A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems Part 2

VI.

Earth fair as heaven, ere change and time set odds Between them, light and darkness know not when, And fear, grown strong through panic periods, Crouched, a crowned worm, in faith's Lernean fen, And love lay bound, and hope was scourged with rods, And death cried out from desert and from den, Seeing all the heaven above him dark with G.o.ds And all the world about him marred of men.

Cities that nought might purge Save the sea's whelming surge From all the pent pollutions in their pen Deep death drank down, and wrought, With wreck of all things, nought, That none might live of all their names again, Nor aught of all whose life is breath Serve any G.o.d whose likeness was not like to death.

VII.

Till by the lips and eyes of one live nation The blind mute world found grace to see and speak, And light watched rise a more divine creation At that more G.o.dlike utterance of the Greek, Let there be freedom. Kings whose orient station Made pale the morn, and all her presage bleak, Girt each with strengths of all his generation, Dim tribes of shamefaced soul and sun-swart cheek, Twice, urged with one desire, Son following hard on sire, With all the wrath of all a world to wreak, And all the rage of night Afire against the light Whose weakness makes her strong-winged empire weak, Stood up to unsay that saying, and fell Too far for song, though song were thousand-tongued, to tell.

VIII.

From those deep echoes of the loud aegean That rolled response whereat false fear was chid By songs of joy sublime and Sophoclean, Fresh notes reverberate westward rose to bid All wearier times take comfort from the paean That tells the night what deeds the sunrise did, Even till the lawns and torrents Pyrenean Ring answer from the records of the Cid.

But never force of fountains From sunniest hearts of mountains Wherein the soul of hidden June was hid Poured forth so pure and strong Springs of reiterate song, Loud as the streams his fame was reared amid, More sweet than flowers they feed, and fair With grace of lordlier sunshine and more lambent air.

IX.

A star more prosperous than the storm-clothed east's Clothed all the warm south-west with light like spring's, When hands of strong men spread the wolves their feasts And from snake-spirited princes plucked the stings; Ere earth, grown all one den of hurtling beasts, Had for her sunshine and her watersprings The fire of h.e.l.l that warmed the hearts of priests, The wells of blood that slaked the lips of kings.

The shadow of night made stone Stood populous and alone, Dense with its dead and loathed of living things That draw not life from death, And as with h.e.l.l's own breath And clangour of immitigable wings Vexed the fair face of Paris, made Foul in its murderous imminence of sound and shade.

X.

And all these things were parcels of the vision That moved a cloud before his eyes, or stood A tower half shattered by the strong collision Of spirit and spirit, of evil G.o.ds with good; A ruinous wall rent through with grim division, Where time had marked his every monstrous mood Of scorn and strength and pride and self-derision: The Tower of Things, that felt upon it brood Night, and about it cast The storm of all the past Now mute and forceless as a fire subdued: Yet through the rifted years And centuries veiled with tears And ages as with very death imbrued Freedom, whence hope and faith grow strong, Smiles, and firm love sustains the indissoluble song.

XI.

Above the cloudy coil of days deceased, Its might of flight, with mists and storms beset, Burns heavenward, as with heart and hope increased, For all the change of tempests, all the fret Of frost or fire, keen fraud or force released, Wherewith the world once wasted knows not yet If evil or good lit all the darkling east From the ardent moon of sovereign Mahomet.

Sublime in work and will The song sublimer still Salutes him, ere the splendour shrink and set; Then with imperious eye And wing that sounds the sky Soars and sees risen as ghosts in concourse met The old world's seven elder wonders, firm As dust and fixed as shadows, weaker than the worm.

XII.

High witness borne of knights high-souled and h.o.a.ry Before death's face and empire's rings and glows Even from the dust their life poured forth left gory, As the eagle's cry rings after from the snows Supreme rebuke of shame clothed round with glory And hosts whose track the false crowned eagle shows; More loud than sounds through stormiest song and story The laugh of slayers whose names the sea-wind knows; More loud than peals on land In many a red wet hand The clash of gold and cymbals as they close; Loud as the blast that meets The might of marshalled fleets And sheds it into shipwreck, like a rose Blown from a child's light grasp in sign That earth's high lords are lords not over breeze and brine.

XIII.

Above the dust and mire of man's dejection The wide-winged spirit of song resurgent sees His wingless and long-labouring resurrection Up the arduous heaven, by sore and strange degrees Mount, and with splendour of the soul's reflection Strike heaven's dark sovereign down upon his knees, Pale in the light of orient insurrection, And dumb before the almightier lord's decrees Who bade him be of yore, Who bids him be no more: And all earth's heart is quickened as the sea's, Even as when sunrise burns The very sea's heart yearns That heard not on the midnight-walking breeze The wail that woke with evensong From hearts of poor folk watching all the darkness long.

XIV.

Dawn and the beams of sunbright song illume Love, with strange children at her piteous breast, By grace of weakness from the grave-mouthed gloom Plucked, and by mercy lulled to living rest, Soft as the nursling's nigh the grandsire's tomb That fell on sleep, a bird of rifled nest; Soft as the lips whose smile unsaid the doom That gave their sire to violent death's arrest.

