The ‘Infinite.’ Word horrible! at feudWith life, and the braced moodOf power and joy and love;Forbidden, by wise heathen ev’n, to beSpoken of Deity,Whose Name, on popular altars, was ‘The Unknown,’Because, or ere It was reveal’d as OneConfined in Three,The people fear’d that it might proveInfinity,The blazon which the devils desired to gain;And God, for their confusion, laugh’d consent;Yet did so far relent,That they might seek relief, and not in vain,In dashing of themselves against the shores of pain.Nor bides alone in hellThe bond-disdaining spirit boiling to rebel.But for compulsion of strong grace,The pebble in the roadWould straight explode,And fill the ghastly boundlessness of space.The furious power,To soft growth twice constrain’d in leaf and flower,Protests, and longs to flash its faint self farBeyond the dimmest star.The sameSeditious flame,Beat backward with reduplicated might,Struggles alive within its stricter term,And is the worm.And the just Man does on himself affirmGod’s limits, and is conscious of delight,Freedom and right;And so His Semblance is, Who, every hour,By day and night,Buildeth new bulwarks ’gainst the Infinite.For, ah, who can expressHow full of bonds and simplenessIs God,How narrow is He,And how the wide, waste field of possibilityIs only trodStraight to His homestead in the human heart,And all His artIs as the babe’s that wins his Mother to repeatHer little song so sweet!What is the chief news of the Night?Lo, iron and salt, heat, weight and lightIn every star that drifts on the great breeze!And theseMean Man,Darling of God, Whose thoughts but live and moveRound him; Who woos his willTo wedlock with His own, and does distilTo that drop’s spanThe atta of all rose-fields of all love!Therefore the soul select assumes the stressOf bonds unbid, which God’s own style expressBetter than well,And aye hath, cloister’d, borne,To the Clown’s scorn,The fetters of the threefold golden chain:Narrowing to nothing all his worldly gain;(Howbeit in vain;For to have noughtIs to have all things without care or thought!)Surrendering, abject, to his equal’s rule,As though he were a fool,The free wings of the will;(More vainly still;For none knows rightly what ’tis to be freeBut only heWho, vow’d against all choice, and fill’d with aweOf the ofttimes dumb or clouded Oracle,Does wiser than to spell,In his own suit, the least word of the Law!)And, lastly, bartering life’s dear bliss for pain;But evermore in vain;For joy (rejoice ye Few that tasted have!)Is Love’s obedienceAgainst the genial laws of natural sense,Whose wide, self-dissipating wave,Prison’d in artful dykes,Trembling returns and strikesThence to its source again,In backward billows fleet,Crest crossing crest ecstatic as they greet,Thrilling each vein,Exploring every chasm and coveOf the full heart with floods of honied love,And every principal streetAnd obscure alley and laneOf the intricate brainWith brimming rivers of light and breezes sweetOf the primordial heat;Till, unto view of me and thee,Lost the intense life be,Or ludicrously display’d, by forceOf distance; as a soaring eagle, or a horseOn far-off hillside shewn,May seem a gust-driv’n rag or a dead stone.Nor by such bonds alone—But more I leave to say,Fitly revering the Wild Ass’s bray,Also his hoof,Of which, go where you will, the marks remainWhere the religious walls have hid the bright reproof.
Creation’s and Creator’s crowning good;Wall of infinitude;Foundation of the sky,In Heaven forecastAnd long’d for from eternity,Though laid the last;Reverberating dome,Of music cunningly built homeAgainst the void and indolent disgraceOf unresponsive space;Little, sequester’d pleasure-houseFor God and for His Spouse;Elaborately, yea, past conceiving, fair,Since, from the graced decorum of the hair,Ev’n to the tingling, sweetSoles of the simple, earth-confiding feet,And from the inmost heartOutwards unto the thinSilk curtains of the skin,Every least partAstonish’d hearsAnd sweet replies to some like region of the spheres;Form’d for a dignity prophets but darkly name,Lest shameless men cry ‘Shame!’So rich with wealth conceal’dThat Heaven and Hell fight chiefly for this field;Clinging to everything that pleases theeWith indefectible fidelity;Alas, so trueTo all thy friendships that no graceThee from thy sin can wholly disembrace;Which thus ’bides with thee as the Jebusite,That, maugre all God’s promises could do,The chosen People never conquer’d quite;Who therefore lived with them,And that by formal truce and as of right,In metropolitan Jerusalem.For which false fealtyThou needs must, for a season, lieIn the grave’s arms, foul and unshriven,Albeit, in Heaven,Thy crimson-throbbing GlowInto its old abode aye pants to go,And does with envy seeEnoch, Elijah, and the Lady, sheWho left the roses in her body’s lieu.O, if the pleasures I have known in theeBut my poor faith’s poor first-fruits be,What quintessential, keen, ethereal blissThen shall be hisWho has thy birth-time’s consecrating dewFor death’s sweet chrism retain’d,Quick, tender, virginal, and unprofaned!
How sing the Lord’s Song in so strange a Land?A torrid waste of water-mocking sand;Oases of wild grapes;A dull, malodorous fogO’er a once Sacred River’s wandering strand,Its ancient tillage all gone back to bog;A busy synod of blest cats and apesExposing the poor trick of earth and starWith worshipp’d snouts oracular;Prophets to whose blind stareThe heavens the glory of God do not declare,Skill’d in such question niceAs why one conjures toads who fails with lice,And hatching snakes from sticks in such a swarmAs quite to surfeit Aaron’s bigger worm;A nation which has gotA lie in her right hand,And knows it not;With Pharaohs to her mind, each drifting as a logWhich way the foul stream flows,More harden’d the more plagued with fly and frog!How should sad Exile sing in such a Land?How should ye understand?What could he win but jeers,Or howls, such as sweet music draws from dog,Who told of marriage-feasting to the manThat nothing knows of food but bread of bran?Besides, if aught such earsMight e’er unclog,There lives but one, with tones for Sion meet.Behoveful, zealous, beautiful, elect,Mild, firm, judicious, loving, bold, discreet,Without superfluousness, without defect,Few are his words, and find but scant respect,Nay, scorn from some, for God’s good cause agog.Silence in such a Land is oftenest such men’s speech.O, that I might his holy secret reach;O, might I catch his mantle when he goes;O, that I were so gentle and so sweet,So I might deal fair Sion’s foolish foesSuch blows!
