• Mother, is this the darkness of the end,
• The Shadow of Death? and is that outer sea
• Infinite imminent Eternity?
• And does the death-pang by man's seed sustain'd
• In Time's each instant cause thy face to bend
• Its silent prayer upon the Son, while he
• Blesses the dead with his hand silently
• To his long day which hours no more offend?

• Mother of grace, the pass is difficult,
• 10 Keen as these rocks, and the bewildered souls
• Throng it like echoes, blindly shuddering through.
• Thy name, O Lord, each spirit's voice extols,
• Whose peace abides in the dark avenue
• Amid the bitterness of things occult.

   

• Water, for anguish of the solstice:—nay,
• But dip the vessel slowly,—nay, but lean
• And hark how at its verge the wave sighs in
• Reluctant. Hush! Beyond all depth away
• The heat lies silent at the brink of day:
• Now the hand trails upon the viol-string
• That sobs, and the brown faces cease to sing,
• Sad with the whole of pleasure. Whither stray
• Her eyes now, from whose mouth the slim pipes creep
• 10 And leave it pouting, while the shadowed grass
• Is cool against her naked side? Let be:—
• Say nothing now unto her lest she weep,
• Nor name this ever. Be it as it was,—
• Life touching lips with Immortality.

   

• Scarcely, I think; yet it indeed may be
• The meaning reached him, when this music rang
• Clear through his frame, a sweet possessive pang,
• And he beheld these rocks and that ridged sea.
• But I believe that, leaning tow'rds them, he
• Just felt their hair carried across his face
• As each girl passed him; nor gave ear to trace
• How many feet; nor bent assuredly
• His eyes from the blind fixedness of thought
• 10 To know the dancers. It is bitter glad
• Even unto tears. Its meaning filleth it,
• A secret of the wells of Life: to wit:—
• The heart's each pulse shall keep the sense it had
• With all, though the mind's labour run to nought.

       

• A remote sky, prolonged to the sea's brim:
• One rock-point standing buffeted alone,
• Vexed at its base with a foul beast unknown,
• Hell-birth of geomaunt and teraphim:
• A knight, and a winged creature bearing him,
• Reared at the rock: a woman fettered there,
• Leaning into the hollow with loose hair
• And throat let back and heartsick trail of limb.

• The sky is harsh, and the sea shrewd and salt:
• 10 Under his lord the griffin-horse ramps blind
• With rigid wings and tail. The spear's lithe stem
• Thrills in the roaring of those jaws: behind,
• That evil length of body chafes at fault.
• She doth not hear nor see—she knows of them.

   

• Clench thine eyes now,—'tis the last instant, girl:
• Draw in thy senses, set thy knees, and take
• One breath for all: thy life is keen awake,—
• Thou mayst not swoon. Was that the scattered whirl
• Of its foam drenched thee?—or the waves that curl
• And split, bleak spray wherein thy temples ache?
• Or was it his the champion's blood to flake
• Thy flesh?—or thine own blood's anointing, girl?

• Now, silence: for the sea's is such a sound
• 10 As irks not silence; and except the sea,
• All now is still. Now the dead thing doth cease
• To writhe, and drifts. He turns to her: and she,
• Cast from the jaws of Death, remains there, bound,
• Again a woman in her nakedness.

   

• Dusk-haired and gold-robed o'er the golden wine
• She stoops, wherein, distilled of death and shame,
• Sink the black drops; while, lit with fragrant flame,
• Round her spread board the golden sunflowers shine.
• Doth Helios here with Hecatè combine
• (O Circe, thou their votaress?) to proclaim
• For these thy guests all rapture in Love's name,
• Till pitiless Night give Day the countersign?

• Lords of their hour, they come. And by her knee
• 10 Those cowering beasts, their equals heretofore,
• Wait; who with them in new equality
• To-night shall echo back the sea's dull roar
• With a vain wail from passion's tide-strown shore
• Where the dishevelled seaweed hates the sea.

   

• This is that blessed Mary, pre-elect
• God's Virgin. Gone is a great while, and she
• Dwelt young in Nazareth of Galilee.
• Unto God's will she brought devout respect,
• Profound simplicity of intellect,
• And supreme patience. From her mother's knee
• Faithful and hopeful; wise in charity;
• Strong in grave peace; in pity circumspect.

• So held she through her girlhood; as it were
• 10 An angel-watered lily, that near God
• Grows and is quiet. Till, one dawn at home,
• She woke in her white bed, and had no fear
• At all,—yet wept till sunshine, and felt awed:
• Because the fulness of the time was come.

