Classic Poem

Methought I pass'd into the shadowy land
Where Nature like a gorgon mother sits
Devouring her own young; a rocky land,
Formless, chaotic, lonely, terrible,
And yet alive with monstrous shapes as strange
As e'er mad poet fabled: shapes that lived,
And moan'd, and open'd jaws chimaera-like,
And changed, and died; yet ever when I sought
To approach them, faded into lifeless forms
Of crag and rock. In stagnant sunless meres
I saw foul monsters swim, some serpent-wise,
Others web-footed like the water-birds,
While overhead, from a black mountain-peak,
The winged pterodactyl of the chalk
Flapt in its eyric on the snake-strewn shore.
" Almighty God," I moan'd, " whose Hand did frame
These hideous creatures of the ooze and slime,
Within whose lineaments I seem to trace
Strange far-off hints of sweeter shapes and forms
Flowering at last in naked flesh of man,
Haunt me not with the deathlike fantasy
Of pageants fit for Hell!" And as I spake
Meseem'd I felt within my living veins
The speckled blood that steals like quick-silver
Under the hydra's skin, and knew my sense
Sick with primaeval foulness of the slime
From which 'twas fashion'd when the Monster ruled
A rank and watery world. Yet I beheld
Within that land of portents pale gray men
Who stood and smiled, as happy children smile
On curious gnomes and trolls of Faeryland;
And many murmur'd, " Wondrous is the Lord!
Whose word hath touch'd the darkness, till, behold,
It stirs and breathes and lives!"
How long I walk'd
In that wild realm I know not, but at last
I found myself ascending a steep path
Upwinding to forlomest mountain-peaks;
And as I went the light grew cheerfuller,
And far away above my head I saw
A light clear space of sun-kist snow that seem'd
Like God's hand resting on the Mastodon
That felt it and was still; and suddenly
There flew across my path a bright-eyed bird
Of eagle-size, but whiter than a dove,
And fluttering upward lighted on a rock
And waved its pinions looking down upon me,
And when I follow'd rose and fled again,
Again alighting; thus from rock to rock
It flew, I following, while at every step
The light grew clearer, and my soul less cad.
At last methought I reach'd a green plateau
Far up among the peaks and loud with sound
Of many torrents falling; and the grass
That grew thereon was strewn with tiny shells,
Prismatic, beautiful, left by the lips
Of some receding sea; and pausing there,
I gazed into the valleys I had quitted,
And saw a darkness as of flood and cloud
Spear'd by the red lance of the setting sun,
And from the darkness came a solemn sound,
Terrible, elemental, as of waves
Wandering without a home.
While thus I stood,
I saw two shapes approaching from the peaks,
One leading and one following: that, a Child,
Bright as a sunbeam, merry and golden-hair'd,
Who ran before and beckon'd, ran again
And beckon'd pausing; this, a reverend man,
Clad in a robe of samite white as snow.
And leaning on a staff enwrought with shapes
Of flower and dove and serpent. As they came
Great awe fell on me, for methought " They come
To bring me tidings tint my search is done!"
Fair was that Child, and 'neath her rosy feet
The coarse grass blossom'd into crystal blooms,
And fair was he who follow'd reverently —
Most proud his step as if he walk'd on thrones,
His dark eyes suffering with the kingly light.
They shed upon me through his reverend hair.

And coming near, the Child with birdlike cries
Paused, looking on my features wonderingly,
Then turning quickly beckon'd once again,
And slowly approaching he who follow'd her
Did greet me like a monarch welcoming
Some stranger to the kingdom which he rules;
Then looking on my pilgrim's staff and scrip,
And pouring into my half-dazzled eyes
Strange lustre of his own dark orbs, he said:
" Welcome, O Stranger, to these lonely peaks!
Far hast thou travell'd from a weary world
To find firm foothold on the mountains here."
And as he spake he placed his gentle hand
Upon the bright head of the Child, who stood
Smiling and listening; and his voice was deep
As torrent-voices partly drowning it,
Yet musical and passionately calm.

THE PILGRIM .

For have I travell'd, wearily have I sought
A world of sense and phantoms, shapes and signs, —
Since in an earthly City last I stood
Wailling my lot and calling out on God.

