r LIBRARY OF CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO TMfc UNIVERSITY LlBKAKY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFGHNiA, SAN DIEGQ LA JOLLA, CALIFORNIA THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME AND OTHER POEMS 5120^ THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME AND OTHER POEMS BY DARRELL FIGGIS LONDON: J. M. DENT & SONS, LTD. BEDFORD STREET, STRAND, W.C. 1911 All rights reserved TO MY MOTHER CONTENTS PAGE ODE TO Music ..... i A SONG . . . . . .12 THE PITY o' IT . . . .13 To A SNOWDROP . . . . .17 TRIOLETS ...... 20 RELICS ...... 22 To A CHRYSANTHEMUM . - . . .23 CROMWELL ...... 26 ROSES . . . . . .28 A SONG ...... 30 To A SKYLARK . . . .31 DAWN ...... 33 To SORROW . . . . -35 IN MEMORIAM . . . . .38 To E. VON O. . . . . .39 HANGER WOODS . . , . .40 To SHAKESPEARE . . . . .43 EMPTY WRATH . . . . .44 LAMENT ...... 45 THE VACANT CHAIR . . . . .47 AD INTRA ...... 54 "FIRELIGHT" . . . , 55 THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME . . . 57 ODE TO MUSIC FIRSTLING of Days, begotten not nor shaped ; Breath of the spacious God that knows not Time, And is for vesture with Creation draped Effulgent and transcendent, sprung from Him In eloquence sonorous thro' the vast Of ebon desolation void and dim ; Boding His lonely plaint To the far borders faint Of an immeasurable infinitude ; Finding for Him bright galaxies sublime To lift to ecstasy His lofty mood In hoary ages past : Voice of his Soul I strew Before thine aery path my tribute true ! Oh, art not thou pure spirit of all thought, Soul of the Universe, the lustrous heart Whence burst the secret harmony divine That wrought to aweful splendour Life's frail mart ? All the celestial court In legioned wonder, wrought To sudden beauty by thine ancient art, Echoes thy voice mellifluous and benign 2 ODE TO MUSIC Thro' the void spaces of Eternity ! Planets in rhythmic ease, Comets that thread high Heaven's intricacies Searching its furthest part, Hum with thy secret voice and ecstasy. Creation's pomp thro' far-resounding Time, Moving thro' birth and riot, death and strife, Stept to the subtle measure of thy chime : Thro' dissonance high harmony Waking, and in defeat mellisonance : Till, in massed symphony and paean, Life, Majestic and supreme, Mighty of thew and scheme, Broke thro' the tangled maze of Circumstance ; With younger lips then to take up thy theme And wake to wonder all thy moon-struck courts of Dream. Oh, what of jocund rapture was then heard ! What fervour ! what delight ! What swift and vivid flight Of splendour thro' the soul of rhapsody ! Mellow and rare, soft, delicate and free, Sonorous, lofty, resonant of power, Swelled the wide anthem thro' the range of joy ! Then the dim reaches of Eternity Heard its own formless word Articulated with the bounds of Song ; Heard its stupendous dower Champing upon the bit of fleshy thong. ODE TO MUSIC . Oh, so each fervid Bird In memory of that Hour Heralds the fluctuant swell of Life along When out of Night Life wings, to employ Time's uses and Time's joy With deep enchantments, rapture strong, Pining the fretful barriers to destroy And float thro' ether to thy perfect bower. So art thou ever knit to Life and Song, To motion and articulation fit : So dost thou seek to burst each corporal thong, And hail thine ancient golden liberty, And be of shackle quit : Irked by thy slender margins, to be free, Chafing, thou burdenest mightily thy themes. Oh, worthy conflict, combat high, Majestic traffic, for in it New symphonies and deeper rhythms ply ! In mystic runes Of stranger tunes Bidding the tardy spirit to outvie Past victories, higher subtleties to try : So to quell vaster schemes And marry to the Earth the ecstasy of dreams. Yea, yet thou art far more, far more than this ! Oh, thou art not bitten of thong ; thou art thyself The very fountain-head and source of bliss. ODE TO MUSIC Spurning what pelf The ruinous delf Bestrews before thee, thou dost lift thy Wing Over a native and unplumbed abyss Echoing with the murmur of thy flight ; And old, eternal Night Hums with thine utterances and whispering. There in voluptuous might, Clothed in essential light ; Cinctured with harmony, In rhythmic tunic drest, Thou floatest in unparalleled sovranty God-uttered, self-confest ! Thou art the informing spirit That all things do inherit, The ichor throbbing in the veins of Time ! Thou art the spirit intense Whose choric influence Burns to a soul things mutual and sublime : The subtle rhyme Knitting to structure the high odic flight Of far-flown ecstasies and pure delight. Touched by the mystic word that did first wake Order from wondering Chaos, all things break Swift their responsive hum of harmony, Ecstatically, As viol to sweet viol fitly tuned ! ODE TO MUSIC The octaves of thy soul Hold in their firm control Matter and motion in pure melody, And in their range Hymn of diversity Fretfully uttered in the bonds of change. Thy vivid fifths and melancholy thirds, Apt combinations, pruned Or bounteous, prodigal or pert, Like hymeneal birds Voluptuous or alert, Swell thro' variety And raise the choric anthem of the Earth. Till full as to the brim With rapture of its birth, Creation stretches a resplendent hymn, Holy and unprofaned, Uttered in thee and of thy harmony sustained ! Deeper and deeper, higher and higher, thou art ! Holier and nearer Life's hot wounded heart O'erflowing with attenuate melodies Blown hither like a soft Favonian breeze From the eternal seas : Nearer the high agony of its thought Eschewing tranquil ease To track to the far splendour of their Court Those errant harmonies That taunt and wound desire with fitful wizardries. ODE TO MUSIC Bearing the deep Almighty Voice divine Vibrant beyond the resonant Universe, Creative, or in sustenant power benign, Laden art thou with voiceless mysteries : Beauty and Pity that themselves rehearse In plangent ecstasies, Splendour and Awe consummate of control. So from the aerial /ones The thunder of thy tones Burst like a mighty Sea about the Soul, Awaking dread and fear and majesty ; Or if thou chance be sent With softer burthen thro' the Stellar Court, Thine accents eloquent Break o'er the Heart deliquous murmurs, fraught With piercing echoes delicate and rare : Swelling all Being to its uttermost lair With tost antiphonies. Oh, thro' the eternal heaven is thy demesne Spacious and vast, illimitable and pure. Floating from immemorial Hours serene Thy wings are feathered for a subtle lure With broken harmonies, Distant affinities, Arcs from a mighty rondure high above All eager quest, from bitter search secure. Far o'er our cliffs thy clanging word Echoes, as with a theme unheard, Echoes reverberate and incomplete j ODE TO MUSIC Till the Desire With a quick fire Quivers to burn the starry thing whereof The broken numbers treat. So, floating down the avenues of Time, Upon the aerial waves thou dost awake Vibrant mellisonance and mellow strife. Out of thine inner life, Forth from thy heart sublime, Broken ejaculations dost thou shake, Memorials of our younger days of prime, Memorials throbbing on the minds, that we, Hearkening thereto, Consanguine to the very heart of thee, Hear in their native numbers, purport true. Numbers that we, Finding them very passion of our blood, Hearing them laden with such utterance As we have striven to know, Translating so Numbers to thought, as blooms thro' the bud, With kindling eyes Transfigured rise And mocking at all earthly chance, All corporal bond, claim kinship with eternity. The Soul of all high ecstasies thou art ! Thou dost not chant of them, Nor do they thee begem As stars flash in a heavenly carcanet Isolate and apart. ODE TO MUSIC In thy purpureal ichor are they lost : Organs of a refulgent whole, Lustres of one ecstatic soul, Fragmentary, yet On the fierce needs of utterance tost Sweeping high chords of ultimate control. For He who uttereth thee In hoar infinity, Of whom thou art the pure and resonant Voice, Folds in their holy glee, For they are not, but He. So therefore do thine urgent themes rejoice, Not otherwise content To sing, save to present Vaster relations, mightier harmony, Since they are not, but thou of them constituent ! So Man, Man in his corporal, frail control Stranger, Man potent to pursue all thought, But of achievement frail ; Man smitten with transcendencies unsought, Wild melodies that trail Unbidden o'er his fit ^Eolian Soul ; Man ever in his fitfullest hour, With thy far harmony irked, Hath known the wizardry of power That ever in thee lurked. Moving in splendour from thy Courts of gold, What beauties thus thy thunders have unrolled ODE TO MUSIC Upon his brooding thought, His eager spirit hath caught, Seeking to sing thee back thy numbers fair. From the vast womb arisen Of deep eternity, floating thro' the Night Upon him unaware, So hath he caught the manner of thy flight, And found for thee a prison Trite tho' it be and spare. Haunted by his heart's echo of thy word, Stung by suggestive symphonies half-heard, Upon contrivance mystical Puts he thy very soul for thrall, And fits the waking wonder of thy throat. Yea, all that thou dost sing in him, The rhapsodies that ring in him, Passions that flaunt him, beauties that allure, Bends he the utmost powers of his Soul In mightier meshes to immure ; With faint control Thinking to bind thy true authentic note. Yet when the Voice of thee Like a tumultuous Sea Roars thro' the serried channel of his thought, Falters he then, and, spent, Perplexed, amazed, enfeebled and unwrought, Utters his ravishment In tones whose very notes convey His potent theme is mightier than his roundelay. io ODE TO MUSIC So hath he found for thee new note of Song Therein : new theme of threnody Musing upon his fetter and his thong. The splendour of thy pristine harmony, The native radiancy of thy delight Hath he deep-tinctured with a darker hue, Making thy soul coruscant, as might be Oceans whereon the Night Sweeps, yet in whom the light Glitters and gleams of noons superb of thew. For as with ineffectual pang He seeks to sing thee as thou sang Erstwhile in liberty, Quit of all irk and chance, He finds thee with his woe and sorrow fraught, Knows thee in his dark travail caught, Curbed with mortal circumstance. Oh, then he flings aloft with burning eyes The numbers of his spirit to the skies ! Snatches him to his Soul Thy fastness of control, To make the caverns of Eternity Echo with his calamity and woe. Burthened with awe, shrouded with mystery, He turns to thee, To thy deep soul, and so, Finding thee fit and meet Of his heart's word to treat, Thyself an alien to the mortal throe Even as he, ODE TO MUSIC ii Thro' thy pure lips he pours his threnody, Bidding thee wake somniferous Time to tell The subtlety of thy spell, In bitterness of desire Winged with sorrow and fire. Angel of the Most High, Spirit of Days, Breath of the star-eyed God that knows not Time, Art not thou passion of all thought sublime ? Oh, none may track the passing of thy ways ! Yea, none of all the sons of Time may tell Thy potency ineffable Or compass thy pure spell, And yet think we That thou inheritest all praise Moving upon the winds of mystery : Therefore I strew Before thine aery path this tribute true. A SONG NOT cherry ripe nor roses Tho' picked from Summer's chalice, Could ever vie with you, dear, In daintiness of hue, dear ; So who could hope to view, dear, Thy like amid the posies Of cottage or of palace In Man's weak retinue, dear ? See how the Winter closes Summer with frigid malice ! Ah vainly should one sue, dear, That daintiness to woo, dear ! So say it is not true, dear, That even as the rose is, Alice, irradiant Alice, It is the same with you, dear j That Alice, lovely Alice, I woo thee but to rue, dear ! THE PITY O' IT I DREAMT that once a lucent Spring, When all the air was like one lake With sunlight rather than water ashake, And each diaphanous leaf did fling A halo of bright vapour round Like silver upon gold, I stood to hear the choir of sound That o'er the forest rolled. Quick ripples, slurs and shakes, and tides Voluminous, sonorous, low, Shrill lyrics on bright joy aflow, Chatter that to itself confides, Blended with passionate excess Involved and interspun, In love's pure throe and tenderness To link that forest one. Beneath a poplar high of grace Upon the tender earth I lay, The golden wizardry of the day In mottled splendour on my face, 13 i 4 THE PITY O' IT When lo ! in pure excess of love, From braken, brake and trees The birds, quick-fluttering from above, Swept down upon my ease. A throstle leapt upon my breast Jocund with gravest joy, and eyed A wren poised on my ear, whose tide Of rapture burst without a rest ; Two robins on my shoulder sung, Matching a blackbird who, Fluting his liquid measures, wrung Their shriller music thro'. Finches made merry on my brow ; While, on a branch that at my side Swung, a brown nightingale allied Sorrow with song, his themes to endow With Joy from Melancholy's cup ; And, like a brooklet strong, The sparrows at my feet filled up The interstices of song. Such joy was mine, my bursting heart Was filled with rapture nigh to tears. A squirrel nosed away his fears Against my cheek, while all apart Pert field-mice nestled in my breast Beneath the throstle's wings. Thrilled with high rapture I caressed The gentle fluttering things. THE PITY O' IT 15 I woke ; the sun was all aflow Over the room ; and on its beams In elfin glee and golden dreams Fauns in slant eagerness did go, Their softer sisters to entice To mingle in the play. I sprung abroad, and in a trice I strode into the day. 