COME home, come home, for your eyes are soreWith the glare of the noonday sun,And nothing looks as it did before,And the best of the day is done.
You have played your match, and ridden your race,You have fought in your fight—and lost;And life has set its claws in your face,And you know what the scratches cost.
Out there the world is cruel and loud,It strikes at the beaten man;Come out of the press of the stranger crowdTo the place where your life began.
The best robe lies in the cedar chest,And your father's ring is here;You have known the worst, come home to the best—You will pay for it, never fear!
In every kiss of your sister's mouth,In each tear from your mother's eyes,You will pay the price of the days in the SouthWhere the far-off country lies.
SMILE on me, mouth of red—so much too red,Shine on me, eyes which darkened lashes shade,Turn, turn my way, oh glorious golden head,My soul is lost, then let the price be paid!Amid rich flowers your rosy lamplight gleams,Amid rich hangings pass your scented hours,And woods and fields are green but in my dreams,And only in my dreams grow meadow-flowers.
I have forgotten everything but you—The apple orchard where the whitethroat sings,The quiet fields, the moonlight, and the dew,The virgin's bower that in wet hedgerow clings.I have forgotten how the cool grass wavesWhere clean winds blow, and where good women prayFor happy, honest men, safe in their graves;And—oh, my God! I would I were as they!
YOU bring your love too late, dear, I have no love to buy it,I spent my love on worthless toys, at fairs you do not know;I am a bankrupt trader—dear eyes, do not deny it,I could have bought your love, dear, but that was long ago.
My soul has left me widowed, my heart has made me orphan,Leave me—all good things, dear, have left me—leave me too!For here is ice no tears of yours, no smiles of yours can soften:Leave me, leave me, leave me, I have no love for you!
I have no flowers to give you, they grow not in my garden;I have no songs to sing you, my songs have all been sung;I have no hope of heaven, no faith in any pardon,I might have loved you once, dear, when I was good and young.
I will not steal, nor cheat you; take back the heart you lent me.O God, whom I have outraged, now teach me how to pray,That love come never again so near me to torment me,Lest I be found less faithful than, by Thy grace, to-day.
WHEN I was young how fair the skies,Such folly of cloud, such blue depths wise,Such dews of morn, such calms of eve,So many the lure and the reprieve—Life seemed a toy to break and mendAnd make a charm of in the end.
Then slowly all the dew dried upAnd only dust lay in the cup;And since, to slake his thirst, man must,I sought a cup that had no dust,And found it at the Goat and Vine—Mingled of brandy, beer and wine.
The goat-cup, straight, drew down the skiesAnd lit them in lunatick wise:What had been rose went scarlet red,And the pearl tints grew like the dead.And the fresh primrose of the mornWas the wet red of rain-spoiled corn.
Now, with a head that aches and nodsI hold weak hands out to the gods;And oh! forgiving gods and kind,They give me healing to my mind,And show me once again the lawnGreen and clear-gemmed with dews of dawn.
O gods, who look down from aboveUpon our tangle of lust and love,And, in your purity, perceiveThe worth of what our follies leave:Give us but this, and sink the rest—To know that dew and dawn are best.
NOW I am cast into the serpent pitAnd, catching difficult breathFrom the writhing, loathsome, ceaseless stir of it,The venomous whispers of curling, clasping Death,I lift my soul out of the pit to TheeAnd reaching with my soul to where Thou artLook down, seeing with free heartThe beast God gave my soul for companyLie with companions fit;And bid, with a good will,The serpent-fangs of illTake their foul fillOf the foul fell it wore.Though a thousand serpent heads were raised to slay,A thousand twisting coils writhed where it lay,There lies the beast, there let it lie for meAnd agonize and rave;For Thou has raised my soul, Thy soul, to Thee!Thy soul, dear Lord, Thou hast been strong to save!
THE monastery towers, as pure and fairAs virgin vows, reached up white hands to Heaven;The walls, to guard the hidden heart of prayer,Were strong as sin, and white as sin forgiven;And there came holy men, by world's woe driven;And all about the gold-green meadows layFlower-decked, like children dear that keep May-holiday.
"Here," said the Abbot, "let us spend our days,Days sweetened by the lilies of pure prayer,Hung with white garlands of the rose of praise;And, lest the World should enter with her snare—Enter and laugh and take us unawareWith her red rose, her purple and her gold—Choose we a stranger's hand the porter's keys to hold."
