A Hidden Life and Other Poems Part 16

And with hands of truth to have been a link 'Twixt mine and the parent knee; And with eyes to pierce to the further brink Of things I cannot see!

Alas, alas, my brother!

To thee my heart is drawn: My soul had been such another, In the dark amidst the dawn!

As a child in the eyes of its mother Dead on the flowery lawn!

I mourn for thee, poor friend!

A spring from a cliff did drop: To drink by the wayside G.o.d would bend, And He found thee a broken cup!

He threw thee aside, His way to wend Further and higher up.

Alack! sad soul, alack!

As if I lay in thy grave, I feel the Infinite sucking back The individual life it gave.

Thy spring died to a pool, deep, black, Which the sun from its pit did lave.

Thou might'st have been one of us, Cleaving the storm and fire; Aspiring through faith to the glorious, Higher and ever higher; Till the world of storms look tremulous, Far down, like a smitten lyre!

A hundred years! he might Have darted through the gloom, Like that swift angel that crossed our flight Where the thunder-cloud did loom, From his upcast pinions flashing the light Of some inward word or doom.

It heareth not, brothers, the terrible thing!

Sounds no sense to its ear will bring.

Hath G.o.d forgotten it, alas!

Lost in eternity's lumber room?

Will the wave of his Spirit never pa.s.s Over it through the insensate gloom?

It lies alone in its lifeless world, As a frozen bud on the earth lies curled; Sightless and soundless, without a cry, On the flat of its own vacuity.

Up, brothers, up! for a storm is nigh; We will smite the wing up the steepest sky; Through the rushing air We will climb the stair That to heaven from the vaults doth leap; We will measure its height By the strokes of our flight, Its span by the tempest's sweep.

What matter the hail or the clashing winds!

We know by the tempest we do not lie Dead in the pits of eternity.

Brothers, let us be strong in our minds, Lest the storm should beat us back, Or the treacherous calm sink from beneath our wings, And lower us gently from our track To the depths of forgotten things.

Up, brothers, up! 'tis the storm or we!

'Tis the storm or G.o.d for the victory!

A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM.

THE OUTER DREAM.

Young, as the day's first-born t.i.tanic brood, Lifting their foreheads jubilant to heaven, Rose the great mountains on my opening dream.

And yet the aged peace of countless years Reposed on every crag and precipice Outfacing ruggedly the storms that swept Far overhead the sheltered furrow-vales; Which smiled abroad in green as the clouds broke Drifting adown the tide of the wind-waves, Till shattered on the mountain rocks. Oh! still, And cold and hard to look upon, like men Who do stern deeds in times of turbulence, Quell the hail-rattle with their granite brows, And let the thunder burst and pa.s.s away-- They too did gather round sky-dwelling peaks The trailing garments of the travelling sun, Which he had lifted from his ocean-bed, And swept along his road. They rent them down In scattering showers upon the trees and gra.s.s, In noontide rains with heavy ringing drops, Or in still twilight moisture tenderly.

And from their sides were born the gladsome streams; Some creeping gently out in tiny springs, As they were just created, scarce a foot From the hill's surface, in the matted roots Of plants, whose green betrays the secret birth; Some hurrying forth from caverns deep and dark, Upfilling to the brim a basin huge, Thick covered with soft moss, greening the wave, As evermore it welled over the edge Upon the rocks below in boiling heaps; Fit basin for a demi-G.o.d at morn, Waking amid the crags, to lave his limbs, Then stride, Hyperion, o'er sun-paven peaks.

And down the hill-side sped the fresh-born wave, Now hid from sight in arched caverns cold, Now arrowing slantwise down the terraced steep, Now springing like a child from step to step Of the rough water-stair; until it found A deep-hewn pa.s.sage for its slower course, Guiding it down to lowliness and rest, Betwixt wet walls of darkness, darker yet With pine trees lining all their sides like hair, Or as their own straight needles clothe their boughs; Until at length in broader light it ran, With more articulate sounds amid the stones, In the slight shadow of the maiden birch, And the stream-loving willow; and ere long Great blossoming trees dropt flowers upon its breast; Chiefly the crimson-spotted, cream-white flowers, Heaped up in cones amid cone-drooping leaves; Green hanging leaf-cones, towering white flower-cones Upon the great cone-fashioned chestnut tree.

Each made a tiny ripple where it fell, The trembling pleasure of the smiling wave, Which bore it then, in slow funereal course, Down to the outspread sunny sheen, where lies The lake uplooking to the far-off snow, Its mother still, though now so far away; Feeding it still with long descending lines Of shining, speeding streams, that gather peace In journeying to the rest of that still lake Now lying sleepy in the warm red sun, Which says its dear goodnight, and goeth down.

