The Man Against the Sky Part 6

There he is who is my friend, d.a.m.ned, he fancies, to the end-- Vanquished, ever since a door Closed, he thought, for evermore On the life that was before.

And the friend who knows him best Sees him as he sees the rest Who are striving to be wise While a Demon's arms and eyes Hold them as a web would flies.

All the words of all the world, Aimed together and then hurled, Would be stiller in his ears Than a closing of still shears On a thread made out of years.

But there lives another sound, More compelling, more profound; There's a music, so it seems, That a.s.suages and redeems, More than reason, more than dreams.

There's a music yet unheard By the creature of the word, Though it matters little more Than a wave-wash on a sh.o.r.e-- Till a Demon shuts a door.

So, if he be very still With his Demon, and one will, Murmurs of it may be blown To my friend who is alone In a room that I have known.

After that from everywhere Singing life will find him there; Then the door will open wide, And my friend, again outside, Will be living, having died.

The Poor Relation

No longer torn by what she knows And sees within the eyes of others, Her doubts are when the daylight goes, Her fears are for the few she bothers.

She tells them it is wholly wrong Of her to stay alive so long; And when she smiles her forehead shows A crinkle that had been her mother's.

Beneath her beauty, blanched with pain, And wistful yet for being cheated, A child would seem to ask again A question many times repeated; But no rebellion has betrayed Her wonder at what she has paid For memories that have no stain, For triumph born to be defeated.

To those who come for what she was-- The few left who know where to find her-- She clings, for they are all she has; And she may smile when they remind her, As heretofore, of what they know Of roses that are still to blow By ways where not so much as gra.s.s Remains of what she sees behind her.

They stay a while, and having done What penance or the past requires, They go, and leave her there alone To count her chimneys and her spires.

Her lip shakes when they go away, And yet she would not have them stay; She knows as well as anyone That Pity, having played, soon tires.

But one friend always reappears, A good ghost, not to be forsaken; Whereat she laughs and has no fears Of what a ghost may reawaken, But welcomes, while she wears and mends The poor relation's odds and ends, Her truant from a tomb of years-- Her power of youth so early taken.

Poor laugh, more slender than her song It seems; and there are none to hear it With even the stopped ears of the strong For breaking heart or broken spirit.

The friends who clamored for her place, And would have scratched her for her face, Have lost her laughter for so long That none would care enough to fear it.

None live who need fear anything From her, whose losses are their pleasure; The plover with a wounded wing Stays not the flight that others measure; So there she waits, and while she lives, And death forgets, and faith forgives, Her memories go foraging For bits of childhood song they treasure.

And like a giant harp that hums On always, and is always blending The coming of what never comes With what has past and had an ending, The City trembles, throbs, and pounds Outside, and through a thousand sounds The small intolerable drums Of Time are like slow drops descending.

Bereft enough to shame a sage And given little to long sighing, With no illusion to a.s.suage The lonely changelessness of dying,-- Unsought, unthought-of, and unheard, She sings and watches like a bird, Safe in a comfortable cage From which there will be no more flying.

The Burning Book

Or the Contented Metaphysician

To the lore of no manner of men Would his vision have yielded When he found what will never again From his vision be shielded,-- Though he paid with as much of his life As a nun could have given, And to-night would have been as a knife, Devil-drawn, devil-driven.

For to-night, with his flame-weary eyes On the work he is doing, He considers the tinder that flies And the quick flame pursuing.

In the leaves that are crinkled and curled Are his ashes of glory, And what once were an end of the world Is an end of a story.

But he smiles, for no more shall his days Be a toil and a calling For a way to make others to gaze On G.o.d's face without falling.

He has come to the end of his words, And alone he rejoices In the choiring that silence affords Of ineffable voices.

To a realm that his words may not reach He may lead none to find him; An adept, and with nothing to teach, He leaves nothing behind him.

For the rest, he will have his release, And his embers, attended By the large and unclamoring peace Of a dream that is ended.

Fragment

Faint white pillars that seem to fade As you look from here are the first one sees Of his house where it hides and dies in a shade Of beeches and oaks and hickory trees.

Now many a man, given woods like these, And a house like that, and the Briony gold, Would have said, "There are still some G.o.ds to please, And houses are built without hands, we're told."

There are the pillars, and all gone gray.

Briony's hair went white. You may see Where the garden was if you come this way.

That sun-dial scared him, he said to me; "Sooner or later they strike," said he, And he never got that from the books he read.

Others are flourishing, worse than he, But he knew too much for the life he led.

And who knows all knows everything That a patient ghost at last retrieves; There's more to be known of his harvesting When Time the thresher unbinds the sheaves; And there's more to be heard than a wind that grieves For Briony now in this ageless oak, Driving the first of its withered leaves Over the stones where the fountain broke.

Lisette and Eileen

"When he was here alive, Eileen, There was a word you might have said; So never mind what I have been, Or anything,--for you are dead.

"And after this when I am there Where he is, you'll be dying still.

Your eyes are dead, and your black hair,-- The rest of you be what it will.

"'Twas all to save him? Never mind, Eileen. You saved him. You are strong.

I'd hardly wonder if your kind Paid everything, for you live long.

"You last, I mean. That's what I mean.

I mean you last as long as lies.

You might have said that word, Eileen,-- And you might have your hair and eyes.

"And what you see might be Lisette, Instead of this that has no name.

Your silence--I can feel it yet, Alive and in me, like a flame.