LITMIR.BIZ

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And say O Father, Father! when the pain Seems overstrong. Remember our poor hearts: We never grasp the zenith of the time! We have no spring except in winter-prayers! But we believe—alas, we only hope!—That one day we shall thank thee perfectly For every disappointment, pang, and shame, That drove us to the bosom of thy love.

      One night, as oft, he lay and could not sleep.

       His spirit was a chamber, empty, dark,

       Through which bright pictures passed of the outer world:

       The regnant Will gazed passive on the show;

       The magic tube through which the shadows came,

       Witch Memory turned and stayed. In ones and troops,

       Glided across the field the things that were,

       Silent and sorrowful, like all things old:

       Even old rose-leaves have a mournful scent,

       And old brown letters are more sad than graves.

      At length, as ever in such vision-hours,

       Came the bright maiden, high upon her horse.

       Will started all awake, passive no more,

       And, necromantic sage, the apparition

       That came unbid, commanded to abide.

      Gathered around her form his brooding thoughts:

       How had she fared, spinning her history

       Into a psyche-cradle? With what wings

       Would she come forth to greet the aeonian summer?

       Glistening with feathery dust of silver? or

       Dull red, and seared with spots of black ingrained?

       "I know," he said, "some women fail of life!

       The rose hath shed her leaves: is she a rose?"

      The fount of possibilities began

       To gurgle, threatful, underneath the thought:

       Anon the geyser-column raging rose;—

       For purest souls sometimes have direst fears

       In ghost-hours when the shadow of the earth

       Is cast on half her children, and the sun

       Is busy giving daylight to the rest.

      "Oh, God!" he cried, "if she be such as those!—

       Angels in the eyes of poet-boys, who still

       Fancy the wavings of invisible wings,

       But, in their own familiar, chamber-thoughts,

       Common as clay, and of the trodden earth!—

       It cannot, cannot be! She is of God!—

       And yet things lovely perish! higher life

       Gives deeper death! fair gifts make fouler faults!—

       Women themselves—I dare not think the rest!"

       Such thoughts went walking up and down his soul

       But found at last a spot wherein to rest,

       Building a resolution for the day.

      The next day, and the next, he was too worn

       To clothe intent in body of a deed.

       A cold dry wind blew from the unkindly east,

       Making him feel as he had come to the earth

       Before God's spirit moved on the water's face,

       To make it ready for him.

      But the third

       Morning rose radiant. A genial wind

       Rippled the blue air 'neath the golden sun,

       And brought glad summer-tidings from the south.

      He lay now in his father's room; for there

       The southern sun poured all the warmth he had.

       His rays fell on the fire, alive with flames,

       And turned it ghostly pale, and would have slain—

       Even as the sunshine of the higher life,

       Quenching the glow of this, leaves but a coal.

       He rose and sat him down 'twixt sun and fire;

       Two lives fought in him for the mastery;

       And half from each forth flowed the written stream

       "Lady, I owe thee much. Stay not to look

       Upon my name: I write it, but I date

       From the churchyard, where it shall lie in peace,

       Thou reading it. Thou know'st me not at all;

       Nor dared I write, but death is crowning me

       Thy equal. If my boldness yet offend,

       Lo, pure in my intent, I am with the ghosts;

       Where when thou comest, thou hast already known

       God equal makes at first, and Death at last."

      "But pardon, lady. Ere I had begun,

       My thoughts moved toward thee with a gentle flow

       That bore a depth of waters: when I took

       My pen to write, they rushed into a gulf,

       Precipitate and foamy. Can it be

       That Death who humbles all hath made me proud?"

      "Lady, thy loveliness hath walked my brain,

       As if I were thy heritage bequeathed

       From many sires; yet only from afar

       I have worshipped thee—content to know the vision

       Had lifted me above myself who saw,

       And ta'en my angel nigh thee in thy heaven.

       Thy beauty, lady, hath overflowed, and made

       Another being beautiful, beside,

       With virtue to aspire and be itself.

       Afar as angels or the sainted dead,

       Yet near as loveliness can haunt a man,

       Thy form hath put on each revealing dress

       Of circumstance and history, high or low,

       In which, from any tale of selfless life,

       Essential womanhood hath shone on me."

      "Ten years have passed away since the first time,

       Which was the last, I saw thee. What have these

       Made or unmade in thee?—I ask myself.

       O lovely in my memory! art thou

       As lovely in thyself? Thy glory then

       Was what God made thee: art thou such indeed?

       Forgive my boldness, lady—I am dead:

       The dead may cry, their voices are so small."

      "I have a prayer to make thee—hear the dead.

       Lady, for God's sake be as beautiful

       As that white form that dwelleth in my heart;

       Yea, better still, as that ideal Pure

       That waketh in thee, when thou prayest God,

       Or helpest thy poor neighbour. For myself

       I pray. For if I die and find that she,

       My woman-glory, lives in common air,

       Is not so very radiant after all,

       My sad face will afflict the calm-eyed ghosts,

       Unused to see such rooted sorrow there.

       With palm to palm my kneeling ghost implores

      

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