A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems | Page 7

increased,
For all the change of tempests, all the fret
Of frost or fire,
keen fraud or force released,
Wherewith the world once wasted
knows not yet
If evil or good lit all the darkling east
From the
ardent moon of sovereign Mahomet.
Sublime in work and will
The song sublimer still
Salutes him, ere
the splendour shrink and set;
Then with imperious eye
And wing that sounds the sky
Soars and
sees risen as ghosts in concourse met
The old world's seven elder
wonders, firm
As dust and fixed as shadows, weaker than the worm.
XII.
High witness borne of knights high-souled and hoary
Before death's
face and empire's rings and glows
Even from the dust their life
poured forth left gory,
As the eagle's cry rings after from the snows


Supreme rebuke of shame clothed round with glory
And hosts whose
track the false crowned eagle shows;
More loud than sounds through
stormiest song and story
The laugh of slayers whose names the
sea-wind knows;
More loud than peals on land
In many a red wet hand
The clash of
gold and cymbals as they close;
Loud as the blast that meets
The might of marshalled fleets
And
sheds it into shipwreck, like a rose
Blown from a child's light grasp in
sign
That earth's high lords are lords not over breeze and brine.
XIII.
Above the dust and mire of man's dejection
The wide-winged spirit of
song resurgent sees
His wingless and long-labouring resurrection

Up the arduous heaven, by sore and strange degrees
Mount, and with
splendour of the soul's reflection
Strike heaven's dark sovereign down
upon his knees,
Pale in the light of orient insurrection,
And dumb
before the almightier lord's decrees
Who bade him be of yore,
Who bids him be no more:
And all
earth's heart is quickened as the sea's,
Even as when sunrise burns
The very sea's heart yearns
That heard
not on the midnight-walking breeze
The wail that woke with
evensong
From hearts of poor folk watching all the darkness long.
XIV.
Dawn and the beams of sunbright song illume
Love, with strange
children at her piteous breast,
By grace of weakness from the
grave-mouthed gloom
Plucked, and by mercy lulled to living rest,

Soft as the nursling's nigh the grandsire's tomb
That fell on sleep, a
bird of rifled nest;
Soft as the lips whose smile unsaid the doom


That gave their sire to violent death's arrest.
Even for such love's sake strong,
Wrath fires the inveterate song

That bids hell gape for one whose bland mouth blest
All slayers and liars that sighed
Prayer as they slew and lied
Till
blood had clothed his priesthood as a vest,
And hears, though
darkness yet be dumb,
The silence of the trumpet of the wrath to
come.
XV.
Nor lacked these lights of constellated age
A star among them fed
with life more dire,
Lit with his bloodied fame, whose withering rage

Made earth for heaven's sake one funereal pyre
And life in faith's
name one appointed stage
For death to purge the souls of men with
fire.
Heaven, earth, and hell on one thrice tragic page
Mixed all
their light and darkness: one man's lyre
Gave all their echoes voice;
Bade rose-cheeked love rejoice,
And
cold-lipped craft with ravenous fear conspire,
And fire-eyed faith smite hope
Dead, seeing enthroned as Pope
And
crowned of heaven on earth at hell's desire
Sin, called by death's
incestuous name
Borgia: the world that heard it flushed and quailed
with shame.
XVI.
Another year, and hope triumphant heard
The consummating sound
of song that spake
Conclusion to the multitudinous word
Whose
expectation held her spirit awake
Till full delight for twice twelve
years deferred
Bade all souls entering eat and drink, and take
A
third time comfort given them, that the third
Might heap the measure
up of twain, and make

The sinking year sublime
Among all sons of time
And fan in all
men's memories for his sake.
Each thought of ours became
Fire, kindling from his flame,
And
music widening in his wide song's wake.
Yea, and the world bore
witness here
How great a light was risen upon this darkening year.
XVII.
It was the dawn of winter: sword in sheath,
Change, veiled and mild,
came down the gradual air
With cold slow smiles that hid the doom
beneath.
Five days to die in yet were autumn's, ere
The last leaf
withered from his flowerless wreath.
South, east, and north, our skies
were all blown bare,
But westward over glimmering holt and heath

Cloud, wind, and light had made a heaven more fair
Than ever dream or truth
Showed earth in time's keen youth
When
men with angels communed unaware.
Above the sun's head, now
Veiled even to the ardent brow,
Rose
two sheer wings of sundering cloud, that were
As a bird's poised for
vehement flight,
Full-fledged with plumes of tawny fire and hoar
grey light.
XVIII.
As midnight black, as twilight brown, they spread,
But feathered
thick with flame that streaked and lined
Their living darkness,
ominous else of dread,
From south to northmost verge of heaven
inclined
Most like some giant angel's, whose bent head
Bowed
earthward, as with message for mankind
Of doom or benediction to
be shed
From passage of his presence. Far behind,
Even while they seemed to close,
Stoop, and take flight,