Astrophel and Other Poems Part 12

So many a dream and hope that went and came, So many and sweet, that love thought like to be, Of hours as bright and soft as those for me That made our hearts for song's sweet love the same, Lie now struck dead, that hope seems one with shame.

O Death, thy name is Love: we know it, and see The witness: yet for very love's sake we Can hardly bear to mix with thine his name.

Philip, how hard it is to bid thee part Thou knowest, if aught thou knowest where now thou art Of us that loved and love thee. None may tell What none but knows--how hard it is to say The word that seals up sorrow, darkens day, And bids fare forth the soul it bids farewell.

IN MEMORY OF AURELIO SAFFI

The wider world of men that is not ours Receives a soul whose life on earth was light.

Though darkness close the date of human hours, Love holds the spirit and sense of life in sight, That may not, even though death bid fly, take flight.

Faith, love, and hope fulfilled with memory, see As clear and dear as life could bid it be The present soul that is and is not he.

He, who held up the shield and sword of Rome Against the ravening brood of recreant France, Beside the man of men whom heaven took home When earth beheld the spring's first eyebeams glance And life and winter seemed alike a trance Eighteen years since, in sight of heaven and spring That saw the soul above all souls take wing, He too now hears the heaven we hear not sing.

He too now dwells where death is dead, and stands Where souls like stars exult in life to be: Whence all who linked heroic hearts and hands Shine on our sight, and give it strength to see What hope makes fair for all whom faith makes free: Free with such freedom as we find in sleep, The light sweet shadow of death, when dreams are deep And high as heaven whence light and lightning leap.

And scarce a month yet gone, his living hand Writ loving words that sealed me friend of his.

Are heaven and earth as near as sea to strand?

May life and death as bride and bridegroom kiss?

His last month's written word abides, and is; Clear as the sun that lit through storm and strife And darkling days when hope took fear to wife The faith whose fire was light of all his life.

A life so fair, so pure of earthlier leaven, That none hath won through higher and harder ways The deathless life of death which earth calls heaven; Heaven, and the light of love on earth, and praise Of silent memory through subsiding days Wherein the light subsides not whence the past Feeds full with life the future. Time holds fast Their names whom faith forgets not, first and last.

Forget? The dark forgets not dawn, nor we The suns that sink to rise again, and shine Lords of live years and ages. Earth and sea Forget not heaven that makes them seem divine, Though night put out their fires and bid their shrine Be dark and pale as storm and twilight. Day, Not night, is everlasting: life's full sway Bids death bow down as dead, and pa.s.s away.

What part has death in souls that past all fear Win heavenward their supernal way, and smite With scorn sublime as heaven such dreams as here Plague and perplex with cloud and fire the light That leads men's waking souls from glimmering night To the awless heights of day, whereon man's awe, Transfigured, dies in rapture, seeing the law Sealed of the sun that earth arising saw?

Faith, justice, mercy, love, and heaven-born hate That sets them all on fire and bids them be More than soft words and dreams that wake too late, Shone living through the lordly life that we Beheld, revered, and loved on earth, while he Dwelt here, and bade our eyes take light thereof; Light as from heaven that flamed or smiled above In light or fire whose very hate was love.

No hate of man, but hate of hate whose foam Sheds poison forth from tongues of snakes and priests, And stains the sickening air with steams whence Rome Now feeds not full the G.o.d that slays and feasts; For now the fangs of all the ravenous beasts That ramped about him, fain of prayer and prey, Fulfil their l.u.s.t no more: the tide of day Swells, and compels him down the deathward way.

Night sucks the Church its creature down, and h.e.l.l Yawns, heaves, and yearns to clasp its loathliest child Close to the b.r.e.a.s.t.s that bore it. All the spell Whence darkness saw the dawn in heaven defiled Is dumb as death: the lips that lied and smiled Wax white for fear as ashes. She that bore The banner up of darkness now no more Sheds night and fear and shame from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e.

When they that cast her kingdom down were born, North cried on south and east made moan to west For hopes that love had hardly heart to mourn, For Italy that was not. Kings on quest, By priests whose blessings burn as curses blest, Made spoil of souls and bodies bowed and bound, Hunted and harried, leashed as horse or hound, And hopeless of the hope that died unfound.