THE MAN .

He comforted — here shall thy cry be still'd,
Or drown'd in voices more miraculous
Thou comest from the City where I was born?

THE PILGRIM .

The City men have builded, without God?

THE MAN .

The same. These hands of mine did help to raise
Some of its temples, and its inmost shrine
When I drew breath 'twas but a noxious marsh
With some few dwellings long untenanted,
But in the heyday of my youth I cried:
" Upbuild! create a City out of stone
That we who know not God may dwell therein;"
Saying moreover, " Wiser far are they
Who drain the marsh and make the market thrive
Than they who waste their toil on pyramids."
Ev'n while I spake the City of Man upgrew,
To music sweet of the invisible choir
Who form the dusky vanguard of the dead;
And temples rose like lilies from the mere
Of human creatures multitudinous,
And Night was vanquish'd, and Disease and Pain
Crept from the shining of the strange new light.

THE PILGRIM .

But Death remain'd.

THE MAN .

And reign'd! Ere long I saw
The Shadow veil'd with sunlight looking down
Upon the beauteous City we had built;
And with a spectral hand he pointed ever
At the glad pageant, at the heart of man,
And at the living soul within the soul.
Then thought I, " Man hath conquer'd God, not Death,
And the broad harvest Man hath sown Death reaps;"
And surely I had madden'd in despair,
Had I not seen one morning, as I stood
In the still burial place beyond the City,
This Child, who ran and play'd among the tombs,
Blown hither and thither like a butterfly
By some strange wind of gladness; then behold,
She beckon'd, and I follow'd (for methought
She was not as the common things of earth,
But wondrous, fed on some diviner air);
And from the gates she drew me with a smile
Until I came, as thou thyself didst come,
Among the darkness of primaeval Time,
Haunted by monsters, hydras, mastodons,
Strange forms, the slime of Chaos; but whene'er
I falter'd faint of heart, the Child ran back
And slipt her little hand into mine own,
And prattling of the sunshine and the dawn
Did draw me gently on, until at last
I left the haunted valleys and beheld
A stainless snow like to the hand of God
Lying on yonder peaks; and even yet
I know not if the thing that led me on,
And leads me ever, is a mortal Child,
Or some angelic presence sent to guide
My footsteps through the shadows of the world.

THE PILGRIM .

An angel, surely! See how rapturously
Her happy face is shining into thine!
An angel still, if human; for methinks
Her eyes reflect the glory and the dream
Of God's celestial City which I seek.
Yet surely this is evil, that thy feet
Still tread the loneness of the mountain-tops,
Thine eyes see not the splendour she hath seen?

THE MAN .

It is enough to know that such things are,
Beyond the silence and the setting sun.

THE PILGRIM .

Alas! how knowest thou not that after all
They are not phantasies and images
Like those that met thee yonder in the vales?
Alas! if thou hast won these lonely heights,
What hast thou gain'd, what have thy soul's eyes seen
More than the souls in yonder City see?

THE MAN .

The peace of God, the assurance of His heaven,
Seen mirror'd in the blue eyes of a Child!

THE PILGRIM .

But surely Death shall follow and find thee here?

THE MAN .

I wait his coming, eager for more light
Such as he brings to those who love its beams,
Yet not impatient, for from these high peaks
I look on more than mortal sight can measure
Or human soul conceive and apprehend:
Dawn flying like a dove from isle to isle
Of Chaos; infinite and wondrous life
Stirring from form to form; the march of lives
From sleep to sleep, from death to death; the flow
Of earth's progressions, and the ebb of Time.
Wherefore mine age is clothed with mastery
As with a garment; slowly I have learn'd
That to be young and innocent is best,
Next best it is to be serene and old.

THE PILGRIM .

Having beheld these things, beholding still
Their stress and pain, dost thou believe on God?

THE MAN .

I know not. What is infinite transcends
The seeing of the finite, evermore.
Gaze in the heavenly eyes of this fair Child,
And thou shalt see a light more mystical
Than all thy spirit can conceive of God.
Pilgrim of earth, wouldst thou behold a sign?
Conceive the inconceivable, attain
To prescience which would prove, if absolute,
The annihilation of thy thinking soul?
Come, then, and standing yonder on the peaks,
The highest point of earth, survey the waste
Of that mysterious Ocean without bound,
Which wash'd thee hither as a grain of sand
And sow'd thee deep among these drifts of dust
To quicken into strange humanity!

