Poems Part 7

I gave Him all my being, like a flower That flings its perfume on a vagrant breeze; A breeze that wanders on and heeds it not.

His scorn is lying on my heart like snow, My eyes are weary, and I fain would sleep; The quietest sleep is underneath the ground.

Are ye around me, friends? I cannot see, I cannot hear the voices that I love, I lift my hands to you from out the night!

Methought I felt a tear upon my cheek; Weep not, my mother! It is time to rest, And I am very weary; so, good night!'

"My heart is in the grave with her, The family went abroad; Last autumn you might see the fruits, Neglected, rot round the tree-roots; This spring no leaves they shewed.

I sometimes fear my brain is crost: Around this place, the churchyard yonder, All day, all night, I silent wander, As woeful as a ghost---- G.o.d take me to His gracious keeping, But this old man is wildly weeping!"

That night the sky was heaped with clouds; Through one blue gulf profound, Begirt with many a cloudy crag, The moon came rus.h.i.+ng like a stag, And one star like a hound.

Wearily the chase I eyed, Wearily I saw the Dawn's Feet sheening o'er the dewy lawns.

O G.o.d! that I had died.

My heart's red tendrils were all torn And bleeding on that summer morn.

WALTER (_after a long silence, speaking abstractedly, and with frequent pauses_).

Twice hath the windy Summer made a noise Of leaves o'er all the land from sea to sea, And still that Child's face sleeps within my heart Like a young sunbeam in a gloomy wood, Making the darkness smile--I almost smile At the strange fancies I have girt her with; The garden, peac.o.c.k, and the black eclipse, The still old graveyard 'mong the dreary hills, Grey mourners round it--I wonder if she's dead?

She was too fair for earth. Ah! she would die Like music, sunbeams, and the pallid flowers That spring on Winter's corse--I saw those graves With Him who is no more. They are all dead, The beings whom I loved, and I am sad, But would not change my sadness for a life Without a fissure running through its joy.

This very hour a suite of sumptuous rooms O'erflows with music like a cup with wine; Outside, the night is weeping like a girl At her seducer's door, and still the rooms Run o'er with music, careless of her woe.

I would not have my heart thus. This poor rhyme Is but an adumbration of my life, My misery tricked out in a quaint disguise.

Oh, it did happen on a summer day When I was playing unawares with flowers, That happiness shot past me like a planet, And I was barren left!

_Enter_ EDWARD, _un.o.bserved._

EDWARD.

Walter's love-sick for Fame: A haughty mistress! How this mad old world Reels to its burning grave, shouting forth names, Like a wild drunkard at his frenzy's height, And they who bear them deem such shoutings _Fame_, And, smiling, die content. What is thy thought?

WALTER.

'Tis this, a sad one:--Though our beings point Upward, like prayers or quick spires of flame, We soon lose interest in this breathing world.

Joy palls from taste to taste, until we yawn In Pleasure's glowing face. When first we love, Our souls are clad with joy, as if a tree, All winter-bare, had on a sudden leapt To a full load of blooms; next time 'tis nought.

Great weariness doth feed upon the soul; I sometimes think the highest-blest in heaven Will weary 'mong its flowers. As for myself, There's nothing new between me and the grave But the cold feel of Death.

EDWARD.

Watch well thy heart!

It is, methinks, an eager shaking star, Not a calm steady planet.

WALTER.

I love thee much, But thou art all unlike the glorious guide Of my proud boyhood. Oh, he led me up, As Hesper, large and brilliant, leads the night!

Our pulses beat together, and our beings Mixed like two voices in one perfect tune, And his the richest voice. He loved all things, From G.o.d to foam-bells dancing down a stream, With a most equal love. Thou mock'st at much; And he who sneers at any living hope Or aspiration of a human heart, Is just so many stages less than G.o.d, That universal and all-sided Love.

I'm wretched, Edward! to the very heart; I see an unreached heaven of young desire s.h.i.+ne through my hopeless tears. My drooping sails Flap idly 'gainst the mast of my intent.

I rot upon the waters when my prow Should grate the golden isles.

EDWARD.

What wouldst thou do?

Thy brain did teem with vapours wild and vast.

WALTER.

But since my younger and my hotter days (As nebula condenses to an orb), These vapours gathered to one s.h.i.+ning hope, Sole-hanging in my sky.

EDWARD.

What hope is that?

WALTER.

To set this Age to music--The great work Before the Poet now--I do believe When it is fully sung, its great complaint, Its hope, its yearning, told to earth and heaven, Our troubled age shall pa.s.s, as doth a day That leaves the west all crimson with the promise Of the diviner morrow, which even then Is hurrying up the world's great side with light.

Father! if I should live to see that morn, Let me go upward, like a lark, to sing One song in the dawning!

EDWARD.

Ah, my ardent friend!

You need not tinker at this leaking world, 'Tis ruined past all cure.

WALTER.

Edward, for shame!

Not on a path of reprobation runs The trembling earth. G.o.d's eye doth follow her With far more love than doth her maid, the moon.

Speak no harsh words of Earth, she is our mother, And few of us, her sons, who have not added A wrinkle to her brow. She gave us birth, We drew our nurture from her ample breast, And there is coming, for us both, an hour When we shall pray that she will ope her arms And take us back again. Oh, I would pledge My heart, my blood, my brain, to ease the earth Of but one single pang!

EDWARD.

So would not I.

Because the pangs of earth shall ne'er be eased.

We sleep on velvets now, instead of leaves; The land is covered with a net of iron, Upon whose spider-like, far-stretching lines, The trains are rus.h.i.+ng, and the peevish sea Frets 'gainst the bulging bosoms of the s.h.i.+ps, Whose keels have waked it from its hour's repose.

Walter! this height of civilisation's tide Measures our wrong. We've made the immortal Soul Slave to the Body. 'Tis the Soul has wrought And laid the iron roads, evoked a power Next mightiest to G.o.d, to drive the trains That bring the country b.u.t.ter up to town; Has drawn the terrible lightning from its cloud, And tamed it to an eager Mercury, Running with messages of news and gain; And still the Soul is tasked to harder work, For Paradise, according to the world, Is scarce a league a-head.

WALTER.

The man I loved Wrought this complaint of thine into a song, Which I sung long ago.

EDWARD.

We must reverse The plans of ages. Let the Body sweat, So that the soul be calm, why should _it_ work?

Say, had I spent the pith of half my life, And made me master of our English law, What gain had I on resurrection morn, But such as hath the body of a clown, That it could turn a summerset on earth?

A single soul is richer than all worlds, Its acts are only shadows of itself, And oft its wondrous wealth is all unknown; 'Tis like a mountain-range, whose rugged sides Feed starveling flocks of sheep; pierce the bare sides, And they ooze plenteous gold. We must go down And work our souls like mines, make books our lamps, Not shrines to wors.h.i.+p at, nor heed the world-- Let it go roaring past. You sigh for Fame; Would serve as long as Jacob for his love, So you might win her. Spirits calm and still Are high above your order, as the stars Sit large and tranquil o'er the restless clouds That weep and lighten, pelt the earth with hail, And fret themselves away. The truly great Rest in the knowledge of their own deserts, Nor seek the confirmation of the world.

Wouldst thou be calm and still?

WALTER.

I'd be as lieve A minnow to leviathan, that draws A furrow like a s.h.i.+p. Away! away!

You'd make the world a very oyster-bed.