No More Learning

An angel had not startled him,
Alighted from heaven's burning rim
To breathe from glory in the Dim;

Much less a lady riding slow
Upon a palfrey white as snow,
And smooth as a snow-cloud could go.

Full upon his she turned her face,
"What ho, sir poet! dost thou pace
Our woods at night in ghostly chase

"Of some fair Dryad of old tales
Who chants between the nightingales
And over sleep by song prevails? "

She smiled; but he could see arise
Her soul from far adown her eyes,
Prepared as if for sacrifice.

She looked a queen who seemeth gay
From royal grace alone. "Now, nay,"
He answered, "slumber passed away,

"Compelled by instincts in my head
That I should see to-night, instead
Of a fair nymph, some fairer Dread. "

She looked up quickly to the sky
And spake: "The moon's regality
Will hear no praise; She is as I.

"She is in heaven, and I on earth;
This is my kingdom: I come forth
To crown all poets to their worth. "

He brake in with a voice that mourned;
"To their worth, lady? They are scorned
By men they sing for, till inurned.

"To their worth? Beauty in the mind
Leaves the hearth cold, and love-refined
Ambitions make the world unkind.

"The boor who ploughs the daisy down,
The chief whose mortgage of renown,
Fixed upon graves, has bought a crown--

"Both these are happier, more approved
Than poets! --why should I be moved
In saying, both are more beloved? "

"The south can judge not of the north,"
She resumed calmly; "I come forth
To crown all poets to their worth.

"Yea, verily, to anoint them all
With blessed oils which surely shall
Smell sweeter as the ages fall. "

"As sweet," the poet said, and rung
A low sad laugh, "as flowers are, sprung
Out of their graves when they die young;

"As sweet as window-eglantine,
Some bough of which, as they decline,
The hired nurse gathers at their sign:

"As sweet, in short, as perfumed shroud
Which the gay Roman maidens sewed
For English Keats, singing aloud. "

The lady answered, "Yea, as sweet!
The things thou namest being complete
In fragrance, as I measure it.

"Since sweet the death-clothes and the knell
Of him who having lived, dies well;
And wholly sweet the asphodel

"Stirred softly by that foot of his,
When he treads brave on all that is,
Into the world of souls, from this.

"Since sweet the tears, dropped at the door
Of tearless Death, and even before:
Sweet, consecrated evermore.

"What, dost thou judge it a strange thing
That poets, crowned for vanquishing,
Should bear some dust from out the ring?

"Come on with me, come on with me,
And learn in coming: let me free
Thy spirit into verity. "

She ceased: her palfrey's paces sent
No separate noises as she went;
'Twas a bee's hum, a little spent.

And while the poet seemed to tread
Along the drowsy noise so made,
The forest heaved up overhead

Its billowy foliage through the air,
And the calm stars did far and spare
O'erswim the masses everywhere

Save when the overtopping pines
Did bar their tremulous light with lines
All fixed and black. Now the moon shines

A broader glory. You may see
The trees grow rarer presently;
The air blows up more fresh and free:

Until they come from dark to light,
And from the forest to the sight
Of the large heaven-heart, bare with night,

A fiery throb in every star,
Those burning arteries that are
The conduits of God's life afar,--

A wild brown moorland underneath,
And four pools breaking up the heath
With white low gleamings, blank as death.

Beside the first pool, near the wood,
A dead tree in set horror stood,
Peeled and disjointed, stark as rood;

Since thunder-stricken, years ago,
Fixed in the spectral strain and throe
Wherewith it struggled from the blow:

A monumental tree, alone,
That will not bend in storms, nor groan,
But break off sudden like a stone.

Its lifeless shadow lies oblique
Upon the pool where, javelin-like,
The star-rays quiver while they strike.

"Drink," said the lady, very still--
"Be holy and cold. " He did her will
And drank the starry water chill.

The next pool they came near unto
Was bare of trees; there, only grew
Straight flags, and lilies just a few

Which sullen on the water sate
And leant their faces on the flat,
As weary of the starlight-state.

"Drink," said the lady, grave and slow--
"_World's use_ behoveth thee to know. "
He drank the bitter wave below.

The third pool, girt with thorny bushes
And flaunting weeds and reeds and rushes
That winds sang through in mournful gushes,

Was whitely smeared in many a round
By a slow slime; the starlight swound
Over the ghastly light it found.

"Drink," said the lady, sad and slow--
"_World's love_ behoveth thee to know. "
He looked to her commanding so;

Her brow was troubled, but her eye
Struck clear to his soul. For all reply
He drank the water suddenly,--

Then, with a deathly sickness, passed
Beside the fourth pool and the last,
Where weights of shadow were downcast

From yew and alder and rank trails
Of nightshade clasping the trunk-scales
And flung across the intervals

From yew to yew: who dares to stoop
Where those dank branches overdroop,
Into his heart the chill strikes up,

He hears a silent gliding coil,
The snakes strain hard against the soil,
His foot slips in their slimy oil,

And toads seem crawling on his hand,
And clinging bats but dimly scanned
Full in his face their wings expand.

A paleness took the poet's cheek:
"Must I drink _here_? " he seemed to seek
The lady's will with utterance meek:

"Ay, ay," she said, "it so must be;"
(And this time she spake cheerfully)
"Behoves thee know _World's cruelty_. "

He bowed his forehead till his mouth
Curved in the wave, and drank unloth
As if from rivers of the south;

His lips sobbed through the water rank,
His heart paused in him while he drank,
His brain beat heart-like, rose and sank,

And he swooned backward to a dream
Wherein he lay 'twixt gloom and gleam,
With Death and Life at each extreme:

And spiritual thunders, born of soul
Not cloud, did leap from mystic pole
And o'er him roll and counter-roll,

Crushing their echoes reboant
With their own wheels. Did Heaven so grant
His spirit a sign of covenant?

At last came silence. A slow kiss
Did crown his forehead after this;
His eyelids flew back for the bliss--

The lady stood beside his head,
Smiling a thought, with hair dispread;
The moonshine seemed dishevellèd

In her sleek tresses manifold
Like Danaë's in the rain of old
That dripped with melancholy gold:

But SHE was holy, pale and high
As one who saw an ecstasy
Beyond a foretold agony.

