Perpetual Light : a memorial Part 5

Dark were the rooms where they lay Who loved in the flesh (Diana's disciples they said!) In that lupanar of the dead.

Sweet was the flesh they loved, Graceful the limbs that moved, Wild the pa.s.sion that they

Desired afresh In the night. Were they not of the world, Of l.u.s.t and toil and war?

And I--I too?

Yea--till that music swirled About me, and I knew I was visited of a star!

A star it was grew and grew (As hot in the dark I lay, Panting, after the feast,) Glorious out of the east, And a face that made my soul A slowly uncrumpling scroll, It glimmered so near and fey!

Her voice rippled like water In the light gold-green Of some mid-noon ravine.

She stooped, the moon's daughter, With her hand underneath my head And her lips on the lips of the dead.

I arose from my rumpled bed.

A waterfall sliding green In a silver-mosaicked screen We two trod under; Then I turned where her light touch led, Trembling but unafraid.

Across some Elysian sod, Winged of heel, I floated--a G.o.d!-- Down and into a moon-filled glade, A glade of wonder....

But the east grew steadily bright, A glaring sea of light.

I throbbed to drums of dread.

And my eyes still held her flight When she broke that dream with one kiss Of agonizing bliss, Stood in streaming flame by my bed, Gestured, and fled.

Between the pillars I saw, Beyond the pillars I heard Wings of no mortal bird Flare and withdraw.

And they who had feasted and pa.s.sioned Slept, finding light no bar, Slept in their bodies' ease.

But under those rustling seas That lapped at the water-stair I ached to plunge my despair And my heart, that some grim G.o.d fashioned To be visited of a star!

MAN POSSESSED

Shaken, a thousand times shaken, with the millions that grieve, Now at last I am overtaken. I will say I believe.

I ran with the pennons of morning astream over me.

On the precipice, scorning its warning, I ran to be free.

Still I love high winds and the great running and the steep verge, But strength past my strength overtakes my cunning, and stars emerge High over me, eternal, deathless, deep over deep, And my head sways heavy as I run breathless, my eyelids droop with sleep.

Yet it is not this has shaken my soul in me, Not the bounds of life have overtaken my will to be free, But scent and sound past mete and bound, and a sign--a sign That no other eyes can recognize, that is only mine.

I hardly know what I believe or what I mean Save there is sweetness round my heart and the world a screen Of interwoven mystery to a world unseen.

Can one drink the air, can one seize the sea, can one grasp the fire?

Even so intangible to me the answer to my desire.

The elements we feel and see shift and drift and suspire And we therein behind the screen, with glimmering brains that tire.

That is all! Nor can I fall now in the race.

As a second breath to a runner comes my soul takes up the pace-- For I dreamed the world ran with me in a far and starry place.

Gray as sea-mist driven were the shapes that strove With the strength of greed and hate and the greater strength of love.

I saw their eyes like phosphorus, blue fog about them wove.

I saw the limbs glimmer and I heard the sighing come From this side and from that, as our host ran dumb Over a silver shining plain, to some strange end, to some-- Was it goal or heaven or city?--some agonizing gleam That broke the heart for pity and made the eyes stream.

Above the pallor of that race our spent breath rose like steam, Yet our red hearts pulsed within us, as we ran, in my dream.

A glow below the ghostly surf that swirled and surged and turned Came from human hearts visible that throbbed and beat and burned, And like sand of human ashes was the soil our feet spurned.

All the stars above us thronged the dome of s.p.a.ce, Poised like javeliniers, with glinting spear or mace, Watchful of our running and to spoil our race, And all the souls that ran, ran with drawn and lifted face.

This too was the real. I ran with dogged heart.

I parched like a desert, tortured in every part.

I knew not what city--nor why the race should start.

Then a singing touched me, and the scent of a flower, A child's laugh, and the crying of a woman in her hour, And a comrade's courage--and a subtle power Not of worldly schemes and ways crept along my veins, And my heart went ablaze and consumed its many stains, And my lips were touched with wine and my body felt no pains.

