A Hidden Life and Other Poems Part 9

And fiercely we dig the fountain, To know the water true; And we climb the crest of the mountain, To part it from the blue.

But we look too far before us For that which is more than nigh; Though the sky is lofty o'er us, We are always in the sky.

And the fog, o'er the roses that creepeth, Steams from the unknown sea, In the dark of the soul that sleepeth, And sigheth constantly, Because o'er the face of its waters The breathing hath not gone; And instead of glad sons and daughters, Wild things are moaning on.

When the heart knows well the Father, The eyes will be always day; But now they grow dim the rather That the light is more than they.

Believe, amidst thy sorrows, That the blight that swathes the earth Is only a shade that borrows Life from thy spirit's dearth.

G.o.d's heart is the fount of beauty; Thy heart is its visible well; If it vanish, do thou thy duty, That necromantic spell; And thy heart to the Father crying Will fill with waters deep; Thine eyes may say, _Beauty is dying;_ But thy spirit, _She goes to sleep._

And I fear not, thy fair soul ever Will smile as thy image smiled; It had fled with a sudden s.h.i.+ver, And thy body lay beguiled.

Let the flowers and thy beauty perish; Let them go to the ancient dust.

But the hopes that the children cherish, They are the Father's trust.

3.

A great church in an empty square, A place of echoing tones; Feet pa.s.s not oft enough to wear The gra.s.s between the stones.

The jarring sounds that haunt its gates, Like distant thunders boom; The boding heart half-listening waits, As for a coming doom.

The door stands wide, the church is bare, Oh, horror, ghastly, sore!

A gulf of death, with hideous stare, Yawns in the earthen floor;

As if the ground had sunk away Into a void below: Its shapeless sides of dark-hued clay Hang ready aye to go.

I am myself a horrid grave, My very heart turns grey; This charnel-hole,--will no one save And force my feet away?

The changing dead are there, I know, In terror ever new; Yet down the frightful slope I go, That downward goeth too.

Beneath the caverned floor I hie, And seem, with anguish dull, To enter by the empty eye Into a monstrous skull.

Stumbling on what I dare not guess, And wading through the gloom, Less deep the shades my eyes oppress, I see the awful tomb.

My steps have led me to a door, With iron clenched and barred; Grim Death hides there a ghastlier store, Great spider in his ward.

The portals shake, the bars are bowed, As if an earthy wind That never bore a leaf or cloud Were pressing hard behind.

They shake, they groan, they outward strain.

What sight, of dire dismay Will freeze its form upon my brain, And turn it into clay?

They shake, they groan, they bend, they crack; The bars, the doors divide: A flood of glory at their back Hath burst the portals wide.

Flows in the light of vanished days, The joy of long-set moons; The flood of radiance billowy plays, In sweet-conflicting tunes.

The gulf is filled with flas.h.i.+ng tides, An awful gulf no more; A maze of ferns clothes all its sides, Of mosses all its floor.

And, floating through the streams, appear Such forms of beauty rare, As every aim at beauty here Had found its _would be_ there.

I said: 'Tis well no hand came nigh, To turn my steps astray; 'Tis good we cannot choose but die, That life may have its way.

4.

Before I sleep, some dreams draw nigh, Which are not fancy mere; For sudden lights an inward eye, And wondrous things appear.

Thus, unawares, with vision wide, A steep hill once I saw, In faint dream lights, which ever hide Their fountain and their law.

And up and down the hill reclined A host of statues old; Such wondrous forms as you might find Deep under ancient mould.

They lay, wild scattered, all along, And maimed as if in fight; But every one of all the throng Was precious to the sight.

Betwixt the night and hill they ranged, In dead composure cast.

As suddenly the dream was changed, And all the wonder past.

The hill remained; but what it bore Was broken reedy stalks, Bent hither, thither, drooping o'er, Like flowers o'er weedy walks.

For each dim form of marble rare, Bent a wind-broken reed; So hangs on autumn-field, long-bare, Some tall and straggling weed.

The autumn night hung like a pall, Hung mournfully and dead; And if a wind had waked at all, It had but moaned and fled.

5.

I lay and dreamed. Of thought and sleep Was born a heavenly joy: I dreamed of two who always keep Me happy as a boy.

I was with them. My heart-bells rung With joy my heart above; Their present heaven my earth o'erhung, And earth was glad with love.

The dream grew troubled. Crowds went on, And sought their varied ends; Till stream on stream, the crowds had gone, And swept away my friends.

I was alone. A miry road I followed, all in vain; No well-known hill the landscape showed, It was a wretched plain;

Where mounds of rubbish, ugly pits, And brick-fields scarred the globe; Those wastes where desolation sits Without her ancient robe.

A drizzling rain proclaimed the skies As wretched as the earth; I wandered on, and weary sighs Were all my lot was worth.

When sudden, as I turned my way, Burst in the ocean-waves: And lo! a blue wild-dancing bay Fantastic rocks and caves!

I wept with joy. Ah! sometimes so, In common daylight grief, A beauty to the heart will go, And bring the heart relief.

And, wandering, reft of hope or friend, If such a thing should be, One day we take the downward bend, And lo, Eternity!

I wept with joy, delicious tears, Which dreams alone bestow; Until, mayhap, from out the years We sleep, and further go.

6.

Now I will mould a dream, awake, Which I, asleep, would dream; From all the forms of fancy take One that shall also seem; Seem in my verse (if not my brain), Which sometimes may rejoice In airy forms of Fancy's train, Though n.o.bler are my choice.

Some truth o'er all the land may lie In children's dreams at night; _They_ do not build the charmed sky That domes them with delight.