The Wild Knight and Other Poems | Page 6

gleam of the
sphere of spheres.'
'In all your turning, what have you found?'
'At
least, I know why the world goes round.'
THE END OF FEAR

Though the whole heaven be one-eyed with the moon,
Though the
dead landscape seem a thing possessed,
Yet I go singing through that
land oppressed
As one that singeth through the flowers of June.
No more, with forest-fingers crawling free
O'er dark flint wall that
seems a wall of eyes,
Shall evil break my soul with mysteries
Of
some world-poison maddening bush and tree.
No more shall leering ghosts of pimp and king
With bloody secrets
veiled before me stand.
Last night I held all evil in my hand
Closed:
and behold it was a little thing.
I broke the infernal gates and looked on him
Who fronts the strong
creation with a curse;
Even the god of a lost universe,
Smiling
above his hideous cherubim.
And pierced far down in his soul's crypt unriven
The last black
crooked sympathy and shame,
And hailed him with that ringing
rainbow name
Erased upon the oldest book in heaven.
Like emptied idiot masks, sin's loves and wars
Stare at me now: for in
the night I broke
The bubble of a great world's jest, and woke

Laughing with laughter such as shakes the stars.
THE HOLY OF HOLIES
'Elder father, though thine eyes
Shine with hoary mysteries,
Canst
thou tell what in the heart
Of a cowslip blossom lies?
'Smaller than all lives that be,
Secret as the deepest sea,
Stands a
little house of seeds,
Like an elfin's granary,
'Speller of the stones and weeds,
Skilled in Nature's crafts and creeds,

Tell me what is in the heart
Of the smallest of the seeds.'
'God Almighty, and with Him
Cherubim and Seraphim,
Filling all

eternity--
Adonai Elohim.'
THE MIRROR OF MADMEN
I dreamed a dream of heaven, white as frost,
The splendid stillness of
a living host;
Vast choirs of upturned faces, line o'er line.
Then my
blood froze; for every face was mine.
Spirits with sunset plumage throng and pass,
Glassed darkly in the
sea of gold and glass.
But still on every side, in every spot,
I saw a
million selves, who saw me not.
I fled to quiet wastes, where on a stone,
Perchance, I found a saint,
who sat alone;
I came behind: he turned with slow, sweet grace,

And faced me with my happy, hateful face.
I cowered like one that in a tower doth bide,
Shut in by mirrors upon
every side;
Then I saw, islanded in skies alone
And silent, one that
sat upon a throne.
His robe was bordered with rich rose and gold,
Green, purple, silver
out of sunsets old;
But o'er his face a great cloud edged with fire,

Because it covereth the world's desire.
But as I gazed, a silent worshipper,
Methought the cloud began to
faintly stir;
Then I fell flat, and screamed with grovelling head,
'If
thou hast any lightning, strike me dead!
'But spare a brow where the clean sunlight fell,
The crown of a new
sin that sickens hell.
Let me not look aloft and see mine own

Feature and form upon the Judgment-throne.'
Then my dream snapped: and with a heart that leapt
I saw across the
tavern where I slept,
The sight of all my life most full of grace,
A
gin-damned drunkard's wan half-witted face.

E.C.B.
Before the grass grew over me,
I knew one good man through and
through,
And knew a soul and body joined
Are stronger than the
heavens are blue.
A wisdom worthy of thy joy,
O great heart, read I as I ran;
Now,
though men smite me on the face,
I cannot curse the face of man.
I loved the man I saw yestreen
Hanged with his babe's blood on his
palms.
I loved the man I saw to-day
Who knocked not when he
came with alms.
Hush!--for thy sake I even faced
The knowledge that is worse than
hell;
And loved the man I saw but now
Hanging head downwards in
the well.
THE DESECRATERS
Witness all: that unrepenting,
Feathers flying, music high,
I go
down to death unshaken
By your mean philosophy.
For your wages, take my body,
That at least to you I leave;
Set the
sulky plumes upon it,
Bid the grinning mummers grieve.
Stand in silence: steep your raiment
In the night that hath no star;

Don the mortal dress of devils,
Blacker than their spirits are.
Since ye may not, of your mercy,
Ere I lie on such a hearse,
Hurl
me to the living jackals
God hath built for sepulchres.
AN ALLIANCE
This is the weird of a world-old folk,
That not till the last link breaks,

Not till the night is blackest,
The blood of Hengist wakes.
When
the sun is black in heaven,
The moon as blood above,
And the earth

is full of hatred,
This people tells its love.
In change, eclipse, and peril,
Under the whole world's scorn,
By
blood and death and darkness
The Saxon peace is sworn;
That all
our fruit be gathered,
And all our race take hands,
And the sea be a Saxon river
That runs through Saxon lands.
Lo! not in vain we bore him;
Behold it! not in vain,
Four centuries' dooms of torture
Choked in the throat of Spain,
Ere