A Microcosm in Terza Rima

Quiet I lay at last, and knew no moreWhether I breathed or not, so worn I layWith the death-struggle. What was yet beforeNeither I met, nor turned from it away;My only conscious being was the restOf pain gone dead--dead with the bygone day,And long I could have lingered all but blestIn that half-slumber. But there came a soundAs of a door that opened--in the westSomewhere I thought it. As the hare the hound,The noise did start my eyelids and they rose.I turned my eyes and looked. Then straight I foundIt was my chamber-door that did unclose,For a tall form up to my bedside drew.Grand was it, silent, its very walk repose;And when I saw the countenance, I knewThat I was lying in my chamber dead;For this my brother--brothers such are few--That now to greet me bowed his kingly head,Had, many years agone, like holy doveReturning, from his friends and kindred sped,And, leaving memories of mournful love,Passed vanishing behind the unseen veil;And though I loved him, all high words above.Not for his loss then did I weep or wail,Knowing that here we live but in a tent,And, seeking home, shall find it without fail.Feeble but eager, toward him my hands went--I too was dead, so might the dead embrace!Taking me by the shoulders down he bent,And lifted me. I was in sickly case,But, growing stronger, stood up on the floor,There turned, and once regarded my dead faceWith curious eyes: its brow contentment wore,But I had done with it, and turned away.I saw my brother by the open door,And followed him out into the night blue-gray.The houses stood up hard in limpid air,The moon hung in the heavens in half decay,And all the world to my bare feet lay bare.

Now I had suffered in my life, as theyMust suffer, and by slow years younger grow,From whom the false fool-self must drop away,Compact of greed and fear, which, gathered slow,Darkens the angel-self that, evermore,Where no vain phantom in or out shall go,Moveless beholds the Father--stands beforeThe throne of revelation, waiting there,With wings low-drooping on the sapphire-floor,Until it find the Father's ideal fair,And be itself at last: not one small thornShall needless any pilgrim's garments tear;And but to say I had suffered I would scornSave for the marvellous thing that next befell:Sudden I grew aware I was new-born;All pain had vanished in the absorbent swellOf some exalting peace that was my own;As the moon dwelt in heaven did calmness dwellAt home in me, essential. The earth's moanLay all behind. Had I then lost my partIn human griefs, dear part with them that groan?"'Tis weariness!" I said; but with a startThat set it trembling and yet brake it not,I found the peace was love. Oh, my rich heart!For, every time I spied a glimmering spotOf window pane, "There, in that silent room,"Thought I, "mayhap sleeps human heart whose lotIs therefore dear to mine!" I cared for whomI saw not, had not seen, and might not see!After the love crept prone its shadow-gloom,But instant a mightier love arose in me,As in an ocean a single wave will swell,And heaved the shadow to the centre: weHad called it prayer, before on sleep I fell.It sank, and left my sea in holy calm:I gave each man to God, and all was well.And in my heart stirred soft a sleeping psalm.

No gentlest murmur through the city crept;Not one lone word my brother to me had spoken;But when beyond the city-gate we steptI knew the hovering silence would be broken.A low night wind came whispering: through and throughIt did baptize me with the pledge and tokenOf that soft spirit-wind which blows and blewAnd fans the human world since evermore.The very grass, cool to my feet, I knewTo be love also, and with the love I boreTo hold far sympathy, silent and sweet,As having known the secret from of yoreIn the eternal heart where all things meet,Feelings and thinkings, and where still they are bred.Sudden he stood, and with arrested feetI also. Like a half-sunned orb, his headSlow turned the bright side: lo, the brother-smileThat ancient human glory on me shedClothed in which Jesus came forth to wileUnto his bosom every labouring soul,And all dividing passions to beguileTo winsome death, and then on them to rollThe blessed stone of the holy sepulchre!"Thank God," he said, "thou also now art wholeAnd sound and well! For the keen pain, and stirUneasy, and sore grief that came to us all,In that we knew not how the wine and myrrhCould ever from the vinegar and gallBe parted, are deep sunk, yea drowned in God;And yet the past not folded in a pall,But breathed upon, like Aaron's withered rod,By a sweet light that brings the blossoms through,Showing in dreariest paths that men have trodAnother's foot-prints, spotted of crimson hue,Still on before wherever theirs did wend;Yea, through the desert leading, of thyme and rue,The desert souls in which young lions rendAnd roar--the passionate who, to be blest,Ravin as bears, and do not gain their end,Because that, save in God, there is no rest."

