This circled cosmos whereof man is godHas suns and stars of green and gold and red,And cloudlands of great smoke, that range o'er rangeFar floating, hide its iron heavens o'erhead.God! shall we ever honour what we are,And see one moment ere the age expire,The vision of man shouting and erect,Whirled by the shrieking steeds of flood and fire?Or must Fate act the same grey farce again,And wait, till one, amid Time's wrecks and scars,Speaks to a ruin here, 'What poet-raceShot such cyclopean arches at the stars?'
Many have Earth's lovers been,Tried in seas and wars, I ween;Yet the mightiest have I seen:Yea, the best saw I.One that in a field aloneStood up stiller than a stoneLest a moth should fly.Birds had nested in his hair,On his shoon were mosses rare.Insect empires flourished there,Worms in ancient wars;But his eyes burn like a glass,Hearing a great sea of grassRoar towards the stars.From, them to the human treeRose a cry continually,'Thou art still, our Father, weFain would have thee nod.Make the skies as blood below thee,Though thou slay us, we shall know thee.Answer us, O God!'Show thine ancient flame and thunder,Split the stillness once asunder,Lest we whisper, lest we wonderArt thou there at all?'But I saw him there alone,Standing stiller than a stoneLest a moth should fall.
(W.E.G., May 1898)Lift up your heads: in life, in death,God knoweth his head was high.Quit we the coward's broken breathWho watched a strong man die.If we must say, 'No more his peerCometh; the flag is furled.'Stand not too near him, lest he hearThat slander on the world.The good green earth he loved and trodIs still, with many a scar,Writ in the chronicles of God,A giant-bearing star.He fell: but Britain's banner swingsAbove his sunken crown.Black death shall have his toll of kingsBefore that cross goes down.Once more shall move with mighty thingsHis house of ancient tale,Where kings whose hands were kissed of kingsWent in: and came out pale.O young ones of a darker day,In art's wan colours clad,Whose very love and hate are grey—Whose very sin is sad.Pass on: one agony long-drawnWas merrier than your mirth,When hand-in-hand came death and dawn,And spring was on the earth.
Priest, is any song-bird stricken?Is one leaf less on the tree?Is this wine less red and royalThat the hangman waits for me?He upon your cross that hangeth,It is writ of priestly pen,On the night they built his gibbet,Drank red wine among his men.Quaff, like a brave man, as he did,Wine and death as heaven pours—This is my fate: O ye rulers,O ye pontiffs, what is yours?To wait trembling, lest yon loathlyGallows-shape whereon I die,In strange temples yet unbuilded,Blaze upon an altar high.
I saw an old man like a child,His blue eyes bright, his white hair wild,Who turned for ever, and might not stop,Round and round like an urchin's top.'Fool,' I cried, 'while you spin round,'Others grow wise, are praised, are crowned.'Ever the same round road he trod,'This is better: I seek for God.''We see the whole world, left and right,Yet at the blind back hides from sightThe unseen Master that drives us forthTo East and West, to South and North.'Over my shoulder for eighty yearsI have looked for the gleam of the sphere of spheres.''In all your turning, what have you found?''At least, I know why the world goes round.'
Though the whole heaven be one-eyed with the moon,Though the dead landscape seem a thing possessed,Yet I go singing through that land oppressedAs one that singeth through the flowers of June.No more, with forest-fingers crawling freeO'er dark flint wall that seems a wall of eyes,Shall evil break my soul with mysteriesOf some world-poison maddening bush and tree.No more shall leering ghosts of pimp and kingWith bloody secrets veiled before me stand.Last night I held all evil in my handClosed: and behold it was a little thing.I broke the infernal gates and looked on himWho fronts the strong creation with a curse;Even the god of a lost universe,Smiling above his hideous cherubim.And pierced far down in his soul's crypt unrivenThe last black crooked sympathy and shame,And hailed him with that ringing rainbow nameErased upon the oldest book in heaven.Like emptied idiot masks, sin's loves and warsStare at me now: for in the night I brokeThe bubble of a great world's jest, and wokeLaughing with laughter such as shakes the stars.