"Rise up! " said she with voice where song
Eddied through speech, "rise up; be strong:
And learn how right avenges wrong. "

The poet rose up on his feet:
He stood before an altar set
For sacrament with vessels meet

And mystic altar-lights which shine
As if their flames were crystalline
Carved flames that would not shrink or pine.

The altar filled the central place
Of a great church, and toward its face
Long aisles did shoot and interlace,

And from it a continuous mist
Of incense (round the edges kissed
By a yellow light of amethyst)

Wound upward slowly and throbbingly,
Cloud within cloud, right silverly,
Cloud above cloud, victoriously,--

Broke full against the archèd roof
And thence refracting eddied off
And floated through the marble woof

Of many a fine-wrought architrave,
Then, poising its white masses brave,
Swept solemnly down aisle and nave

Where, now in dark and now in light,
The countless columns, glimmering white,
Seemed leading out to the Infinite:

Plunged halfway up the shaft, they showed
In that pale shifting incense-cloud
Which flowed them by and overflowed

Till mist and marble seemed to blend
And the whole temple, at the end,
With its own incense to distend,--

The arches like a giant's bow
To bend and slacken,--and below,
The nichèd saints to come and go:

Alone amid the shifting scene
That central altar stood serene
In its clear steadfast taper-sheen.

Then first, the poet was aware
Of a chief angel standing there
Before that altar, in the glare.

His eyes were dreadful, for you saw
That _they_ saw God; his lips and jaw
Grand-made and strong, as Sinai's law

They could enunciate and refrain
From vibratory after-pain,
And his brow's height was sovereign:

On the vast background of his wings
Rises his image, and he flings
From each plumed arc pale glitterings

And fiery flakes (as beateth, more
Or less, the angel-heart) before
And round him upon roof and floor,

Edging with fire the shifting fumes,
While at his side 'twixt lights and glooms
The phantasm of an organ booms.

Extending from which instrument
And angel, right and left-way bent,
The poet's sight grew sentient

Of a strange company around
And toward the altar, pale and bound
With bay above the eyes profound.

Deathful their faces were, and yet
The power of life was in them set--
Never forgot nor to forget:

Sublime significance of mouth,
Dilated nostril full of youth,
And forehead royal with the truth.

These faces were not multiplied
Beyond your count, but side by side
Did front the altar, glorified,

Still as a vision, yet exprest
Full as an action--look and geste
Of buried saint in risen rest.

The poet knew them. Faint and dim
His spirits seemed to sink in him--
Then, like a dolphin, change and swim

The current: these were poets true,
Who died for Beauty as martyrs do
For Truth--the ends being scarcely two.

God's prophets of the Beautiful
These poets were; of iron rule,
The rugged cilix, serge of wool.

Here Homer, with the broad suspense
Of thunderous brows, and lips intense
Of garrulous god-innocence.

There Shakespeare, on whose forehead climb
The crowns o' the world: O eyes sublime
With tears and laughters for all time!

Here Æschylus, the women swooned
To see so awful when he frowned
As the gods did: he standeth crowned.

Euripides, with close and mild
Scholastic lips, that could be wild
And laugh or sob out like a child

Even in the classes. Sophocles,
With that king's-look which down the trees
Followed the dark effigies

Of the lost Theban. Hesiod old,
Who, somewhat blind and deaf and cold,
Cared most for gods and bulls. And bold

Electric Pindar, quick as fear,
With race-dust on his cheeks, and clear
Slant startled eyes that seem to hear

The chariot rounding the last goal,
To hurtle past it in his soul.
And Sappho, with that gloriole

Of ebon hair on calmèd brows--
O poet-woman! none forgoes
The leap, attaining the repose.

Theocritus, with glittering locks
Dropt sideway, as betwixt the rocks
He watched the visionary flocks.

And Aristophanes, who took
The world with mirth, and laughter-struck
The hollow caves of Thought and woke

The infinite echoes hid in each.
And Virgil: shade of Mantuan beech
Did help the shade of bay to reach

And knit around his forehead high:
For his gods wore less majesty
Than his brown bees hummed deathlessly.

Lucretius, nobler than his mood,
Who dropped his plummet down the broad
Deep universe and said "No God--"

Finding no bottom: he denied
Divinely the divine, and died
Chief poet on the Tiber-side

By grace of God: his face is stern
As one compelled, in spite of scorn,
To teach a truth he would not learn.

And Ossian, dimly seen or guessed;
Once counted greater than the rest,
When mountain-winds blew out his vest.

And Spenser drooped his dreaming head
(With languid sleep-smile you had said
From his own verse engenderèd)

On Ariosto's, till they ran
Their curls in one: the Italian
Shot nimbler heat of bolder man

From his fine lids. And Dante stern
And sweet, whose spirit was an urn
For wine and milk poured out in turn.

Hard-souled Alfieri; and fancy-willed
Boiardo, who with laughter filled
The pauses of the jostled shield.

And Berni, with a hand stretched out
To sleek that storm. And, not without
The wreath he died in and the doubt

He died by, Tasso, bard and lover,
Whose visions were too thin to cover
The face of a false woman over.

And soft Racine; and grave Corneille,
The orator of rhymes, whose wail
Scarce shook his purple. And Petrarch pale,

From whose brain-lighted heart were thrown
A thousand thoughts beneath the sun,
Each lucid with the name of One.

And Camoens, with that look he had,
Compelling India's Genius sad
From the wave through the Lusiad,--

The murmurs of the storm-cape ocean
Indrawn in vibrative emotion
Along the verse. And, while devotion

In his wild eyes fantastic shone
Under the tonsure blown upon
By airs celestial, Calderon.

And bold De Vega, who breathed quick
Verse after verse, till death's old trick
Put pause to life and rhetoric.

And Goethe, with that reaching eye
His soul reached out from, far and high,
And fell from inner entity.

And Schiller, with heroic front
Worthy of Plutarch's kiss upon 't,
Too large for wreath of modern wont.

And Chaucer, with his infantine
Familiar clasp of things divine;
That mark upon his lip is wine.

