Selected Poems of Francis Thompson Part 7

I tempted all His servitors, but to find My own betrayal in their constancy, In faith to Him their fickleness to me, Their traitorous trueness, and their loyal deceit.

To all swift things for swiftness did I sue; Clung to the whistling mane of every wind.

But whether they swept, smoothly fleet, The long savannahs of the blue; Or whether, Thunder-driven, They clanged his chariot 'thwart a heaven Plashy with flying lightnings round the spurn o' their feet:-- Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue.

Still with unhurrying chase, And unperturbed pace, Deliberate speed, majestic instancy, Came on the following Feet, And a Voice above their beat-- "Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me."

I sought no more that after which I strayed In face of man or maid; But still within the little children's eyes Seems something, something that replies; _They_ at least are for me, surely for me!

I turned me to them very wistfully; But, just as their young eyes grew sudden fair With dawning answers there, Their angel plucked them from me by the hair.

"Come then, ye other children, Nature's--share With me" (said I) "your delicate fellows.h.i.+p; Let me greet you lip to lip, Let me twine with you caresses, Wantoning With our Lady-Mother's vagrant tresses, Banqueting With her in her wind-walled palace, Underneath her azured das, Quaffing, as your taintless way is, From a chalice Lucent-weeping out of the dayspring."

So it was done: _I_ in their delicate fellows.h.i.+p was one-- Drew the bolt of Nature's secrecies.

_I_ knew all the swift importings On the wilful face of skies; I knew how the clouds arise Spumed of the wild sea-snortings; All that's born or dies Rose and drooped with--made them shapers Of mine own moods, or wailful or divine-- With them joyed and was bereaven.

I was heavy with the even, When she lit her glimmering tapers Round the day's dead sanct.i.ties.

I laughed in the morning's eyes.

I triumphed and I saddened with all weather, Heaven and I wept together, And its sweet tears were salt with mortal mine; Against the red throb of its sunset-heart I laid my own to beat, And share commingling heat; But not by that, by that, was eased my human smart.

In vain my tears were wet on Heaven's grey cheek.

For ah! we know not what each other says, These things and I; in sound _I_ speak-- _Their_ sound is but their stir, they speak by silences.

Nature, poor stepdame, cannot slake my drouth; Let her, if she would owe me, Drop yon blue bosom-veil of sky, and show me The b.r.e.a.s.t.s o' her tenderness: Never did any milk of hers once bless My thirsting mouth.

Nigh and nigh draws the chase, With unperturbed pace, Deliberate speed, majestic instancy; And past those noised Feet A voice comes yet more fleet-- "Lo! naught contents thee, who content'st not Me."

Naked I wait Thy love's uplifted stroke!

My harness piece by piece Thou hast hewn from me, And smitten me to my knee; I am defenceless utterly.

I slept, methinks, and woke, And, slowly gazing, find me stripped in sleep.

In the rash l.u.s.tihead of my young powers, I shook the pillaring hours And pulled my life upon me; grimed with smears, _I_ stand amid the dust o' the mounded years-- My mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap.

My days have crackled and gone up in smoke, Have puffed and burst as sun-starts on a stream.

Yea, faileth now even dream The dreamer, and the lute the lutanist; Even the linked fantasies, in whose blossomy twist I swung the earth a trinket at my wrist, Are yielding; cords of all too weak account For earth with heavy griefs so overplussed.

Ah! is Thy love indeed A weed, albeit an amaranthine weed, Suffering no flowers except its own to mount?

Ah! must-- Designer infinite!-- Ah! must Thou char the wood ere Thou canst limn with it?

My freshness spent its wavering shower i' the dust; And now my heart is as a broken fount, Wherein tear-drippings stagnate, spilt down ever From the dank thoughts that s.h.i.+ver Upon the sighful branches of my mind.

Such is; what is to be?

The pulp so bitter, how shall taste the rind?

I dimly guess what Time in mists confounds; Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds From the hid battlements of Eternity; Those shaken mists a s.p.a.ce unsettle, then Round the half-glimpsed turrets slowly wash again.

But not ere him who summoneth I first have seen, enwound With glooming robes purpureal, cypress-crowned; His name I know, and what his trumpet saith.

Whether man's heart or life it be which yields Thee harvest, must Thy harvest fields Be dunged with rotten death?

Now of that long pursuit Comes on at hand the bruit; That Voice is round me like a bursting sea: "And is thy earth so marred, Shattered in shard on shard?

Lo, all things fly thee, for thou fliest Me!

Strange, piteous, futile thing, Wherefore should any set thee love apart?

Seeing none but I makes much of naught" (He said), "And human love needs human meriting: How hast thou merited-- Of all man's clotted clay the dingiest clot?

Alack, thou knowest not How little worthy of any love thou art!

Whom wilt thou find to love ign.o.ble thee Save Me, save only Me?

All which I took from thee I did but take, Not for thy harms, But just that thou might'st seek it in My arms.

All which thy child's mistake Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home: Rise, clasp My hand, and come!"

Halts by me that footfall: Is my gloom, after all, Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly?

"Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest, I am He Whom thou seekest!

Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me."

TO THE DEAD CARDINAL OF WESTMINSTER

I will not perturbate Thy Paradisal state With praise Of thy dead days;

To the new-heavened say,-- "Spirit, thou wert fine clay": This do, Thy praise who knew.

Therefore my spirit clings Heaven's porter by the wings, And holds Its gated golds

Apart, with thee to press A private business;-- Whence, Deign me audience.

Anchorite, who didst dwell With all the world for cell, My soul Round me doth roll

A sequestration bare.

Too far alike we were, Too far Dissimilar.

For its burning fruitage I Do climb the tree o' the sky; Do prize Some human eyes.

_You_ smelt the Heaven-blossoms, And all the sweet embosoms The dear Uranian year.

Those Eyes my weak gaze shuns, Which to the suns are Suns, Did Not affray your lid.

The carpet was let down (With golden moultings strown) For you Of the angels' blue.

But I, ex-Paradised, The shoulder of your Christ Find high To lean thereby.

So flaps my helpless sail, Bellying with neither gale, Of Heaven Nor Orcus even.

Life is a coquetry Of Death, which wearies me, Too sure Of the amour;

A tiring-room where I Death's divers garments try, Till fit Some fas.h.i.+on sit.

It seemeth me too much I do rehea.r.s.e for such A mean And single scene.

The sandy gla.s.s hence bear-- Antique remembrancer; My veins Do spare its pains.

With secret sympathy My thoughts repeat in me Infirm The turn o' the worm

Beneath my appointed sod; The grave is in my blood; I shake To winds that take

Its gra.s.ses by the top; The rains thereon that drop Perturb With drip acerb

My subtly answering soul; The feet across its knoll Do jar Me from afar.

As sap foretastes the spring; As Earth ere blossoming Thrills With far daffodils,

And feels her breast turn sweet With the unconceived wheat; So doth My flesh foreloathe

The abhorred spring of Dis, With seething presciences Affirm The preparate worm.

I have no thought that I, When at the last I die, Shall reach To gain your speech.

But you, should that be so, May very well, I know, May well To me in h.e.l.l