Provocations Part 2

Only a tear! The Heavenly Choir Praised the Lord for the thing call'd love; But Satan shrieked in frenzied ire, "This foolish tear will quench my fire, This man must go above--above!"

Back again where the flaming sword Closely guarded the jewelled door.

"I seek," he humbly sobbed, "our Lord.

I brought Thee gold--a worthless h.o.a.rd-- Thou wouldst not let me in before.

"But now I come to Thee with this-- A little thing, 'tis very small-- I pray Thee take it not amiss, My gold is in the dark abyss, This little tear, oh Lord, is all!"

"Oh wondrous drop," Saint Peter cried, "That shows the sap of life within A _living_ Soul, with chance to win A place with G.o.d, immune from sin!

Methought the fount of Life had dried"

(He flung the Gates of Heaven wide), "Go, _living_ Soul, and enter in!"

There in the lowest halls of grace, Through deep remorse and pains austere He washed his soul from sin's dark trace, Then in his heart-felt awe and fear He lowly sought his Saviour's face, Saved to life through a love-shed tear!

Madonna Granduca and Child

Little Christ, little Christ, Sheltered there on Mary's breast, All Thy child-like purity Lightens life's obscurity, So I thank Thee For that ray of light confessed.

Sweet Thy mother, Baby Christ, Sweet in woman's modesty; But to such an one as me I would choose to kneel to Thee, To Thy young simplicity, To Thy full divinity, Little Christ.

Give me tears to keep me clean, Give me joyfulness serene, Steep me for futurity In Thy white-souled purity.

For Thine innocence sufficed, Little Christ, little Christ, Vagrants like myself to bless, So I thank Thee For Thy perfect holiness, Little Christ.

A Vision of a Day that is Past

The sky hung smooth o'er the line of hill That shadowed the valley that seemed so still, And the blackbird whistled his love notes shrill.

The church lay dreaming of G.o.d, and when The bodies should rise from her graveyard pen Where the high gra.s.s covered her poor dead men.

The water meadows shone rich with gold, Gold that the b.u.t.tercups had sold To the nibbling sheep of the red ring-fold.

And even the river murmured rest As the sun sank low in the tender west, And the earth flowers slept on their mother's breast.

Over the valley that seemed so still, Where the blackbird whistled his love-notes shrill I gazed, and all against my will I saw a vision beneath the hill.

Centuries pa.s.sed like a mist away And I stood in the glare of a burning day Whilst the church-bells clamoured a call to pray.

War and its brother raced hand in hand, That brother called Death; and they seared the land With their fiery breath and the murder brand.

And copses and dales were bleeding red, Naught was sacred, the living or dead, The old, old man, or the girl just wed.

Men stormed the homestead, blazed the corn, Pillaged and sacked from night till morn, And spitted the babe that was newly born.

Savage and brutal, like h.e.l.l-hounds freed, They swarmed the hill, debauched with greed-- Some slunk behind, their l.u.s.t to feed.

At last, when the streams ran human blood, Soaking the fields in a scarlet flood, A woman prayed with her child for food.

All on their way those soldiers pa.s.sed With a foetid jest at her hapless fast, And some men cut her down at last.

They cut her down! Oh, woe is me, And they left her to rot in her misery, Naked and scorned for the world to see.

They left her bare in the cold night air, Save only the comb in her coal-black hair, And they strangled the baby, helpless there.

They did not trouble to wind them round In a sheet of earth in the dewy ground, They looted them both for the spoil they found.

But the wind was kind. It wailed aloud And churned the dust, till it rose a cloud like a pearly mist, to form a shroud.

And the leaves swooned down to the wind's sweet call And covered the mother and babe and all, Till they lay at peace in a soft green pall.

The church still ponders, and wonders when Those bodies will rise from her graveyard pen, But she knows they are blessed, those poor dead men,

For they sleep within her Christian fold Under her consecrated mould, Where a verse was read, and a prayer was told.

But under the hill, in the leaves somewhere, Lie a mother and child all stark and bare, Save only a comb in the coal-black hair-- Yet G.o.d will remember they lie out there.

Whilst digging up a hitherto uncultivated bit of garden near the Mendips, a gardener came across the mutilated skeletons of a woman and baby. A comb still decorated the woman's coal-black hair. At the inquest afterwards held upon the skeletons, it was suggested that the woman and her baby were probably refugees from the battle of Sedgemoor.

Bitterness Casteth Out Love

Over the hill where the white road sweeps, And the dead fern holds the snow, Love flew by, and the black night sky Shadowed the vales below.

Down in the creek, where the ice-pools gleam And the trees stand gaunt and bare, I crouched me down, and the sullen frown Of earth entombed me there.

"Ah," mocked the ice-pool, hard and clear, "Man with the frozen soul; Love sailed by, on a cloud-bound sky, With the tears that sorrow stole."

"Gone," said the fern, "from your frost-bound touch; Gone from your winter's heart.

Love flew by, like the tattered sigh Bitterness tore apart."

And the aching trees bowed branch and twig And a shrivelled leaf made cry, "If you are cold, and your heart be old, For certain, Love must die."

Over the hill, where the white road sweeps, And the dead fern holds the snow, Sweet Love fled; and a spirit dead Spectres the slopes below.

The Hour of Happiness