They chose a beggar from the world outsideTo keep their worldward door for them, and he,Filled with a humble and adoring pride,Built up a wall of proud humilityBetween the monastery's sanctityAnd the poor, foolish, humble folk who cameTo ask for love and care, in the dear Saviour's name.
For when the poor crept to the guarded gateTo ask for succour, when the tired asked rest,When weary souls, bereft and desolate,Craved comfort, when the murmur of the oppressedSurged round the grove where prayer had made her nest,The porter bade such take their griefs away,And at some other door their bane and burden lay.
"For this," he said, "is the white house of prayer,Where day and night the holy voices riseThrough the chill trouble of our earthly air,And enter at the gate of Paradise.Trample no more our flower-fields in such wise,Nor crave the alms of our deep-laden bough;The prayers of holy men are alms enough, I trow."
So, seeing that no sick or sorrowing folkCame ever to be healed or comforted,The Abbot to his brothers gladly spoke:"God has accepted our poor prayers," he said;"Over our land His answering smile is spread.He has put forth His strong and loving hand,And sorrow and sin and pain have ceased in all the land.
"So make we yet more rich our hymns of praise,Warm we our prayers against our happy heart.Since God hath taken the gift of all our daysTo make a spell that bids all wrong depart,Has turned our praise to balm for the world's smart,Fulfilled of prayer and praise be every hour,For God transfigures praise, and transmutes prayer, to power."
So went the years. The flowers blossomed nowUntrampled by the dusty, weary feet;Unbroken hung the green and golden bough,For none came now to ask for fruit or meat,For ghostly food, or common bread to eat;And dreaming, praying, the monks were satisfied,Till, God remembering him, the beggar-porter died.
When they had covered up the foolish head,And on the foolish loving heart heaped clay,"Which of us, brothers, now," the Abbot said,"Will face the world, to keep the world away?"But all their hearts were hard with prayer, and "Nay,"They cried, "ah, bid us not our prayers to leave;Ah, father, not to-day, for this is Easter Eve".
And, while they murmured, to their midst there cameA beggar saying, "Brothers, peace, be still!I am your Brother, in our Father's name,And I will be your porter, if ye will,Guarding your gate with what I have of skill".So all they welcomed him and closed the door,And gat them gladly back unto their prayers once more.
But, lo! no sooner did the prayer arise,A golden flame athwart the chancel dim,Then came the porter crying, "Haste, arise!A sick old man waits you to tend on him;And many wait—a knight whose wound gapes grim,A red-stained man, with red sins to confess,A mother pale, who brings her child for you to bless".
The brothers hastened to the gate, and thereWith unaccustomed hand and voice they triedTo ease the body's pain, the spirit's care;But ere the task was done, the porter cried:"Behold, the Lord sets your gate open wide,For here be starving folk who must be fed,And little ones that cry for love and daily bread!"
And, with each slow-foot hour, came ever a throngOf piteous wanderers, sinful folk and sad,And still the brothers ministered, but longThe day seemed, with no prayer to make them glad;No holy, meditative joys they had,No moment's brooding-place could poor prayer find,Mid all those heart to heal and all those wounds to bind.
And when the crowded, sunlit day at lastLeft the field lonely with its trampled flowers,Into the chapel's peace the brothers passedTo quell the memory of those hurrying hours."Our holy time," they said, "once more is ours!Come, let us pay our debt of prayer and praise,Forgetting in God's light the darkness of man's ways!"
But, ere their voices reached the first psalm's end,They heard a new, strange rustling round their house;Then came the porter: "Here comes many a friend,Pushing aside your budding orchard boughs;Come, brothers, justify your holy vows.Here be God's patient, poor, four-footed thingsSeek healing at God's well, whence loving-kindness springs."
Then cried the Abbot in a vexed amaze,"Our brethren we must aid, if 'tis God's will;But the wild creatures of the forest waysHimself God heals with His Almighty skill.And charity is good, and love—but stillGod shall not look in vain for the white prayersWe send on silver feet to climb the starry stairs;
"For, of all worthy things, prayer has most worth,It rises like sweet incense up to heaven,And from God's hand falls back upon the earth,Being of heavenly bread the accepted leaven.Through prayer is virtue saved and sin forgiven;In prayer the impulse and the force are foundThat bring in purple and gold the fruitful seasons round.
