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E R E M U S 
 
 A POEM, BY STEPHEN 
 PHILLIPS.^ 
 
 LONDON, KEG AN PAUL. TRENCH, 
 TRUBNER, &■ CO., LTD., MDCCCXCJV. 
 

 c ' 
 
 > 
 
 TO MY MOTHER. ' ^ 
 
 Dead Woman, if thou dost not fear too much 
 The jarri^tg of the terrible earth, glance down 
 Upon these lines, though with a hurried look. 
 
 c n c ri o Q 
 
The heaven is sileni, silent is the earth ! 
 
 As in some sore-encompassed city, we, 
 
 Shut in the citadel, still cry to those 
 
 Who watch upon the zvalls, pale sentinels 
 
 Of Science, peering info Space, " What now ? " 
 
 And still the answer comes, " No sign, no soundy 
 
 But only millions upon millions 
 
 Of stars I " The old, the orient winds have dropped ; 
 
 A dead calm is upon us ; yet at times 
 
 The air in which we breathe, begins to stir. 
 
 To heave, and shiver as before a storm; 
 
 The storm of Truth ; but in the pause and hush, 
 
 I sing, a warning bird, that tinder dumb 
 
 And ominous stillness trembles into song. 
 
EREMUS. 
 
 I. 
 
 What multitude astonished from this Church 
 
 Comes murmuring ? In their midst they bear a man 
 
 Who, as the sudden whisper came and went, 
 
 Had broken in upon their prayer with strange 
 
 Utterance, and then had swooned; now on the steps 
 
 Softly they set him. As he lay, he seemed 
 
 Too old for' man, and shrivelled as with flame, 
 
 Or like to one who through long years had bored 
 
 To the earth's centre, and had found it fire. 
 
 But now at last he lifted up his eyes, 
 
 And, as he woke, saw bending over him 
 
 Two friars of that place : he found a voice 
 
 And spoke. "I do beseech you, carry me 
 
 Hence to yon hills of everlasting snow ; 
 
 I have a tale of sin I needs must tell 
 
 Before I die, and ease my heavy soul. 
 
 I have such fever on me that it craves 
 
 Only the cold of the unmelting snows. 
 
 So I beseech you, bear me up to die 
 
 B 2 
 
Upon the heights." Then those two h'fted him 
 
 And bore him with much toil and by degrees 
 
 Higher and higher up above the world, 
 
 Until at last upon a lonely peak 
 
 They laid him down ; and, as they rested, came 
 
 Night on them; and he spoke, close to the stars, 
 
 In darkness, till at times they seemed to feel 
 
 Only a voice near to them, and at times 
 
 They shrank with dread ; but he, as one that hath 
 
 Short time for shrift, in haste his tale began. 
 
 " I stood in a waste place, and it was night ; 
 
 A wild warm night of soft and stormy winds. 
 
 The sob of seas against their shores came on me : 
 
 The thunder like a prisoner moaned. There seemed 
 
 A strange unquiet moving in the night. 
 
 Which suited with my mood, and had a power 
 
 Upon my soul until I sighed ; Alas ! 
 
 All is unsatisfied as is the sea. 
 
 All circumscribed ; and not till the last peace 
 
 Falls upon you, unquiet waves, shall peace 
 
 Fall upon man : he too at his confines 
 
 Chafes, and his spirit even as thine, O sea. 
 
 Against such shores as stop him here, for ever 
 
 Murmurs, and breaks, and spends itself in vain. 
 
 O thou hast closed us, God, and walled us round 
 
As in a prison beautiful and sweet j 
 Yet is it not so lovely, but at times 
 We climb into the windows and look forth j 
 Lo, a great silence ! and unnumbered orbs, 
 Where the brain reels, and those we loved are lost. 
 Where no voice comes, nor any sound or sign ; 
 But, in the deep, vague mutterings of a hell, 
 And in the stars, faint whispers of a heaven I 
 What use to set us in a world of bloom ? 
 Lo, we walk fretting through the serene air, 
 We break our hearts beneath thy splendid stars ! 
 We find no peace in thy most perfect flower, 
 Nor canst thou ease us with an evening calm. 
 O no ! we should have waked as doth a child, 
 Stirred from light sleep, that wakes beneath the stars 
 Upon the middle of a summer night. 
 And so a moment gazes up and sighs : 
 How beautiful ! then turns again to sleep. 
 Since never through the beauty of the skies 
 Looks in that face we thought not unlike ours. 
 To say : Above the pagan elements 
 There is a face not unlike thine, a heart 
 Throbs to the beating pulses of the world. 
 Yet still we pray, we pray with tears, and trust 
 Our hopes and doubts may find some far-ofF ear, 
 And for a moment trouble that high calm. 
 In such a scorn, such silence, do we all 
 
Pass clean away ! The noise of battles shakes 
 
 Throned kings and continents ; yet when hast thou 
 
 Strode down to cry amid the trumpets, Hold ! 
 