Love, light for meThy ruddiest blazing torch,That I, albeit a beggar by the PorchOf the glad Palace of Virginity,May gaze within, and sing the pomp I see;For, crown’d with roses all,’Tis there, O Love, they keep thy festival!But first warn off the beatific spotThose wretched who have notEven afar beheld the shining wall,And those who, once beholding, have forgot,And those, most vile, who dressThe charnel spectre drearOf utterly dishallow’d nothingnessIn that refulgent fame,And cry, Lo, here!And nameThe Lady whose smiles inflameThe sphere.Bring, Love, anear,And bid be not afraidYoung Lover true, and love-foreboding Maid,And wedded Spouse, if virginal of thought;For I will sing of noughtLess sweet to hearThan seemsA music in their half-remember’d dreams.The magnet calls the steel:Answers the iron to the magnet’s breath;What do they feelBut death!The clouds of summer kiss in flame and rain,And are not found again;But the heavens themselves eternal are with fireOf unapproach’d desire,By the aching heart of Love, which cannot rest,In blissfullest pathos so indeed possess’d.O, spousals high;O, doctrine blest,Unutterable in even the happiest sigh;This know ye allWho can recallWith what a welling of indignant tearsLove’s simpleness first hearsThe meaning of his mortal covenant,And from what pride comes downTo wear the crownOf which ’twas very heaven to feel the want.How envies he the waysOf yonder hopeless star,And so would laugh and yearnWith trembling lids eterne,Ineffably content from infinitely farOnly to gazeOn his bright Mistress’s responding rays,That never know eclipse;And, once in his long year,With praeternuptial ecstasy and fear,By the delicious law of that ellipseWherein all citizens of ether move,With hastening pace to comeNearer, though never near,His LoveAnd always inaccessible sweet Home;There on his path doubly to burn.Kiss’d by her doubled lightThat whispers of its source,The ardent secret ever clothed with Night,Then go forth in new forceTowards a new return,Rejoicing as a Bridegroom on his course!This know ye all;Therefore gaze bold,That so in you be joyful hope increas’d,Thorough the Palace portals, and beholdThe dainty and unsating Marriage-Feast.O, hearThem singing clear‘Cor meum et caro mea’ round the ‘I am,’The Husband of the Heavens, and the LambWhom they for ever follow there that kept,Or losing, never sleptTill they reconquer’d had in mortal fightThe standard white.O, hearFrom the harps they bore from Earth, five-strung, what music springs,While the glad Spirits chideThe wondering strings!And how the shining sacrificial Choirs,Offering for aye their dearest hearts’ desires,Which to their hearts come back beatified,Hymn, the bright aisles along,The nuptial song,Song ever new to us and them, that saith,‘Hail Virgin in Virginity a Spouse!’Heard first belowWithin the little houseAt Nazareth;Heard yet in many a cell where brides of ChristLie hid, emparadised,And where, althoughBy the hour ’tis night,There’s light,The Day still lingering in the lap of snow.Gaze and be not afraidYe wedded few that honour, in sweet thoughtAnd glittering will,So freshly from the garden gather stillThe lily sacrificed;For ye, though self-suspected here for nought,Are highly styledWith the thousands twelve times twelve of undefiled.Gaze and be not afraidYoung Lover true and love-foreboding Maid.The full noon of deific vision brightAbashes nor abatesNo spark minute of Nature’s keen delight.’Tis there your Hymen waits!There where in courts afar, all unconfused, they crowd,As fumes the starlight softIn gulfs of cloud,And each to the other, well-content,Sighs oft,‘’Twas this we meant!’Gaze without blameYe in whom living Love yet blushes for dead shame.There of pure Virgins noneIs fairer seen,Save One,Than Mary Magdalene.Gaze without doubt or fearYe to whom generous Love, by any name, is dear.Love makes the life to beA fount perpetual of virginity;For, lo, the ElectOf generous Love, how named soe’er, affectNothing but God,Or mediate or direct,Nothing but God,The Husband of the Heavens:And who Him love, in potence great or small,Are, one and all,Heirs of the Palace glad,And inly cladWith the bridal robes of ardour virginal.
The Midge’s wing beats to and froA thousand times ere one can utter ‘O!’And Sirius’ ballDoes on his business runAs many times immenser than the Sun.Why should things not be great as well as small,Or move like light as well as move at all?St. Michael fills his place, I mine, and, if you please,We will respect each other’s provinces,I marv’lling not at him, nor he at me.But, if thou must go gaping, let it beThat One who could make Michael should make thee.O, foolish Man, meting things low and highBy self, that accidental quantity!With this conceit, Philosophy stalks frailAs peacock staggering underneath his tail.Who judge of Plays from their own penny gaff,At God’s great theatre will hiss and laugh;For what’s a Saint to themBrought up in modern virtues brummagem?With garments grimed and lamps gone all to snuff,And counting others for like Virgins queer,To list those others cry, ‘Our Bridegroom’s near!’Meaning their God, is surely quite enoughTo make them rend their clothes and bawl out, ‘Blasphemy!’
Beautiful habitations, auras of delight!Who shall bewail the crags and bitter foamAnd angry sword-blades flashing left and rightWhich guard your glittering height,That none thereby may come!The vision which we haveRevere we so,That yet we craveTo foot those fields of ne’er-profaned snow?I, with heart-quake,Dreaming or thinking of that realm of Love,See, oft, a doveTangled in frightful nuptials with a snake;The tortured knot,Now, like a kite scant-weighted, flung bewitch’dSunwards, now pitch’d,Tail over head, down, but with no taste gotEternallyOf rest in either ruin or the sky,But bird and vermin each incessant strives,With vain dilaceration of both lives,’Gainst its abhorred bond insoluble,Coveting fiercer any separate hellThan the most weary Soul in PurgatoryOn God’s sweet breast to lie.And, in this sign, I conThe guerdon of that golden Cup, fulfill’dWith fornications foul of Babylon,The heart where good is well-perceiv’d and known,Yet is not will’d;And Him I thank, who can make live again,The dust, but not the joy we once profane,That I, of ye,Beautiful habitations, auras of delight,In childish years and since had sometime sense and sight,But that ye vanish’d quite,Even from memory,Ere I could get my breath, and whisper ‘See!’But did for meThey altogether die,Those trackless glories glimps’d in upper sky?Were they of chance, or vain,Nor good at all againFor curb of heart or fret?Nay, though, by grace,Lest, haply, I refuse God to His face,Their likeness wholly I forget,Ah, yet,Often in straits which else for me were ill,I mind me stillIdidrespire the lonely auras sweet,Ididthe blest abodes behold, and, at the mountains’ feet,Bathed in the holy Stream by Hermon’s thymy hill.