"For prayer comes down from heaven in the sunThat giveth life and joy to all things made;Prayer falls in rain to make broad rivers runAnd quickens the seeds in earth's brown bosom laid;By prayer the red-hung branch is earthward weighed,By prayer the barn grows full, and full the fold,For by man's prayer God works his wonders manifold."
The porter seemed to bow to the reproof;But when the echo of the night's last prayerDied in the mystery of the vaulted roof,A whispered memory in the hallowed air,The Abbot turned to find him standing there."Brother," he said, "I have healed the woodland thingsAnd they go happy and whole—blessing Love's ministerings,
"And, having healed them, I shall crave your leaveTo leave you—for to-night I journey far.But I have kept your gate this Easter Eve,And now your house to heaven shines like a starTo show the Angels where God's children are;And in this day your house has served God moreThan in the praise and prayer of all its years before.
"Yet I must leave you, though I fain would stay,For there are other gates I go to keepOf houses round whose walls, long day by day,Shut out of hope and love, poor sinners weep—Barred folds that keep out God's poor wandering sheep—I must teach these that gates where God comes inMust not be shut at all to pain, or want, or sin.
"The voice of prayer is very soft and weak,And sorrow and sin have voices very strong;Prayer is not heard in heaven when those twain speak,The voice of prayer faints in the voice of wrongBy the just man endured—oh, Lord, how long?—If ye would have your prayers in heaven be heard,Look that wrong clamour not with too intense a word.
"But when true love is shed on want and sin,Their cry is changed, and grows to such a voiceAs clamours sweetly at heaven to be let in—Such sound as makes the saints in heaven rejoice;Pure gold of prayer, purged of the vain alloysOf idleness—that is the sound most dearOf all the earthly sounds God leans from heaven to hear.
"Oh, brother, I must leave thee, and for meThe work is heavy, and the burden great.Thine be this charge I lay upon thee: SeeThat never again stands barred thy abbey gate;Look that God's poor be not left desolate;Ah me! that chidden my shepherds needs must beWhen my poor wandering sheep have so great need of me.
"Brother, forgive thy Brother if he chide,Thy Brother loves thee—and has loved—for seeThe nails are in my hands, and in my sideThe spear-wound; and the thorns weigh heavilyUpon my brow—brother, I died for thee—For thee, and for my sheep that are astray,And rose to live for thee, and them, on Easter Day!"
"My Master and my Lord!" the Abbot cried.But, where that face had been, shone the new day;Only on the marble by the Abbot's side,Where those dear feet had stood, a lily lay—A lily white for the white Easter Day.He sought the gate—no sorrow clamoured there—And, not till then, he dared to sink his soul in prayer.
And from that day himself he kept the gateWide open; and the poor from far and wide,The weary, and wicked, and disconsolate,Came there for succour and were not denied;The sick were healed, the repentant sanctified;And from their hearts rises more prayer and praiseThan ever the abbey knew in all its prayer-filled days.
And there the Heavenly vision comes no more,Only, each Easter now, a lily sweetLies white and dewy on the chancel floorWhere once had stood the beloved wounded feet;And the old Abbot feels the nearing beatOf wings that bring him leave at last to goAnd meet his Master, where the immortal lilies grow.
IT is not Love, this beautiful unrest,This tremor of longing that invades my breast:For Love is in his grave this many a year,He will not rise—I do not wish him here.It is not memory, for your face and eyesAre not reflected where that dark pool lies:It is not hope, for life makes no amends,And hope and I are long no longer friends:It is a ghost out of another SpringIt needs but little for its comforting—That I should hold your hand and see your faceAnd muse a little in this quiet place,Where, through the silence, I can hear you sighAnd feel you sadden, O Virgin Mystery,And know my thought has in your thought begotSadness, its child, and that you know it not.
If this were Love, if all this bitter painWere but the birth-pang of Love born again,If through the doubts and dreams resolved, smiledThe prophetic promise of the holy child,What should I gain? The Love whose dream-lips smiledCould never be my own and only child,But to Love's birth would come, with the last pain,Renunciation, also born again.
If this were Love why should I turn away?Am I not, too, made of the common clay?Is life so fair, am I so fortunate,I can refuse the capricious gift of Fate,The sudden glory, the unhoped-for flowers,The transfiguration of my earthly hours?
