Part 9 (2/2)

Why, 't is a girl I never saw before, A little thing to flatter and make weep, To tease until her heart is sore, Then kiss and clear the score; A gypsy run-the-fields, A little liberal daughter of the earth, Good for what hour of truancy and mirth The careless season yields. .h.i.ther-side the flood o' the year and yonder of the neap; Then thank you, thanks again, and twenty light good-byes.-- O shrined above the skies, Frown not, clear brow, Darken not, holy eyes!

Thou knowest well I know that it is thou!

Only to save me from such memories As would unman me quite, Here in this web of strangeness caught And prey to troubled thought Do I devise These foolish s.h.i.+fts and slight; Only to s.h.i.+eld me from the afflicting sense Of some waste influence Which from this morning face and l.u.s.trous hair Breathes on me sudden ruin and despair.

In any other guise, With any but this girlish depth of gaze, Your coming had not so unsealed and poured The dusty amphoras where I had stored The drippings of the winepress of my days.

I think these eyes foresee, Now in their unawakened virgin time, Their mother's pride in me, And dream even now, unconsciously, Upon each soaring peak and sky-hung lea You pictured I should climb.

Broken premonitions come, Shapes, gestures visionary, Not as once to maiden Mary The manifest angel with fresh lilies came Intelligibly calling her by name; But vanis.h.i.+ngly, dumb, Thwarted and bright and wild, As heralding a sin-defiled, Earth-enc.u.mbered, blood-begotten, pa.s.sionate man-child, Who yet should be a trump of mighty call Blown in the gates of evil kings To make them fall; Who yet should be a sword of flame before The soul's inviolate door To beat away the clang of h.e.l.lish wings; Who yet should be a lyre Of high unquenchable desire In the day of little things.-- Look, where the amphoras, The yield of many days, Trod by my hot soul from the pulp of self And set upon the shelf In sullen pride The Vineyard-master's tasting to abide-- O mother mine!

Are these the bringings-in, the doings fine, Of him you used to praise?

Emptied and overthrown The jars lie strown.

These, for their flavor duly nursed, Drip from the stopples vinegar accursed; These, I thought honied to the very seal, Dry, dry,--a little acid meal, A pinch of mouldy dust, Sole leavings of the amber-mantling must; These, rude to look upon, But flasking up the liquor dearest won, Through sacred hours and hard, With watching and with wrestlings and with grief, Even of these, of these in chief, The stale breath sickens, reeking from the shard.

Nothing is left. Ay, how much less than naught!

What shall be said or thought Of the slack hours and waste imaginings, The cynic rending of the wings, Known to that froward, that unreckoning heart Whereof this brewage was the precious part, Treasured and set away with furtive boast?

O dear and cruel ghost, Be merciful, be just!

See, I was yours and I am in the dust.

Then look not so, as if all things were well!

Take your eyes from me, leave me to my shame, Or else, if gaze they must, Steel them with judgment, darken them with blame; But by the ways of light ineffable You bade me go and I have faltered from, By the low waters moaning out of h.e.l.l Whereto my feet have come, Lay not on me these intolerable Looks of rejoicing love, of pride, of happy trust!

Nothing dismayed?

By all I say and all I hint not made Afraid?

O then, stay by me! Let These eyes afflict me, cleanse me, keep me yet.

Brave eyes and true!

See how the shriveled heart, that long has lain Dead to delight and pain, Stirs, and begins again To utter pleasant life, as if it knew The wintry days were through; As if in its awakening boughs it heard The quick, sweet-spoken bird.

Strong eyes and brave, Inexorable to save!

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