Robert Falconer Part 62

HOM. IL. v. 403.

If thou art tempted by a thought of ill, Crave not too soon for victory, nor deem Thou art a coward if thy safety seem To spring too little from a righteous will: For there is nightmare on thee, nor until Thy soul hath caught the morning's early gleam Seek thou to a.n.a.lyze the monstrous dream By painful introversion; rather fill Thine eye with forms thou knowest to be truth: But see thou cherish higher hope than this; A hope hereafter that thou shalt be fit Calm-eyed to face distortion, and to sit Transparent among other forms of youth Who own no impulse save to G.o.d and bliss.

And must I ever wake, gray dawn, to know Thee standing sadly by me like a ghost?

I am perplexed with thee, that thou shouldst cost This Earth another turning: all aglow Thou shouldst have reached me, with a purple show Along far-mountain tops: and I would post Over the breadth of seas though I were lost In the hot phantom-chase for life, if so Thou camest ever with this numbing sense Of chilly distance and unlovely light; Waking this gnawing soul anew to fight With its perpetual load: I drive thee hence-- I have another mountain-range from whence Bursteh a sun unutterably bright.

GALILEO.

'And yet it moves!' Ah, Truth, where wert thou then, When all for thee they racked each piteous limb?

Wert though in Heaven, and busy with thy hymn, When those poor hands convulsed that held thy pen?

Art thou a phantom that deceivest men To their undoing? or dost thou watch him Pale, cold, and silent in his dungeon dim?

And wilt thou ever speak to him again?

'It moves, it moves! Alas, my flesh was weak; That was a hideous dream! I'll cry aloud How the green bulk wheels sunward day by day!

Ah me! ah me! perchance my heart was proud That I alone should know that word to speak; And now, sweet Truth, s.h.i.+ne upon these, I pray.'

If thou wouldst live the Truth in very deed, Thou hast thy joy, but thou hast more of pain.

Others will live in peace, and thou be fain To bargain with despair, and in thy need To make thy meal upon the scantiest weed.

These palaces, for thee they stand in vain; Thine is a ruinous hut; and oft the rain Shall drench thee in the midnight; yea the speed Of earth outstrip thee pilgrim, while thy feet Move slowly up the heights. Yet will there come Through the time-rents about thy moving cell, An arrow for despair, and oft the hum Of far-off populous realms where spirits dwell.

TO * * * *

Speak, Prophet of the Lord! We may not start To find thee with us in thine ancient dress, Haggard and pale from some bleak wilderness, Empty of all save G.o.d and thy loud heart: Nor with like rugged message quick to dart Into the hideous fiction mean and base: But yet, O prophet man, we need not less, But more of earnest; though it is thy part To deal in other words, if thou wouldst smite The living Mammon, seated, not as then In b.e.s.t.i.a.l quiescence grimly dight, But thrice as much an idol-G.o.d as when He stared at his own feet from morn to night. [8]

THE WATCHER.

From out a windy cleft there comes a gaze Of eyes unearthly which go to and fro Upon the people's tumult, for below The nations smite each other: no amaze Troubles their liquid rolling, or affrays Their deep-set contemplation: steadily glow Those ever holier eye-b.a.l.l.s, for they grow Liker unto the eyes of one that prays.

And if those clasped hands tremble, comes a power As of the might of worlds, and they are holden Blessing above us in the sunrise golden; And they will be uplifted till that hour Of terrible rolling which shall rise and shake This conscious nightmare from us and we wake.

THE BELOVED DISCIPLE.

I

One do I see and twelve; but second there Methinks I know thee, thou beloved one; Not from thy n.o.bler port, for there are none More quiet-featured; some there are who bear Their message on their brows, while others wear A look of large commission, nor will shun The fiery trial, so their work is done: But thou hast parted with thine eyes in prayer-- Unearthly are they both; and so thy lips Seem like the porches of the spirit land; For thou hast laid a mighty treasure by, Unlocked by Him in Nature, and thine eye Burns with a vision and apocalypse Thy own sweet soul can hardly understand.

II

A Boanerges too! Upon my heart It lay a heavy hour: features like thine Should glow with other message than the s.h.i.+ne Of the earth-burrowing levin, and the start That cleaveth horrid gulfs. Awful and swart A moment stoodest thou, but less divine-- Brawny and clad in ruin!--till with mine Thy heart made answering signals, and apart Beamed forth thy two rapt eye-b.a.l.l.s doubly clear, And twice as strong because thou didst thy duty, And though affianced to immortal Beauty, Hiddest not weakly underneath her veil The pest of Sin and Death which maketh pale: Henceforward be thy spirit doubly dear. [9]

THE LILY OF THE VALLEY.

There is not any weed but hath its shower, There is not any pool but hath its star; And black and muddy though the waters are, We may not miss the glory of a flower, And winter moons will give them magic power To spin in cylinders of diamond spar; And everything hath beauty near and far, And keepeth close and waiteth on its hour.

And I when I encounter on my road A human soul that looketh black and grim, Shall I more ceremonious be than G.o.d?

Shall I refuse to watch one hour with him Who once beside our deepest woe did bud A patient watching flower about the brim.

'Tis not the violent hands alone that bring The curse, the ravage, and the downward doom Although to these full oft the yawning tomb Owes deadly surfeit; but a keener sting, A more immortal agony, will cling To the half-fas.h.i.+oned sin which would a.s.sume Fair Virtue's garb. The eye that sows the gloom With quiet seeds of Death henceforth to spring What time the sun of pa.s.sion burning fierce Breaks through the kindly cloud of circ.u.mstance; The bitter word, and the unkindly glance, The crust and canker coming with the years, Are liker Death than arrows, and the lance Which through the living heart at once doth pierce.

