Part 4 — THE PROGRESS OF LOVE

I In other worlds I loved you, long ago: Love that hath no beginning hath no end. The woodbine whispers, low and sweet and low, In other worlds I loved you, long ago; The firwoods murmur and the sea-waves know The message that the setting sun shall send. In other worlds I loved you, long ago: Love that hath no beginning hath no end. II And God sighed in the sunset; and the sea Chanted the soft recessional of Time Against the golden shores of mystery; And ever as that long low change and chime With one slow sob of molten music yearned Westward, it seemed as if the Love sublime Almost uttered itself, where the waves burned In little flower-soft flames of rose and green That woke to seaward, while the tides returned Rising and falling, ruffled and serene, With all the mirrored tints of heaven above Shimmering through their mystic myriad sheen. As a dove's burnished breast throbbing with love Swells and subsides to call her soft-eyed mate Home through the rosy gloom of glen or grove, So when the greenwood noon was growing late The sea called softly through the waste of years, Called to the star that still can consecrate The holy golden haze of human tears Which tinges every sunset with our grief Until the perfect Paraclete appears. Ah, the long sigh that yields the world relief Rose and relapsed across Eternity, Making a joy of sorrows that are brief, As, o'er the bright enchantment of the sea, Facing the towers of that old City of Pain Which stands upon the shores of mystery And frowns across the immeasurable main, Venus among her cloudy sunset flowers Woke; and earth melted into heaven again. For even the City's immemorial towers Were tinted into secret tone and time, Like old forgotten tombs that age embowers With muffling roses and with mossy rime Until they seem no monument of ours, But one more note in earth's accordant chime. O Love, Love, Love, all dreams, desires and powers, Were but as chords of that ineffable psalm; And all the long blue lapse of summer hours, And all the breathing sunset's golden balm By that æonian sorrow were resolved As dew into the music's infinite calm, Through which the suns and moons and stars revolved According to the song's divine decree, Till Time was but a tide of intervolved And interweaving worlds of melody; In other worlds I loved you, long ago,— The angelic citoles fainted o'er the sea; And seraph citerns answered, sweet and low, From where the sunset and the moonrise blend,— In other worlds I loved you, long ago; Love that hath no beginning hath no end; O Love, Love, Love, the bitter City of Pain Bidding the golden echoes westward wend, Chimed in accordant undertone again: Though every grey old tower rose like a tomb To mock the glory of the shoreless main They could but strike such discords as illume The music with strange gleams of utter light And hallow all the valley's rosy gloom. And there, though greyly sinking out of sight Before the wonders of the sky and sea, Back through the valley, back into the night, While mystery melted into mystery, The City still rebuffed the far sweet West That dimmed her sorrows with infinity; Yet sometimes yearning o'er the sea's bright breast To that remote Avilion would she gaze Where all lost loves and weary warriors rest. Then she remembered, through that golden haze, (Oh faint as flowers the rose-white waves resound) Her Arthur whom she loved in the dead days, And how he sailed to heal him of his wound, And how he lives and reigns eternally Where now that unknown love is throned and crowned Who laid his bleeding head against her knee And loosed the bitter breast-plate and unbound His casque and brought him strangely o'er the sea, And how she reigns beside him on that shore For ever (Yrma, queen, bend down to me) And they twain have no sorrow any more. III They have forgotten all that vanished away When life's dark night died into death's bright day They have forgotten all except the gleam Of light when once he kissed her in a dream Once on the lips and once upon the brow In the white orb of God's transcendent Now; And even then he knew that, long before, Their eyes had met upon some distant shore; Yea; that most lonely and immortal face Which dwells beyond the dreams of time and space Bowed down to him from out the happy place And whispered to him, low and sweet and low In other worlds I loved you, long ago; And then he knew his love could never die Because his queen was throned beyond the sky And called him to his own immortal sphere Forgetting Launcelot and Guinevere. So Yrma reigns with Arthur, and they know They loved on earth a million years ago; And watched the