 Or 'mid the cannon, Cease ! But when the war 
 
 Hath died away ; but yet a little while, 
 
 Grows the eternal grass over the place. 
 
 And on the spear and helm hath crept a rust 
 
 Divine; and after our shrill moments, thou 
 
 Restorest silence deeper than of old. 
 
 I ceased. The night is lawless as myself : 
 
 Voices I seem to hear, that strive to speak 
 
 Yet cannot, and the hindered, stifled night 
 
 Breathes all about me, till at last I catch 
 
 Rebellion from the muffled thunderings. 
 
 A burden hangs upon these blasts, I cried. 
 
 And Nature yearns to speak aloud ; is she 
 
 Fevered, as I am, by a great unrest ? 
 
 This fire which burns within me and dies not. 
 
 Is not the blaze which should have warmed my hearth ; 
 
 But strange, unholy, and unnatural. 
 
 Better, far better, had it been to speed 
 
 The engine through the gloom of tunnelled hills. 
 
 Flash tidings through the land, or make a path 
 
 Between the mountains of high-running seas. 
 
 For now from cities vast I hear a noise 
 
 Of thundering hammers and of flying wheels. 
 
 The roar of toil : and man devotes himself 
 
To gloomy nights beside the whizzing loom; 
 The furnace lights the midnight like a sun, 
 And here at last, in these sad latter days, 
 The unknown Power and Glory now begins 
 To play like lightning round us, and to shoot 
 Into our dismal, melancholy air 
 In shocks and sparks. Possibly might I then. 
 Dying, have found peace in the thought that I 
 Had left more tolerable this earth of ours. 
 Taken the terror from the sea, and checked 
 Death at a thousand points, and made this life 
 To run where it had crawled, to rush and fly ! 
 Would I had put away these questionings, 
 This tampering with Eternity, and made 
 A home for me within some still precinct 
 Of minster old, that out from many a league 
 Of field and level fen-land, like a dream, 
 Rises with spires that point afar to peace. 
 Or better for me had I been content 
 To live a simple and laborious life 
 Amid the rains and grasses, finding strength 
 In the perpetual touch and smell of earth. 
 And at the last been carried to my grave 
 Across the sweet fields and the new mown hay. 
 
II. 
 
 Well were it for me had I on the earth, 
 
 Yonder dear earth, steadfastly fixed my gaze ! 
 
 Then had I not been stretched on these high snows, 
 
 By God and man abandoned. But too soon 
 
 I came to know that calm was not for me, 
 
 Nor ever mine the long untroubled life ; 
 
 No ! but to sigh and strive. There is a peace 
 
 Of earth, a solace in a simple creed; 
 
 There is a peace of heaven ; but all between. 
 
 Regions of restless wind, haunted of storm. 
 
 Where I, and such as I, must roam for ever ! 
 
 Thousands around me every day I saw 
 
 Live happily within a narrow range. 
 
 Not over joyous, and not over sad; 
 
 They sinned not much, and strove they not at all ; 
 
 But when I looked into myself, I saw 
 
 No days of tranquil labour granted me, 
 
 No nights of dreamless sleep. This happiness 
 
 Never was mine, but everlasting calls 
 
 To self control ; and passion hung on me 
 
 Like to a dangerous sleep that, all his watch. 
 
 Hangs on the eyelids of a sentinel. 
 
 All through the day I checked and foiled myself, 
 
 My every impulse turbulent, every thought 
 
Perilous, and deadly every passing whim. 
 
 Each hour lay on me with its awful choice, 
 
 So heavy that I oft have wished myself 
 
 Dead, dead for ever in the quiet earth ! 
 
 Were it not better not to have been born ? 
 
 Yet, O my God, I cried, if this were so. 
 