'Twas even as I dreamed ; so fair The day, so passing soft the hour : In lucent silver field and flower Shimmered beneath the golden glare. Toward a near copse sprayed and besprent With winking beads of dew, Eager with beating hope I went My vision to renew. A red-breast on a twig of birch Swung, and with every bar of mirth Uprose and fell, chanting the Earth In fluent measure as his perch Swung to his theme of eloquence ; So to his holy glee I drew, in Hope's pure confidence Loving him utterly. He eyed me, and upon a flash Vanished ; while, with the eager tread I took, a fluting blackbird fled Shrieking away, and I saw dash 1 6 THE PITY O' IT A rabbit on a gleam of white. Awhile in vague vast fears I stood ; then, forrested with blight, I burst to bitter tears. TO A SNOWDROP SYMBOL of glory on a shadowy noon, Fragrant upon the curded Eastern wind, Beneath the tangled hedgerow notched and hewn By the harsh revelry of frosts unkind, Thou yet dost droop in tender modesty, Fearful yet jocund 'spite thy solitude : There neath the Heaven's most desolate array Defiantly Mocking the rigours of the Winter rude With softer promise of a gentler day. Not tropic splendours prodigal and vast Can vie with thee in rare munificence : Not wild Magnolias in effulgence cast Flame-like o'er broad savannahs and immense j Nor fleshy marvels of an Eastern shore, Orchids, in myriad hue of bloom that tie Tall trees, and hang as flaming sunsets may ; Nor the Gold Mohur, A vision of glory drooping from the sky, Rose-golden from the burning dome of day. 1 8 TO A SNOWDROP Rare Herald of the pompous host of Spring, Floating upon the billows of my thought From a far ghostly region thou dost bring Of phantom armies promise and report : Primroses in battalions vast and fair, Lithe Bluebell lancers, flaunting Daffodils Sweeping the river marge with tossing plumes, Violets rare, Tall Tulips cloven, Narcissus that spills Fragrance where'er are found her dainty blooms. And yet in serried ranks they sweep along, Thy legions, Herald, leader bold and pert ! Majestic Kingcups, Daisies soon to throng The emerald meadows, Celandine alert, Poppies for swaying cornfields, Lilies drest In splendours pale, soft Pansies frolicsome, And sumptuous Roses, Summer's crowning boast, At thy behest, Awoken from vast slumbers, trooping come Thro' lanes of Spring and Summer host on host. Herald of Summer ? More, oh more, thou art ! Thou art the symbol of infinity. Visions of high and chastened Beauty start From thy pure realms of wonder, bringing me Glimpses I half may see and half may know : Majestic splendour knit to lowly dress, Sublimity hewn out of aching strife, In pain and woe Beauty achieved and exquisite loveliness ! Art thou, then, very type of this our Life ? TO A SNOWDROP 19 I fain would pluck thee, but thou art to me Too holy and too high to desecrate With mortal touch : Joy and exultancy, Moved by the mystic beauty of thy state So frail, and in such modest vesture decked, Are purged of earthly passion, and made nigh To rapture and high ecstasy sublime : While, bourne-unchecked, Vision moves this its regions vast, to ply Dreams that deride at Latitude or Time. Oh Beauty of high pride ! O Spirit sweet ! Drooping thy brow because thou art so fair ! Flitting thro' ruining seasons, deft and fleet, Thou art Truth's fit ambassador, to bare Her visions unto such as, bowing, learn : Hope and desire thou wakest, peace remote, Rapt love, pure faith, and true felicity : And as I turn Musing away, over the heavens there float Vast shades to trouble and to succour me. TRIOLET LIFE blossoms at noon But is gone on the morrow. A transient boon Life blossoms at noon, To falter rough-hewn On a night of wild sorrow : Life blossoms at noon But is gone on the morrow. TRIOLET Strength, Wisdom and Love Are its tale of achievement. High-stencilled above, Strength, Wisdom and Love ; In wooing whereof It mocks at bereavement : Strength, Wisdom and Love Are its tale of achievement. RELICS ONLY withered leaves ! Ah ! but what tales they tell ! Tales of a broken and bitter heart, Of wine from the lees of hell. Only a faded script ! Oh ! yet what eloquence ! Of thwarted hopes and a wounded love That no life may recompense. Only an inward scar, Closed by the hand of Time ! Yet opened anew whene'er Memory Sings her low mournful rhyme. TO A CHRYSANTHEMUM DRAGOON or dragon, either fits thee well ! Thy tossing mane of saffron-tawny plumes, Nodding before the Noon, doth wake a spell Of magic, that all Earth and sky illumes. When first I saw thee float before my view Straightway methought that o'er the Autumn noon, Already sickled from its larger might, A paler hue Was cast, and fountains of soft silver strewn Over the boundless sea of golden light. Dryads and elves, frail fairies girt and shod With rainbows, stept a mazy dance between Gay companies of stouter fauns that trod Their steady measures clad in emerald sheen. Oh then, down from the golden dome o' the sky, In snowy cincture, soft as down of doves, In wheeling circles slid a mystic host, That came to ply Soft moaning music to the fairy loves, Music of sadness and of grief almost. 33 24 TO A CHRYSANTHEMUM Ah, not a merry measure trod they there ! Not theirs a cavalcade of utter joy ! Amidst of them frail shadowy forms did bear High catafalques, whereon, in last employ, Rested fair wonders of a sumptuous host j Roses, faded from glory ; Lilies, wan, Gaunt, shrunken ; Dahlias, sometime fair and free, Now stript of boast ; Sere Pansies, withered Poppies, lying upon Their ghostly biers in vanquished excellency. Oh thou, thou only, art now left to bear The branch of life upon a withered tree, The Ensign of a countless army fair Over an arid desert ! and in thee, Aching, yet rapturous, I perceive how pure, How fair, of what ineffable delight, Is Life. Not all thy beauty prodigal, Charm or allure, Robes thee with nigh such splendour to my sight As this replete rare passion mystical. So I could clasp thee to my beating breast, Thou tangled brow of hyacinthine curls, Where the last raindrops, love-transmuted, rest Rubies and emeralds, diamonds and pearls ! Instinct with life in each soft twist of thine, I love thee, beauteous Marvel ! thine array, I fain would think, knows not Death's heavy touch Or power malign TO A CHRYSANTHEMUM 25 Oh Sorrow of Sorrows ! lo, e'en now Decay Hath had thy looser curls in his fell clutch ! Yet hath thou woken in me such pure Joy That thou art to me high above all Death ! Yea, thou art Beauty, Beauty without cloy, Beauty above the Flower that withereth, Beauty eternal and ecstatical. And me thou woo'st to beauty, bidding me Ponder and muse on thine effulgent spell ; To burst each thrall And swell to rapture thro' simplicity, Lessoned e'en from the Snowdrop's gentle bell. Eternal thou, Eternal I ! oh Bliss Telling of regions where all smutch and care Pine and are faint at Beauty's perfect kiss, Where joy is rapture, and all Life is fair ! Thy spell floats thro' all Hours ; and in thy light In Sorrow blooms a lustre, and in Pain Gleams some pure centre that despite all fears Is rare and bright. Flower, I thank thee ! yet and yet again, Until I cannot see thee for my tears. CROMWELL OUTSIDE WESTMINSTER FITLY without, oh fitly art thou here Maker of men, Creator of our realm, And Monarch of all monarchs without peer ! Thou would'st not let a sea of words o'erwhelm The spirit's instantaneous word of stress ; Nor did'st thou spin thee subtle draperies Of thought, wherewith to robe Life's nakedness, Thyself participant of sombre ease. Rather Life strode upon thee vast of hue, And mighty with divinity while thou Instant of courage, and supreme of thew, Wrought what sheer deed was written on her brow ; Then of thy heart's impetuous duty quit, Tossed it to roaring Time to treat of it. CROMWELL 27 ii Poet of Duty ! musing lonely thus, Glooming upon an idle errant throng Floating about its ways tumultuous, Say, Thinkest thou we are no longer strong ? That the stout heart thou got us in our youth Hath fallen on decay and desuetude ? Then think not so ! our dalliance in good sooth Is but the languor of an idle mood, Begotten of an inadventurous hour. The blood that flowed in thee still is our own, And still our own that irresistible power That Duty girt thee with for crown and zone. Yet, did we think some baser lot to ply, Dost thou not gleam a beacon in our sky ? ROSES ROSES red and roses white, Dancing, gleaming in my sight, Tossing in capricious pleasure, Tripping to an unknown measure ; Quartet, trio, duet, then Breaking to unite again, Aft before and fore behind Swung upon the summer wind. Roses red and roses white Clothed in soft celestial light, Mingling hues, and speeding swift On a visionary drift To the limits of my sight, To the bounds of high delight, Like a snow of colour driven Over the wide floor of Heaven. Roses red and roses white, Fairy nymphs in vesture bright Floating in the hyaline Murmuring softest songs divine, ROSES 29 Bathed in fragrance deep and sweet, Glorious, subtle, swift and fleet, In the freedom of their flight ! Roses half, oh ! angels quite ! A SONG IN the pure Eternal Abode, Far from this little day, Where moth and rust corrupt and corrode, Let our great Spirits play ! Let us bid Times and Seasons depart, Furling their trivial bliss, To find the realms where Heart on Heart Fold the Eternal Kiss. Withal we have entered the portals of Birth Our destinies to spin, Yet are we aliens on the Earth : But Heaven and the Heart are kin. Seasons but irk us as they ply Disunion on halcyon ; Oh my Beloved, thou and I, Let us at last be one ! TO A SKYLARK SKYLARK ! lately I saw thee swim Up thro' the wastes of air ; Bathed in a golden bath, to its brim Flooded with sunlight, faint and dim I saw thee floating there, In the high heavens, a quivering spot : Yet now, look where I will, lo ! I can find thee not ! Yet on the foamless tide of gold, Out of heaven's naked blue, A cataract of joy untold Too vast for any heart to hold Breaks o'er the sunlit view ; And Earth and air, and brake and tree, Echo and multiply the voiceful ecstasy. Oh thou hast gone, and art thou so A dim immaterial thing ? Is it the golden notes that flow Over the spacious Earth below, These, and not thou, that sing, Pouring out in exultant life Measures of breathless song and deep mellifluous strife ? 