Even for such love's sake strong, Wrath fires the inveterate song That bids h.e.l.l gape for one whose bland mouth blest All slayers and liars that sighed Prayer as they slew and lied Till blood had clothed his priesthood as a vest, And hears, though darkness yet be dumb, The silence of the trumpet of the wrath to come.

XV.

Nor lacked these lights of constellated age A star among them fed with life more dire, Lit with his bloodied fame, whose withering rage Made earth for heaven's sake one funereal pyre And life in faith's name one appointed stage For death to purge the souls of men with fire.

Heaven, earth, and h.e.l.l on one thrice tragic page Mixed all their light and darkness: one man's lyre Gave all their echoes voice; Bade rose-cheeked love rejoice, And cold-lipped craft with ravenous fear conspire, And fire-eyed faith smite hope Dead, seeing enthroned as Pope And crowned of heaven on earth at h.e.l.l's desire Sin, called by death's incestuous name Borgia: the world that heard it flushed and quailed with shame.

XVI.

Another year, and hope triumphant heard The consummating sound of song that spake Conclusion to the mult.i.tudinous word Whose expectation held her spirit awake Till full delight for twice twelve years deferred Bade all souls entering eat and drink, and take A third time comfort given them, that the third Might heap the measure up of twain, and make The sinking year sublime Among all sons of time And fan in all men's memories for his sake.

Each thought of ours became Fire, kindling from his flame, And music widening in his wide song's wake.

Yea, and the world bore witness here How great a light was risen upon this darkening year.

XVII.

It was the dawn of winter: sword in sheath, Change, veiled and mild, came down the gradual air With cold slow smiles that hid the doom beneath.

Five days to die in yet were autumn's, ere The last leaf withered from his flowerless wreath.

South, east, and north, our skies were all blown bare, But westward over glimmering holt and heath Cloud, wind, and light had made a heaven more fair Than ever dream or truth Showed earth in time's keen youth When men with angels communed unaware.

Above the sun's head, now Veiled even to the ardent brow, Rose two sheer wings of sundering cloud, that were As a bird's poised for vehement flight, Full-fledged with plumes of tawny fire and h.o.a.r grey light.

XVIII.

As midnight black, as twilight brown, they spread, But feathered thick with flame that streaked and lined Their living darkness, ominous else of dread, From south to northmost verge of heaven inclined Most like some giant angel's, whose bent head Bowed earthward, as with message for mankind Of doom or benediction to be shed From pa.s.sage of his presence. Far behind, Even while they seemed to close, Stoop, and take flight, arose Above them, higher than heavenliest thought may find In light or night supreme Of vision or of dream, Immeasurable of men's eyes or mounting mind, Heaven, manifest in manifold Light of pure pallid amber, cheered with fire of gold.

XIX.

And where the fine gold faded all the sky Shone green as the outer sea when April glows, Inlaid with flakes and feathers fledged to fly Of cloud suspense in rapture and repose, With large live petals, broad as love bids lie Full open when the sun salutes the rose, And small rent sprays wherewith the heavens most high Were strewn as autumn strews the garden-close With ruinous roseleaves whirled About their wan chill world, Through wind-worn bowers that now no music knows, Spoil of the dim dusk year Whose utter night is near, And near the flower of dawn beyond it blows; Till east and west were fire and light, As though the dawn to come had flushed the coming night.

XX.

The highways paced of men that toil or play, The byways known of none but lonely feet, Were paven of purple woven of night and day With hands that met as hands of friends might meet-- As though night's were not lifted up to slay And day's had waxed not weaker. Peace more sweet Than music, light more soft than shadow, lay On downs and moorlands wan with day's defeat, That watched afar above Life's very rose of love Let all its l.u.s.trous leaves fall, fade, and fleet, And fill all heaven and earth Full as with fires of birth Whence time should feed his years with light and heat: Nay, not life's, but a flower more strong Than life or time or death, love's very rose of song.

XXI.

Song visible, whence all men's eyes were lit With love and loving wonder: song that glowed Through cloud and change on souls that knew not it And hearts that wist not whence their comfort flowed, Whence fear was lightened of her fever-fit, Whence anguish of her life-compelling load.

Yea, no man's head whereon the fire alit, Of all that pa.s.sed along that sunset road Westward, no brow so drear, No eye so dull of cheer, No face so mean whereon that light abode, But as with alien pride Strange G.o.dhead glorified Each feature flushed from heaven with fire that showed The likeness of its own life wrought By strong transfiguration as of living thought.

XXII.

Nor only clouds of the everlasting sky, Nor only men that paced that sunward way To the utter bourne of evening, pa.s.sed not by Unblest or unillumined: none might say, Of all things visible in the wide world's eye, That all too low for all that grace it lay: The lowliest lakelets of the moorland nigh, The narrowest pools where shallowest wavelets play, Were filled from heaven above With light like fire of love, With flames and colours like a dawn in May, As hearts that lowlier live With light of thoughts that give Light from the depth of souls more deep than they Through song's or story's kindling scroll, The splendour of the shadow that reveals the soul.

XXIII.