SPOKEN OF SEVERAL PHILOSOPHERS.

I pray you, all ye men, who put your trust In moulds and systems and well-tackled gear, Holding that Nature lives from year to year In one continual round because she must-- Set me not down, I pray you, in the dust Of all these centuries, like a pot of beer, A pewter-pot disconsolately clear, Which holds a potful, as is right and just.

I will grow clamorous--by the rood, I will, If thus ye use me like a pewter pot.

Good friend, thou art a toper and a sot-- I will not be the lead to hold thy swill, Nor any lead: I will arise and spill Thy silly beverage, spill it piping hot.

Nature, to him no message dost thou bear, Who in thy beauty findeth not the power To gird himself more strongly for the hour Of night and darkness. Oh, what colours rare The woods, the valleys, and the mountains wear To him who knows thy secret, and in shower And fog, and ice-cloud, hath a secret bower Where he may rest until the heavens are fair!

Not with the rest of slumber, but the trance Of onward movement steady and serene, Where oft in struggle and in contest keen His eyes will opened be, and all the dance Of life break on him, and a wide expanse Roll upward through the void, sunny and green.

TO JUNE.

Ah, truant, thou art here again, I see!

For in a season of such wretched weather I thought that thou hadst left us altogether, Although I could not choose but fancy thee Skulking about the hill-tops, whence the glee Of thy blue laughter peeped at times, or rather Thy bashful awkwardness, as doubtful whether Thou shouldst be seen in such a company Of ugly runaways, unshapely heaps Of ruffian vapour, broken from restraint Of their slim prison in the ocean deeps.

But yet I may not, chide: fall to thy books, Fall to immediately without complaint-- There they are lying, hills and vales and brooks.

WRITTEN ABOUT THE LONGEST DAY.

Summer, sweet Summer, many-fingered Summer!

We hold thee very dear, as well we may: It is the kernel of the year to-day-- All hail to thee! Thou art a welcome corner!

If every insect were a fairy drummer, And I a fifer that could deftly play, We'd give the old Earth such a roundelay That she would cast all thought of labour from her Ah! what is this upon my window-pane?

Some sulky drooping cloud comes pouting up, Stamping its glittering feet along the plain!

Well, I will let that idle fancy drop.

Oh, how the spouts are bubbling with the rain!

And all the earth s.h.i.+nes like a silver cup!

ON A MIDGE.

Whence do ye come, ye creature? Each of you Is perfect as an angel; wings and eyes Stupendous in their beauty--gorgeous dyes In feathery fields of purple and of blue!

Would G.o.d I saw a moment as ye do!

I would become a molecule in size, Rest with you, hum with you, or slanting rise Along your one dear sunbeam, could I view The pearly secret which each tiny fly, Each tiny fly that hums and bobs and stirs, Hides in its little breast eternally From you, ye p.r.i.c.kly grim philosophers, With all your theories that sound so high: Hark to the buzz a moment, my good sirs!

ON A WATERFALL.

Here stands a giant stone from whose far top Comes down the sounding water. Let me gaze Till every sense of man and human ways Is wrecked and quenched for ever, and I drop Into the whirl of time, and without stop Pa.s.s downward thus! Again my eyes I raise To thee, dark rock; and through the mist and haze My strength returns when I behold thy prop Gleam stern and steady through the wavering wrack Surely thy strength is human, and like me Thou bearest loads of thunder on thy back!

And, lo, a smile upon thy visage black-- A breezy tuft of gra.s.s which I can see Waving serenely from a sunlit crack!

Above my head the great pine-branches tower Backwards and forwards each to the other bends, Beckoning the tempest-cloud which hither wends Like a slow-laboured thought, heavy with power; Hark to the patter of the coming shower!

Let me be silent while the Almighty sends His thunder-word along; but when it ends I will arise and fas.h.i.+on from the hour Words of stupendous import, fit to guard High thoughts and purposes, which I may wave, When the temptation cometh close and hard, Like fiery brands betwixt me and the grave Of meaner things--to which I am a slave If evermore I keep not watch and ward.

I do remember how when very young, I saw the great sea first, and heard its swell As I drew nearer, caught within the spell Of its vast size and its mysterious tongue.

How the floor trembled, and the dark boat swung With a man in it, and a great wave fell Within a stone's cast! Words may never tell The pa.s.sion of the moment, when I flung All childish records by, and felt arise A thing that died no more! An awful power I claimed with trembling hands and eager eyes, Mine, mine for ever, an immortal dower.-- The noise of waters soundeth to this hour, When I look seaward through the quiet skies.

ON THE SOURCE OF THE ARVE.

Hear'st thou the dash of water loud and hoa.r.s.e With its perpetual tidings upward climb, Struggling against the wind? Oh, how sublime!

For not in vain from its portentous source, Thy heart, wild stream, hath yearned for its full force, But from thine ice-toothed caverns dark as time At last thou issuest, dancing to the rhyme Of thy outvolleying freedom! Lo, thy course Lies straight before thee as the arrow flies, Right to the ocean-plains. Away, away!

Thy parent waits thee, and her sunset dyes Are ruffled for thy coming, and the gray Of all her glittering borders flashes high Against the glittering rocks: oh, haste, and fly!

PART III.--HIS MANHOOD.