He ceased; and on the heights above his head
The daylight faded, while the hand of Night
Hung closed a moment o'er the rayless snows,
Then open'd suddenly and from its grasp
Loosen'd one lustrous star! Then with a cry
The Child sprang upward on the dizzy path,
And paused above us beckoning; and we follow'd
From crag to crag till we together stood
Close to the edge of that celestial Sea
Which breaks for ever on these dark shores of earth.

Lone on the heights we stood as on a strand
Oceanward gazing; and the world beneath
Faded to an abyss of nothingness,
Unseen, unheard, unknown, but at our feet
The waves of ether rippled, gleam'd, and broke
In silence; and as far as eye could see
The waste caerulean stretch'd in windless calm,
Here bright, there shadowy, strewn with shimmering flakes
Like lunar gleams; and suddenly, to lend
New splendour to the solitary scene,
The island of the moon broke into beams
And shook upon the azure shallows around
Wild shafts of silver: then the stillness grew
Intenser, and the deep ethereal voids
Seem'd opening to their inmost, till I saw
Far as the pin-point of the furthest sphere
In the dark silence and abysm of space,
And from the far-off unimagined shores
There came, or seem'd to come, a stir of sound
So faint it scarce did seem to touch the sleep
Of that vast Ocean!
Then with reverent eyes
Up-gazing, and upon his pallid face
Light falling faintly from a million worlds,
Thus spake that old man masterful, my guide:

" Thou seekest God — behold thou standest now
Within His Temple. Lo, how brilliantly
The Altar, fed with ceaseless starry fires,
Burns, for its footstool is the mountain-peaks,
The skies its star-enwoven panoply! —
Lo, then, how silently, how mystically,
Yonder unsullied Moon uplifts the Host,
While from the continents and seas beneath,
And from the planets that bow down as lambs,
And from the constellations clustering
With eyes of wonder upon every side,
Rises the murmur which Creation heard
In the beginning! Hearken! Strain thine ears!
Are they so thick with dust they cannot hear
The plagal cadence of the instrument
Set in the veiled centre of the Shrine!"

He ceased, with arms outstretch'd to the great Deep
In adoration; and once more I seem'd
To catch that music, rather felt than heard,
Out of the open'd heavens; and lo, it grew
Deeper, intenser, audible as breath,
With thrills as from the silvern stops of stars
And murmurous constellations!
" Hearken yet!
He murmur'd, while I trembled to my knees,
" Yonder the veil'd Musician sits, His feet
Upon the pedals of dark formless suns,
His fingers on the radiant spheric keys,
His face, that it is death to look upon,
Misted with incense rising nebulous
Out of abysmal chaos and cohering
Into the golden flames of Life and Being!
And underneath His touch Music itself
Grows living, heard as far as thought can creep
Or dream can soar; so that Creation stirs,
And drinks the sound, and sings! — So far away
He sits, the Mystery, wrapt for ever round
With brightness and with awe and melody;
Yet even here, on these low-lying shores,
Lower than is the footstool of His throne,
We hear Him and adore Him, nay, can feel
His breath as vapour round our mouths, inhaling
That soul within the soul whereby we live
From that divine for-ever-beating Heart
Which thrills the universe with Light and Love!"

THE PILGRIM .

So far away He dwells, my soul indeed
Scarcely discerns Him, and in sooth I seek
A gentler Presence and a nearer Friend.

THE MAN .

So far? O blind, He broods beside thee now
Here in this silence, with His eyes on thine!
O deaf, His voice is whispering in thine ears
Soft as the breathing of the slumberous seas!

THE PILGRIM .

I see not and I hear not; but I see
Thine eyes burn dimly, like a corpse-light seen
Flickering amidst the tempest; and I hear
Only the elemental grief and pain
Out of whose shadow I would creep for ever.

THE MAN .

Thou canst not, brother; for these, too, are God!

THE PILGRIM .

How? Is my God, then, as a homeless ghost
Blown this way, that way, with the elements?

THE MAN .