 Why with such bliss hast thou disturbed me, oft 
 
 Illumining the passage of the nights ? 
 
 What means this wild conflict of night and day 
 
 Within me ? Why to me and not to all, 
 
 Is life so terrible a thing to live ? 
 
 And wearier still and wearier I grew 
 
 Of passion, of the fit that came and went ; 
 
 The tossing to and fro did seem to me 
 
 As hateful as his bed to the sick man. 
 
 Who turns and turns. O give me peace, I cried, 
 
 Even though it were to be for ever cold ! 
 
 Though I should lose the bliss of living, yet 
 
 Should I not lose this starting of the heart. 
 
 This fever, this necessity to feel ? 
 
 But though I stilled my heart, I found no peace. 
 
 How could I live out of my time ? this age 
 
 When faith is waning like a waning moon, 
 
 A ghost in heaven, a fireless shell ; and we 
 
 Seem standing in the awful dawn of Truth, 
 
 And in the first cold, grey, and godless hours 
 
 Appalled by each fresh streak of light ! On me. 
 
10 
 
 As upon others, came the thirst to know. 
 
 Me, then I cried, from the high quest, no voice 
 
 Too dear, such as distracts the world of men. 
 
 Shall turn : had I not looked abroad and seen 
 
 Mankind unnerved with loves and hates, and mad 
 
 With wild farewells ? Ah, how should he, I sighed. 
 
 Passionate man, the fool of every breath. 
 
 With these vexed ears attain at last to hear 
 
 The immortal voices, or through mists of tears, 
 
 Too quickly gathering mists of human tears. 
 
 Which dim the clear eye of the mind, see true ? 
 
 Would he not evermore be hanging back 
 
 For one last kiss, for yet one more farewell i* 
 
 But I with unvexed ears, and undimmed eyes. 
 
 Will reach to truth. And now I cast from me, 
 
 Like garments that would clog me, friendships, loves. 
 
 Even ties of kith and kin, until I stood 
 
 Free as a swimmer, stript for the great plunge. 
 
 Alone I lived, and bolted out the world. 
 
 And saw no face, nor ever footstep heard 
 
 Of living thing ; awake when all did sleep ; 
 
 Alive when all was dead ; until at last 
 
 I stood in the wild night, in that waste place, 
 
 Loveless, alone, and at the end of life. 
 
 Staring out into space with haggard eyes. 
 
 What yet remains for me to know ? Here space 
 
 Stops me, and seems to scare me back to men. 
 
II 
 
 III. 
 
 Alone among the living ! but one dead 
 Haunted me from his grave ; Julian, my friend. 
 I seemed to hear him speaking : Ah, some day. 
 In some far planet, we shall meet perchance, 
 And see things clear. Where art thou, Julian ? 
 I said j I cannot think of thee in heaven ; 
 I hope, yet fear, for thee. Hast thou outlived 
 The passions which undid thee here ? Thou wast 
 Of those for whom we tremble when they die ; 
 We trust, yet cannot think, they are in peace. 
 On thee, God flung the fires of his delight, 
 But gave thee no control, and let thee drive 
 Like some tall ship aflame, that throwing ofF 
 Spar after blazing spar upon the waves, 
 Down the great, melancholy waters burns. 
 Thy soul has passed to its appointed place : 
 Thou wilt not fly with myriads into heaven. 
 Nor be thrust down with thousands into hell ! 
 Whither thou goest no spirit yet hath come. 
 Nor shall come ; with the lost thou canst not rest, 
 Ever, nor in the general anthem drown 
 Thy individual agonies and hopes. 
 
12 
 
 If I could see thee yet again, my friend 
 
 For whom I tremble, and yet darkly hope, 
 
 How would'st thou greet me ? with what messages 
 
 From many and strange lands ! if once again 
 
 I could behold thee, speak to thee, perchance ! 
 
 I could return, and be in peace, and die. 
 
 Still the wild night blew round me ; and I caught 
 
 What seemed a stifled, spiritual cry 
 
 Out of the wind, till I at last broke forth : 
 
 Spirit of Night, is this indeed thy breath 
 
 I feel about me ? Is it indeed thy voice 
 
 That strives to reach me from the invisible wind ? 
 
 Art thou abroad upon the gloomy blast ? 
 
 And hast thou power to bring me face to face 
 
 With Truth, sad spirit, older even than God ? 
 
