One struck a brother fiercely, and he fell,
And faded in a darkness; and that other
Tore his hair, and was afraid, and could not perish.
One struck his agèd mother on the mouth,
And she vanished with a gray grief from his hearth-stone.
One melted from her bairn, and on the ground
With sweet unconscious eyes the bairn lay smiling.
And many made a weeping among mountains,
And hid themselves in caverns, and were drunken.
I heard a voice from out the beauteous earth,
Whose side rolled up from winter into summer,
Crying, 'I am grievous for my children.'
I heard a voice from out the hoary ocean,
Crying, 'Burial in the breast of me were better,
Yea, burial in the salt flags and green crystals.'
I heard a voice from out the hollow ether,
Saying, 'The thing ye cursed hath been abolished ·
Corruption, and decay, and dissolution!'
And the world shrieked, and the summer-time was bitter,
And men and women feared the air behind them,
And for lack of its green graves the world was hateful.
Now at the bottom of a snowy mountain
I came upon a woman thin with sorrow,
Whose voice was like the crying of a sea-gull,
Saying, ‘O Angel of the Lord, come hither,
And bring me him I seek for on thy bosom,
That I may close his eyelids and embrace him.
'I curse thee that I cannot look upon him!
I curse thee that I know not he is sleeping!
Yet know that he has vanished upon God!
'I laid my little girl upon a wood-bier,
And very sweet she seemed, and near unto me;
And slipping flowers into her shroud was comfort.
'I put my silver mother in the darkness,
And kissed her, and was solaced by her kisses,
And set a stone, to mark the place, above her.
'And green, green were their quiet sleeping-places,
So green that it was pleasant to remember
That I and my tall man would sleep beside them.
'The closing of dead eyelids is not dreadful, For comfort comes upon us when we close them, And tears fall, and our sorrow grows familiar;
'And we can sit above them where they slumber, And spin a dreamy pain into a sweetness, And know indeed that we are very near them.
'But to reach out empty arms is surely dreadful, And to feel the hollow empty world is awful, And bitter grow the silence and the distance.
'There is no space for grieving or for weeping;
No touch, no cold, no agony to strive with,
And nothing but a horror and a blankness!'
So far, so far to seek for were the limits
Of affliction; and men's terror grew a homeless
Terror, yea, and a fatal sense of blankness.
There was no little token of distraction,
There was no visible presence of bereavement,
Such as the mourner easeth out his heart on.
There was no comfort in the slow farewell,
Nor gentle shutting of beloved eyes,
Nor beautiful broodings over sleeping features.
There were no kisses on familiar faces,
No weaving of white grave-clothes, no last pondering
Over the still wax cheeks and folded fingers.
There was no putting tokens under pillows,
There was no dreadful beauty slowly fading,
Fading like moonlight softly into darkness.
There was no churchyard paths to walk on, thinking
How near the well-beloved ones are lying.
There were no sweet green graves to sit and muse on,
Till grief should grow a summer meditation,
The shadow of the passing of an angel,
And sleeping should seem easy, and not cruel,
Nothing but wondrous parting and a blankness.
FROM BOOK V.; 'SONGS OF SEEKING.'
SWEET, sweet it was to sit in leafy Forests,
In a green darkness, and to hear the stirring
Of strange breaths hither and thither in the branches;
And sweet it was to sail on crystal Waters,
Between the dome above and the dome under,
The Hills above me and the Hills beneath me;
And sweet it was to watch the wondrous Lightning
Spring flashing at the earth, and slowly perish
Under the falling of the summer Rain.
I loved all grand and gentle and strange things, —
The wind-flower at the tree-root, and the white cloud,
The strength of Mountains, and the power of Waters.
And unto me all seasons uttered pleasure:
Spring, standing startled, listening to the skylark,
The wild flowers from her lap unheeded falling;
And Summer, in her gorgeous loose apparel;
And Autumn, with her dreamy drooping lashes;
And Winter, with his white hair blown about him.
Yea, everywhere there stirred a deathless beauty,
A gleaming and a flashing into change,
An under-stream of sober consecration.
Yet nought endured, but all the glory faded,
And power and joy and sorrow were interwoven;
There was no single presence of the Spirit.
THE VISION OF THE MAN ACCURST.
How in the end the Judgment dread
Shall by the Lord thy God be said,·
While brightly in a City of Rest
Shall flash the fountains of the Blest,
And gladdening around the Throne
All mortal men shall smile, -
Children of Earth, hear, last and first,
The Vision of the Man Accurst.
JUDGMENT was over; all the world redeemed
Save one Man, — who had sinned all sins, whose soul
Was blackness and foul odor. Last of all,
When all was lamb-white, thro' the summer Sea
Of ministering Spirits he was drifted
On to the white sands; there he lay and writhed,
Worm-like, black, venomous, with eyes accurst
Looking defiance, dazzled by the light
That gleamed upon his clenched and blood-stained hands;
While with a voice low as a funeral bell,
The Seraph, sickening, read the sable scroll,
And as he read the Spirits ministrant
Darkened and murmured, 'Cast him forth, O Lord!'
And, from the Shrine where unbeheld He broods,
The Lord said, ''Tis the basest mortal born-
Cast him beyond the Gate!'
Defiant, as from wave to wave of light
He drifted, till he swept beyond the Gate,
Past the pale Seraph with the silvern eyes;
And there the wild Wind, that for ever beats
About the edge of brightness, caught him up,
And, like a straw, whirled round and lifted him,
And, on a dark shore in the Underworld
Cast him, alone and shivering; for the Clime
Was sunless, and the ice was like a sheet
Of glistening tin, and the faint glimmering peaks
Were twisted to fantastic forms of frost,
And everywhere the frozen moonlight steamed
Foggy and blue, save where the abysses loomed
Sepulchral shadow. But the Man arose,
With teeth gnashed beast-like, waved wild feeble hands
At the white Gate (that glimmered far away,
Like to the round ball of the Sun beheld
Through interstices in a wood of pine),
Cast a shrill curse at the pale judge within
Then groaning, beast-like crouched.
That break on a green island of the south,
Amid the flash of many plumaged wings,
Passed the fair days in Heaven. By the side
Of quiet waters perfect Spirits walked,
Low singing, in the star-dew, full of joy
In their own thoughts and pictures of those thoughts
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