Here, Milton's eyes strike piercing-dim:
The shapes of suns and stars did swim
Like clouds from them, and granted him

God for sole vision. Cowley, there,
Whose active fancy debonair
Drew straws like amber--foul to fair.

Drayton and Browne, with smiles they drew
From outward nature, still kept new
From their own inward nature true.

And Marlowe, Webster, Fletcher, Ben,
Whose fire-hearts sowed our furrows when
The world was worthy of such men.

And Burns, with pungent passionings
Set in his eyes: deep lyric springs
Are of the fire-mount's issuings.

And Shelley, in his white ideal,
All statue-blind. And Keats the real
Adonis with the hymeneal

Fresh vernal buds half sunk between
His youthful curls, kissed straight and sheen
In his Rome-grave, by Venus queen.

And poor, proud Byron, sad as grave
And salt as life; forlornly brave,
And quivering with the dart he drave.

And visionary Coleridge, who
Did sweep his thoughts as angels do
Their wings with cadence up the Blue.

These poets faced (and many more)
The lighted altar looming o'er
The clouds of incense dim and hoar:

And all their faces, in the lull
Of natural things, looked wonderful
With life and death and deathless rule.

All, still as stone and yet intense;
As if by spirit's vehemence
That stone were carved and not by sense.

But where the heart of each should beat,
There seemed a wound instead of it,
From whence the blood dropped to their feet

Drop after drop--dropped heavily
As century follows century
Into the deep eternity.

Then said the lady--and her word
Came distant, as wide waves were stirred
Between her and the ear that heard,--

"_World's use_ is cold, _world's love_ is vain,
_World's cruelty_ is bitter bane,
But pain is not the fruit of pain.

"Hearken, O poet, whom I led
From the dark wood: dismissing dread,
Now hear this angel in my stead.

"His organ's clavier strikes along
These poets' hearts, sonorous, strong,
They gave him without count of wrong,--

"A diapason whence to guide
Up to God's feet, from these who died,
An anthem fully glorified--

"Whereat God's blessing, IBARAK (=yivarech=)
Breathes back this music, folds it back
About the earth in vapoury rack,

"And men walk in it, crying 'Lo
The world is wider, and we know
The very heavens look brighter so:

"'The stars move statelier round the edge
Of the silver spheres, and give in pledge
Their light for nobler privilege:

"'No little flower but joys or grieves,
Full life is rustling in the sheaves,
Full spirit sweeps the forest-leaves. '

"So works this music on the earth,
God so admits it, sends it forth
To add another worth to worth--

"A new creation-bloom that rounds
The old creation and expounds
His Beautiful in tuneful sounds.

"Now hearken! " Then the poet gazed
Upon the angel glorious-faced
Whose hand, majestically raised,

Floated across the organ-keys,
Like a pale moon o'er murmuring seas,
With no touch but with influences:

Then rose and fell (with swell and swound
Of shapeless noises wandering round
A concord which at last they found)

Those mystic keys: the tones were mixed,
Dim, faint, and thrilled and throbbed betwixt
The incomplete and the unfixed:

And therein mighty minds were heard
In mighty musings, inly stirred,
And struggling outward for a word:

Until these surges, having run
This way and that, gave out as one
An Aphroditè of sweet tune,

A Harmony that, finding vent,
Upward in grand ascension went,
Winged to a heavenly argument,

Up, upward like a saint who strips
The shroud back from his eyes and lips,
And rises in apocalypse:

A harmony sublime and plain,
Which cleft (as flying swan, the rain,--
Throwing the drops off with a strain

Of her white wing) those undertones
Of perplext chords, and soared at once
And struck out from the starry thrones

Their several silver octaves as
It passed to God. The music was
Of divine stature; strong to pass:

And those who heard it, understood
Something of life in spirit and blood,
Something of nature's fair and good:

And while it sounded, those great souls
Did thrill as racers at the goals
And burn in all their aureoles;

But she the lady, as vapour-bound,
Stood calmly in the joy of sound,
Like Nature with the showers around:

And when it ceased, the blood which fell
Again, alone grew audible,
Tolling the silence as a bell.

The sovran angel lifted high
His hand, and spake out sovranly:
"Tried poets, hearken and reply!

"Give me true answers. If we grant
That not to suffer, is to want
The conscience of the jubilant,--

"If ignorance of anguish is
_But_ ignorance, and mortals miss
Far prospects, by a level bliss,--

"If, as two colours must be viewed
In a visible image, mortals should
Need good and evil, to see good,--

"If to speak nobly, comprehends
To feel profoundly,--if the ends
Of power and suffering, Nature blends,--

"If poets on the tripod must
Writhe like the Pythian to make just
Their oracles and merit trust,--

"If every vatic word that sweeps
To change the world must pale their lips
And leave their own souls in eclipse,--

"If to search deep the universe
Must pierce the searcher with the curse,
Because that bolt (in man's reverse)

"Was shot to the heart o' the wood and lies
Wedged deepest in the best,--if eyes
That look for visions and surprise

"From influent angels, must shut down
Their eyelids first to sun and moon,
The head asleep upon a stone,--

"If ONE who did redeem you back,
By His own loss, from final wrack,
Did consecrate by touch and track

"Those temporal sorrows till the taste
Of brackish waters of the waste
Is salt with tears He dropt too fast,--

"If all the crowns of earth must wound
With prickings of the thorns He found,--
If saddest sighs swell sweetest sound,--

"What say ye unto this? --refuse
This baptism in salt water? --choose
Calm breasts, mute lips, and labour loose?

"Or, O ye gifted givers! ye
Who give your liberal hearts to me
To make the world this harmony,

"Are ye resigned that they be spent
To such world's help? "
The Spirits bent
Their awful brows and said "Content. "

Content! it sounded like _Amen_
Said by a choir of mourning men;
An affirmation full of pain

And patience,--ay, of glorying
And adoration, as a king
Might seal an oath for governing.

Then said the angel--and his face
Lightened abroad until the place
Grew larger for a moment's space,--

The long aisles flashing out in light,
And nave and transept, columns white
And arches crossed, being clear to sight

As if the roof were off and all
Stood in the noon-sun,--"Lo, I call
To other hearts as liberal.

