D. G. R. 1869.        

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• The blessed damozel leaned out
• From the gold bar of Heaven;
• Her eyes were deeper than the depth
• Of waters stilled at even;
• She had three lilies in her hand,
• And the stars in her hair were seven.

• Her robe, ungirt from clasp to hem,
• No wrought flowers did adorn,
• But a white rose of Mary's gift,
• 10 For service meetly worn;
• And her hair lying down her back
• Was yellow like ripe corn.

• Herseemed she scarce had been a day
• One of God's choristers;
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• The wonder was not yet quite gone
• From that still look of hers;
• Albeit, to them she left, her day
• Had counted as ten years.

• ( To one, it is ten years of years.
• 20 . . . Yet now, and in this place,
• Surely she leaned o'er me—her hair
• Fell all about my face. . . .
• Nothing: the autumn fall of leaves.
• The whole year sets apace.)

• It was the rampart of God's house
• That she was standing on;
• By God built over the sheer depth
• The which is Space begun;
• So high, that looking downward thence
• 30 She scarce could see the sun.

• It lies in Heaven, across the flood
• Of ether, as a bridge.
• Beneath, the tides of day and night
• With flame and darkness ridge
• The void, as low as where this earth
• Spins like a fretful midge.

• She scarcely heard her sweet new friends;
• Amid their loving games
• Softly they spake among themselves
• 40 Their virginal chaste names;
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• And the souls mounting up to God
• Went by her like thin flames.

• And still she bowed above the vast
• Waste sea of worlds that swarm;
• Until her bosom must have made
• The bar she leaned on warm,
• And the lilies lay as if asleep
• Along her bended arm.

• From the fixed place of Heaven she saw
• 50 Time like a pulse shake fierce
• Through all the worlds. Her gaze still strove
• Within the gulf to pierce
• Its path; and now she spoke as when
• The stars sang in their spheres.

• The sun was gone now; the curled moon
• Was like a little feather
• Fluttering far down the gulf; and now
• She spoke through the still weather.
• Her voice was like the voice the stars
• 60 Had when they sang together.

• ‘I wish that he were come to me,
• For he will come,’ she said.
• ‘Have I not prayed in Heaven?—on earth,
• Lord, Lord, has he not pray'd?
• Are not two prayers a perfect strength?
• And shall I feel afraid?

• ‘When round his head the aureole clings,
• And he is clothed in white,
• I'll take his hand and go with him
• 70 To the deep wells of light;
• We will step down as to a stream,
• And bathe there in God's sight.

• ‘We two will stand beside that shrine,
• Occult, withheld, untrod,
• Whose lamps are stirred continually
• With prayer sent up to God;
• And see our old prayers, granted, melt
• Each like a little cloud.

• ‘We two will lie i' the shadow of
• 80 That living mystic tree
• Within whose secret growth the Dove
• Is sometimes felt to be,
• While every leaf that his plumes touch
• Saith his name audibly.

• ‘And I myself will teach to him,
• I myself, lying so,
• The songs I sing here; which his voice
• Shall pause in, hushed and slow,
• And find some knowledge at each pause,
• 90 Or some new thing to know.’

• ( Ah Sweet! Just now, in that bird's song,
• Strove not her accents there,
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• Fain to be hearkened? When those bells
• Possessed the midday air,
• Was she not stepping to my side
• Down all the trembling stair?)

• ‘We two,’ she said, ‘will seek the groves
• Where the lady Mary is,
• With her five handmaidens, whose names
• 100 Are five sweet symphonies,
• Cecily, Gertrude, Magdalen,
• Margaret and Rosalys.

• ‘Circlewise sit they, with bound locks
• And foreheads garlanded;
• Into the fine cloth white like flame
• Weaving the golden thread,
• To fashion the birth-robes for them
• Who are just born, being dead.

• ‘He shall fear, haply, and be dumb:
• 110 Then will I lay my cheek
• To his, and tell about our love,
• Not once abashed or weak:
• And the dear Mother will approve
• My pride, and let me speak.

• ‘Herself shall bring us, hand in hand,
• To Him round whom all souls
• Kneel, the clear-ranged unnumbered heads
• Bowed with their aureoles:
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• And angels meeting us shall sing
• 120 To their citherns and citoles.

