A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass Part 5

A Fairy Tale

On winter nights beside the nursery fire We read the fairy tale, while glowing coals Builded its pictures. There before our eyes We saw the vaulted hall of traceried stone Uprear itself, the distant ceiling hung With pendent stalact.i.tes like frozen vines; And all along the walls at intervals, Curled upwards into pillars, roses climbed, And ramped and were confined, and cl.u.s.tered leaves Divided where there peered a laughing face.

The foliage seemed to rustle in the wind, A silent murmur, carved in still, gray stone.

High pointed windows pierced the southern wall Whence proud escutcheons flung prismatic fires To stain the tessellated marble floor With pools of red, and quivering green, and blue; And in the shade beyond the further door, Its sober squares of black and white were hid Beneath a restless, shuffling, wide-eyed mob Of lackeys and retainers come to view The Christening.

A sudden blare of trumpets, and the throng About the entrance parted as the guests Filed singly in with rare and precious gifts.

Our eager fancies noted all they brought, The glorious, unattainable delights!

But always there was one unbidden guest Who cursed the child and left it bitterness.

The fire falls asunder, all is changed, I am no more a child, and what I see Is not a fairy tale, but life, my life.

The gifts are there, the many pleasant things: Health, wealth, long-settled friendships, with a name Which honors all who bear it, and the power Of making words obedient. This is much; But overshadowing all is still the curse, That never shall I be fulfilled by love!

Along the parching highroad of the world No other soul shall bear mine company.

Always shall I be teased with semblances, With cruel impostures, which I trust awhile Then dash to pieces, as a careless boy Flings a kaleidoscope, which shattering Strews all the ground about with coloured sherds.

So I behold my visions on the ground No longer radiant, an ign.o.ble heap Of broken, dusty gla.s.s. And so, unlit, Even by hope or faith, my dragging steps Force me forever through the pa.s.sing days.

Crowned

You came to me bearing bright roses, Red like the wine of your heart; You twisted them into a garland To set me aside from the mart.

Red roses to crown me your lover, And I walked aureoled and apart.

Enslaved and encircled, I bore it, Proud token of my gift to you.

The petals waned paler, and shriveled, And dropped; and the thorns started through.

Bitter thorns to proclaim me your lover, A diadem woven with rue.

To Elizabeth Ward Perkins

Dear Bessie, would my tired rhyme Had force to rise from apathy, And shaking off its lethargy Ring word-tones like a Christmas chime.

But in my soul's high belfry, chill The bitter wind of doubt has blown, The summer swallows all have flown, The bells are frost-bound, mute and still.

Upon the crumbling boards the snow Has drifted deep, the clappers hang Prismed with icicles, their clang Unheard since ages long ago.

The rope I pull is stiff and cold, My straining ears detect no sound Except a sigh, as round and round The wind rocks through the timbers old.

Below, I know the church is bright With haloed tapers, warm with prayer; But here I only feel the air Of icy centuries of night.

Beneath my feet the snow is lit And gemmed with colours, red, and blue, Topaz, and green, where light falls through The saints that in the windows sit.

Here darkness seems a spectred thing, Voiceless and haunting, while the stars Mock with a light of long dead years The ache of present suffering.

Silent and winter-killed I stand, No carol hymns my debt to you; But take this frozen thought in lieu, And thaw its music in your hand.

The Promise of the Morning Star

Thou father of the children of my brain By thee engendered in my willing heart, How can I thank thee for this gift of art Poured out so lavishly, and not in vain.

What thou created never more can die, Thy fructifying power lives in me And I conceive, knowing it is by thee, Dear other parent of my poetry!

For I was but a shadow with a name, Perhaps by now the very name's forgot; So strange is Fate that it has been my lot To learn through thee the presence of that aim

Which evermore must guide me. All unknown, By me unguessed, by thee not even dreamed, A tree has blossomed in a night that seemed Of stubborn, barren wood. For thou hast sown

This seed of beauty in a ground of truth.

Humbly I dedicate myself, and yet I tremble with a sudden fear to set New music ringing through my fading youth.

J--K. Huysmans

A flickering glimmer through a window-pane, A dim red glare through mud bespattered gla.s.s, Cleaving a path between blown walls of sleet Across uneven pavements sunk in slime To scatter and then quench itself in mist.

And struggling, slipping, often rudely hurled Against the jutting angle of a wall, And cursed, and reeled against, and flung aside By drunken brawlers as they shuffled past, A man was groping to what seemed a light.

His eyelids burnt and quivered with the strain Of looking, and against his temples beat The all enshrouding, suffocating dark.

He stumbled, lurched, and struck against a door That opened, and a howl of obscene mirth Grated his senses, wallowing on the floor Lay men, and dogs and women in the dirt.

He sickened, loathing it, and as he gazed The candle guttered, flared, and then went out.

Through travail of ign.o.ble midnight streets He came at last to shelter in a porch Where gothic saints and warriors made a shield To cover him, and tortured gargoyles spat One long continuous stream of silver rain That clattered down from myriad roofs and spires Into a darkness, loud with rushing sound Of water falling, gurgling as it fell, But always thickly dark. Then as he leaned Unconscious where, the great oak door blew back And cast him, bruised and dripping, in the church.

His eyes from long sojourning in the night Were blinded now as by some glorious sun; He slowly crawled toward the altar steps.

He could not think, for heavy in his ears An organ boomed majestic harmonies; He only knew that what he saw was light!

He bowed himself before a cross of flame And shut his eyes in fear lest it should fade.

March Evening

Blue through the window burns the twilight; Heavy, through trees, blows the warm south wind.

Glistening, against the chill, gray sky light, Wet, black branches are barred and entwined.

Sodden and spongy, the scarce-green gra.s.s plot Dents into pools where a foot has been.

Puddles lie spilt in the road a ma.s.s, not Of water, but steel, with its cold, hard sheen.

Faint fades the fire on the hearth, its embers Scattering wide at a stronger gust.

Above, the old weatherc.o.c.k groans, but remembers Creaking, to turn, in its centuried rust.