sea-waves wistfully westward wend; And heard a voice whispering in their flow, And calling through the silent sunset-glow, Love that hath no beginning hath no end. IV It was about the dawn of day I heard Etain and Anwyl say The waving ferns are a fairy forest, It is time, it is time to wander away; For the dew is bright on the heather bells, And the breeze in the clover sways and swells, As the waves on the blue sea wake and wander, Over and under the braes and dells. She was eight years old that day, Full of laughter and play; Eight years old and Anwyl nine,— Two young lovers were they. Two young lovers were they, Born in the City of Pain; There was never a song in the world so gay As the song of the child, Etain; There was never a laugh so sweet With the ripple of fairy bells, And never a fairy foot so fleet Dancing down the woodland dells! She was eight years old that day, Two young lovers were they. There was never a sea of mystical gleams Glooming under enchanted skies Deep as the dark miraculous dreams In Anwyl's haunted eyes. There was never a glory of light Around the carolling lark As Etain's eyes were brave and bright To daunt the coming dark. Two young lovers were they Born in the City of Pain; There was never a song in the world so gay As the song of the child, Etain; Blithe as the wind in the trees, Blithe as the bird on the bough, Blithe as the bees in the sweet Heart's-ease Where Love lies bleeding now. V And God sighed in the sunset; and the sea Forgot her sorrow, and all the breathless West Grew quiet as the blue tranquillity That clad the broken mountain's brilliant breast, Over the City, with deep heather-bloom Heaving from crag to crag in sweet unrest, A sea of dim rich colour and warm perfume Whose billows rocked the drowsy honey-bee Among the golden isles of gorse and broom Like some enchanted ancient argosy Drunkenly blundering over seas of dream Past unimagined isles of mystery, Over whose yellow sands the soft waves cream, And sunbeams float and toss across the bare Rose-white arms and perilous breasts that gleam Where sirens wind their glossy golden hair; Oh, miles on miles, the honeyed heather-bloom Heaving its purple through the high bright air Rolled a silent glory of gleam and gloom From mossy crag to crag and crest to crest Untroubled by the valley's depth of doom. The hawk dropped down into the pine-forest And, far below, the lavrock ruffled her wings Blossomwise over her winsome secret nest. Then suddenly, softly, as when a fairy sings Out of the heart of a rose in the heart of the fern, Or in the floating starlight faintly rings The frail blue hare-bells—turn again, and turn, Under and over, the silvery crescents cry To where the crimson fox-glove belfries burn And with a deeper softer peal reply, There came a ripple of music through the roses That rustled on the dimmest rim of sky Where many a frame of fretted leaves encloses For lovers wandering in the fern-wet wood An arch of summer sea that softly dozes As if all mysteries were understood: Yrma, my queen, what love could understand That faint sweet music, God saith all is good, As those two children, hand in sunburnt hand, Over the blithe blue hills and far away Wandered into their own green fairyland? VI For the song is lost that shook the dew Where the wild musk-roses glisten, When the sunset dreamed that a dream was true And the birds were hushed to listen. The song is lost that shook the night With wings of richer fire, Where the years had touched their eyes with light And their souls with a new desire; And the new delight of the strange old story Burned in the flower-soft skies, And nine more years with a darker glory Had deepened the light of her eyes; But lost, oh more than lost the song That shook the rose to tears, As hand in hand they danced along Through childhood's everlasting years. "Oh, Love has wings," the linnet sings; But the dead return no more, no more; And the sea is breaking its old grey heart Against the golden shore. She was eight years old that day, Two young lovers were they. If every song as they danced along Paused on the springing spray; Is there never a bird in the wide greenwood Will hush its heart to-day? There's never a leaf with dew impearled To make their pathway sweet, And never a blossom in all the world That knows the kiss of their feet. No light to-night declares the word That thrilled the blossomed bough, And stilled the happy singing bird That none can silence now. The weary nightingale may sob With her bleeding breast against a thorn, And the wild white rose with every throb Grow red as the laugh of morn; With wings outspread she sinks her head But