II

Of old betwixt the gods and earth High-headed, girt with cloud Dividing misery and mirth, Old Atlas stood and bowed. Close to the high celestial gate He bent a drowsy brain: While far below his feet set weight On furrowed fields of pain. The earth’s far cry sang faint, and dim Her face toward him grew: His head was crowned with light; round him The immortal laughters flew. And yet he tired of that high place, And thrust away the prize: Lifting a dead, indignant face Of stone toward the skies.

Two breasts to her unhappy brood Uplifts our mother Earth, And tenders to their cry for food Her ministry of dearth. So, wistfully from breast to breast She draws the lips that crave; And lies importunately pressed By mouths she may not save: As if her violated clay, Sown with unnatural seed, Had by some god’s despotic sway Given forth a monster breed. So half her breast she shrouds in leaves To hide the piteous scars; And half, a barren breast, she heaves And bares to all the stars.

O mother, lift me from the land, And give me breast by sea; And leave me room where I may stand And starve unnursed by thee!

The land’s arms loose me, and I taste The full draught of the sea: Out of the flesh and all its waste A spirit plucks at me. O spirit, brooding on the waves, Blow through me with thy breath; And bear me to the unmounded graves Which thou hast smoothed for death! And in the welcome of thy smile, Old furrowed face of dearth, Fold me, and let me for a while Forget my mother earth.

What farewell can I wish you now, Of all farewells the best? Love, if my lips no words allow, There must confession rest: Against this lonely heart to tell The best wish that may be: Oh, may you, if you would fare well, Fare well away from me!

Ah, no! beloved, you part not hence: In the most middle night, I hold close gathered to each sense Love that outpasses sight. Out of this coil is no escape; And naught can parting do! I look upon too like a shape, Love, when I look on you. So let me bear until I die An undeparting guest: O face of love, come back and lie In shadow on my breast!

Round this dark ship that bears me on There broods a wasteful calm; As though it breathed from Avalon, The sea-breeze pours its balm. And night and day beside the ship There walks upon the wave A form I know, with prayer on lip, And hands too weak to save. Yet, should I stoop my lips to drain The draught they long for best, Those hands would have me fast again And snatch me back from rest.

Dark to its nest the light has gone; An unseen force prevails, And hands of storm lay hold upon The rigging and the sails. High heaves the heart of night, and loud The water sobs and breaks, And overhead one helmet-cloud Its cap of darkness makes. Strong wants whereto the welkin moves, They are but waifs like me; And all a storm of severed loves That strain across the sea!

The death-white horses crest and turn, Their gleaming saddles glide: Have I no senses to discern The riders as they ride? O death-white horse, in this dark race Outcresting all your crew, With foaming flank, and furious pace, Who is it rides on you? Nay, follow not so hard on me, Who ride to death alone: White horse, pace gently, lest I see Your rider overthrown!

Oh, like-unlike, a difference strange Your soul from mine divides: Out of one prison-house we range To follow different guides. And led by hands of death or birth To live again or die, Severed by all the paths of earth Our fates divided lie. And still ’twixt life and death I ask The Darkness named divine, Why bound He in so fair a mask A soul so close to mine?

Here where the Rome of nations stands On mounds of buried breath, Sits one who holds in hollow hands The keys of life and death. Oh, heavy come the poor in heart, And rich return they home; Since well performs his proper part The middleman of Rome! About the holy beaten ground The nations on their knees Hark, while with apostolic sound Loud creak the golden keys. And, though the hingeless doors be dumb, With solemn hand and show The porter lets the weak man come, And lets the strong man go.

But while he spreads his lavish hands Across the hill-tops seven, Dark Angelo like Atlas stands Dividing earth from Heaven.

Where, perfected in flesh and bone, Earth’s crowned creation ends: There with a universal groan The cry of life ascends. To Heaven’s dark doors soul bound in sense Has pushed its furthest cry,— “Reach down, O Lord, and take us hence That neither live nor die! “Thou, that hast shaped our suffering thus, Grant us this last relief: Be sorry now, and loose from us The glory and the grief!

“Since Thou hast given us to corrupt Flesh and fair earth, now scan Thy making, surfeited and supped, Thy maggot-worker, man!” O Counsel-Darkener, over me Still let Thy glooms expand; More darkness, Lord!—lest I should see Thy Face, and understand!

Great Mother, dwelling in the shade Of altars, over glooms Monastic, where long prayer is made By dead men out of tombs: Thou hearest how thy barren sons For life’s denial beseech: Yet some of those were fruitful once, Their lips found flowers to reach. Therefore, to cheer their hearts, send down, Even to the lowest place, Thy mother-word from that fair Town Where loves come face to face. ’Mid shadowing of celestial doves Bring pity to the dead, O Thou Madonna of the loves Of hearts that could not wed!

But here, O Maiden of the East, To me Thy voice is dumb; Unto thy final gathering-feast My love can never come. For I am bound to other marts Where meagre are Love’s doles, And men lay by their broken hearts, But not their broken souls.

In sackcloth shrouds they rise from rest; They pray from bleeding knees:— Ah, Christ! what grapes of love grow pressed Against the lips of these? Out of the smitten flesh and bone, Old heats of earlier days, A blood-red vintage fills with moan The wine-press of Thy praise. Which at Thy feast being lifted up Before celestial eyes:— What ghosts out of the bloody cup, What ghosts of men must rise!