 Almost I could believe it. Lo, about me 
 
 The great world lying dead, and in deep sleep ! 
 
 I only am awake, and the live sea. 
 
 From God I wring no answer, thee I ask ; 
 
 Speak clearer to me, sombre Spirit ; thou 
 
 Wast old and wise before this feverish planet 
 
 Was lit, a spark in space. Hear me, perchance 
 
 Still hugging to thy breast some secret old. 
 
 Which God hath not yet wrested. Look on me, 
 
 Who, as some prisoner, after long watching 
 
 Escaped, and standing on the heath without. 
 
 Knows not which way to turn, whither to fly, 
 
13 
 
 But almost longs again for the dull round, 
 
 The life mapped out and measured for the feet ; 
 
 So I have broken the prison of this world, 
 
 Where most men breathe, but live not, and so I 
 
 Am free, terribly free ; would not return, 
 
 Yet know not whither to fly. I care not what 
 
 May come to me ; I only live to know ! 
 
 Let me see Truth, then blot me out for ever. 
 
 Or take my soul to thee for evermore. 
 
 I spoke ; dead silence fell, and all the heavens 
 
 Listened ; I was afraid, and on my face 
 
 Dropped to dear earth. As one who, in the still 
 
 And deepest noontide, hears the far-off storm 
 
 Crawl up the heavens ; then thunder, and a hush, 
 
 And in the pause the world is filled with rain ! 
 
 Even so I felt the distant approach of doom. 
 
 Breathless : I felt that I had sinned : my soul 
 
 Is mine no more, but is surrendered up. 
 
 Never to be recalled, a fallen leaf. 
 
 Liable to what illimitable winds ! 
 
 Motionless as I lay, and madly clung 
 
 In terror to the firm, familiar earth. 
 
 As though, upon a sudden, body and soul 
 
 Together might be swept away, I heard. 
 
 Or rather felt, or heard with all my soul, 
 
 A voice near to me, soft, as of a god. 
 
 '' Mortal, thy yearning hath o'erpassed the bounds 
 
14 
 
 Of thy mortality ; if thou canst dare, 
 Stripped of all earthly leanings, as a spirit. 
 The immeasurable space, that yet hath felt 
 No footprint, save of spirit ; at thy prayer 
 Lo, I am come to guide thee ; but once doubt, 
 Falter or fear, and thy mortality 
 Will fly from immortality, thyself 
 Be lost in utter space." I, lying still, 
 Struck in the earth my fingers, and from there 
 Murmured : " Who art thou, come as an amen 
 To my wild prayer ? I hold communion 
 With night, and of the night, it seems, art thou 
 I knew not what I said, my brain did reel : 
 Ah, do not on my mad and scattered words. 
 Lay such an emphasis ! Here is my world. 
 Where I was born, where I must live and die 
 As other men : thou art a spirit ; what 
 Have I to do with thee ? O leave me here 
 To pray, and to repent, and to return." 
 
15 
 
 IV. 
 
 Then, like a whisper, not into the ear. 
 
 But like a whisper to the soul, the voice 
 
 Answered: "I am the spirit of the Wind ; 
 
 Ask no more awful name. Thy prayer is heard. 
 
 As I lay dreaming at the feet of Night, 
 
 My mother, came thy thought to me. At times 
 
 Rise up to me the dark and lawless sighs 
 
 Of men upon thy planet ; but never yet 
 
 Rose such a lonely exclamation, 
 
 As from a man cut off from other men. 
 
 Pacing impatiently the puny world. 
 
 Art thou at peace, Eremus ? Is there peace 
 
 For such as thee upon this globe ? The earth 
 
 To the mass of men is tolerable ; they 
 
 Strive not, and linger on amid the fields : 
 
 'Tis such as thou who cannot live their life. 
 
 Yet it may be, when world on world of change 
 
 Has wrought on thee, a myriad, myriad years 
 
 Hereafter, that while those thou seest now, 
 
 Sleep, as they lived, content beneath the sod, 
 
 Thy spirit, out of wild and godless tracts. 
 
 Shall, tried with thunder, sanctified with storm. 
 
i6 
 
 Move darkly upward to the heaven of heavens, 
 
 Or murmur with mutinous angels in the deeps. 
 
