Artemis to Actaeon, and Other Verses Part 6

For it's All Souls' night, and break of the day, And behold, with the light the dead are away. . .

ALL SAINTS

_ALL so grave and shining see they come_ _From the blissful ranks of the forgiven,_ _Though so distant wheels the nearest crystal dome,_ _And the spheres are seven._

Are you in such haste to come to earth, Shining ones, the Wonder on your brow, To the low poor places of your birth, And the day that must be darkness now?

Does the heart still crave the spot it yearned on In the grey and mortal years, The pure flame the smoky hearth it burned on, The clear eye its tears?

Was there, in the narrow range of living, After all the wider scope?

In the old old rapture of forgiving, In the long long flight of hope?

Come you, from free sweep across the s.p.a.ces, To the irksome bounds of mortal law, From the all-embracing Vision, to some face's Look that never saw?

Never we, imprisoned here, had sought you, Lured you with the ancient bait of pain, Down the silver current of the light-years brought you To the beaten round again--

Is it you, perchance, who ache to strain us Dumbly to the dim transfigured breast, Or with tragic gesture would detain us From the age-long search for rest?

Is the labour then more glorious than the laurel, The learning than the conquered thought?

Is the meed of men the righteous quarrel, Not the justice wrought?

Long ago we guessed it, faithful ghosts, Proudly chose the present for our scene, And sent out indomitable hosts Day by day to widen our demesne.

Sit you by our hearth-stone, lone immortals, Share again the bitter wine of life!

Well we know, beyond the peaceful portals There is nothing better than our strife,

Nought more thrilling than the cry that calls us, Spent and stumbling, to the conflict vain, After each disaster that befalls us Nerves us for a sterner strain.

And, when flood or foeman shakes the sleeper In his moment's lapse from pain, Bids us fold our tents, and flee our kin, and deeper Drive into the wilderness again.

THE OLD POLE STAR

BEFORE the clepsydra had bound the days Man tethered Change to his fixed star, and said: "The elder races, that long since are dead, Marched by that light; it swerves not from its base Though all the worlds about it wax and fade."

When Egypt saw it, fast in reeling spheres, Her Pyramids shaft-centred on its ray She reared and said: "Long as this star holds sway In uninvaded ether, shall the years Revere my monuments--" and went her way.

The Pyramids abide; but through the shaft That held the polar pivot, eye to eye, Look now--blank nothingness! As though Change laughed At man's presumption and his puny craft, The star has slipped its leash and roams the sky.

Yet could the immemorial piles be swung A skyey hair's-breadth from their rooted base, Back to the central anchorage of s.p.a.ce, Ah, then again, as when the race was young, Should they behold the beacon of the race!

Of old, men said: "The Truth is there: we rear Our faith full-centred on it. It was known Thus of the elders who foreran us here, Mapped out its circuit in the shifting sphere, And found it, 'mid mutation, fixed alone."

Change laughs again, again the sky is cold, And down that fissure now no star-beam glides.

Yet they whose sweep of vision grows not old Still at the central point of s.p.a.ce behold Another pole-star: for the Truth abides.

A GRAVE

THOUGH life should come With all its marshalled honours, trump and drum, To proffer you the captaincy of some Resounding exploit, that shall fill Man's pulses with commemorative thrill, And be a banner to far battle days For truths unrisen upon untrod ways, What would your answer be, O heart once brave?

_Seek otherwhere; for me,_ _I watch beside a grave._

Though to some shining festival of thought The sages call you from steep citadel Of bastioned argument, whose rampart gained Yields the pure vision pa.s.sionately sought, In dreams known well, But never yet in wakefulness attained, How should you answer to their summons, save: _I watch beside a grave?_

Though Beauty, from her fane within the soul Of fire-tongued seers descending, Or from the dream-lit temples of the past With feet immortal wending, Illuminate grief's antre swart and vast With half-veiled face that promises the whole To him who holds her fast, What answer could you give?

_Sight of one face I crave,_ _One only while I live;_ _Woo elsewhere; for I watch beside a grave._

Though love of the one heart that loves you best, A storm-tossed messenger, Should beat its wings for shelter in your breast, Where clung its last year's nest, The nest you built together and made fast Lest envious winds should stir, And winged each delicate thought to minister With sweetness far-ama.s.sed To the young dreams within-- What answer could it win?

_The nest was whelmed in sorrow's rising wave,_ _Nor could I reach one drowning dream to save;_ _I watch beside a grave._

NON DOLET!

AGE after age the fruit of knowledge falls To ashes on men's lips; Love fails, faith sickens, like a dying tree Life sheds its dreams that no new spring recalls; The longed-for ships Come empty home or founder on the deep, And eyes first lose their tears and then their sleep.

So weary a world it lies, forlorn of day, And yet not wholly dark, Since evermore some soul that missed the mark Calls back to those agrope In the mad maze of hope, "Courage, my brothers--I have found the way!"

The day is lost? What then?

What though the straggling rear-guard of the fight Be whelmed in fear and night, And the flying scouts proclaim That death has gripped the van-- Ever the heart of man Cheers on the hearts of men!

_"It hurts not!"_ dying cried the Roman wife; And one by one The leaders in the strife Fall on the blade of failure and exclaim: "The day is won!"

A HUNTING-SONG

_HUNTERS, where does Hope nest?_ Not in the half-oped breast, Nor the young rose, Nor April sunrise--those With a quick wing she brushes, The wide world through, Greets with the throat of thrushes, Fades from as fast as dew.

But, would you spy her sleeping, Cradled warm, Look in the breast of weeping, The tree stript by storm; But, would you bind her fast, Yours at last, Bed-mate and lover, Gain the last headland bare That the cold tides cover, There may you capture her, there, Where the sea gives to the ground Only the drift of the drowned.

Yet, if she slips you, once found, Push to her uttermost lair In the low house of despair.

There will she watch by your head, Sing to you till you be dead, Then, with your child in her breast, In another heart build a new nest.