'Elder father, though thine eyesShine with hoary mysteries,Canst thou tell what in the heartOf a cowslip blossom lies?'Smaller than all lives that be,Secret as the deepest sea,Stands a little house of seeds,Like an elfin's granary,'Speller of the stones and weeds,Skilled in Nature's crafts and creeds,Tell me what is in the heartOf the smallest of the seeds.''God Almighty, and with HimCherubim and Seraphim,Filling all eternity—Adonai Elohim.'
I dreamed a dream of heaven, white as frost,The splendid stillness of a living host;Vast choirs of upturned faces, line o'er line.Then my blood froze; for every face was mine.Spirits with sunset plumage throng and pass,Glassed darkly in the sea of gold and glass.But still on every side, in every spot,I saw a million selves, who saw me not.I fled to quiet wastes, where on a stone,Perchance, I found a saint, who sat alone;I came behind: he turned with slow, sweet grace,And faced me with my happy, hateful face.I cowered like one that in a tower doth bide,Shut in by mirrors upon every side;Then I saw, islanded in skies aloneAnd silent, one that sat upon a throne.His robe was bordered with rich rose and gold,Green, purple, silver out of sunsets old;But o'er his face a great cloud edged with fire,Because it covereth the world's desire.But as I gazed, a silent worshipper,Methought the cloud began to faintly stir;Then I fell flat, and screamed with grovelling head,'If thou hast any lightning, strike me dead!'But spare a brow where the clean sunlight fell,The crown of a new sin that sickens hell.Let me not look aloft and see mine ownFeature and form upon the Judgment-throne.'Then my dream snapped: and with a heart that leaptI saw across the tavern where I slept,The sight of all my life most full of grace,A gin-damned drunkard's wan half-witted face.
Before the grass grew over me,I knew one good man through and through,And knew a soul and body joinedAre stronger than the heavens are blue.A wisdom worthy of thy joy,O great heart, read I as I ran;Now, though men smite me on the face,I cannot curse the face of man.I loved the man I saw yestreenHanged with his babe's blood on his palms.I loved the man I saw to-dayWho knocked not when he came with alms.Hush!—for thy sake I even facedThe knowledge that is worse than hell;And loved the man I saw but nowHanging head downwards in the well.
Witness all: that unrepenting,Feathers flying, music high,I go down to death unshakenBy your mean philosophy.For your wages, take my body,That at least to you I leave;Set the sulky plumes upon it,Bid the grinning mummers grieve.Stand in silence: steep your raimentIn the night that hath no star;Don the mortal dress of devils,Blacker than their spirits are.Since ye may not, of your mercy,Ere I lie on such a hearse,Hurl me to the living jackalsGod hath built for sepulchres.
This is the weird of a world-old folk,That not till the last link breaks,Not till the night is blackest,The blood of Hengist wakes.When the sun is black in heaven,The moon as blood above,And the earth is full of hatred,This people tells its love.In change, eclipse, and peril,Under the whole world's scorn,By blood and death and darknessThe Saxon peace is sworn;That all our fruit be gathered,And all our race take hands,And the sea be a Saxon riverThat runs through Saxon lands.Lo! not in vain we bore him;Behold it! not in vain,Four centuries' dooms of tortureChoked in the throat of Spain,Ere priest or tyrant triumph—We know how well—we know—Bone of that bone can whiten,Blood of that blood can flow.Deep grows the hate of kindred,Its roots take hold on hell;No peace or praise can heal it,But a stranger heals it well.Seas shall be red as sunsets,And kings' bones float as foam,And heaven be dark with vultures,The night our son comes home.
A child sits in a sunny place,Too happy for a smile,And plays through one long holidayWith balls to roll and pile;A painted wind-mill by his sideRuns like a merry tune,But the sails are the four great winds of heaven,And the balls are the sun and moon.A staring doll's-house shows to himGreen floors and starry rafter,And many-coloured graven dollsLive for his lonely laughter.The dolls have crowns and aureoles,Helmets and horns and wings.For they are the saints and seraphim,The prophets and the kings.