Something my brother said to me like this,But how unlike it also, think, I pray:His eyes were music, and his smile a kiss;Himself the word, his speech was but a rayIn the clear nimbus that with verityOf absolute utterance made a home-born dayOf truth about him, lamping solemnly;And when he paused, there came a swift repose,Too high, too still to be called ecstasy--A purple silence, lanced through in the closeBy such keen thought that, with a sudden smiling,It grew sheen silver, hearted with burning rose.He was a glory full of reconciling,Of faithfulness, of love with no self-stain,Of tenderness, and care, and brother-wilingBack to the bosom of a speechless gain.

I cannot tell how long we joyous talked,For from my sense old time had vanished quite,Space dim-remaining--for onward still we walked.No sun arose to blot the pale, still night--Still as the night of some great spongy stoneThat turns but once an age betwixt the lightAnd the huge shadow from its own bulk thrown,And long as that to me before whose faceVisions so many slid, and veils were blownAside from the vague vast of Isis' grace.Innumerous thoughts yet throng that infinite hour,And hopes which greater hopes unceasing chase,For I was all responsive to his power.I saw my friends weep, wept, and let them weep;I saw the growth of each grief-nurtured flower;I saw the gardener watching--in their sleepWiping their tears with the napkin he had laidWrapped by itself when he climbed Hades' steep;What wonder then I saw nor was dismayed!I saw the dull, degraded monsters nursedIn money-marshes, greedy men that preyedUpon the helpless, ground the feeblest worst;Yea all the human chaos, wild and waste,Where he who will not leave what God hath cursedNow fruitless wallows, now is stung and chasedBy visions lovely and by longings dire."But who believeth, he shall not make haste,Even passing through the water and the fire,Or sad with memories of a better lot!He, saved by hope, for all men will desire,Knowing that God into a mustard-jotMay shut an aeon; give a world that layWombed in its sun, a molten unorbed clot,One moment from the red rim to spin awayLibrating--ages to roll on weary wheelEre it turn homeward, almost spent its day!Who knows love all, time nothing, he shall feelNo anxious heart, shall lift no trembling hand;Tender as air, but clothed in triple steel,He for his kind, in every age and land,Hoping will live; and, to his labour bent,The Father's will shall, doing, understand."So spake my brother as we onward went:His words my heart received, as corn the lea,And answered with a harvest of content.We came at last upon a lonesome sea.

And onward still he went, I followingOut on the water. But the water, lo,Like a thin sheet of glass, lay vanishing!The starry host in glorious twofold showLooked up, looked down. The moment I saw this,A quivering fear thorough my heart did go:Unstayed I walked across a twin abyss,A hollow sphere of blue; nor floor was foundOf questing eye, only the foot met the kissOf the cool water lightly crisping roundThe edges of the footsteps! Terror frozeMy fallen eyelids. But again the soundOf my guide's voice on the still air arose:"Hast thou forgotten that we walk by faith?For keenest sight but multiplies the shows.Lift up thine eyelids; take a valiant breath;Terrified, dare the terror in God's name;Step wider; trust the invisible. Can DeathAvail no more to hearten up thy flame?"I trembled, but I opened wide mine eyes,And strode on the invisible sea. The sameHigh moment vanished all my cowardice,And God was with me. The well-pleased starsThrew quivering smiles across the gulfy skies,The white aurora flashed great scimitarsFrom north to zenith; and again my guideFull turned on me his face. No prison-barsLatticed across a soul I there descried,No weather-stains of grief; quiet age-longBrooded upon his forehead clear and wide;Yet from that face a pang shot, vivid and strong,Into my heart. For, though I saw him standClose to me in the void as one in a throng,Yet on the border of some nameless landHe stood afar; a still-eyed mysteryCaught him whole worlds away. Though in my handHis hand I held, and, gazing earnestly,Searched in his countenance, as in a mine,For jewels of contentment, satisfyMy heart I could not. Seeming to divineMy hidden trouble, gently he stooped and kissedMy forehead, and his arms did round me twine,And held me to his bosom. Still I missedThat ancient earthly nearness, when we sharedOne bed, like birds that of no morrow wist;Roamed our one father's farm; or, later, faredAlong the dusty highways of the old clime.Backward he drew, and, as if he had baredMy soul, stood reading there a little time,While in his eyes tears gathered slow, like dewThat dims the grass at evening or at prime,But makes the stars clear-goldener in the blue:And on his lips a faint ethereal smileHovered, as hangs the mist of its own hueTrembling about a purple flower, the whileEvening grows brown. "Brother! brother!" I cried;But straight outbursting tears my words beguile,And in my bosom all the utterance died.