Love returns no more, no more; And the sea is breaking its old grey heart Against the golden shore. Born in the City of Pain; Ah, who knows, who knows When Death shall turn to delight again Or a wound to a red, red rose? Eight years old that day, Full of laughter and play; Eight years old and Anwyl nine,— Two young lovers were they. VII And down the scented heather-drowsy hills The barefoot children wandered, hand in hand, And paddled through the laughing silver rills In quest of fairyland; And in each little sunburnt hand a spray, A purple fox-glove bell-branch lightly swung, And Anwyl told Etain how, far away, One day he wandered through the dreamland dells And watched the moonlit fairies as they sung And tolled the fox-glove bells; And oh, how sweetly, sweetly to and fro The fragrance of the music reeled and rung Under the loaded boughs of starry May. And God 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 shore 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, And Anwyl, gazing out across the sea, Dreamed that he heard the distance whisper "Come." "Etain," he murmured softly and wistfully, With the soul's wakening wonder in his eyes, "Is it not strange to think that there can be "No end for ever and ever to those skies, No shore beyond, or if there be a shore Still without end the world beyond it lies; "Think; think, Etain;" and all his faery lore Mixed with the faith that brought all gods to birth And sees new heavens transcend for evermore The poor impossibilities of earth; But Etain only laughed: the world to her Was one sweet smile of very present mirth; Its flowers were only flowers, common or rare; Her soul was like a little garden closed By rose-clad walls, a place of southern air Islanded from the Mystery that reposed Its vast and brooding wings on that abyss Through which like little clouds that dreamed and dozed The thoughts of Anwyl wandered toward some bliss Unknown, unfathomed, far, how far away, Where God has gathered all the eternities Into strange heavens, beyond the night and day. VIII And over the rolling golden bay, In the funeral pomp of the dying day, The bell of Time was wistfully tolling A million million years away; And over the heather-drowsy hill Where the burdened bees were buzzing still, The two little sun-bright barefoot children Wandered down at the flowers' own will; For still as the bell in the sunset tolled, The meadow-sweet and the mary-gold And the purple orchis kissed their ankles And lured them over the listening wold. And the feathery billows of blue-gold grass Bowed and murmured and bade them pass, Where a sigh of the sea-wind softly told them There is no Time—Time never was. And what if a sorrow were tolled to rest Where the rich light mellowed away in the West, As a glory of fruit in an autumn orchard Heaped and asleep o'er the sea's ripe breast? Why should they heed it, what should they know Of the years that come or the years that go, With the warm blue sky around and above them And the wild thyme whispering to and fro? For they heard in the dreamy dawn of day A fairy harper faintly play, Follow me, follow me, little children, Over the hills and far away; Where the dew is bright on the heather-bells, And the breeze in the clover sways and swells, As the waves on the blue sea wake and wander, Over and under the braes and dells. And the hare-bells tinkled and rang Ding dong Bell in the dell as they danced along, And their feet were stained on the hills with honey, And crushing the clover till evensong. And, oh the ripples that rolled in rhyme Under the wild blue banks of thyme, To the answering rhyme of the rolling ocean's Golden glory of change and chime! For they came to a stream and her fairy lover Caught at her hand and swung her over, And the broad wet buttercups laughed and gilded Their golden knees in the deep sweet clover. There was never a lavrock up in the skies Blithe as the laugh of their lips and eyes, As they glanced and glittered across the meadows To waken the sleepy butterflies. There was never a wave on the sea so gay As the light that danced on their homeward way Where the waving ferns were a fairy forest And a thousand years as yesterday. She was eight years old that day, Full of laughter and play; Eight years old and Anwyl nine,— Two young lovers were they. And when the clouds like folded sheep Were drowsing over the drowsy deep, And like a rose in a golden cradle Anwyl breathed on the breast of sleep, Or ever the petals and leaves were furled At the vesper-song of the sunset-world, The sleepy young rose of nine sweet summers Dreamed in his rose-bed cosily curled. And what if the light of his nine bright