A wan new garment of young greenTouched, as you turned your soft brown hairAnd in me surged the strangest prayerEver in lover's heart hath been.That I who saw your youth's bright page,A rainbow change from robe to robe,Might see you on this earthly globe,Crowned with the silver crown of age.Your dear hair powdered in strange guise,Your dear face touched with colours pale:And gazing through the mask and veilThe mirth of your immortal eyes.
Name not his deed: in shuddering and in hasteWe dragged him darkly o'er the windy fell:That night there was a gibbet in the waste,And a new sin in hell.Be his deed hid from commonwealths and kings,By all men born be one true tale forgot;But three things, braver than all earthly things,Faced him and feared him not.Above his head and sunken secret faceNested the sparrow's young and dropped not dead.From the red blood and slime of that lost placeGrew daisies white, not red.And from high heaven looking upon him,Slowly upon the face of God did comeA smile the cherubim and seraphimHid all their faces from.
A wan sky greener than the lawn,A wan lawn paler than the sky.She gave a flower into my hand,And all the hours of eve went by.Who knows what round the corner waitsTo smite? If shipwreck, snare, or slurShall leave me with a head to lift,Worthy of him that spoke with her.A wan sky greener than the lawn,A wan lawn paler than the sky.She gave a flower into my hand,And all the days of life went by.Live ill or well, this thing is mine,From all I guard it, ill or well.One tawdry, tattered, faded flowerTo show the jealous kings in hell.
Laugh your best, O blazoned forests,Me ye shall not shift or shameWith your beauty: here among youMan hath set his spear of flame.Lamp to lamp we send the signal,For our lord goes forth to war;Since a voice, ere stars were builded,Bade him colonise a star.Laugh ye, cruel as the morning,Deck your heads with fruit and flower,Though our souls be sick with pity,Yet our hands are hard with power.We have read your evil stories,We have heard the tiny yellThrough the voiceless conflagrationOf your green and shining hell.And when men, with fires and shouting,Break your old tyrannic pales;And where ruled a single spiderLaugh and weep a million tales.This shall be your best of boasting:That some poet, poor of spine.Full and sated with our wisdom,Full and fiery with our wine,Shall steal out and make a treatyWith the grasses and the showers,Rail against the grey town-mother,Fawn upon the scornful flowers;Rest his head among the roses,Where a quiet song-bird sounds,And no sword made sharp for traitors,Hack him into meat for hounds.
You that have snarled through the ages, take your answer and go—I know your hoary question, the riddle that all men know.You have weighed the stars in a balance, and grasped the skies in a span:Take, if you must have answer, the word of a common man.Deep in my life lies buried one love unhealed, unshriven,One hunger still shall haunt me—yea, in the streets of heaven;This is the burden, babbler, this is the curse shall cling,This is the thing I bring you; this is the pleasant thing.'Gainst you and all your sages, no joy of mine shall strive,This one dead self shall shatter the men you call alive.My grief I send to smite you, no pleasure, no belief,Lord of the battered grievance, what do you know of grief?I only know the praises to heaven that one man gave,That he came on earth for an instant, to stand beside a grave,The peace of a field of battle, where flowers are born of blood.I only know one evil that makes the whole world good.Beneath this single sorrow the globe of moon and sphereTurns to a single jewel, so bright and brittle and dearThat I dread lest God should drop it, to be dashed into stars below.You that have snarled through the ages, take your answer and go.
All things grew upwards, foul and fair:The great trees fought and beat the airWith monstrous wings that would have flown;But the old earth clung to her own,Holding them back from heavenly wars,Though every flower sprang at the stars.But he broke free: while all things ceased,Some hour increasing, he increased.The town beneath him seemed a map,Above the church he cocked his cap,Above the cross his feather flewAbove the birds and still he grew.The trees turned grass; the clouds were riven;His feet were mountains lost in heaven;Through strange new skies he rose alone,The earth fell from him like a stone,And his own limbs beneath him farSeemed tapering down to touch a star.He reared his head, shaggy and grim,Staring among the cherubim;The seven celestial floors he rent,One crystal dome still o'er him bent:Above his head, more clear than hope,All heaven was a microscope.