A moment more he stood, then softly sighed."I know thy pain; but this sorrow is farBeyond my help," his voice at length repliedTo my beseeching tears. "Look at yon starUp from the low east half-way, all ablaze:Think'st thou, because no cloud between doth marThe liquid glory that from its visage rays,Thou therefore knowest that same world on high,Its people and its orders and its ways?""What meanest thou?" I said. "Thou know'st thatWould hold, not thy dear form, but the self-thee!Thou art not near me! For thyself I cry!""Not the less near that nearer I shall be.I have a world within thou dost not know--Would I could make thee know it! but all of meIs thine, though thou not yet canst enter soInto possession that betwixt us twainThe frolic homeliness of love should flowAs o'er the brim of childhood's cup again:Away the deeper childhood first must wipeThat clouded consciousness which was our pain.When in thy breast the godlike hath grown ripe,And thou, Christ's little one, art ten times moreA child than when we played with drum and pipeAbout our earthly father's happy door,Then--" He ceased not; his holy utterance stillFlowing went on, like spring from hidden storeOf wasteless waters; but I wept my fill,Nor heeded much the comfort of his speech.At length he said: "When first I clomb the hill--With earthly words I heavenly things would reach--Where dwelleth now the man we used to callFather, whose voice, oh memory dear! did teachUs in our beds, when straight, as once a stallBecame a temple, holy grew the room,Prone on the ground before him I did fall,So grand he towered above me like a doom;But now I look into the well-known faceFearless, yea, basking blessed in the bloomOf his eternal youthfulness and grace.""But something separates us," yet I cried;"Let light at least begin the dark to chase,The dark begin to waver and divide,And clear the path of vision. In the old time,When clouds one heart did from the other hide,A wind would blow between! If I would climb,This foot must rise ere that can go up higher:Some big A teach me of the eternal prime."He answered me: "Hearts that to love aspireMust learn its mighty harmony ere they canGive out one perfect note in its great quire;And thereto am I sent--oh, sent of oneWho makes the dumb for joy break out and sing:He opens every door 'twixt man and man;He to all inner chambers all will bring."

It was enough; Hope waked from dreary swound,And Hope had ever been enough for me,To kennel driving grim Tomorrow's hound;From chains of school and mode she set me free,And urged my life to living.--On we wentAcross the stars that underlay the sea,And came to a blown shore of sand and bent.Beyond the sand a marshy moor we crossedSilent--I, for I pondered what he meant,And he, that sacred speech might not be lost--And came at length upon an evil place:Trees lay about like a half-buried host,Each in its desolate pool; some fearful raceOf creatures was not far, for howls and criesAnd gurgling hisses rose. With even paceWalking, "Fear not," he said, "for this way liesOur journey." On we went; and soon the groundSlow from the waste began a gentle rise;And tender grass in patches, then all round,Came clouding up, with its fresh homely tingeOf softest green cold-flushing every mound;At length, of lowly shrubs a scattered fringe;And last, a gloomy forest, almost blind,For on its roof no sun-ray did impinge,So that its very leaves did share the mindOf a brown shadowless day. Not, all the year,Once part its branches to let through a wind,But all day long the unmoving trees appearTo ponder on the past, as men may doThat for the future wait without a fear,And in the past the coming present view.