years Glistened with laughter or glimmered with tears, Or gleamed like a mystic globe around him White as the light of the sphere of spheres? And what if a glory of angels there, Starring an orb of ineffable air, Came floating down from the Gates of jasper That melt into flowers at a maiden's prayer? And what if he dreamed of a fairy face Wondering out of some happy place, Quietly as a star at sunset Shines in the rosy dreams of space? For only as far as the west wind blows The sweets of a swinging full-blown rose, Eight years old and queen of the lilies Little Etain slept—ah, how close! At a flower-cry over the moonlit lane In a cottage of roses dreamed Etain, And their purple shadows kissed at her lattice And dappled her sigh-soft counterpane; And or ever Etain with her golden head Had nestled to sleep in her lily-white bed, She breathed a dream to her fairy lover, Please, God, bless Anwyl and me, she said. And a song arose in the rose-white West, And a whisper of wings o'er the sea's bright breast, And a cry where the moon's old miracle wakened A glory of pearl o'er the pine-forest. Why should they heed it? What should they know Of the years to come or the years to go? With the starry skies around and above them And the roses whispering to and fro. Ah, was it a song of the mystic morn When into their beating hearts the thorn Should pierce through the red wet crumpled roses And all the sorrow of love be born? Ah, was it a cry of the wild wayside Whereby one day they must surely ride, Out of the purple garden of passion To Calvary, to be crucified? Only the sound of the distant sea Broke on the shores of Mystery, And tolled as a bell might toll for sorrow Till Time be tombed in Eternity; And in their dreams they only heard Far away, one secret bird Sing, till the passionate purple twilight Throbbed with the wonder of one sweet word: One sweet word and the wonder awoke, And the leaves and the flowers and the starlight spoke In silent rapture the strange old secret That none e'er knew till the death-dawn broke; One sweet whisper, and hand in hand They wandered in dreams through fairyland, Rapt in the star-bright mystical music Which only a child can understand. But never a child in the world can tell The wonderful tale he knows so well, Though ever as old Time dies in the sunset It tolls and tolls like a distant bell. Love, love, love; and they hardly knew The sense of the glory that round them grew; But the world was a wide enchanted garden; And the song, the song, the song rang true. And they danced with the fairies in emerald rings Arched by the light of their rainbow wings, And they heard the wild green Harper striking A starlight over the golden strings. Love, oh love; and they roamed once more Through a forest of flowers on a fairy shore, And the sky was a wild bright laugh of wonder And the West was a dream of the years of yore. In other worlds I loved you, long ago: Love that hath no beginning hath no end: The heather whispers low and sweet and low, In other worlds I loved you, long ago; The meadows murmur and the firwoods know The message that the kindling East shall send; In other worlds I loved you, long ago: Love that hath no beginning hath no end. IX Out of the deep, my dream, out of the deep, Yrma, thy voice came to me in my sleep, And through a rainbow woven of human tears I saw two lovers wandering down the years; Two children, first, that roamed a sunset land, And then two lovers wandering hand in hand, Forgetful of their childhood's Paradise, For nine more years had darkened in their eyes, And heaven itself could hardly find again Anwyl, the star-child, or the flower, Etain. For on a day in May, as through the wood With earth's new passion beating in his blood He went alone, an empty-hearted youth, Seeking he knew not what white flower of truth Or beauty, on all sides he seemed to see Swift subtle hints of some new harmony, Yet all unheard, ideal, and incomplete, A silent song compact of hopes and fears, A music such as lights the wandering feet Of Yrma when on earth she reappears. And he forgot that sad grey City of Pain, For all earth's old romance returned again, And as he went, his dreaming soul grew glad To think that he might meet with Galahad Or Parsifal in some green glade of fern, Or see between the boughs a helmet burn And hear a joyous laugh kindle the sky As through the wood Sir Launcelot rode by With face upturned to take the sun like wine. Ah, was it love that made the whole world shine Like some great angel's face, blinded with bliss, While Anwyl dreamed of bold Sir Amadis And Guinevere's white arms and Iseult's kiss, And that glad island in a