31 TO A SKYLARK Hast thou then doffed thy slender girth To join the shapeless voices That swell the air, till all the Earth Charmed by this holy spell of mirth To its uttermost soul rejoices, Thinking in truth her paramour, The high majestic sun, would so her heart allure ? One with the breathless soul of things Life's song is this, not thine ! This theme angelical that flings Cascades of beauty from its wings, This eager, vast, divine, Ecstatic, disembodied song Chanted by choirs that in the mid-air throng ! DAWN THOU hast outdone me, Bird ! I did await His coming too ! E'er since Love's palest opal-streaks did mate Night's royal blue ! Yea, I have hung expectant, tranced and mute, Awed with delight, Watching Light's steady harvest strike its root In fields of Night ! Dim hills strode into being, each to assume His daily station, Even as a stealthy vigour struck Heaven's gloom With bright elation. Trees woke, whispering unto each other, while, Surgent and free, Colour rushed o'er Heaven's vault in conquering file Triumphantly. Purples to opals paled, and opals flushed With tints of rose, Discovering sleeping clouds, that stirred and blushed With waking throes. C 33 34 DAWN In shadowy vesture hung the looming West, While her fair sister With ruby cheeks and drooping eyes confest Apollo kist her. Swiftly then stretched a golden arm to strike Earth's flaming lyre Of livid clouds, that hung out broadly, like A lake of fire. Oh ! then Dawn's orchestration was unrolled ! Violets shrill, Crimsons sonorous, amber, blue, and gold, Uttered their fill ! Breathless, in wide-eyed wonderment I hung, And ere I knew The tune of passion's numbers o'er my tongue, Heavenward thou flew ! Heavenward to meet the King with Earth's rich hymn Of exaltation Flew thou, and left to me a mute and dim Frail adoration. And now, even as the Dawn in Earth or sky Hath nought to capture, Lo ! thou art not ! yet all Heaven's rondure high O'erflows with rapture ! TO SORROW OH Sorrow ! sitting in thy secret lair Of Man's proud heart in sullen passionateness, With misty eyes and raven flowing hair, Plucking the weeds that deck thy shadowy dress With twitchy fingers, thy rich heavy tears Dropping like bitter rain o'er all his soul, How art thou Queen of all his fitful days ! What eager fears Thou bring'st him, minions of thy dark control ! What weeds of cypress gloom for crown of bays ! Hath he not ever thought to find his throne In some irradiant Heaven, and build him there A pearly structure, girt with Joy for zone, And happy sportive elves upon its stair ? Ah ! little recked he then how swoln thy power, Mistress of Tears and Wisdom ! little, in sooth, How thou art even inevitable as the Tomb ! For thou didst lower Above him with wide wings that knew not ruth, Blotting his Sun and whelming him in gloom. 35 36 TO SORROW i 3 Oh Sorrow, this thy bitter river of tears, Coursing thro' all the earth in channels hewn Deep where the passionate heart of Man appears, Oh, wherefore flows it ? Flows it that are strewn In dust and ashes his quick eager hopes ? Flows it to see some dull, dim, glazing eye That stares at realms where for a Tester's Heaven A Hell now opes ? Canst thou unlock thy heart, or tell him why The filmy stars in thy pale crown are seven ? 4 Not like an Angel clad in vivid hues, Apparelled in celestial radiancy, Com'st thou athwart the zenith, to suffuse Office with splendour, place with majesty ! Not glorious thou, nor lovely ! yet in mire Thou found'st frail Man ; from sluggish sloth and ease Awoke him with a touch of thy swift stave ; In bitterness of desire Teaching him loftier ends and destinies To hunger after, and new Morrows crave. 5 Ever down all the avenues of Time Thou prickt his lethargy, framed him to see What his lot held of wondrous or sublime To bate thy torments with. In heavenly fee TO SORROW I I 37 Thou held his Soul, rare Visions to supj And pluck him out the midst of sluggish meres. Oh, yet what boots it that we may perceive Thy function high, Or the pure goal thou hast, for in sad tears We know thee, and in grief thy praise receive. IN MEMORIAM E. J. F. TERTIUS PRATER ave atque vale ! Sorrow ! oh Sorrow ! Poignant with Life's very bitterness and anguish ! Wrung from heavy hearts that passioned for the morrow j Broken from distasteful lips that languish Yesternoons to borrow. Friendship's high communion, Love's exultant guerdon, Severed of ruthless Time, or smitten of Death and broken, Drape above the Future's brow their sorry burden, Till its vaunted greetings are but spoken For the self-same token. Life in life, sweet boon in circumstance, hereafter Shall we greet thee, know thee as we never knew thee ? Decked in subtler vesture, clothed in higher laughter, Shall again our eyeless vision view thee Nevermore to rue thee ? Oh, give us to know ! Exalt our querulous vision So to read our destinies that we may see not Life a gloom immedicable, blind misprision, Knowing surely Love's high boon to be not Sorrow or derision ! V TO E. VON O. FRIEND, who of all the earth that I term so Hath not wrung grief from me ! oft I have yearned To kindle with other souls the flame that burned In mutual joy betwixt us, and to know An eye that leapt to mine in lustrous glow Of great high interchange. But Time hath spurned That gift to me j and where I thought to have learned Love, warming to some brave and outward show, I have learned a trip that waited at the last. Oh, thou who knew my faults and took my hands : Who knew them well, and opened me thy heart, I cannot find thy like where e'er I cast. Therefore I sing to thee across the lands And thank thee for the anchorage thou art. 39 HANGER WOODS To A THRUSH AT SUNSET THROSTLE ! the winter woods are bare Of colour, verdure, or attire, Save that the sunset like a fire Flames thro' the dim and misty air, Flickers upon the shroud that drapes The shadowy glens and glades, Filling them full of ghostly shapes In ghostly ambuscades. Surely for thee the day is done ! For see ! in the resplendent West With mauve and gold and amber drest, Thro' crimson shutters glares the Sun : Like some vast God that with one eye Surveys the shadowy scene Sadly from vales where he doth lie The length of his demesne. The zenith like a rippled shore Welcomes the waves of light, from tides Upon whose foaming crests there glides Colour until the Day is o'er. HANGER WOODS 41 And in the East the timid stars Thro' curtains of the Night Peep, like the flash of scimitars, Peep, and then vanish quite. Over the dells pale primrose blooms, Changing to jocund nymphs and elves Exultant to disport themselves, Vanish amid the gathering glooms : Yet in thy bower of gaunt trees Like witches that apart Gather for night-long mysteries, Still pourest thou thy heart ! Thou, Throstle ! 'tis not thou that sings ! Not thine the esctatic melody Pouring o'er all things like a sea Of song, a tide of boundless springs ! Surely not thine this mighty voice Filling the earth and sky, Like some archangel's, that for choice Thought here his psalm to ply. Rather it seems the aching Earth, Toucht by the beauty of delight, Moved by the music of the night, Herself hath broken out in mirth, Herself hath found a point of song, And in a grove of trees Utters unto the starry throng Her secret ecstasies. 42 HANGER WOODS Deeming no errant mortal near She hath unlockt her heart of song, And now doth volubly prolong Wisdom and rapture and high cheer. So seems it, for the day's soft close Falls peaceful and serene, Save for thy passionate tide that flows Over the tranquil scene. Throstle, if it indeed be thou, If it be thine, this potent theme Breaking the caskets of pure dream, Wherever thou art hid, say now, Is't nothing to thee that some shape Is moving everywhere The sable folds of Night to drape Like curtains thro' the air ? And see ! like jewels that o'erleap The dark, over Night's swarthy coast The vanguards of the starry host In glittering legions slowly sweep : Each to his task appointed flares With majesty benign ; Yet, tho' Night's purple vaults are theirs, Lo ! all the earth is thine ! TO SHAKESPEARE THERE is a glory of what men acquire, A glory of erudition, plucked from gloom, And set o'er mounded darkness as a fire Raying, the paths of ignorance to illume. Not so with thee, Rare Spirit ! from the womb Thou bore an Eye to which our choice designs, Cloaking the spirit's hypocritical bloom, Lay bare and naked in their pristine lines. Moving with tender ease its radiance shines Swiftly about our bowels, hath its play Imperious in our heart's most gloomy mines, And swings our secrets out to cruel Day. Therefore we fear thy power miraculous ; Therefore we love thee for thou loveth us ! 43 EMPTY WRATH. I SAW a man strike at a youth, Who staggered at the stroke ; Whereat another, passing by, To sudden anger woke. " For shame ! " cried he ; " thou shameless hulk, Thou coward to smite one frail, Helpless to give thee back thy blow And fetch thee hale for hale ! " A sunny noon when nuts were prime, And passionless the sun, I saw him stride a heavy glebe Beneath his arm a gun. With it he felled a soft-eyed bird That from a bush made start. Astonished I beheld the sight, And marvelled in my heart. LAMENT To MY MUSE THOU woo'st me with benignant grace, Pursing thy lips to mine, While the smiles that wreathe thy radiant face Burn in my veins like wine Drunk in the glory of an eager chase, And I am thine, I am thine. Mistress, I am thine ; this truant heart No other allegiance knows ; Thy beauty with its mystic art Riots me with high throes, Finding me joy and ecstasy apart, However occasion goes. The pomp of midmost June, the grace Of April's tender sheen, Whelm me with glory as I gaze Thy mighty orbs between : Truth, Beauty and the eternal height of days Are one then, as I ween. 45 46 LAMENT And yet it may not be ; for when Thou bidd'st me to be bold And chase with thee o'er mead and fen To search the heights of gold, Prisoner am I ; and when I may, oh then Perchance thou may'st be cold. THE VACANT CHAIR NOT for the dead, not for the dead, I bring Tribute of grief, of sorrow and suffering ! Not for the dead, oh Memory, woo I thee ; Deckt tho' thou art in weeds of drapery, And gossamer vestiture Bitter to see ! Not for the dead, earth-weary, that put off Earthy habiliments and Time's allure j Not for the dead that doff Sorrow itself, seeking the eyes that trace Heaven's roseate glow Over a twilight dim ! Not for the dead no, no ! Hath life grown unto me a desert place ! Not for the dead, not for the stark of limb ; But for the dead to me ! Ah Memory, what is this bringest me Shadowy o'er the gloom ? What Visage gleaming thro' thy drapery Palely and fitfully Even as stars flash to illume 47 48 THE VACANT CHAIR The vesper river of glory o'er the West ? Oh Memory, oh Memory, Seeing it the quick functions of my breast Cease, and the firm utterance of my will Falters and fails with longings unexprest. Fain would I blot it from me, yet I still Hunger upon the sight, to pluck it out, And hold it sure before me past all doubt, Even tho' it shatter me. Oh Memory, oh Memory, This bitter cup of thine Is sacramental wine ; Blood is it, blood, and bitter gall of tears. I take it from thy hand, and as I drink, Even tho' its brink Eye me with dim capricious lure, Moving with charm benign Far thro' the folds of thy faint vestiture That shadowy Face appears. Thy vesture moves, and with it move the years. Half a dim decade moves, and there I see The birth of much to me. Half a dim decade passes, as a blot Toucht by erasure firm ; But the Face passes not ! Now may it never pass, for oh ! there met we : With such swift union as might eager souls Shorn of their aureoles Till such sweet time as their predestined stars THE VACANT CHAIR 49 Toucht them to unity and perfect bliss. Oh, then I swore that never should forget we The rapture of that kiss ; And to the Worm I flung far challenge that our unity Transcended pulsing Time and fleshy bars. Oh Memory, oh Memory, Thro' the wide night of gloom How thou dost taunt me now, Tossing this early glory as a bloom Stript of its petals, wrung from the vital bough ! Oh, Mistress of the lofty, pitiless brow, What dost thou now ? For lo ! like billowy waves o'er Ocean's face Foamless with majesty, Thy vesture flows, and thro' it seasons loom Dark with a deep impenetrable gloom ! Ah, there in midst of all That fair Face yet I see ; Shining with courage, aid and sustenance While all was dark with me ; Radiant with living hope and tenderest grace Despite the Hour's tenebrious bodefulness. Oh, never, till all time, whate'er befall, Can I forget The succour that I found me, In that deep hour of stress, From those sweet lips, whose eager music bound me Already with the crown I strove to get ! D 5 o THE VACANT CHAIR But it is o'er, oh Memory, it is o'er ! No longer may I find that eager hand By slipping down mine own ! No more, oh never more, Shall its warm fingers teach me to command Victory in teeth of chance ! No more that eager Face Shall make old Time reel in his little zone, While realms of pearl and pure eternal gold Unfold A spacious heritage upon my sight, Oh Memory, oh Memory, All this has ta'en its flight, All this is now no more, Save in the tender glamour of thine eye ! Ah ! Mistress pale, well dost thou know how I, Howe'er the years might trace Sorrow or halcyon, Have deemed it not a shame To muse on one sweet Face, And murmur one dear Name ! Ay, on a harsh far Eastern shore, A weary year, Forbad intrusion of aught other fame, Howe'er so subtly wrought with tender yore, From earliest shout of chanticleer Until he sang