‘Love, I heard tell of thee so oft!Yea, thrice my face and bosom flush’d with heatOf sudden wings,Through delicatest ether feathering softTheir solitary beat.Long did I muse what service or what charmsMight lure thee, blissful Bird, into mine arms;And nets I made,But not of the fit strings.At last, of endless failure much afraid,To-night I would do nothing but lie still,And promise, wert thou once within my window-sill,Thine unknown will.In nets’ default,Finch-like me seem’d thou might’st be ta’en with salt;And here—and how thou mad’st me start!—Thou art.’‘O Mortal, by Immortals’ cunning led,Who shew’d you how for Gods to bait your bed?Ah, Psyche, guess’d you noughtI craved but to be caught?Wanton, it was not you,But I that did so passionately sue;And for your beauty, not unscath’d, I foughtWith Hades, ere I own’d in you a thought!’‘O, heavenly Lover true,Is this thy mouth upon my forehead press’d?Are these thine arms about my bosom link’d?Are these thy hands that tremble near my heart,Where join two hearts, for juncture more distinct?By thee and by my maiden zone caress’d,What dim, waste tracts of life shine sudden, like moonbeamsOn windless ocean shaken by sweet dreams!Ah, stir not to depart!Kiss me again, thy Wife and Virgin too!O Love, that, like a rose,Deckest my breast with beautiful repose,Kiss me again, and clasp me round the heart,Till fill’d with thee am IAs the cocoon is with the butterfly!—Yet how ’scape quiteNor pluck pure pleasure with profane delight?How know I that my Love is what he seems!Give me a signThat, in the pitchy night,Comes to my pillow an immortal Spouse,And not a fiend, hiding with happy boughsOf palm and asphodelThe pits of hell!’‘’Tis this:I make the childless to keep joyful house.Below your bosom, mortal Mistress mine,Immortal by my kiss,Leaps what sweet pain?A fiend, my Psyche, comes with barren bliss,A God’s embraces never are in vain.’‘I ownA life not mine within my golden zone.Yea, how’Tis easier grownThine arduous rule to donThan for a Bride to put her bride-dress on!Nay, rather, now’Tis no more service to be borne serene,Whither thou wilt, thy stormful wings between.But, Oh,Can I endureThis flame, yet live for what thou lov’st me, pure?’‘Himself the God let blameIf all about him bursts to quenchless flame!My Darling, knowYour spotless fairness is not match’d in snow,But in the integrity of fire.Whate’er you are, Sweet, I require.A sorry God were heThat fewer claim’d than all Love’s mighty kingdoms three!’‘Much marvel IThat thou, the greatest of the Powers above,Me visitest with such exceeding love.What thing is this?A God to make me, nothing, needful to his bliss,And humbly wait my favour for a kiss!Yea, all thy legions of liege deityTo look into this mystery desire.’‘Content you, Dear, with them, this marvel to admire,And lay your foolish little head to restOn my familiar breast.Should a high King, leaving his arduous throne,Sue from her hedge a little Gipsy Maid,For far-off royal ancestry bewray’dBy some wild beauties, to herself unknown;Some voidness of herself in her strange waysWhich to his bounteous fulness promised dainty praise;Some power, by all but him unguess’d,Of growing king-like were she king-caress’d;And should he bid his dames of loftiest gradePut off her rags and make her lowliheadPure for the soft midst of his perfumed bed,So to forget, kind-couch’d with her alone,His empire, in her winsome joyance free;What would he do, if such a fool were sheAs at his grandeur there to gape and quake,Mindless of love’s supreme equality,And of his heart, so simple for her sakeThat all he ask’d, for making her all-blest,Was that her nothingness alwayShould yield such easy fee as frank to playOr sleep delighted in her Monarch’s breast,Feeling her nothingness her giddiest boast,As being the charm for which he loved her most?What if this reed,Through which the King thought love-tunes to have blown,Should shriek, “Indeed,I am too base to trill so blest a tone!”Would not the King allegeDefaulted consummation of the marriage-pledge,And hie the Gipsy to her native hedge?’‘O, too much joy; O, touch of airy fire;O, turmoil of content; O, unperturb’d desire,From founts of spirit impell’d through brain and blood!I’ll not call ill what, since ’tis thine, is good,Nor best what is but second best or third;Still my heart fails,And, unaccustom’d and astonish’d, quails,And blames me, though I think I have not err’d.’Tis hard for fly, in such a honied flood,To use her eyes, far more her wings or feet.Bitter be thy behests!
Lie like a bunch of myrrh between my aching breasts.Some greatly pangful penance would I brave.Sharpness me saveFrom being slain by sweet!’‘In your dell’d bosom’s double peaceLet all care cease!Custom’s joy-killing breathShall bid you sigh full soon for custom-killing death.So clasp your childish arms again around my heart:’Tis but in such captivityThe unbounded Heav’ns know what they be!And lie still there,Till the dawn, threat’ning to declareMy beauty, which you cannot bear,Bid me depart.Suffer your soul’s delight,Lest that which is to come wither you quite:For these are only your espousals; yes,More intimate and fruitfuller farThan aptest mortal nuptials are;But nuptials wait you such as now you dare not guess.’‘In all I thee obey! And thus I knowThat all is well:Should’st thou me tellOut of thy warm caress to goAnd roll my body in the biting snow,My very body’s joy were but increased;More pleasant ’tis to please thee than be pleased.Thy love has conquer’d me; do with me as thou wilt,And use me as a chattel that is thine!Kiss, tread me under foot, cherish or beat,Sheathe in my heart sharp pain up to the hilt,Invent what else were most perversely sweet;Nay, let the Fiend drag me through dens of guilt;Let Earth, Heav’n, Hell’Gainst my content combine;What could make nought the touch that made thee mine!Ah, say not yet, farewell!’‘Nay, that’s the Blackbird’s note, the sweet Night’s knell.Behold, Beloved, the penance you would brave!’‘Curs’d when it comes, the bitter thing we crave!Thou leav’st me now, like to the moon at dawn,A little, vacuous world alone in air.I will not care!When dark comes back my dark shall be withdrawn!Go free;For ’tis with meAs when the cup the Child scoops in the sandFills, and is part and parcel of the Sea.I’ll say it to myself and understand.Farewell!Go as thou wilt and come! Lover divine,Thou still art jealously and wholly mine;And this thy kissA separate secret by none other scann’d;Though well I wisThe whole of life is womanhood to thee,Momently wedded with enormous bliss.Rainbow, that hast my heaven sudden spann’d,I am the apple of thy glorious gaze,Each else life cent’ring to a different blaze;And, nothing though I beBut now a no more void capacity for thee,’Tis all to know there’s not in air or landAnother for thy Darling quite like me!Mine arms no more thy restless plumes compel!Farewell!Whilst thou art gone, I’ll search the weary meadsTo deck my bed with lilies of fair deeds!And, if thou choose to come this eventide,A touch, my Love, will set my casement wide.Farewell, farewell!Be my dull daysMusic, at least, with thy remember’d praise!’‘Bitter, sweet, few and veil’d let beYour songs of me.Preserving bitter, very sweet,Few, that so all may be discreet,And veil’d, that, seeing, none may see.’