golden sea Where Arthur lives and reigns eternally? Surely the heavens were one wide rose-white flame As down the path to meet him Yrma came; Ah, was it Yrma, with those radiant eyes, That came to greet and lead him through the skies, The skies that gloomed and gleamed so far above The little wandering prayers of human love?... He had forgotten all except the gleam Of light when once he kissed her in a dream, ... For surely then he knew that long before Their eyes had met upon some distant shore.... Ah, was it Yrma whose red lips he met Between the branches, where the leaves were wet? Etain or Yrma, for it seemed her face Bent down upon him from some happy place And whispered to him, low and sweet and low, In other worlds I loved you, long ago! And he, too, knew his love could never die, Because his queen was throned beyond the sky. Yet In sweet mortal eyes he met her now And kissed Etain beneath the hawthorn bough, And dared to dream his infinite dream was true On earth and reign with Etain, dream he knew Why leaves were green and sides were fresh and blue; Yea, dream he knew, as children dream they know They knew all this a million years ago, And watched the sea-waves wistfully westward wend And heard a voice whispering in their flow And calling through the silent sunset-glow Love that hath no beginning hath no end. Ah, could they see in the Valley of Gloom That clove the cliffs behind the City; Ah, could they hear in the forest of Doom The peril that neared without pause or pity? Behind the veils of ivy and vine, Wild musk-roses and white woodbine, In glens that were wan as with moonlit tears And rosy with ghosts of eglantine And pale as with lilies of long-past years, Ah, could they see, could they hear, could they know Behind that beautiful outward show, Behind the pomp and glory of life That seething old anarchic strife? For there in many a dim blue glade Where the rank red poppies burned, And if perchance some dreamer strayed He nevermore returned, Cold incarnate memories Of earth's retributory throes, Deadly desires and agonies Dark as the worm that never dies, In the outer night arose, And waited under those wonderful skies With Hydra heads and mocking eyes That winked upon the waning West From out the gloom of the oak-forest, Till all the wild profound of wood That o'er the haunted valley slept Glowed with eyes like pools of blood As, lusting after a hideous food, Through the haggard vistas crept Without a cry, without a hiss, The serpent broods of the abyss. Ancestral folds in darkness furled Since the beginnings of the world. Ring upon awful ring uprose That obscure heritage of foes, The exceeding bitter heritage Which still a jealous God bestows From inappellable age to age, The ghostly worms that softly move Through every grey old corse of love And creep across the coffined years To batten on our blood and tears; And there were hooded shapes of death Gaunt and grey, cruel and blind, Stealing softly as a breath Through the woods that loured behind The City; hooded shapes of fear Slowly, slowly stealing near; While all the gloom that round them rolled With intertwisting coils grew cold. And there with leer and gap-toothed grin Many a gaunt ancestral Sin With clutching fingers, white and thin, Strove to put the boughs aside; And still before them all would glide Down the wavering moon-white track One lissom figure, clad in black; Who wept at mirth and mocked at pain And murmured a song of the wind and the rain; His laugh was wild with a secret grief; His eyes were deep like woodland pools; And, once and again, as his face drew near In a rosy gloaming of eglantere, All the ghosts that gathered there Bowed together, naming his name: Lead us, ah thou Shadow of a Leaf, Child and master of all our shame, Fool of Doubt and King of Fools. Now the linnet had ended his evensong, And the lark dropt down from his last wild ditty And ruffled his wings and his speckled breast Blossomwise over his June-sweet nest; While winging wistfully into the West As a fallen petal is wafted along The last white sea-mew sought for rest; And, over the gleaming heave and swell Of the swinging seas, Drowsily breathed the dreaming breeze. Then, suddenly, out of the Valley of Gloom That clove the cliffs behind the City, Out of the silent forest of Doom That clothed the valley with clouds of fear Swelled the boom of a distant bell Once, and the towers of the City of Pain Echoed it, without hope or pity. The tale of that tolling who can tell? That dark old music who shall declare? Who shall interpret the song of the bell? Is it nothing to you, all ye that hear, Sorrowed the bell, Is it nothing to you? Is