Fair faces crowd on Christmas nightLike seven suns a-row,But all beyond is the wolfish windAnd the crafty feet of the snow.But through the rout one figure goesWith quick and quiet tread;Her robe is plain, her form is frail—Wait if she turn her head.I say no word of line or hue,But if that face you see,Your soul shall know the smile of faith'sAwful frivolity.Know that in this grotesque old masqueToo loud we cannot sing,Or dance too wild, or speak too wideTo praise a hidden thing.That though the jest be old as night,Still shaketh sun and sphereAn everlasting laughterToo loud for us to hear.
The sun was black with judgment, and the moonBlood: but betweenI saw a man stand, saying, 'To me at leastThe grass is green.'There was no star that I forgot to fearWith love and wonder.The birds have loved me'; but no answer came—Only the thunder.Once more the man stood, saying, 'A cottage door,Wherethrough I gazedThat instant as I turned—yea, I am vile;Yet my eyes blazed.'For I had weighed the mountains in a balance,And the skies in a scale,I come to sell the stars—old lamps for new—Old stars for sale.'Then a calm voice fell all the thunder through,A tone less rough:'Thou hast begun to love one of my worksAlmost enough.'
We will not let thee be, for thou art ours.We thank thee still, though thou forget these things,For that hour's sake when thou didst wake all powersWith a great cry that God was sick of kings.Leave thee there grovelling at their rusted greaves,These hulking cowards on a painted stage,Who, with imperial pomp and laurel leaves,Show their Marengo—one man in a cage.These, for whom stands no type or title givenIn all the squalid tales of gore and pelf;Though cowed by crashing thunders from all heaven.Cain never said, 'My brother slew himself.'Tear you the truth out of your drivelling spy,The maniac whom you set to swing death's scythe.Nay; torture not the torturer—let him lie:What need of racks to teach a worm to writhe?Bear with us, O our sister, not in pride,Nor any scorn we see thee spoiled of knaves,But only shame to hear, where Danton died,Thy foul dead kings all laughing in their graves.Thou hast a right to rule thyself; to beThe thing thou wilt; to grin, to fawn, to creep:To crown these clumsy liars; ay, and weWho knew thee once, we have a right to weep.
'What of vile dust?' the preacher said.Methought the whole world woke,The dead stone lived beneath my foot,And my whole body spoke.'You, that play tyrant to the dust,And stamp its wrinkled face,This patient star that flings you notFar into homeless space.'Come down out of your dusty shrineThe living dust to see,The flowers that at your sermon's endStand blazing silently.'Rich white and blood-red blossom; stones,Lichens like fire encrust;A gleam of blue, a glare of gold,The vision of the dust.'Pass them all by: till, as you comeWhere, at a city's edge,Under a tree—I know it well—Under a lattice ledge,'The sunshine falls on one brown head.You, too, O cold of clay,Eater of stones, may haply hearThe trumpets of that day'When God to all his paladinsBy his own splendour sworeTo make a fairer face than heaven,Of dust and nothing more.'
