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Title: Rue

Author: Laurence Housman

Release date: August 23, 2026 [eBook #79440]

Language: English

Original publication: London: At the Sign of the Unicorn, 1899

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79440

Credits: Charlene Taylor, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RUE ***

RUE

RUE

BY

LAURENCE

HOUSMAN

LONDON: AT THE SIGN

OF THE UNICORN. 1899

Chiswick Press: Charles Whittingham and Co.

Tooks Court, Chancery Lane, London.

“YOU MAY WEAR YOUR RUE WITH A

DIFFERENCE.”

CONTENTS

I

Page

Never shall life clear utterance show

3

If all the needs in all the hearts

5

Life wrought me at the forge of death

6

Long through the night the new-born lamb

7

If you must do the thing you fear

9

Oh, safely in my dreams you laid

11

The blood of Abel in me cries

12

With me early, with me late

13

Thou breast of all bright things, thou Earth

14

Dear garden face, with eyes of dawn

16

With arms that oared at easy length

17

Amid this grave-strewn, flowerless place

19

Dear love, when with a twofold mind

20

What know ye of the wounds of Christ

21

Grant that I have no other claim

22

Now that I know you, dear, by heart

23

You hear a blind man preach the light

24

Now day by day my love is set

25

Oh, Love, leave other hearts to fail

26

When we are parting face from face

27

Fair eyes, that never did offend

28

You, the dear trouble of my days

30

Two masks my fate reserves for me

31

II

Of old betwixt the gods and earth

35

Two breasts to her unhappy brood

36

The land’s arms loose me, and I taste

38

What farewell can I wish you now

39

Ah, no! beloved, you part not hence

40

Round this dark ship that bears me on

41

Dark to its nest the light has gone

42

The death-white horses crest and turn

43

Oh, like-unlike, a difference strange

44

Here where the Rome of nations stands

45

Where, perfected in flesh and bone

47

Great Mother, dwelling in the shade

49

In sackcloth shrouds they rise from rest

51

To the Tree of Life on Judgment Day

52

Against my flesh Love hangs to die

53

How this sad place deserted grown

54

This is the grave which year by year

56

From these thy servants who behold

57

“Sing once for joy!” spake Love, and bowed

59

Across these barren clods of clay

60

I, too, hear how the lover sings

62

Only two hands has Love to lend

63

Living, I feel the feet that tread

64

High overhead the clock that tolls

65

Life flutters from the wooded brow

66

III

O ghostly dawn, that whitenest now

71

Pale stranger, with the uplifted face

72

Now round you spreads and flows a rest

73

Why dream for you, dear vanished friend

74

The Soul bereaved, the Flesh defiled

75

Out of the heart of night a hand

76

So much strong weakness holds me bound

77

Send forth Thy winds, O God, to blow

78

Ghosts of sweet wants, ye touch and leave

79

Whenever blows a passing gust

80

Is living still my debt to thee

81

O Lord of Love, Who holdest light

82

Here name and date are worn away

83

Me did self-love or love most move

84

Though thou art changed, thou bearest whole

85

Oh! strange, ’mid severance of love

86

Let not the love you learned on earth

87

Where my word fails thy word amends

88

Out of the earth that holds you bound

89

Spring comes with silent rush of leaf

91

The Earth her troubled seasons brings

93

As by the motion of her arc

94

I

RUE

Never shall life clear utterance show

To melt the hearts of men:

Hark back three thousand years, and know

How tongues had labour then;

When God, who gathers north and south

To marvel at His ways,

Opened of old the ass’s mouth,

And filled it to His praise.

But when Love bowed His Body whole

To death, for the dark East,

Then hung before men’s eyes a Soul

More dumb than any beast.

His lips, Who spake as no man spake,

Nothing at all availed:

They gave Him vinegar to take,

And wagged their heads and railed.

So ye, the seers, and ye that seek,

Fellows with Him must be:

Only the dumb of heart can speak,

Or the blind think they see.