it nothing to you? the shore-wind cried, Is it nothing to you? the cliffs replied. But the low light laughed and the skies were blue, And this was only the song of the bell. X ANWYL A darkened easement in a darker room Was all his home, whence weary and bowed and white He watched across the slowly gathering gloom The slowly westering light. Bitterness in his heavy-clouded eyes, Bitterness as of heaven's intestine wars Brooded; he looked upon the unfathomed skies And whispered—to the stars— Some day, he said, she will forget all this That she calls life, and looking far above See throned among the great eternities This dream of mine, this love; Love that has given my soul these wings of fire To beat in glory above the sapphire sea, Until the wings of the infinite desire Close in infinity; Love that has taken the glory of hawthorn boughs, And all the dreaming beauty of hazel skies, As ministers to the radiance of her brows And haunted April eyes; Love that is hidden so deep beneath the dust Of little daily duties and delights, Till that reproachful face of hers grows just And God at last requites A soul whose dream was deeper than the skies, A heart whose hope was wider than the sea, Yet could not enter through his true love's eyes Their grey infinity. And so I know I wound her all day long Because my heart must seem so far away; And even my love completes the silent wrong For all that it can say Seems vast and meaningless to mortal sense; Its vague desire can never reach its goal Till knowledge vanishes in omniscience And God surrounds her soul, Breaking its barriers down and flooding in Through all her wounds in one almighty tide, Mingling her soul with that great Love wherein My soul waits, glorified. XI ETAIN My love is dying, dying in my heart; There is no song in heaven for such as I Who watch the days and years of youth depart, The bloom decay and die; The rose that withers in the hollow cheek, The leaden rings that mark us old and wise; And Time that writes what Pity dares not speak Around the fading eyes. He dreams he loves; but only loves his dream; And in his dream he never can forget Abana seems a so much mightier stream And Pharpar wider yet; The little deeds of love that light the shrine Of common daily duties with such gleams Of heaven, to me are scarcely less divine Than those poor wandering dreams Of deeds that never happen! I give him this, This heart he cannot find in heaven above; This heart, this heart of all the eternities, This life of mine, this love; Love that is lord of all the world at once And never bade 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 Space and Time, And each and all a heaven if love could reign; One infinite untranscended heaven sublime With God's own joy and pain. Why, that was what God meant, to set us here In Eden, when he saw that all was good; And we have made the sun black with despair, And turned the moon to blood. So has Love taught me that too learnèd tongue, And in his poorer wisdom made me wise; I grew so proud of the red drops we wrung From all philosophies. My heart is narrow, foolish, what you will; But this I know God 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 God 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 passing 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 God'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 Space and Time, And each and all a heaven if love could reign One infinite untranscended heaven sublime With God'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 compassed upon earth; And by that love, in thine own Etain's eyes Thou shalt find all God'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 God 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 shore 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 And those two lovers only heard —Oh, love is a dream that knows no waking— Far away, one secret bird, Where all the roses breathed one word, And every crispel on the beach— Oh, love is a sea that is ever breaking!