 Then thou shalt pause above this sun, and see 
 
 That while those men whose calm thou enviest now 
 
 Sleep,- dead alike to happiness and pain, 
 
 Thou only art awake, and shalt survive ! 
 
 Seek not to raise between me and thyself 
 
 A barrier of words of human speech ; 
 
 Thou canst not come between me and thy soul ; 
 
 I know thee, and have known thee from thy birth." 
 
 I from the ground rose slowly, and looked at him. 
 
 His face was calm : but yet, like mighty clouds, 
 
 In shadows driven across the northern deep. 
 
 Even so the flying thoughts did come and go 
 
 Across his face, now bright and now obscured : 
 
 Even so his aspect altered as the seas. 
 
 After long time I whispered : " Yet, to break 
 
 In my unripe and green mortality 
 
 Into the air of spirits; in the flesh 
 
 To hurry into space before my time ! 
 
 How should I pass the long celestial lines. 
 
 Challenged by sentinel after sentinel. 
 
 And knowing not the pass-word of that host ? " 
 
 But he made answer: "Tremble not to tempt 
 
 Forbidden air, if thou art free of earth. 
 
 Strip from thee therefore any creed that keeps 
 
 A corner in thy soul, perhaps some dear, 
 
'7 
 
 Some special feith that seems not yet quite vain, 
 Told, long ago, beside thy mother's knee. 
 Or whispered at evening o'er thy childish bed. 
 So shall no voice from the remembered earth 
 Suddenly claim thee in that air, and thou 
 Shalt cry aloud for earth, as doth a child. 
 Thus only can I bear thee where thy friend 
 Julian abides ; thus only can I bring 
 Thy body before the face of utter Truth." 
 Now, like to one who stands upon the edge 
 Of some sheer precipice, if he glance down 
 The very depth and terror of the place, 
 Woos him to leap and lose himself; so I 
 Suddenly felt the wild impulse to spring 
 Into the vast unknown. Ah ! would that then 
 Some haunting face, full of old memories, 
 Had from the world looked out, and beckoned me 
 Back ; or a thrilling voice out of the past 
 Had murmured in my ears. If not for thine. 
 Yet for my sake, forbear ! But there was none. 
 I trembled ; for in my advance and march 
 To knowledge, I had laid the sweet world waste 
 Behind me, nor could I again fall back 
 Upon that barren solitary land, 
 
 That earth, which should have wound its mother's arms 
 About my neck, and with sweet accents stopped 
 My ears, and saved me from that murmuring voice. 
 
 c 
 
i8 
 
 Above, beyond me, the great stars did seem 
 
 To woo me with a wondrous whispering. 
 
 ** I come," I cried, '' What matter though I perish 
 
 None here will mourn me, none shall ever find 
 
 My body, or shall build a tomb for me ; 
 
 Or, if they find me, it will be on some 
 
 Yet unreached height, and men in after years 
 
 Will see my skull grin to the moon, and say: 
 
 Men in those days climbed well." Far off the dawi 
 
 Broke. " Take me hence ! " I cried ; " I cannot st; 
 
 To see the sun light up this hollow world." 
 
 " Come ! " said the spirit ; and even at his word, 
 
 The great earth downward flashes from our feet, 
 
 A star, fast fading 'mid a thousand stars. 
 
'9 
 
 Come either side of me, close, close to me, 
 
 And let me feel your hands in mine, and know 
 
 I speak again as man unto mankind, 
 
 As I was born to speak, not holding now 
 
 Forbidden converse with the mighty fiend. 
 
 Him was I first aware of, when we two 
 
 Burst into silence; and I seemed as one 
 
 Who, mad with heat and laughter, staggers out 
 
 Into the solemn, cool, and glittering night, 
 
 Awed on a sudden by the ancient stars. 
 
 Him was I first aware of at my side, 
 
 The only life. " Look back ! " he said ; I looked ; 
 
 And I beheld, far off as t'were, mankind 
 
 Shivering about the fire of this world's star, 
 
 While in the darkness ranged mysterious powers ; 
 
 Like those who round a blazing circle sit 
 
 In a vast forest watched by wild beasts' eyes. 
 
 Then we began to soar ; and as we soar, 
 
 The mighty heaven begins to snow with stars ; 
 
 Till at the last I cried : " O let me die ! 
 
