul again!"—The near Earth blossoms and the far skies glisten,I look and listen, but, alas! in vain.

Day after day, young with eternal beauty,Pays flowery duty to the month and clime;Night after night erects a vasty portalOf stars immortal for the march of Time.

But where are now the glory and the rapture,That once did capture me in cloud and stream?Where now the joy, that was both speech and silence?Where the beguilance that was fact and dream?

I know that Earth and Heaven are as goldenAs they of olden made me feel and see;Not in themselves is lacking aught of powerThrough star and flower—something’s lost in me.

“Return! return!” I cry, “O visions vanished,O voices banished, to my soul again!"—The near Earth blossoms and the far skies glisten,I look and listen, but, alas! in vain.

To come in touch with mysteriesOf beauty idealizing Earth,Go seek the hills, grown green with trees,The old hills wise with death and birth.There you may hear the heart that beatsIn streams, where music has its source;And in wild rocks of mossed retreatsBehold the silent soul of force.Above the love that emanatesFrom human passion, and reflectsThe flesh, must be the love that waitsOn Nature, whose high call electsNone to her secrets save the fewWho hold that facts are far less realThan dreams, with which all facts indueThemselves approaching the ideal.

To come in touch with mysteriesOf beauty idealizing Earth,Go seek the hills, grown green with trees,The old hills wise with death and birth.

There you may hear the heart that beatsIn streams, where music has its source;And in wild rocks of mossed retreatsBehold the silent soul of force.

Above the love that emanatesFrom human passion, and reflectsThe flesh, must be the love that waitsOn Nature, whose high call elects

None to her secrets save the fewWho hold that facts are far less realThan dreams, with which all facts indueThemselves approaching the ideal.

Teach me the secret of thy loveliness,That, being made wise, I may aspire to beAs beautiful in thought, and so expressImmortal truths to Earth’s mortality;Though to my soul ability be lessThan ’tis to thee, O sweet anemone.

Teach me the secret of thy innocence,That in simplicity I may grow wise;Asking from Art no other recompenseThan the approval of her own just eyes;So may I rise to some fair eminence,Though less than thine, O cousin of the skies.

Teach me these things; through whose high knowledge, I,—When Death hath poured oblivion through my veins,And brought me home, as all are brought, to lieIn that vast House, common to serfs and Thanes,—I shall not die, I shall not utterly die,For beauty born of beauty—thatremains.

The memory of what we’ve lostIs with us more than what we’ve won;Perhaps because we count the costBy what we could, yet have not done.’Twixt act and purpose fate hath drawnInvisible threads we can not break,And puppet-like these move us onThe stage of life, and break or make.Less than the dust from which we’re wrought,We come and go, and still are hurledFrom change to change, from naught to naught,Heirs of oblivion and the world.

The memory of what we’ve lostIs with us more than what we’ve won;Perhaps because we count the costBy what we could, yet have not done.

’Twixt act and purpose fate hath drawnInvisible threads we can not break,And puppet-like these move us onThe stage of life, and break or make.

Less than the dust from which we’re wrought,We come and go, and still are hurledFrom change to change, from naught to naught,Heirs of oblivion and the world.

Within the hollowed hand of GodBlood-red they lie, the dice of Fate,That have no time nor period,And know no early and no late.Postpone you can not, nor advanceSuccess or failure that’s to be;All fortune, being born of chance,Is bastard child to destiny.Bow down your head, or hold it high,Consent, defy—no smallest partOf this you change, although the dieWas fashioned from your living heart.

Within the hollowed hand of GodBlood-red they lie, the dice of Fate,That have no time nor period,And know no early and no late.

Postpone you can not, nor advanceSuccess or failure that’s to be;All fortune, being born of chance,Is bastard child to destiny.

Bow down your head, or hold it high,Consent, defy—no smallest partOf this you change, although the dieWas fashioned from your living heart.

Through some strange sense of sight or touchI find what all have found before,—The presence I have feared so much,The unknown’s immaterial door.I seek not and it comes to me:I do not know the thing I find:The fillet of fatalityDrops from my brows that made me blind.Point forward now or backward, Light!The way I take I may not choose:Out of the night into the night,And in the night no certain clews.But on the future, dim and vast,And dark with dust and sacrifice,Death’s towering ruin from the pastMakes black the land that round me lies.

Through some strange sense of sight or touchI find what all have found before,—The presence I have feared so much,The unknown’s immaterial door.

I seek not and it comes to me:I do not know the thing I find:The fillet of fatalityDrops from my brows that made me blind.

Point forward now or backward, Light!The way I take I may not choose:Out of the night into the night,And in the night no certain clews.

But on the future, dim and vast,And dark with dust and sacrifice,Death’s towering ruin from the pastMakes black the land that round me lies.

An heritage of hopes and fearsAnd dreams and memory,And vices of ten thousand yearsGod gives to thee.A house of clay, the home of Fate,Haunted of Love and Sin,Where Death stands knocking at the gateTo let him in.

An heritage of hopes and fearsAnd dreams and memory,And vices of ten thousand yearsGod gives to thee.

A house of clay, the home of Fate,Haunted of Love and Sin,Where Death stands knocking at the gateTo let him in.

Within the soul are throned two powers,Named Love and Hate. Begot of these,And veiled between, a presence towers,The shadowy Keeper of the Keys.With wild command or calm persuasionThisone may argue,thatcompel:Vain are concealment and evasion—For each he opens Heaven and Hell.

Within the soul are throned two powers,Named Love and Hate. Begot of these,And veiled between, a presence towers,The shadowy Keeper of the Keys.

With wild command or calm persuasionThisone may argue,thatcompel:Vain are concealment and evasion—For each he opens Heaven and Hell.

Morn’s mystic rose is reddening on the hills;Dawn’s irised nautilus makes glad the sea;There is a lyre of flame that throbs and fillsFar heaven and earth with hope’s wild ecstasy.—With lilied field and grove,Haunts of the turtle-dove,Here is the land of Love.

The chariot of the noon makes blind the blueAs towards the goal his burning axle glares;There is a fiery trumpet thrilling throughWide heaven and earth with deeds of one who dares.—With peaks of splendid name,Wrapped round with astral flame,Here is the land of Fame.

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