— Lisped it in a sweeter speech; As hand in hand, by the sunset sea That breaks on the shores of mystery, They stood in the gates of the City of Pain To watch the wild waves flutter and beat In roses of white soft light at their feet, Roses of delicate music and light, Music and moonlight under their feet. Crumbling and flashing and softly crashing In rainbow colours that dazzle and wane And wither and waken and, wild with delight, Dance and dance to a mystic tune And scatter their leaves in a flower-soft rain Over the shimmering golden shore Between the West and the waking moon, Between the sunset and the night; And then they sigh for the years of yore And gather their glory together again, Petal by petal and gleam by gleam, Till, all in one rushing rose-bright stream They dazzle back to the deep once more, For the dream of the sea is an endless dream, And love is a sea that hath no shore, And the roses dance as they danced before. XV In other worlds I loved you, long ago: Love that hath no beginning hath no end: Low to her heart he breathed it, sweet and low; In other worlds I loved you, long ago; This is a word that all the sea-waves know And whisper as through the shoreless West they wend, In other worlds I loved you, long ago: Love that hath no beginning hath no end. XVI "Yet love can die!" she murmured once again; For this was in that City by the Sea, That old grey City of Pain, Built on the shifting shores of Mystery And mocked by all the immeasurable main. "Love lives to die!" Under the deep eternal sky His deeper voice caught up that deep refrain; "A year ago, and under yonder sun Earth had no Heaven to hold our hearts in one! For me there was no love, afar or nigh: And, O, if love were thus in time begun, Love, even our love, in time must surely die." Then memory murmured, "No"; And he remembered, a million years ago, He saw the sea-waves wistfully westward wend; And heard her voice whispering in their flow And calling through the silent sunset-glow. Love that hath no beginning hath no end. "Love dies to live!" How wild, how deep the joy That knows no death can e'er destroy What cannot bear destruction! By these eyes I know that, ere the fashioning of the skies, Or ever the sun and moon and stars were made I loved you. Sweet, I am no more afraid. "Love lives to die!" Under the deep eternal sky Her wild sweet voice caught up that deep refrain: There, in that silent City by the Sea, Listening the wild-wave music of Infinity, There, in that old grey City of mortal pain, Their voices mingled in mystic unison With that immortal harmony Which holds the warring worlds in one. Their Voice, one Voice, yet manifold, Possessed the seas, the fields, the sky, With utterance of the dream that cannot die; Possessed the West's wild rose and dappled gold, And that old secret of the setting sun Which, to the glory of Eternity, Time, tolling like a distant bell, Evermore faints to tell, And, ever telling, never yet has told. One, and yet manifold Arose their Voice, oh strangely one again With murmurs of the immeasurable main; As, far beyond earth's cloudy bars, Their Soul surpassed the sunset and the stars, And all the heights and depths of temporal pain, Till seas of seraph music round them rolled. And in that mystic plane They felt their mortal years Break away as a dream of pain Breaks in a stream of tears. Love, of whom life had birth, See now, is death not sweet? Love, is this heaven or earth? Both are beneath thy feet. Nay, both within thy heart! O Love, the glory nears; The Gates of Pearl are flung apart, The Rose of Heaven appears. Across the deeps of change, Like pangs of visible song, What angel-spirits, remote and strange, Thrill through the starry throng? And oh, what wind that blows Over the mystic Tree, What whisper of the sacred Rose, What murmur of the sapphire Sea, What dreams that faint and fail From harps of burning gold, But tell in heaven the sweet old tale An earthly sunset told? Hark! like a holy bell Over that spirit Sea, Time, in the world it loves so well, Tolls for Eternity. Earth calls us once again, And, through the mystic Gleam, The grey old City of mortal pain Dawns on the heavenly dream. Sweet as the voice of birds At dawn, the years return, With little songs and sacred words Of human hearts that yearn. The sweet same waves resound Along our earthly shore; But now this earth we lost and found Is heaven for evermore. Hark! how the cosmic choir, In sea and flower and sun, Recalls that triumph of desire Which made all music one: One universal soul, Completing joy with pain, And harmonising with the Whole The temporal refrain, Until from hill and plain, From bud and blossom and tree, From shadow and shining after rain, From cloud and clovered bee, From earth and sea and sky, From laughter and from tears, One molten golden harmony Fulfils the yearning years. Love, of whom death had birth, See now, is life not sweet? Love, is this heaven or earth? Both are beneath thy feet. In other worlds I loved you, long ago; Love that hath no beginning hath no end; The sea-waves whisper, low and sweet and low, In other worlds I loved you, long ago; The May-boughs murmur and the roses know The message that the dawning moon shall send; In other worlds I loved you, long ago; Love that hath no beginning hath no end.