Five kings rule o'er the Amorite,Mighty as fear and old as night;Swathed with unguent and gold and jewel,Waxed they merry and fat and cruel.Zedek of Salem, a terror and glory,Whose face was hid while his robes were gory;And Hoham of Hebron, whose loathly face isHeavy and dark o'er the ruin of races;And Piram of Jarmuth, drunk with strange wine,Who dreamed he had fashioned all stars that shine;And Debir of Eglon wild, without pity,Who raged like a plague in the midst of his city;And Japhia of Lachish, a fire that flameth,Who did in the daylight what no man nameth.These five kings said one to another,'King unto king o'er the world is brother,Seeing that now, for a sign and a wonder,A red eclipse and a tongue of thunder,A shape and a finger of desolation,Is come against us a kingless nation.Gibeon hath failed us: it were not goodThat a man remember where Gibeon stood.'Then Gibeon sent to our captain, crying,'Son of Nun, let a shaft be flying,For unclean birds are gathering greedily;Slack not thy hand, but come thou speedily.Yea, we are lost save thou maintain'st us,For the kings of the mountains are gathered against us.'Then to our people spake the Deliverer,'Gibeon is high, yet a host may shiver her;Gibeon hath sent to me crying for pity,For the lords of the cities encompass the cityWith chariot and banner and bowman and lancer,And I swear by the living God I will answer.Gird you, O Israel, quiver and javelin,Shield and sword for the road we travel in;Verily, as I have promised, pay ILife unto Gibeon, death unto Ai.'Sudden and still as a bolt shot rightUp on the city we went by night.Never a bird of the air could say,'This was the children of Israel's way.'Only the hosts sprang up from sleeping,Saw from the heights a dark stream sweeping;Sprang up straight as a great shout stung them,And heard the Deliverer's war-cry among them,Heard under cupola, turret, and steepleThe awful cry of the kingless people.Started the weak of them, shouted the strong of them,Crashed we a thunderbolt into the throng of them,Blindly with heads bent, and shields forced before us,We heard the dense roar of the strife closing o'er us.And drunk with the crash of the song that it sung them,We drove the great spear-blade in God's name among them.Redder and redder the sword-flash fell.Our eyes and our nostrils were hotter than hell;Till full all the crest of the spear-surge shocking us,Hoham of Hebron cried out mocking us,'Nay, what need of the war-sword's plying,Out of the desert the dust comes flying.A little red dust, if the wind be blowing—Who shall reck of its coming or going?'Back the Deliverer spake as a clarion,'Mock at thy slaves, thou eater of carrion!Laughest thou at us, in thy kingly clowning,We, that laughed upon Ramases frowning.We that stood up proud, unpardoned,When his face was dark and his heart was hardened?Pharaoh we knew and his steeds, not fasterThan the word of the Lord in thine ear, O master.Sheer through the turban his wantons wove him,Clean to the skull the Deliverer clove him;And the two hosts reeled at the sign appalling,As the great king fell like a great house falling.Loudly we shouted, and living and dying.Bore them all backward with strength and strong crying;And Caleb struck Zedek hard at the throat,And Japhia of Lachish Zebulon smote.The war-swords and axes were clashing and groaning,The fallen were fighting and foaming and moaning;The war-spears were breaking, the war-horns were braying,Ere the hands of the slayers were sated with slaying.And deep in the grasses grown gory and sodden,The treaders of all men were trampled and trodden;And over them, routed and reeled like cattle,High over the turn of the tide of the battle,High over noises that deafen and cover us,Rang the Deliverer's voice out over us.'Stand thou still, thou sun upon Gibeon,Stand thou, moon, in the valley of Ajalon!Shout thou, people, a cry like thunder,For the kings of the earth are broken asunder.Now we have said as the thunder says it,Something is stronger than strength and slays it.Now we have written for all time later,Five kings are great, yet a law is greater.Stare, O sun! in thine own great glory,This is the turn of the whole world's story.Stand thou still, thou sun upon Gibeon,Stand thou, moon, in the valley of Ajalon!'Smite! amid spear-blades blazing and breaking.More than we know of is rising and making.Stab with the javelin, crash with the car!Cry! for we know not the thing that we are.Stand, O sun! that in horrible patienceSmiled on the smoke and the slaughter of nations.Thou shalt grow sad for a little crying,Thou shalt be darkened for one man's dying—Stand thou still, thou sun upon Gibeon,Stand thou, moon, in the valley of Ajalon!'After the battle was broken and spentUp to the hill the Deliverer went,Flung up his arms to the storm-clouds flying,And cried unto Israel, mightily crying,'Come up, O warriors! come up, O brothers!Tribesmen and herdsmen, maidens and mothers;The bondman's son and the bondman's daughter,The hewer of wood and the drawer of water,He that carries and he that brings,And set your foot on the neck of kings.'This is the story of Gibeon fight—Where we smote the lords of the Amorite;Where the banners of princes with slaughter were sodden.And the beards of seers in the rank grass trodden;Where the trees were wrecked by the wreck of cars,And the reek of the red field blotted the stars;Where the dead heads dropped from the swords that sever,Because His mercy endureth for ever.
