Part 9 (1/2)

On Ararat there grew a vine, When Asia from her bathing rose; Our first sailor made a twine Thereof for his prefiguring brows.

Canst divine Where, upon our dusty earth, of that vine a cl.u.s.ter grows?

On Golgotha there grew a thorn Round the long-prefigured Brows.

Mourn, O mourn!

For the vine have we the spine? Is this all the Heaven allows?

On Calvary was shook a spear; Press the point into thy heart-- Joy and fear!

All the spines upon the thorn into curling tendrils start.

O dismay!

I, a wingless mortal, sporting With the tresses of the sun?

I, that dare my hand to lay On the thunder in its snorting?

Ere begun, Falls my singed song down the sky, even the old Icarian way.

From the fall precipitant These dim s.n.a.t.c.hes of her chant[B]

Only have remained mine;-- That from spear and thorn alone May be grown For the front of saint or singer any divinizing twine.

Her song said that no springing Paradise but evermore Hangeth on a singing That has chords of weeping, And that sings the after-sleeping To souls which wake too sore.

”But woe the singer, woe!” she said; ”beyond the dead his singing-lore, All its art of sweet and sore, He learns, in Elenore!”

Where is the land of Luthany, Where is the tract of Elenore?

I am bound therefor.

”Pierce thy heart to find the key; With thee take Only what none else would keep; Learn to dream when thou dost wake, Learn to wake when thou dost sleep.

Learn to water joy with tears, Learn from fears to vanquish fears; To hope, for thou dar'st not despair, Exult, for that thou dar'st not grieve; Plough thou the rock until it bear; Know, for thou else couldst not believe; Lose, that the lost thou may'st receive; Die, for none other way canst live.

When earth and heaven lay down their veil, And that apocalypse turns thee pale; When thy seeing blindeth thee To what thy fellow-mortals see; When their sight to thee is sightless; Their living, death; their light, most lightless; Search no more-- Pa.s.s the gates of Luthany, tread the region Elenore.”

Where is the land of Luthany, And where the region Elenore?

I do faint therefor.

”When, to the new eyes of thee, All things, by immortal power, Near or far, Hiddenly To each other linked are, That thou canst not stir a flower Without troubling of a star; When thy song is s.h.i.+eld and mirror To the fair snake-curled Pain, Where thou dar'st affront her terror That on her thou may'st attain Persean conquest;--seek no more, O seek no more!

Pa.s.s the gates of Luthany, tread the region Elenore.”

So sang she, so wept she, Through a dream-night's day; And with her magic singing kept she-- Mystical in music-- That garden of enchanting In visionary May; Swayless for my spirit's haunting, Thrice-threefold walled with emerald from our mortal mornings grey.

[B] The chant of the Mistress of Vision, whom, in her secret garden, the Poet has earlier described.

THE AFTER WOMAN

Daughter of the ancient Eve We know the gifts ye gave--and give.

Who knows the gifts which _you_ shall give, Daughter of the newer Eve?

You, if my soul be augur, you Shall--O what shall you not, Sweet, do?

The celestial traitress play, And all mankind to bliss betray; With sacrosanct cajoleries And starry treachery of your eyes, Tempt us back to Paradise!

Make heavenly trespa.s.s;--ay, press in Where faint the fledge-foot seraphin, Blest fool! Be ensign of our wars, And shame us all to warriors!