• ‘There will I ask of Christ the Lord
• Thus much for him and me:—
• Only to live as once on earth
• With Love,—only to be,
• As then awhile, for ever now
• Together, I and he.’

• She gazed and listened and then said,
• Less sad of speech than mild,—
• ‘All this is when he comes.’ She ceased.
• 130 The light thrilled towards her, fill'd
• With angels in strong level flight.
• Her eyes prayed, and she smil'd.

• ( I saw her smile). But soon their path
• Was vague in distant spheres:
• And then she cast her arms along
• The golden barriers,
• And laid her face between her hands,
• And wept. ( I heard her tears.)

   

• Master of the murmuring courts
• Where the shapes of sleep convene!—
• When among thy dim resorts
• This my soul in dreams hath been,
• What of her whom it hath seen?
• No reports
• From those jealous courts I glean.

• Vapourous, unaccountable,
• Low they stand, unknown to light,
• 10Hollow like a breathing shell.
• Ah! that in those halls I might
• Choose a dream for my delight!
• I know well
• What her sleep should tell to-night.

• There the dreams are multitudes:
• Some whose bouyance waits not sleep,
• Deep within the August woods;
• Some that hum while rest may steep
• Weary labour laid a-heap:
• 20 Interludes,
• Some, of grievous moods that weep.

• Thence are youth's warm fancies: there
• Women thrill with whisperings
• Valleys full of plaintive air;
• There breathe perfumes; there in rings
• Whirl the foam-bewildered springs;
• Siren there
• Winds her dizzy hair and sings.

• Thence the one dream mutually
• 30 Dreamed in bridal unison,
• Less than waking ecstasy;
• Half-formed visions that make moan
• In the house of birth alone;
• And what we
• At death's wicket see, unknown.

• But for mine own sleep, it lies
• In one gracious form's control,
• Fair with honorable eyes,
• Lamps of an auspicious soul:
• 40 O their glance is loftiest dole,
• Sweet and wise,
• Wherein Love descries his goal.

• Reft of her, my dreams are all
• Clammy trance that fears the sky:
• Changing footpaths shift and fall;
• From polluted coverts nigh,
• Miserable phantoms sigh;
• Quakes the pall,
• And the funeral goes by.

• 50As, since man waxed deathly wise,
• Secret somewhere on this earth
• Unpermitted Eden lies,—
• Thus within the world's wide girth
• Hides she from my spirit's dearth,—
• Paradise
• Of a love that cries for birth.

• Master, it is soothly said
• That, as echoes of man's speech
• Far in secret clefts are made,
• 60 So do all men's bodies reach
• Shadows o'er thy sunken beach,—
• Shape or shade
• In those halls pourtrayed of each?

• Ah! might I, by thy good grace
• Groping in the windy stair,
• (Darkness and the breath of space
• Like loud waters everywhere,)
• Meeting mine own image there
• Face to face,
• 70 Send it from that place to her!

• Nay, not I; but oh! do thou,
• Master, from thy shadowkind
• Call my body's phantom now:
• Bid it bear its face declin'd
• Till its flight her slumbers find,
• And her brow
• Feel its presence bow like wind.

• Where in groves the gracile Spring
• Trembles, with mute orison
• 80Confidently strengthening,
• Water's voice and wind's as one
• Shed an echo in the sun,
• Soft as Spring,
• Master, bid it sing and moan.

• Song shall tell how glad and strong
• Is the night she soothes alway;
• Moan shall grieve with that parched tongue
• Of the brazen hours of day:
• Sounds as of the springtide they,
• 90 Moan and song,
• While the chill months long for May.

• Not the prayers which with all leave
• The world's fluent woes prefer,—
• Not the praise the world doth give,
• Dulcet fulsome whisperer;—
• Let it yield man's love to her,
• And achieve
• Strength that shall not grieve or err.

• Wheresoe'er my sleep befall,
• 100 Both at night-watch, (let it say,)
• And where round the sundial
• The reluctant hours of day,
• Heartless, hopeless of their way,
• Rest and call;—
• There her glance doth fall and stay.