‘Good-morrow, Psyche! What’s thine errand now?What awful pleasure do thine eyes bespeak,What shame is in thy childish cheek,What terror on thy brow?Is this my Psyche, once so pale and meek?Thy body’s sudden beauty my sight oldStings, like an agile bead of boiling gold,And all thy life looks troubled like a tree’sWhose boughs wave many ways in one great breeze.’‘O Pythoness, to strangest story hark:A dreadful God was with me in the dark—’‘How many a Maid—Has never told me that! And thou’rt afraid—’‘He’ll come no more,Or come but twice,Or thrice,Or only thrice ten thousand times thrice o’er!’‘For want of wishing thou mean’st not to miss.We know the Lover, Psyche, by the kiss!’‘If speech of honey could impart the sweet,The world were all in tears and at his feet!But not to tell of that in tears come I, but this:I’m foolish, weak, and small,And fear to fall.If long he stay away, O frightful dream, wise Mother,What keeps me but that I, gone crazy, kiss some other!’‘The fault were his! But know,Sweet little Daughter sad,He did but feign to go;And never moreShall cross thy window-sill,Or pass beyond thy door,Save by thy will.He’s present now in some dim place apartOf the ivory house wherewith thou mad’st him glad.Nay, this I whisper thee,Since none is near,Or, if one were, since only thou could’st hear,That happy thing which makes thee flush and start,Like infant lips in contact with thy heart,Is He!’‘Yea, this I know, but never can believe!O, hateful light! when shall mine own eyes markMy beauty, which this victory did achieve?’‘When thou, like Gods and owls, canst see by dark.’‘In vain I cleanse me from all blurring error—’‘’Tis the last rub that polishes the mirror.’‘It takes fresh blurr each breath which I respire.’‘Poor Child, don’t cry so! Hold it to the fire.’‘Ah, nought these dints can e’er do out again!’‘Love is not love which does not sweeter liveFor having something dreadful to forgive.’‘Sadness and change and painShall me for ever stain;For, though my blissful fateBe for a billion years,How shall I stop my tearsThat life was once so low and Love arrived so late!’‘Sadness is beauty’s savour, and pain isThe exceedingly keen edge of bliss;Nor, without swift mutation, would the heav’ns be aught.’‘How to behave with him I’d fain be taught.A maid, meseems, within a God’s embrace,Should bear her like a Goddess, or, at least, a Grace.’‘When Gods, to Man or Maid below,As men or birds appear,A kind ’tis of incognito,And that, not them, is what they choose we should revere.’‘Advise me what oblation vast to bring,Some least part of my worship to confess!’‘A woman is a little thing,And in things little lies her comeliness.’‘Must he not soon with mortal tire to toy?’‘The bashful meeting of strange Depth and HeightBreeds the forever new-born babe, Delight;And, as thy God is more than mortal boy,So bashful more the meeting, and so more the joy.’‘He loves me dearly, but he shakes a whipOf deathless scorpions at my slightest slip.Mother, last night he call’d me “Gipsy,” soRoughly it smote me like a blow!Yet, oh,I love him, as none surely e’er could loveOur People’s pompous but good-natured Jove.Heused to send me stately overture;But marriage-bonds, till now, I never could endure!’‘How should great Jove himself do else than missTo win the woman he forgets to kiss;Or, won, to keep his favour in her eyes,If he’s too soft or sleepy to chastise!By Eros, her twain claims are ne’er forgot;Her wedlock’s marr’d when either’s miss’d:Or when she’s kiss’d, but beaten not,Or duly beaten, but not kiss’d.Ah, Child, the sweetContent, when we’re both kiss’d and beat!—But whence these wounds? What Demon thee enjoinsTo scourge thy shoulders whiteAnd tender loins!’‘’Tis nothing, Mother. Happiness at play,And speech of tenderness no speech can say!’‘How learn’d thou art!Twelve honeymoons profane had taught thy docile heartLess than thine Eros, in a summer night!’‘Nay, do not jeer, but help my puzzled plight:Because he loves so marvellously me,And I with all he loves in love must be,How to except myself I do not see.Yea, now that other vanities are vain,I’m vain, since him it likes, of being withalWeak, foolish, small!’‘How can a Maid forget her ornaments!The Powers, that hopeless doom the proud to die,Unask’d smile pardon upon vanity,Nay, praise it, when themselves are praised thereby.’‘Ill-match’d I am for a God’s blandishments!So great, so wise—’‘Gods, in the abstract, are, no doubt, most wise;But, in the concrete, Girl, they’re mysteries!He’s not with thee,At all less wise nor moreThan human Lover is with her he deigns to adore.He finds a fair capacity,And fills it with himself, and glad would dieFor that sole She.’‘Know’st thou some potion me awake to keep,Lest, to the grief of that ne’er-slumbering Bliss,Disgraced I sleep,Wearied in soul by his bewildering kiss?’‘The Immortals, Psyche, moulded men from sodsThat Maids from them might learn the ways of Gods.Think, would a wakeful Youth his hard fate weep,Lock’d to the tired breast of a Bride asleep?’‘Ah, me, I do not dream,Yet all this does some heathen fable seem!’‘O’ermuch thou mind’st the throne he leaves above!Between unequals sweet is equal love.’‘Nay, Mother, in his breast, when darkness blinds,I cannot for my life but talk and laughWith the large impudence of little minds!’‘Respectful to the Gods and meek,According to one’s lights, I grant’Twere well to be;But, on my word,Child, any one, to hear you speak,Would take you for a Protestant,(Such fish I do foreseeWhen the charm’d fume comes strong on me,)Or powder’d lackey, by some great man’s board,A deal more solemn than his Lord!Know’st thou not, Girl, thine Eros loves to laugh?And shall a God do anything by half?He foreknew and predestinated allThe Great must pay for kissing things so small,And ever loves his little Maid the moreThe more she makes him laugh.’‘O, Mother, are you sure?’‘Gaze steady where yon starless deep the gaze revolts,And say,Seest thou a Titan forging thunderbolts,Or three fair butterflies at lovesome play?And this I’ll add, for succour of thy soul:Lines parallel meet sooner than some think;The least part oft is greater than the whole;And, when you’re thirsty, that’s the time to drink.’‘Thy sacred words I ponder and revere,And thank thee heartily that some are clear.’‘Clear speech to men is mostly speech in vain.Their scope is by themselves so justly scann’d,They still despise the things they understand;But, to a pretty Maid like thee, I don’t mind speaking plain.’‘Then one boon more to her whom strange Fate mocksWith a wife’s duty but no wife’s sweet right:Could I at will but summon my Delight—’‘Thou of thy jewel art the dainty box;Thine is the charm which, any time, unlocks;And this, it seems, thou hitt’st upon last night.Now go, Child! For thy sakeI’ve talk’d till this stiff tripod makes my old limbs ache.’
