Artemis to Actaeon, and Other Verses Part 3

VI

The Moment came, with sacramental cup Lifted--and all the vault of life grew bright With tides of incommensurable light-- But tremblingly I turned and covered up My face before the wonder. Down the slope I heard her feet in irretrievable flight, And when I looked again, my stricken sight Saw night and rain in a dead world agrope.

Now walks her ghost beside me, whispering With lips derisive: "Thou that wouldst forego-- What G.o.d a.s.sured thee that the cup I bring Globes not in every drop the cosmic show, All that the insatiate heart of man can wring From life's long vintage?--Now thou shalt not know."

VII

Shall I not know? I, that could always catch The sunrise in one beam along the wall, The nests of June in April's mating call, And ruinous autumn in the wind's first s.n.a.t.c.h At summer's green impenetrable thatch-- That always knew far off the secret fall Of a G.o.d's feet across the city's brawl, The touch of silent fingers on my latch?

Not thou, vain Moment! Something more than thou Shall write the score of what mine eyes have wept, The touch of kisses that have missed my brow, The murmur of wings that brushed me while I slept, And some mute angel in the breast even now Measures my loss by all that I have kept.

VIII

Strive we no more. Some hearts are like the bright Tree-chequered s.p.a.ces, flecked with sun and shade, Where gathered in old days the youth and maid To woo, and weave their dances: with the night They cease their flutings, and the next day's light Finds the smooth green unconscious of their tread, And ready its velvet pliancies to spread Under fresh feet, till these in turn take flight.

But other hearts a long long road doth span, From some far region of old works and wars, And the weary armies of the thoughts of man Have trampled it, and furrowed it with scars, And sometimes, husht, a sacred caravan Moves over it alone, beneath the stars.

EXPERIENCE

I

LIKE Crusoe with the bootless gold we stand Upon the desert verge of death, and say: "What shall avail the woes of yesterday To buy to-morrow's wisdom, in the land Whose currency is strange unto our hand?

In life's small market they had served to pay Some late-found rapture, could we but delay Till Time hath matched our means to our demand."

But otherwise Fate wills it, for, behold, Our gathered strength of individual pain, When Time's long alchemy hath made it gold, Dies with us--h.o.a.rded all these years in vain, Since those that might be heir to it the mould Renew, and coin themselves new griefs again.

II

O Death, we come full-handed to thy gate, Rich with strange burden of the mingled years, Gains and renunciations, mirth and tears, And love's oblivion, and remembering hate.

Nor know we what compulsion laid such freight Upon our souls--and shall our hopes and fears Buy nothing of thee, Death? Behold our wares, And sell us the one joy for which we wait.

Had we lived longer, life had such for sale, With the last coin of sorrow purchased cheap, But now we stand before thy shadowy pale, And all our longings lie within thy keep-- Death, can it be the years shall naught avail?

"Not so," Death answered, "they shall purchase sleep."

GRIEF

I

ON immemorial alt.i.tudes august Grief holds her high dominion. Bold the feet That climb unblenching to that stern retreat Whence, looking down, man knows himself but dust.

There lie the mightiest pa.s.sions, earthward thrust Beneath her regnant footstool, and there meet Pale ghosts of buried longings that were sweet, With many an abdicated "shall" and "must."

For there she rules omnipotent, whose will Compels a mute acceptance of her chart; Who holds the world, and lo! it cannot fill Her mighty hand; who will be served apart With uncommunicable rites, and still Surrender of the undivided heart.

II

She holds the world within her mighty hand, And lo! it is a toy for babes to toss, And all its shining imagery but dross, To those that in her awful presence stand; As sun-confronting eagles o'er the land That lies below, they send their gaze across The common intervals of gain and loss, And hope's infinitude without a strand.

But he who, on that lonely eminence, Watches too long the whirling of the spheres Through dim eternities, descending thence The voices of his kind no longer hears, And, blinded by the spectacle immense, Journeys alone through all the after years.

CHARTRES

I

IMMENSE, august, like some t.i.tanic bloom, The mighty choir unfolds its lithic core, Petalled with panes of azure, gules and or, Splendidly lambent in the Gothic gloom, And stamened with keen flamelets that illume The pale high-altar. On the prayer-worn floor, By worshippers innumerous thronged of yore, A few brown crones, familiars of the tomb, The stranded driftwood of Faith's ebbing sea-- For these alone the finials fret the skies, The topmost bosses shake their blossoms free, While from the triple portals, with grave eyes, Tranquil, and fixed upon eternity, The cloud of witnesses still testifies.

II

The crimson panes like blood-drops stigmatise The western floor. The aisles are mute and cold.

A rigid fetich in her robe of gold, The Virgin of the Pillar, with blank eyes, Enthroned beneath her votive canopies, Gathers a meagre remnant to her fold.

The rest is solitude; the church, grown old, Stands stark and grey beneath the burning skies.

Well-nigh again its mighty framework grows To be a part of nature's self, withdrawn From hot humanity's impatient woes; The floor is ridged like some rude mountain lawn, And in the east one giant window shows The roseate coldness of an Alp at dawn.

TWO BACKGROUNDS

I

LA VIERGE AU DONATEUR

HERE by the ample river's argent sweep, Bosomed in tilth and vintage to her walls, A tower-crowned Cybele in armoured sleep The city lies, fat plenty in her halls, With calm parochial spires that hold in fee The friendly gables cl.u.s.tered at their base, And, equipoised o'er tower and market-place, The Gothic minister's winged immensity; And in that narrow burgh, with equal mood, Two placid hearts, to all life's good resigned, Might, from the altar to the lych-gate, find Long years of peace and dreamless plenitude.

II

MONA LISA