Spirituality

I.


The corn has turned from grey to red,
Since first my spirit wandered forth
From the drear cities of the north,
And to Italia's mountains fled.

And here I set my face towards home,
For all my pilgrimage is done,
Although, methinks, yon blood-red sun
Marshals the way to Holy Rome.

O Blessed Lady, who dost hold
Upon the seven hills thy reign!
O Mother without blot or stain,
Crowned with bright crowns of triple gold!

O Roma, Roma, at thy feet
I lay this barren gift of song!
For, ah! the way is steep and long
That leads unto thy sacred street.


II.


And yet what joy it were for me
To turn my feet unto the south,
And journeying towards the Tiber mouth
To kneel again at Fiesole!

Darkly October; Where the wild fowl fly,
Utters a harsh and melancholy cry;
And slowly closing, far a sunset door,
Day wildly glares upon.the world once more,
Where Twilight, with one star to lamp her by,
Walks with the Wind that haunts the hills and shore.

The Spirit of Autumn, with averted gaze,
Comes slowly down the ragged garden ways;
And where she walks she lays a finger cold
On rose and aster, lily and marigold,
And at her touch they turn, in mute amaze,
And bow their heads, assenting to the cold.

And all around rise phantoms of the flowers,
Scents, ghost-like, gliding from the dripping bowers;
And evermore vague, spectral voices ring
Of Something gone, or Something perishing:
Joy's requiem; hope's tolling of the Hours;
Love's dirge of d...

Like winds that with the setting of the sun
    Draw to a quiet murmuring and cease,
So is her little struggle fought and done;
    And the brief fever and the pain
In a last sigh fade out and so release
The lately-breathing dust they may not hurt again.

Now all that Wilma was is made as naught:
    Stilled is the laughter that was erst our pleasure;
The pretty air, the childish grace untaught,
    The innocent wiles,
    And all the sunny smiles,
The cheek that flushed to greet some tiny treasure;
    The mouth demure, the tilted chin held high,
    The gleeful flashes of her glancing eye;
    Her shy bold look of wildness unconfined,
    And the gay impulse of her baby mind
    That none could tame,
That sent her spinning round,
    A spirit ...

Maiden May sat in her bower,
In her blush rose bower in flower,
Sweet of scent;
Sat and dreamed away an hour,
Half content, half uncontent.

"Why should rose blossoms be born,
Tender blossoms, on a thorn
Though so sweet?
Never a thorn besets the corn
Scentless in its strength complete.

"Why are roses all so frail,
At the mercy of the gale,
Of a breath?
Yet so sweet and perfect pale,
Still so sweet in life and death."

Maiden May sat in her bower,
In her blush rose bower in flower,
Where a linnet
Made one bristling branch the tower
For her nest and young ones in it.

"Gay and clear the linnet trills;
Yet the skylark only, thrills
Heaven and earth
When he breasts the height, and fills
Height and depth ...

All roads that lead to God are good.
    What matters it, your faith, or mine?
    Both centre at the goal divine
Of love's eternal Brotherhood.

The kindly life in house or street -
    The life of prayer and mystic rite -
    The student's search for truth and light -
These paths at one great Junction meet.

Before the oldest book was writ,
    Full many a prehistoric soul
    Arrived at this unchanging goal,
Through changeless Love, that leads to it.

What matters that one found his Christ
    In rising sun, or burning fire?
    If faith within him did not tire,
His longing for the Truth sufficed.

Before our modern hell was brought
    To edify the modern world,
    Full many a hate-filled soul was hurled
In lakes of fire...

I walk through the long schoolroom questioning;
A kind old nun in a white hood replies;
The children learn to cipher and to sing,
To study reading-books and histories,
To cut and sew, be neat in everything
In the best modern way -- the children's eyes
In momentary wonder stare upon
A sixty-year-old smiling public man.
I dream of a Ledaean body, bent
Above a sinking fire. a tale that she
Told of a harsh reproof, or trivial event
That changed some childish day to tragedy --
Told, and it seemed that our two natures blent
Into a sphere from youthful sympathy,
Or else, to alter Plato's parable,
Into the yolk and white of the one shell.

