Part 9 (2/2)

Unbanner your bright locks,--advance, Girl, their gilded puissance, I' the mystic vaward, and draw on After the lovely gonfalon Us to out-folly the excess Of your sweet foolhardiness; To adventure like intense a.s.sault against Omnipotence!

Give me song, as She is, new, Earth should turn in time thereto!

New, and new, and thrice so new, All old sweets, New Sweet, meant you!

Fair, I had a dream of thee, When my young heart beat prophecy, And in apparition elate Thy little b.r.e.a.s.t.s knew waxed great, Sister of the Canticle, And thee for G.o.d grown marriageable.

How my desire desired your day, That, wheeled in rumour on its way, Shook me thus with presentience! Then Eden's lopped tree shall shoot again: For who Christ's eyes shall miss, with those Eyes for evident nuncios?

Or who be tardy to His call In your accents augural?

Who shall not feel the Heavens hid Impend, at tremble of your lid, And divine advent s.h.i.+ne avowed Under that dim and lucid cloud; Yea, 'fore the silver apocalypse Fail, at the unsealing of your lips?

When to love _you_ is (O Christ's spouse!) To love the beauty of His house.

Then come the Isaian days; the old Shall dream; and our young men behold Vision--yea, the vision of Thabor-mount, Which none to other shall recount, Because in all men's hearts shall be The seeing and the prophecy.

For ended is the Mystery Play, When Christ is life, and you the way; When Egypt's spoils are Israel's right, And Day fulfils the married arms of Night.

But here my lips are still.

Until You and the hour shall be revealed, This song is sung and sung not, and its words are sealed.

LINES

To W.M.

O tree of many branches! One thou hast Thou barest not, but grafted'st on thee. Now, Should all men's thunders break on thee, and leave Thee reft of bough and blossom, that one branch Shall cling to thee, my Father, Brother, Friend, Shall cling to thee, until the end of end!

THE WAY OF A MAID

The lover, whose soul shaken is In some dec.u.man billow of bliss, Who feels his gradual-wading feet Sink in some sudden hollow of sweet, And 'mid love's used converse comes Sharp on a mood which all joy sums-- An instant fine compendium of The liberal-leaved writ of love-- His abashed pulses beating thick At the exigent joy and quick, Is dumbed, by aiming utterance great Up to the miracle of his fate.

The wise girl, such Icarian fall Saved by her confidence that she's small,-- As what no kindred word will fit Is uttered best by opposite, Love in the tongue of hate exprest, And deepest anguish in a jest,-- Feeling the infinite must be Best said by triviality, Speaks, where expression bates its wings, Just happy, alien, little things; What of all words is in excess Implies in a sweet nothingness, With dailiest babble shows her sense That full speech were full impotence; And, while she feels the heavens lie bare,-- She only talks about her hair.

ODE TO THE SETTING SUN

PRELUDE

The wailful sweetness of the violin Floats down the hushed 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 smoothed 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?

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