New Poems by Francis Thompson Part 15

LOVE'S ALMSMAN PLAINETH HIS FARE.

O you, love's mendicancy who never tried, How little of your almsman me you know!

Your little languid hand in mine you slide, Like to a child says--'Kiss me and let me go!'

And night for this is fretted with my tears, While I:-'How soon this heavenly neck doth tire Bending to me from its transtellar spheres!'

Ah, heart all kneaded out of honey and fire!

Who bound thee to a body nothing worth, And shamed thee much with an unlovely soul, That the most strainedest charity of earth Distasteth soon to render back the whole Of thine inflam-ed sweets and gentilesse!

Whereat, like an unpastured t.i.tan, thou Gnaw'st on thyself for famine's bitterness, And leap'st against thy chain. Sweet Lady, how Little a linking of the hand to you!

Though I should touch yours careless for a year, Not one blue vein would lie divinelier blue Upon your fragile temple, to unsphere The seraphim for kisses! Not one curve Of your sad mouth would droop more sad and sweet.

But little food love's beggars needs must serve, That eye your plenteous graces from the street.

A hand-clasp I must feed on for a night, A noon, although the untasted feast you lay, To mock me, of your beauty. That you might Be lover for one s.p.a.ce, and make essay What 'tis to pa.s.s unsuppered to your couch, Keep fast from love all day; and so be taught The famine which these craving lines avouch!

Ah! miser of good things that cost thee naught, How know'st thou poor men's hunger?--Misery!

When I go doleless and unfed by thee!

A HOLOCAUST.

'No man ever attained supreme knowledge, unless his heart had been torn up by the roots.'

When I presage the time shall come--yea, now Perchance is come, when you shall fail from me, Because the mighty spirit, to whom you vow Faith of kin genius unrebukably, Scourges my sloth, and from your side dismissed Henceforth this sad and most, most lonely soul Must, marching fatally through pain and mist, The G.o.d-bid levy of its powers enrol; When I presage that none shall hear the voice From the great Mount that clangs my ordained advance, That sullen envy bade the churlish choice Yourself shall say, and turn your altered glance; O G.o.d! Thou knowest if this heart of flesh Quivers like broken entrails, when the wheel Rolleth some dog in middle street, or fresh Fruit when ye tear it bleeding from the peel; If my soul cries the uncomprehended cry When the red agony oozed on Olivet!

Yet not for this, a caitiff, falter I, Beloved whom I must lose, nor thence regret The doubly-vouched and twin allegiance owed To you in Heaven, and Heaven in you, Lady.

How could you hope, loose dealer with my G.o.d, That I should keep for you my fealty?

For still 'tis thus:-because I am so true, My Fair, to Heaven, I am so true to you!

BENEATH A PHOTOGRAPH.

Phoebus, who taught me art divine, Here tried his hand where I did mine; And his white fingers in this face Set my Fair's sigh-suggesting grace.

O sweetness past profaning guess, Grievous with its own exquisiteness!

Vesper-like face, its shadows bright With meanings of sequestered light; Drooped with shamefast sanct.i.ties She purely fears eyes cannot miss, Yet would blush to know she IS.

Ah, who can view with pa.s.sionless glance This tear-compelling countenance!

He has cozened it to tell Almost its own miracle.

Yet I, all-viewing though he be, Methinks saw further here than he; And, Master gay! I swear I drew Something the better of the two!

AFTER HER GOING.

The after-even! Ah, did I walk, Indeed, in her or even?

For nothing of me or around But absent She did leaven, Felt in my body as its soul, And in my soul its heaven.

'Ah me! my very flesh turns soul, Essenced,' I sighed, 'with bliss!'

And the blackbird held his lutany, All fragrant-through with bliss; And all things stilled were as a maid Sweet with a single kiss.

For grief of perfect fairness, eve Could nothing do but smile; The time was far too perfect fair, Being but for a while; And ah, in me, too happy grief Blinded herself with smile!

The sunset at its radiant heart Had somewhat unconfest: The bird was loath of speech, its song Half-refluent on its breast, And made melodious toyings with A note or two at best.

And she was gone, my sole, my Fair, Ah, sole my Fair, was gone!

Methinks, throughout the world 'twere right I had been sad alone; And yet, such sweet in all things' heart, And such sweet in my own!

MY LADY THE TYRANNESS.

Me since your fair ambition bows Feodary to those gracious brows, Is nothing mine will not confess Your sovran sweet rapaciousness?

Though use to the white yoke inures, Half-petulant is Your loving rebel for somewhat his, Not yours, my love, not yours!

Behold my skies, which make with me One pa.s.sionate tranquillity!

Wrap thyself in them as a robe, She shares them not; their azures probe, No countering wings thy flight endures.

Nay, they do stole Me like an aura of her soul.

I yield them, love, for yours!

But mine these hills and fields, which put Not on the sanct.i.ty of her foot.

Far off, my dear, far off the sweet Grave pianissimo of your feet!

My earth, perchance, your sway abjures?-- Your absence broods O'er all, a subtler presence. Woods, Fields, hills, all yours, all yours!

Nay then, I said, I have my thought, Which never woman's reaching raught; Being strong beyond a woman's might, And high beyond a woman's height, Shaped to my shape in all contours.-- I looked, and knew No thought but you were garden to.

All yours, my love, all yours!

Meseemeth still, I have my life; All-clement Her its resolute strife Evades; contained, relinquis.h.i.+ng Her mitigating eyes; a thing Which the whole girth of G.o.d secures.

Ah, fool, pause! pause!

I had no life, until it was All yours, my love, all yours!

Yet, stern possession! I have my death, Sole yielding up of my sole breath; Which all within myself I die, All in myself must cry the cry Which the deaf body's wall immures.-- Thought fas.h.i.+oneth My death without her.--Ah, even death All yours, my love, all yours!

Death, then, be hers. I have my heaven, For which no arm of hers has striven; Which solitary I must choose, And solitary win or lose.-- Ah, but not heaven my own endures!

I must perforce Taste you, my stream, in G.o.d your source,-- So steep my heaven in yours.

At last I said--I have my G.o.d, Who doth desire me, though a clod, And from His liberal Heaven shall He Bar in mine arms His privacy.

Himself for mine Himself a.s.sures.-- None shall deny G.o.d to be mine, but He and I All yours, my love, all yours!

I have no fear at all lest I Without her draw felicity.

G.o.d for His Heaven will not forego Her whom I found such heaven below, And she will train Him to her lures.

Nought, lady, I love In you but more is loved above; What made me, makes Him yours.

'I, thy sought own, am I forgot?'

Ha, thou?--thou liest, I seek thee not.

Why what, thou painted parrot, Fame, What have I taught thee but her name?

Hear, thou slave Fame, while Time endures, I give her thee; Page her triumphal name!--Lady, Take her, the thrall is yours.