once more ! Ah ! since we drew to one Mixing to issue Heaven's own perfect truth THE VACANT CHAIR 51 In our Life's nearer range How often 'mid the barter and exchange I have hungered for the music of one voice ! In sorrow for but one heart's tender ruth ! Esteeming them to be, Beyond what else might be, The Goal of all, Eternity's fair sooth. Oh Memory, oh Memory, What Horror looms there over thee, With sad eyes, sad beyond all bitterness, Pale as the wooing Ocean's foam-caress ? Why beacons it ? oh why Gazes it on me with such sorrowful eye ? Deep at my secret thought I find its promptings, as with gesture low It doth a melancholy Future show, Flowing to hoary hours Strewn with the wrack of yesternoon's gay flowers. I fear it, ah ! for it showeth me Life as a theme for mad carouse, forgetting That love had birth or setting ; Or grey with effort to shut out thy face Oh Memory, wan Memory ! Yet aid me thou ! for it doth trace Alternate issues to my soul distraught : Wooing me to a swift confederacy With lethal hours of peace, Shut from the world, Shut from all time, 52 THE VACANT CHAIR In deep eternal slumber to be furled Sublime -, So to get quit of pain, so to bid cease Sorrow, with the heart's fretful poignancy. Oh Memory, oh Memory, From out the harvest of thy sumptuous store Canst thou not succour me ? I fear the Horror that thro' sorrow and gloom Tempts me unto the Tomb : Ah ! it hath something of mine own hid self. Life is a hollow gloom, a void void delf, Art thou a mockery ? Canst thou not succour me ? And hold thy caskets only bitterness ? Then help me thou, whom I have doubted never ; Help me, oh Destiny ! Perchance thy flail is in this, for thy love Is subtle tho' I may not doubt its birth ! Thou hast bidden me strive, and yet again to strive, In bitterness and fierce endeavour To burst each heavy gyve, Binding the Heaven-born o'er the earth. Oh thou ! if this be newer stress To purge me and my days, Succour me then with visions and stern aid ! Support me while thy thongs Curl with swift fierceness over my quick soul ! Bid them complete what thou hast bid them do ; Nor heed me if I falter, afraid, THE VACANT CHAIR 53 Perceiving not the radiant and meet Goal Thou hast in view ! Sing to me thy pure songs. I doubt thee not ; nor ever doubted thee ; Not e'en in Doubt's own sombre and gloomy abyss. Oh, yet thou hast thy sting not less than she, Wan Memory. For, since our earliest kiss, She whom I mourn hath never doubted too ? AD INTRA DEAR, where thou art I know not, Nay, nor thy destiny ; And on my brow I show not That it is aught to me. Ah ! yet mine inmost spirit Finds not one theme of joy As day upon day inherit Life's weariness and cloy. 54 "FIRELIGHT" SOFTLY the shadows flit Into the sombre room, Brushing me not as here I sit Brooding the darker gloom. Here the quick flickering flame Leaps o'er the careless grate, Finding no glistening eye to claim There to be duplicate. Ah ! and I too, I too, Lean to the low-backed chair, Eager to find soft lips to woo ; Vainly, oh vainly, there ! THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME FOREWORD IT has seemed to me that both the matter and the manner of this Poem call for a word in explanation. That it should employ Personages hitherto known in treasured Poems of the World's Literature will perhaps mean a stumble only to the feeble-footed, for it is fitting that a Poet utilise the Great Memory if so be it strikes not athwart the native instance of his own powers. That it should employ other machinery is a graver matter : yet if it have its own theme to tell, its own purport to deliver, a purport and theme derivable only from its own Maker, then it will be wise if it arrive at these as speedily as possible, which may happen to be better achieved by taking known machinery than by elaborating, and there- fore explaining, its own. Yet it will be rightly demanded that this machinery be woven into its own poetry. If any confusion arise, this may indeed be the fault of its Maker, but may well chance to arise from the sloth of its Reader. 57 PERSONS JOB. JOB'S WIFE. THREE MESSENGERS. SLAVE. PERSONAGES THE PRESENCE. MEPHISTOPHELES. CHORUS OF PITIES. CHORUS OF FURIES. SCENE Porch of Job's House. 9 THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME JOB IN the high God I trust, He who supreme Reigns, throned above all sovereignty and power. In the beginning, ere the breath of Time, Or the vast concourse of eternity Woke, stirred to sweetest song in cycles wide, He shone, on high above a cosmic Void, In flaming hue, when neither high or low Was yet, nor looming West nor radiant East, Dizzy above a dark vacuity ; Arched by eternal roofs unshot by aught Save His effulgent radiancy of hue. We all are of Him : I not less than thou, Thou even as I. He is supreme, superb, Omnipotent, transcendent, glorious. In Him I trust. So hence ! Tempt me no more ! MEPHISTOPHELES It is not so, howe'er thou think it so. How high he is in measureless majesty I know, who bear on me His sting of power. But wherefore thou ? The object of thy praise Is that most curious chance that raised thee high. ii 62 THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME Not for the glory of Him, nor for the power Resident in His beauty, dost thou arch This duteous knee before His lustrous face ; But for thy goodly lands, thy retinue, Thy spacious tilth of merchandise and spoil. Bereft of these, lonely and comfortless, Would fetch thee such rare blasphemies as we In Hades use. Thou worshippeth thyself j And so we too, yet being more jocund-eyed, We do esteem and recognise it so. Nay, more ! we are loftier and nobler in it. For lo ! we worship in our misery, Having no mirror of prosperity To note ourselves in. But, Job, thou, oh thou, Doth preen thy wings before the vivid sun, Basking in glory, like some rooster-cock Flinging a challenge to the sun i' his pride ; Reading his scorn for fear. We know ourselves, And therefore are the worthier of self-praise : Thou art the bantling son of self-delusion. JOB Who says so mocks me ; and doth do me more Most grievous wrong. What I have in my day I hold from Him, and hold it to return At his behest. He is greater than them all Being Giver of them ; and this I truly esteem. Sons, daughters, retinue and merchandise, Lands spacious or confined, kine, sheep and herb, Fleets o'er the argent waves, camels that trend THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME 63 Hither and thither o'er the arid sands, Gold-heavy coffers, Tyrjan-purple bales, And all that men esteem for excellency, Let them pass on the vesper wind, and I Will yet praise Him whose goodness gave them me. MEPHISTOPHELES Brave words ! High-vaunting sentences ! Forsooth Did I but touch the least of these, thy curse Would quickly leap on me ; and to curse fiends Is to curse Deity with a coward's tongue. This gracious state thy word so lately built Erect before mine eyes, let me but crush, Crushed as a blosmy arbourage is crushed By a tempestuous breath, crush as the surge Doth crush the gentle sepulture of love, Crush with a pitiless palm, and so will I crush The melancholy boast thy feeble breath Labours upon. Thine is a trivial hour, Job ; soon will come thy trial ; and then my hand Will stretch it forth to clutch thee for its own, And bear thee down triumphantly to Hell. CHORUS OF PITIES Out of the loom of years, Into the strife of Time, Came Man, in sorrow and tears, Travail and toil and grime, To erect him a stature noble in a complexity sublime. 64 THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME Clad in eternal light, Vestured with radiancy, Bright, and as pure as bright, Into the gloom came he To fashion a splendour ineffable as height and depth may be. He thro' the vales of birth Swept from his lustred throne, Here in the travail of Earth, Here, and here alone, Thro' Sorrow and Tribulation to achieve to a larger zone. Trailing eternal hours Comes he grief to sue, Eager of vaster powers, Shedding his pristine hue To fashion again its lustre and to build it up anew. But larger and broader, and tho' Pure as the pure may be, Pure with a fiercer throe, Pure with wisdom for fee, Pure as the end of travail and knowledge, pure with new radiancy. Not here hath he rest nor peace, Otherwhere burns his goal : Where blood rebellions cease To shatter his high control, Where glories caught on Earth shine free in boundless- ness of soul. THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME 65 Nay, not here hath he rest ! Ah ! but too oft, too oft, Quitting his ceaseless quest Falls he on slumber soft, Not seeing the vivid beacon that flares and flames aloft. JOB What dost thou here, thou who before my day Broke to such splendour wast companion still, And comforter, to me ? All my stout youth, Or e'er achievement shone about my feet, When with swift hands I hewed my way, with thought Laborious studied to make near what seemed So far, so distant, so removed, so dim, Ever thou wert the voice that cheered me on And made the combat glorious. So now, come ! We are alone, let us renew our love ! JOB'S WIFE Job, thou art not what once thou wert ; thou hast Fallen aside from glory ; and thy thews Are slack and graceless, those high mental thews Wherewith thou clomb the peaks of Beauty, Love, And dreams ideal, in thine eager youth And larger excellence. He whom I loved Is dead ; thou art another in his place. JOB What shrewish words are these ? Am I not he Who loved thee ere success flamed with wide wings 66 THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME O'er my frail hour ? and who, now that her glory Is high above my head, doth love thee still ? Thee have I loved ; and with such constancy As I have served the fervour of our troth Have I served Beauty, and have sought to attempt Her innermost shrine where Truth and Life are one. JOB'S WIFE It is not so ; oh Job, it is not so ! Success hath eaten thee ; and such success As is most native to our baser clay. Once didst thou think men equal, holding them One, brethren of adversity, and Life A charge most holy fallen to their care. How falls it now ? Dost thou not in thine heart Esteem them fuel to make burn more bright Thy noon of splendour ? Ah, and see thy days That once were spent in service of high Truth ! Is not sleek merchandise thy truth, great bales Beauty, and plenished coffers excellence ? Say, is not Life thine end, that once thou held A discipline ? Oh, thou art fallen away ! That thou dost deem success hath been to thee Corruption ; and therewith hath come on me Sorrow and grief, tears and an aching void. JOB Woman, away ! Life is not one but twain. Thy wit is keen to note but half; its whole Escapes thy shrewish tongue as odours 'scape THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME 67 The eager edge that cuts the violet. Folly it is, gross folly and gross pride, That thinks youth's single humour doth embrace Life's perfect rondure, or the well of Truth Exhausts. From nonage have I grown ajltee, And learnt a larger discipline than there Was possible to me. JOB'S WIFE Perchance ! perchance ! Yet who is this that o'er the desert wild Flies like a tempest swift ? JOB Upon his feet His cloudy paces clothe him with bright wings. CHORUS OF FURIES Deckt in a little pride, Feeble from birth ; Broken at even tide, Shapeless of girth, Yet at his halcyon Thinking to blot the Sun, Man doth encumber wide Tracts of the Earth. Even as the thirsty sod Kisses his sweat, Thinks he himself a god Glorified ; yet 68 THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME Swift at the last of days Death ! and his glory lays Overstrewn, undertrod, Dust to dust met. Over his pallid brow Fits he a crown : Even tho' to Death he bow, Snatching renown, Eager of sumptuous state, Seeking to foil his Fate, Strutting a stage : oh how Like to a clown ! Pity does mock at him, Terror doth weep, Seeing him up the dim Pinnacles steep Scaling, to sound a blast Glorious : yet, at the last, Every resplendent whim Rocked in a sleep. JOB'S WIFE See ! he hath gained us now ! So travel-sore, So desert-stained and weary with much heat, What urgent theme sped him athwart the void Upon our solitudes ? Methinks some deep Occasion dire hath pricked him to such haste j THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME 69 For lo ! his twitching countenance hath fear Looming upon it, even as eagerness To burst a vital burthen holds his eyes And quivers on his lips. JOB Whoe'er thou art, Whate'er the matter thou art burthened with, Swift ! let it take