III
And thinking of that fit of grief or rage
I look upon one child or t'other there
And wonder if she stood s...

The rabbit in his burrow keeps
No guarded watch, in peace he sleeps;
The wolf that howls into the night
Cowers to her lair at morning light;
The simplest bird entwines a nest
Where she may lean her lovely breast,
Couched in the silence of the bough;
But thou, O man, what rest hast thou?

The deepest solitude can bring
Only a subtler questioning
In thy divided heart; thy bed
Recalls at dawn what midnight said;
Seek how thou wilt to feign content
Thy flaming ardour's quickly spent;
Soon thy last company is gone,
And leaves thee - with thyself - alone.

Pomp and great friends may hem thee round,
A thousand busy tasks be found;
Earth's thronging beauties may beguile
Thy longing lovesick heart awhile;
And pride, like clouds of sunset, ...

Una donna più bella assai che 'l sole.

GLORY AND VIRTUE.


    A lady, lovelier, brighter than the sun,
Like him superior o'er all time and space,
Of rare resistless grace,
Me to her train in early life had won:
She, from that hour, in act, and word and thought,
--For still the world thus covets what is rare--
In many ways though brought
Before my search, was still the same coy fair:
For her alone my plans, from what they were,
Grew changed, since nearer subject to her eyes;
Her love alone could spur
My young ambition to each hard emprize:
So, if in long-wish'd port I e'er arrive,
I hope, for aye through her,
When others deem me dead, in honour to survive.

Full of first hope, burning with youthful love,
She, at her will, ...

One must have courage as strong
As Sisyphus', lifting this weight!
Though the heart for the work may be great,
Time is fleeting, and Art is so long!

Far from the tombs of the brave
Toward a churchyard obscure and apart,
Like a muffled drum, my heart
Beats a funeral march to the grave.

But sleeping lies many a gem
In dark, unfathomed caves,
Far from the probes of men;

And many a flower waves
And wastes its sweet perfumes
In desert solitudes.

When, like a garment flung aside at night,
This body lies, or sculpture of cold rest;
When through its shaded windows comes no light,
And the white hands are folded on its breast;

How will it be with Me, its tenant now?
How shall I feel when first I wander out?
How look on tears from loved eyes falling? How
Look forth upon dim mysteries round about?

Shall I go forth, slow-floating like a mist,
Over the city with its crowded walls?
Over the trees and meadows where I list?
Over the mountains and their ceaseless falls?

Over the red cliffs and fantastic rocks;
Over the sea, far-down, fleeting away;
White sea-birds shining, and the billowy shocks
Heaving unheard their shore-besieging spray?

Or will a veil, o'er all material things
Slow-...

Her only pilot the soft breeze, the boat
Lingers, but Fancy is well satisfied;
With keen-eyed Hope, with Memory, at her side,
And the glad Muse at liberty to note
All that to each is precious, as we float
Gently along; regardless who shall chide
If the heavens smile, and leave us free to glide,
Happy Associates breathing air remote
From trivial cares. But, Fancy and the Muse,
Why have I crowded this small bark with you
And others of your kind, ideal crew!
While here sits One whose brightness owes its hues
To flesh and blood; no Goddess from above,
No fleeting Spirit, but my own true love?

I have found happiness who looked not for it.
There was a green fresh hedge,
And willows by the river side,
And whistling sedge.

The heaviness I felt was all around.
No joy sang in the wind.
Only dull slow life everywhere,
And in my mind.

Then from the sedge a bird cried; and all changed.
Heaviness turned to mirth:
The willows the stream's cheek caressed,
The sun the earth.

What was it in the bird's song worked such change?
The grass was wonderful.
I did not dream such beauty was
In things so dull.

What was it in the bird's song gave the water
That living, sentient look?
Lent the rare brightness to the hedge?
That sweetness shook

Down on the green path by the running water?
Or the small daisies lit
Wi...