IF all the needs in all the hearts

Of all the world were one,

We could afford to drop our parts

Nor wait to watch the sun,

Which counts the days that gather in

Toward the wished-for end,

Where pleasure can no more be sin,

Nor friend want help of friend.

But now how fast the coil of things

Holds each man to his part,

While here, with hidden wants, there clings

To each an alien heart!

Nor from myself can I be freed

To lay me down and die,

Because of all the hearts in need

Of comfort less than I!

LIFE wrought me at the forge of death,

Love shaped my reins for sin:

They stirred, to fodder me with breath

The pit they digged me in.

They bade me tasks that seemed to heal

The bitter light of day:

I fed the forge, I trod the wheel,

And I built up the clay.

And when upon no shifting sands

My labour was grown whole,

They laughed, and put into my hands

A clean and human soul:

And half undid the bands of fear

That held me back from bliss,

And daily whispered in my ear

Their bidding, “Curse thou this!”

LONG through the night the new-born lamb

Utters its first complaint;

Against the body of its dam

The cry goes low and faint.

Till faint against the dawn the birth

Which bears a twilight’s span

Shall pass, and let alone to earth

The sorry needs of man.

Now, ere the covering darkness yields,

Lie down, dear lamb, lie down:

Better to die here in the fields

Than yonder in the town;

Where fast before the butchering knife

A dumb death thins the herd.

Oh, better now to part from life

While life seems worth a word!

Out on the downs the shepherds cry,

The silly sheep-dogs yelp:

Then, quickly ease my heart, and die,

Lest I should bring you help!

IF you must do the thing you fear,

I would I were the sin,

To knock against your heart, my dear,

Until you let me in!

To sleep with you, and wake with you,

Lie down with you, and rise,

And let you feel the sunshine through

My love upon your eyes.

Oh, many a time you may prevail

With God, and rise as white

As you lay down; yet you shall fail

Some solitary night!

Then, lest the ill outlast the will,

How well would serve a friend

To devil for your heart until

You meant the thing to end!

For then, my dear, if I were there,

I would not be your foe:

You need but breathe the faintest prayer,

And I would let you go.

OH, safely in my dreams you laid

Kind pardon on my heart,

And fair amends to you I made

While we stood far apart.

But, now the far becomes the near

And once again we meet,

Sorrow so holds the heart, my dear,

You may not hear it beat.

A day ago, an hour, and now

I longed to find you near;

Now round me grow your arms, and now

My heart has died for fear!

And ghastlier thought takes shape behind,

Lest, if I love you more,

I some dark morning wake to find

You dead against my door!

THE blood of Abel in me cries,

“Give me the curse of Cain;

Let me have vengeance from the skies,

Lest I be dead in vain!”

Hot for deliverance I wait

The cleaving of the clod:—

Give me my murderer to hate,

Lest hate go back to God!

Or, if there be no strength above,

Whence justice may be shed:—

Give me my murderer to love,

Since that will serve instead!

WITH me early, with me late,

The face of my spent youth:

Of youth that made a friend of fate,

And thought the friendship truth.

But now ’tis—how to bear the sun!

If fate demands, o’er all

The ills I wish to do, the one

I struggle to let fall.

With me early, with me late,

A bitter thing to rue:

The wrong set down for me by fate,

The wrong I would not do.

THOU breast of all bright things, thou Earth,

Where I was lapped ere day

Drew me from darkness unto birth,

Fair mother of my clay,

Now night and day, where’er I go,

I seem to hear thee cry,

“O child, what hast thou learned to know

Of signs beneath the sky?”

And I bend down, and answer back,

“I learn there is no rest,

On sea or land, for those who lack

The covering of thy breast.”

Then she: “What hast thou there, weak heart,

That will not let thee free?”

“Dear grief, from which I cannot part,

And love, too strong for me!

“And dearer to my heart than rest

This love that burns like fire;

And closer than your breast the breast

Of grief that quells desire!”

DEAR garden face, with eyes of dawn,

Where all my gladness grows,

Now breaks upon your secret lawn

The slumber of the rose.

