A Hidden Life and Other Poems Part 2

And all went well.

The grain was fully ripe. The harvest carts Went forth broad-platformed for the towering load, With frequent pa.s.sage 'twixt homeyard and field.

And half the oats already hid their tops, Of countless spray-hung grains--their tops, by winds Swayed oft, and ringing, rustling contact sweet; Made heavy oft by slow-combining dews, Or beaten earthward by the pelting rains; Rising again in breezes to the sun, And bearing all things till the perfect time-- Had hid, I say, this growth of sun and air Within the darkness of the towering stack; When in the north low billowy clouds appeared, Blue-based, white-topped, at close of afternoon; And in the west, dark ma.s.ses, plashed with blue, With outline vague of misty steep and dell, Clomb o'er the hill-tops; there was thunder there.

The air was sultry. But the upper sky Was clear and radiant.

Downward went the sun; Down low, behind the low and sullen clouds That walled the west; and down below the hills That lay beneath them hid. Uprose the moon, And looked for silence in her moony fields, But there she found it not. The staggering cart, Like an o'erladen beast, crawled homeward still, Returning light and low. The laugh broke yet, That lightning of the soul, from cloudless skies, Though not so frequent, now that labour pa.s.sed Its natural hour. Yet on the labour went, Straining to beat the welkin-climbing toil Of the huge rain-clouds, heavy with their floods.

Sleep, like enchantress old, soon sided with The crawling clouds, and flung benumbing spells On man and horse. The youth that guided home The ponderous load of sheaves, higher than wont, Daring the slumberous lightning, with a start Awoke, by falling full against the wheel, That circled slow after the sleepy horse.

Yet none would yield to soft-suggesting sleep, Or leave the last few shocks; for the wild rain Would catch thereby the skirts of Harvest-home, And hold her lingering half-way in the storm.

The scholar laboured with his men all night.

Not that he favoured quite this headlong race With Nature. He would rather say: "The night Is sent for sleep, we ought to sleep in it, And leave the clouds to G.o.d. Not every storm That climbeth heavenward, overwhelms the earth.

And if G.o.d wills, 'tis better as he wills; What he takes from us never can be lost."

But the old farmer ordered; and the son Went manful to the work, and held his peace.

The last cart homeward went, oppressed with sheaves, Just as a moist dawn blotted pale the east, And the first drops fell, overfed with mist, O'ergrown and helpless. Darker grew the morn.

Upstraining racks of clouds, tumultuous borne Upon the turmoil of opposing winds, Met in the zenith. And the silence ceased: The lightning brake, and flooded all the earth, And its great roar of billows followed it.

The deeper darkness drank the light again, And lay unslaked. But ere the darkness came, In the full revelation of the flash, He saw, along the road, borne on a horse Powerful and gentle, the sweet lady go, Whom years agone he saw for evermore.

"Ah me!" he said; "my dreams are come for me, Now they shall have their time." And home he went, And slept and moaned, and woke, and raved, and wept.

Through all the net-drawn labyrinth of his brain The fever raged, like pent internal fire.

His father soon was by him; and the hand Of his one sister soothed him. Days went by.

As in a summer evening, after rain, He woke to sweet quiescent consciousness; Enfeebled much, but with a new-born life.

As slow the weeks pa.s.sed, he recovered strength; And ere the winter came, seemed strong once more.

But the brown hue of health had not returned On his thin face; although a keener fire Burned in his larger eyes; and in his cheek The mounting blood glowed radiant (summoning force, Sometimes, unbidden) with a sunset red.

Before its time, a biting frost set in; And gnawed with fangs of cold his shrinking life; And the disease so common to the north Was born of outer cold and inner heat.

One morn his sister, entering, saw he slept; But in his hand he held a handkerchief Spotted with crimson. White with terror, she Stood motionless and staring. Startled next By her own pallor, when she raised her eyes, Seen in the gla.s.s, she moved at last. He woke; And seeing her dismay, said with a smile, "Blood-red was evermore my favourite hue, And see, I have it in me; that is all."

She shuddered; and he tried to jest no more; And from that hour looked Death full in the face.

When first he saw the red blood outward leap, As if it sought again the fountain heart, Whence it had flowed to fill the golden bowl; No terror, but a wild excitement seized His spirit; now the pondered mystery Of the unseen would fling its portals wide, And he would enter, one of the awful dead; Whom men conceive as ghosts that fleet and pine, Bereft of weight, and half their valued lives;-- But who, he knew, must live intenser life, Having, through matter, all illumed with sense, Flaming, like h.o.r.eb's bush, with present soul, And by the contact with a thousand souls, Each in the present glory of a shape, Sucked so much honey from the flower o' the world, And kept the gain, and cast the means aside; And now all eye, all ear, all sense, perhaps; Transformed, transfigured, yet the same life-power That moulded first the visible to its use.