‘Enough, enough, ambrosial plumed Boy!My bosom is aweary of thy breath.Thou kissest joyTo death.Have pity of my clay-conceived birthAnd maiden’s simple mood,Which longs for ether and infinitude,As thou, being God, crav’st littleness and earth!Thou art immortal, thou canst ever toy,Nor savour lessThe sweets of thine eternal childishness,And hold thy godhead bright in far employ.Me, to quite other custom life-inured,Ah, loose from thy caress.’Tis not to be endured!Undo thine arms and let me see the sky,By this infatuating flame obscured.O, I should feel thee nearer to my heartIf thou and IShone each to each respondently apart,Like stars which one the other trembling spy,Distinct and lucid in extremes of air.O, hear me pray—’‘Be prudent in thy prayer!A God is bond to her who is wholly his,And, should she ask amiss,He may not her beseeched harm deny.’‘Not yet, not yet!’Tis still high day, and half my toil’s to do.How can I toil, if thus thou dost renewToil’s guerdon, which the daytime should forget?The long, long night, when none can work for fear,Sweet fear incessantly consummated,My most divinely Dear,My Joy, my Dread,Will soon be here!Not, Eros, yet!I ask, for Day, the use which is the Wife’s:To bear, apart from thy delight and thee,The fardel coarse of customary life’sExceeding injucundity.Leave me awhile, that I may shew thee clearHow Goddess-like thy love has lifted me;How, seeming lone upon the gaunt, lone shore,I’ll trust thee near,When thou’rt, to knowledge of my heart, no moreThan a dream’s heedOf lost joy track’d in scent of the sea-weed!Leave me to pluck the incomparable flowerOf frailty lion-like fighting in thy name and power;To make thee laugh, in thy safe heaven, to seeWith what grip fellI’ll cling to hope when life draws hard to hell,Yea, cleave to thee when me thou seem’st to slay,Haply, at close of some most cruel day,To find myself in thy reveal’d arms clasp’d,Just when I say,My feet have slipp’d at last!But, lo, while thus I store toil’s slow increase,To be my dower, in patience and in peace,Thou com’st, like bolt from blue, invisibly,With premonition none nor any sign,And, at a gasp, no choice nor fault of mine,Possess’d I am with theeEv’n as a sponge is by a surge of the sea!’‘Thus irresistibly by Love embracedIs she who boasts her more than mortal chaste!’‘Find’st thou me worthy, then, by day and night,But of this fond indignity, delight?’‘Little, bold Femininity,That darest blame Heaven, what would’st thou have or be?’‘Shall I, the gnat which dances in thy ray,Dare to be reverent? Therefore dare I say,I cannot guess the good that I desire;But this I know, I spurn the gifts which HellCan mock till which is which ’tis hard to tell.I love thee, God; yea, and ’twas such assaultAs this which made me thine; if that be fault;But I, thy Mistress, merit should thine ireIf aught so little, transitory and lowAs this which made me thineShould hold me so.’‘Little to thee, my Psyche, is this, but much to me!’‘Ah, if, my God, that be!’‘Yea, Palate fine,That claim’st for thy proud cup the pearl of price,And scorn’st the wine,Accept the sweet, and say ’tis sacrifice!Sleep, Centre to the tempest of my love,And dream thereof,And keep the smile which sleeps within thy faceLike sunny eve in some forgotten place!’
O, Pain, Love’s mystery,Close next of kinTo joy and heart’s delight,Low Pleasure’s opposite,Choice food of sanctityAnd medicine of sin,Angel, whom even they that will pursuePleasure with hell’s whole gustFind that they mustPerversely woo,My lips, thy live coal touching, speak thee true.Thou sear’st my flesh, O Pain,But brand’st for arduous peace my languid brain,And bright’nest my dull view,Till I, for blessing, blessing give again,And my roused spirit isAnother fire of bliss,Wherein I learnFeelingly how the pangful, purging fireShall furiously burnWith joy, not only of assured desire,But also present joyOf seeing the life’s corruption, stain by stain,Vanish in the clear heat of Love irate,And, fume by fume, the sick alloyOf luxury, sloth and hateEvaporate;Leaving the man, so dark erewhile,The mirror merely of God’s smile.Herein, O Pain, abides the praiseFor which my song I raise;But even the bastard good of intermittent easeHow greatly doth it please!With what reposeThe being from its bright exertion glows,When from thy strenuous storm the senses sweepInto a little harbour deepOf rest;When thou, O Pain,Having devour’d the nerves that thee sustain,Sleep’st, till thy tender food be somewhat grownagain;And how the lullWith tear-blind love is full!What mockery of a man am I express’dThat I should wait for theeTo woo!Nor even dare to love, till thou lov’st me.How shameful, too,Is this:That, when thou lov’st, I am at first afraidOf thy fierce kiss,Like a young maid;And only trust thy charmsAnd get my courage in thy throbbing arms.And, when thou partest, what a fickle mindThou leav’st behind,That, being a little absent from mine eye,It straight forgets thee what thou art,And ofttimes my adulterate heartDallies with Pleasure, thy pale enemy.O, for the learned spirit without attaintThat does not faint,But knows both how to have thee and to lack,And ventures many a spell,Unlawful but for them that love so well,To call thee back.
Ponder, ye just, the scoffs that frequent goFrom forth the foe:‘The holders of the Truth in VerityAre people of a harsh and stammering tongue!The hedge-flower hath its song;Meadow and tree,Water and wandering cloudFind Seers who see,And, with convincing music clear and loud,Startle the adder-deafness of the crowdBy tones, O Love, from thee.Views of the unveil’d heavens alone forth bringProphets who cannot sing,Praise that in chiming numbers will not run;At least, from David until Dante, none,And none since him.Fish, and not swim?They think they somehow should, and so they try;But (haply ’tis they screw the pitch too high)’Tis still their fatesTo warble tunes that nails might draw from slates.Poor Seraphim!They mean to spoil our sleep, and do, but all their gainsAre curses for their pains!’Now who but knowsThat truth to learn from foesIs wisdom ripe?Therefore no longer let us stretch our throatsTill hoarse as frogsWith straining after notesWhich but to touch would burst an organ-pipe.Far better be dumb dogs.
A PROLOGUE.