So while the dawn-fire flushes low

To warm the world, oh, haste!

Awake, arise, sweet breath, and blow

Across this barren waste!

Lest now the gates of my desire

Undo their bolts of ice,

Bidding me pass the sword of fire

Which guards my Paradise.

WITH arms that oared at easy length

And buoyant draught of breath,

When dawn threw out its shining strength

Our bodies played with death.

Fathom on fathom under foot

The folded seas were deep:

Where day drew forth its mandrake root,

There under us lay sleep.

Your dear arms faltered; your young eyes

Caught half the daylight down:

And “Quick!” you sobbed, in broken sighs,

“Quick! help me, or I drown!”

Help you? The sea lay full below

Fathom on fathom deep,

It was but one straight road to go:

And in the sea lay sleep!

So strong the wish: then, surely, brake

The link that bound in me

Body with soul;—that, for your sake,

My soul gave up the sea!

Whelmed beyond reach of any coast

My body comes no more:

Deep is its death. It is my ghost

Has brought you back to shore.

AMID this grave-strewn, flowerless place

A dead man prays in stone:

Worn with the weather, how the face

Looks like a mask of bone!

From praying feet to praying hands,

Prayer will not let him go:

Still patiently his face withstands

God’s everlasting No.

For still to all the plea he gives

God’s word long since was said:

And still the foolish faith outlives

The mercy which lies dead.

The praying stone wears down to dust;

And every day that dies

It proffers with a piteous trust

The prayer that God denies.

DEAR love, when with a twofold mind

I pray for bitter grace;

And from my pit of torment find

Your breath upon my face,

And hear you without thought of fear

Bid me to guard you well,

And guide your footsteps to win clear—

When my feet walk in hell:

I wonder, how can God be glad

To hear men praise Him so,

Who makes His piteous earth so sad

A lot to undergo?

Or does He too dip Feet in fire,

And share the thirster’s thirst;

And listen to man’s great desire

Holding a Heart to burst?

WHAT know ye of the wounds of Christ,

Ye friends for whom He died?

For you at least the love sufficed,

When Love was crucified.

For you, whose feet He plucked from hell,

He perished not in vain:

For you, when that He died, He fell

That He might rise again.

I watch the wounds: for me how vain

The blood-drops from His side,

Poor God, Who perished in His pain,

Curst, spit upon, denied!

Little ye know the pangs He bore,

Ye friends whom Love forgave:

There was a bitterer wound He wore

For souls He could not save.

GRANT that I have no other claim,

Condemned in all I do:

Of every deed I bear the blame,

Proved false to all but you.

Most false to this now piteous me,

That, of itself bereft,

Strives to have loss that gain may be;

And, robbed, commits the theft.

And yet not false, whate’er befall,

If truth be found in you.

So, since you are my all in all,

Am I not all proved true?

NOW that I know you, dear, by heart,

This kinship makes us one;

Yet nearness puts us more apart,

More dear, but more undone.

For while you tell me of your grief,

Such sorrow finds me old:

Your breath hath stirred a withered leaf,

And cast it to the mould.

Thus, of the years that lie before,

I from my darkness guess

How I must know you more and more,

And you must know me less.

And while my heart responsive hears

Your inmost griefs unclose,—

How fast the covering silence rears!

How deep the secret grows!

YOU hear a blind man preach the light

Wherein he never dwelt,

Because his hands can handle right

The darkness that is felt.

O Face of Love, to which I kneel,

What likeness lies between

This touch of hands outstretched to heal,

These lips that cry “unclean”?

But when these hands have hold on fire,

And these lips fire for breath,

And life goes down to its desire

In the red pit of death:

Then, clear of sight in that far place,

I may lift eyes above,

And see you looking in God’s Face,

O face I used to love!

NOW day by day my love is set

To make the severance grow;

By speech to hold you fast, and yet

Mutely to bid you go.

By all I will to all I would,

I to our parting press,

And seek by signs half understood

To make you love me less.