And now that faith has brought forth fruit to time, How should not memory praise their names, and hold Their record even as Dante's life sublime, Who bade his dream, found fair and false of old, Live? Not till earth and heaven be dead and cold May man forget whose work and will made one Italy, fair as heaven or freedom won, And left their fame to shine beside her sun.

_April 1890._

THE FESTIVAL OF BEATRICE

Dante, sole standing on the heavenward height, Beheld and heard one saying, "Behold me well: I am, I am Beatrice." Heaven and h.e.l.l Kept silence, and the illimitable light Of all the stars was darkness in his sight Whose eyes beheld her eyes again, and fell Shame-stricken. Since her soul took flight to dwell In heaven, six hundred years have taken flight.

And now that heavenliest part of earth whereon Shines yet their shadow as once their presence shone To her bears witness for his sake, as he For hers bare witness when her face was gone: No slave, no hospice now for grief--but free From sh.o.r.e to mountain and from Alp to sea.

THE MONUMENT OF GIORDANO BRUNO

I

Not from without us, only from within, Comes or can ever come upon us light Whereby the soul keeps ever truth in sight.

No truth, no strength, no comfort man may win, No grace for guidance, no release from sin, Save of his own soul's giving. Deep and bright As fire enkindled in the core of night Burns in the soul where once its fire has been The light that leads and quickens thought, inspired To doubt and trust and conquer. So he said Whom Sidney, flower of England, lordliest head Of all we love, loved: but the fates required A sacrifice to hate and h.e.l.l, ere fame Should set with his in heaven Giordano's name.

II

Cover thine eyes and weep, O child of h.e.l.l, Grey spouse of Satan, Church of name abhorred.

Weep, withered harlot, with thy weeping lord, Now none will buy the heaven thou hast to sell At price of prost.i.tuted souls, and swell Thy loveless list of lovers. Fire and sword No more are thine: the steel, the wheel, the cord, The flames that rose round living limbs, and fell In lifeless ash and ember, now no more Approve thee G.o.dlike. Rome, redeemed at last From all the red pollution of thy past, Acclaims the grave bright face that smiled of yore Even on the fire that caught it round and clomb To cast its ashes on the face of Rome.

_June 9, 1889._

LIFE IN DEATH

He should have followed who goes forth before us, Last born of us in life, in death first-born: The last to lift up eyes against the morn, The first to see the sunset. Life, that bore us Perchance for death to comfort and restore us, Of him hath left us here awhile forlorn, For him is as a garment overworn, And time and change, with suns and stars in chorus, Silent. But if, beyond all change or time, A law more just, more equal, more sublime Than sways the surge of life's loud sterile sea Sways that still world whose peace environs him, Where death lies dead as night when stars wax dim, Above all thought or hope of ours is he.

_August 2, 1891._

EPICEDE

As a vesture shalt thou change them, said the prophet, And the raiment that was flesh is turned to dust; Dust and flesh and dust again the likeness of it, And the fine gold woven and worn of youth is rust.

Hours that wax and wane salute the shade and scoff it, That it knows not aught it doth nor aught it must: Day by day the speeding soul makes haste to doff it, Night by night the pride of life resigns its trust.

Sleep, whose silent notes of song loud life's derange not, Takes the trust in hand awhile as angels may: Joy with wings that rest not, grief with wings that range not, Guard the gates of sleep and waking, gold or grey.

Joys that joys estrange, and griefs that griefs estrange not, Day that yearns for night, and night that yearns for day, As a vesture shalt thou change them, and they change not, Seeing that change may never change or pa.s.s away.

Life of death makes question, "What art thou that changest?

What am I, that fear should trust or faith should doubt?

I that lighten, thou that darkenest and estrangest, Is it night or day that girds us round about?

Light and darkness on the ways wherein thou rangest Seem as one, and beams as clouds they put to rout.

Strange is hope, but fear of all things born were strangest, Seeing that none may strive with change to cast it out.

"Change alone stands fast, thou sayest, O death: I know not: What art thou, my brother death, that thou shouldst know?