The House of Life Part 7

Nay, come up hither. From this wave-washed mound Unto the furthest flood-brim look with me; Then reach on with thy thought till it be drown'd.

Miles and miles distant though the grey line be, And though thy soul sail leagues and leagues beyond,-- Still, leagues beyond those leagues there is more sea.

*[sic]

OLD AND NEW ART

I. ST. LUKE THE PAINTER

Give honour unto Luke Evangelist; For he it was (the aged legends say) Who first taught Art to fold her hands and pray.

Scarcely at once she dared to rend the mist Of devious symbols: but soon having wist How sky-breadth and field-silence and this day Are symbols also in some deeper way, She looked through these to G.o.d and was G.o.d's priest.

And if, past noon, her toil began to irk, And she sought talismans, and turned in vain To soulless self-reflections of man's skill, Yet now, in this the twilight, she might still Kneel in the latter gra.s.s to pray again, Ere the night cometh and she may not work.

II. NOT AS THESE

'I am not as these are,' the poet saith In youth's pride, and the painter, among men At bay, where never pencil comes nor pen, And shut about with his own frozen breath.

To others, for whom only rhyme wins faith As poets,--only paint as painters,--then He turns in the cold silence; and again Shrinking, 'I am not as these are,' he saith.

And say that this is so, what follows it?

For were thine eyes set backwards in thine head, Such words were well; but they see on, and far.

Unto the lights of the great Past, new-lit Fair for the Future's track, look thou instead,-- Say thou instead 'I am not as _these_ are.'

III. THE HUSBANDMEN

Though G.o.d, as one that is an householder, Called these to labour in his vine-yard first, Before the husk of darkness was well burst Bidding them grope their way out and bestir, (Who, questioned of their wages, answered, 'Sir, Unto each man a penny:') though the worst Burthen of heat was theirs and the dry thirst: Though G.o.d hath since found none such as these were To do their work like them:--Because of this Stand not ye idle in the market-place.

Which of ye knoweth _he_ is not that last Who may be first by faith and will?--yea, his The hand which after the appointed days And hours shall give a Future to their Past?

SOUL'S BEAUTY

Under the arch of Life, where love and death, Terror and mystery, guard her shrine, I saw Beauty enthroned; and though her gaze struck awe, I drew it in as simply as my breath.

Hers are the eyes which, over and beneath, The sky and sea bend on thee,--which can draw, By sea or sky or woman, to one law, The allotted bondman of her palm and wreath.

This is that Lady Beauty, in whose praise Thy voice and hand shake still,--long known to thee By flying hair and fluttering hem,--the beat Following her daily of thy heart and feet, How pa.s.sionately and irretrievably, In what fond flight, how many ways and days!

BODY'S BEAUTY

Of Adam's first wife, Lilith, it is told (The witch he loved before the gift of Eve,) That, ere the snake's, her sweet tongue could deceive, And her enchanted hair was the first gold.

And still she sits, young while the earth is old, And, subtly of herself contemplative, Draws men to watch the bright web she can weave, Till heart and body and life are in its hold.

The rose and poppy are her flowers; for where Is he not found, O Lilith, whom shed scent And soft-shed kisses and soft sleep shall snare?

Lo! as that youth's eyes burned at thine, so went Thy spell through him, and left his straight neck bent And round his heart one strangling golden hair.

THE MONOCHORD

Is it this sky's vast vault or ocean's sound That is Life's self and draws my life from me, And by instinct ineffable decree Holds my breath quailing on the bitter bound?

Nay, is it Life or Death, thus thunder-crown'd, That 'mid the tide of all emergency Now notes my separate wave, and to what sea Its difficult eddies labour in the ground?

Oh! what is this that knows the road I came, The flame turned cloud, the cloud returned to flame, The lifted s.h.i.+fted steeps and all the way?-- That draws round me at last this wind-warm s.p.a.ce, And in regenerate rapture turns my face Upon the devious coverts of dismay?

FROM DAWN TO NOON

As the child knows not if his mother's face Be fair; nor of his elders yet can deem What each most is; but as of hill or stream At dawn, all glimmering life surrounds his place: Who yet, tow'rd noon of his half-weary race, Pausing awhile beneath the high sun-beam And gazing steadily back,--as through a dream, In things long past new features now can trace:--

Even so the thought that is at length fullgrown Turns back to note the sun-smit paths, all grey And marvellous once, where first it walked alone; And haply doubts, amid the unblenching day, Which most or least impelled its onward way,-- Those unknown things or these things overknown.

MEMORIAL THRESHOLDS

What place so strange,--though unrevealed snow With unimaginable fires arise At the earth's end,--what pa.s.sion of surprise Like frost-bound fire-girt scenes of long ago?

Lo! this is none but I this hour; and lo!

This is the very place which to mine eyes Those mortal hours in vain immortalize, 'Mid hurrying crowds, with what alone I know.

City, of thine a single simple door, By some new Power reduplicate, must be Even yet my life-porch in eternity, Even with one presence filled, as once of yore Or mocking winds whirl round a chaff-strown floor Thee and thy years and these my words and me.

h.o.a.rDED JOY

I said: 'Nay, pluck not,--let the first fruit be: Even as thou sayest, it is sweet and red, But let it ripen still. The tree's bent head Sees in the stream its own fecundity And bides the day of fulness. Shall not we At the sun's hour that day possess the shade, And claim our fruit before its ripeness fade, And eat it from the branch and praise the tree?'

I say: 'Alas! our fruit hath wooed the sun Too long,--'tis fallen and floats adown the stream.

Lo, the last cl.u.s.ters! Pluck them every one, And let us sup with summer; ere the gleam Of autumn set the year's pent sorrow free, And the woods wail like echoes from the sea.'

BARREN SPRING

So now the changed year's turning wheel returns And as a girl sails balanced in the wind, And now before and now again behind Stoops as it swoops, with cheek that laughs and burns,-- So Spring comes merry towards me now, but earns No answering smile from me, whose life is twin'd With the dead boughs that winter still must bind, And whom to-day the Spring no more concerns.

Behold, this crocus is a withering flame; This snowdrop, snow; this apple-blossom's part To breed the fruit that breeds the serpent's art.

Nay, for these Spring-flowers, turn thy face from them, Nor gaze till on the year's last lily-stem The white cup shrivels round the golden heart.