And while you stay and trust me still,

Fear leaps upon my heart,—

Lest, in the dark ways of His will,

God means us not to part!

OH, Love, leave other hearts to fail;

Our love shall arch the skies!

And other loves through ours prevail,

When we have closed our eyes!

Surely the day to which we win

Draws on through hours of dread,

To close the covering darkness in,

And hold us in one bed.

WHEN we are parting face from face

Each to a destined end,

I know that God shall find no trace

In you of me, your friend.

There where I trod the way was wide,

With room enough for two;

And yet I put you from my side,

That God might look on you:

And I have bowed Him from His height

To take this gift of me,

That pure and holy for His sight

I left you utterly.

For single as the Heart of God,

My heart that loved you well

Died for you all the while I trod

The downward path to hell.

FAIR eyes, that never did offend

Love for you that grew blind,

Say, have you found in me the friend

That you have need to find?

Or have I failed, who day by day

Forbore to reach my end,

Because of looks that seemed to say—

“Stay with me; be my friend!”

And I, to meet your lesser need,

Gave mine;—a dear exchange!

Now, if you saw my eyes indeed,

How you would find them strange!

Dear love, try to be content:

Long since for you I died;

And still to cheer your heart there went

A stranger at your side.

Now, wish me well, and pass me by!

Soon shall my rest be deep,

When full upon my eyes shall lie

The desert sands of sleep.

YOU, the dear trouble of my days,

When life shall let me cease,

Turn once aside from kinder ways

And look upon my peace!

Let your feet rest upon my roof,

And for the love we bore,

Forgive the heart, so far aloof,

You cannot trouble more.

For, if the dead man had his will,

I doubt not he would rise,

And waste his soul in sorrow still

With looking on your eyes.

So come when you have lost your power,

And pardon my release:

And set your feet to rest an hour,

A seal upon my peace.

TWO masks my fate reserves for me,

Whichever way I fare:

Then, must the easier mask not be

The better one to wear?

For here indeed the mask fits well;

But oh, the weary pact!

How I must mouth, and strut, and swell,

To while away the act!

But then, the ease to bitter breath,

The stay to wordy strife,

When I put on the mask of death,

And drop the mask of life!

And death will lay an easier grace

Than life around my head:

You will not understand my face

The better when I’m dead.

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.

In the

Sistine

Chapel

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!

An empty

Hermitage

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?

The Holy

Sepulchre

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.

A Prayer to

the giver of

Evil

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!

III

O Ghostly dawn, that whitenest now

The chilly-breathing earth,

This face of life why liftest thou,

If death be brought to birth?

Can there be any death to live,

Or any life to die,

Unknown to me, that thou canst give

To put my darkness by?

Pale mother, from between thy feet

Cometh a still-born day,

Where life and I can never meet

Till light be put away.

PALE stranger, with the uplifted face

That seals its looks at me,

Come you to fill the empty place

Where love was wont to be?

In your dull heart without alarms

If any love abide,

Reach up and take me in your arms

And draw me to your side!

Or else, by what deep purpose stayed,

To what diviner end,

Grows this defeat, where fate hath made

A stranger of my friend?

For I am like a withered brook

Which water runs not through,

Since Death hath laid a dear rebuke

On all my thoughts of you.

Now round you spreads and flows a rest

From which no word can come.

Whom have you there for secret guest,

Now that your lips are dumb?

Death holds the heart that used to beat

For me; he holds your breath;

He has you fast from face to feet.

Ah, would that I were death!

WHY dream for you, dear vanished friend,

The peace on earth denied,

Since life, to gain a broken end,

Has torn you from my side?

The ramparts of the house of Death

Love cannot pierce or scale,

To tell with what a thirst for breath

The silent captives ail.

In that fixed prison-house of form,

All locked and barred about,

Perchance your living will is warm

And battles to be out!

THE Soul bereaved, the Flesh defiled,

Made strife with Love, and said,

“Lord, is not mine the living child?

And is not hers the dead?”

