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When he dips down beyond the far flat land, Know never more the day and night apart, Know not where frost has laid his iron hand, Save only that it fastens on my heart ; Save only that it grips with icy fire These veins no fire of hell could satiate ; Save only that it quenches this desire. Let me pass out beyond the city gate. 8
… Though Death may masquerade as Sleep, And Lust laugh out like Love. But God’s strong arms set under me Lifted my spirit through the air Beyond the wide supernal sea, Beyond the veil of vair. God said : My ways are sweet and deep ; The sceptres and the swords thereof Change : for Death’s face is fair as Sleep ; And Lust is clean as Love. I slept upon His breast ; and Death Came like Sleep’s angel, and I died, And tasted the Lethean breath. There was a voice that cried : 23
… rested—Ah ! I clench my hand And turn away with yet undaunted look, Setting my face toward the distant land That must lie somewhere far beyond this world of sand. About me are the bones of many men Who turned to God their rapt adoring eyes, And cast away the love within their ken For this vague treasure-house beyond the skies— Whither I turn, like a dumb beast that dies, A wistful look, and breathe a dumb complaint. Lo ! they have cast away the mask of lies 48
To That which Is and Was and reigns Shadowed in four and ten, And loses self in sacred lands, And cries and quickens, and understands Beyond the first Amen. 11
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 know a friend ; I conquer, and most silently Await the end. 90
…, that is one white flame, The justice that surpasses shame, The victory, the splendour, The sacred fountain that is whirled From depths beyond that older world A new world to engender. The kingdom is extended. Night Dwells, and I contemplate the sight 9
… spirit seeks the midnight hour, When souls have power To cast away one moment bonds of clay, And touch the day With pallid wistful lips beyond the earth, And bring to birth New thoughts with which life long has travailed ; As if one dead Should rise and utter secrets of the tomb, And from hell’s womb Or heaven’s breast bring all the load of fears, Toils of long years, Sorrows of life and agonies of death, Hard caught-up breath, The labouring hands of love, the cheeks of shame, The gloomy flame 99
BY THE CAM. TWILIGHT is over, and the noon of night Draws to its zenith. and beyond the stream Dance the wild witches that dispel my dream Of gardens naked in Diana’s sight. Foul censers, altars desecrated, blight The corpse-lit river, whose dank vapours teem Heavy and horrible, a deadly steam Of murder’s black intolerable might. The stagnant pools rejoice ; the human feast Revels at height ; the sacrament is come ; God wakes no lightning in the broken East ; His awful thunders listen and are dumb ; Earth gapes not for that sin ; the skies rene…
Of ibex that behold on high Night’s funeral, And see the pale moon quiver and depart Far beyond space, the sun ascend And draw earth’s globe unto his heart To make an end ; The shriek of startled birds ; the sobs that tear With sudden terror the sharp sea That slept, and wove its golden hair Most mournfully ; The rending of the earth at his command Who wields the wrath of heaven, and is dumb ; Hell starts up—and before his hand Is overcome. It heard these voices, and beheld afar These dread works wrought at his behest : And on his forehead, lo …
…ly Ghost ; I see the angel figures bow On heaven’s silent coast. Eternity, a wheel of light, And Time, a fleece of snow, I saw, and deep beyond the night, The steady mystic glow Of that lamp’s flame unearthly bright That watches Earth below. Long avenues of sleepy trees And bowers arched with love, And kisses woven for a breeze, And lips that scarcely move, Save as long ripples on the seas, That murmur like a dove. I saw the burning lips of God Set fast on Mary’s face, 94
…ssantly devours, A rock impregnable, where herb and tree Are not. A vision of it came to me In night’s most ghastly hours. I who desire, beyond all named desire, To pass the envious bounds of air and fire, And penetrate the bosom of the night, Saw in a vision such a neophyte Stand on the forehead of the rock ; I saw The armies of unalterable law Shudder within their spheres, as to him came His master’s spirit, like a tongue of flame, To touch his lips and ears and eyes and hands With that pale amber that divides the lands Of sense and spirit, a…
So brake the soul, as newly re-arisen Beyond the years. Far above Space and Time, that earth environ With bands and bars we strive against in vain, Far o’er the world, and all its triple iron And brazen chain, Far from the change that men call life fled higher Into the world immutable of sleep, We see our loved one, and vain eyes desire In vain to weep. Woeful our gaze, if on Ione Earth descendent, To view the absence of yon flame afar— Yet in the Heavens, anew, divine, resplendent, Behold a star ! One light the less, that steady flamed and eve…
Amsterdam, December 23rd, 1897. LET me pass out beyond the city gate. All day I loitered in the little streets Of black worn houses tottering, like the fate That hangs above my head even now, and meets Prayer and defiance as not hearing it. They lean, these old black streets, a little sky Peeps through the gap, the rough stone path is lit Just for a little by the sun, and I Watched his red face pass over, fade away To other streets, and other passengers, Saw him take pleasure where the heathen pray, Saw him relieve the hunter of his furs, All t…
…e ocean was founded, Nor changed for the wind and the tide ; My love by the heaven was bounded, And knew not a barrier beside ; My faith beyond heaven was grounded, as God to abide. Though death be the stain on our roses, The roses of heaven are white ; Though day on the world of us closes, The stars only dream of the night As of music that roars and reposes and dies in delight. 106
… deadly tramp, And swordless fury that devours and bites And tears and clutches him, whom heavenly lights Shield and lead on afar, Where beyond storm and passion is the sky, And where the sacred hand of the Most High 69
…black deeps, the irremeable main, That men must launch on, the exalted plain Of Life. We sever, and our tears are few, Knowing perchance beyond the moment’s pain 52
…es in death-pangs with your mystery, And fails to wrestle down the hard embrace That grips the thighs of thought. And so he dies To pass beyond ye—whither ? To find God ? All my life long I have gazed, and dreamed, and thought, Unless my thought itself were but a dream, A little, troubled dream, a dream of death Whence I may wake—ah, where ? In some new world Where Consciousness doth touch the Infinite, And all the strivings of the soul be found 13
…e the void, and grasp the glorious, To find out Truth ? Would God it might be so, Since here is nothing for the soul to love Or cling to beyond self. My chamberlain Once showed me a pet slave, dwarf, savage, black, A vile, lewd creature, who would cast a staff Far wheeling through the air, and suddenly Break its swift course, and curving rapidly Come hard upon himself who threw. Even so These vile deformities—our souls—cast forth Missiles of thought, and seek to reach some end With swift imagining—and end in self. What sage called God the image…
…un from his luxurious bed Of rosy fleeces in the West low lying Into the staircase of the jealous day, Burst on the silence of the world beyond And bid the listening poet catch the strain Of their half-echoed hymn. But come, my friends, 33
…ar and forgotten on some desert isle, Where I may watch the silent ships go by, And let them share my burden for awhile. Let me pass out beyond the city gate Where I may wander by the water still, And see the faint few stars immaculate Watch their own beauty in its depth, and chill Their own desire within its icy stream. Let me move on with vacant eyes, as one Lost in the labyrinth of some ill dream, Move and move on, and never see the sun Lap all the mist with orange and red gold, Throw some lank windmill into iron shade, And stir the chill ca…