Perpetual Light : a memorial Part 6

Lord of the mighty, as Lord of the weak and the lowly, Lord of the sage and the madman, of clean and unclean; Breeder of suns and of excrement, loathly and holy, Graving the skull with the pity of all that had been,-- Death, oh thou graver of countenance knighted austerely, Yea, on the pitiful clay, such poor flesh in its fear Of G.o.d and the soul and the singing of stars that may teach us Wisdom at last,--oh thou ultimate searcher and seer, Beckon--I follow. At last on my lips set thy finger; Thou wilt make clear!

SUNLIGHT

Sunlight is full of age.

Ah, so old!

Older than any sage Has ever told!

The draught our Lord quaffed up To the b.l.o.o.d.y lees; The aching hemlock cup Of Socrates.

It is a golden sword; The veil of the Grail; The unfathomable Word That will not fail.

Along a summer street It often lies Shimmering to repeat Immortal paradise.

As a mountain lake can mirror The exalted with the near, Heaven's wonder and terror-- Both shine here.

It says all things in nought; And, saying them, pa.s.ses To gild like gentle thought Trees and gra.s.ses.

It sways upon the ocean Like a G.o.d asleep Where the waves' wandering motion Hides the deep.

It shafts through forest aisles Like miracle; It trembles and smiles On the lip of h.e.l.l.

It has touched Greece and Rome And Persia's might-- And stirs the vines of home With flickering light.

It lay on Cain's hot neck As he stooped to slay.

David's stone from the beck Glittered its day.

Cleopatra gazed upon it Through shadowed lids.

High halls they built to shun it In the Pyramids.

It opens babies' hands That crawl to s.n.a.t.c.h its beams.

Through hovels in ancient lands Its splendor streams.

Eternal wells of light Its largeness shows.

There shall be no more night Its conscience knows.

It is a smiling stranger, A fainting hour, Love and peace and danger And the mock of power.

Yet have I said no word Of what it is.

Only--my heart is stirred By its mysteries!

AND A LONG WAY OFF HE SAW FAIRYLAND

I lived once with fairies, (And I know they're _true_ fairies!) One lifts laughing eyes In a way I most admire.

Truth goes by contraries, For you don't know they're fairies Till there isn't any firelight, Nor song beside the fire.

One fairy's small to hold, And her hair is fairy gold.

One's a feminine fairy With unusual address.

One fairy's just Jim.

You just look and love him, With his nonsense and his laugh And his st.u.r.dy steadfastness.

And the fairy queen I knew Has eyes that are blue, Has moods that are decided, And courage that denies It is ever brave at all.

She mends them when they fall; She tends the little fairies In absurd, delightful wise.

They bring her thoughts like birds And very funny words And mountainous decisions And things to make you cry.

But, after all, it's airy In the house of a fairy, With a face like that to sob to And those arms close by.

I lived once with a fairy.

I was wild and contrary.

I'm _still_ wild and contrary.

But her heart's a heart for two.

She sees rooms of starry graces, Kind firelight on our faces, And a watch on sleeping fairies, And the fairy home come true.

Once again, with gentle evening And the dreaming trees, come true.

IN TIME OF TROUBLE

In memory of your desolate eyes I know That words are words, with nothing to gainsay The testimony of pain, the heavy day; But searching in the ruins of overthrow I gathered you this wreath that now I show; Small and barbaric brightness on the gray,-- Glimmering irony, perhaps. I lay It down before your eyes, and softly go.

You are a vista blundered on in Arden Where the fool grasps his bells, that he may hark; A sudden skyward path where cliffs are warden Of waves that foam to reach a high tide-mark; Whisper of blossoms in a midnight garden; A fountain whitely flowering on the dark.

ANOMALY

Men who are fain to change, look wizenedly Into the flowing mirror of your thought And see on what strange reefs your joys are caught And contemplate your vexed variety: Grief that was hooded for eternity Casting the stole for spangled domino, Awe on its pinnacle jigging heel and toe.

Love laughing into hate and mockery.

What shoots the warp to patterns that reblend And spread and fade,--and working out what end?

In time of pain why be as voluble As one who tells an endless useless sum, Yet simple clay, pallid and deaf and dumb Through the one moment forging Heaven or h.e.l.l?

THE LOVER

I rooted silver stars from heaven in showers, Rived adamant to show an azure gap, Captured the very Psyche in my cap, Filched from the sack of Time six diamond hours.

Hyperborean in my crown of flowers I ran and leapt the cliff of thunderclap Plunging through green sea-light where bronze fronds wrap Crumbling pearl palaces and coral bowers.

Now--"Could I move, all humankind would pant Even to think such effort! Could my songs Cry out, dusked heaven would shudder at my wrongs!"

I moaned, and then looked flushed and palpitant On Love's rapt face, that frenzied flagellant Wielding with zeal the welting golden thongs.

JUDGMENT

Down the deep steps of stone through iron doors I entered that red room and saw the rack, And round the walls I saw them sit in black, The immutable and urgent councillors.

My heart was clotted with an old remorse, Despair a vulture fast upon my back.

I saw my body like an empty sack Tossed disarticulate on grated floors.

But even a wilder wonder at this crime Tried in the dungeon of my own grim life Woke, as your memory awoke with tune That crazed the very walls. I stared through Time Like to a man who stands with smoking knife Above his dead, and sees the rising moon.