And while with piteous plea the two

At hard contention warred,

To search the holier anguish through

Up glanced the dreadful sword.

Then the sad Flesh, the far-defiled,

Caught at Love’s Feet, and said,

“Give her, give her the living child!

And give me back the dead!”

“Believest thou the dead can rise?

O Flesh, behold thy son!"—

Love spake: and to her opening eyes

Living and dead were one!

OUT of the heart of night a hand

Of darkness touched my side:

Light of my life, I saw you stand,

And dreamed you had not died.

“Oh, you look weary, you look old,

And heavy hangs your head:

Come from the night and from the cold,

And creep into my bed!”

The Fates that leagued against us still

Had fallen apart in fear,

When warm to all my weary will

I thought to draw you near:

But my quick soul, to love denied,

Smote on its doors in pain:

“Go back awhile, Beloved,” it cried,

“And die, and come again!”

SO much strong weakness holds me bound

I scarce may lift a hand:

Now being come to holy ground

I have not strength to stand.

For the dear loss to which I cling

So shadows all the past,

That life would seem too bare a thing

Could I look up at last.

O Lord of Light, Who fashionest form,

Grant me no quickening sight!

Make not the wants within me warm,

But bid me look on night.

SEND forth Thy winds, O God, to blow

The fever from my brain;

Let all Thy rains and rivers flow

To wash away my stain!

And when of all its thousand ills

My body is set free,

Then in Thy mercy bid the hills

Bow down and cover me.

And smother out this vital spark

That binds me in Thy sight:

Give darkness, that it may be dark,

And heal my eyes of light!

GHOSTS of sweet wants, ye touch and leave

An unresponsive breast!

Hearing you knock and go, I grieve,

But cannot give you rest.

Ye, while on earth the spring goes round,

Dear wants, can never die.

Now all my spring is underground,

Therefore no wants have I!

Oh, fare ye well, and sup at life,

And find a better bed!

Here living is a weary strife

When all its wants are dead.

WHENEVER blows a passing gust,

I think your ghost goes by;

Wailing it sifts away the dust

Wherein I long to lie.

Oh, shadow of my missing mate,

Now pass, and give me rest!

Your ghostly pity comes too late

To drive me from your breast.

IS living still my debt to thee

Through whom all joy lies dead?

Have you no welcome yet for me

In your most quiet bed?

Alas, now you have come to rest;

And I have come to grief!

Your love is harder than I guessed

To grudge me that relief.

O LORD of love, Who holdest light,

Hear Thou the darkened speech;

Behold the eyes that know not sight

The hands that vainly reach.

Thou knowest all; Thou wilt not grieve

If in the ways of grief

I speak amiss. Lord, I believe;

Help thou mine unbelief!

For as the east is from the west,

And from the north the south,

So from the sorrow of his breast

The utterance of man’s mouth.

A Prayer for stone to cry out

Here name and date are worn away,

Yet stiff upon its shelf

The stony mummer all the day

Lies praying to himself.

O stone, thou mockest God with prayer,

So praying without end,

If he, whose dust became thy care,

Hath found in God his friend!

O stone, since other needs pass by,

Let my need nearer be:

Still lift to heaven the sightless eye

Of faith, and pray for me!

ME did self-love or love most move,

Strong will or weak desire?

Or was love laid on me to prove

How ice may vanquish fire?

Nay, still my heart cannot undo,

My lips cannot unsay,

That bitter need I had of you,

And could not put away!

But life from death strange virtue draws;

And, knit with new desire,

Still the love lives in me, though thaws

The ice, though faints the fire.

For life which out of good or ill

Besought one kindred boon,

Here, on death’s wave, how clear and still

The waters wash the moon!

THOUGH thou art changed, thou bearest whole

My love through all thy change:

Thou canst not shake me from thy soul

Wherever thou dost range.

So thou from change to change must mount,

And still in mind of me

Shalt come toward the living Fount

Of immortality.

Then from thy face, whom God makes free

To touch the eternal years,

Those waters in a mystery

Shall wash away my tears.

