Classic Poem

Somewhere safe-hidden away
In a meadow of mortals untrod,
I saw in my dreaming to-day
A wonderful flower of God;
Somewhere deep buried in air,
In a flashing abysm afar,
I came in my dreaming aware
Of the beam of a mystical star:
And I knew that each wonderful thing
Was the song that I never may sing.

Song of a love such as rang
Through the strings of the lyres of old,
Such song as the makers sang
When the world was all morning and gold;
Too great for a silken time
Fain of lutists and liers-at-ease,
Builders of honeycomb rhyme,
Soft slaves of an opiate peace —
Such lovers were strange for these years,
Too mean for the greatness of tears.

Yet, might I but stretch forth my hand
And gather that wonderful bloom,
Might I pluck and set over our land
That star as a sign in the doom:
Then never a story of old
Were more as a rainbow in heaven,
Were more as a water outrolled
From a rock in the wilderness riven,
Were more as a sheltering tree,
Than this story of Her and of Thee.

O where might we look for a song,
We lovers who faint in the way,
In a way ne'er so bitter and long
As the thorns and the miles of your day;
We lovers who drown in the stress
Of a sea that had made you but strong,
In the hour of our weariness,
O where might we look for a song
Such comfort and courage to bring
As your song which I never may sing.

But vain is the breath of desire,
And the voice of complaining is weak
To call back the soul to the lyre
And give us the singer we seek;
High song must await the High Singer
Though we thirst through a desert of years,
And the lyre must await its Apollo,
Though it grow all arust with our tears
Let thy voice then no longer complain,
Thou mouth that may never attain!

So I, who were fain of your story
To be its high-priest to the throng,
To embody its mystical glory
In a great eucharistical song,
May know all the strength and the healing
Of its bread and its wonderful wine,
But none other may know the revealing
Through unsanctified singing of mine;
Never another of me shall take
Its wine of my chalice, its bread that I break.

Yet still may it be for my glory,
Though never the priesthood to bear,
To bend in the shrine of your story,
As the lowliest acolyte there;
And would that the rhyme I am bringing,
A censer incuriously wrought,
Might seem not too poor for the swinging,
Nor too simple the gums I have brought:
No marvel of gold-carven censer,
No frankincense fragrance or myrrh

And O if some light from the splendour
Of mystical Host might strike through
These wreaths as they rise and transfigure
Their grey to a glory for you,
A glory for you as the sunrise
Of the years that to night have begun,
What singer would ask for his songcraft
Boon richer than that I had won?
What token to augur were given
More bright with the blessing of Heaven!

And O that these faint-breathing spices
Might seem for a moment as sweet
As the hearts of those roses of Isis
To blossom at last as you meet,
Great flowers of a far-away sowing
Of seeds that long bided the years,
In a horror of darkness safe-growing,
Fed of ashes and suckled of tears;
Or sweet as the breath of the dawn-light
Soft flushing the fields of your love-night.

O love-night too sacred for bride-song,
For nuptial rabble and rite,
The eyes and the tongues of a guest-throng,
What have they to do with your night?
Your night of the Star in the Silence,
The Rose in a trance of hushed breath,
Of God in a chariot of incense,
And the transfiguration of Death;
Blest guide on the travel eternal
From love unto love, ever-vernal

Do the stars crave a priest for their wedding,
Or the flowers of the woodland way?
And shall man need a priestly bestedding,
Doth he marry less sweetly than they?
Yea, the cattle miscalled our men-folk,
Rank waves of a wallowing sea,
May need such a ring and a neck yoke,
But never such lovers as ye!
Splendid as stars in their shining,
Fragrant as blossoms entwining

But, censer, have done with thy swinging,
With incense that groweth so pale,
And, song, make an end of thy singing
With voice that beginneth to fail;
No glory of sunrise is in thee,
No fragrance as breath of the day,
But a hand-grasp of loving you may be,
A kiss on the forehead — O may
You come as a whisper of blessing
In some pause of a happy caressing.