the air. My lissom youth Is buried 'neath the arches of the years ; And with it have been buried agitations, Those champing stallions coursing thro' the blood Snuffing some sorry tale upon the breeze. I am bold to know thy worst ; so tell it out ! Were it e'en twice so large I fear it not. FIRST MESSENGER Even as we tended thy large herds, oh Job, On the far mountain side, All the vast valley wide Darkened, as tho' some sombre glittering robe Was cast about the shoulders of the Earth. Wondring we gazed, and the dim rubious sun Made play upon the spear-points of the host. Yea, as our toil was done Gone was our evening mirth, Struck with disastrous terror and stark fear j For all the shadowy coast, Both far and near, 70 THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME Glittered and writhed with fire-lit menace wide, Like a huge dragon many-eyed : Glittered at close of day, Glittered and writhed, for they Swept o'er the meady passages, Swept from beneath the bosky trees, Swept o'er the rocks, And like a mighty foamless tide Swept o'er the darkling valley-side, Swept on our flocks. Oh Job, what could we few ? What mortal aid could venture that did we. I, overcome of two, Turned me to flee, And staggered headlong down a rocky cleft : 'Tis therefore I, I only, am now left To come to thee. JOB Buffets are given but to make stout the soul. This breach in our fortunes Time and I must make Surer anon ; nor may it daunt us now. CHORUS OF PITIES Oh Heaven of Heaven, to woo Man to thy splendour Brilliant before his soul's ecstatic eye ! Rolling effulgent, scintillant, and tender Thro' the dim clouds of doubt and mystery ! With many flagellations deep and dire Thou whipp'st him as with whips of flaming fire. THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME 71 Unto the heart upon whose eye the bevy Of soft diaphanous spirits swim revealed, Before whose vision o'er the vapour heavy The hue of heaven's blue hyaline is concealed, Oh wherefore do thy righteous angers burn ? Wherefore thy hand so hard, thy brow so stern ? But oh ! thy ways are strange and strange thy mission ! Thy vapours curl in dexterous cycles wide Losing themselves in night, and to Man's vision He know'th not which are false, nor which abide The perfect clue that leadeth to the zone Where Truth and Beauty share an equal throne. Oh tell him, hide it not in flaunting lyric ! Thine angers, do they sever light from dark ? Is this thy wisdom, by a swift empiric Admonishing when he hath slipt the mark ? Oh Heaven of Heaven, to thy bright realm to woo him Wilt thou first prove him, then to strength endue him ? JOB'S WIFE And yet another ! If I err me not 'Tis with some new disaster he is primed. Never did sorrows trail a single course, But keep the road in congregations, flocks, And herded teams. 'Twas ever so ; yet if There wanted confirmation, his swift eyes Avoiding thine, his visage dark and gloomy, Utter as loud as trumpet tongues of woe. 72 THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME JOB Suffice it to toll lamentations loud ! Out with thy tale, whether it be of woe, Or whether dreams of bliss ! There cannot be Aught in this sorrow-laden world so harsh As dim foreboding, fancy reading grief Penned in vast charactry o'er the morrow's sun. Knowledge is half the issue met. So come ! Bid swift compression aid thy limber tongue ! SECOND MESSENGER From the far Tyrian shore I fly, O Job, to bear to thee Tales of defeat and dire calamity. Job, Job, thy steward am I ; And from the lips of one swift sestet gray, From morn to noon of day, Learnt I the bitterest chance that e'er could fall. First came a mariner from the Southern Sea, Haggard and wan, wild terrors in his eye Shining, like stars within a dusky pall ; He of thy mighty navies, bent From the bright Orient To fetch thee spices and wide tapestries, Was sole survivor ; and with pallid hue Told he how, o'er the ruthless winds that flew Shrieking about their tackle taut and yare, He heard fiends laughing in high revelries. Then from the Middle Ocean came there one THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME 73 Nigh dead, and spun Terror and wizardry woven. Job, he sware Soft sirens woo'd them to a furious shore And slew them as they foundered, seeming then Like spirits clothed about with flaming fire. Elect and chosen was he to escape and bare The tidings to thee, by a Council hoar And wizened ; nor he knew conclusion, when A violent spirit tore His utterance, and he fell before me, stark. Job, with dust and mire 1 strewed me, and in sackcloth heavy adorned My stricken and quivering limbs. So had I mourned Till Noon's bright zenith, when before mine eyes I saw two threading up the coast's defiles In a sequestered bark. Heavy and gloomy was their guise ; And heavy with the burthen of gloom their tale. With jocund souls they had flung out their sail, Laden with metals from the further isles To swell thy coffers with ; when sudden and swift A pitiless tempest did uplift Its roaring voice about their ears, Poured its tempestuous tears Over their decks, and whelmed them with vast seas. Amid the fiercer furies these, Being lightlier laden with the precious ore. Struck not, nor foundered, on that bitter shore, But on the tempest sped Counting their dying and dead. 74 THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME And even as they sped so, Bewildered, as upon a charger fierce A fiend upon a forked lightning flew Over the universe. Job, Job, for bearing thee this bitter woe Even at thy knees thy pardon will I owe. JOB'S WIFE Oh, theme for lamentation, sorrow, and woe ! Oh grief ! oh misery ! at noon to note The ruin of edifices, that erewhile Stood out with snowy domes 'neath golden skies, Now hewn by huge catastrophe, and brought From the blue firmament down to the dust ! JOB Oh, once it could not move me, to receive Sorrowful tidings, grief and woe ! for when I sought me eager ventures with sure heart 'Twas fitting they should flow on my success, Even as forsooth a forward heave o' a wedge Fetches a lateral thrust its either side ! But now ! even at my noon of splendour, when Harvest and slumber kiss each other : curse it ! Oh, curse it, curse it, curse it ; and curse thee Thou filter of ill tidings, thou vile blot On the untarnished page of high success ! THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME 75 CHORUS OF FURIES Over the bitterness and the gloom, over the wonder of glory, Laden with both arms flits the Tomb with its consolation hoary, Whispering to sorrow and rapture alike its mystic antique story. Smitten with splendour of the Sun, and satiate of emotion, Welcomes the Earth when day is done the ghostly Moon's devotion, Charmed by her musical silver of speech, lulled by her lethal potion. She the pale Huntress icy and chaste, from all passion bereft and broken, O'er the wide waters' restless waste and the barter of wisdom spoken, Rules, and is Goddess and Mistress supreme, for a deep and mystic token. So at the uttermost height of days, so when all Life is ended, Love's fair laurels and Victory's bays tost aside untended, Comes she, Sleep, the shadowy-eyed, no more with phantasy blended. 76 THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME Passion and ecstasy, fury and strife, conquest and cataclysm, Love and the sweetest savour of Life, are one at the touch of her chrism, Muted to language of silence, lost and sunk in her vast abysm. Even as Aurora over the blue wild brow of a Vesper tearful, Flits she, Memory, pale of hue, on the wake of a high noon cheerful, Flits she, passes, and all is peace, in the depth of a slumber fearful. JOB'S WIFE Too true, oh Job, too true, that thou didst lend Too heavy a love, too eager and too large An interest of pursuit, in those mere shows That hit the grosser sense and please the eye Sensual and petulant : which being lost Having no spirit ideal that abides A corporal decay grievous and grave Our state is, having lost our very all ! JOB Lost ! lost ! Who is it says 'tis lost ? Lost lives not in my language ; lost is a word Coined for the sluggard to beguile himself While resolution recreates the hour. THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME 77 I do despise this lost. Have I not gold In glittering bounty coffered for my need ? If once I hit achievement, then again It may be won. But resolution's all ; And here I do resolve to gather up This challenge flung me. I will tell my gold, And put it out to vantage, freeing it To wing the earth and ocean SLAVE Job, thy gold JOB What of my gold ? Lies it not dark and sure ? SLAVE It bears not telling, 'tis so strange and wild. JOB What of my gold ? Lies it not hid and wrapt ? CHORUS OF PITIES Oh the deep grief of one smitten By Fortune's pitiless flail ! SLAVE Job, even as the golden morning Glowed about us, making radiant thy great coffers many and wide, 78 THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME As we marvelled on thy riches, lo ! without a breath of warning Broke a murmur at our side ! CHORUS OF FURIES Oh the deceit of one bitten With lust of a golden grail ! SLAVE Forth with terror we upstarted ! For like ghostly pinions moving thro' a ghostly spirit-lair, All about us, and yet seeming by a mighty realm far- parted, Moved that murmur thro' the air. CHORUS OF PITIES Oh grief ! oh loud lamentation ! Oh ashes for fruit at the lips ! SLAVE Each thy coffers burst asunder In the vivid sunlight saw we, and thy golden pieces flowed Like a billowy noiseless ocean on the marbles set there- under j Where they lay awhile and glowed. CHORUS OF FURIES Oh mighty and meet flagellation ! Oh potency hidden in whips ! THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME 79 SLAVE Louder grew the noise of pinions, As we hung there tranced in terror, smitten by a potent spell, Louder yet, and swifter, fleeter, like a host of spirit minions, And oh Job, I shrink to tell ! CHORUS OF PITIES What, Life, thine eager commission, Fain would Man know, and divine ! SLAVE For amid thy treasure golden Moved a spirit swift and secret, like an agitation deep Swelling o'er the limbs and visage of a sleeper tranced and holden By the portraiture of sleep. CHORUS OF FURIES Like a cup to the lips, Fruition, Bitter, and empty of wine ! SLAVE So the moving treasure kindled Gleaming in its golden beauty, writhing at the sun's caress ; Yet with horror stricken saw we, for it settled, melted, dwindled, Seeming gradually less. 8o THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME CHORUS OF PITIES Oh Defeat ! to the steadfast spirit Thou pointest the loftier goal. SLAVE So it vanished ; and thereafter Rose a conquering swell of pinions from the midmost spirit-lair, And, as we hung tranced with terror, softly a mocking wail of laughter Died away upon the air. CHORUS OF FURIES Oh Death, all sorrows inherit Thee, and thou eatest them whole. JOB'S WIFE I am stricken ; I am smitten of vast woe ; All my veins burn with bitterness and with grief. Sorrow hath me its portion, and I know Nowhere to find me solace or relief. JOB It is enough ! Even at the last defeat I will eschew me passion ; I will take Sorrow for comrade j I will muse aside On the deceit and frailty that make up THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME The hollow shows of life. Its gilded gloss, Its tinsel and its pomp did too much catch My heart aforetime. Yea, it is enough ! I will aside and muse on Time and Fate. MEPHISTOPHELES What of thy state, oh Job ? What of the wealth Wherewith thou late wert swollen, and wherewith Soft comfortable oblations thou poured out Before the Almighty's shrine, thanksgiving him For all his bounties to thee ? On a wind Rumour procured me tidings thou wert ill ; Whispering moreover that with goodly phrase Thy lips were given to cursing and to oaths. JOB Tempter, away ! Naked I came, and naked I must go hence : what other additions are, Are light fortuitous gatherings of fate Swiftly to be erased at any hour. I set too high a love on them ; but now My children will I gather thro' my house And end my days with love and gentleness. MEPHISTOPHELES Thy children, Job ? Were they not feasting high Even with the King of the City in the plain ? 