The House of Life Part 5

Only I know that I leaned low and drank A long draught from the water where she sank, Her breath and all her tears and all her soul: And as I leaned, I know I felt Love's face Pressed on my neck with moan of pity and grace, Till both our heads were in his aureole.

WITHOUT HER

What of her gla.s.s without her? The blank grey There where the pool is blind of the moon's face.

Her dress without her? The tossed empty s.p.a.ce Of cloud-rack whence the moon has pa.s.sed away.

Her paths without her? Day's appointed sway Usurped by desolate night. Her pillowed place Without her? Tears, ah me! for love's good grace, And cold forgetfulness of night or day.

What of the heart without her? Nay, poor heart, Of thee what word remains ere speech be still?

A wayfarer by barren ways and chill, Steep ways and weary, without her thou art, Where the long cloud, the long wood's counterpart, Sheds doubled darkness up the labouring hill.

LOVE'S FATALITY

Sweet Love,--but oh! most dread Desire of Love Life-thwarted. Linked in gyves I saw them stand, Love shackled with Vain-longing, hand to hand: And one was eyed as the blue vault above: But hope tempestuous like a fire-cloud hove I' the other's gaze, even as in his whose wand Vainly all night with spell-wrought power has spann'd The unyielding caves of some deep treasure-trove.

Also his lips, two writhen flakes of flame, Made moan: 'Alas O Love, thus leashed with me!

Wing-footed thou, wing-shouldered, once born free: And I, thy cowering self, in chains grown tame, Bound to thy body and soul, named with thy name, Life's iron heart, even Love's Fatality.'

STILLBORN LOVE

The hour which might have been yet might not be, Which man's and woman's heart conceived and bore Yet whereof life was barren,--on what sh.o.r.e Bides it the breaking of Time's weary sea?

Bondchild of all consummate joys set free, It somewhere sighs and serves, and mute before The house of Love, hears through the echoing door His hours elect in choral consonancy.

But lo! what wedded souls now hand in hand Together tread at last the immortal strand With eyes where burning memory lights love home?

Lo! how the little outcast hour has turned And leaped to them and in their faces yearned:-- 'I am your child: O parents, ye have come!'

TRUE WOMAN

I. HERSELF

To be a sweetness more desired than Spring; A bodily beauty more acceptable Than the wild rose-tree's arch that crowns the fell; To be an essence more environing Than wine's drained juice; a music ravis.h.i.+ng More than the pa.s.sionate pulse of Philomel;-- To be all this 'neath one soft bosom's swell That is the flower of life:--how strange a thing!

How strange a thing to be what Man can know But as a sacred secret! Heaven's own screen Hides her soul's purest depth and loveliest glow; Closely withheld, as all things most unseen,-- The wave-bowered pearl, the heart-shaped seal of green That flecks the snowdrop underneath the snow.

II. HER LOVE

She loves him; for her infinite soul is Love, And he her lodestar. Pa.s.sion in her is A gla.s.s facing his fire, where the bright bliss Is mirrored, and the heat returned. Yet move That gla.s.s, a stranger's amorous flame to prove, And it shall turn, by instant contraries, Ice to the moon; while her pure fire to his For whom it burns, clings close i' the heart's alcove.

Lo! they are one. With wifely breast to breast And circling arms, she welcomes all command Of love,--her soul to answering ardours fann'd: Yet as morn springs or twilight sinks to rest, Ah! who shall say she deems not loveliest The hour of sisterly sweet hand-in-hand?

III. HER HEAVEN

If to grow old in Heaven is to grow young, (As the Seer saw and said,) then blest were he With youth forevermore, whose heaven should be True Woman, she whom these weak notes have sung.

Here and hereafter,--choir-strains of her tongue,-- Sky-s.p.a.ces of her eyes,--sweet signs that flee About her soul's immediate sanctuary,-- Were Paradise all uttermost worlds among.

The sunrise blooms and withers on the hill Like any hillflower; and the n.o.blest troth Dies here to dust. Yet shall Heaven's promise clothe Even yet those lovers who have cherished still This test for love:--in every kiss sealed fast To feel the first kiss and forebode the last.

LOVE'S LAST GIFT

Love to his singer held a glistening leaf, And said: 'The rose-tree and the apple-tree Have fruits to vaunt or flowers to lure the bee; And golden shafts are in the feathered sheaf Of the great harvest-marshal, the year's chief, Victorious Summer; aye, and 'neath warm sea Strange secret gra.s.ses lurk inviolably Between the filtering channels of sunk reef.

All are my blooms; and all sweet blooms of love To thee I gave while Spring and Summer sang; But Autumn stops to listen, with some pang From those worse things the wind is moaning of.

Only this laurel dreads no winter days: Take my last gift; thy heart hath sung my praise.'

PART II. CHANGE AND FATE

TRANSFIGURED LIFE

As growth of form or momentary glance In a child's features will recall to mind The father's with the mother's face combin'd,-- Sweet interchange that memories still enhance: And yet, as childhood's years and youth's advance, The gradual mouldings leave one stamp behind, Till in the blended likeness now we find A separate man's or woman's countenance:--

So in the Song, the singer's Joy and Pain, Its very parents, evermore expand To bid the pa.s.sion's fullgrown birth remain, By Art's transfiguring essence subtly spann'd; And from that song-cloud shaped as a man's hand There comes the sound as of abundant rain.

THE SONG-THROE

By thine own tears thy song must tears beget, O Singer! Magic mirror thou hast none Except thy manifest heart; and save thine own Anguish or ardour, else no amulet.

Cisterned in Pride, verse is the feathery jet Of soulless air-flung fountains; nay, more dry Than the Dead Sea for throats that thirst and sigh, That song o'er which no singer's lids grew wet.

The Song-G.o.d--He the Sun-G.o.d--is no slave Of thine: thy Hunter he, who for thy soul Fledges his shaft: to no august control Of thy skilled hand his quivered store he gave: But if thy lips' loud cry leap to his smart, The inspir'd recoil shall pierce thy brother's heart.

THE SOUL'S SPHERE

Come prisoned moon in steep cloud-fastnesses,-- Throned queen and thralled; some dying sun whose pyre Blazed with momentous memorable fire;-- Who hath not yearned and fed his heart with these?

Who, sleepless, hath not anguished to appease Tragical shadow's realm of sound and sight Conjectured in the lamentable night?...

Lo! the soul's sphere of infinite images!

What sense shall count them? Whether it forecast The rose-winged hours that flutter in the van Of Love's unquestioning unreveale'd span,-- Visions of golden futures: or that last Wild pageant of the acc.u.mulated past That clangs and flashes for a drowning man.