So, like a child he was, that waits the show, While yet the panting lights restrained burn At half height, and the theatre is full.

But as the days went on, they brought sad hours, When he would sit, his hands upon his knees, Drooping, and longing for the wine of life.

Ah! now he learned what new necessities Come when the outer sphere of life is riven, And casts distorted shadows on the soul; While the poor soul, not yet complete in G.o.d, Cannot with inward light burn up the shades, And laugh at seeming that is not the fact.

For G.o.d, who speaks to man on every side, Sending his voices from the outer world, Glorious in stars, and winds, and flowers, and waves, And from the inner world of things unseen, In hopes and thoughts and deep a.s.surances, Not seldom ceases outward speech awhile, That the inner, isled in calm, may clearer sound; Or, calling through dull storms, proclaim a rest, One centre fixed amid conflicting spheres; And thus the soul, calm in itself, become Able to meet and cope with outward things, Which else would overwhelm it utterly; And that the soul, saying _I will the light_, May, in its absence, yet grow light itself, And man's will glow the present will of G.o.d, Self-known, and yet divine.

Ah, gracious G.o.d!

Do with us what thou wilt, thou glorious heart!

Thou art the G.o.d of them that grow, no less Than them that are; and so we trust in thee For what we shall be, and in what we are.

Yet in the frequent pauses of the light, When fell the drizzling thaw, or flaky snow; Or when the heaped-up ocean of still foam Reposed upon the tranced earth, breathing low; His soul was like a frozen lake beneath The clear blue heaven, reflecting it so dim That he could scarce believe there was a heaven; And feared that beauty might be but a toy Invented by himself in happier moods.

"For," said he, "if my mind can dim the fair, Why should it not enhance the fairness too?"

But then the poor mind lay itself all dim, And ruffled with the outer restlessness Of striving death and life. And a tired man May drop his eyelids on the visible world, To whom no dreams, when fancy flieth free, Will bring the sunny excellence of day; Nor will his utmost force increase his sight.

'Tis easy to destroy, not so to make.

No keen invention lays the strata deep Of ancient histories; or sweeps the sea With purple shadows and blue breezes' tracks, Or rosy memories of the down-gone sun.

And if G.o.d means no beauty in these shows, But drops them, helpless shadows, from his sun, Ah me, my heart! thou needst another G.o.d.

Oh! lack and doubt and fear can only come Because of plenty, confidence, and love: Without the mountain there were no abyss.

Our spirits, inward cast upon themselves, Because the delicate ether, which doth make The mediator with the outer world, Is troubled and confused with stormy pain; Not glad, because confined to shuttered rooms, Which let the sound of slanting rain be heard, But show no sparkling sunlight on the drops, Or ancient rainbow dawning in the west;-- Cast on themselves, I say, nor finding there The thing they need, because G.o.d has not come, And, claiming all their Human his Divine, Revealed himself in all their inward parts, Go wandering up and down a dreary house.

Thus reasoned he. Yet up and down the house He wandered moaning. Till his soul and frame, In painful rest compelled, full oft lay still, And suffered only. Then all suddenly A light would break from forth an inward well-- G.o.d shone within him, and the sun arose.

And to its windows went the soul and looked:-- Lo! o'er the bosom of the outspread earth Flowed the first waves of sunrise, rippling on.

Much gathered he of patient faith from off These gloomy heaths, this land of mountains dark, By moonlight only, like the sorcerer's weeds; As testify these written lines of his Found on his table, when his empty chair Stood by the wall, with yet a history Clinging around it for the old man's eyes.

I am weary, and something lonely; And can only think, think.

If there were some water only, That a spirit might drink, drink!

And rise With light in the eyes, And a crown of hope on the brow; And walk in outgoing gladness,-- Not sit in an inward sadness-- As now!

But, Lord, thy child will be sad, As sad as it pleaseth thee; Will sit, not needing to be glad, Till thou bid sadness flee; And drawing near With a simple cheer, Speak one true word to me.

Another song in a low minor key From awful holy calm, as this from grief, I weave, a silken flower, into my web, That goes straight on, with simply crossing lines, Floating few colours upward to the sight.

Ah, holy midnight of the soul, When stars alone are high; When winds are dead, or at their goal, And sea-waves only sigh!

Ambition faints from out the will; Asleep sad longing lies; All hope of good, all fear of ill, All need of action dies;

Because G.o.d is; and claims the life He kindled in thy brain; And thou in Him, rapt far from strife, Diest and liv'st again.

