Part 7

Never a chief in Saintdom was, * but turned him from the Poet then; Never an eye looked mild on him * ’mid all the angel myriads ten, Save sinless Mary, and sinful Mary *—the Mary titled Magdalen.

“Turn yon robe,” spake Magdalen, * “of torn bright song, and see and feel.” They turned the raiment, saw and felt * what their turning did reveal— All the inner surface piled * with bloodied hairs, like hairs of steel.

“Take, I pray, yon chaplet up, * thrown down ruddied from his head.” They took the roseal chaplet up, * and they stood astonishèd: Every leaf between their fingers, * as they bruised it, burst and bled.

“See his torn flesh through those rents; * see the punctures round his hair, As if the chaplet-flowers had driven * deep roots in to nourish there— Lord, who gav’st him robe and wreath, * what was this Thou gav’st for wear?”

“Fetch forth the Paradisal garb!” * spake the Father, sweet and low; Drew them both by the frightened hand * where Mary’s throne made irised bow— “Take, Princess Mary, of thy good grace, * two spirits greater than they know.”

* * * * *

EPILOGUE.

VIRTUE may unlock hell, or even A sin turn in the wards of Heaven, (As ethics of the text-book go), So little men their own deeds know, Or through the intricate mêlée Guess whitherward draws the battle-sway; So little, if they know the deed, Discern what therefrom shall succeed. To wisest moralists ’tis but given To work rough border-law of Heaven, Within this narrow life of ours, These marches ’twixt delimitless Powers. Is it, if Heaven the future showed, Is it the all-severest mode To see ourselves with the eyes of God? God rather grant, at His assize, He see us not with our own eyes!

Heaven, which man’s generations draws Nor deviates into replicas, Must of as deep diversity In judgment as creation be. There is no expeditious road To pack and label men for God, And save them by the barrel-load. Some may perchance, with strange surprise, Have blundered into Paradise. In vasty dusk of life abroad, They fondly thought to err from God, Nor knew the circle that they trod; And wandering all the night about, Found them at morn where they set out. Death dawned; Heaven lay in prospect wide:— Lo! they were standing by His side!

The rhymer a life uncomplex, With just such cares as mortals vex, So simply felt as all men feel, Lived purely out to his soul’s weal. A double life the Poet lived, And with a double burthen grieved; The life of flesh and life of song, The pangs to both lives that belong; Immortal knew and mortal pain, Who in two worlds could lose and gain. And found immortal fruits must be Mortal through his mortality. The life of flesh and life of song! If one life worked the other wrong, What expiating agony May for him damned to poesy Shut in that little sentence be— What deep austerities of strife— “He lived his life.” He lived his life!

Poems on Children.

DAISY.

WHERE the thistle lifts a purple crown Six foot out of the turf, And the harebell shakes on the windy hill— O the breath of the distant surf!—

The hills look over on the South, And southward dreams the sea; And, with the sea-breeze hand in hand, Came innocence and she.

Where ’mid the gorse the raspberry Red for the gatherer springs, Two children did we stray and talk Wise, idle, childish things.

She listened with big-lipped surprise, Breast-deep mid flower and spine: Her skin was like a grape, whose veins Run snow instead of wine.

She knew not those sweet words she spake, Nor knew her own sweet way; But there’s never a bird, so sweet a song Thronged in whose throat that day!

Oh, there were flowers in Storrington On the turf and on the spray; But the sweetest flower on Sussex hills Was the Daisy-flower that day!

Her beauty smoothed earth’s furrowed face! She gave me tokens three:— A look, a word of her winsome mouth, And a wild raspberry.

A berry red, a guileless look, A still word,—strings of sand! And yet they made my wild, wild heart Fly down to her little hand.

For standing artless as the air, And candid as the skies, She took the berries with her hand, And the love with her sweet eyes.

The fairest things have fleetest end: Their scent survives their close, But the rose’s scent is bitterness To him that loved the rose!

She looked a little wistfully, Then went her sunshine way:— The sea’s eye had a mist on it, And the leaves fell from the day.

She went her unremembering way, She went and left in me The pang of all the partings gone, And partings yet to be.

She left me marvelling why my soul Was sad that she was glad; At all the sadness in the sweet, The sweetness in the sad.

Still, still I seemed to see her, still Look up with soft replies, And take the berries with her hand, And the love with her lovely eyes.

Nothing begins, and nothing ends, That is not paid with moan; For we are born in other’s pain, And perish in our own.

THE MAKING OF VIOLA.