"This pedal strikes out in the air:
My instrument has room to bear
Still fuller strains and perfecter.

"Herein is room, and shall be room
While Time lasts, for new hearts to come
Consummating while they consume.

"What living man will bring a gift
Of his own heart and help to lift
The tune? --The race is to the swift. "

So asked the angel. Straight the while,
A company came up the aisle
With measured step and sorted smile;

Cleaving the incense-clouds that rise,
With winking unaccustomed eyes
And love-locks smelling sweet of spice.

One bore his head above the rest
As if the world were dispossessed,
And one did pillow chin on breast,

Right languid, an as he should faint;
One shook his curls across his paint
And moralized on worldly taint;

One, slanting up his face, did wink
The salt rheum to the eyelid's brink,
To think--O gods! or--not to think.

Some trod out stealthily and slow,
As if the sun would fall in snow
If they walked to instead of fro;

And some, with conscious ambling free,
Did shake their bells right daintily
On hand and foot, for harmony;

And some, composing sudden sighs
In attitudes of point-device,
Rehearsed impromptu agonies.

And when this company drew near
The spirits crowned, it might appear
Submitted to a ghastly fear;

As a sane eye in master-passion
Constrains a maniac to the fashion
Of hideous maniac imitation

In the least geste--the dropping low
O' the lid, the wrinkling of the brow,
Exaggerate with mock and mow,--

So mastered was that company
By the crowned vision utterly,
Swayed to a maniac mockery.

One dulled his eyeballs, as they ached
With Homer's forehead, though he lacked
An inch of any; and one racked

His lower lip with restless tooth,
As Pindar's rushing words forsooth
Were pent behind it; one his smooth

Pink cheeks did rumple passionate
Like Æschylus, and tried to prate
On trolling tongue of fate and fate;

One set her eyes like Sappho's--or
Any light woman's; one forbore
Like Dante, or any man as poor

In mirth, to let a smile undo
His hard-shut lips; and one that drew
Sour humours from his mother, blew

His sunken cheeks out to the size
Of most unnatural jollities,
Because Anacreon looked jest-wise;

So with the rest: it was a sight
A great world-laughter would requite,
Or great world-wrath, with equal right

Out came a speaker from that crowd
To speak for all, in sleek and proud
Exordial periods, while he bowed

His knee before the angel--"Thus,
O angel who hast called for us,
We bring thee service emulous,

"Fit service from sufficient soul,
Hand-service to receive world's dole,
Lip-service in world's ear to roll

"Adjusted concords soft enow
To hear the wine-cups passing, through,
And not too grave to spoil the show:

"Thou, certes, when thou askest more,
O sapient angel, leanest o'er
The window-sill of metaphor.

"To give our hearts up? fie! that rage
Barbaric antedates the age;
It is not done on any stage.

"Because your scald or gleeman went
With seven or nine-stringed instrument
Upon his back,--must ours be bent?

"We are not pilgrims, by your leave;
No, nor yet martyrs; if we grieve,
It is to rhyme to--summer eve:

"And if we labour, it shall be
As suiteth best with our degree,
In after-dinner reverie. "

More yet that speaker would have said,
Poising between his smiles fair-fed
Each separate phrase till finishèd;

But all the foreheads of those born
And dead true poets flashed with scorn
Betwixt the bay leaves round them worn,

Ay, jetted such brave fire that they,
The new-come, shrank and paled away
Like leaden ashes when the day

Strikes on the hearth. A spirit-blast,
A presence known by power, at last
Took them up mutely: they had passed.

And he our pilgrim-poet saw
Only their places, in deep awe,
What time the angel's smile did draw

His gazing upward. Smiling on,
The angel in the angel shone,
Revealing glory in benison;

Till, ripened in the light which shut
The poet in, his spirit mute
Dropped sudden as a perfect fruit;

He fell before the angel's feet,
Saying, "If what is true is sweet,
In something I may compass it:

"For, where my worthiness is poor,
My will stands richly at the door
To pay shortcomings evermore.

"Accept me therefore: not for price
And not for pride my sacrifice
Is tendered, for my soul is nice

"And will beat down those dusty seeds
Of bearded corn if she succeeds
In soaring while the covey feeds.

"I soar, I am drawn up like the lark
To its white cloud--so high my mark,
Albeit my wing is small and dark.

"I ask no wages, seek no fame:
Sew me, for shroud round face and name,
God's banner of the oriflamme.

"I only would have leave to loose
(In tears and blood if so He choose)
Mine inward music out to use:

"I only would be spent--in pain
And loss, perchance, but not in vain--
Upon the sweetness of that strain;

"Only project beyond the bound
Of mine own life, so lost and found,
My voice, and live on in its sound;

"Only embrace and be embraced
By fiery ends, whereby to waste,
And light God's future with my past. "

The angel's smile grew more divine,
The mortal speaking; ay, its shine
Swelled fuller, like a choir-note fine,

Till the broad glory round his brow
Did vibrate with the light below;
But what he said I do not know.

Nor know I if the man who prayed,
Rose up accepted, unforbade,
From the church-floor where he was laid,--

Nor if a listening life did run
Through the king-poets, one by one
Rejoicing in a worthy son:

My soul, which might have seen, grew blind
By what it looked on: I can find
No certain count of things behind.

I saw alone, dim, white and grand
As in a dream, the angel's hand
Stretched forth in gesture of command

Straight through the haze. And so, as erst,
A strain more noble than the first
Mused in the organ, and outburst:

With giant march from floor to roof
Rose the full notes, now parted off
In pauses massively aloof

Like measured thunders, now rejoined
In concords of mysterious kind
Which fused together sense and mind,

Now flashing sharp on sharp along
Exultant in a mounting throng,
Now dying off to a low song

Fed upon minors, wavelike sounds
Re-eddying into silver rounds,
Enlarging liberty with bounds:

And every rhythm that seemed to close
Survived in confluent underflows
Symphonious with the next that rose.