It was a changed and wintry time to him; But visited by April airs and scents, That came with sudden presence, unforetold; As brushed from off the outer spheres of spring In the new singing world, by winds of sighs, That wandering swept across the glad _To be_.

Strange longings that he never knew till now, A sense of want, yea of an infinite need, Cried out within him--rather moaned than cried.

And he would sit a silent hour and gaze Upon the distant hills with dazzling snow Upon their peaks, and thence, adown their sides, Streaked vaporous, or starred in solid blue.

And then a shadowy sense arose in him, As if behind those world-inclosing hills, There sat a mighty woman, with a face As calm as life, when its intensity Pushes it nigh to death, waiting for him, To make him grand for ever with a kiss, And send him silent through the toning worlds.

The father saw him waning. The proud sire Beheld his pride go drooping in the cold Down, down to the warm earth; and gave G.o.d thanks That he was old. But evermore the son Looked up and smiled as he had heard strange news, Across the waste, of primrose-buds and flowers.

Then again to his father he would come Seeking for comfort, as a troubled child, And with the same child's hope of comfort there.

Sure there is one great Father in the heavens, Since every word of good from fathers' lips Falleth with such authority, although They are but men as we: G.o.d speaks in them.

So this poor son who neared the unknown death, Took comfort in his father's tenderness, And made him strong to die. One day he came, And said: "What think you, father, is it hard, This dying?" "Well, my boy," he said, "We'll try And make it easy with the present G.o.d.

But, as I judge, though more by hope than sight, It seemeth harder to the lookers on, Than him that dieth. It may be, each breath, That they would call a gasp, seems unto him A sigh of pleasure; or, at most, the sob Wherewith the unclothed spirit, step by step, Wades forth into the cool eternal sea.

I think, my boy, death has two sides to it, One sunny, and one dark; as this round earth Is every day half sunny and half dark.

We on the dark side call the mystery _death_; They on the other, looking down in light, Wait the glad birth, with other tears than ours."

"Be near me, father, when I die;" he said.

"I will, my boy, until a better sire Takes your hand out of mine, and I shall say: I give him back to thee; Oh! love him, G.o.d; For he needs more than I can ever be.

And then, my son, mind and be near in turn, When my time comes; you in the light beyond, And knowing all about it; I all dark."

And so the days went on, until the green Shone through the snow in patches, very green: For, though the snow was white, yet the green shone.

And hope of life awoke within his heart; For the spring drew him, warm, soft, budding spring, With promises. The father better knew.

G.o.d, give us heaven. Remember our poor hearts.

We never grasp the zenith of the time; We find no spring, except in winter prayers.

Now he, who strode a king across his fields, Crept slowly through the breathings of the spring; And sometimes wept in secret, that the earth, Which dwelt so near his heart with all its suns, And moons, and maidens, soon would lie afar Across some unknown, sure-dividing waste.

Yet think not, though I fall upon the sad, And lingering listen to the fainting tones, Before I strike new chords that seize the old And waft their essence up the music-stair-- Think not that he was always sad, nor dared To look the blank unknown full in the void: For he had hope in G.o.d, the growth of years, Ponderings, and aspirations from a child, And prayers and readings and repentances.

Something within him ever sought to come At peace with something deeper in him still.

Some sounds sighed ever for a harmony With other deeper, fainter tones, that still Drew nearer from the unknown depths, wherein The Individual goeth out in G.o.d, And smoothed the discord ever as they grew.

Now he went back the way the music came, Hoping some nearer sign of G.o.d at hand; And, most of all, to see the very face That in Judea once, at supper time, Arose a heaven of tenderness above The face of John, who leaned upon the breast Soon to lie down in its last weariness.

And as the spring went on, his budding life Swelled up and budded towards the invisible, Bursting the earthy mould wherein it lay.

He never thought of churchyards, as before, When he was strong; but ever looked above, Away from the green earth to the blue sky, And thanked G.o.d that he died not in the cold.

"For," said he, "I would rather go abroad When the sun shines, and birds are happy here.

For, though it may be we shall know no place, But only mighty realms of making thought, (Not living in creation any more, But evermore creating our own worlds) Yet still it seems as if I had to go Into the sea of air that floats and heaves, And swings its ma.s.sy waves around our earth, And may feel wet to the unclothed soul; And I would rather go when it is full Of light and blueness, than when grey and fog Thicken it with the steams of the old earth.

Now in the first of summer I shall die; Lying, mayhap, at sunset, sinking asleep, And going with the light, and from the dark; And when the earth is dark, they'll say: 'He is dead;'