I know not if for days many or fewPathless we thrid the wood; for never sun,Its sylvan-traceried windows peeping through,Mottled with brighter green the mosses dun,Or meted with moving shadows Time the shade.No life was there--not even a spider spun.At length we came into a sky-roofed glade,An open level, in a circle shutBy solemn trees that stood aside and madeLarge room and lonely for a little hutBy grassy sweeps wide-margined from the wood.'Twas built of saplings old, that had been cutWhen those great trees no larger by them stood;Thick with an ancient moss, it seemed to have grownThus from the old brown earth, a covert rude,Half-house, half-grave; half-lifted up, half-prone.To its low door my brother led me. "ThereIs thy first school," he said; "there be thou shownThy pictured alphabet. Wake a mind of prayer,And praying enter." "But wilt thou not come,Brother?" I said. "No," said he. And I, "WhereThen shall I find thee? Thou wilt not leave me dumb,And a whole world of thoughts unuttered?"With half-sad smile and dewy eyes, and someConflicting motions of his kingly head,He pointed to the open-standing door.I entered: inward, lo, my shadow led!I turned: his countenance shone like lightning hoar!Then slow he turned from me, and parted slow,Like one unwilling, whom I should see no more;With voice nor hand said, Farewell, I must go!But drew the clinging door hard to the post.No dry leaves rustled 'neath his going; noFootfalls came back from the departing ghost.He was no more. I laid me down and wept;I dared not follow him, restrained the mostBy fear I should not see him if I leaptOut after him with cries of pleading love.Close to the wall, in hopeless loss, I crept;There cool sleep came, God's shadow, from above.

I woke, with calmness cleansed and sanctified--The peace that filled my heart of old, when IWoke in my mother's lap; for since I diedThe past lay bare, even to the dreaming shyThat shadowed my yet gathering unborn brain.And, marvelling, on the floor I saw, close byMy elbow-pillowed head, as if it had lainBeside me all the time I dreamless lay,A little pool of sunlight, which did stainThe earthen brown with gold; marvelling, I say,Because, across the sea and through the wood,No sun had shone upon me all the way.I rose, and through a chink the glade I viewed,But all was dull as it had always been,And sunless every tree-top round it stood,With hardly light enough to show it green;Yet through the broken roof, serenely glad,By a rough hole entered that heavenly sheen.Then I remembered in old years I hadSeen such a light--where, with dropt eyelids gloomed,Sitting on such a floor, dark women sadIn a low barn-like house where lay entombedTheir sires and children; only there the doorWas open to the sun, which entering plumedWith shadowy palms the stones that on the floorStood up like lidless chests--again to findThat the soul needs no brain, but keeps her storeIn hidden chambers of the eternal mind.Thence backward ran my roused MemoryDown the ever-opening vista--back to blindAnticipations while my soul did lieClosed in my mother's; forward thence through brightSpring morns of childhood, gay with hopes that flyBird-like across their doming blue and white,To passionate summer noons, to saddened evesOf autumn rain, so on to wintred night;Thence up once more to the dewy dawn that weavesSaffron and gold--weaves hope with still content,And wakes the worship that even wrong bereavesOf half its pain. And round her as she wentHovered a sense as of an odour dearWhose flower was far--as of a letter sentNot yet arrived--a footstep coming near,But, oh, how long delayed the lifting latch!--As of a waiting sun, ready to peerYet peering not--as of a breathless watchOver a sleeping beauty--babbling rimeAbout her lips, but no winged word to catch!And here I lay, the child of changeful TimeShut in the weary, changeless Evermore,A dull, eternal, fadeless, fruitless clime!Was this the dungeon of my sinning sore--A gentle hell of loneliness, foredoomedFor such as I, whose love was yet the coreOf all my being? The brown shadow gloomedPersistent, faded, warm. No ripple ranAcross the air, no roaming insect boomed."Alas," I cried, "I am no living man!Better were darkness and the leave to gropeThan light that builds its own drear prison! CanThis be the folding of the wings of Hope?"

That instant--through the branches overheadNo sound of going went--a shadow fellIsled in the unrippled pool of sunlight fedFrom some far fountain hid in heavenly dell.I looked, and in the low roofs broken placeA single snowdrop stood--a radiant bellOf silvery shine, softly subdued by graceOf delicate green that made the white appearYet whiter. Blind it bowed its head a space,Half-timid--then, as in despite of fear,Unfolded its three rays. If it had swungIts pendent bell, and music golden clear--Division just entrancing sounds among--Had flickered down as tender as flakes of snow,It had not shed more influence as it rungThan from its look alone did rain and flow.I knew the flower; perceived its human ways;Dim saw the secret that had made it grow:My heart supplied the music's golden phrase.Light from the dark and snowdrops from the earth,Life's resurrection out of gross decays,The endless round of beauty's yearly birth,And nations' rise and fall--were in the flower,And read themselves in silence. Heavenly mirthAwoke in my sad heart. For one whole hourI praised the God of snowdrops. But at heightThe bliss gave way. Next, faith began to cower;And then the snowdrop vanished from my sight.

