Perpetual Light : a memorial Part 7

UNFORGOTTEN

Wakening in the night, the pain that slumber Strikes with her mace of silence dead and dumb Loomed over me and, formless, said, "I come!

Bringing illusions lost beyond all number.

Rigid you lie, yet for a little c.u.mber This flaming world, where some die proudly, some Glitter like granite, or dream millenium."

It left me toiled in mountainous clouds of umber.

I lay sustaining all the old emotion, Numbed as beneath the blows of iron cars.

Then slowly, slowly some supreme devotion Crept down, and drew me out of ageless wars, Like a dear voice heard over darkened ocean When all dim heaven is trembling into stars.

THE PALE DANCER

My heart's a still sh.o.r.e; all the golden sails are gone.

A pale, silver floor in the hugeness of dawn My heart lies once more, and the little ripples beat This small, idle tune, like the fall of elves' feet, "Oh, come, airy dancer--come dance on us, Sweet!"

She comes like a breeze in the midnight of May.

The tumbling of the seas makes a tune far away.

She comes with closed eyes, with light footsteps she nears, And she sings the low song that each lipping ripple hears.

"In love there is laughter, and after--come tears!"

She dances like the moonlight--light, languorous, aswoon.

Her face floats uplifted, a flower to the moon, To the moon pale in heaven and the dawn coming slow, And under her measure the ripples breathe low, "The dancer, the dancer from ages ago!"

Oh, dance me no more! Witching dancer be gone!

For my heart's a still sh.o.r.e in the hugeness of dawn, And some answer is thrilling, is trembling for me In the eerie still brightness of heaven and sea, And the little ripples whisper, "What thing can it be?"

Pale dancer, pale dancer, atread without breath, Majestic and yearning and brooding as death, Oh, pa.s.sion of my heart, oh, enchanted despair That glides before G.o.d like a bird from a snare, Return, then, return to me, clothe me with care!-- But the beautiful dancer has vanished in air.

PREMONITION

(_Written in absence and unaware of her desperate condition, a few days before her death_.)

This is the song I shall make.

Love with white wing bids it wake.

Love with dark wing bids it die.

Trailing to dimness, the flood of my pa.s.sion, Glittering to darkness, the necklace I fas.h.i.+on To loop on the breast of the sky!

I have climbed high, even I, Following a light through a rift in the blue, Following a silence that pierced like a cry, Following the image of you.

This is the song I will fas.h.i.+on for you.

Oh ragged-jawed, jagged-toothed Dragon of Time, What will you do with the weft of my rhyme, You who have pawed every jewel in slime-- _You!_

No, in this s.p.a.ce between darkness and light, Holiness gleams like a rift in the night Here where I stand and command the full height, All of the glory and gall ...

Wrestle and struggle and surge for the height-- And fall....

Pain, your pale hands are clenched loose in my hair.

My heaving breast to your bleakness is bare.

Each of the other as brothers aware, Backward and forward we strain.

What is this struggle, why my despair, Pain?

G.o.d is somewhere in the night.

Listen! The night is so still G.o.d could be heard if he walked on the height As a man at night will walk on a hill Lulled by the darkness and dim.

Heaven is the hill under Him.

Is there not glimmer of light at its rim?

Pain? Ah the struggle again.

Drive then your darts in me, drive!

Pang after pang of it, Pain.

Wounds that will wake me alive.

Listen! The night is a hive Of sound like a swarming of myriad bees.

Drive the gold darts in me, whet them and drive, Pain! But his shadow flees.

What is this plain, whose these shapes that connive Peace?

Peace? But your garment is smirched With grime and the stain of blood!

Peace! When I struggled and searched, Ah, when have I understood?

I who was broken and spent, I who was baffled, and meant Only to wrench my release!

Who are Those crouching behind you, so still and intent, Peace?

Memories? Why do they haunt?

l.u.s.t and vainglory and pride?

What is it now of my victory they want?

What of you, Peace, the crucified?

This is the height. Can they scan it?

This is no s.p.a.ce-festering planet.

This is no rack of vain tears!

Even a dream, can they cloud it and ban it,-- Fears?

Years go over me, cloud me and cover me, Years--haunted years.

Only one thing I say over and over Under that catafalque glooming to cover My shame and disaster and wraith of faith.

Only one thing I say over and over, Your name, said under my breath.

There, like a storm on the sea line, you hover, Death!

Ripples and eddies and whirlpools of light Swirling like veils on the face of the night.

Down from the infinite, down from the height Stricken and whirled, Swept like a leaf on the blast of the night Back to the world!

Breathing beside me--your breath!

Listen! The night is so still G.o.d could be heard if he talked with Death As a man at night might talk on a hill Gently and sad to a friend Of the things we always intend ...

Night without end for Him--_night without end_...!

This is the song I have made Of the night when I was afraid, Of the night too breathless, too still, When I lay like stone--alone--alone, However near me the love we kill.

What of the love we kill?