Part 11 (1/2)
Virtue may unlock h.e.l.l, or even A sin turn in the wards of Heaven, (As ethics of the text-book go), So little men their own deeds know, Or through the intricate _melee_ Guess whitherward draws the battle-sway; So little, if they know the deed, Discern what therefrom shall succeed.
To wisest moralists 'tis but given To work rough border-law of Heaven, Within this narrow life of ours, These marches 'twixt delimitless Powers.
Is it, if Heaven the future showed, Is it the all-severest mode To see ourselves with the eyes of G.o.d?
G.o.d rather grant, at His a.s.size, He see us not with our own eyes!
Heaven, which man's generations draws, Nor deviates into replicas, Must of as deep diversity In judgement as creation be.
There is no expeditious road To pack and label men for G.o.d, And save them by the barrel-load.
Some may perchance, with strange surprise, Have blundered into Paradise.
In vasty dusk of life abroad, They fondly thought to err from G.o.d, Nor knew the circle that they trod; And, wandering all the night about, Found them at morn where they set out.
Death dawned; Heaven lay in prospect wide:-- Lo! they were standing by His side!
GRACE OF THE WAY
The windy trammel of her dress, Her blown locks, took my soul in mesh.
G.o.d's breath they spake, with visibleness That stirred the raiment of her flesh:
And sensible, as her blown locks were, Beyond the precincts of her form I felt the woman flow from her-- A calm of intempestuous storm.
I failed against the affluent tide; Out of this abject earth of me I was translated and enskied Into the heavenly-regioned She.
Now of that vision I bereaven This knowledge keep, that may not dim:-- Short arm needs man to reach to Heaven, So ready is Heaven to stoop to him;
Which sets, to measure of man's feet, No alien Tree for trysting-place; And who can read, may read the sweet Direction in his Lady's face.
TO A SNOW-FLAKE
What heart could have thought you?-- Past our devisal (O filigree petal!) Fas.h.i.+oned so purely, Fragilely, surely, From what Paradisal Imagineless metal, Too costly for cost?
Who hammered you, wrought you, From argentine vapour?-- ”G.o.d was my shaper.
Pa.s.sing surmisal, He hammered, He wrought me, From curled silver vapour, To l.u.s.t of His mind:-- Thou could'st not have thought me!
So purely, so palely, Tinily, surely, Mightily, frailly, Insculped and embossed, With His hammer of wind, And His graver of frost.”
ORIENT ODE
Lo, in the sanctuaried East, Day, a dedicated priest In all his robes pontifical exprest, Lifteth slowly, lifteth sweetly, From out its Orient tabernacle drawn, Yon orbed sacrament confest Which sprinkles benediction through the dawn; And when the grave procession 's ceased, The earth with due ill.u.s.trious rite Blessed,--ere the frail fingers featly Of twilight, violet-ca.s.socked acolyte, His sacerdotal stoles unvest-- Sets, for high close of the mysterious feast, The sun in august exposition meetly Within the flaming monstrance of the West.
G.o.d, whom none may live and mark, Borne within thy radiant ark!-- While the Earth, a joyous David, Dances before thee from the dawn to dark.
The moon, O leave, pale ruined Eve; Behold her fair and greater daughter[C]
Offers to thee her fruitful water, Which at thy first white _Ave_ shall conceive!
Thy gazes do on simple her Desirable allures confer; What happy comelinesses rise Beneath thy beautifying eyes!
Who was, indeed, at first a maid Such as, with sighs, misgives she is not fair, And secret views herself afraid, Till flatteries sweet provoke the charms they swear: Yea, thy gazes, blissful lover, Make the beauties they discover!
What dainty guiles and treacheries caught From artful prompting of love's artless thought Her lowly loveliness teach her to adorn, When thy plumes s.h.i.+ver against the conscious gates of morn!
And so the love which is thy dower, Earth, though her first-frightened breast Against the exigent boon protest, (For she, poor maid, of her own power Has nothing in herself, not even love, But an unwitting void thereof), Gives back to thee in sanct.i.ties of flower; And holy odours do her bosom invest, That sweeter grows for being prest: Though dear recoil, the tremorous nurse of joy, From thine embrace still startles coy, Till Phosphor lead, at thy returning hour, The laughing captive from the wis.h.i.+ng West.
Nor the majestic heavens less Thy formidable sweets approve, Thy dreads and thy delights confess That do draw, and that remove.
Thou as a lion roar'st, O Sun, Upon thy satellites' vexed heels; Before thy terrible hunt thy planets run; Each in his frighted orbit wheels, Each flies through ina.s.suageable chase, Since the hunt o' the world begun, The puissant approaches of thy face, And yet thy radiant leash he feels.
Since the hunt o' the world begun, Lashed with terror, leashed with longing, The mighty course is ever run; p.r.i.c.ked with terror, leashed with longing, Thy rein they love, and thy rebuke they shun.
Since the hunt o' the world began, With love that trembleth, fear that loveth, Thou join'st the woman to the man; And Life with Death In obscure nuptials moveth, Commingling alien, yet affined, breath.
Thou art the incarnated Light Whose Sire is aboriginal, and beyond Death and resurgence of our day and night; From him is thy vicegerent wand With double potence of the black and white.
Giver of Love, and Beauty, and Desire, The terror, and the loveliness, and purging, The deathfulness and lifefulness of fire!
Samson's riddling meanings merging In thy twofold sceptre meet: Out of thy minatory might, Burning Lion, burning Lion, Comes the honey of all sweet, And out of thee, the eater, comes forth meat.