Collected Works (Vol. I)

52 SONGS OF THE SPIRIT Because my hand may fasten on the sword If my heart falter not, and smite Those lampless limits most abhorred Of iron night, And pass beyond their horror to attack Fresh foemen, light and truth to bring Through their untrodden fields of black, A victor king. I know all must be well, all must be free; I know God: as I knowa friend ; I conquer, and most silently Await the end. VESPERS. THE incense steams before the Christ ; It wraps His feet with grey, A perfumed melancholy mist, Tears sacred from the day ; An awe, a holiness, I wist, More sweet than man may say. I bend my head to kiss the brow, Scarred and serene and wide, The bosom and the loin-cloth now And where the blood has dried, The blood whose purple tide doth flow From out the smitten side. The fragrance of his skin begets Desire of holy things ; Through the dim air a spirit frets His closcly woven wings; Like love, upon my brow he sets The crowns of many kings. (The trembling demons of the sea Before the poet bend ; Ife greets the angels quietly as one who greets a friend ; Ile waiteth, passionless, to be A witness of the end.) I chant in low sweet verses still A mystic song of dread, As one imposing all his will Upon the expectant dead ; And lights dip down, and shadows fill The dreams that haunt myhead. I sing strange stories of that world No man may ever see ; My lips with strong delight are curled To kiss the sacred knee, And all my soul is dewed and pearled With tears of poetry. The strong mysterious spell is. cast ~ To bind and to release ; To give the devils hope at last, To the unburied peace ; To gladden the reluctant past With silent harmonies. The song grows wilder now and strives All heaven to enchain, As who should grasp a thousand lives, And draw their breath again Into some cavern where he dives, ._ A hell of grisly pain. And now behold! the barren Cross Bursts out in vernal flowers ; The music weeps, as on the moss The summer’s kissing showers, And there sweep, as sweeps an albatross, The happy-hearted hours. | My rapt cyes grow more cager now, God smites within the host, White fires illunimate my brow Lit of the Tloly Ghost ; I see the angel figures bow On [feaven’s silent cvuast. Eternity, a wheel of light, And Time, a flecce of snow, I saw, and deep beyond the night, The steady mystic glow Of that lamp’s flame unearthly bright That watches Farth below.