Thus the whole strain being multiplied
And greatened, with its glorified
Wings shot abroad from side to side,

Waved backward (as a wind might wave
A Brocken mist and with as brave
Wild roaring) arch and architrave,

Aisle, transept, column, marble wall,--
Then swelling outward, prodigal
Of aspiration beyond thrall,

Soared, and drew up with it the whole
Of this said vision, as a soul
Is raised by a thought. And as a scroll

Of bright devices is unrolled
Still upward with a gradual gold,
So rose the vision manifold,

Angel and organ, and the round
Of spirits, solemnized and crowned;
While the freed clouds of incense wound

Ascending, following in their track,
And glimmering faintly like the rack
O' the moon in her own light cast back.

And as that solemn dream withdrew,
The lady's kiss did fall anew
Cold on the poet's brow as dew.

And that same kiss which bound him first
Beyond the senses, now reversed
Its own law and most subtly pierced

His spirit with the sense of things
Sensual and present. Vanishings
Of glory with Æolian wings

Struck him and passed: the lady's face
Did melt back in the chrysopras
Of the orient morning sky that was

Yet clear of lark and there and so
She melted as a star might do,
Still smiling as she melted slow:

Smiling so slow, he seemed to see
Her smile the last thing, gloriously
Beyond her, far as memory.

Then he looked round: he was alone.
He lay before the breaking sun,
As Jacob at the Bethel stone.

And thought's entangled skein being wound,
He knew the moorland of his swound,
And the pale pools that smeared the ground;

The far wood-pines like offing ships;
The fourth pool's yew anear him drips,
_World's cruelty_ attaints his lips,

And still he tastes it, bitter still;
Through all that glorious possible
He had the sight of present ill.

Yet rising calmly up and slowly
With such a cheer as scorneth folly,
A mild delightsome melancholy,

He journeyed homeward through the wood
And prayed along the solitude
Betwixt the pines, "O God, my God! "

The golden morning's open flowings
Did sway the trees to murmurous bowings,
In metric chant of blessed poems.

And passing homeward through the wood,
He prayed along the solitude,
"THOU, Poet-God, art great and good!

"And though we must have, and have had
Right reason to be earthly sad,
THOU, Poet-God, art great and glad! "


CONCLUSION.

Life treads on life, and heart on heart;
We press too close in church and mart
To keep a dream or grave apart:

And I was 'ware of walking down
That same green forest where had gone
The poet-pilgrim. One by one

I traced his footsteps. From the east
A red and tender radiance pressed
Through the near trees, until I guessed

The sun behind shone full and round;
While up the leafiness profound
A wind scarce old enough for sound

Stood ready to blow on me when
I turned that way, and now and then
The birds sang and brake off again

To shake their pretty feathers dry
Of the dew sliding droppingly
From the leaf-edges and apply

Back to their song: 'twixt dew and bird
So sweet a silence ministered,
God seemed to use it for a word,

Yet morning souls did leap and run
In all things, as the least had won
A joyous insight of the sun,

And no one looking round the wood
Could help confessing as he stood,
_This Poet-God is glad and good. _

But hark! a distant sound that grows,
A heaving, sinking of the boughs,
A rustling murmur, not of those,

A breezy noise which is not breeze!
And white-clad children by degrees
Steal out in troops among the trees,

Fair little children morning-bright,
With faces grave yet soft to sight,
Expressive of restrained delight.

Some plucked the palm-boughs within reach,
And others leapt up high to catch
The upper boughs and shake from each

A rain of dew till, wetted so,
The child who held the branch let go
And it swang backward with a flow

Of faster drippings. Then I knew
The children laughed; but the laugh flew
From its own chirrup as might do

A frightened song-bird; and a child
Who seemed the chief said very mild,
"Hush! keep this morning undefiled. "

His eyes rebuked them from calm spheres,
His soul upon his brow appears
In waiting for more holy years.

I called the child to me, and said,
"What are your palms for? " "To be spread,"
He answered, "on a poet dead.

"The poet died last month, and now
The world which had been somewhat slow
In honouring his living brow,

"Commands the palms; they must be strown
On his new marble very soon,
In a procession of the town. "

I sighed and said, "Did he foresee
Any such honour? " "Verily
I cannot tell you," answered he.

"But this I know, I fain would lay
My own head down, another day,
As _he_ did,--with the fame away.

"A lily, a friend's hand had plucked,
Lay by his death-bed, which he looked
As deep down as a bee had sucked,

"Then, turning to the lattice, gazed
O'er hill and river and upraised
His eyes illumined and amazed

"With the world's beauty, up to God,
Re-offering on their iris broad
The images of things bestowed

"By the chief Poet. 'God! ' he cried,
'Be praised for anguish which has tried,
For beauty which has satisfied:

"'For this world's presence half within
And half without me--thought and scene--
This sense of Being and Having Been.

"'I thank Thee that my soul hath room
For Thy grand world: both guests may come--
Beauty, to soul--Body, to tomb.

"'I am content to be so weak:
Put strength into the words I speak,
And I am strong in what I seek.

"'I am content to be so bare
Before the archers, everywhere
My wounds being stroked by heavenly air.

"'I laid my soul before Thy feet
That images of fair and sweet
Should walk to other men on it.

"'I am content to feel the step
Of each pure image: let those keep
To mandragore who care to sleep.

"'I am content to touch the brink
Of the other goblet and I think
My bitter drink a wholesome drink.

"'Because my portion was assigned
Wholesome and bitter, Thou art kind,
And I am blessed to my mind.

"'Gifted for giving, I receive
The maythorn and its scent outgive:
I grieve not that I once did grieve.

"'In my large joy of sight and touch
Beyond what others count for such,
I am content to suffer much.

"'_I know_--is all the mourner saith,
Knowledge by suffering entereth,
And Life is perfected by Death. '"

The child spake nobly: strange to hear,
His infantine soft accents clear
Charged with high meanings, did appear;

And fair to see, his form and face
Winged out with whiteness and pure grace
From the green darkness of the place.

Behind his head a palm-tree grew;
An orient beam which pierced it through
Transversely on his forehead drew

The figure of a palm-branch brown
Traced on its brightness up and down
In fine fair lines,--a shadow-crown:

Guido might paint his angels so--
A little angel, taught to go
With holy words to saints below--

Such innocence of action yet
Significance of object met
In his whole bearing strong and sweet.

