Studies in Song, A Century of Roundels, Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets, The Heptalogia, Etc | Page 6

a rock? the waters overthrow it,?And another stands beyond them sheer and strong:?Goal by goal pays down its prize, and yields its poet?Tribute claimed of triumph, palm achieved of song.
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Since his hand that holds the keys of fear and wonder?Opened on the high priest's dreaming eyes a door?Whence the lights of heaven and hell above and under?Shone, and smote the face that men bow down before,?Thrice again one singer's note had cloven in sunder?Night, who blows again not one blast now but four,?And the fourfold heaven is kindled with his thunder,?And the stars about his forehead are fourscore.
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From the deep soul's depths where alway love abounded?First had risen a song with healing on its wings?Whence the dews of mercy raining balms unbounded?Shed their last compassion even on sceptred things.[1] Even on heads that like a curse the crown surrounded?Fell his crowning pity, soft as cleansing springs;?And the sweet last note his wrath relenting sounded?Bade men's hearts be melted not for slaves but kings.
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Next, that faith might strengthen fear and love embolden, On the creeds of priests a scourge of sunbeams fell: And its flash made bare the deeps of heaven, beholden?Not of men that cry, Lord, Lord, from church or cell.[2] Hope as young as dawn from night obscure and olden?Rose again, such power abides in truth's one spell:?Night, if dawn it be that touches her, grows golden;?Tears, if such as angels weep, extinguish hell.
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Through the blind loud mills of barren blear-eyed learning Where in dust and darkness children's foreheads bow, While men's labour, vain as wind or water turning?Wheels and sails of dreams, makes life a leafless bough, Fell the light of scorn and pity touched with yearning, Next, from words that shone as heaven's own kindling brow.[3] Stars were these as watch-fires on the world's waste burning, Stars that fade not in the fourfold sunrise now.[4]
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Now the voice that faints not till all wrongs be wroken Sounds as might the sun's song from the morning's breast, All the seals of silence sealed of night are broken,?All the winds that bear the fourfold word are blest. All the keen fierce east flames forth one fiery token; All the north is loud with life that knows not rest, All the south with song as though the stars had spoken; All the judgment-fire of sunset scathes the west.
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Sound of p?an, roll of chanted panegyric,?Though by Pindar's mouth song's trumpet spake forth praise, March of warrior songs in Pythian mood or Pyrrhic,?Though the blast were blown by lips of ancient days,
Ring not clearer than the clarion of satiric?Song whose breath sweeps bare the plague-infected ways Till the world be pure as heaven is for the lyric?Sun to rise up clothed with radiant sounds as rays.
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Clear across the cloud-rack fluctuant and erratic?As the strong star smiles that lets no mourner mourn, Hymned alike from lips of Lesbian choirs or Attic?Once at evensong and morning newly born,?Clear and sure above the changes of dramatic?Tide and current, soft with love and keen with scorn, Smiles the strong sweet soul of maidenhood, ecstatic?And inviolate as the red glad mouth of morn.
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Pure and passionate as dawn, whose apparition?Thrills with fire from heaven the wheels of hours that whirl, Rose and passed her radiance in serene transition?From his eyes who sought a grain and found a pearl.?But the food by cunning hope for vain fruition?Lightly stolen away from keeping of a churl?Left the bitterness of death and hope's perdition?On the lip that scorn was wont for shame to curl.[5]
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Over waves that darken round the wave-worn rover?Rang his clarion higher than winds cried round the ship, Rose a pageant of set suns and storms blown over,?Hands that held life's guerdons fast or let them slip. But no tongue may tell, no thanksgiving discover,?Half the heaven of blessing, soft with clouds that drip, Keen with beams that kindle, dear as love to lover,?Opening by the spell's strength on his lyric lip.
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By that spell the soul transfigured and dilated?Puts forth wings that widen, breathes a brightening air, Feeds on light and drinks of music, whence elated?All her sense grows godlike, seeing all depths made bare, All the mists wherein before she sat belated?Shrink, till now the sunlight knows not if they were; All this earth transformed is Eden recreated,?With the breath of heaven remurmuring in her hair.
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Sweeter far than aught of sweet that April nurses?Deep in dew-dropt woodland folded fast and furled?Breathes the fragrant song whose burning dawn disperses Darkness, like the surge of armies backward hurled,?Even as though the touch of spring's own hand, that pierces Earth with life's delight, had hidden in the impearled Golden bells and buds and petals of his verses?All the breath of all the flowers in all the world.
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But the soul therein, the light that our souls follow, Fires and fills the song with more