Part 11 (2/2)

”Our Father's house hath many fanes; Yet enter not and wors.h.i.+p not, For thought but follows after thought Till last consuming self it wanes.

”The Fount of Shadowy Beauty flings Its glamour o'er the light of day: A music in the sunlight sings To call the dreamy hearts away Their mighty hopes to ease awhile: We will not go the way of them: The chant makes drowsy those who seek The sceptre and the diadem.

”The Fount of Shadowy Beauty throws Its magic round us all the night; What things the heart would be, it sees And chases them in endless flight.

Or coiled in phantom visions there It builds within the halls of fire; Its dreams flash like the peac.o.c.k's wing And glow with sun-hues of desire.

We will not follow in their ways Nor heed the lure of fay or elf, But in the ending of our days Rest in the high Ancestral Self.”

The boat of crystal touched the sh.o.r.e, Then melted flamelike from our eyes, As in the twilight drops the sun Withdrawing rays of paradise.

We hurried under arched aisles That far above in heaven withdrawn With cloudy pillars stormed the night, Rich as the opal shafts of dawn.

I would have lingered then--but he-- ”Oh, let us haste: the dream grows dim, Another night, another day, A thousand years will part from him

”Who is that Ancient One divine From whom our phantom being born Rolled with the wonder-light around Had started in the fairy morn.

”A thousand of our years to him Are but the night, are but the day, Wherein he rests from cyclic toil Or chants the song of starry sway.

”He falls asleep: the Shadowy Fount Fills all our heart with dreams of light: He wakes to ancient spheres, and we Through iron ages mourn the night.

We will not wander in the night But in a darkness more divine Shall join the Father Light of Lights And rule the long-descended line.”

Even then a vasty twilight fell: Wavered in air the shadowy towers: The city like a gleaming sh.e.l.l, Its azures, opals, silvers, blues, Were melting in more dreamy hues.

We feared the falling of the night And hurried more our headlong flight.

In one long line the towers went by; The trembling radiance dropt behind, As when some swift and radiant one Flits by and flings upon the wind The rainbow tresses of the sun.

And then they vanished from our gaze Faded the magic lights, and all Into a Starry Radiance fell As waters in their fountain fall.

We knew our time-long journey o'er And knew the end of all desire, And saw within the emerald glow Our Father like the white sun-fire.

We could not say if age or youth Were on his face: we only burned To pa.s.s the gateways of the Day, The exiles to the heart returned.

He rose to greet us and his breath, The tempest music of the spheres, Dissolved the memory of earth, The cyclic labour and our tears.

In him our dream of sorrow pa.s.sed, The spirit once again was free And heard the song the Morning-Stars Chant in eternal revelry.

This was the close of human story; We saw the deep unmeasured s.h.i.+ne, And sank within the mystic glory They called of old the Dark Divine.

Well it is gone now, The dream that I chanted: On this side the dawn now I sit fate-implanted.

But though of my dreaming The dawn has bereft me, It all was not seeming For something has left me.

I fell in some other World far from this cold light The Dream Bird, my brother, Is rayed with the gold light.

I too in the Father Would hide me, and so, Bright Bird, to foregather With thee now I go.

--December 15, 1896

<script>