New Poems by Francis Thompson Part 8

THE END OF IT.

She did not love to love; but hated him For making her to love, and so her whim From pa.s.sion taught misprision to begin; And all this sin Was because love to cast out had no skill Self, which was regent still.

Her own self-will made void her own self's will

EPILOGUE.

If I have studied here in part A tale as old as maiden's heart, 'Tis that I do see herein Shadow of more piteous sin.

She, that but giving part, not whole, Took even the part back, is the Soul: And that so disdain-ed Lover-- Best unthought, since Love is over.

Love to invite, desire, and fear, And Love's exactions cost too dear Count for Love's possession,--ah, Thy way, misera Anima!

To give the pledge, and yet be pined That a pledge should have force to bind, This, O Soul, too often still Is the recreance of thy will!

Out of Love's arms to make fond chain, And, because struggle bringeth pain, Hate Love for Love's sweet constraint, Is the way of Souls that faint.

Such a Soul, for saddest end, Finds Love the foe in Love the friend; And--ah, grief incredible!-- Treads the way of Heaven, to h.e.l.l.

MISCELLANEOUS ODES.

ODE TO THE SETTING SUN.

PRELUDE.

The wailful sweetness of the violin Floats down the hush-ed waters of the wind, The heart-strings of the throbbing harp begin To long in aching music. Spirit-pined,

In wafts that poignant sweetness drifts, until The wounded soul ooze sadness. The red sun, A bubble of fire, drops slowly toward the hill, While one bird prattles that the day is done.

O setting Sun, that as in reverent days Sinkest in music to thy smooth-ed sleep, Discrowned of homage, though yet crowned with rays, Hymned not at harvest more, though reapers reap:

For thee this music wakes not. O deceived, If thou hear in these thoughtless harmonies A pious phantom of adorings reaved, And echo of fair ancient flatteries!

Yet, in this field where the Cross planted reigns, I know not what strange pa.s.sion bows my head To thee, whose great command upon my veins Proves thee a G.o.d for me not dead, not dead!

For wors.h.i.+p it is too incredulous, For doubt--oh, too believing-pa.s.sionate!

What wild divinity makes my heart thus A fount of most baptismal tears?--Thy straight

Long beam lies steady on the Cross. Ah me!

What secret would thy radiant finger show?

Of thy bright masters.h.i.+p is this the key?

Is THIS thy secret, then? And is it woe?

Fling from thine ear the burning curls, and hark A song thou hast not heard in Northern day; For Rome too daring, and for Greece too dark, Sweet with wild wings that pa.s.s, that pa.s.s away!

ODE.

Alpha and Omega, sadness and mirth, The springing music, and its wasting breath-- The fairest things in life are Death and Birth, And of these two the fairer thing is Death.

Mystical twins of Time inseparable, The younger hath the holier array, And hath the awfuller sway: It is the falling star that trails the light, It is the breaking wave that hath the might, The pa.s.sing shower that rainbows maniple.

Is it not so, O thou down-stricken Day, That draw'st thy splendours round thee in thy fall?

High was thine Eastern pomp inaugural; But thou dost set in statelier pageantry, Lauded with tumults of a firmament: Thy visible music-blasts make deaf the sky, Thy cymbals clang to fire the Occident, Thou dost thy dying so triumphally: I SEE the crimson blaring of thy shawms!

Why do those lucent palms Strew thy feet's failing thicklier than their might, Who dost but hood thy glorious eyes with night, And vex the heels of all the yesterdays?

Lo! this loud, lackeying praise Will stay behind to greet the usurping moon, When they have cloud-barred over thee the West.

Oh, shake the bright dust from thy parting shoon!

The earth not paeans thee, nor serves thy hest, Be G.o.dded not by Heaven! avert thy face, And leave to blank disgrace The oblivious world! unsceptre thee of state and place!

Ha! but bethink thee what thou gazedst on, Ere yet the snake Decay had venomed tooth; The name thou bar'st in those vast seasons gone-- Candid Hyperion, Clad in the light of thine immortal youth!