82 THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME JOB 'Tis so ; yet will I bring them quickly thence, Hearing their music's ripple o'er my ears. MEPHISTOPHELES Truly, oh Job, thou art smitten with a woe Unparalleled ! For as with radiant flight I sped across the vaults of heaven, I came Over the city of the plain, and saw, Amazedly, that agitated flames Devoured it, as great serpents do devour Sparrows and chaffers for a noontide feast. Circuitously I past it, being unused To such untimely flames and ruinous heat, Yet could I note how o'er the King's demesne With spiral fury lit the ardent flames, Leaping from vault to pinnacle, base to dome, Licking the walls vindictively amid The shrieks of the incarcerated victims. JOB I have not yet found Sorrow, nor have known Loss, till these bitter words of thine. Oh, I am Broken ; yea, I am spent, and Life is empty. The sun is darkened ; and a shade is thrown Over my soul. My flesh is shrunken ; drought Is entered in my veins, and in my bones Hath swept a fever for a token dire. Yet will I not be tempted to revile. THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME 83 Thou find'st me gins and pitfalls for my feet ; Therefore will I be wary. Thou would'st lead My lips to cursing ; therefore will my heart Exult in Him in whom I find my boast. MEPHISTOPHELES Think'st thou to escape me so ? These pompous words, They are not spoken in thine own heart's faith, But in thy will's oppugnancy to mine. Thou dost derive thee this refulgent faith, This strength, from out a body's might of thew. Thy seasonable health must I then touch To fetch thee to thy last defence of all ; To bring thee to those caverns whence proceed Reverberations of such sumptuous oaths As these ears love to hear. See o'er thy flesh How boils proceed to envelope and to embrace thee ! From scalp to heel not one sound perfect spot Shalt thou boast presently. See how thy hairs Dissever from thee ! See how thy rich robes Are suddenly found too large to hold thy limbs ! See how thine eyes are shrunken and grown dim ! Oh, truly we shall hear a music soon More dulcet to these ears than flute or harp ! CHORUS OF PITIES In the vast depth of thine abyss, Sorrow, what lessons hath he learnt, Man, the amazed of all the earth ! 84 THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME CHORUS OF FURIES Oh, as the rapture of thy kiss Over his lips' full passion burnt, How withered and shrunken fell his girth ! TOGETHER What bitterness found he then, and what dire pains Moving like molten fluid in his thirsty veins ! PITIES Then unto him, who late, in youth, Knew neither evil hours nor gray, Life loomed with meaning vast and huge. FURIES Then, as on him thy pitiless tooth Fastened, his gay and glorious day Grew to a bitter subterfuge. TOGETHER And all his thoughts were hurled to furious strife, Waiting to be refashioned to some larger life. PITIES What pangs of travail on him so Fell, with a stern and ruthless might What questionings found he, and what gloom ? THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME 85 FURIES Enveloped in thy heavy woe, Feeble and frail, he found no light His soul's miasma to illume. TOGETHER Yet lest his wayworn heart too long should keep Thy shades, Night curtains hung the air to woo him asleep. PITIES Then o'er his brow new lustres shone, New glories gathered in his eye, A vaster stature found his soul. FURIES Oh, then did he in fury don A fierce and swift philosophy Whose darkness held him in control. TOGETHER And voices in the air and in his heart Tossing antiphonal musics tore his soul apart. PITIES Oh Sorrow, from the brutish mire Thou hast rescued Man, to look within, To note himself, and to pursue New goals and loftier Destinies. 86 THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME FURIES Oh Sorrow, with thy flail of fire Thou hast scourged his virgin thought, to win What bliss soe'er his hours may woo Oh ruby lips and fitful ease. TOGETHER Oh ever hast thou whelmed his liberty Swiftly and suddenly ; And having known thee once never the same is he ! JOB'S WIFE Oh Job, what blight hath fallen on thy flesh ! Thou who wert sometime fair, and as the dawn Gracious to look upon, what thing is this Hath eaten up thy glory, and made thee A theme for dusty urchins to mock at ? Oh horror ! that the beauteous mortal frame Should fall to such a fester of decay ! JOB May the dark day that gave my body birth Be curst ! May it not see the light ! May all Whom that day belched to teem this foolish earth, My brothers and sisters of humanity, THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME 87 Wither and falter in distress and fear ! May they not know the joy of strife encountered ; But fall, :hewn by the arm of ruthless Fate, Immedicable, fruitless and unscanned ! And she who bore me, she who gave me birth, She who in pangs had joy of me that morn, Oh fruitless was her pain ! for in sad hour I was conceived, blighted e'er I drew breath, And toyed by all the gods to find them play On such an hour as sadness irked their ease. Cursed be earth, curst be the toil of earth, And cursed be the ends and aims of earth, Curst with the curse that curseth all fair things ! JOB'S WIFE Oh, what is this ? What grief should fall on thee, That thy fair fortune, like a bellying sail Blown by the sea-wind's breath on where thou sat'st Toying the tiller, should o'erwhelm thy ease, Is sorrow, and a sorrow that my tears May flow for, and yet learn to know an end. But that the splendour of my statured pride Should shrink to such decay, that thy health's bloom Should bear upon it the harsh touch of death, The ravenous disfigurement of blight, Oh Sorrow in her ebon vestiture Is throned in my mind's most secret places, And I am wrapt in horror, gloom and tears. 88 THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME JOB Oh I could brave defeat if I could summon Vigour to aid me, and my lust of thought ! Yet what is Man ! A rush blown by the wind ; Not a firm front, but a mere jutting fork In indication which way moves the air. Virtue is not ; but happy circumstance Is all things, circumstance in blood or state. Nor is vice anything : evil and woe Are but as vanes that utter of icy blasts. Who is it saw high virtue, that saw not A happy junction of the blood and mind, A junction ruled of destiny ? and who vice, That saw not there a failing in the blood Purged of all vigour by fell circumstance ? We are not ourselves, but indications merely : And being not ourselves there cannot be Judgment or bounty for us. We are but shades Cast o'er a wall until the sun shall down. Mine is an evil shade, and so I curse The day that bore me and that brought me to it. MEPHISTOPHELES Rapture and joy Swell thro' my frame ; Care or annoy, Cavil or blame, Are whelmed in a fervour ecstatic that purges me thro' like a flame. THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME 89 CHORUS OF FURIES Fury and fire, In coronal greeting Float like desire To whelm the fair fleeting Of joy that was fickle as Hope in the hour of their birth and their meeting. MEPHISTOPHELES Oh, that my eye, Piercing his thought, So should apply Thwart against thwart, And out of a possible glory new terror and bitterness wrought ! CHORUS OF FURIES Prickt to its place In the courts of old Sorrow, Life doth embrace A rose-tinted Morrow, Till dusk of its hour leaves it never a fervour to loan or to borrow. MEPHISTOPHELES Here in the mire, Shorn of his pride, Stript of desire, Doth he abide My fiat who owneth the victory, my power his lot to decide. 90 THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME CHORUS OF FURIES So from all days In utterances hoary Life and life's praise Hath spelled Man one story, In ashes and pitiless ruins flung down his fanciful glory. MEPHISTOPHELES Here have I shown Oh, I delight Here to have shown Holiness bright Is a transient pitiful bauble toyed of the nethermost night. CHORUS OF PITIES Yea, for as clay, However ye take it, Is Life's little day, Till Life shall forsake it, And Time is its wheel, and Chance is its Potter to mould it and make it. JOB'S WIFE Oh Job, we have sinned ! Let us confess it so ; Let us in woeful lamentation loud Utter our grief: then peradventure Sorrow Will lift her misty eyes contemplative That pierce our very bowels. Job, oh Job, These burthens that o'erwhelm our blither spirits THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME 91 Are portents that the Heavens are wroth with us. Oh, 'tis too true that in our secret guile We have wrought some evil, some dark covert thing That the effulgent eye of jubilant day Hath not discovered us. Most true is it That even in this wise we are like to err. JOB Oh Woman, tempt me not ! how have I sinned ? To murmur in the heavy ear of grief That Man is like to err, oh how doth this Progress the tedious burthen of my sorrow ? Most like to err ! oh this is such a tale As sucklings prattle. Mortal 'tis to sin, That well I know ; yet is it not even thus We come to knowledge and arrive at stature ? Then wherefore dost thou mock me with my growth ? Have I betrayed my soul to have acquired More larger might in thews ? Know I gross sin In having eyes, nose, ears and taste withal ? Away ! This is a cataclysm, dire, Inevitable, frustrate by no power. JOB'S WIFE Oh Job, blaspheme not, lest some darker thing Shatter our residue of peace ! Is it to thee So light a thing to tempt, a swifter flame Sent from above to wrap owr gloomy hour ? 92 THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME JOB i Nay, we have known full sorrow. This know I For Life is in me, mocking thro' my veins. A lighter thing had been to have tasted death ; To have lain upon the couch that the tomb gives, And slept the sleep of ages ; to have drunk The purple wine that foams in beakers dark, And known its rapture floating thro' the soul. Oh hereby know I that my sorrow is full ; For further sorrow would but deaden me And blunt my edge of notion ; and so sorrow Would frustrate be, and anger lose its cunning. JOB'S WIFE Job, Job, add not by words of bitterness A further burthen to our cause of woe ! There is some finger in this, marking out, As o'er a chart, our path extravagant From the more perfect way of equity. Oh, in this wilderness of grief and gloom Let Sorrow wash our eyes ; contrite and purged Let us with purer vision note our ways, And finding where our devious path hath branched, Discover our rectitude, and so relearn The honey flowing in the valley of peace. JOB Woman, wherefore in this our hour of gloom Dost thou tie tortuous knots intrinsicate, THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME 93 Ravelling further what already is Most crooked and most torn ? Look o'er my life Thou know'st it as none other else may know, Having trod with me thro' its strange defiles Where have I trodden amiss ? Oh well I know This is not such a life that delicacy May mark its laden travellers ; and that oft Strife hath awoken in me such fierce lust, That in exultancy of combat I Have hewn a heavy passage o'er the grief Of such as would gainsay me. Yet 'twas they, Or I myself : and there was Life to blame, Not I, pushed to the deed for pity of space. Yet saving such, have I not ever sought To poise with equal majesty the beam Of Justice ? in pure rectitude and pride To abstain from sudden means to urgent ends ? Oh grief that I should say it ! yet when gloom, Most like some vulture o'er its stinking prey, Doth swoop on me, as on a malefactor Given o'er to lusts and furious thoughts depraved, I do protest me I perceive no goal Therein, save such a goal accipitrine. JOB'S WIFE Oh pity that I should gainsay thee, Job ! I do but rouse thee to more furious words Methinks. Yet say, by the great faith of Life Thou didst protest in softer hours of ease, Dost thou not hold Life hath divinity ? 