New Poems by Francis Thompson Part 6

'My brother!' spake she to the sun; The kindred kisses of the stars Were hers; her feet were set upon The moon. If slumber solved the bars

Of sense, or sense transpicuous grown Fulfill-ed seeing unto sight, I know not; nor if 'twas my own Ingathered self that made her night.

The windy trammel of her dress, Her blown locks, took my soul in mesh; G.o.d's breath they spake, with visibleness That stirred the raiment of her flesh:

And sensible, as her blown were, Beyond the precincts of her form I felt the woman flow from her-- A calm of intempestuous storm.

I failed against the affluent tide; Out of this abject earth of me I was translated and enskied Into the heavenly-regioned She.

Now of that vision I bereaven This knowledge keep, that may not dim:- Short arm needs man to reach to Heaven, So ready is Heaven to stoop to him.

Which sets, to measure of man's feet, No alien Tree for trysting-place; And who can read, may read the sweet Direction in his Lady's face.

And pa.s.s and pa.s.s the daily crowd, Unwares, occulted Paradise; Love the lost plot cries silver-loud, Nor any know the tongue he cries.

The light is in the darkness, and The darkness doth not comprehend: G.o.d hath no haste; and G.o.d's sons stand Yet a Day, tarrying for the end.

Dishonoured Rahab still hath hid, Yea still, within her house of shame, The messengers by Jesus bid Forerun the coming of His Name.

The Word was flesh, and crucified, From the beginning, and blasphemed: Its profaned raiment men divide, d.a.m.ned by what, reverenced, had redeemed.

Thy Lady, was thy heart not blind, One hour gave to thy witless trust The key thou go'st about to find; And thou hast dropped it in the dust.

Of her, the Way's one mortal grace, Own, save thy seeing be all forgot, That truly, G.o.d was in this place, And thou, unbless-ed, knew'st it not.

But some have eyes, and will not see; And some would see, and have not eyes; And fail the tryst, yet find the Tree, And take the lesson for the prize.

RETROSPECT.

Alas, and I have sung Much song of matters vain, And a heaven-sweetened tongue Turned to unprofiting strain Of vacant things, which though Even so they be, and throughly so, It is no boot at all for thee to know, But babble and false pain.

What profit if the sun Put forth his radiant thews, And on his circuit run, Even after my device, to this and to that use; And the true Orient, Christ, Make not His cloud of thee?

I have sung vanity, And nothing well devised.

And though the cry of stars Give tongue before his way Goldenly as I say, And each from wide Saturnus to hot Mars He calleth by its name, Lest that its bright feet stray; And thou have lore of all, But to thine own Sun's call Thy path disorbed hast never wit to tame; It profits not withal, And my rede is but lame.

Only that, 'mid vain vaunt Of wisdom ignorant, A little kiss upon the feet of Love My hasty verse has stayed Sometimes a s.p.a.ce to plant: It has not wholly strayed, Not wholly missed near sweet, fanning proud plumes above.

Therefore I do repent That with religion vain, And misconceiv-ed pain, I have my music bent To waste on bootless things its skiey-gendered rain: Yet shall a wiser day Fulfil more heavenly way, And with approv-ed music clear this slip I trust in G.o.d most sweet; Meantime the silent lip, Meantime the climbing feet.

A NARROW VESSEL.

Being a little dramatic sequence on the aspect of primitive girl- nature towards a love beyond its capacities.

A GIRL'S SIN.

I.--In her eyes.

Cross child! red, and frowning so?

'I, the day just over, Gave a lock of hair to--no!

How DARE you say, my lover?'

He asked you?--Let me understand; Come, child, let me sound it!

'Of course, he WOULD have asked it, and-- And so--somehow--he--found it.

'He told it out with great loud eyes-- Men have such little wit!

His sin I ever will chastise Because I gave him it.

'Shameless in me the gift, alas!

In him his open bliss: But for the privilege he has A thousand he shall miss!

'His eyes, where once I dreadless laughed, Call up a burning blot: I hate him, for his shameful craft That asked by asking not!'

Luckless boy! and all for hair He never asked, you said?

'Not just--but then he gazed--I swear He gazed it from my head!

'His silence on my cheek like breath I felt in subtle way; More sweet than aught another saith Was what he did not say.

'He'll think me vanquished, for this lapse, Who should be above him; Perhaps he'll think me light; perhaps-- Perhaps he'll think I--love him!

'Are his eyes conscious and elate, I hate him that I blush; Or are they innocent, still I hate-- They mean a thing's to hush.

'Before he nought amiss could do, Now all things show amiss; 'Twas all my fault, I know that true, But all my fault was his.

'I hate him for his mute distress, 'Tis insult he should care!

Because my heart's all humbleness, All pride is in my air.

'With him, each favour that I do Is bold suit's hallowing text; Each gift a bastion levelled, to The next one and the next.

'Each wish whose grant may him befall Is clogged by those withstood; He trembles, hoping one means all, And I, lest perhaps it should.

'Behind me piecemeal gifts I cast, My fleeing self to save; And that's the thing must go at last, For that's the thing he'd have.

'My lock the enforc-ed steel did grate To cut; its root-thrills came Down to my bosom. It might sate His l.u.s.t for my poor shame!