Last, I began in unbelief to say:"No angel this! a snowdrop--nothing more!A trifle which God's hands drew forth in playFrom the tangled pond of chaos, dank and frore,Threw on the bank, and left blindly to breed!A wilful fancy would have gathered storeOf evanescence from the pretty weed,White, shapely--then divine! Conclusion lameO'erdriven into the shelter of a creed!Not out of God, but nothingness it came:Colourless, feeble, flying from life's heat,It has no honour, hardly shunning shame!"When, see, another shadow at my feet!Hopeless I lifted now my weary head:Why mock me with another heavenly cheat?--A primrose fair, from its rough-blanketed bedLaughed, lo, my unbelief to heavenly scorn!A sun-child, just awake, no prayer yet said,Half rising from the couch where it was born,And smiling to the world! I breathed again;Out of the midnight once more dawned the morn,And fled the phantom Doubt with all his train.

I was a child once more, nor pondered life,Thought not of what or how much. All my soulWith sudden births of lovely things grew rife.In peeps a daisy: on the instant rollRich lawny fields, with red tips crowding the green,Across the hollows, over ridge and knoll,To where the rosy sun goes down serene.From out of heaven in looks a pimpernel:I walk in morning scents of thyme and bean;Dewdrops on every stalk and bud and bellFlash, like a jewel-orchard, many roods;Glow ruby suns, which emerald suns would quell;Topaz saint-glories, sapphire beatitudesBlaze in the slanting sunshine all around;Above, the high-priest-lark, o'er fields and woods--Rich-hearted with his five eggs on the ground--The sacrifice bore through the veil of light,Odour and colour offering up in sound.--Filled heart-full thus with forms of lowly mightAnd shapeful silences of lovely lore,I sat a child, happy with only sight,And for a time I needed nothing more.

Supine to the revelation I did lie,Passive as prophet to his dreaming deep,Or harp Aeolian to the breathing sky,And blest as any child whom twilight sleepHolds half, and half lets go. But the new dayOf higher need up-dawned with sudden leap:"Ah, flowers," I said, "ye are divinely gay,But your fair music is too far and fine!Ye are full cups, yet reach not to allayThe drought of those for human love who pineAs the hart for water-brooks!" At once a faceWas looking in my face; its eyes through mineWere feeding me with tenderness and grace,And by their love I knew my mother's eyes.Gazing in them, there grew in me apaceA longing grief, and love did swell and riseTill weeping I brake out and did bemoanMy blameful share in bygone tears and cries:"O mother, wilt thou plead for me?" I groan;"I say not, plead with Christ, but plead with thoseWho, gathered now in peace about his throne,Were near me when my heart was full of throes,And longings vain alter a flying bliss,Which oft the fountain by the threshold froze:They must forgive me, mother! Tell them this:No more shall swell the love-dividing sigh;Down at their feet I lay my selfishness."The face grew passionate at this my cry;The gathering tears up to its eyebrims rose;It grew a trembling mist, that did not flyBut slow dissolved. I wept as one of thoseWho wake outside the garden of their dream,And, lo, the droop-winged hours laborious closeIts opal gates with stone and stake and beam.

But glory went that glory more might come.Behold a countless multitude--no less!A host of faces, me besieging, dumbIn the lone castle of my mournfulness!Had then my mother given the word I sent,Gathering my dear ones from the shining press?And had these others their love-aidance lentFor full assurance of the pardon prayed?Would they concentre love, with sweet intent,On my self-love, to blast the evil shade?Ah, perfect vision! pledge of endless hope!Oh army of the holy spirit, arrayedIn comfort's panoply! For words I grope--For clouds to catch your radiant dawn, my own,And tell your coming! From the highest copeOf blue, down to my roof-breach came a coneOf faces and their eyes on love's will borne,Bright heads down-bending like the forward blown,Heavy with ripeness, golden ears of corn,By gentle wind on crowded harvest-field,All gazing toward my prison-hut forlornAs if with power of eyes they would have healedMy troubled heart, making it like their ownIn which the bitter fountain had been sealed,And the life-giving water flowed alone!