Come, Love! the house is garnished and is swept,Washed clean with all the tears that I have wept,Washed from the stain of my unworthy fears,Hung with the splendid spoils of wasted years,Lighted with lamps of hope, and curtained fastAgainst the gathered darkness of the past.
I draw the bolts! I throw the portals wide,The darkness rushes shivering to my side,Love is not here—the darkness creeps aboutMy house wherein the lamps of hope die out.Ah Love! it was not then your hand that cameBeating my door? your voice that called my name?
"It is not Love, it is not Love," I said,And bowed in fearful hope my trembling head."It is not Love, for Love could never riseOut of the rock-hewn grave wherein he lies."But as I spake, the heavenly form drew nearWhere close I clasped a hope grown keen as fear,Upon my head His very hand He laidAnd whispered, "It is I, be not afraid!"
And this is Love, no rose-crowned laughing guestBy whom my passionate heart should be caressed,But one re-risen from the grave; austere,Cold as the grave, and infinitely dear,To follow whom I lay the whole world down,Take up the cross, bind on the thorny crown;And, following whom, my bleeding pilgrim feetFind the rough pathway sure and very sweet.The august environment of mighty wingsShuts out the snare of vain imaginings,For by my side, crowned with Love's death-white rose,The Angel of Renunciation goes.
"REFUSE, refrain: for this is not the loveThe Annunciation Angel warned you of;This is the little candle, not the sun;It burns, but will not warm, unhappy one!"
"But ah! suppose the sun should never shine,Then what an anguish of regret were mineTo know that even from this I turned away!Candles may serve, if there should be no day."
"Nay, better to go cold your whole life longThan do the sun, than do your soul such wrong:And if the sun shine not, be life's the blameAnd yours the pride, who scorned the meaner flame."
O THOU, who, high in heaven,To man hast givenThis clouded earthly lifeAll storm and strife,Blasted with ice and fire,Love and desire,Filled with dead faith, and loveThat change is master of—
O Thou, who mightest have givenTo all Thy heaven,But who, instead, didst giveThis life we live—Who feedest with blood and tearsThe hungry years—I make one prayer to Thee,O Great God! grant it me.
Some day when summer showsHer leaf, her rose,God, let Thy sinner lieUnder Thy sky,And feel Thy sun's large graceUpon his face;Then grant him this, that heMay not believe in Thee!
OUT in the sun the buttercups are gold,The daisies silver all the grassy lane,And spring has given love a flower to hold,And love lays blindness on the eyes of pain.
Within are still, chill aisles and blazoned panesAnd carven tombs where memory weeps no more.And from the lost and holy days remainsOne saint beside the long-closed western door.
Outside the world goes laughing lest it weep,With here and there some happy child at play;A mother worshipping the babe asleep,Or two young lovers dreaming 'neath the May.
Within, the soul of love broods o'er the place;The carven saint forgotten many a yearStill lifts to heaven his rapt adoring faceTo pray, for those who leave him lonely here,
That once again the silent church may ringWith songs of joy triumphant over pain—Ah! God, who makest the miracle of springMake Thou dead faith and love to rise again.
WHEN the star in the East was lit to shineThe three kings journeyed to Palestine;
They came from the uttermost parts of earthWith long trains laden with gifts of worth.
The first king rode on a camel's back,He came from the land where the kings are black,
Bringing treasures desired of kings,Rubies and ivory and precious things.
An elephant carried the second king,He came from the land of the sun-rising,
And gems and gold and spices he bareWith broidered raiment for kings to wear.
The third king came without steed or trainFrom the misty land where the white kings reign.
He bore no gifts save the myrrh in his hand,For he came on foot from a far-off land.
Now when they had travelled a-many daysThrough tangled forests and desert ways,
By angry seas and by paths thorn-setOn Christmas Vigil the three kings met.
And over their meeting a shrouded skyMade dark the star they had travelled by.
Then the first king spake and he frowned and said:"By some ill spell have our feet been led,
"Now I see in the darkness the fools we areTo follow the light of a lying star.
"Let us fool no more, but like kings and menEach get him home to his land again!"
Then the second king with the weary face,Gold-tinct as the sun of his reigning place,
Lifted sad eyes to the clouds and said,"It was but a dream and the dream is sped.
"We dreamed of a star that rose new and fair,But it sets in the night of the old despair.
"Yet night is faithful though stars betray,It will lead to our kingdoms far away."
