Part 7

See in highest heaven pavilioned Now the maiden Heaven rest, The many-breasted sky out-millioned By the splendours of her vest. Lo, the Ark this holy tide is The un-handmade Temple’s guest, And the dark Egyptian bride is Whitely to the Spouse-Heart prest! He the Anteros and Eros, Nail me to Thee, sweetest Cross! He is fast to me, Ischyros, Agios Athanatos!

‘Tell me, tell me, O Belovèd, Where Thou dost in mid-day feed! For my wanderings are reprovèd, And my heart is salt with need.’ ‘Thine own self not spellest God in, Nor the lisping papyrus reed? Follow where the flocks have trodden, Follow where the shepherds lead.’ He, the Anteros and Eros, Mounts me in Ægyptic car, Twin-yoked; leading me, Ischyros, Trembling to the untempted Far.

‘Make me chainlets, silvern, golden, I that sow shall surely reap; While as yet my Spouse is holden Like a Lion in mountained sleep.’ ‘Make her chainlets, silvern, golden, She hath sown and she shall reap; Look up to the mountains olden, Whence help comes with lioned leap.’ By what gushed the bitter Spear on, Pain, which sundered, maketh one; Crucified to Him, Ischyron, Agion Athanaton!

Then commanded and spake to me He who framed all things that be; And my Maker entered through me, In my tent His rest took He. Lo! He standeth, Spouse and Brother; I to Him, and He to me, Who upraised me where my mother Fell, beneath the apple-tree. Risen ’twixt Anteros and Eros, Blood and Water, Moon and Sun, He upbears me, He Ischyros, I bear Him, the Athanaton!

Where is laid the Lord arisen? In the light we walk in gloom; Though the sun has burst his prison, We know not his biding-room. Tell us where the Lord sojourneth, For we find an empty tomb. ‘Whence He sprung, there He returneth, Mystic Sun,—the Virgin’s Womb.’ Hidden Sun, His beams so near us, Cloud enpillared as He was From of old, there He, Ischyros, Waits our search, Athanatos.

Who will give Him me for brother, Counted of my family, Sucking the sweet breasts of my Mother?— I His flesh, and mine is He; To my Bread myself the bread is, And my Wine doth drink me: see, His left hand beneath my head is, His right hand embraceth me! Sweetest Anteros and Eros, Lo, her arms He leans across; Dead that we die not, stooped to rear us, Thanatos Athanatos.

Who is She, in candid vesture, Rushing up from out the brine? Treading with resilient gesture Air, and with that Cup divine? She in us and we in her are, Beating Godward: all that pine, Lo, a wonder and a terror! The Sun hath blushed the Sea to Wine! He the Anteros and Eros, She the Bride and Spirit; for Now the days of promise near us, And the Sea shall be no more.

Open wide thy gates, O Virgin, That the King may enter thee! At all gates the clangours gurge in, God’s paludament lightens, see! Camp of Angels! Well we even Of this thing may doubtful be,— If thou art assumed to Heaven, Or is Heaven assumed to thee! Consummatum. Christ the promised, Thy maiden realm is won, O Strong! Since to such sweet Kingdom comest, Remember me, poor Thief of Song!

Cadent fails the stars along:— Mortals, that behold a woman Rising ’twixt the Moon and Sun; Who am I the heavens assume? an All am I, and I am one.

THE AFTER WOMAN

DAUGHTER of the ancient Eve, We know the gifts ye gave—and give. Who knows the gifts which you shall give, Daughter of the newer Eve? You, if my soul be augur, you Shall—O what shall you not, Sweet, do? The celestial traitress play, And all mankind to bliss betray; With sacrosanct cajoleries And starry treachery of your eyes, Tempt us back to Paradise! Make heavenly trespass;—ay, press in Where faint the fledge-foot seraphin, Blest Fool! Be ensign of our wars, And shame us all to warriors! Unbanner your bright locks,—advance Girl, their gilded puissance, I’ the mystic vaward, and draw on After the lovely gonfalon Us to out-folly the excess Of your sweet foolhardiness; To adventure like intense Assault against Omnipotence!

Give me song, as She is, new, Earth should turn in time thereto! New, and new, and thrice so new, All old sweets, New Sweet, meant you! Fair, I had a dream of thee, When my young heart beat prophecy, And in apparition elate Thy little breasts knew waxèd great, Sister of the Canticle, And thee for God grown marriageable. How my desire desired your day, That, wheeled in rumour on its way, Shook me thus with presentience! Then Eden’s lopped tree shall shoot again: For who Christ’s eyes shall miss, with those Eyes for evident nuncios? Or who be tardy to His call In your accents augural?

Who shall not feel the Heavens hid Impend, at tremble of your lid, And divine advent shine avowed Under that dim and lucid cloud; Yea, ’fore the silver apocalypse Fail, at the unsealing of your lips? When to love you is (O Christ’s Spouse!) To love the beauty of His house; Then come the Isaian days; the old Shall dream; and our young men behold Vision—yea, the vision of Thabor mount, Which none to other shall recount, Because in all men’s hearts shall be The seeing and the prophecy. For ended is the Mystery Play, When Christ is life, and you the way; When Egypt’s spoils are Israel’s right, And Day fulfils the married arms of Night. But here my lips are still. Until You and the hour shall be revealed, This song is sung and sung not, and its words are sealed.

GRACE OF THE WAY

‘MY brother!’ spake she to the sun; The kindred kisses of the stars Were hers; her feet were set upon The moon. If slumber solved the bars

Of sense, or sense transpicuous grown Fulfillèd seeing unto sight, I know not; nor if ’twas my own Ingathered self that made her night.

The windy trammel of her dress, Her blown locks, took my soul in mesh; God’s breath they spake, with visibleness That stirred the raiment of her flesh:

And sensible, as her blown were, Beyond the precincts of her form I felt the woman flow from her— A calm of intempestuous storm.

I failed against the affluent tide; Out of this abject earth of me I was translated and enskied Into the heavenly-regioned She.

Now of that vision I bereaven This knowledge keep, that may not dim:— Short arm needs man to reach to Heaven, So ready is Heaven to stoop to him.

Which sets, to measure of man’s feet, No alien Tree for trysting-place; And who can read, may read the sweet Direction in his Lady’s face.

And pass and pass the daily crowd, Unwares, occulted Paradise; Love the lost plot cries silver-loud, Nor any know the tongue he cries.

The light is in the darkness, and The darkness doth not comprehend: God hath no haste; and God’s sons stand Yet a Day, tarrying for the end.

Dishonoured Rahab still hath hid, Yea still, within her house of shame, The messengers by Jesus bid Forerun the coming of His Name.

The Word was flesh, and crucified, From the beginning, and blasphemed: Its profaned raiment men divide, Damned by what, reverenced, had redeemed.

Thy Lady, was thy heart not blind, One hour gave to thy witless trust The key thou go’st about to find; And thou hast dropped it in the dust.

Of her, the Way’s one mortal grace, Own, save thy seeing be all forgot, That truly, God was in this place, And thou, unblessèd, knew’st it not.

But some have eyes, and will not see; And some would see, and have not eyes; And fail the tryst, yet find the Tree, And take the lesson for the prize.