I

Never shall life clear utterance show To melt the hearts of men: Hark back three thousand years, and know How tongues had labour then; When God, who gathers north and south To marvel at His ways, Opened of old the ass’s mouth, And filled it to His praise. But when Love bowed His Body whole To death, for the dark East, Then hung before men’s eyes a Soul More dumb than any beast. His lips, Who spake as no man spake, Nothing at all availed: They gave Him vinegar to take, And wagged their heads and railed. So ye, the seers, and ye that seek, Fellows with Him must be: Only the dumb of heart can speak, Or the blind think they see.

If all the needs in all the hearts Of all the world were one, We could afford to drop our parts Nor wait to watch the sun, Which counts the days that gather in Toward the wished-for end, Where pleasure can no more be sin, Nor friend want help of friend. But now how fast the coil of things Holds each man to his part, While here, with hidden wants, there clings To each an alien heart! Nor from myself can I be freed To lay me down and die, Because of all the hearts in need Of comfort less than I!

Life wrought me at the forge of death, Love shaped my reins for sin: They stirred, to fodder me with breath The pit they digged me in. They bade me tasks that seemed to heal The bitter light of day: I fed the forge, I trod the wheel, And I built up the clay. And when upon no shifting sands My labour was grown whole, They laughed, and put into my hands A clean and human soul: And half undid the bands of fear That held me back from bliss, And daily whispered in my ear Their bidding, “Curse thou this!”

Long through the night the new-born lamb Utters its first complaint; Against the body of its dam The cry goes low and faint. Till faint against the dawn the birth Which bears a twilight’s span Shall pass, and let alone to earth The sorry needs of man. Now, ere the covering darkness yields, Lie down, dear lamb, lie down: Better to die here in the fields Than yonder in the town; Where fast before the butchering knife A dumb death thins the herd. Oh, better now to part from life While life seems worth a word!

Out on the downs the shepherds cry, The silly sheep-dogs yelp: Then, quickly ease my heart, and die, Lest I should bring you help!

If you must do the thing you fear, I would I were the sin, To knock against your heart, my dear, Until you let me in! To sleep with you, and wake with you, Lie down with you, and rise, And let you feel the sunshine through My love upon your eyes. Oh, many a time you may prevail With God, and rise as white As you lay down; yet you shall fail Some solitary night! Then, lest the ill outlast the will, How well would serve a friend To devil for your heart until You meant the thing to end!

For then, my dear, if I were there, I would not be your foe: You need but breathe the faintest prayer, And I would let you go.

Oh, safely in my dreams you laid Kind pardon on my heart, And fair amends to you I made While we stood far apart. But, now the far becomes the near And once again we meet, Sorrow so holds the heart, my dear, You may not hear it beat. A day ago, an hour, and now I longed to find you near; Now round me grow your arms, and now My heart has died for fear! And ghastlier thought takes shape behind, Lest, if I love you more, I some dark morning wake to find You dead against my door!

The blood of Abel in me cries, “Give me the curse of Cain; Let me have vengeance from the skies, Lest I be dead in vain!” Hot for deliverance I wait The cleaving of the clod:— Give me my murderer to hate, Lest hate go back to God! Or, if there be no strength above, Whence justice may be shed:— Give me my murderer to love, Since that will serve instead!

With me early, with me late, The face of my spent youth: Of youth that made a friend of fate, And thought the friendship truth. But now ’tis—how to bear the sun! If fate demands, o’er all The ills I wish to do, the one I struggle to let fall. With me early, with me late, A bitter thing to rue: The wrong set down for me by fate, The wrong I would not do.

Thou breast of all bright things, thou Earth, Where I was lapped ere day Drew me from darkness unto birth, Fair mother of my clay, Now night and day, where’er I go, I seem to hear thee cry, “O child, what hast thou learned to know Of signs beneath the sky?” And I bend down, and answer back, “I learn there is no rest, On sea or land, for those who lack The covering of thy breast.” Then she: “What hast thou there, weak heart, That will not let thee free?” “Dear grief, from which I cannot part, And love, too strong for me!

“And dearer to my heart than rest This love that burns like fire; And closer than your breast the breast Of grief that quells desire!”

Dear garden face, with eyes of dawn, Where all my gladness grows, Now breaks upon your secret lawn The slumber of the rose. So while the dawn-fire flushes low To warm the world, oh, haste! Awake, arise, sweet breath, and blow Across this barren waste! Lest now the gates of my desire Undo their bolts of ice, Bidding me pass the sword of fire Which guards my Paradise.

With arms that oared at easy length And buoyant draught of breath, When dawn threw out its shining strength Our bodies played with death. Fathom on fathom under foot The folded seas were deep: Where day drew forth its mandrake root, There under us lay sleep. Your dear arms faltered; your young eyes Caught half the daylight down: And “Quick!” you sobbed, in broken sighs, “Quick! help me, or I drown!” Help you? The sea lay full below Fathom on fathom deep, It was but one straight road to go: And in the sea lay sleep!

