Volume II Part 3 (1/2)

No wind, no rain, no thunder!

Their noises dropped asunder From the earth and the firmament, From the towers and the lattices, Abrupt and echoless As ripe fruits on the ground unshaken wholly As life in death.

And sudden and solemn the silence fell, Startling the heart of Isobel As the tempest could not: Against the door went panting the breath Of the lady's hound whose cry was still, And she, constrained howe'er she would not, Lifted her eyes and saw the moon Looking out of heaven alone Upon the poplared hill,-- A calm of G.o.d, made visible That men might bless it at their will.

XXIV.

The moons.h.i.+ne on the baby's face Falleth clear and cold: The mother's looks have fallen back To the same place: Because no moon with silver rack, Nor broad sunrise in jasper skies Has power to hold Our loving eyes, Which still revert, as ever must Wonder and Hope, to gaze on the dust.

XXV.

The moons.h.i.+ne on the baby's face Cold and clear remaineth; The mother's looks do shrink away,-- The mother's looks return to stay, As charmed by what paineth: Is any glamour in the case?

Is it dream, or is it sight?

Hath the change upon the wild Elements that sign the night, Pa.s.sed upon the child?

It is not dream, but sight.

XXVI.

The babe has awakened from sleep And unto the gaze of its mother, Bent over it, lifted another-- Not the baby-looks that go Unaimingly to and fro, But an earnest gazing deep Such as soul gives soul at length When by work and wail of years It winneth a solemn strength And mourneth as it wears.

A strong man could not brook, With pulse unhurried by fears, To meet that baby's look O'erglazed by manhood's tears, The tears of a man full grown, With a power to wring our own, In the eyes all undefiled Of a little three-months' child-- To see that babe-brow wrought By the witnessing of thought To judgment's prodigy, And the small soft mouth unweaned, By mother's kiss o'erleaned, (Putting the sound of loving Where no sound else was moving Except the speechless cry) Quickened to mind's expression, Shaped to articulation, Yea, uttering words, yea, naming woe, In tones that with it strangely went Because so baby-innocent, As the child spake out to the mother, so:--

XXVII.

”O mother, mother, loose thy prayer!

Christ's name hath made it strong.

It bindeth me, it holdeth me With its most loving cruelty, From floating my new soul along The happy heavenly air.

It bindeth me, it holdeth me In all this dark, upon this dull Low earth, by only weepers trod.

It bindeth me, it holdeth me!

Mine angel looketh sorrowful Upon the face of G.o.d.[1]

XXVIII.

”Mother, mother, can I dream Beneath your earthly trees?

I had a vision and a gleam, I heard a sound more sweet than these When rippled by the wind: Did you see the Dove with wings Bathed in golden glisterings From a sunless light behind, Dropping on me from the sky, Soft as mother's kiss, until I seemed to leap and yet was still?

Saw you how His love-large eye Looked upon me mystic calms, Till the power of His divine Vision was indrawn to mine?

XXIX.

”Oh, the dream within the dream!

I saw celestial places even.

Oh, the vistas of high palms Making finites of delight Through the heavenly infinite, Lifting up their green still tops To the heaven of heaven!

Oh, the sweet life-tree that drops Shade like light across the river Glorified in its for-ever Flowing from the Throne!

Oh, the s.h.i.+ning holinesses Of the thousand, thousand faces G.o.d-sunned by the throned ONE, And made intense with such a love That, though I saw them turned above, Each loving seemed for also me!

And, oh, the Unspeakable, the HE, The manifest in secrecies Yet of mine own heart partaker With the overcoming look Of One who hath been once forsook And blesseth the forsaker!

Mother, mother, let me go Toward the Face that looketh so!

Through the mystic winged Four Whose are inward, outward eyes Dark with light of mysteries And the restless evermore 'Holy, holy, holy,'--through The sevenfold Lamps that burn in view Of cherubim and seraphim,-- Through the four-and-twenty crowned Stately elders white around, Suffer me to go to Him!

x.x.x.