New Poems by Francis Thompson Part 1

New Poems.

by Francis Thompson.

SIGHT AND INSIGHT.

'Wisdom is easily seen by them that love her, and is found by them that seek her.

To think therefore upon her is perfect understanding.'

WISDOM, vi.

THE MISTRESS OF VISION.

I

Secret was the garden; Set i' the pathless awe Where no star its breath can draw.

Life, that is its warden, Sits behind the fosse of death. Mine eyes saw not, and I saw.

II

It was a mazeful wonder; Thrice three times it was enwalled With an emerald-- Seal-ed so asunder.

All its birds in middle air hung a-dream, their music thralled.

III

The Lady of fair weeping, At the garden's core, Sang a song of sweet and sore And the after-sleeping; In the land of Luthany, and the tracts of Elenore.

IV

With sweet-panged singing, Sang she through a dream-night's day; That the bowers might stay, Birds bate their winging, Nor the wall of emerald float in wreath-ed haze away.

V

The lily kept its gleaming, In her tears (divine conservers!) Wash-ed with sad art; And the flowers of dreaming Pal-ed not their fervours, For her blood flowed through their nervures; And the roses were most red, for she dipt them in her heart.

VI

There was never moon, Save the white sufficing woman: Light most heavenly-human-- Like the unseen form of sound, Sensed invisibly in tune,-- With a sun-deriv-ed stole Did inaureole All her lovely body round; Lovelily her lucid body with that light was inter- strewn.

VII

The sun which lit that garden wholly, Low and vibrant visible, Tempered glory woke; And it seem-ed solely Like a silver thurible Solemnly swung, slowly, Fuming clouds of golden fire, for a cloud of incense- smoke.

VIII

But woe's me, and woe's me, For the secrets of her eyes!

In my visions fearfully They are ever shown to be As fring-ed pools, whereof each lies Pallid-dark beneath the skies Of a night that is But one blear necropolis.

And her eyes a little tremble, in the wind of her own sighs.

IX

Many changes rise on Their phantasmal mysteries.

They grow to an horizon Where earth and heaven meet; And like a wing that dies on The vague twilight-verges, Many a sinking dream doth fleet Lessening down their secrecies.

And, as dusk with day converges, Their orbs are troublously Over-gloomed and over-glowed with hope and fear of things to be.

X

There is a peak on Himalay, And on the peak undeluged snow, And on the snow not eagles stray; There if your strong feet could go,-- Looking over tow'rd Cathay From the never-deluged snow-- Farthest ken might not survey Where the peoples underground dwell whom antique fables know.

XI

East, ah, east of Himalay, Dwell the nations underground; Hiding from the shock of Day, For the sun's uprising-sound: Dare not issue from the ground At the tumults of the Day, So fearfully the sun doth sound Clanging up beyond Cathay; For the great earthquaking sunrise rolling up beyond Cathay.

XII

Lend me, O lend me The terrors of that sound, That its music may attend me.

Wrap my chant in thunders round; While I tell the ancient secrets in that Lady's singing found.

XIII

On Ararat there grew a vine, When Asia from her bathing rose; Our first sailor made a twine Thereof for his prefiguring brows.

Canst divine Where, upon our dusty earth, of that vine a cl.u.s.ter grows?

XIV

On Golgotha there grew a thorn Round the long-prefigured Brows.

Mourn, O mourn!

For the vine have we the spine? Is this all the Heaven allows?

XV

On Calvary was shook a spear; Press the point into thy heart-- Joy and fear!

All the spines upon the thorn into curling tendrils start.

XVI

O, dismay!

I, a wingless mortal, sporting With the tresses of the sun?

I, that dare my hand to lay On the thunder in its snorting?

Ere begun, Falls my singed song down the sky, even the old Icarian way.

XVII

From the fall precipitant These dim s.n.a.t.c.hes of her chant Only have remain-ed mine;-- That from spear and thorn alone May be grown For the front of saint or singer any divinizing twine.