 What matter though I perish ? I am nothing, i \ 
 
 I dare not live here ; I can bear no more 
 
 c — 2 
 
20 
 
 This vast scheme of an Intellect that knows 
 No stop, no doubt. Alas ! My home, my world. 
 Thou art gone from me for ever, amid fires 
 An indistinguishable fire ! O God ! 
 What should I do, I, who am in the flesh, 
 I, who was born, I, who have yet to die ! 
 Space, like a giant rushing on me, wrings 
 Hopes and beliefs from me, crying aloud : 
 Out of these myriads, what are thine to me? 
 
 thou great angel, save me ! I begin 
 To falter and to doubt, and if I doubt, 
 
 1 fall for ever ; I am falling ! dying 1 " 
 
 " Mortal, despair not yet ; " the angel's voice 
 Stayed me, about then to surrender me 
 Up to vacuity. How changed a voice 
 From that which wooed me thro' the breezy night ! 
 " That which comes over thee is but the last 
 Wild wrench and struggle of mortality ; 
 Henceforth thou shalt be free. Even so when souls 
 Have left the body, ere they take their flight, 
 They linger on the limits of the earth j 
 Some memory still stirs them, or some pain. 
 And they look back and cry, but all their cry 
 Comes to their kindred like a moaning wind, 
 Where they sit sadly by the hearth ; and one, 
 At the sound, rising, will look forth and say : 
 'Tis a wild night ! Yet if of thine own strength 
 
21 
 
 Thou canst not bear it out, and earthly things 
 
 Still shake thee, if thou canst not quite forget, 
 
 Have faith in me. Here thou art spent, it seems : 
 
 Thou canst not live in regions such as these ; 
 
 Here thou art dying ! What then vi^ilt do 
 
 In tracts where spirits themselves are overv^^helmed, 
 
 Unhampered by the flesh ? Choose then, at once ; 
 
 To fall and die ; or to put faith in me." 
 
 He ceased ; and still the starry heavens go by 
 
 In glory, streaming silent as a dream. 
 
 As to his mother runs a child, I ran 
 
 Even to that breast ! Under his wings secure^ 
 
 I dared to gaze upon the coming heavens. 
 
 Still soared we on ; and stars a moment since 
 
 Before us as a diamond spark in space. 
 
 Glittering amid a myriad glittering lights. 
 
 Orb for a moment into worlds distinct 
 
 With passing sea and mountain, and behold f 
 
 Far ofF catch fire, till they are stars again,, 
 
 Glittering amid a myriad glittering lights 
 
 Behind us ; and as one who, hurrying 
 
 By night, sees from the fiery engine sparks 
 
 Fly past him, so, far off, as far as eye 
 
 Could reach, the boundless air was filled with small, 
 
 Innumerable, remote and flying stars. 
 
 Friends, I beheld them face to face i no more 
 
 Celestial candles lit for us alone, 
 
22 
 
 But giant systems travelling for ever, 
 
 Each on his separate path. We made them dear. 
 
 And spiritual ; they did seem so far 
 
 Above our foaming seas, they were so calm. 
 
 After our raging storms. And yet, and yet, 
 
 To me, who knew them as of old on earth, 
 
 They had not half the glory which they gave, 
 
 Seen thro' a single human tear. But now 
 
 The brilliance seemed to fade and die away. 
 
 And rarer, and more rare the stars arose, 
 
 Swept by us, and were lost ; but yet at times 
 
 Large melancholy spheres stole out on us. 
 
 Pale palaces of pain and homes of woe ; 
 
 Till only at stupendous intervals. 
 
 Immense and solitary planets burned. 
 
 More drear and drear it seemed. Then said the Spirit : 
 
 " Lo ! we are passed at length the realm of light 
 
 And order ; here the maker of the flower 
 
 No empire hath, he sows not in these fields; 
 
 And no thing grows or blows, but chaos here 
 
 With sounding, sad waves, everlastingly 
 
 Breaks sullen on the walls of builded light. 
 
 And here unpardoned, hopeless, homeless things 
 
 Wander, no limit to their wandering set." 
 
 Here we no longer soared, but drifted on j 
 
 And sweet soft voices of the unforgiven 
 
 Came to us ; faces full of memories 
 
as 
 
 Looked out upon us, weary faces, spirits 
 For ever wandering, waste and unreclaimed. 
 A listless apathy was on them j some 
 Gathered in groups, yet each one seemed alone ; 
 And with a hush they spoke of happiness, 
 As of one dead. " Here," said the Spirit, " far 
 From progress and from light exiled, behold 
 Julian, absorbed as in a dream, his face 
 For ever lifted to the floor of heaven." 
 
