Spirits in Bondage | Page 7

GreeceSeven?months with snare and gin?They've sought the maid o'erwise within?The forest's labyrinthine shade.?The lonely woodman half afraid?Far off her ragged form has seen?Sauntering down the alleys green,?Or crouched in godless prayer alone?At eve before a Druid stone.?But now the bitter chase is won,?The quarry's caught, her magic's done,?The bishop's brought her strongest spell?To naught with candle, book, and bell;?With holy water splashed upon her,?She goes to burning and dishonour?Too deeply damned to feel her shame,?For, though beneath her hair of flame?Her thoughtful head be lowly bowed?It droops for meditation proud?Impenitent, and pondering yet?Things no memory can forget,?Starry wonders she has seen?Brooding in the wildwood green?With holiness. For who can say?In what strange crew she loved to play,?What demons or what gods of old?Deep mysteries unto her have told?At dead of night in worship bent?At ruined shrines magnificent,?Or how the quivering will she sent?Alone into the great alone?Where all is loved and all is known,?Who now lifts up her maiden eyes?And looks around with soft surprise?Upon the noisy, crowded square,?The city oafs that nod and stare,?The bishop's court that gathers there,?The faggots and the blackened stake?Where sinners die for justice' sake??Now she is set upon the pile,?The mob grows still a little while,?Till lo! before the eager folk?Up curls a thin, blue line of smoke.?"Alas!" the full-fed burghers cry,?"That evil loveliness must die!"
XV. Dungeon Grates
So piteously the lonely soul of man?Shudders before this universal plan,?So grievous is the burden and the pain,?So heavy weighs the long, material chain?From cause to cause, too merciless for hate,?The nightmare march of unrelenting fate,?I think that he must die thereof unless?Ever and again across the dreariness?There came a sudden glimpse of spirit faces,?A fragrant breath to tell of flowery places?And wider oceans, breaking on the shore?From which the hearts of men are always sore.?It lies beyond endeavour; neither prayer?Nor fasting, nor much wisdom winneth there,?Seeing how many prophets and wise men?Have sought for it and still returned again?With hope undone. But only the strange power?Of unsought Beauty in some casual hour?Can build a bridge of light or sound or form?To lead you out of all this strife and storm;?When of some beauty we are grown a part?Till from its very glory's midmost heart?Out leaps a sudden beam of larger light?Into our souls. All things are seen aright?Amid the blinding pillar of its gold,?Seven times more true than what for truth we hold?In vulgar hours. The miracle is done?And for one little moment we are one?With the eternal stream of loveliness?That flows so calm, aloft from all distress?Yet leaps and lives around us as a fire?Making us faint with overstrong desire?To sport and swim for ever in its deepOnly?a moment.
O! but we shall keep?Our vision still. One moment was enough,?We know we are not made of mortal stuff.?And we can bear all trials that come after,?The hate of men and the fool's loud bestial laughter?And Nature's rule and cruelties unclean,?For we have seen the Glory-we have seen.
XVI. The Philosopher
Who shall be our prophet then,?Chosen from all the sons of men?To lead his fellows on the way?Of hidden knowledge, delving deep?To nameless mysteries that keep?Their secret from the solar day!?Or who shall pierce with surer eye!?This shifting veil of bittersweet?And find the real things that lie?Beyond this turmoil, which we greet?With such a wasted wealth of tears??Who shall cross over for us the bridge of fears?And pass in to the country where the ancient Mothers dwell? Is it an elder, bent and hoar?Who, where the waste Atlantic swell?On lonely beaches makes its roar,?In his solitary tower?Through the long night hour by hour?Pores on old books with watery eye?When all his youth has passed him by,?And folly is schooled and love is dead?And frozen fancy laid abed,?While in his veins the gradual blood?Slackens to a marish flood??For he rejoiceth not in the ocean's might,?Neither the sun giveth delight,?Nor the moon by night?Shall call his feet to wander in the haunted forest lawn.?He shall no more rise suddenly in the dawn?When mists are white and the dew lies pearly?Cold and cold on every meadow,?To take his joy of the season early,?The opening flower and the westward shadow,?And scarcely can he dream of laughter and love,?They lie so many leaden years behind.?Such eyes are dim and blind,?And the sad, aching head that nods above?His monstrous books can never know?The secret we would find.?But let our seer be young and kind?And fresh and beautiful of show,?And taken ere the lustyhead?And rapture of his youth be dead;?Ere the gnawing, peasant reason?School him over-deep in treason?To the ancient high estate?Of his fancy's principate,?That he may live a perfect whole,?A mask of the eternal soul,?And cross at last the shadowy bar?To where the ever-living are.
XVII. The Ocean Strand
O leave the labouring roadways of the town,?The shifting faces and the changeful hue?Of markets, and broad