OH! strange, ’mid severance of love

New love compelling grows!

Whose Face is this that bends above?

Whose wounded Hands are those?

Fair Father Christ, I cannot tell

When else on earth we met:

A dearer love that loved me well

Hath hold upon me yet.

But if Thou lov’st the face I love,

Whose likeness dwells in me,

I will but keep one love above

The love I’ll have for Thee!

LET not the love you learned on earth

Slip ever from your heart:

Into your new celestial birth

Let old love bear a part!

So pray, that, though I fall and fall,

And though God’s mercy fail,

And though the Saints stay silent all,

Your prayer shall yet prevail!

WHERE my word fails thy word amends,

With Paradisal speech:

Thy prayer goes up to further ends

Than I have thought to reach.

Till, past all speech, where fails thy prayer

’Mid sights thou canst not read,

Some other, on the ascending stair

Strains out fresh hands to plead.

But I, left conscious of my sin,

Wait on, and watch, and wear,

To know when word of me shall win

The slow-ascending stair:

And cry, “Have seven times seven sufficed

To bridge the gulfs that part?"—

When suddenly the Hand of Christ

Has knocked against my heart!

OUT of the earth that holds you bound

All spring comes back to me;

The honeyed world awakes at sound

Of life the quickening bee.

So from the eater comes forth meat,

And sweetness from the strong:

And honey from beneath my feet

Where you to earth belong.

O love, to you I bend and pray,

Who seeing yet am blind,

Because I cannot put away

A dead face out of mind.

Through the dull mould of my desire

I search with hands that grope,

’Mid ashes of a buried fire,

For love, or faith, or hope.

Lest here I perish without end,

Having no wit to see,—

O ghost of all dead springs, O friend

Of love, arise in me!

SPRING comes with silent rush of leaf

Across the earth and cries,

“Lo, Love is risen!” But doubting Grief

Returns, “If with mine eyes

“I may not see the marks, nor reach

My hand into His side,

I will not hear your lips that preach

Love raised and glorified.

“Except by all the wounds that brake

His heart, and marred His brow

Most grievously for sorrow’s sake,

How shall I know Him now?”

Love came, and said, “Reach hither, Grief,

Thy hand into My side:

Oh, slow of heart to win belief,

Seeing that for grief I died.

“Lo, all the griefs of which I died

Rise with Me from the dead!”

Then Grief drew near, and touched the side,

And touched the wounds that bled,

And cried, “My God, O blessed sign,

O Body raised, made whole,

By this I know that Thou art mine,

Upholder of my soul!”

THE Earth her troubled seasons brings;

Low at Love’s feet she lays

The broken promise of her springs,

Her tarnished summer days;

And says of all, “Not here the gift:

But out of all of these

Draw Thou, for one too weak to lift,

An offering to Thy knees!

“And gather out of all the storms

That flew to find them rest,

The loves that in a hundred forms

Have strained toward Thy breast!”

AS by the motion of her arc

The moon draws up the sea,

So, through the sense-defeating dark

Love’s hold is laid on me;

Till, in the strife of hearts that yearn

A hidden goal to gain,

I touch the keys of life, and learn

The mysteries of pain;

And find one law uplifted chief

All other laws above,

That Earth cannot contain its grief,

Nor Heaven contain its love.

There, where Love’s moon unveils her snow

On Paradisal trees,

Deep at her inmost heart must go

The beat of far-off seas.

And led through hands of death or birth

To live again or die,

Gathered from all the griefs of earth

All loves as kindred lie.

So, clear of sight from this far place

I can lift eyes above

And see you looking in God’s Face,

O face I used to love!

The author has to thank Messrs. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., for permission to reprint the portion of these poems which first appeared in “All Fellows,” Mr. Grant Richards for the use of the poem which appeared in “The Little Land,” and the Editors of the “Spectator,” “Outlook,” and “Dome,” for the poems which were first printed in those publications.

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THE ARTIST’S LIBRARY.

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