   

• Here meet together the prefiguring day
• And day prefigured. ‘Eating, thou shalt stand,
• Feet shod, loins girt, thy road-staff in thine hand,
• With blood-stained door and lintel,’—did God say
• By Moses' mouth in ages passed away.
• And now, where this poor household doth comprise
• At Paschal-Feast two kindred families,—
• Lo! the slain lamb confronts the Lamb to slay.

• The pyre is piled. What agony's crown attained,
• 10 What shadow of Death the Boy's fair brow subdues
• Who holds that blood wherewith the porch is stained
• By Zachary the priest? John binds the shoes
• He deemed himself not worthy to unloose;
• And Mary culls the bitter herbs ordained.

   

• ‘Why wilt thou cast the roses from thine hair?
• Nay, be thou all a rose,—wreath, lips, and cheek.
• Nay, not this house,—that banquet-house we seek;
• See how they kiss and enter; come thou there.
• This delicate day of love we two will share
• Till at our ear love's whispering night shall speak.
• What, sweet one,—hold'st thou still the foolish freak?
• Nay, when I kiss thy feet they'll leave the stair.’

• ‘Oh loose me! See'st thou not my Bridegroom's face
• 10 That draws me to Him? For His feet my kiss,
• My hair, my tears He craves to-day:—and oh!
• What words can tell what other day and place
• Shall see me clasp those blood-stained feet of His?
• He needs me, calls me, loves me: let me go!’

       

• Rend, rend thine hair, Cassandra: he will go.
• Yea, rend thy garments, wring thine hands, and cry
• From Troy still towered to the unreddened sky.
• See, all but she that bore thee mock thy woe:—
• He most whom that fair woman arms, with show
• Of wrath on her bent brows; for in this place
• This hour thou bad'st all men in Helen's face
• The ravished ravishing prize of Death to know.

• What eyes, what ears hath sweet Andromache,
• 10 Save for her Hector's form and step; as tear
• On tear make salt the warm last kiss he gave?
• He goes. Cassandra's words beat heavily
• Like crows above his crest, and at his ear
• Ring hollow in the shield that shall not save.

   

• ‘O Hector, gone, gone, gone! O Hector, thee
• Two chariots wait, in Troy long bless'd and curs'd;
• And Grecian spear and Phrygian sand athirst
• Crave from thy veins the blood of victory.
• Lo! long upon our hearth the brand had we,
• Lit for the roof-tree's ruin: and to-day
• The ground-stone quits the wall,—the wind hath way,—
• And higher and higher the wings of fire are free.

• O Paris, Paris! O thou burning brand,
• 10 Thou beacon of the sea whence Venus rose,
• Lighting thy race to shipwreck! Even that hand
• Wherewith she took thine apple let her close
• Within thy curls at last, and while Troy glows
• Lift thee her trophy to the sea and land.’

   

• She hath the apple in her hand for thee,
• Yet almost in her heart would hold it back;
• She muses, with her eyes upon the track
• Of that which in thy spirit they can see.
• Haply, ‘Behold, he is at peace,’ saith she;
• ‘Alas! the apple for his lips,—the dart
• That follows its brief sweetness to his heart,—
• The wandering of his feet perpetually!’

• A little space her glance is still and coy;
• 10 But if she give the fruit that works her spell,
• Those eyes shall flame as for her Phrygian boy.
• Then shall her bird's strained throat the woe foretell,
• And her far seas moan as a single shell,
• And through her dark grove strike the light of Troy.

   

• Under the arch of Life, where love and death,
• Terror and mystery, guard her shrine, I saw
• Beauty enthroned; and though her gaze struck awe,
• I drew it in as simply as my breath.
• Hers are the eyes which, over and beneath,
• The sky and sea bend on thee,—which can draw,
• By sea or sky or woman, to one law,
• The allotted bondman of her palm and wreath.

• This is that Lady Beauty, in whose praise
• 10 Thy voice and hand shake still,—long known to thee
• By flying hair and fluttering hem,—the beat
• Following her daily of thy heart and feet,
• How passionately and irretrievably,
• In what fond flight, how many ways and days!

   

• What of the end, Pandora? Was it thine,
• The deed that set these fiery pinions free?
• Ah! wherefore did the Olympian consistory
• In its own likeness make thee half divine?
• Was it that Juno's brow might stand a sign
• For ever? and the mien of Pallas be
• A deadly thing? and that all men might see
• In Venus' eyes the gaze of Proserpine?

• What of the end? These beat their wings at will,
• 10 The ill-born things, the good things turned to ill,—
• Powers of the impassioned hours prohibited.
• Aye, clench the casket now! Whither they go
• Thou mayst not dare to think: nor canst thou know
• If Hope still pent there be alive or dead.