With what I thus beheld, glorified then,"God, let me love my fill and pass!" I sighed,And dead, for love had almost died again."O fathers, brothers, I am yours!" I cried;"O mothers, sisters. I am nothing nowSave as I am yours, and in you sanctified!O men, O women, of the peaceful brow,And infinite abysses in the eyesWhence God's ineffable gazes on me, howCare ye for me, impassioned and unwise?Oh ever draw my heart out after you!Ever, O grandeur, thus before me riseAnd I need nothing, not even for love will sue!I am no more, and love is all in all!Henceforth there is, there can be nothing new--All things are always new!" Then, like the fallOf a steep avalanche, my joy fell steep:Up in my spirit rose as it were the callOf an old sorrow from an ancient deep;For, with my eyes fixed on the eyes of himWhom I had loved before I learned to creep--God's vicar in his twilight nursery dimTo gather us to the higher father's knee--I saw a something fill their azure rimThat caught him worlds and years away from me;And like a javelin once more through me passedThe pang that pierced me walking on the sea:"O saints," I cried, "must loss be still the last?"

When I said this, the cloud of witnessesTurned their heads sideways, and the cloud grew dimI saw their faces half, but now their blissGleamed low, like the old moon in the new moon's rim.Then as I gazed, a better kind of lightOn every outline 'gan to glimmer and swim,Faint as the young moon threadlike on the night,Just born of sunbeams trembling on her edge:'Twas a great cluster of profiles in sharp white.Had some far dawn begun to drive a wedgeInto the night, and cleave the clinging dark?I saw no moon or star, token or pledgeOf light, save that manifold silvery mark,The shining title of each spirit-book.Whence came that light? Sudden, as if a sparkOf vital touch had found some hidden nookWhere germs of potent harmonies lay prest,And their outbursting life old Aether shook,Rose, as in prayer to lingering promised guest,From that great cone of faces such a song,Instinct with hope's harmonical unrest,That with sore weeping, and the cry "How long?"I bore my part because I could not sing.And as they sang, the light more clear and strongBordered their faces, till the glory-stingI could almost no more encounter and bear;Light from their eyes, like water from a spring,Flowed; on their foreheads reigned their flashing hair;I saw the light from eyes I could not see."He comes! he comes!" they sang, "comes to our prayer!""Oh my poor heart, if only it were He!"I cried. Thereat the faces moved! those eyesWere turning on me! In rushed ecstasy,And woke me to the light of lower skies.

"What matter," said I, "whether clank of chainOr over-bliss wakes up to bitterness!"Stung with its loss, I called the vision vain.Yet feeling life grown larger, suffering less,Sleep's ashes from my eyelids I did brush.The room was veiled, that morning should not pressUpon the slumber which had stayed the rushOf ebbing life; I looked into the gloom:Upon her brow the dawn's first grayest flush,And on her cheek pale hope's reviving bloom,Sat, patient watcher, darkling and alone,She who had lifted me from many a tomb!One then was left me of Love's radiant cone!Its light on her dear face, though faint and wan,Was shining yet--a dawn upon it thrownFrom the far coming of the Son of Man!

In every forehead now I see a skyCatching the dawn; I hear the wintriest breezeAbout me blow the news the Lord is nigh.Long is the night, dark are the polar seas,Yet slanting suns ascend the northern hill.Round Spring's own steps the oozy waters freezeBut hold them not. Dreamers are sleeping still,But labourers, light-stung, from their slumber start:Faith sees the ripening ears with harvest fillWhen but green blades the clinging earth-clods part.

Lord, I have spoken a poor parable,In which I would have said thy name aloneIs the one secret lying in Truth's well,Thy voice the hidden charm in every tone,Thy face the heart of every flower on earth,Its vision the one hope; for every moanThy love the cure! O sharer of the birthOf little children seated on thy knee!O human God! I laugh with sacred mirthTo think how all the laden shall go free;For, though the vision tarry, in healing ruthOne morn the eyes that shone in GalileeWill dawn upon them, full of grace and truth,And thy own love--the vivifying coreOf every love in heart of age or youth,Of every hope that sank 'neath burden sore!