   

• Where in groves the gracile Spring
• Trembles, with mute orison
• Confidently strengthening,
• Water's voice and wind's as one
• Shed an echo in the sun,
• Soft as Spring,
• Master, bid it sing and moan.

• Song shall tell how glad and strong
• Is the night she soothes alway;
• 10Moan shall grieve with that parched tongue
• Of the brazen hours of day:
• Sounds as of the springtide they,
• Moan and song,
• While the chill months long for May.

• Not the prayers which with all leave
• The world's fluent woes prefer,—
• Not the praise the world doth give,
• Dulcet fulsome whisperer;—
• Let it yield man's love to her,
• 20 And achieve
• Strength that shall not grieve or err.

• Wheresoe'er my sleep befall,
• Both at night-watch, (let it say,)
• And where round the sundial
• The reluctant hours of day,
• Heartless, hopeless of their way,
• Rest and call;—
• There her glance doth fall and stay.

   

• Suddenly her face is there:
• So do mounting vapours wreathe
• Subtle-scented transports where
• The black firwood sets its teeth.
• 110 Part the boughs and look beneath,—
• Lilies share
• Secret waters there, and breathe.

• Master, bid my shadow bend
• Whispering thus till birth of light,
• Lest new shapes that sleep may send
• Scatter all its work to flight;—
• Master, master of the night,
• Bid it spend
• Speech, song, prayer, and end aright.

• 120Yet, ah me! if at her head
• There another phantom lean
• Murmuring o'er the fragrant bed,—
• Ah! and if my spirit's queen
• Smile those alien prayers between,—
• Ah! poor shade!
• Shall it strive, or fade unseen?

• Like a vapour wan and mute,
• Like a flame, so let it pass;
• One low sigh across her lute,
• 130 One dull breath against her glass;
• And to my sad soul, alas!
• One salute
• Cold as when death's foot shall pass.

• How should love's own messenger
• Strive with love and be love's foe?
• Master, nay! If thus in her,
• Sleep a wedded heart should show,—
• Silent let mine image go,
• Its old share
• 140 Of thy sunken air to know.

• Then, too, let all hopes of mine,
• All vain hopes by night and day,
• Master, at thy summoning sign
• Rise up pallid and obey.
• Dreams, if this is thus, were they:—
• Be they thine,
• And to dreamland pine away.

• (So, when some lost legion lies
• Ambushed where no help appears,—
• 150All night long their unseen eyes
• Watching for the growth of spears,—
• Like their ghosts, when morning nears,
• Dumb they rise,
• Ready without sighs or tears.)

• Yet from old time, life, not death,
• Master, in thy rule is rife:
• Lo! through thee, with mingling breath,
• Adam woke beside his wife.
• O Love bring me so, for strife,
• 160 Force and faith,
• Bring me so not death but life!

• Yea, to Love himself is pour'd
• This frail song of hope and fear.
• Thou art Love, of one accord
• With kind Sleep to bring her here,
• Still-eyed, deep-eyed, ah how dear!
• Master, Lord,
• In her name implor'd, O hear!

   

• His bloodied banner crossed his mouth
• Where he had kissed her name.
• ‘O east, and west, and north, and south,
• Fair flew my web, for shame,
• 150 To guide Death's aim!’

• The tints were shredded from his shield
• Where he had kissed her face.
• ‘Oh, of all gifts that I could yield,
• Death only keeps its place,
• My gift and grace!’

• Then stepped a damsel to her side,
• And spake, and needs must weep:
• ‘For his sake, lady, if he died,
• He prayed of thee to keep
• 160 This staff and scrip.’

• That night they hung above her bed,
• Till morning wet with tears.
• Year after year above her head
• Her bed his token wears,
• Five years, ten years.

• That night the passion of her grief
• Shook them as there they hung.
• Each year the wind that shed the leaf
• Shook them and in its tongue
• 170 A message flung.

• And she would wake with a clear mind
• That letters writ to calm
• Her soul lay in the scrip; and find
• Only a torpid balm
• And dust of palm.

• They shook far off with palace sport
• When joust and dance were rife;
• And the hunt shook them from the court;
• For hers, in peace or strife,
• 180 Was a Queen's life.

