Part 28 (1/2)

EPILOGUE

What shall we do for Love these days?

How shall we make an altar-blaze To smite the h.o.r.n.y eyes of men With the renown of our Heaven, And to the unbelievers prove Our service to our dear G.o.d, Love?

What torches shall we lift above The crowd that pushes through the mire, To amaze the dark heads with strange fire?

I should think I were much to blame, If never I held some fragrant flame Above the noises of the world, And openly 'mid men's hurrying stares, Wors.h.i.+pt before the sacred fears That are like flas.h.i.+ng curtains furl'd Across the presence of our lord Love.

Nay, would that I could fill the gaze Of the whole earth with some great praise Made in a marvel for men's eyes, Some tower of glittering masonries, Therein such a spirit flouris.h.i.+ng Men should see what my heart can sing: All that Love hath done to me Built into stone, a visible glee; Marble carried to gleaming height As moved aloft by inward delight; Not as with toil of chisels hewn, But seeming poised in a mighty tune.

For of all those who have been known To lodge with our kind host, the sun, I envy one for just one thing: In Cordova of the Moors There dwelt a pa.s.sion-minded King, Who set great bands of marble-hewers To fas.h.i.+on his heart's thanksgiving In a tall palace, shapen so All the wondering world might know The joy he had of his Moorish la.s.s.

His love, that brighter and larger was Than the starry places, into firm stone He sent, as if the stone were gla.s.s Fired and into beauty blown.

Solemn and invented gravely In its bulk the fabric stood, Even as Love, that trusteth bravely In its own exceeding good To be better than the waste Of time's devices; grandly s.p.a.ced, Seriously the fabric stood.

But over it all a pleasure went Of carven delicate ornament, Wreathing up like ravishment, Mentioning in sculptures twined The blitheness Love hath in his mind; And like delighted senses were The windows, and the columns there Made the following sight to ache As the heart that did them make.

Well I can see that s.h.i.+ning song Flowering there, the upward throng Of porches, pillars and windowed walls, Spires like piercing panpipe calls, Up to the roof's snow-cloud flight; All glancing in the Spanish light White as water of arctic tides, Save an amber dazzle on sunny sides.

You had said, the radiant sheen Of that palace might have been A young G.o.d's fantasy, ere he came His serious worlds and suns to frame; Such an immortal pa.s.sion Quiver'd among the slim hewn stone.

And in the nights it seemed a jar Cut in the substance of a star, Wherein a wine, that will be poured Some time for feasting Heaven, was stored.

But within this fretted sh.e.l.l, The wonder of Love made visible, The King a private gentle mood There placed, of pleasant quietude.