As a young Child, whose Mother, for a jest,To his own use a golden coin flings down,Devises blythe how he may spend it best,Or on a horse, a bride-cake, or a crown,Till, wearied with his quest,Nor liking altogether that nor this,He gives it back for nothing but a kiss,Endow’d so IWith golden speech, my choice of toys to buy,And scanning power and pleasure and renown,Till each in turn, with looking at, looks vain,For her mouth’s bliss,To her who gave it give I it again.Ah, Lady elect,Whom the Time’s scorn has saved from its respect,Would I had artFor uttering this which sings within my heart!But, lo,Thee to admire is all the art I know.My Mother and God’s; Fountain of miracle!Give me thereby some praise of thee to tellIn such a SongAs may my Guide severe and glad not wrongWho never spake till thou’dst on him conferr’dThe right, convincing word!Grant me the steady heatOf thought wise, splendid, sweet,Urged by the great, rejoicing wind that ringsWith draught of unseen wings,Making each phrase, for love and for delight,Twinkle like Sirius on a frosty night!Aid thou thine own dear fame, thou only Fair,At whose petition meekThe Heavens themselves decree that, as it were,They will be weak!Thou Speaker of all wisdom in a Word,Thy Lord!Speaker who thus could’st well affordThence to be silent;—ah, what silence thatWhich had for prologue thy ‘Magnificat?’—O, Silence full of wondersMore than by Moses in the Mount were heard,More than were utter’d by the Seven Thunders;Silence that crowns, unnoted, like the voiceless blue,The loud world’s varying view,And in its holy heart the sense of all things ponders!That acceptably I may speak of thee,Ora pro me!Key-note and stopOf the thunder-going chorus of sky-Powers;Essential dropDistill’d from worlds of sweetest-savour’d flowersTo anoint with nuptial praiseThe Head which for thy Beauty doff’d its rays,And thee, in His exceeding glad descending, meant,And Man’s new daysMade of His deed the adorning accident!Vast Nothingness of Self, fair female TwinOf Fulness, sucking all God’s glory in!(Ah, Mistress mine,To nothing I have added only sin,And yet would shine!)Ora pro me!Life’s cradle and death’s tomb!To lie within whose womb,There, with divine self-will infatuate,Love-captive to the thing He did create,Thy God did not abhor,No moreThan Man, in Youth’s high spousal-tide,Abhors at last to touchThe strange lips of his long-procrastinating Bride;Nay, not the least imagined part as much!Ora pro me!My Lady, yea, the Lady of my Lord,Who didst the first descryThe burning secret of virginity,We know with what reward!Prism wherebyAlone we seeHeav’n’s light in its triplicity;Rainbow complexIn bright distinction of all beams of sex,Shining for ayeIn the simultaneous sky,To One, thy Husband, Father, Son, and Brother,Spouse blissful, Daughter, Sister, milk-sweet Mother;Ora pro me!Mildness, whom God obeys, obeying thyselfHim in thy joyful Saint, nigh lost to sightIn the great gulfOf his own glory and thy neighbour light;With whom thou wast as else with husband noneFor perfect fruit of inmost amity;Who felt for theeSuch rapture of refusal that no kissEver seal’d wedlock so conjoint with bliss;And whose good singular eternally’Tis now, with nameless peace and vehemence,To enjoy thy married smile,That mystery of innocence;Ora pro me!Sweet Girlhood without guile,The extreme of God’s creative energy;Sunshiny Peak of human personality;The world’s sad aspirations’ one Success;Bright Blush, that sav’st our shame from shamelessness;Chief Stone of stumbling; Sign built in the wayTo set the foolish everywhere a-bray;Hem of God’s robe, which all who touch are heal’d;To which the outside Many honour yieldWith a reward and graceUnguess’d by the unwash’d boor that hails Him to His face,Spurning the safe, ingratiant courtesyOf suing Him by thee;Ora pro me!Creature of God rather the sole than first;Knot of the cordWhich binds together all and all unto their Lord;Suppliant Omnipotence; best to the worst;Our only Saviour from an abstract ChristAnd Egypt’s brick-kilns, where the lost crowd plods,Blaspheming its false Gods;Peace-beaming Star, by which shall come enticed,Though nought thereof as yet they weet,Unto thy Babe’s small feet,The Mighty, wand’ring disemparadised,Like Lucifer, because to theeThey will not bend the knee;Ora pro me!Desire of Him whom all things else desire!Bush aye with Him as He with thee on fire!Neither in His great Deed nor on His throne—O, folly of Love, the intenseLast culmination of Intelligence,—Him seem’d it good that God should be alone!Basking in unborn laughter of thy lips,Ere the world was, with absolute delightHis Infinite reposed in thy Finite;Well-match’d: He, universal being’s Spring,And thou, in whom are gather’d up the ends of everything!Ora pro me!In season due, on His sweet-fearful bed,Rock’d by an earthquake, curtain’d with eclipse,Thou shar’d’st the rapture of the sharp spear’s head,And thy bliss paleWrought for our boon what Eve’s did for our bale;Thereafter, holding a little thy soft breath,Thou underwent’st the ceremony of death;And, now, Queen-Wife,Sitt’st at the right hand of the Lord of Life,Who, of all bounty, craves for only feeThe glory of hearing it besought with smiles by thee!Ora pro me!Mother, who lead’st me still by unknown ways,Giving the gifts I know not how to ask,Bless thou the workWhich, done, redeems my many wasted days,Makes white the murk,And crowns the few which thou wilt not dispraise.When clear my Songs of Lady’s graces rang,And little guess’d I ’twas of thee I sang!Vainly, till now, my pray’rs would thee compelTo fire my verse with thy shy fame, too longShunning world-blazon of well-ponder’d song;But doubtful smiles, at last, ’mid thy denials lurk;From which I spell,‘Humility and greatness grace the taskWhich he who does it deems impossible!’
‘Thou dost not wisely, Bard.A double voice is Truth’s, to use at will:One, with the abysmal scorn of good for ill,Smiting the brutish ear with doctrine hard,Wherein She strives to look as near a lieAs can comport with her divinity;The other tender-soft as seemThe embraces of a dead Love in a dream.These thoughts, which you have sungIn the vernacular,Should be, as others of the Church’s are,Decently cloak’d in the Imperial Tongue.Have you no fearsLest, as Lord Jesus bids your sort to dread,Yon acorn-munchers rend you limb from limb,You, with Heaven’s liberty affronting theirs!’So spoke my monitor; but I to him,‘Alas, and is not mine a language dead?’