• A Queen's death now: as now they shake
• To chaunts in chapel dim,—
• Hung where she sleeps, not seen to wake,
• (Carved lovely white and slim),
• With them by him.

• Stand up to-day, still armed, with her,
• Good knight, before His brow
• Who then as now was here and there,
• Who had in mind thy vow
• 190 Then even as now.

• The lists are set in Heaven to-day,
• The bright pavilions shine;
• Fair hangs thy shield, and none gainsay;
• The trumpets sound in sign
• That she is thine.

• Not tithed with days' and years' decease
• He pays thy wage He owed,
• But with imperishable peace
• Here in His own abode,
• 200 Thy jealous God.

   

• ‘O have you seen the Stratton flood
• That's great with rain to-day?
• It runs beneath your wall, Lord Sands,
• Full of the new-mown hay.

• ‘I led your hounds to Hutton bank
• To bathe at early morn:
• They got their bath by Borrowbrake
• Above the standing corn.’

• Out from the castle-stair Lord Sands
• 10 Looked up the western lea;
• The rook was grieving on her nest,
• The flood was round her tree.

• Over the castle-wall Lord Sands
• Looked down the eastern hill:
• The stakes swam free among the boats,
• The flood was rising still.

• ‘What's yonder far below that lies
• So white against the slope?’
• ‘O it's a sail o' your bonny barks
• 20 The waters have washed up.

• ‘But I have never a sail so white,
• And the water's not yet there.’
• ‘O it's the swans o' your bonny lake
• The rising flood doth scare.’

• ‘The swans they would not hold so still,
• So high they would not win.’
• ‘O it's Joyce my wife has spread her smock
• And fears to fetch it in.’

• ‘Nay, knave, it's neither sail nor swans,
• 30 Nor aught that you can say;
• For though your wife might leave her smock,
• Herself she'd bring away.’

• Lord Sands has passed the turret-stair,
• The court, and yard, and all;
• The kine were in the byre that day,
• The nags were in the stall.

• Lord Sands has won the weltering slope
• Whereon the white shape lay:
• The clouds were still above the hill,
• 40 And the shape was still as they.

• Oh pleasant is the gaze of life
• And sad death's sightless head;
• But awful are the living eyes
• In the face of one thought dead.

• ‘O Jean! and is it me, thy love,
• Thy ghost has come to seek?’

   

• ‘But I have never a sail so white,
• And the water's not yet there.’
• ‘O it's the swans o' your bonny lake
• The rising flood doth scare.’

• ‘The swans they would not hold so still,
• So high they would not win.’
• ‘O it's Joyce my wife has spread her smock
• And fears to fetch it in.’

• ‘Nay, knave, it's neither sail nor swans,
• 10 Nor aught that you can say;
• For though your wife might leave her smock,
• Herself she'd bring away.’

• Lord Sands has passed the turret-stair,
• The court, and yard, and all;
• The kine were in the byre that day,
• The nags were in the stall.

• Lord Sands has won the weltering slope
• Whereon the white shape lay:
• The clouds were still above the hill,
• 20 And the shape was still as they.

• Oh pleasant is the gaze of life
• And sad death's sightless head;
• But awful are the living eyes
• In the face of one thought dead.

• ‘O Jean! and is it me, thy love,
• Thy ghost has come to seek?’

   

• ‘Nay, wait another hour, Lord Sands,
• And then my ghost shall speak.’

• A moment stood he as a stone,
• 50 Then grovelled to his knee.
• ‘O Jean, O Jean my love, O love,
• Rise up and come with me!’
• ‘O once before you bade me come,
• And it's here you have brought me!

• ‘O many's the sweet word of love
• You've spoken oft to me;
• But all that I have from you to-day
• Is the rain on my body.

• ‘And many are the gifts of love
• 60 You've promised oft to me;
• But the gift of yours I keep to-day
• Is the babe in my body.

• ‘O it's not in any earthly bed
• That first my babe I'll see;
• For I have brought my body here
• That the flood may cover me.’

• His face was close against her face,
• His hands of hers were fain:
• O her wet cheeks were hot with tears,
• 70 Her wet hands cold with rain.