And all the children, the whole band,
Did round in rosy reverence stand,
Each with a palm-bough in his hand.

"And so he died," I whispered. "Nay,
Not _so_," the childish voice did say,
"That poet turned him first to pray

"In silence, and God heard the rest
'Twixt the sun's footsteps down the west.
Then he called one who loved him best,

"Yea, he called softly through the room
(His voice was weak yet tender)--'Come,'
He said, 'come nearer! Let the bloom

"'Of Life grow over, undenied,
This bridge of Death, which is not wide--
I shall be soon at the other side.

"'Come, kiss me! ' So the one in truth
Who loved him best,--in love, not ruth,
Bowed down and kissed him mouth to mouth:

"And in that kiss of love was won
Life's manumission. All was done:
The mouth that kissed last, kissed _alone_.

"But in the former, confluent kiss,
The same was sealed, I think, by His,
To words of truth and uprightness. "

The child's voice trembled, his lips shook
Like a rose leaning o'er a brook,
Which vibrates though it is not struck.

"And who," I asked, a little moved
Yet curious-eyed, "was this that loved
And kissed him last, as it behoved? "

"_I_," softly said the child; and then
"_I_," said he louder, once again:
"His son, my rank is among men:

"And now that men exalt his name
I come to gather palms with them,
That holy love may hallow fame.

"He did not die alone, nor should
His memory live so, 'mid these rude
World-praisers--a worse solitude.

"Me, a voice calleth to that tomb
Where these are strewing branch and bloom
Saying, 'Come nearer:' and I come.

"Glory to God!
" resumèd he,
And his eyes smiled for victory
O'er their own tears which I could see

Fallen on the palm, down cheek and chin--
"That poet now has entered in
The place of rest which is not sin.

"And while he rests, his songs in troops
Walk up and down our earthly slopes,
Companioned by diviner hopes. "

"But _thou_," I murmured to engage
The child's speech farther--"hast an age
Too tender for this orphanage. "

"Glory to God--to God! " he saith:
"KNOWLEDGE BY SUFFERING ENTERETH,
AND LIFE IS PERFECTED BY DEATH. "




THE POET'S VOW


O be wiser thou,
Instructed that true knowledge leads to love.

WORDSWORTH.




THE POET'S VOW.


PART THE FIRST.

SHOWING WHEREFORE THE VOW WAS MADE.


I.

Eve is a twofold mystery;
The stillness Earth doth keep,
The motion wherewith human hearts
Do each to either leap
As if all souls between the poles
Felt "Parting comes in sleep. "


II.

The rowers lift their oars to view
Each other in the sea;
The landsmen watch the rocking boats
In a pleasant company;
While up the hill go gladlier still
Dear friends by two and three.


III.

The peasant's wife hath looked without
Her cottage door and smiled,
For there the peasant drops his spade
To clasp his youngest child
Which hath no speech, but its hand can reach
And stroke his forehead mild.


IV.

A poet sate that eventide
Within his hall alone,
As silent as its ancient lords
In the coffined place of stone,
When the bat hath shrunk from the praying monk,
And the praying monk is gone.


V.

Nor wore the dead a stiller face
Beneath the cerement's roll:
His lips refusing out in words
Their mystic thoughts to dole,
His steadfast eye burnt inwardly,
As burning out his soul.


VI.

You would not think that brow could e'er
Ungentle moods express,
Yet seemed it, in this troubled world,
Too calm for gentleness,
When the very star that shines from far
Shines trembling ne'ertheless.


VII.

It lacked, all need, the softening light
Which other brows supply:
We should conjoin the scathèd trunks
Of our humanity,
That each leafless spray entwining may
Look softer 'gainst the sky.


VIII.

None gazed within the poet's face,
The poet gazed in none;
He threw a lonely shadow straight
Before the moon and sun,
Affronting nature's heaven-dwelling creatures
With wrong to nature done:


IX.

Because this poet daringly,
--The nature at his heart,
And that quick tune along his veins
He could not change by art,--
Had vowed his blood of brotherhood
To a stagnant place apart.


X.

He did not vow in fear, or wrath,
Or grief's fantastic whim,
But, weights and shows of sensual things
Too closely crossing him,
On his soul's eyelid the pressure slid
And made its vision dim.


XI.

And darkening in the dark he strove
'Twixt earth and sea and sky
To lose in shadow, wave and cloud,
His brother's haunting cry:
The winds were welcome as they swept,
God's five-day work he would accept,
But let the rest go by.


XII.

He cried, "O touching, patient Earth
That weepest in thy glee,
Whom God created very good,
And very mournful, we!
Thy voice of moan doth reach His throne,
As Abel's rose from thee.


XIII.

"Poor crystal sky with stars astray!
Mad winds that howling go
From east to west! perplexèd seas
That stagger from their blow!
O motion wild! O wave defiled!
Our curse hath made you so.


XIV.

'_We! _ and _our_ curse! do _I_ partake
The desiccating sin?
Have _I_ the apple at my lips?
The money-lust within?
Do _I_ human stand with the wounding hand,
To the blasting heart akin?


XV.

"Thou solemn pathos of all things
For solemn joy designed!
Behold, submissive to your cause,
A holy wrath I find
And, for your sake, the bondage break
That knits me to my kind.


XVI.

"Hear me forswear man's sympathies,
His pleasant yea and no,
His riot on the piteous earth
Whereon his thistles grow,
His changing love--with stars above,
His pride--with graves below.


XVII.

"Hear me forswear his roof by night,
His bread and salt by day,
His talkings at the wood-fire hearth,
His greetings by the way,
His answering looks, his systemed books,
All man, for aye and aye.


XVIII.

"That so my purged, once human heart,
From all the human rent,
May gather strength to pledge and drink
Your wine of wonderment,
While you pardon me all blessingly
The woe mine Adam sent.


XIX.

"And I shall feel your unseen looks
Innumerous, constant, deep
And soft as haunted Adam once,
Though sadder, round me creep,--
As slumbering men have mystic ken
Of watchers on their sleep.