So strong the wish: then, surely, brake The link that bound in me Body with soul;—that, for your sake, My soul gave up the sea! Whelmed beyond reach of any coast My body comes no more: Deep is its death. It is my ghost Has brought you back to shore.

Amid this grave-strewn, flowerless place A dead man prays in stone: Worn with the weather, how the face Looks like a mask of bone! From praying feet to praying hands, Prayer will not let him go: Still patiently his face withstands God’s everlasting No. For still to all the plea he gives God’s word long since was said: And still the foolish faith outlives The mercy which lies dead. The praying stone wears down to dust; And every day that dies It proffers with a piteous trust The prayer that God denies.

Dear love, when with a twofold mind I pray for bitter grace; And from my pit of torment find Your breath upon my face, And hear you without thought of fear Bid me to guard you well, And guide your footsteps to win clear— When my feet walk in hell: I wonder, how can God be glad To hear men praise Him so, Who makes His piteous earth so sad A lot to undergo? Or does He too dip Feet in fire, And share the thirster’s thirst; And listen to man’s great desire Holding a Heart to burst?

What know ye of the wounds of Christ, Ye friends for whom He died? For you at least the love sufficed, When Love was crucified. For you, whose feet He plucked from hell, He perished not in vain: For you, when that He died, He fell That He might rise again. I watch the wounds: for me how vain The blood-drops from His side, Poor God, Who perished in His pain, Curst, spit upon, denied! Little ye know the pangs He bore, Ye friends whom Love forgave: There was a bitterer wound He wore For souls He could not save.

Grant that I have no other claim, Condemned in all I do: Of every deed I bear the blame, Proved false to all but you. Most false to this now piteous me, That, of itself bereft, Strives to have loss that gain may be; And, robbed, commits the theft. And yet not false, whate’er befall, If truth be found in you. So, since you are my all in all, Am I not all proved true?

Now that I know you, dear, by heart, This kinship makes us one; Yet nearness puts us more apart, More dear, but more undone. For while you tell me of your grief, Such sorrow finds me old: Your breath hath stirred a withered leaf, And cast it to the mould. Thus, of the years that lie before, I from my darkness guess How I must know you more and more, And you must know me less. And while my heart responsive hears Your inmost griefs unclose,— How fast the covering silence rears! How deep the secret grows!

You hear a blind man preach the light Wherein he never dwelt, Because his hands can handle right The darkness that is felt. O Face of Love, to which I kneel, What likeness lies between This touch of hands outstretched to heal, These lips that cry “unclean”? But when these hands have hold on fire, And these lips fire for breath, And life goes down to its desire In the red pit of death: Then, clear of sight in that far place, I may lift eyes above, And see you looking in God’s Face, O face I used to love!

Now day by day my love is set To make the severance grow; By speech to hold you fast, and yet Mutely to bid you go. By all I will to all I would, I to our parting press, And seek by signs half understood To make you love me less. And while you stay and trust me still, Fear leaps upon my heart,— Lest, in the dark ways of His will, God means us not to part!

Oh, Love, leave other hearts to fail; Our love shall arch the skies! And other loves through ours prevail, When we have closed our eyes! Surely the day to which we win Draws on through hours of dread, To close the covering darkness in, And hold us in one bed.

When we are parting face from face Each to a destined end, I know that God shall find no trace In you of me, your friend. There where I trod the way was wide, With room enough for two; And yet I put you from my side, That God might look on you: And I have bowed Him from His height To take this gift of me, That pure and holy for His sight I left you utterly. For single as the Heart of God, My heart that loved you well Died for you all the while I trod The downward path to hell.

Fair eyes, that never did offend Love for you that grew blind, Say, have you found in me the friend That you have need to find? Or have I failed, who day by day Forbore to reach my end, Because of looks that seemed to say— “Stay with me; be my friend!” And I, to meet your lesser need, Gave mine;—a dear exchange! Now, if you saw my eyes indeed, How you would find them strange! Dear love, try to be content: Long since for you I died; And still to cheer your heart there went A stranger at your side.

Now, wish me well, and pass me by! Soon shall my rest be deep, When full upon my eyes shall lie The desert sands of sleep.

You, the dear trouble of my days, When life shall let me cease, Turn once aside from kinder ways And look upon my peace! Let your feet rest upon my roof, And for the love we bore, Forgive the heart, so far aloof, You cannot trouble more. For, if the dead man had his will, I doubt not he would rise, And waste his soul in sorrow still With looking on your eyes. So come when you have lost your power, And pardon my release: And set your feet to rest an hour, A seal upon my peace.

Two masks my fate reserves for me, Whichever way I fare: Then, must the easier mask not be The better one to wear? For here indeed the mask fits well; But oh, the weary pact! How I must mouth, and strut, and swell, To while away the act! But then, the ease to bitter breath, The stay to wordy strife, When I put on the mask of death, And drop the mask of life! And death will lay an easier grace Than life around my head: You will not understand my face The better when I’m dead.