He is without thee, and within thee, too;
Thy living breath, and that which drinks thy breath;
Thy being, and the bliss beyond thy being.

THE PILGRIM .

So near, so far? He shapes the furthest sun
New-glimmering on the furthest fringe of space,
Yet stoops and with a leaf-light finger-touch
Reaches my heart and makes it come and go!

THE MAN .

Yea; and He is thy heart within thy heart,
And thou a portion of His Heart Divine!

THE PILGRIM .

Alas! what comfort comes to grief like man's
To weave a circle of sweet fantasy
Around him, and to share so dim a dream?
For if thy calm philosophy be true,
He is, yet is not, here; breathes with our breath,
Yet evermore eludes us like the stir
Of the unconscious life within our veins;
Haunts us for ever in a mystery,
Broods close within us 'tween our walls of flesh,
Yet when we seek to look into His eyes
Fades far away above us and looks down
With loveless eyes of stars. Meantime my quest
Is for a City builded on the rock,
Not on the raincloud; for a God whose face
Is humanised to lineaments of love;
Not one who, when my hand would clutch His robe,
Slips as a flash of light from world to world
And fades from form to form, then vanishes
Back to the formless sense within my soul
Which evermore pursues and loses Him!

E'en as I spake methought (so strangely changed
My wondrous dream that was no dream at all)
That not alone we stood on those dark shores,
But round us gather'd ghostly living forms
Featured like men and women, pointing hands
Out to the dusky space and starry isles;
And on the sands below them silent lay
Two bright transparent forms as if asleep —
One old and hoary, featured like a man,
The other maidenlike and golden-hair'd;
And o'er these sleeping, smiling as they slept,
That radiant Child bent tearfully and cried,
" Awake, awake!" but they awaken'd not,
Though quietly the lucent waves of light
Crept near and rippled round their shrouded feet.

Then said aloud that old man masterful:
" They are not dead but sleeping, — vex them not,
Their eyes shall open on serener shores.
We come from the eternal night to find,
And not to lose, each other; what is born
And liveth cannot die." And while those forms
Still pointing wildly seaward moan'd and sobb'd,
He murmur'd, " Ere these twain lay down and slept,
They pray'd the prayer and sang the song which Man
Hath made from the beginning. Sing it now ,
That He who listens through eternity
Yonder across the azure seas may hear."

And lo, methought, in piteous human tones
Those spirits bent above the dead and sang: —

Unseen, Unknown, yet seen and known
By the still soul that broods alone.
On visions eyesight cannot see,
By that, Thy seed within me sown,
Forget not me!

Forget me not, but hear me cry,
Ere in my lonely bed I lie,
Thus stooping low on bended knee,
And if in glooms of sleep I die,
Forget not me!

Forget me not as men forget,
But let Thy light be with me yet
Where'er my vagrant footsteps flee,
Until my earthly sun is set,
Forget not me!

Though dumb Thou broodest far away
Beyond the night, beyond the day,
Across the great celestial Sea,
Forget me not, but hear me pray
" Forget not me!"

By the long path that I have trod,
The sunless tracks, the shining road,
From forms of dread to forms of Thee,
By all my dumb despairs, O God,
Forget not me!

Forget not when mine eyelids close,
And sinking to my last repose,
All round the sleeping dead I see,
Yea, when I sleep as sound as those,
Forget not me!

Forget me not as they forget,
Hush'd from the fever and the fret,
From all long life's remembrance free,
Though I forget, remember yet —
Forget not me!

Then even as they sang meseem'd I saw
Far off upon the rippling waves of light
A shadowy Bark approaching with no sound,
Wing'd like an eagle, floating ominously
On that airial sea; from space to space
Of brightness, and from shadow on to shadow,
It moved, until at last its shining prow
Touch'd the dusk shore, and paused; and in it sat
A Spirit dark and hooded, girt around
With many shining forms, — and not on these
The Spirit gazed, nor on the shapes that throng'd
The sands of earth, but on the spectral faces
Of that worn hoary man and gold-hair'd maid
Who lay there waiting, smiling in their shrouds.