XX.

"And ever, when I lift my brow
At evening to the sun,
No voice of woman or of child
Recording 'Day is done. '
Your silences shall a love express,
More deep than such an one. "


PART THE SECOND.

SHOWING TO WHOM THE VOW WAS DECLARED.


I.

The poet's vow was inly sworn,
The poet's vow was told.
He shared among his crowding friends
The silver and the gold,
They clasping bland his gift,--his hand
In a somewhat slacker hold.


II.

They wended forth, the crowding friends,
With farewells smooth and kind.
They wended forth, the solaced friends,
And left but twain behind:
One loved him true as brothers do,
And one was Rosalind.


III.

He said, "My friends have wended forth
With farewells smooth and kind;
Mine oldest friend, my plighted bride,
Ye need not stay behind:
Friend, wed my fair bride for my sake,
And let my lands ancestral make
A dower for Rosalind.


IV.

"And when beside your wassail board
Ye bless your social lot,
I charge you that the giver be
In all his gifts forgot,
Or alone of all his words recall
The last,--Lament me not. "


V.

She looked upon him silently
With her large, doubting eyes,
Like a child that never knew but love
Whom words of wrath surprise,
Till the rose did break from either cheek
And the sudden tears did rise.


VI.

She looked upon him mournfully,
While her large eyes were grown
Yet larger with the steady tears,
Till, all his purpose known,
She turnèd slow, as she would go--
The tears were shaken down.


VII.

She turnèd slow, as she would go,
Then quickly turned again,
And gazing in his face to seek
Some little touch of pain,
"I thought," she said,--but shook her head,--
She tried that speech in vain.


VIII.

"I thought--but I am half a child
And very sage art thou--
The teachings of the heaven and earth
Should keep us soft and low:
They have drawn _my_ tears in early years,
Or ere I wept--as now.


IX.

"But now that in thy face I read
Their cruel homily,
Before their beauty I would fain
Untouched, unsoftened be,--
If I indeed could look on even
The senseless, loveless earth and heaven
As thou canst look on me!


X.

"And couldest thou as coldly view
Thy childhood's far abode,
Where little feet kept time with thine
Along the dewy sod,
And thy mother's look from holy book
Rose like a thought of God?


XI.

"O brother,--called so, ere her last
Betrothing words were said!
O fellow-watcher in her room,
With hushèd voice and tread!
Rememberest thou how, hand in hand
O friend, O lover, we did stand,
And knew that she was dead?


XII.

"I will not live Sir Roland's bride,
That dower I will not hold;
I tread below my feet that go,
These parchments bought and sold:
The tears I weep are mine to keep,
And worthier than thy gold. "


XIII.

The poet and Sir Roland stood
Alone, each turned to each,
Till Roland brake the silence left
By that soft-throbbing speech--
"Poor heart! " he cried, "it vainly tried
The distant heart to reach.


XIV.

"And thou, O distant, sinful heart
That climbest up so high
To wrap and blind thee with the snows
That cause to dream and die,
What blessing can, from lips of man,
Approach thee with his sigh?


XV.

"Ay, what from earth--create for man
And moaning in his moan?
Ay, what from stars--revealed to man
And man-named one by one?
Ay, more! what blessing can be given
Where the Spirits seven do show in heaven
A MAN upon the throne?


XVI.

"A man on earth HE wandered once,
All meek and undefiled,
And those who loved Him said 'He wept'--
None ever said He smiled;
Yet there might have been a smile unseen,
When He bowed his holy face, I ween,
To bless that happy child.


XVII.

"And now HE pleadeth up in heaven
For our humanities,
Till the ruddy light on seraphs' wings
In pale emotion dies.
They can better bear their Godhead's glare
Than the pathos of his eyes.


XVIII.

"I will go pray our God to-day
To teach thee how to scan
His work divine, for human use
Since earth on axle ran,--
To teach thee to discern as plain
His grief divine, the blood-drop's stain
He left there, MAN for man.


XIX.

"So, for the blood's sake shed by Him
Whom angels God declare,
Tears like it, moist and warm with love,
Thy reverent eyes shall wear
To see i' the face of Adam's race
The nature God doth share. "


XX.

"I heard," the poet said, "thy voice
As dimly as thy breath:
The sound was like the noise of life
To one anear his death,--
Or of waves that fail to stir the pale
Sere leaf they roll beneath.


XXI.

"And still between the sound and me
White creatures like a mist
Did interfloat confusedly,
Mysterious shapes unwist:
Across my heart and across my brow
I felt them droop like wreaths of snow,
To still the pulse they kist.


XXII.

"The castle and its lands are thine--
The poor's--it shall be done.
Go, _man_, to love! I go to live
In Courland hall, alone:
The bats along the ceilings cling,
The lizards in the floors do run,
And storms and years have worn and reft
The stain by human builders left
In working at the stone. "


PART THE THIRD.

SHOWING HOW THE VOW WAS KEPT.


I.

He dwelt alone, and sun and moon
Were witness that he made
Rejection of his humanness
Until they seemed to fade;
His face did so, for he did grow
Of his own soul afraid.


II.

The self-poised God may dwell alone
With inward glorying,
But God's chief angel waiteth for
A brother's voice, to sing;
And a lonely creature of sinful nature
It is an awful thing.


III.

An awful thing that feared itself;
While many years did roll,
A lonely man, a feeble man,
A part beneath the whole,
He bore by day, he bore by night
That pressure of God's infinite
Upon his finite soul.


IV.

The poet at his lattice sate,
And downward lookèd he.
Three Christians wended by to prayers,
With mute ones in their ee;
Each turned above a face of love
And called him to the far chapèlle
With voice more tuneful than its bell:
But still they wended three.


V.

There journeyed by a bridal pomp,
A bridegroom and his dame;
He speaketh low for happiness,
She blusheth red for shame:
But never a tone of benison
From out the lattice came.


VI.

A little child with inward song,
No louder noise to dare,
Stood near the wall to see at play
The lizards green and rare--
Unblessed the while for his childish smile
Which cometh unaware.