• ‘Now keep you well, my brother Hugh,—
• You told me she was dead!
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• As wan as your towers be to-day,
• To-morrow they'll be red.

• ‘Look down, look down, my false mother,
• That bade me not to grieve:
• You'll look up when our marriage fires
• Are lit to-morrow eve.

• ‘O more than one and more than two
• 80 The sorrow of this shall see:
• But it's to-morrow, love, for them,—
• To-day's for thee and me.’

• He's drawn her face between his hands
• And her pale mouth to his:
• No bird that was so still that day
• Chirps sweeter than his kiss.

• He's ta'en her by the short girdle
• And by the dripping sleeve:
• ‘Go fetch Sir Jock my mother's priest,—
• 90 You'll ask of him no leave.

• ‘O it's yet ten minutes to the kirk
• And ten for the marriage-rite;
• And kirk and castle and castle-lands
• Shall be our babe's to-night.’

• ‘The flood's in the kirkyard, Lord Sands,
• And round the belfry-stair.’
• ‘I bade ye fetch the priest,’ he said,
• Myself shall bring him there.

• ‘It's for the lilt of wedding bells
• 100 We'll have the rain to pour,
• And for the clink of bridle-reins
• The plashing of the oar.’

• Beneath them on the nether hill
• A boat was floating wide:
• Lord Sands swam out and caught the oars
• And backed to the hill-side.

• He's wrapped her in a green mantle,
• And set her softly in.
• And ‘Oh!’ she said, ‘lie still, my babe,
• 110 It's out you must not win!’
• But woe was with the bonny priest
• When the water splashed his chin.

• The first strokes that the oars struck
• Were over the broad leas;
• The next strokes that the oars struck
• They pushed beneath the trees;

• The last stroke that the oars struck,
• The good boat's head was met,
• And there the door of the kirkyard
• 120 Stood like a ferry-gate.

• He's set his hand upon the bar
• And lightly leaped within:
• He's lifted her to his left shoulder,
• Her knees beside his chin.

• The flood was on the graves knee-deep,
• As still the rain came down;
• And when the foot-stone made him slip,
• He held by the head-stone.

• The empty boat thrawed i' the wind,
• 130 Against the postern tied.
• ‘Hold still, you've brought my love with me,
• You shall take back my bride.’

• And ‘Oh!’ she said, ‘on men's shoulders
• I well had thought to wend,
• And well to travel with a priest,
• But not to have cared or kend.

• ‘And oh!’ she said, ‘it's well this way
• That I thought to have fared,—
• Not to have lighted at the kirk
• 140 But stopped in the kirkyard.

• ‘For it's oh and oh I prayed to God,
• Whose rest I hoped to win,
• That when to-night at your board-head
• You'd bid the feast begin,
• This water past your window-sill
• Might bear my body in.’

• Now make the white bed warm and soft
• And greet the merry morn.
• The night the mother should have died
• 150 The young son shall be born.

       

• Water, for anguish of the solstice:—nay,
• But dip the vessel slowly,—nay, but lean
• And mark how at its verge the wave sighs in
• Reluctant. Hush! Beyond all depth away
• The heat lies silent at the brink of day:
• Now trails the hand upon the viol-string
• That sobs, and the brown faces cease to sing,
• Sad with the whole of pleasure. Her eyes stray
• In sunset; from her mouth the pipe doth creep
• 10 And leaves it pouting; shadowed here, the grass
• Is cool against her naked side. Let be:—
• Do not now speak unto her, lest she weep,
• Nor name this ever. Be it as it was,—
• Life touching lips with Immortality.

   

• Scarcely, I think; yet it indeed may be
• The meaning reached him, when this music rang
• Clear through his frame, a sweet possessive pang,
• And he beheld these rocks and that ridged sea.
• But I believe that, leaning tow'rds them, he
• Just felt their hair carried across his face
• As each girl passed him; nor gave ear to trace
• How many feet; nor bent assuredly
• His eyes from the blind fixedness of thought
• 10 To know the dancers. It is bitter glad
• Even unto tears. Its meaning filleth it,
• A secret of the wells of Life: to wit:—
• The heart's each pulse shall keep the sense it had
• With all, though the mind's labour run to nought.