Whene’er mine eyes do my Amelia greetIt is with such emotionAs when, in childhood, turning a dim street,I first beheld the ocean.There, where the little, bright, surf-breathing town,That shew’d me first her beauty and the sea,Gathers its skirts against the gorse-lit downAnd scatters gardens o’er the southern lea,Abides this MaidWithin a kind, yet sombre Mother’s shade,Who of her daughter’s graces seems almost afraid,Viewing them ofttimes with a scared forecast,Caught, haply, from obscure love-peril past.Howe’er that be,She scants me of my right,Is cunning careful evermore to balkSweet separate talk,And fevers my delightBy frets, if, on Amelia’s cheek of peach,I touch the notes which music cannot reach,Bidding ‘Good-night!’Wherefore it came that, till to-day’s dear date,I curs’d the weary months which yet I have to waitEre I find heaven, one-nested with my mate.To-day, the Mother gave,To urgent pleas and promise to behaveAs she were there, her long-besought consentTo trust Amelia with me to the graveWhere lay my once-betrothed, Millicent:‘For,’ said she, hiding ill a moistening eye,‘Though, Sir, the word sounds hard,God makes as if He least knew how to guardThe treasure He loves best, simplicity.’And there Amelia stood, for fairness shewnLike a young apple-tree, in flush’d arrayOf white and ruddy flow’r, auroral, gay,With chilly blue the maiden branch between;And yet to look on her moved less the mindTo say ‘How beauteous!’ than ‘How good and kind!’And so we went aloneBy walls o’er which the lilac’s numerous plumeShook down perfume;Trim plots close blownWith daisies, in conspicuous myriads seen,Engross’d each oneWith single ardour for her spouse, the sun;Garths in their glad arrayOf white and ruddy branch, auroral, gay,With azure chill the maiden flow’r between;Meadows of fervid green,With sometime sudden prospect of untoldCowslips, like chance-found gold;And broadcast buttercups at joyful gaze,Rending the air with praise,Like the six-hundred-thousand-voiced shoutOf Jacob camp’d in Midian put to rout;Then through the Park,Where Spring to livelier gloomQuicken’d the cedars dark,And, ’gainst the clear sky cold,Which shone afarCrowded with sunny alps oracular,Great chestnuts raised themselves abroad like cliffs of bloom;And everywhere,Amid the ceaseless rapture of the lark,With wonder newWe caught the solemn voice of single air,‘Cuckoo!’And when Amelia, ’bolden’d, saw and heardHow bravely sang the bird,And all things in God’s bounty did rejoice,She who, her Mother by, spake seldom word,Did her charm’d silence doff,And, to my happy marvel, her dear voiceWent as a clock does, when the pendulum’s off.Ill Monarch of man’s heart the Maiden whoDoes not aspire to be High-Pontiff too!So she repeated soft her Poet’s line,‘By grace divine,Not otherwise, O Nature, are we thine!’And I, up the bright steep she led me, trod,And the like thought pursuedWith, ‘What is gladness without gratitude,And where is gratitude without a God?’And of delight, the guerdon of His laws,She spake, in learned mood;And I, of Him loved reverently, as Cause,Her sweetly, as Occasion of all good.Nor were we shy,For souls in heaven that beMay talk of heaven without hypocrisy.And now, when we drew nearThe low, gray Church, in its sequester’d dell,A shade upon me fell.Dead Millicent indeed had been most sweet,But I how little meetTo call such graces in a Maiden mine!A boy’s proud passion free affection blunts;His well-meant flatteries oft are blind affronts;And many a tearWas Millicent’s before I, manlier, knewThat maidens shineAs diamonds do,Which, though most clear,Are not to be seen through;And, if she put her virgin self asideAnd sate her, crownless, at my conquering feet,It should have bred in me humility, not pride.Amelia had more luck than Millicent:Secure she smiled and warm from all mischanceOr from my knowledge or my ignorance,And glow’d contentWith my—some might have thought too much—superior age,Which seem’d the gageOf steady kindness all on her intent.Thus nought forebade us to be fully blent.While, therefore, nowHer pensive footstep stirr’dThe darnell’d garden of unheedful death,She ask’d what Millicent was like, and heardOf eyes like her’s, and honeysuckle breath,And of a wiser than a woman’s brow,Yet fill’d with only woman’s love, and howAn incidental greatness character’dHer unconsider’d ways.But all my praiseAmelia thought too slight for Millicent,And on my lovelier-freighted arm she leant,For more attent;And the tea-rose I gave,To deck her breast, she dropp’d upon the grave.‘And this was her’s,’ said I, decoring with a bandOf mildest pearls Amelia’s milder hand.‘Nay, I will wear it forhersake,’ she said:For dear to maidens are their rivals dead.And so,She seated on the black yew’s tortured root,I on the carpet of sere shreds below,And nigh the little mound where lay that other,I kiss’d her lips three times without dispute,And, with bold worship suddenly aglow,I lifted to my lips a sandall’d foot,And kiss’d it three times thrice without dispute.Upon my head her fingers fell like snow,Her lamb-like hands about my neck she wreathed.Her arms like slumber o’er my shoulders crept,And with her bosom, whence the azalea breathed,She did my face full favourably smother,To hide the heaving secret that she wept!Now would I keep my promise to her Mother;Now I arose, and raised her to her feet,My best Amelia, fresh-born from a kiss,Moth-like, full-blown in birthdew shuddering sweet,With great, kind eyes, in whose brown shadeBright Venus and her Baby play’d!At inmost heart well pleased with one another,What time the slant sun lowThrough the plough’d field does each clod sharply shew,And softly fillsWith shade the dimples of our homeward hills,With little said,We left the ‘wilder’d garden of the dead,And gain’d the gorse-lit shoulder of the downThat keeps the north-wind from the nestling town,And caught, once more, the vision of the wave,Where, on the horizon’s dip,A many-sailed shipPursued alone her distant purpose grave;And, by steep steps rock-hewn, to the dim streetI led her sacred feet;And so the Daughter gave,Soft, moth-like, sweet,Showy as damask-rose and shy as musk,Back to her Mother, anxious in the dusk.And now ‘Good-night!’Me shall the phantom months no more affright.For heaven’s gates to open well waits heWho keeps himself the key.
Felicity!Who ope’st to none that knocks, yet, laughing weak,Yield’st all to Love that will not seek,And who, though won, wilt droop and die,Unless wide doors bespeak thee free,How safe’s the bond of thee and me,Since thee I cherish and defy!Is’t Love or Friendship, Dearest, we obey?Ah, thou art young, and I am gray;But happy man is he who knowsHow well time goes,With no unkind intruder by,Between such friends as thou and I!’Twould wrong thy favour, Sweet, were I to say,’Tis best by far,When best things are not possible,To make the best of those that are;For, though it be not May,Sure, few delights of Spring excelThe beauty of this mild September day!So with me walk,And view the dreaming field and bossy Autumn wood,And how in humble russet goesThe Spouse of Honour, fair Repose,Far from a world whence love is fledAnd truth is dying because joy is dead;And, if we hear the roaring wheelOf God’s remoter service, public zeal,Let us to stiller place retireAnd glad admireHow, near Him, sounds of working ceaseIn little fervour and much peace;And let us talkOf holy things in happy mood,Learnt of thy blest twin-sister, Certitude;Or let’s about our neighbours chat,Well praising this, less praising that,And judging outer strangers byThose gentle and unsanction’d linesTo which remorse of equityOf old hath moved the School divines.Or linger where this willow bends,And let us, till the melody be caught,Harken that sudden, singing thought,On which unguess’d increase to life perchance depends.He ne’er hears twice the same who hearsThe songs of heaven’s unanimous spheres,And this may be the song to make, at last, amendsFor many sighs and boons in vain long sought!Now, careless, let us stray, or stopTo see the partridge from the covey drop,Or, while the evening air’s like yellow wine,From the pure stream take outThe playful trout,That jerks with rasping check the struggled line;Or to the Farm, where, high on trampled stacks,The labourers stir themselves amainTo feed with hasty sheaves of grainThe deaf’ning engine’s boisterous maw,And snatch again,From to-and-fro tormenting racks,The toss’d and hustled straw;Whilst others tend the shedded wheatThat fills yon row of shuddering sacks,Or shift them quick, and bind them neat,And dogs and boys with sticksWait, murderous, for the rats that leave the ruin’d ricks;And, all the bags being fill’d and rank’d fivefold, they pourThe treasure on the barn’s clean floor,And take them back for more,Until the whole bared harvest beauteous liesUnder our pleased and prosperous eyes.Then let us give our idlest hourTo the world’s wisdom and its power;Hear famous Golden-Tongue refuseTo gander sauce that’s good for goose,Or the great Clever Party conHow many grains of sifted sand,Heap’d, make a likely house to stand,How many fools one Solomon.Science, beyond all other lustEndow’d with appetite for dust,We glance at where it grunts, well-sty’d,And pass upon the other side.Pass also by, in pensive mood,Taught by thy kind twin-sister, Certitude,Yon puzzled crowd, whose tired intentHunts like a pack without a scent.And now come home,Where none of our mild daysCan fail, though simple, to confessThe magic of mysteriousness;For there ’bide charming Wonders three,Besides, Sweet, thee,To comprehend whose commonest ways,Ev’n could that be,Were coward’s ’vantage and no true man’s praise.
