Volume I Part 18 (1/2)
My heart is narrow, foolish, what you will; But this I know G.o.d meant who set us here, And gave each soul the Infinities to fulfil From its own widening sphere.
To annex new regions to the soul's domain, To expand the circle of the golden hours, Till it enfolds again and yet again New heavens, new fields, new flowers,
Oh, this is well; but still the central heart Is here at home, not wandering like the wind That gathers nothing, but must still depart Leaving a waste behind.
Where is the song I sang that April morn, When all the poet in his eyes awoke My sleeping heart to heaven; and love was born?
For while the glad day broke
We met; and as the softly kindling skies Thrilled through the scented vistas of the wood I felt the sudden love-light in his eyes Kindle my beating blood.
_Happy day, happy day, Chasing the clouds of the night away And bidding the dreams of the dawn depart Over the freshening April blue, Till the blossoms awake to welcome the May, And the world is made anew; And the blackbird sings on the dancing spray With eyes of glistening dew; ”Happy, happy, happy day;”
For he knows that his love is true; He knows that his love is true, my heart, He knows that his love is true!_
I cannot sing it: these tears blind me: love, O love, come back before it is too late, Why, even Christ came down to us from above: I think His love was great;
Yet he stood knocking, knocking at the door Until his piteous hands were worn with scars; He did not hide that crown of love he wore Among the lonely stars.
This round of hours, the daily flowers I cull Are more to me than all the rolling spheres, A wounded bird at hand more pitiful Than some great seraph's tears.
How should I join the great wise choir above With my starved spirit's pale inhuman dearth, Who never heard the cry of heavenly love Rise from the sweet-souled earth?
Yet it is I he needs, and I for whom His greed exceeds, his dreams fly wide of the mark!
Is it all self? I wander in the gloom; The ways of G.o.d grow dark; I watch the rose that withers in the cheek, The leaden rings that mark us old and wise; And Time that writes what Pity dares not speak Around the fading eyes.
XII
And ever as Anwyl went the unknown end Faded before him, back and back and back He saw new empty heavens for ever bend Over his endless track;
And memory, burning with new hopeless fire, Showed him how every pa.s.sing infinite hour Made some new Crucifix for the World's Desire Is some new wayside flower:
He saw what joy and beauty owed to death; How all the world was one great sacrifice Of Him, in whom all creatures that draw breath Share G.o.d's eternal skies;
How Love is lord of all the world at once; And never bids the encircled spirit roam To the circle's bound, beyond the moons and suns, But makes each heart its home,
And every home the heart of s.p.a.ce and Time, And each and all a heaven if love could reign One infinite untranscended heaven sublime With G.o.d's own joy and pain.
XIII
Out of the deep, my dream, out of the deep, A little child came to him in his sleep And led him back to what was Paradise Before the years had darkened in his eyes, And showed him what he ne'er could lose again-- The light that once enshrined the child Etain.
Ah, was it Yrma with those radiant eyes That came to greet and lead him through the skies; Ay; all the world was one wide rose-white flame, As down the path to meet him Yrma came And caught the child up in her arms and cried, This is my child that moved in Etain's side, Thy child and Etain's: I the unknown ideal And she the rich, the incarnate, breathing real Are one; for me thou never canst attain But by the love I yield thee for Etain; Even as through Christ thy soul allays its dearth, Love's heaven is only compa.s.sed upon earth; And by that love, in thine own Etain's eyes Thou shalt find all G.o.d's untranscended skies.
As of old, as of old, with Etain that day, Over the hills, and far away, He roamed thro' the fairy forests of fern: Two young lovers were they.
And G.o.d sighed in the sunset, and the sea Grew quieter than the hills: the mystery Of ocean, earth and sky was like a word Uttered, but all unheard, Uttered by every wave and cloud and leaf With all the immortal glory of mortal grief; And every wave that broke its heart of gold In music on the rainbow-dazzled sh.o.r.e Seemed telling, strangely telling, evermore A story that must still remain untold.
Oh, _Once upon a time_, and o'er and o'er As aye the _Happy ever after_ came The enchanted waves lavished their faery lore
And tossed a foam-bow and a rosy flame Around the whispers of the creaming foam, Till the old rapture with the new sweet name Through all the old romance began to roam.
XIV