94 THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME Oh ofttime in the twilight, when the Day Doth muse upon its labour, and when Earth Gives out grave exhalations to enchant The timid stars, that like pale antelopes Leap thro' Heaven's boskage, and when shadowy elves Possess the forests in the stead of leaves Oh then have I mused on thy spilth of thought, And it hath knit its very life with mine. JOB. Such are the dreams of irreflective hours ; Symbols of tinkling glass to toy the eye Shattered by the dread hand of circumstance. Consider Life ; with thought deliberative Weigh o'er its round of being ! What is it But a void, purposeless and vicious blot On the fair green of Earth ? If Joy there be 'Tis not of meed or merit, for the proud, The ungainly structured in pure honour's height, Have of its bounty heaviest weight of share. Yet what is Joy ? The overwhelming path that knows That pompous name, is mimicry thereof By hungry, slender souls, that in a glass Rattle a noisy bauble. Joy is not : Nor is there Justice. Blessing flows to him Who ruthlessly Hews out the river banks. And Life is but a sorry scorched design ; Begun in pain, ta'en up in ignorance, Continued in a weary weight of strife, And ended in some dark futility THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME 95 Of broken dreams, dull eyes, and nerveless ringers. We asked not it, but it was thrust on us ; We do abhor it, yet continue it, While some dark law forbids to make an end. CHORUS OF FURIES Like a river flowing thro' valleys out to the utttermost sea Is Life, as it eddies and rallies, held of its banks in fee. Over its crystalline fountains in beauty and fervour of bliss Bursts it, clothing its mountains white with a radiant kiss 5 Tempting the Sun to woo its beauty and clothe it o'er With a rapturous halo of hue and a cincture bright and hoar. Oh as it revels and leaps, o'er the golden garment of day Flung high at the heavenly steeps, who notes it then as spray, Idle and formless, sterile, froth and a depthless foam, Whose liberty is its peril where virtue is never to roam ? Yet, tho' spent and shivered, its energy broken and waste, From the bondage of youth delivered, in equable humour chaste Gathers it all its strength in sad slow measure to go In sinuous coil of length down far to the vales below : Nevermore now to revel, nevermore now to play, Its tenour heavy and level, its azure stricken to gray ! Then as it turns its gaze on the gleaming heights on high Where its tenderer kindred plays, oh with what weary sigh 96 THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME Moans it thro' its sedges, ripples amid its meres, And garlands its coronal hedges with a bitter spilth of tears ; Pining for days that are not, not calling to mind That all glories seen of afar are glories in wonder en- shrined , Nor that the splendour of youth is a splendour not known of its day, But Self's own pity and ruth in thrall of a bondage gray. Yet to its own hour's duty moving, it winds and threads Where the Willow's resilient beauty its sorrowful glory sheds, Out where the turreted spires and numberless wharfs and quays Utter of broken desires, murmur of dark unease. Ah then its music and song is an echo of rhythms heard From the voice of a mighty throng, like a single rever- berate word, Where anger is eaten of sorrow and hatred whelmed of woe, And mercy and tenderness borrow a mute soft passionate throe. Oh then is its radiant colour o'erswept with a leaden gloom Mournfuller, heavier, duller than sepulchre or than tomb. Then is its every motion transmuted, as tho' it drank Of a dark and lethal potion from each dark and spectral bank : Its swiftness a swiftness of anger, furious and bitterly swift ; Its peace a passage of languor, drifting, content to drift. THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME 97 Yea, and moving there, in the midst of its wharfs and quays Moaning to tell and declare its uttermost mysteries, Deep-lined on its mournful face, in the silver-pale glint of the moon, Darkly its children trace sorrow for bounty and boon : So as it ebbs it and frets it down its appointed path, Heavily, stealthily gets it a dark and a corse-strewn swath. Oh ! then sadly and wearily, sated of sorrow and self, It turns its vision drearily out where all toil and pelf, Disappointment, failure and gloom, care, soilure and bitterness, Are sunk in a deep wide tomb, and learn high Death's caress : But tho' at sight of old Ocean from its lethargy and its sleep Awoken to tremulous motion, in dire agitation deep For a moment's wild terror tost, yet ever to cease to be O'erwhelmed and sunken and lost in the vast wide depth of the Sea. MEPHISTOPHELES Ho, Job ! how goes it ? Is He good to thee Whom all thy boast and hope were set upon ? Methinks thou look'st not comely ; thy face wears Disfavour on it, as tho' thou hast taken A most vile potion that distasted thee. G 98 THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME JOB A curse on thee and thine ! I hate not Him. Perchance He is removed from my weak woe ; Perchance He is too lofty to have note Of how my fortunes list, tho' with straight feet I have trodden in the ways of equity : Which I had thought was fit to have won his eye, Deeming in truth high Equity to be The very measure of his level hand. I hate not Him , but thou, thou blot on the day ! I hate thee fiercely j thou art the vile source Whence flows the sorrow and the toil o' the world. MEPHISTOPHELES Thou'rt analytic, Job ; thou dost dissect Most subtly 'twixt Time's very bone and marrow. A curse is a curse ; and fitly was thine uttered. He notes nothing of thee ; and thro' thy ways, Tumultuous, dost thou step to our gay court Where laughter waits thee JOB What is this sudden glory, Whelming the golden beauty of the day As day whelms night ? MEPHISTOPHELES Thro' all my subtle limbs A sudden frost hath bitten like a flame. THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME 99 JOB Oh what wild music floods the trembling air ! MEPHISTOPHELES Angelical hosts I oft have faced, and they Never could cause me thus to fade away. JOB Harmony, as of a thousand well-matched throats Seraphical, pours o'er the pulsing earth. I faint ! I tremble ! I sink down in fear ! CHORUS OF PITIES Beauty, thou art His lineament and hue, Who thro' Eternity Chaos and primal darkness doth bestrew With starry jewels, for a kingly due To match His glee. Glory, thou art His vesture sudden and bright : In splendoured brilliancy To fold His beauty lest it blind the sight Of Seraphs, and make all Creation's might To cease to be. Harmony, thou art the measure of His voice Floating thro' starry zones. Thine echoes bid all sentient life rejoice Where'er His fiat structured for his choice Zeniths or thrones. ioo THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME A PRESENCE I heard thee, Job, curse out that thou wert born ; I heard thee curse the day that gave thee birth : Say, wherefore was it ? In thine own fair words Acquaint me with the cause ! JOB Whoe'er thou art, Oh Lord, that in this vivid golden cloud Doth robe thyself as with a cincture pure, I bow me to the dust before thy face. A PRESENCE Utter thy sorrow, Job ! Pour out thy tale As tho' it were an incense at my feet ! Forbear these gestures ; and with fearless tongue Make known thy troubles and burthens to my ears ! JOB Lord, I have yearned to lay before thy feet My sorrow, and to tell thee out my woe. Oh, in thy dizzy throne, high-pinnacled Above all Life and Time and Change and Chance, Watching thy whirling systems wheel and surge In ecstasies intricate, hast thou not Perceived the weight of sorrow fallen on me ? Hast thou not seen the blessing which thy love Deckt me with, as with Summer's coronals, Stript from me, as a beauteous bloom is stript By a fell wind of Winter fallen astray ? THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME 101 THE PRESENCE Methought the shrewd fierce oath that filled thy mouth Swelled for a sorrow that but lately toucht thee. Surely it seemed indeed that it was so. And yet, Job, that high golden blessing pure I robed thee with, filled out thy native parts Till they were stuffed and primed for goodly ends, Had faded from thee ere thy manhood strode With set stern figure o'er the ruddy earth. It was not stript from thee by ruthless winds, But faded and repined and withered away. JOB Oh Lord, hast thou not seen my latter state ? For Sorrow hath o'ercome me. All the glory I did erect with straight strong hands and might Hath been wrung from me. That investiture I broidered thro' the years with diligent thought, An eastern wind hath borne thro' a dark sky Tattered and all dishevelled. House and lands, Thriftage, the fruit of toil and harvest of thought, Disaster hath o'ertaken suddenly ; Thy gifts to me, the largess of thy love Given plenteously, are whelmed in bitter woe, And I am like a reed crushed to the earth. THE PRESENCE Job, Job, Sorrow, howe'er occasioned, is Ever a theme for fragrant and soft speech. The woe of the world bites at the heart of Love 102 THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME With cruel teeth, even tho' with mute wide eyes Love sees, far off, in shadowy glory hid, The burning Goal and Consummation shine. Know that thy grief hath not escaped mine eye ; For Pity like a mother's chastening babe Moved secretly within me. Yet know, too, The occasion of thy woe and lamentation I know not, nor perceive it anywhere. JOB Oh Lord, is then my sorrow hid from thee ? Methought thy eye pierced thro' the universe With secret rapture, like a stellar ray In eager travel, finding thee all thought, All knowledge, all acquaintance of all hearts. Yet is my sorrow hid from thee ? In heaven Hath there not come a murmur of my grief ? That all I had is gone, stript, hewn, blown wide By winds tempestuous, and that I am left In single nakedness to mourn alone ? Oh what is Man without investiture ? A reed blown by the wind, a scullion cur Yelping the streets, a bough, a naked bough, Blasted by lightnings on a hurricane night. THE PRESENCE What hast thou that I have not ; or what I That thou hast not ? Dost thou take note of me Because the argent waves leap with my ships ; Or that the borders of my billowy robes THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME 103 Haunt thee with beauty ? Dost thou reckon me By sleek large kine upon a mountain side ; Or by mine accents flooding thro' all space Taking thine inner ear with harmony ? By clinking counters ; or by mellow truth ? Oh Man is not more rich than he himself Hath in himself; the measure of all hearts Is Love, the measure of each potent mind The stature and the subtlety it attains. Oh, that the whole wide perfect Man of beauty, Structured like him who made him, should achieve An equal aim, and labour for all ends ! Yet this thou mournest was but plucked in pride From slender hearts to stuff thy treasure house ; Deeming thyself, who shouldst be servant, lord. CHORUS OF PITIES Wonder and glory shining round his hair In festive coronal like spirit fire, With spacious lineaments structured featly and fair To find his winging soul a fit attire, Oh, what a theme For song's high dream Man is, as Life holds startled her bright lyre ! Trampling the shaking earth with majesty, Ecstatic favour shines in his mild eye. Lifting his kingly brow in heavenly glee To note where his wild minions post and ply, io 4 THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME How he doth shine Mighty of line, Vaster than earth, and than the heavens more high ! Like lightnings leashed of God his winged thoughts Inhabit the wide vaults where timeless powers Hold mighty conclave. Thro' the Stellar courts, And in the secrecy of Earth's deep bowers, Swiftly they speed To match his need, And bring him ease where harnessed of the Hours. The ordered hierarchies, tier on tier, Glory above glory, gaze astoniedly On the fell plot of Time where he doth rear High combat on darkness and adversity, Knowing his soul For its final goal To inhabit the high peaks of eternity. Attendant Seraphs post to bring his aid ; For him, and all about him, thunders roll. For he alone, of all things that are made, May swell to stature and make high his goal. Oh what a theme For song's pure dream Man is ; how fair his end, how great his Soul ! THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME 105 JOB I know not thee, O Lord ; nor what thou art. All my life have I worshipped thee ; found thee Praise of my lips and favour of my heart ; Nor to my neighbour known it any shame To vaunt thy greatness. O, well do I know Erect above the heavens in lonely pride Thou sitt'st, and ebon Night rolls on apace To whelm his soul whom Sorrow calls her own. Yet do I set irrefragable, this : Capricious is she, like a dainty wench Taunting the just and unjust with her lure. THE PRESENCE Job, like a child thou art, a querulous child Mocking the sun. Declare the inner faith Thy soul hath ! Utter out thine inmost thought ! Dost thou think the Most High a worshipper Of bubbles that endure not, howsoe'er The morning sun that glints their stretched deceit Gild them with radiance ? Is the All-Excellent Praised by the teeming choir of murmurous spirits Because at such an hour when the bright stars Sang not their anthems yet, He did set Job Predestined to take up such silver and gold In his sleek palms, to build him such high ships, To muster such large cattle, and to be A lordling of his kindred, setting up Palaces with foundations dug in hearts io6 THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME Impoverished to erect him the more high ? Dost think the Archangels post to bring him slaves Of men who, like him, out of darkness came And into darkness go, coming with arms Empty, and empty-handed hence to float ? Thou worshippest thyself; and in my seat Thou seest the image of a mightier Job. JOB I know not anything : yet this I know, Where'er the feet of Equity have trod There have I followed ; in the dizzy ways Of level Justice have I set my feet. Wherefore should I take up upon my lips Praise of myself ? But yet in these our tribes There runs among the busy mart this word " Pure as pure Job ; and just as upright Job ! " In this my boast is ; for my eye hath sought So to acquaint the custom of its range With perfect truth, that it hath learnt to abhor Fractures and tortions, bendings and deceit. So have I done, and well done, and yet known This darkness fallen from out a heaven of splendour. THE PRESENCE Oh true, thou hast loved straightness ; and therein Shines every secret part of thee. Look forth ! Gaze over all the utterance of my thought : From the high leaping vault of bended heaven To the arched splendour of thy doming brow ! THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME 107 Sublimity and beauty tell their souls In rondure ; for these are my trick of thought, The high habiliments of secret joy Decking my boundless soul. Oh tell me, Job, Can the stream higher than its fountain rise ? Is Man more just than God ? Yet tell me, Job : Can the stream other than its fountain know ? Where learnt thou wonder, or where rapture ? Yea, And further tell me : didst thou find in straightness, Beauty? Or hast thou found thee strength therein ? Then wherefore should fair Wisdom deck her limbs In vesture that her sisters have eschewed ? Yet once more tell me : when thy secret soul Utters herself thro' all thy ardent thought, Which is more fair, Mercy or Equity ? Hath Righteousness a visage that is not Flushed o'er with Love, whose health and hue is Love ? Divide not truth ; for know there is not Truth That is not set in Beauty and in Love. CHORUS OF PITIES Strewn thro' all Earth like a splendour Ineffable, secret and pure, With dryads and nymphs to attend her Lest the dark days immure, Beauty doth revel and riot, Flaming from Heaven with a fiat, Held of the Highest to wend her Man's wild heart to allure. io8 THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME Mightily harnessed with thunder Deckt in a vesture sublime, Or pure as the first soft wonder In the wild bright eye of Time, However her fancy arrays her The angels laud her and praise her, For over her garments and under Shines out Heaven's perfect prime. Whatever Man's thoughts or his deeds are Softly she lingers near To tell what her pure fair needs are At his innermost secretest ear ; Then far o'er the Day's elision Sets she her wondrous Vision, To show how her own rare meeds are High o'er the Tomb's dark fear. He in thought's wildernesses Straying in pale eclipse, Filled with vagrant blisses Taunting like distant ships, Sees her athwart Hope's heaven Flame with her marvels seven, Like Love's remembered kisses O'er Sorrow's murmuring lips. THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME 109 Oh in the wonder and glory Of the ultimate uttermost Day, When like a wayworn story Travail is furled away, She, with his own heart's rapture Spun, shall riot and capture The Joy of the Ancient and Hoary That never hath known Decay. JOB Lord, thou hast spoken in mysteries and in riddles What should be set delightedly before Mine eye. Where have I trodden amiss ? Where turned Away appointed paths ? What have I done To make thine angers play about my feet ? Have not I diligently spun the woof Of Life's most excellent texture ? Am not I Blameless of evil if not nobly wise ? When Slumber furled thy limbs and steeped thy thought, I held me in review ten thousand souls Of upright men. Across the pave of Heaven, That billowed at my feet, they took their way. Oh ! stunted and slender were they, pinched and peaked, Ashen and pallid, even as tho' hoar Age Had swept upon the tender bodies of babes ! Job, thine was there j the harmony of high choirs no THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME Frighted it ; and the splendour of Heaven's noon Stung it to terror. All the supernal powers Ceased their ecstatic thunder in pity of it : A hush held all the numberless hosts to see A mighty soul, swoll'n in its bounteous birth With my high breath, brought to so lean a pass. It spoke not then of equity j of houses Stuffed and replete with tinsel of a day ; But shrank to hide it in its puny frame While all Heaven marvelled. JOB Lord, oh Lord of splendour ! In pity expound to me what these deep words Mean ; in thy mighty omniscience and power Illumine all my twilit thoughts to see The wonder of thy words. Even as when moths Frequent the margin of the magic woods, So flits thy purport thro' my bosky thought. I am no coward heart, oh Lord ; what e'er Life hath not got me, it hath got me this. Gladly would I embrace the thing thy thought Hath for me now, so it shine crystalline. THE PRESENCE And so 'tis well, Job ; so 'tis well ; for know A resolute stature hath a half of beauty Even tho' it be not structured featously. Yet if it so be structured, joy and delight Twine to make glorious so supreme a robe ! THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME 1 1 1 Oh, in thy younger pride, when majesty Clustered thy brow, Man was not to thee then Sprung up a purple agaric of a night, But was decked out with immortality, And with divinity besomed. So thy life Seemed to thee j and so seemed all equal lives, Shaped like thine own, and destined to same ends. Yet thou hast seen the roseate flush of morn Spring to swift golden glory, soon to die "Wrackt with the exhalations of the earth ? So came thy noon succeeding to thy dawn. JOB Oh Lord, I ever held life loomed sublime And wondrous, at all seasons and all times. THE PRESENCE Doth he think Life a splendour, to be wrought Sublime, who tills the sands of a golden desert j Who builds him glittering palaces to house The harvest of a brief and graceless Hour ? Oh, see thy glory, pluckt despite the tears Of a world's grief, gone hath it, gone, yet gone But a wild breath of Time before its due. Is this thy Life of splendour ? Job, oh Job, Harnessed with power and might, hadst thou but got Love, Beauty, Harmony, the gold of Heaven, Replete wert thou to all Eternity, Deckt with a glory none could strip thee of. ii2 THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME The Spirits of the Air, they who inform The boskage of all woods, and glens and hills, Inhabiting desolate ruins, have hungered fiercely Desirous of Man's body, to put it To all bright uses and void windy loves. Yet thou who hast it putt'st it out to sloth ! JOB Like arrows thro' my mind wings thy swift breath. I know not anything ; dark ruin hath Enveloped all my thought, and sunk my soul In the abysm of a void wide gloom. THE PRESENCE Go, get thee up, and waste not hours in tears ! There is a splendour waiting thee, that not Omnipotence can foil thee of, being got By thee thyself. Gifts are but given, and held Discinct of thee ; achievement floods the soul As its inalienable bloom and pride. Know this ; and know that all the Universe Vibrant and instinct is with my high hue : And, like a spilth of bloom, thy challenging touch Will vesture thee in its munificence. CHORUS OF PITIES In the far height of days That above glory or praise Burns with irradiance in the lambent East ; When Cavil and Grief and Care, THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME 113 Like Pestilence in the Air, Will purged be while Rapture tend the feast, How native to her gentle lure Shall Man be, and the Son of Man, superb and pure ! Jessed not, nor trickt to fear By that high glory clear, Lifting his brow exultant in the Dawn ; In equal pride to go Knowing nor high nor low, Tossing not Anger and eschewing Scorn ; Wonder shall in his wide eyes dream, And Love steep all his thoughts in her refulgent beam. ts Yet that ecstatic strand He only may command, Striking thro' fear and deathliness of soul : He, and of all things he Alone, may win to be Mighty thro' Sorrow, thro' her gloomy dole, Achieving what no boon could give, Nay, not the All-Excellent in bright prerogative. JOB'S WIFE Job, all thy flesh grows comely, and thy face Shines with new fervour, as tho' o'er our Heaven Daylight had stol'n with opalescent beam, Oh, I am joyed thereat ! but who is this ? What new sad courier speeding o'er the plain ? H ii4 THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME MESSENGER Oh Job, upon the wings of the wind I fly To tell thee that the City of the Plain is consumed. The flames have wrackt it. Yet tho' its doom was dire A merciful wind so beat it to the gates That fed it first, so battled with its heat That each man soul, and every woman alive, And every child that chanted in its streets, Was won to safety, and with the King now hide In tented comfort by a river side. He to thee bade me speed, so in thine ears To mingle doom and gentleness and blessing. JOB For so much give I thanks. My foot is set On a far flight, for glory beckons me To a pure splendour at the height of all. CHORUS OF PITIES Not in the gardens voluptuous where languor and plenteous ease be, Tho' they be all too rife ; Not in the issue of combat and conflict however fair these be, Not in the clangour of strife j THE CRUCIBLES OF TIME 115 But in the wild bright places wherever thine hours thou spin thee, In Love and an excellent Beauty Soul of all Life may win thee, Knowing the heart of all mystery gleameth and shineth within thee, Life of all Life ! THE END A VISION OF LIFE BY DARRELL FIGGIS WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY G. K. CHESTERTON 3-r. 6d. nett. Mr James Douglas in the Star. Mr Figgis is a poet, and "A Vision of Life " is a poem which is rich with promise. The World. We cannot but see promise in Mr Figgis's poetry, and we admire its striking honesty. Wherever he has sought he has found something worth telling the world, and he tells his tale to pure music. We do not pretend that he conies upon us grown to the stature of poetic greatness, but he is a poet, and we wait without misgiving to hear him again. The Sunday Times. Mr Figgis is on the side of the optimists. . . . But it is the imaginative and musical sides of the poem its sweep of fancy, its lyrical fervour, its sustained ecstasy which deserve to be emphasised. The Scotsman. Any student of English poetry who knows the points of Elizabethan tradition must admire it without qualification. The Daily Chronicle. Mr Figgis's power is combined with a natural delicacy, though without artificial refinement. What we have called genuineness, Mr Chesterton, in his introduction, calls Elizabethanism, the fact being that a modern man with a strong individuality is apt to go back for his colour and form to that age rather than to Tennyson or the great poets from which he sprang. The Morning Post. We feel at every point in this poem and in the rest that the writer has something definite to say and is eager to say it ; never do we feel, as so often with clever writers, that he is being persuaded to say things partly by the itch for writing and partly by the necessity of rhyme. . . . The other poems are shorter and of great variety. They all reveal a grave, strong, passionate nature that is instantly attractive. The Athenxum. Sincerity and a lofty ideal are undoubtedly the keynotes of the book. The Nation. Mr Figgis's poetry is not at all conventional, or even orthodox ; it is new and original. Yet it is quite good poetry, implicitly obeying the code of poetic law. Beneath all its complexity and elaborate deviation, the vigorous poetic conduct of thought is there, hard and firm. T.P.'s Weekly. There is a good deal to arrest one, a good deal to ponder over, in Mr Darrell Figgis's " A Vision of Life." The author has a good deal to say, and he often says it with imaginative richness and beauty. Irish Independent. The volume of verses just issued contains one long and several short poems, which bespeak a rare selection and dainty touch that stamp the author a true singer. Observer. Mr Figgis has things to say. He has seen some- thing ; and at his least melodious, his thought is poetic. University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. OCT OCT 2 1 1991 INTLilLBRARY LOAM A 000 676 970 7