LITMIR.BIZ

      With what I thus beheld, glorified then,

       "God, let me love my fill and pass!" I sighed,

        And dead, for love had almost died again.

      "O fathers, brothers, I am yours!" I cried;

       "O mothers, sisters. I am nothing now

        Save as I am yours, and in you sanctified!

      O men, O women, of the peaceful brow,

        And infinite abysses in the eyes

        Whence God's ineffable gazes on me, how

      Care ye for me, impassioned and unwise?

        Oh ever draw my heart out after you!

        Ever, O grandeur, thus before me rise

      And I need nothing, not even for love will sue!

        I am no more, and love is all in all!

        Henceforth there is, there can be nothing new—

      All things are always new!" Then, like the fall

        Of a steep avalanche, my joy fell steep:

        Up in my spirit rose as it were the call

      Of an old sorrow from an ancient deep;

        For, with my eyes fixed on the eyes of him

        Whom I had loved before I learned to creep—

      God's vicar in his twilight nursery dim

        To gather us to the higher father's knee—

        I saw a something fill their azure rim

      That caught him worlds and years away from me;

        And like a javelin once more through me passed

        The pang that pierced me walking on the sea:

      "O saints," I cried, "must loss be still the last?"

      When I said this, the cloud of witnesses

        Turned their heads sideways, and the cloud grew dim

        I saw their faces half, but now their bliss

      Gleamed low, like the old moon in the new moon's rim.

        Then as I gazed, a better kind of light

        On every outline 'gan to glimmer and swim,

      Faint as the young moon threadlike on the night,

        Just born of sunbeams trembling on her edge:

        'Twas a great cluster of profiles in sharp white.

      Had some far dawn begun to drive a wedge

        Into the night, and cleave the clinging dark?

        I saw no moon or star, token or pledge

      Of light, save that manifold silvery mark,

        The shining title of each spirit-book.

        Whence came that light? Sudden, as if a spark

      Of vital touch had found some hidden nook

        Where germs of potent harmonies lay prest,

        And their outbursting life old Aether shook,

      Rose, as in prayer to lingering promised guest,

        From that great cone of faces such a song,

        Instinct with hope's harmonical unrest,

      That with sore weeping, and the cry "How long?"

        I bore my part because I could not sing.

        And as they sang, the light more clear and strong

      Bordered their faces, till the glory-sting

        I could almost no more encounter and bear;

        Light from their eyes, like water from a spring,

      Flowed; on their foreheads reigned their flashing hair;

        I saw the light from eyes I could not see.

        "He comes! he comes!" they sang, "comes to our prayer!"

      "Oh my poor heart, if only it were He!"

        I cried. Thereat the faces moved! those eyes

        Were turning on me! In rushed ecstasy,

      And woke me to the light of lower skies.

      "What matter," said I, "whether clank of chain

        Or over-bliss wakes up to bitterness!"

        Stung with its loss, I called the vision vain.

      Yet feeling life grown larger, suffering less,

        Sleep's ashes from my eyelids I did brush.

        The room was veiled, that morning should not press

      Upon the slumber which had stayed the rush

        Of ebbing life; I looked into the gloom:

        Upon her brow the dawn's first grayest flush,

      And on her cheek pale hope's reviving bloom,

        Sat, patient watcher, darkling and alone,

        She who had lifted me from many a tomb!

      One then was left me of Love's radiant cone!

        Its light on her dear face, though faint and wan,

        Was shining yet—a dawn upon it thrown

      From the far coming of the Son of Man!

      In every forehead now I see a sky

        Catching the dawn; I hear the wintriest breeze

        About me blow the news the Lord is nigh.

      Long is the night, dark are the polar seas,

        Yet slanting suns ascend the northern hill.

        Round Spring's own steps the oozy waters freeze

      But hold them not. Dreamers are sleeping still,

        But labourers, light-stung, from their slumber start:

        Faith sees the ripening ears with harvest fill

      When but green blades the clinging earth-clods part.