Then it pa.s.sed--and yet again it came and it pa.s.sed-- Yet again and yet again, till I toiled at last In the old ironic torture, bound fast, bound fast.

But as I looked I saw how it came and went, That touch, that communion, almost inevident, Through the host of these my brothers who ran nigh spent.

When it came they ran like men with life and lung And the wind went by them like a song bravely sung, Their hearts spread wide radiance, their limbs glowed young.

It pa.s.sed, and they were phantoms with phantom arms that swung.

Here and there a true form some spirit would endue For moments, but we mortals were but ghosts I knew.

Then a light low down before us to a distant landscape grew.

The stars from heaven crowded down. I knew our race was through.

The stars from heaven crowded down intolerably bright With dizzying brilliance, height above armored height.

Every star upcast a spear and hurled it down to smite.

There was one strange thought in me. It echoed through my head As some t.i.tanic corridor echoes a giant tread, Only a little thing that my love once had said.

Common daily speech, a comforting word Tossed to me as lightly as crumbs to a bird, But it lived in my heart, it broke to flame and stirred My self to a purpose at last not self could mar, And I cried "We are delivered!" and I heard it echo far Up to the vault of heaven past star on shrinking star.

So then I was running through poppies that I knew Above a blue sea basking--and you--and you Were running on the headland in the world made anew.

I know some force is mighty, some force I cannot reach.

I know that words are said to me that are not said with speech.

My heart has learned a lesson that I can never teach.

Only this I know, that I am overtaken By a swifter runner Whose breath is never shaken, That I follow on His pace, and that round me, as I waken, Are the headlands of home and the blue sea swinging And the flowers of the valleys their fresh scents flinging And the prophets and the poets, with their singing--with their singing!

MINIATURE

For all your gestures, for your gray-blue eyes And Irish mouth, and hair that makes you child, When shaken out at evening; for your mirth And your quick pity, and your mother's breast; For the great tenderness that you have given And the rich dreams through purple-flowing night, The holy lull of effort and the peace Of a deep love; because of all these things, Wherever I should be,--beyond what seas Of an enchanted music, on what isles, I know not, of a strange irradiance, In dream or life or death,--dissatisfied With splendor or white mystery, my heart Would break--my heart would break--never to hear Your tones again or feel your hair again Beneath my lips, or see your lifted eyes Br.i.m.m.i.n.g with all the secrets of the stars!

DEATH WILL MAKE CLEAR

What in the night says the clock that ticks time to eternity, Swimmer of waves of your thought that are dark waves and deep?

What in the night says the moon, from her patient infinity, Laying pale hands on your heart, hands of peace and of sleep?

What say the stars to her eyes, who has loosed by the window The billow of her hair, as the dark of the trees feels her fear?

And over the cradle what whisper is breathing, is breathing.

As over the bed of the bride or the catafalqued bier, Or over the flung and clawed earth where a soldier is dying?

"Death will make clear!"

Furious and fleet is man's soul, like a hound through the woodland, On through the tangle of trees and the green and the gold.

Yes, for the senses are goads, but the lineage n.o.ble, Not for the warren or hutch to be cornered and sold, Then there is freedom and ease, and a dream that persuades one On, till the track quakes on black whence the death-lilies peer.

So the bronzed shoulder, that sets to the crust of the boulder Heaving it up--as the mill-wheel that turns at the weir-- Bring--? They bring silence and candles and creaking and whispers.

Death will make clear.

Why that white work from the crag and the hands of the sculptor Smitten in a moment to rubble as earth heaves her breast?

Why that intangible glory, remote but G.o.d-in-us, Golden and crumbling to pathos of dusk in the west?

Why the pure curve of the arm and the breast of a mother, Yes, and the proud head of man held erect on the mere Void of blue heaven,--the seas and the ships and the trumpets, Towers and horizons, all shouting? The answer is here, Here in thy breast, son of man, sorry son of the ages.

Death will make clear.