All pale, and withered, and disconsolate, The moon is looking on impatiently; For 'twixt the shining tent-roof of the day, And the sun-deluged lake, for mirror-floor, Her thin pale lamping is too sadly grey To shoot, in silver-barbed, white-plumed arrows, Cold maiden splendours on the flashing fish: Wait for thy empire Night, day-weary moon!

And thou shalt lord it in one realm at least, Where two souls walk a single Paradise.

Take to thee courage, for the sun is gone; His praisers, the glad birds, have hid their heads; Long, ghost-like forms of trees lie on the gra.s.s; All things are clothed in an obscuring light, Fusing their outline in a dreamy ma.s.s; Some faint, dim shadows from thy beauty fall On the clear lake which melts them half away-- Shine faster, stronger, O reviving moon!

Burn up, O lamp of Earth, hung high in Heaven!

And through a warm thin summer mist she shines, A silver setting to the diamond stars; And the dark boat cleaveth a glittering way, Where the one steady beauty of the moon Makes many changing beauties on the wave Broken by jewel-dropping oars, which drive The boat, as human impulses the soul; While, like the sovereign will, the helm's firm law Directs the whither of the onward force.

At length midway he leaves the swaying oars Half floating in the blue gulf underneath, And on a load of gathered flowers reclines, Leaving the boat to any air that blows, His soul to any pulse from the unseen heart.

Straight from the helm a white hand gleaming flits, And settles on his face, and nestles there, Pale, night-belated b.u.t.terfly, to sleep.

For on her knees his head lies satisfied; And upward, downward, dark eyes look and rest, Finding their home in likeness. Lifting then Her hair upon her white arm heavily, The overflowing of her beauteousness, Her hand that cannot trespa.s.s, singles out Some of the curls that stray across her lap; And mingling dark locks in the pallid light, She asks him which is darker of the twain, Which his, which hers, and laugheth like a lute.

But now her hair, an unvexed cataract, Falls dark and heavy round his upturned face, And with a heaven shuts out the shallow sky, A heaven profound, the home of two black stars; Till, tired with gazing, face to face they lie, Suspended, with closed eyelids, in the night; Their bodies bathed in conscious sleepiness, While o'er their souls creeps every rippling breath Of the night-gambols of the moth-winged wind, Flitting a handbreadth, folding up its wings, Its dreamy wings, then spreading them anew, And with an unfelt gliding, like the years, Wafting them to a water-lily bed, Whose shield-like leaves and chalice-bearing arms Hold back the boat from the slow-sloping sh.o.r.e, Far as a child might shoot with his toy-bow.

There the long drooping gra.s.s drooped to the wave; And, ever as the moth-wind lit thereon, A small-leafed tree, whose roots were always cool, Dipped one low bow, with many sister-leaves, Upon the water's face with a low plash, Lifting and dipping yet and yet again; And aye the water-drops rained from the leaves, With music-laughter as they found their home.

And from the woods came blossom-fragrance, faint, Or full, like rising, falling harmonies; Luxuriance of life, which overflows In scents ethereal on the ocean air; Each breathing on the rest the blessedness Of its peculiar being, filled with good Till its cup runneth over with delight: They drank the mingled odours as they lay, The air in which the sensuous being breathes, Till summer-sleep fell on their hearts and eyes.

The night was mild and innocent of ill; 'Twas but a sleeping day that breathed low, And babbled in its sleep. The moon at length Grew sleepy too. Her level glances crept Through sleeping branches to their curtained eyes, As down the steep bank of the west she slid, Slowly and slowly

But alas! alas!

The awful time 'twixt moondown and sunrise!

It is a ghostly time. A low thick fog Steamed up and swathed the trees, and overwhelmed The floating couch with pall on pall of grey.

The sky was desolate, dull, and meaningless.

The blazing hues of the last sunset eve, And the pale magic moonshine that had made The common, strange,--all were swept clean away; The earth around, the great sky over, were Like a deserted theatre, tomb-dumb; The lights long dead; the first sick grey of morn Oozing through rents in the slow-mouldering curtain; The sweet sounds fled away for evermore; Nought left, except a creeping chill, a sense As if dead deeds were strown upon the stage, As if dead bodies simulated life, And spoke dead words without informing thought.

A horror, as of power without a soul, Dark, undefined, and mighty unto ill, Jarred through the earth and through the vault-like air.

And on the sleepers fell a wondrous dream, That dured till sunrise, filling all the cells Remotest of the throbbing heart and brain.

And as I watched them, ever and anon The quivering limb and half-unclosed eye Witnessed of torture scarce endured, and yet Endured; for still the dream had mastery, And held them in a helplessness supine; Till, by degrees, the labouring breath grew calm, Save frequent murmured sighs; and o'er each face Stole radiant sadness, and a hopeful grief; And the convulsive motion pa.s.sed away.

