Ride to the Lady | Page 2

his hall,--
Ere Toil has trod the
floors,
Ere Love has lit the fires,
Or young great-eyed Desires

Have, timid, tried the doors;
Or from east-window leaned
One
Hope, to greet the sun,
Or one gray Sorrow screened
Her sight
against the west,--
Then enters the first guest,
The House of life
being done.
He waits there in the shade.
I deem he is Life's twin,
For whom the
house was made.
Whatever his true name,
Be sure, to enter in
He
has both key and claim.
The daybeams, free of fear,

Creep drowsy toward his feet;
His heart
were heard to beat,
Were any there to hear;
Ah, not for ends malign,


Like wild thing crouched in lair,
Or watcher of a snare,
But with
a friend's design
He lurks in shadow there!
He goes not to the gates
To welcome any other,
Nay, not Lord Life,
his brother;
But still his hour awaits
Each several guest to find

Alone, yea, quite alone;
Pacing with pensive mind
The cloister's
echoing stone,
Or singing, unaware,
At the turning of the stair
Tis
truth, though we forget,
In Life's House enters none
Who shall that
seeker shun,
Who shall not so be met.
"Is this mine hour?" each
saith.
"So be it, gentle Death!"
Each has his way to end,

Encountering this friend.
Griefs die to memories mild;
Hope turns a
weanèd child;
Love shines a spirit white,
With eyes of deepened
light.
When many a guest has passed,
Some day 'tis Life's at last

To front the face of Death.
Then, casements closed, men say:
"Lord
Life is gone away;
He went, we trust and pray,
To God, who gave
him breath."
Beginning, End, He is:
Are not these sons both His?

Lo, these with Him are one!
To phrase it so were best:
God's self is
that first Guest,
The House of Life being done!
SILENCE
Why should I sing of earth or heaven? not rather rest,
Powerless to
speak of that which hath my soul possessed,--
For full possession
dumb? Yea, Silence, that were best.
And though for what it failed to sound I brake the string,
And dashed
the sweet lute down, a too much fingered thing,
And found a wild
new voice,--oh, still, why should I sing?
An earth-song could I make, strange as the breath of earth, Filled with
the great calm joy of life and death and birth? Yet, were it less than this,
the song were little worth.
For this the fields caress; brown clods tell each to each;
Sad-colored
leaves have sense whereto I cannot reach;
Spiced everlasting-flowers

outstrip my range of speech.
A heaven-song could I make, all fire that yet was peace,
And
tenderness not lost, though glory did increase?
But were it less than
this, 't were well the song should cease.
For this the still west saith, with plumy flames bestrewn;
Heaven's
body sapphire-clear, at stirless height of noon;
The cloud where
lightnings pulse, beside the untroubled moon.
I will not sing of earth or heaven, but rather rest,
Rapt by the face of
heaven, and hold on earth's warm breast. Hushed lips, a beating heart,
yea, Silence, that were best.
ARRAIGNMENT
"Not ye who have stoned, not ye who have smitten us," cry
The sad,
great souls, as they go out hence into dark,
"Not ye we accuse, though
for you was our passion borne;
And ye we reproach not, who silently
passed us by.
We forgive blind eyes and the ears that would not hark,

The careless and causeless hate and the shallow scorn.
"But ye, who have seemed to know us, have seen and heard;
Who
have set us at feasts and have crowned with the costly rose; Who have
spread us the purple of praises beneath our feet;
Yet guessed not the
word that we spake was a living word,
Applauding the sound,--we
account you as worse than foes!
We sobbed you our message; ye said,
'It is song, and sweet!'"
THE GOING OUT OF THE TIDE
The eastern heaven was all faint amethyst,
Whereon the moon hung
dreaming in the mist;
To north yet drifted one long delicate plume

Of roseate cloud; like snow the ocean-spume.
Now when the first foreboding swiftly ran
Through the loud-glorying

sea that it began
To lose its late gained lordship of the land,
Uprose
the billow like an angered man,
And flung its prone strength far along
the sand;
Almost, almost to the old bound, the dark
And taunting
triumph-mark.
But no, no, no! and slow, and slow, and slow,
Like a heart losing hold,
this wave must go,--
Must go, must go,--dragged heavily back, back,

Beneath the next wave plunging on its track,
Charging, with
thunderous and defiant shout,
To fore-determined rout.
Again, again the unexhausted main
Renews fierce effort, drawing
force unguessed
From awful deeps of its mysterious breast:
Like
arms of passionate protest, tossed in vain,
The spray upflings above
the billow's crest.
Again the appulse, again the backward strain--

Till ocean must have rest.
With one abandoned movement, swift and wild,--
As though bowed
head and outstretched arms it laid
On the earth's lap, soft
sobbing,--hushed and stayed,
The great sea quiets, like a soothed
child.
Ha! what sharp memory clove the calm, and drave
This last
fleet furious wave?
On, on, endures the struggle into night,
Ancient as Time, yet fresh as
the fresh hour;
As oft repeated