24 
 
 VI. 
 
 As one who through vast London, in the stream 
 
 Of faces, sees a face that makes him pause 
 
 A moment, murmuring : Somewhere have I known 
 
 That face before ; then plunges on again 
 
 Into the tide of men ; so dim I saw 
 
 The face of Julian, and remembered him. 
 
 " O friend of earth," I cried, " look on me ; leave 
 
 The vision that still holds thee from my arms. 
 
 And, for a little space, remember me ! 
 
 Lo ! I have tempted the forbidden air 
 
 To see thy face again. How is't with thee ? 
 
 Why dost thou tarry here, most fiery spirit, 
 
 In fields, to starry vegetation dead. 
 
 Which never drink the living rains of God, 
 
 Outside the realms of light and order ? Lo, 
 
 I conjure thee by the sweet past, if this 
 
 Have power upon thee still, and by thy words j 
 
 Some day, in some far planet, we shall meet 
 
 And see things clear. Speak to me, though I seem 
 
 To vex thee from a vision still and deep. 
 
 Where I am nothing, or but as the earth, 
 
 A thing o'erpast." Then he slowly relaxed 
 
25 
 
 His gaze from the far floor of heaven, as one. 
 
 With pain returning from a dream too bright, 
 
 Gropes his way back into reality ; 
 
 And answered : " If thou art indeed my friend 
 
 Of earth, Eremus, how then art thou here. 
 
 Living and in the body ? Hast thou brolce 
 
 Before thy time the limits set thee, not 
 
 Made strong by death to face eternity ? 
 
 Nor yet as I, who, seeing, by the eye 
 
 Unfettered, hear, untrammelled by the ear. 
 
 Hast thou thus voyaged, and hast yet to die ? 
 
 Alas ! I pray thee get thee back ! unless 
 
 Such voyage hath no return ; O pause and think ! 
 
 As thou cam'st hither, didst thou see a star 
 
 Or single planet that did swerve a jot 
 
 Out of his fixed and everlasting course ? 
 
 Remember but our earth, that little earth, 
 
 Somewhere perhaps in space still glimmering. 
 
 There even not a smallest drop of dew 
 
 Misses its own peculiar blade of grass, 
 
 And there the springing of the loneliest flower 
 
 Is to the instant timed ; 'tis I alone, 
 
 Lawless, and solitary, and exiled. 
 
 Who, without limits, wander where I list, 
 
 Outside this order and this scheme. But thou 
 
 Hast broken out of earth as from a prison, 
 
 And fevered space with thy humanity ! 
 
26 
 
 Then, though God spy thee not from heaven, and though 
 
 The lightning, flashing like his unsheathed sword. 
 
 Or arrow from his pacing sentinels 
 
 Find thee not ; yet what death, what end at last 
 
 Awaits thee ! through vacuity to sink ! 
 
 While worlds may come and go ; falling, falling ! 
 
 No heaven for thee, no hell, but vacancy. 
 
 Great Nature, who from her first hour has toiled 
 
 In one perpetual groove, feels thy revolt. 
 
 And upward from the trembling drop of dew 
 
 Even to her farthest star is shivering. 
 
 O ! get thee back : for at thy side I see 
 
 A Spirit, than whom none is mightier ; 
 
 For once he fought with God ! " Turning, I saw 
 
 That angel : rapt he stood ; I marked the hush, 
 
 And gathered menace of his face : one wing 
 
 Was lifted as for everlasting flight ; 
 
 One quivered with his trance ; while to himself 
 
 He muttered, like soft thunder, in a dream. 
 
 " He, even he," I whispered, " when the night 
 
 Was worn with morning, found me on the earth 
 
 Sad and unsatisfied ; and like a breeze 
 
 His voice is at my ear, soft murmuring ; 
 
 If thou canst dare the immeasurable space, 
 
 Stript of all earthly leanings, as a spirit, 
 
 Lo ! I am come to guide thee. And his voice 
 
 Had power upon me, for it seemed that I 
 
27 
 
 Might, ere I died, behold the face of Truth. 
 
 No single voice out of the living world, 
 
 Called to me j I had cut me off from men. 
 