To the Tree of Life on Judgment Day Spake the poor poison-tree, “Within my sap came death to stay When life first looked on me. “But from thy boughs there went a breath, Thy shadow on me fell: And nothing have I done for death, Because I loved thee well. “So I was barren for thy sake, Though little else I did: Here, Lord, as in a napkin take The talent that I hid! “Now am I weary: therefore shift The burden of thy breath; Have back again thy bitter gift, Who gavest life to Death!”

Against my flesh Love hangs to die As on the accursèd tree: I am the rood where he lays by His wronged humanity. The wounds which pierce the hands of Love, Driven by the hands of hate, Stand also in my flesh to prove The bitterness of fate. Here Love lies dying on my breast, His sorrow half laid by: Soon shall he enter to his rest, When, ah, no rest have I!

How this sad place deserted grown Speaks of an old despair: In ghostly dints the weary stone Is hollowed out with prayer; As if each day, where lips of dearth Cried for a barren clod, Some want had worn the face of earth, Since not the Face of God. Who knows in what dark anguish ailed Yon soul of flesh and bone? The prayer, because the spirit failed, Hath carved itself in stone.

O hollow stone, of hollow prayer You make a weary jest: For prayers that failed did earth prepare This hollow place of rest?

This is the grave which year by year Gives up its ghostly dead: Of all poor graves least rest is here, Where Love laid down his head! The heart’s desire of heart-sick lands How shall men leave alone? Therefore they come with pious hands And roll away the stone. So year by year, as dawn brings gloom To light, and earth waits dumb, Uneasy from the open tomb The ghostly Easters come.

From these thy servants who behold Thy face continually, To whom I gave sad gifts of gold;— Shall this my guerdon be? Since once I served them, wasting so My substance at their board, Have they no broken meats to throw The beggar of their lord? Thy swine, they lack not to be fed, Though I stand famished by; And all thy hirelings eat thy bread, When I for hunger die!

The meats stand ready to be carved, The sparkling wines are spiced: Then, give me room, lest I be starved Back to the Feet of Christ!

“Sing once for joy!” spake Love, and bowed His light toward my face, From that deep covering of cloud Which is his dwelling-place. I lifted up my heart, and sang; And far aloft went loud A shuddering note of joy which sprang To kiss the upper cloud. But on that fair celestial tent My praises cast a stain: The cloud that was Love’s covering rent And poured itself in rain.

Across these barren clods of clay Whenever a wind blows, Between them and the warmth of day, Stir shadows of the rose. There, while the roses dance in air And light winds whisper round, Below them shadows foot to share A ghostly dance on ground. How coldly feels that barren bed Those motions of delight! It cares not if the rose be red, Or if the rose be white. For be the roses white as snow, Or be they red as shame, With ghostly footsteps to and fro Their shadows walk the same. “Alas!” complains the barren clod, “Their dance is never done: And all their duty is to nod Between me and the sun!”

I, too, hear how the lover sings Love like a flower unfurled; I hear the viols, the flutes and strings Of this great moaning world. I feel the innumerable dance Tingle beneath my tread; I see the season’s happy chance, And grain-fields harvested. I, too, could sing had I not this To bind upon my brain, That all these myriad notes of bliss Make one great voice of pain: That, though I lay all sorrow by And make glad songs my own, They will not lessen as they die The universal moan.

Only two hands has Love to lend The many hands that plead, Only one heart where to befriend All kindred hearts in need. Eyes, lips, and hands, cannot suffice To comfort the sick earth, Whose children bear the hard device And bondage of their birth. But one illimitable share Is theirs, that all who will, In want and weakness and despair Can take their utmost fill: One gift that brings a sure relief To toiling human breath, That through a thousand wounds of grief Each heart may bleed to death.

Living, I feel the feet that tread My burial-plot of ground, As if they grudged the tired dead A sleep that is too sound. Tread softly, you, and you, for I,— Truly I know you not! Leave, where the dead man has to lie, The quiet of his lot. But if, at crossing of love’s ways, Feet from a distant land Stood now, where after many days I shall come, not to stand; Then there would grow a light above This darkness of my breast, And I should know the feet I love Had touched my place of rest.

High overhead the clock that tolls The passing knell of noon Suspends its sentence, and there rolls No prelude of its tune. The heavy minute-hand creeps in, And hard upon the hour The other hand keeps hold to win The voices from the tower. Till half they seem like faring feet Toward that destined spot Where the two hands of Time shall meet On me, and I be not. Oh, let my brain get quit of power, And let the word be soon, When iron hands shall clasp the hour That cries my note of noon!

Life flutters from the wooded brow, A slow breath sadly drawn: With gray wings beating comest thou, Shy heron of the dawn! And ever on from deep to deep Of space the errand flies, And breaks in starry pools of sleep The dreams of lover’s eyes. Then on until, where east is west, Still westward called away, On weary feathers sinks to rest A tender-breasted day. And once again I dream how light Across the breasts of space Goes moving onward into sight Of one belovèd face;

Till cold across the ashen east Returns the gray-winged day: And, beak and claws flushed red from feast, There hangs a bird of prey!