By Still Waters | Page 2

aloft through miles of quietness,
Pillars the skies of God.
Far up they break or seem to break their line,?Mingling their nebulous crests that bow and nod?Under the light of those fierce stars that shine
Out of the calm of God.
Only in clouds and dreams I felt those souls?In the abyss, each fire hid in its clod,?From which in clouds and dreams the spirit rolls
Into the vast of God.
NIGHT
Heart-hidden from the outer things I rose;?The spirit woke anew in nightly birth?Unto the vastness where forever glows
The star-soul of the earth.
There all alone in primal ecstasy,?Within her depths where revels never tire,?The Olden Beauty shines: each thought of me
Is veined through with its fire.
And all my thoughts are throngs of living souls;?They breathe in me, heart unto heart allied;?Their joy undimmed, though when the morning tolls
The planets may divide.
DAWN
Still as the holy of holies breathes the vast?Within its crystal depths the stars grow dim;?Fire on the altar of the hills at last
Burns on the shadowy rim.
Moments that holds all moments; white upon?The verge it trembles; then like mists of flowers?Break from the fairy fountain of the dawn
The hues of many hours.
Thrown downward from that high companionship?Of dreaming inmost heart with inmost heart,?Into the common daily ways I slip,
My fire from theirs apart.
DAY
In day from some titanic past it seems?As if a thread divine of memory runs;?Born ere the Mighty One began his dreams,
Or yet were stars and suns.
But here an iron will has fixed the bars;?Forgetfulness falls on earth's myriad races:?No image of the proud and morning stars
Looks at us from their faces.
Yet yearning still to reach to those dim heights,?Each dream remembered is a burning-glass,?Where through to darkness from the Light of Lights
Its rays in splendour pass.
DANA
I am the tender voice calling 'Away,'?Whispering between the beatings of the heart,?And inaccessible in dewy eyes?I dwell, and all unkissed on lovely lips,?Lingering between white breasts inviolate,?And fleeting ever from the passionate touch,?I shine afar, till men may not divine?Whether it is the stars or the beloved?They follow with wrapt spirit. And I weave?My spells at evening, folding with dim caress,?Aerial arms and twilight dropping hair,?The lonely wanderer by wood or shore,?Till, filled with some deep tenderness, he yields,?Feeling in dreams for the dear mother heart?He knew, ere he forsook the starry way,?And clings there, pillowed far above the smoke?And the dim murmur from the duns of men.?I can enchant the trees and rocks, and fill?The dumb brown lips of earth with mystery,?Make them reveal or hide the god. I breathe?A deeper pity than all love, myself?Mother of all, but without hands to heal:?Too vast and vague, they know me not. But yet?I am the heartbreak over fallen things,?The sudden gentleness that stays the blow,?And I am in the kiss that foemen give?Pausing in battle, and in the tears that fall?Over the vanquished foe, and in the highest;?Among the Danaan gods, I am the last?Council of mercy in their hearts where they?Mete justice from a thousand starry thrones.
REMEMBRANCE
There were many burning hours on the heart-sweet tide,?And we passed away from ourselves, forgetting all?The immortal moods that faded, the god who died,?Hastening away to the King on a distant call.
There were ruby dews were shed when the heart was riven, And passionate pleading and prayers to the dead we had wronged; And we passed away unremembering and unforgiven,?Hastening away to the King for the peace we longed.
Love unremembered and heart-ache we left behind,?We forsook them, unheeding, hastening away in our flight; We knew the hearts we had wronged of old we would find?When we came to the fold of the King for rest in the night.
THE HOUR OF THE KING
Who would think this quiet breather?From the world had taken flight??Yet within the form we see there?Wakes the golden King to-night.
Out upon the face of faces?He looked forth before his sleep:?Now he knows the starry races?Haunters of the ancient deep;
On the Bird of Diamond Glory?Floats in mystic floods of song:?As he lists Time's triple story?Seems but as a day is long.
From the mightier Adam falling?To his image dwarfed in clay,?He will at our voices calling?Come to this side of the day.
When he wakes, the dreamy-hearted,?He will know not whence he came,?And the light from which he parted?Be the seraph's sword of flame,
And behind it hosts supernal?Guarding the lost paradise,?And the tree of life eternal?From the weeping human eyes.
THE WINDS OF ANGUS
The grey road whereupon we trod became as holy ground:?The eve was all one voice that breathed its message with no sound: And burning multitudes pour through my heart, too bright, too blind, Too swift and hurried in their flight to leave their tale behind. Twin gates unto that living world, dark honey-coloured eyes The lifting of whose lashes flushed the face with paradise-- Beloved, there I saw within their ardent rays unfold?The likeness of enraptured birds that