Part 12

In a little peace, in a little peace, Thou dost rebate thy rigid purposes Of imposed being, and relenting, mend’st Too much, with nought. The westering Phoebus’ horse Paws i’ the lucent dust as when he shocked The East with rising; O how may I trace In this decline that morning when we did Sport ’twixt the claws of newly-whelped existence, Which had not yet learned rending? we did then Divinely stand, not knowing yet against us Sentence had passed of life, nor commutation Petitioning into death. What’s he that of The Free State argues? Tellus! bid him stoop, Even where the low hic jacet answers him; Thus low, O Man! there’s freedom’s seignory, Tellus’ most reverend sole free commonweal, And model deeply-policied: there none Stands on precedence, nor ambitiously Woos the impartial worm, whose favours kiss With liberal largesse all; there each is free To be e’en what he must, which here did strive So much to be he could not; there all do Their uses just, with no flown questioning. To be took by the hand of equal earth They doff her livery, slip to the worm, Which lacqueys them, their suits of maintenance, And that soiled workaday apparel cast, Put on condition: Death’s ungentle buffet Alone makes ceremonial manumission; So are the heavenly statutes set, and those Uranian tables of the primal Law. In a little peace, in a little peace, Like fierce beasts that a common thirst makes brothers, We draw together to one hid dark lake; In a little peace, in a little peace, We drain with all our burthens of dishonour Into the cleansing sands o’ the thirsty grave. The fiery pomps, brave exhalations, And all the glistering shows o’ the seeming world, Which the sight aches at, we unwinking see Through the smoked glass of Death; Death, wherewith’s fined The muddy wine of life; that earth doth purge Of her plethora of man; Death, that doth flush The cumbered gutters of humanity; Nothing, of nothing king, with front uncrowned, Whose hand holds crownets; playmate swart o’ the strong; Tenebrous moon that flux and refluence draws Of the high-tided man; skull-housèd asp That stings the heel of kings; true Fount of Youth, Where he that dips is deathless; being’s drone-pipe; Whose nostril turns to blight the shrivelled stars, And thicks the lusty breathing of the sun; Pontifical Death, that doth the crevasse bridge To the steep and trifid God; one mortal birth That broker is of immortality. Under this dreadful brother uterine, This kinsman feared, Tellus, behold me come, Thy son stern-nursed; who mortal-motherlike, To turn thy weanlings’ mouth averse, embitter’st Thine over-childed breast. Now, mortal-sonlike, I thou hast suckled, Mother, I at last Shall sustenant be to thee. Here I untrammel, Here I pluck loose the body’s cerementing, And break the tomb of life; here I shake off The bur o’ the world, man’s congregation shun, And to the antique order of the dead I take the tongueless vows: my cell is set Here in thy bosom; my little trouble is ended In a little peace.

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS

‘EX ORE INFANTIUM’

LITTLE Jesus, wast Thou shy Once, and just so small as I? And what did it feel like to be Out of Heaven, and just like me? Didst Thou sometimes think of there, And ask where all the angels were? I should think that I would cry For my house all made of sky; I would look about the air, And wonder where my angels were; And at waking ’twould distress me— Not an angel there to dress me! Hadst Thou ever any toys, Like us little girls and boys? And didst Thou play in Heaven with all The angels that were not too tall, With stars for marbles? Did the things Play Can you see me? through their wings? And did Thy Mother let Thee spoil Thy robes, with playing on our soil? How nice to have them always new In Heaven, because ’twas quite clean blue!

Didst Thou kneel at night to pray, And didst Thou join Thy hands, this way? And did they tire sometimes, being young, And make the prayer seem very long? And dost Thou like it best, that we Should join our hands to pray to Thee? I used to think, before I knew, The prayer not said unless we do. And did Thy Mother at the night Kiss Thee, and fold the clothes in right? And didst Thou feel quite good in bed, Kissed, and sweet, and thy prayers said?

Thou canst not have forgotten all That it feels like to be small: And Thou know’st I cannot pray To Thee in my father’s way— When Thou wast so little, say, Couldst Thou talk Thy Father’s way?— So, a little Child, come down And hear a child’s tongue like Thy own; Take me by the hand and walk, And listen to my baby-talk. To Thy Father show my prayer (He will look, Thou art so fair), And say: ‘O Father, I, Thy Son, Bring the prayer of a little one.’

And He will smile, that children’s tongue Has not changed since Thou wast young!

A QUESTION

O BIRD with heart of wassail, That toss the Bacchic branch, And slip your shaken music, An elfin avalanche;

Come tell me, O tell me, My poet of the blue! What’s your thought of me, Sweet?— Here’s my thought of you.

A small thing, a wee thing, A brown fleck of nought; With winging and singing That who could have thought?

A small thing, a wee thing, A brown amaze withal, That fly a pitch more azure Because you’re so small.

Bird, I’m a small thing— My angel descries; With winging and singing That who could surmise?

Ah, small things, ah, wee things, Are the poets all, Whose tour’s the more azure Because they’re so small.

The angels hang watching The tiny men-things:— ‘The dear speck of flesh, see, With such daring wings!

‘Come, tell us, O tell us, Thou strange mortality! What’s thy thought of us, Dear?— Here’s our thought of thee.’

‘Alack! you tall angels, I can’t think so high! I can’t think what it feels like Not to be I.’

Come tell me, O tell me, My poet of the blue! What’s your thought of me, Sweet?— Here’s my thought of you.

FIELD-FLOWER

A PHANTASY

GOD took a fit of Paradise-wind, A slip of coerule weather, A thought as simple as Himself, And ravelled them together. Unto His eyes He held it there, To teach it gazing debonair With memory of what, perdie, A God’s young innocences were. His fingers pushed it through the sod— It came up redolent of God, Garrulous of the eyes of God To all the breezes near it; Musical of the mouth of God To all had eyes to hear it; Mystical with the mirth of God, That glow-like did ensphere it. And—‘Babble! babble! babble!’ said; ‘I’ll tell the whole world one day!’ There was no blossom half so glad, Since sun of Christ’s first Sunday.

A poet took a flaw of pain, A hap of skiey pleasure, A thought had in his cradle lain, And mingled them in measure. That chrism he laid upon his eyes, And lips, and heart, for euphrasies, That he might see, feel, sing, perdie, The simple things that are the wise. Beside the flower he held his ways, And leaned him to it gaze for gaze— He took its meaning, gaze for gaze, As baby looks on baby; Its meaning passed into his gaze, Native as meaning may be; He rose with all his shining gaze As children’s eyes at play be. And—‘Babble! babble! babble!’ said; ‘I’ll tell the whole world one day!’ There was no poet half so glad, Since man grew God that Sunday.

THE CLOUD’S SWAN-SONG

THERE is a parable in the pathless cloud, There’s prophecy in heaven,—they did not lie, The Chaldee shepherds; sealèd from the proud, To cheer the weighted heart that mates the seeing eye.

A lonely man, oppressed with lonely ills, And all the glory fallen from my song, Here do I walk among the windy hills, The wind and I keep both one monotoning tongue.

Like grey clouds one by one my songs upsoar Over my soul’s cold peaks; and one by one They loose their little rain, and are no more; And whether well or ill, to tell me there is none.

For ’tis an alien tongue, of alien things, From all men’s care, how miserably apart! Even my friends say: ‘Of what is this he sings?’ And barren is my song, and barren is my heart.

For who can work, unwitting his work’s worth? Better, meseems, to know the work for naught, Turn my sick course back to the kindly earth, And leave to ampler plumes the jetting tops of thought.