PART THE FOURTH.

SHOWING HOW ROSALIND FARED BY THE KEEPING OF THE VOW.


I.

In death-sheets lieth Rosalind
As white and still as they;
And the old nurse that watched her bed
Rose up with "Well-a-day! "
And oped the casement to let in
The sun, and that sweet doubtful din
Which droppeth from the grass and bough
Sans wind and bird, none knoweth how--
To cheer her as she lay.


II.

The old nurse started when she saw
Her sudden look of woe:
But the quick wan tremblings round her mouth
In a meek smile did go,
And calm she said, "When I am dead,
Dear nurse it shall be so.


III.

"Till then, shut out those sights and sounds,
And pray God pardon me
That I without this pain no more
His blessed works can see!
And lean beside me, loving nurse,
That thou mayst hear, ere I am worse,
What thy last love should be. "


IV.

The loving nurse leant over her,
As white she lay beneath;
The old eyes searching, dim with life,
The young ones dim with death,
To read their look if sound forsook
The trying, trembling breath.


V.

"When all this feeble breath is done,
And I on bier am laid,
My tresses smoothed for never a feast,
My body in shroud arrayed,
Uplift each palm in a saintly calm,
As if that still I prayed.


VI.

"And heap beneath mine head the flowers
You stoop so low to pull,
The little white flowers from the wood
Which grow there in the cool,
Which _he_ and I, in childhood's games,
Went plucking, knowing not their names,
And filled thine apron full.


VII.

"Weep not! _I_ weep not. Death is strong,
The eyes of Death are dry!
But lay this scroll upon my breast
When hushed its heavings lie,
And wait awhile for the corpse's smile
Which shineth presently.


VIII.

"And when it shineth, straightway call
Thy youngest children dear,
And bid them gently carry me
All barefaced on the bier;
But bid them pass my kirkyard grass
That waveth long anear.


IX.

"And up the bank where I used to sit
And dream what life would be,
Along the brook with its sunny look
Akin to living glee,--
O'er the windy hill, through the forest still,
Let them gently carry me.


X.

"And through the piny forest still,
And down the open moorland
Round where the sea beats mistily
And blindly on the foreland;
And let them chant that hymn I know,
Bearing me soft, bearing me slow,
To the ancient hall of Courland.


XI.

"And when withal they near the hall,
In silence let them lay
My bier before the bolted door,
And leave it for a day:
For I have vowed, though I am proud,
To go there as a guest in shroud,
And not be turned away. "


XII.

The old nurse looked within her eyes
Whose mutual look was gone;
The old nurse stooped upon her mouth,
Whose answering voice was done;
And nought she heard, till a little bird
Upon the casement's woodbine swinging
Broke out into a loud sweet singing
For joy o' the summer sun:
"Alack! alack! "--she watched no more,
With head on knee she wailèd sore,
And the little bird sang o'er and o'er
For joy o' the summer sun.


PART THE FIFTH.

SHOWING HOW THE VOW WAS BROKEN.


I.

The poet oped his bolted door
The midnight sky to view;
A spirit-feel was in the air
Which seemed to touch his spirit bare
Whenever his breath he drew;
And the stars a liquid softness had,
As alone their holiness forbade
Their falling with the dew.


II.

They shine upon the steadfast hills,
Upon the swinging tide,
Upon the narrow track of beach
And the murmuring pebbles pied:
They shine on every lovely place,
They shine upon the corpse's face,
As _it_ were fair beside.


III.

It lay before him, humanlike,
Yet so unlike a thing!
More awful in its shrouded pomp
Than any crownèd king:
All calm and cold, as it did hold
Some secret, glorying.


IV.

A heavier weight than of its clay
Clung to his heart and knee:
As if those folded palms could strike
He staggered groaningly,
And then o'erhung, without a groan,
The meek close mouth that smiled alone,
Whose speech the scroll must be.

* * * * *


THE WORDS OF ROSALIND'S SCROLL.

"I left thee last, a child at heart,
A woman scarce in years.
I come to thee, a solemn corpse
Which neither feels nor fears.
I have no breath to use in sighs;
They laid the dead-weights on mine eyes
To seal them safe from tears.

"Look on me with thine own calm look:
I meet it calm as thou.
No look of thine can change _this_ smile,
Or break thy sinful vow:
I tell thee that my poor scorned heart
Is of thine earth--thine earth, a part:
It cannot vex thee now.

"But out, alas! these words are writ
By a living, loving one,
Adown whose cheeks, the proofs of life
The warm quick tears do run:
Ah, let the unloving corpse control
Thy scorn back from the loving soul
Whose place of rest is won.

"I have prayed for thee with bursting sob
When passion's course was free;
I have prayed for thee with silent lips,
In the anguish none could see:
They whispered oft, 'She sleepeth soft'--
But I only prayed for thee.

"Go to! I pray for thee no more:
The corpse's tongue is still,
Its folded fingers point to heaven,
But point there stiff and chill:
No farther wrong, no farther woe
Hath license from the sin below
Its tranquil heart to thrill.

"I charge thee, by the living's prayer,
And the dead's silentness,
To wring from out thy soul a cry
Which God shall hear and bless!
Lest Heaven's own palm droop in my hand,
And pale among the saints I stand,
A saint companionless. "

* * * * *


V.

Bow lower down before the throne,
Triumphant Rosalind!
He boweth on thy corpse his face,
And weepeth as the blind:
'Twas a dread sight to see them so,
For the senseless corpse rocked to and fro
With the wail of his living mind.


VI.

But dreader sight, could such be seen,
His inward mind did lie,
Whose long-subjected humanness
Gave out its lion-cry,
And fiercely rent its tenement
In a mortal agony.


VII.

I tell you, friends, had you heard his wail,
'Twould haunt you in court and mart,
And in merry feast until you set
Your cup down to depart--
That weeping wild of a reckless child
From a proud man's broken heart.


VIII.

O broken heart, O broken vow,
That wore so proud a feature!
God, grasping as a thunderbolt
The man's rejected nature,
Smote him therewith i' the presence high
Of his so worshipped earth and sky
That looked on all indifferently--
A wailing human creature.