'VULGARISED'All round they murmur, 'O profane,Keep thy heart's secret hid as gold';But I, by God, would sooner beSome knight in shattering wars of old,In brown outlandish arms to ride,And shout my love to every starWith lungs to make a poor maid's nameDeafen the iron ears of war.Here, where these subtle cowards crowd,To stand and so to speak of love,That the four corners of the worldShould hear it and take heed thereof.That to this shrine obscure there beOne witness before all men given,As naked as the hanging Christ,As shameless as the sun in heaven.These whimperers—have they spared to usOne dripping woe, one reeking sin?These thieves that shatter their own gravesTo prove the soul is dead within.They talk; by God, is it not timeSome of Love's chosen broke the girth,And told the good all men have knownSince the first morning of the earth?
A bird flew out at the break of dayFrom the nest where it had curled,And ere the eve the bird had setFear on the kings of the world.The first tree it lit uponWas green with leaves unshed;The second tree it lit uponWas red with apples red;The third tree it lit uponWas barren and was brown,Save for a dead man nailed thereonOn a hill above a town.That right the kings of the earth were gayAnd filled the cup and can;Last night the kings of the earth were chillFor dread of a naked man.'If he speak two more words,' they said,'The slave is more than the free;If he speak three more words,' they said,'The stars are under the sea.'Said the King of the East to the King of the West,I wot his frown was set,'Lo; let us slay him and make him as dung,It is well that the world forget.'Said the King of the West to the King of the East,I wot his smile was dread,'Nay, let us slay him and make him a god,It is well that our god be dead.'They set the young man on a hill,They nailed him to a rod;And there in darkness and in bloodThey made themselves a god.And the mightiest word was left unsaid,And the world had never a mark,And the strongest man of the sons of menWent dumb into the dark.Then hymns and harps of praise they brought,Incense and gold and myrrh,And they thronged above the seraphim,The poor dead carpenter.'Thou art the prince of all,' they sang,'Ocean and earth and air.'Then the bird flew on to the cruel cross,And hid in the dead man's hair.'Thou art the sun of the world,' they cried,'Speak if our prayers be heard.'And the brown bird stirred in the dead man's hair,And it seemed that the dead man stirred.Then a shriek went up like the world's last cryFrom all nations under heaven,And a master fell before a slaveAnd begged to be forgiven.They cowered, for dread in his wakened eyesThe ancient wrath to see;And the bird flew out of the dead Christ's hair,And lit on a lemon-tree.
How many million stars there be,That only God hath numberéd;But this one only chosen for meIn time before her face was fled.Shall not one mortal man aliveHold up his head?
We came behind him by the wall,My brethren drew their brands,And they had strength to strike him down—And I to bind his hands.Only once, to a lantern gleam,He turned his face from the wall,And it was as the accusing angel's faceOn the day when the stars shall fall.I grasped the axe with shaking hands,I stared at the grass I trod;For I feared to see the whole bare heavensFilled with the face of God.I struck: the serpentine slow bloodIn four arms soaked the moss—Before me, by the living Christ,The blood ran in a cross.Therefore I toil in forests hereAnd pile the wood in stacks,And take no fee from the shivering folkTill I have cleansed the axe.But for a curse God cleared my sight,And where each tree doth growI see a life with awful eyes,And I must lay it low.
On must we go: we search dead leaves,We chase the sunset's saddest flames,The nameless hues that o'er and o'erIn lawless wedding lost their names.God of the daybreak! Better beBlack savages; and grin to girdOur limbs in gaudy rags of red,The laughing-stock of brute and bird;And feel again the fierce old feast,Blue for seven heavens that had sufficed,A gold like shining hoards, a redLike roses from the blood of Christ.
Lo! very fair is she who knows the waysOf joy: in pleasure's mocking wisdom old,The eyes that might be cold to flattery, kind;The hair that might be grey with knowledge, gold.But thou art more than these things, O my queen,For thou art clad in ancient wars and tears.And looking forth, framed in the crown of thorns,I saw the youngest face in all the spheres.