Ere Dionysus bled thy vines, Or Artemis drave her clamours through the wood, Thou saw'st how once against Olympus' height The brawny t.i.tans stood, And shook the G.o.ds' world 'bout their ears, and how Enceladus (whom Etna c.u.mbers now) Shouldered me Pelion with its swinging pines, The river unrecked, that did its broken flood Spurt on his back: before the mountainous shock The rank-ed G.o.ds dislock, Scared to their skies; wide o'er rout-trampled night Flew spurned the pebbled stars: those splendours then Had tempested on earth, star upon star Mounded in ruin, if a longer war Had quaked Olympus and cold-fearing men.

Then did the ample marge And circuit of thy targe Sullenly redden all the vaward fight, Above the bl.u.s.terous clash Wheeled thy swung falchion's flash And hewed their forces into splintered flight.

Yet ere Olympus thou wast, and a G.o.d!

Though we deny thy nod, We cannot spoil thee of thy divinity.

What know we elder than thee?

When thou didst, bursting from the great void's husk, Leap like a lion on the throat o' the dusk; When the angels rose-chapleted Sang each to other, The vaulted blaze overhead Of their vast pinions spread, Hailing thee brother; How chaos rolled back from the wonder, And the First Morn knelt down to thy visage of thunder!

Thou didst draw to thy side Thy young Auroral bride, And lift her veil of night and mystery; Tellus with baby hands Shook off her swaddling-bands, And from the unswath-ed vapours laughed to thee.

Thou twi-form deity, nurse at once and sire!

Thou genitor that all things nourishest!

The earth was suckled at thy s.h.i.+ning breast, And in her veins is quick thy milky fire.

Who scarfed her with the morning? and who set Upon her brow the day-fall's carcanet?

Who queened her front with the enrondured moon?

Who dug night's jewels from their vaulty mine To dower her, past an eastern wizard's dreams, When hovering on him through his haschish-swoon, All the rained gems of the old Tartarian line s.h.i.+ver in l.u.s.trous throbbings of tinged flame?

Whereof a moiety in the Paolis' seams Statelily builded their Venetian name.

Thou hast enwoof-ed her An empress of the air, And all her births are propertied by thee: Her teeming centuries Drew being from thine eyes: Thou fatt'st the marrow of all quality.

Who lit the furnace of the mammoth's heart?

Who s.h.a.gged him like Pilatus' ribb-ed flanks?

Who raised the columned ranks Of that old pre-diluvian forestry, Which like a continent torn oppressed the sea, When the ancient heavens did in rains depart, While the high-danc-ed whirls Of the tossed scud made hiss thy drench-ed curls?

Thou rear'dst the enormous brood; Who hast with life imbued The lion maned in tawny majesty, The tiger velvet-barred, The stealthy-stepping pard, And the lithe panther's flexuous symmetry.

How came the entomb-ed tree a light-bearer, Though sunk in lightless lair?

Friend of the forgers of earth, Mate of the earthquake and thunders volcanic, Clasped in the arms of the forces t.i.tanic Which rock like a cradle the girth Of the ether-hung world; Swart son of the swarthy mine, When flame on the breath of his nostrils feeds How is his countenance half-divine, Like thee in thy sanguine weeds?

Thou gavest him his light, Though sepultured in night Beneath the dead bones of a perished world; Over his prostrate form Though cold, and heat, and storm, The mountainous wrack of a creation hurled.

Who made the splendid rose Saturate with purple glows; Cupped to the marge with beauty; a perfume-press Whence the wind vintages Gushes of warm-ed fragrance richer far Than all the flavorous ooze of Cyprus' vats?

Lo, in yon gale which waves her green cymar, With dusky cheeks burnt red She sways her heavy head, Drunk with the must of her own odorousness; While in a moted trouble the vexed gnats Maze, and vibrate, and tease the noontide hush.

Who girt dissolv-ed lightnings in the grape?

Summered the opal with an Irised flush?

Is it not thou that dost the tulip drape, And huest the daffodilly, Yet who hast snowed the lily, And her frail sister, whom the waters name, Dost vestal-vesture 'mid the blaze of June, Cold as the new-sprung girlhood of the moon Ere Autumn's kiss sultry her cheek with flame?