Then spake the king who had fared aloneFrom the far-off kingdom, the white-hung throne:
"O brothers, brothers, so very farYe have followed the light of the radiant star,
"And because for a while ye see it notShall its faithful shining be all forgot?
"On the spirit's pathway the light still liesThough the star be hid from our longing eyes.
"To-morrow our star will be bright once moreThe little pin-hole in heaven's floor—
"The Angels pricked it to let it bringOur feet to the throne of the new-born King!"
And the first king heard and the second heardAnd their hearts grew humble before the third.
And they laid them down beside bale and beastand their sleeping eyes saw light in the East.
For the Angels fanned them with starry wingsAnd the waft of visions of unseen things.
And the next gold day waned trembling and whiteAnd the star was born of the waxing night.
And the three kings came where the Great King lay,A little baby among the hay,
The ox and the ass were standing nearAnd Mary Mother beside her Dear.
Then low in the litter the kings bowed down,They gave Him gold for a kingly crown,
And frankincense for a great God's breathand Myrrh to sweeten the day of death.
The Maiden Mother she stood and smiledAnd she took from the manger her little child.
On the dark king's head she laid His handAnd anger died at that dear command.
She laid His hand on the gold king's headAnd despair itself was comforted.
But when the pale king knelt in the stallShe heard on the straw his tears down fall.
And she stooped where he knelt beside her feetAnd laid on his bosom her baby sweet.
And the king in the holy stable-placeFelt the little lips through the tears on his face.
* * * * * * *
Christ! lay Thy hand on the angry kingWho reigns in my breast to my undoing,
And lay thy hands on the king who laysThe spell of sadness on all my days,
And give the white king my soul, Thy soul,Of these other kings the high control.
That soul and spirit and sense may meetIn adoration before Thy feet!
Now Glory to God the Father Most High,And the Star, the Spirit, He leads us by.
And to God's dear Son, the Babe who was bornAnd laid in the manger on Christmas morn!
IF we must part, this parting is the best:How would you bear to layYour head on some warm pillow far away—Your head, so used to lying on my breast?
But now your pillow is cold;Your hands have flowers, and not my hands, to hold;Upon our bed the worn bride-linen lies.I have put the death-money upon your eyes,So that you should not wake up in the night.I have bound your face with white;I have washed you, yes, with water and not with tears,—Those arms wherein I have slept so many years,Those feet that hastened when they came to me,And all your body that belonged to me.I have smoothed your dear dull hair,And there is nothing left to say for youAnd nothing left to fear or pray for you;And I have got the rest of life to bear:Thank God it is you, not I, who are lying there.
If I had diedAnd you had stood besideThis still white bedWhere the white, scented, horrible flowers are spread,—I know the thing it is,And I thank God that He has spared you this.If one must bear it, thank God it was IWho had to live and bear to see you die,Who have to live, and bear to see you dead.
You will have nothing of it all to bear:You will not even know that in your bedYou lie alone. You will not miss my headBeside you on the pillow: you will restSo soft in the grave you will not miss my breast.But I—but I—Your pillow and your place—And only the darkness laid against my face,And only my anguish pressed against my side—Thank God, thank God, that it was you who died!
NIGHT wind sighing through the poplar leaves,Trembling of the aspen, shivering of the willow,Every leafy voice of all the night-time grieves,Mourning, weeping over Chloe's pillow.
Chloe, fresher than the breeze of dawn,Fairer than the larches in their young spring glory,Brighter than the glow-worms on the dewy lawn,Hear the dirge the green trees sing to end your story:—
"Chloe lived and Chloe loved: she brought new gladness,Hope and life and all things good to all who met her;Only, dying, wept to know the lifelong sadnessWilled, against her will, to those who can't forget her."
COME to-night in a dream to-night,Come as you used to do,Come in the gown, in the gown of white,Come in the ribbon of blue;Come in the virgin's colours you wear,Come through the dark and the dew,Come with the scent of the night in your hair,Come as you used to do.
Blue and white of your eyes and your face,White of your gown and blue,Will you not come from the happy place,Come as you used to do?Tears so many, so many tearsWhere there were once so few—Can they not wash the gray of the yearsFrom the white of your gown and blue?
AND I shall lie alone at last,Clear of the stream that ran so fast,And feel the flower roots in my hair,And in my hands the roots of trees;Myself wrapt in the ungrudging peaceThat leaves no pain uncovered anywhere.