There are some things, dear Friend, are easier far
    To say in written words than when we sit
    Eye answering eye, or hand to hand close knit.
Not that there is between us any bar
    Of shyness or reserve; the day is past
    For that, and utter trust has come at last.

Only, when shut alone and safe inside
    These four white walls, - hearing no sound except
    Our own heart-beatings, silences have crept
Stealthily round us, - as the incoming tide
    Quiet and unperceived creeps ever on
    Till mound and pebble, rock and reef are gone.

Or out on the green hillside, even there
    There is a hush, and words and thoughts are still.
    For the trees speak, and myriad voices fill
With wondrous echoes all the waiting air.
    We listen, and in...

On great cathedral window I have seen
A summer sunset swoon and sink away,
Lost in the splendours of immortal art.
Angels and saints and all the heavenly hosts,
With smiles undimmed by half a thousand years,
From wall and niche have met my lifted gaze.
Sculpture and carving and illumined page,
And the fair, lofty dreams of architects,
That speak of beauty to the centuries -
All these have fed me with divine repasts.
Yet in my mouth is left a bitter taste,
The taste of blood that stained that age of art.

Those glorious windows shine upon the black
And hideous structure of the guillotine;
Beside the haloed countenance of saints
There hangs the multiple and knotted lash.
The Christ of love, benign and beautiful,
Looks at the torture-rack, by hate conce...

The shadow of the lantern on the wall,
The lantern hanging from the twisted beam,
The eye that sees the lantern, shadow and all.

The crackle of the sinking fire in the grate,
The far train, the slow echo in the coombe,
The ear that hears fire, train and echo and all.

The loveliness that is the secret shape
Of once-seen, sweet and oft-dreamed loveliness,
The brain that builds shape, memory, dream and all....

A white moon stares Time's thinning fabric through,
And makes substantial insubstantial seem,
And shapes immortal mortal as a dream;
And eye and brain flicker as shadows do
Restlessly dancing on a cloudy wall.

Oh! that my young life were a lasting dream!
My spirit not awakening, till the beam
Of an Eternity should bring the morrow.
Yes! tho' that long dream were of hopeless sorrow,
'Twere better than the cold reality
Of waking life, to him whose heart must be,
And hath been still, upon the lovely earth,
A chaos of deep passion, from his birth.
But should it be, that dream eternally
Continuing, as dreams have been to me
In my young boyhood, should it thus be given,
'Twere folly still to hope for higher Heaven.
For I have revell'd, when the sun was bright
I' the summer sky, in dreams of living light
And loveliness, have left my very heart
In climes of my imagining, apart
From mine own home, with beings that have been
Of mine own thought, what more could I have se...

You said, there grows within you some strange gloom,
A sea rising on rock, why is it so?
When once your heart has brought its harvest home
Life is an evil! (secret all men know),

A simple sorrow, not mysterious,
And, like your joy, it sparkles for us all.
So, lovely one, be not so curious!
And even though your voice is sweet, be still!

Be quiet silly girl! Soul of delight!
Mouth of the childish laugh! More, still, than Life
Death holds us often in the subtlest ways.

So let my heart be lost within a lie,
As in a sweet dream, plunge into your eyes
And sleep a long time in your lashes' shade.

Alone I climb the steep ascending path
Which leads to knowledge.    In the babbling throngs
That hurry after, shouting to the world
Small fragments of large truths, there is not one
Who comprehends my purpose, or who sees
The ultimate great goal.    Why, even she,
My heaven intended Spouse, my other self,
Religion, turns her beauteous face on me
With hatred in the eyes, where love should dwell.
While those who call me Master blindly run,
Wounding the ear of Faith with blasphemies,
And making useless slaughter in my name.

Mine is the difficult slow task to blaze
A road of Facts, through labyrinths of dreams
To tear down Maybe and establish IS:
And substitute I Know for I Believe.
I follow closely where the Seers have led:
But that intangible dim path...