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.