What—this hope left? this way not barred?This last best treasure without guard?This heaven free—no prayers to pay?Fool—are the Rulers of men asleep?Thou knowest what tears They bade thee weep,But, when peace comes, 'tis thou wilt sleep, not They.
22nd January, 1901.
THE Queen is dead. God save the King,In this his hour of grief,When sorrow gathers memories in a sheafTo lay them on his shoulders as he standsInheriting her glories and her lands—First gain of his at which his Mother's voiceHas not been first to bless and to rejoice—A man, set lonely between gain and loss.(O words of love the heart remembereth,O mighty loss outweighing every gain!)A Son whose kingdom Death's arm lies across,A King whose Mother lies alone with DeathWrapped in the folds of white implacable sleep.O God, who seest the tears Thy children weep,O God, who countest each sad heart-beat, seeHow our King needs the grace we ask of Thee!Thou knowest how little and how vain a thingIs Empire, when the heart is sick with pain—God, save the King!The Queen is dead. The splendour of her days,The sorrow of them both alike merge nowIn the new aureole that lights her brow.The clamour of her people's voice in praiseMust hush itself to the still voice that praysIn the holy chamber of Death. Tread softly here,A mighty Queen lies dead.Her people's heart wears black,The black bells toll unceasing in their ear,And on the gold sun's trackThe great world roundLike a black ring the voice of mourning goes,Till even our ancient foesWith eyes downbent, and brotherly bared head,Keep mourning watch with us. This is the hourWhen Love lends all his powerTo speed grief's arrows from the bow of Death,When sighs are idle breath,When tears are fountains vain.She will not wake again,Not now, not here.O great and good and infinitely dear,O Mother of your people, sleep is sweet,No more Life's thorny ways will wound your feet.
O Mother dear, sleep sound!When you shall wake,Your brows freed from the crown that made them acheSo many a time, and wear the heavenly crown,Then, then you will look downOn us who love you, and, remembering,The love of earth will breathe with us our prayer,Our prayer prayed here, joined to your prayer prayed there:Who knows what radiant answer it may bring?"God save the King!"
The Queen is dead. God save the King!From all ill thought and deed,From heartless service and from selfish sway,From treason, and the vain imaginingOf evil counsellors, and the noisome breedOf flatterers who eat the soul away,God save the King!
From loss and pain and tearsSuch as her many yearsBrought her; from battle and strife,And the inmost hurt of life,The wounds that no crown can heal,No ermine robes conceal,God save the King!
God, by our memories of his Mother's face,By the love that makes our heart her dwelling-place,Grant to our sorrow this desired grace:God save the King!
* * * * * * * * *
The Queen is dead. God save the King.This is no hour when joy has leave to sing;Only, amid our tears, we are bold to pray,More boldly, in that we pray sorrowing,In this most sorrowful day.God, who wast of a mortal Mother born,Who driest the tears with which Thy children mourn,God, save the King!
Look down on him whose crown is wet with tearsIn which its splendour fades and disappears—His tears, our tears, tears out of all her lands.The Queen is dead.God! strengthen the King's hands!God, save the King!
OVER the meadow and down the laneTo the gate by the twisted thorn:Your feet should know each turn of the wayYou trod so many many a day,Before the old love was put out of its pain,Before the new love was born.
Kiss her, hold her and fold her close,Tell her the old true tale:You ought to know each turn of the phrase,—You learned them all in the poor old daysBefore the birth of the new red rose,Before the old rose grew pale.
And do not fear I shall creep to-nightTo make a third at your tryst:My ghost, if it walked, would only waitTo scare the others away from the gateWhere you teach your new love the old delight,With the lips that your old love kissed.
NEVER again:No child shall stir the inmost heart of herAnd teach her heaven by that first faint stir;No little lips shall lie against her breastSave the cold lips that now lie there at rest;No little voice shall rouse her from her sleepAnd bid her wake to pain:Her sleep is calm and deep,Call not! refrain.
Close in her armAs though even death drew back before the faceOf Motherhood in this white stilly place,The gathered bud lies waxen white and cold,As ever a flower your winter gardens hold.She bore the pain, she never wore the crown,She worked the bitter charm,But all she won thereby is here laid downRenounced—for good or harm.