Upon their faces, reading them, I gazed,-- Reading them earnestly, like wondrous book,-- When suddenly the vapours of the dream Rose and enveloped me, and through my soul Pa.s.sed with possession; will fell fast asleep.

And through the portals of the spirit-land, Upon whose frontiers time and s.p.a.ce grow dumb, Quenched like a cloud that all the roaring wind Drives not beyond the mountain top, I went, And entering, beheld them in their dream.

Their world inwrapt me for the time as mine, And what befel them there, I saw, and tell.

THE INNER DREAM.

It was a drizzly morning where I stood.

The cloud had sunk, and filled with fold on fold The chimneyed city; so the smoke rose not, But spread diluted in the cloud, and fell A black precipitate on miry streets, Where dim grey faces vision-like went by, But half-awake, half satisfied with sleep.

Slave engines had begun their ceaseless growl Of labour. Iron bands and huge stone blocks That held them to their task, strained, shook, until The city trembled. Those pale-visaged forms Were hastening on to feed their groaning strength With labour to the full.

Look! there they come, Poor amid poverty; she with her gown Drawn over her meek head; he trying much, But fruitless half, to shield her from the rain.

They enter the wide gates, amid the jar, And clash, and shudder of the awful force That, conquering force, still vibrates on, as if With an excess of power, hungry for work.

With differing strength to different tasks they part, To be the soul of knowledge unto strength; For man has eked his body out with wheels, And cranks, and belts, and levers, pinions, screws-- One body all, pervaded still with life From man the maker's will. 'Mid keen-eyed men, Thin featured and exact, his part is found; Hers where the dusk air shines with l.u.s.trous eyes.

And there they laboured through the murky day, Whose air was livid mist, their only breath; Foul floating dust of swift revolving wheels And feathery spoil of fast contorted threads Making a sultry chaos in the sun.

Until at length slow swelled the welcome dark, A dull Lethean heaving tide of death, Up from the caves of Night to make an end; And filling every corner of the place, Choked in its waves the clanking of the looms.

And Earth put on her sleeping dress, and took Her children home into its bosom-folds, And nursed them as a mother-ghost might sit With her neglected darlings in the dark.

So with dim satisfaction in their hearts, Though with tired feet and aching head, they went, Parting the clinging fog to find their home.

It was a dreary place. Unfinished walls, Far drearier than ruins overspread With long-worn sweet forgetfulness, amidst Earth-heaps and bricks, rain-pools and ugliness, Rose up around, banishing further yet The Earth, with its spring-time, young-mother smile, From children's eyes that had forgot to play.

But though the house was dull and wrapt in fog, It yet awoke to life, yea, cheerfulness, When darkness oped a fire-eye in the grate, And the dim candle's smoky flame revealed A room which could not be all desolate, Being a temple, proven by the signs Seen in the ancient place. For here was light; And blazing fire with darkness on its skirts; Bread; and pure water, ready to make clean, Beside a chest of holiday attire; And in the twilight edges of the light, A book scarce seen; and for the wondrous veil, Those human forms, behind which lay concealed The Holy of Holies, G.o.d's own secret place, The lowly human heart wherein He dwells.

And by the table-altar they sat down To eat their Eucharist, G.o.d feeding them: Their food was Love, made visible in Form-- Incarnate Love in food. For he to whom A common meal can be no Eucharist, Who thanks for food and strength, not for the love That made cold water for its blessedness, And wine for gladness' sake, has yet to learn The heart-delight of inmost thankfulness For innermost reception.

Then they sat Resting with silence, the soul's inward sleep, Which feedeth it with strength; till gradually They grew aware of light, that overcame The light within, and through the dingy blind, Cast from the window-frame, two shadow-glooms That made a cross of darkness on the white, Dark messenger of light itself unseen.

The woman rose, and half she put aside The veil that hid the whole of glorious night; And lo! a wind had mowed the earth-sprung fog; And lo! on high the white exultant moon From clear blue window curtained all with white, Greeted them, at their shadowy window low, With quiet smile; for two things made her glad: One that she saw the glory of the sun; For while the earth lay all athirst for light, She drank the fountain-waves. The other joy; Sprung from herself: she fought the darkness well, Thinning the great cone-shadow of the earth, Paling its ebon hue with radiant showers Upon its sloping side. The woman said, With hopeful look: "To-morrow will be bright With sunshine for our holiday--to-morrow-- Think! we shall see the green fields in the sun."

So with hearts hoping for a simple joy, Yet high withal, being no less than the sun, They laid them down in nightly death that waits Patiently for the day.

That sun was high When they awoke at length. The moon, low down, Had almost vanished, clothed upon with light; And night was swallowed up of day. In haste, Chiding their weariness that leagued with sleep, They, having clothed themselves in clean attire, By the low door, stooping with priestly hearts, Entered G.o.d's vision-room, his wonder-world.