Say, did his sisters wonder what could Joseph seeIn a mild, silent little Maid like thee?And was it awful, in that narrow house,With God for Babe and Spouse?Nay, like thy simple, female sort, each oneApt to find Him in Husband and in Son,Nothing to thee came strange in this.Thy wonder was but wondrous bliss:Wondrous, for, thoughTrue Virgin lives not but does know,(Howbeit none ever yet confess’d,)That God lies really in her breast,Of thine He made His special nest!And soAll mothers worship little feet,And kiss the very ground they’ve trod;But, ah, thy little Baby sweetWho was indeed thy God!
The Heavens repeat no other Song,And, plainly or in parable,The Angels trust, in each man’s tongue,The Treasure’s safety to its size.In shameful HellThe Lily in last corruption lies,Where known ’tis, rotten-lily-wise,By the strange foulness of the smell.Earth, that, in this arcanum, spiesProof of high kinship unconceiv’d,By all desired and disbeliev’d,Shews fancies, in each thing that is,Which nothing mean, not meaning this,Yea, does from her own law, to hint it, err,As ’twere a trust too huge for her.Maiden and Youth pipe wondrous clearThe tune they are the last to hear.’Tis the strange gem in Pleasure’s cup.Physician and Philosopher,In search of acorns, plough it up,But count it nothing ’mong their gains;Nay, call it pearl, they’d answer, ‘Lo,Blest Land where pearls as large as pumpkins grow!’And would not even rend you for your pains.To tell men truth, yet keep them darkAnd shooting still beside the mark,God, as in jest, gave to their wish,The Sign of Jonah and the Fish.’Tis the name new, on the white stone,To none but them that have it known;And even these can scarce believe, but cry,‘When turn’d was Sion’s captivity,Then were we, yea, and yet we seemLike them that dream!’In Spirit ’tis a punctual rayOf peace that sheds more light than day;In Will and Mind’Tis the easy path so hard to find;In Heart, a pain not to be told,Were words mere honey, milk, and gold;I’ the Body ’tis the bag of the bee;In all, the present, thousandfold amendsMade to the sad, astonish’d lifeOf him that leaves house, child, and wife,And on God’s ’hest, almost despairing, wends,As little guessing as the herdWhat a strange Phoenix of a birdBuilds in this tree,But only intending all that He intends.To this, the Life of them that live,If God would not, thus far, give tongue,Ah, why did He his secret giveTo one that has the gift of song?But all He does He doubtless means,And, if the Mystery that smites Prophets dumbHere, to the grace-couch’d eyes of some,Shapes to its living face the clinging shroud,Perchance the Skies grow tired of screens,And ’tis His Advent in the Cloud.
With fetters gold her captivated feetLay, sunny sweet;In that palm was the poppy, Sleep; in thisThe apple, Bliss;Against the mild side of his Spouse and MotherOne small God throve, and in’t, meseem’d, another.By these a Death-in-Life did foully breatheOut of a face that was one grate of teeth.Lift, O kind Angels, lift her eyelids loth,Lest he devour her and her Godlets both!
Whate’er thou dost thou’rt dear.Uncertain troubles sanctifyThat magic well-spring of the willing tear,Thine eye.Thy jealous fear,With not the rustle of a rival near;Thy careless disregard of allMy tenderest care;Thy dumb despairWhen thy keen wit my worship may construeInto contempt of thy divinity;They please me too!But should it once befallThese accidental charms to disappear,Leaving withalThy sometime self the same throughout the year,So glowing, grave and shy,Kind, talkative and dearAs now thou sitt’st to plyThe fireside tuneOf that neat engine deft at which thou sew’stWith fingers mild and foot like the new moon,O, then what cross of any further fateCould my content abate?Forget, then, (but I knowThou canst not so,)Thy customs of some praediluvian state.I am no Bullfinch, fair my Butterfly,That thou should’st tryThose zigzag courses, in the welkin clear;Nor cruel Boy that, fledd’st thou straightOr paused, mayhapMight catch thee, for thy colours, with his cap.
‘What, no crown won,These two whole years,By man of fortitude beyond his peers,In Thrace or Macedon?’‘No, none.But what deep trouble does my Lycon feel,And hide ’neath chat about the commonweal?’‘Glaucé but now the third time did againThe thing which I forbade. I had to box her ears.’Twas ill to see her both blue eyesSettled in tearsDespairing on the skies,And the poor lip all pucker’d into pain;Yet, for her sake, from kisses to refrain!’‘Ho, Timocles, take downThat crown.No, not that common one for blood with extreme valour spilt,But yonder, with the berries gilt.’Tis, Lycon, thy just meed.To inflict unmovedAnd firm to bear the woes of the BelovedIs fortitude indeed.’
No praise to me!My joy ’twas to be nothing but the glassThro’ which the general boon of Heaven should pass,To focus upon thee.Nor is’t thy blameThou first should’st glow, and, after, fade i’ the flame.It takes more mightThan God has given thee, Dear, so long to feel delight.Shall I, alas,Reproach thee with thy change and my regret?Blind fumblers that we beAbout the portals of felicity!The wind of words would scatter, tears would washQuite out the little heatBeneath the silent and chill-seeming ash,Perchance, still slumbering sweet.
{29}In this year the middle and upper classes were disfranchised by Mr. Disraeli’s Government, and the finaldestruction of the liberties of England by the Act of 1884 rendered inevitable.
{35}The Alabama Treaty.
{62}This Piece was written in the year 1874, soon after the publication of an incendiary pamphlet by Mr. Gladstone against the English Catholics, occasioned by the Vatican Council.