       

• A remote sky, prolonged to the sea's brim:
• One rock-point standing buffeted alone,
• Vexed at its base with a foul beast unknown,
• Hell-spurge of geomaunt and teraphim:
• A knight, and a winged creature bearing him,
• Reared at the rock: a woman fettered there,
• Leaning into the hollow with loose hair
• And throat let back and heartsick trail of limb.

• The sky is harsh, and the sea shrewd and salt:
• 10 Under his lord the griffin-horse ramps blind
• With rigid wings and tail. The spear's lithe stem
• Thrills in the roaring of those jaws: behind,
• That evil length of body chafes at fault.
• She doth not hear nor see—she knows of them.

   

• Clench thine eyes now,—'tis the last instant, girl:
• Draw in thy senses, set thy knees, and take
• One breath for all: thy life is keen awake,—
• Thou mayst not swoon. Was that the scattered whirl
• Of its foam drenched thee?—or the waves that curl
• And split, bleak spray wherein thy temples ache?
• Or was it his the champion's blood to flake
• Thy flesh?—or thine own blood's anointing, girl?

• Now, silence: for the sea's is such a sound
• 10 As irks not silence; and except the sea,
• All now is still. Now the dead thing doth cease
• To writhe, and drifts. He turns to her: and she,
• Cast from the jaws of Death, remains there, bound,
• Again a woman in her nakedness.

   

• Of Adam's first wife, Lilith, it is told
• (The witch he loved before the gift of Eve,)
• That, ere the snake's, her sweet tongue could deceive,
• And her enchanted hair was the first gold.
• And still she sits, young while the earth is old,
• And, subtly of herself contemplative,
• Draws men to watch the bright net she can weave,
• Till heart and body and life are in its hold.

• The rose and poppy are her flowers; for where
• 10 Is he not found, O Lilith, whom shed scent
• And soft-shed kisses and soft sleep shall snare?
• Lo! as that youth's eyes burned at thine, so went
• Thy spell through him, and left his straight neck bent,
• And round his heart one strangling golden hair.

       

• Eat thou and drink; to-morrow thou shalt die.
• Surely the earth, that's wise being very old,
• Needs not our help. Then loose me, love, and hold
• Thy sultry hair up from my face; that I
• May pour for thee this yellow wine, brim-high,
• Till round the glass thy fingers glow like gold.
• We'll hear no hours: thy song, while hours are toll'd,
• Shall leap, as fountains veil the changing sky.

• A jest! Conceive! Why, there are really those,
• 10 My own high-bosomed lady, who increase
• Vain gold, vain lore, in reach of our true wealth!
• Eleven long days they toil: upon the twelfth
• They die not,—never having lived,—but cease;
• And round their narrow lips the mould falls close.

   

• Watch thou and fear; to-morrow thou shalt die.
• Or art thou sure thou shalt have time for death?
• Is not the day which God's word promiseth
• To come man knows not when? In yonder sky,
• Now while we speak, the sun sets forth: Can I
• Or thou assure him of his goal? God's breath
• Perchance even at this moment quickeneth
• The air to a flame; till spirits, always nigh
• Though screened and hid, shall walk the daylight here.
• 10 And dost thou prate of that which man shall do?
• Canst thou, who hast but plagues, presume to be
• Glad in his gladness that comes after thee?
• Will his strength slay thy worm in Hell? Go to:
• Cover thy countenance, and watch, and fear.

   

• Think thou and act; to-morrow thou shalt die.
• Stretching thyself i' the sun upon the shore,
• Thou say'st: ‘Man's measured path is all gone o'er:
• Up all his years, steeply, with pant and sigh,
• Man clomb until he touched the truth; and I,
• Even I, am he whom it was destined for.’
• How should this be? Art thou then so much more
• Than they who sowed, that thou shouldst reap thereby?

• Nay, come up hither. From this wave-washed mound
• 10 Unto the horizon-brim look thou with me;
• Then reach on with thy thought till it be drown'd.
• Miles and miles distant though the horizon be,
• And though thy thought sail leagues and leagues beyond,—
• Still, leagues beyond those leagues, there is more sea.

       

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