Then as the very heart within me fail'd,
And on that sight I gazed through blinding tears,
The old man stretching white hands heavenward
Cried: " Lo, the life which ends and but begins!
God that remembers, Death that ne'er forgets,
The dream of generations justified!
O Grave, where is thy victory! O Death,
Where is thy sting! O deathless Mystery,
At last we apprehend and sleep in peace!
For this the timorous nebulae cohered
To fashion luminous worlds; for this the night
Conceived and labour'd, till the infant Life
Quicken'd within its womb and stirr'd and lived;
For this all things have striven and agonized,
Flashing from ever-changing form to form,
Yet, as the flame ascending clarifies,
Growing for ever purer, peacefuller,
Till that divinest growth, the Soul of Man,
Was fashion'd paramount and stood supreme,
And trembling with the very breath it drew,
Knowing itself, beheld within itself
The inspiration it hath christen'd " God, "
And which alone betokens it divine!"

Then, as he spake, methought that radiant Child
Approach'd him, knelt, with eyes divinely glad
Look'd up in his, and all the seas of heaven
Kindled and brighten'd, while with outstretch'd arms
Of blessing, drinking in with rapturous gaze
The splendour of the radiant universe,
The old man cried:
" O Mystery Divine,
Simple as babble of the yeanling babes,
And gentle as the breath of mother's love!
How far we seek thee o'er these wastes of Time,
And find thee not, although thou broodest ever
Within us, like an ever-homing dove!
Nay, all we see, upon these luminous walls
Of sense conditioning and surrounding us,
Is what thine Eldest-born and Best-beloved
Saw long ago, — a crimson cross of pain,
A cipher which whoever reads hath read
The riddle of the worlds. And Man hath raised
City on city, creed on creed, hath sought
To chain the electric lightnings of the soul
In temple upon temple, all in vain;
Yet what he found not visibled in form
Hath haunted him with dreams invisible
From height to height, till like a god he stands
Perceiving good and evil, knowing himself
Thine effluence, and immortal. Thus the law
Within him, yet without him, justifies
The eternal law he cannot understand
Yet drinks like royal breath; and all his pain
Falls from him like a garment, leaving him
Naked and warm in light, a happy child
Sure of his birthright, innocent and wise,
Foredoom'd to that eternal hope and joy
Whose other names are God, and Life, and Love!"

Aye me, the tearful wonder of my dream!
For shapes of brightness raised those twain who slept
And placed them in the Bark, when through their frames
The crystal splendour of eternity
Shot sacramental; and the hooded Spirit
Bent o'er the dead, and his dim eyes distill'd
Bright tears like dew, while all those shining shapes
Gather'd around and sang the same sweet hymn
Which those had sung who throng'd the lonely shore

Though deeper than the deepest Deep
Be the dark void wherein I sleep,
Though ocean deep I buried be,
I charge Thee, by these tears I weep,
Forget not me!

Remember, Lord, my lifelong quest,
How painfully my soul hath prest
From dark to light, pursuing Thee;
So, though I fail and sink in rest,
Forget not me!

Say not " He sleeps — he doth forget
All that he sought with eyes tear-wel —
" To o'er — he slumbers — let him be!"
Though I forget, remember yet —
Forget not me!

Forget me not, but came, O King.
And find me safely slumbering
In dark and troubled dreams of Thee —
Then, with one wall of Thy bright wing,
Awaken me!

Then lost in wonder, standing on that shore,
The highest peak of earth, I sigh'd aloud:
" Yea, God remembers, God can ne'er forget! ...
I have gone inland and not oceanward —
The earthly Cities only have I known —
But these who sleep shall waken and behold.
Yonder across those wastes whereon they sail,
God and the radiant City of my Dream!"

And as I spake the ether at my feet
Broke, rippling amethystine. Far away
The mighty nebulous Ocean, where the spheres
Pass'd and repass'd like golden argosies,
Grew phosphorescent to its furthest depths:
Light answer'd light, star flash'd to star, and space,
As far away as the remotest sun
Small as the facet of a diamond,
Sparkled; and from the ethereal Deep there rose
The breath of its own being and the stir
Of its own rapture. Then to that strange sound
Stiller than silence, the pale Ship of Souls
Moved from the shore; I stood and watch'd it steal
From pool to pool of light, from shade to shade,
Then melting into splendour fade away
Amid the haze of those careless seas.