Dream? Feed your soulWith dreams, while we must starve our hearts on clay,Dream of a glorious white-winged sun-crowned dayWhen you shall see her once more face to faceBeside Christ's Mother in the blessed place!But while you dream, they carry her from here,The black bells toll and toll.Oh God! if only she cannot see or hear,Not hear those ghoul-like bells that crowd so near,Not see that cold clay hole.
Who Died on October 25th, 1899.
THERE was a day,A horrible Autumn day,When from her home, the home she made for oursAnd that day made a nightmare of white flowersAnd folk in black who whispered pityingly,They carried her away;And left our hearts all coldAnd empty, yet with such a store to holdOf sodden grief the slow drops still ooze out,And, falling on all fair things, they wither these.Tears came with time—but not with time went by.
And still we wander desolate aboutThe poor changed house, the garden and the croft,Warm kitchen, sunny parlour, with the softIntolerable pervading memoriesOf her whose face and voice made melodies,Sweet unforgotten songs of mother-love—Dear songs of all the little joys that were.We see the sun, and have no joy thereof,Because she gathered in her dying handsAnd carried with her to the fair far landsThe flower of all our joy, because she wentOut of the garden where her days were spent,And took the very sun away with her.
The cross stands at her head.Over her breast, that loving mother-breast,Close buds of pansies purple and white are pressed.It seems a place for rest,For happy folded sleep; but ah, not there,Not there, not there, our hardest tears are shed,But in the house made empty for her sake.Here, in the night intolerable, wakeThe hungry passionate pains of Love still strongTo fight with death the bitter slow night long.Then the rich price that poor Love has to payIs paid, slow drop by drop, till the new dayWith thin cold fingers pushes back night's wings,And drags us out to common cruel thingsThat sting, and barb their stings with memory.O Love—and is the price too hard to give?Thine is the splendour of all things that live,And this thy pain the price of life to thee—The sacrament that binds to the beloved,The chain that holds though mountains be removed,The portent of thine immortality.
So, in the house of pain imprisoned, weEndure our bondage, and work out our time,Nor seek from out our dungeon walls to climb—Bondsmen, who would not, if we could, be free.Thank God, our hands still hold Love's cord—and she—Do not her hands still clasp the cord we hold,Drawing us near, coiling bright fold on fold,Till the far day when it shall draw us nearTo the sight of her—her living hands, her dearTired face, grown weary of watching for our face?And we shall hold her, in the happy place,And hear her voice, the old same voice we knew—"Ah! children, I am tired of wanting you!"
Or, in some world more beautiful and dearThan any she ever even dreamed of here,Where time is changed, does she await the dayShe longed for, and so little a while away,When all the love we watered with our tearsShall bloom, transplanted by the kindly years?Dreaming through her new garden does she go,Remembering the old garden, long ago,Tending new flowers more fair than those that growIn this sad garden where such sad flowers blow;And, fondly touching bud and leaf and shoot,Training her flowers to perfect branch and root,Does she sometimes entreat some darling flowerTo wait a little for its opening hour?Can you not hear her voice: "Ah, not to-day,While my dear flowers, my own, are far away.Be patient, bud! to-morrow soon will come:Ah! blossom when my little girl comes home!"
But now. But here.The empty house, the always empty place—The black remembrance that no night blots out,The memories, white, unbearable, and dearThat no white sunlight makes less cruel and clear?The resistless riotous routOf cruel conquering thoughts, the night, the day?Love is immortal: this the price to pay.Worse than all pain it would be to forget—On Love's brave brow the crown of thorns is set.Love is no niggard: though the price be highInto God's market Love goes forth to buyWith royal meed God's greatest gifts and gain,Love offers up his whole rich store of pain,And buys of God Love's immortality.
FOR DOROTHY, 18th August, 1900.
I WILL not wake you, dear; no tears shall creepTo chill the still bed where you lie asleep;No cry, no word, shall break the sanctityOf the great silence where God lets you lie.I will not tease your grave with flower or stone;You are tired, my heart; you shall be left alone.And even the kisses that my lips must layUpon the mould of the triumphant clayShall be so soft—like those a mother laysUpon her sleeping baby's little face—You will not feel my kisses, will not hear;You are tired: sleep on, I will not wake you, dear!But when the good day comes, you will hear me cry,"Ah, make a little place where I can lie!"And half awakened, you will feel me creepInto the folds of your familiar sleep,And draw them round us, with a tender moan,"How could you let me sleep so long alone?"