 From loves and hates, for these methought vi^ould clog 
 
 My flight for Truth ; the fevers of the heart. 
 
 For such I deemed them, I abhorred j our earth 
 
 Was dead to me : and easily I stept 
 
 From off that star, and plunged in the unknown. 
 
 But past my flesh Heaven with her planets fell. 
 
 I failed and cried to him. Then answered he : 
 
 Believe in me, or here begin to fall ! 
 
 Then I fled to him. So I have endured 
 
 Out unto thee, dead friend ; and what remains 
 
 For me, I care not, so I look on Truth. 
 
 But thou, how cam'st thou hither?" Then at length 
 
 He answered : " When the bitterness of death 
 
 Was past, I was alone outside the world. 
 
 Suddenly she whom I have loved, and must 
 
 For ever love, was with me ; and at once. 
 
 Each knew the other, and we rushed to meet : 
 
 But instantly an angel stood between. 
 
 Dividing us, and spoke: In life that's o'er 
 
 Ye met by chance a moment, on the earth ; 
 
 Henceforth your ways are evermore apart. 
 
 Ah ! but we met, I cried. Then in despite 
 
 Of that stern angel we together rushed, 
 
 And kissed a last long kiss j we did not part 
 
28 
 
 As earthly lovers part, at death, and say : 
 I too shall die, and soon will be with thee ! 
 But life, perpetual life, divided us ; 
 Eternity, in which to quite forget ! 
 Then, in a moment, is she caught away 
 Into a far-ofF star, and I was left 
 Gazing ; and I began to drift, but found 
 No place, no home in any of these worlds, 
 A stranger looking in upon a feast. 
 An alien, insupportably alone ! 
 Until at last I came to this waste place. 
 Upon the verge of Chaos, far from light. 
 
29 
 
 VII. 
 
 " Here I abide in silence, silence dead, 
 Unvisited by rushing wing, or feet 
 Of wandering angel ; and to this I might 
 Resign myself, and, losing hope, lose pain, 
 And in despair find everlasting peace : 
 But that the heavy stillness is at times 
 Broken with storms of hope, which call to me 
 To live and love. The sadness on my soul, 
 So it were ever sadness, I could bear ; 
 But ever and anon I am disturbed 
 From my despair, haunted with happiness. 
 Which will not suffer me to sleep, and be 
 At rest ; and then I cry to my beloved, 
 Somewhere far from me, and by such a sea 
 Thundered apart, and sundered, and estranged. 
 Hast thou forgotten, love ? O ! yet, at times, 
 At times, I can but think thou still must feel ; 
 Disturbed from bliss, as though a door in heaven 
 Had oped, and closed again ; then shalt thou stir, 
 And shiver ; a moment half remember me ; 
 A moment dimly speak my name again. 
 Then turn away to peace. Yet it was I 
 
30 
 
 Who with a voice too wild, it may be, broke 
 The virgin stillness freezing round thy soul ; 
 And there are depths in thee, which I alone 
 Have sounded, and which none shall sound again, 
 In that high star which holds thee from my sight ; 
 And in thy soul are chambers sealed up. 
 Rooms passion-haunted, sacred unto me, 
 Of which I keep the keys for evermore ! 
 Have I not held thee to my heart, when both 
 Our souls rushed to our lips, and met and clung ? 
 Have I not known thee in another mood, 
 From that in which thou now art so content, 
 When all thy hair fell round me, and thyself 
 Wast earth, all earth, and flesh and burning blood ? 
 God, thou hast caught her far away from me. 
 Into a cold star, to a perfect world. 
 To joy untroubled ; thou dost know her ; thou 
 Who madest her, thou didst not make her, Lord, 
 All spirit j thou rememberest what she was. 
 Smelling of thy sweet earth, and rainy fresh : 
 Is she content with meek adorings, cold 
 And solemn chants ? Is she become at last 
 A holy thing ? Is she whom once I knew 
 Dead, dead for ever ? Hast thou taken away 
 Her smile, the look at times she turned on me, 
 Dear trivial things; were these but for a space? 
 But if this were not all ; if thou, O God ! 
 
31 
 
 With earthly things hast taken quite from her 
 
 A care for earthly love, saying, Forget ! 
 
 Hast thou given love, and taken love away, 
 
 As thou hast taken away the fragrant hair 
 
 I knew, the hand I held, the lips I kissed ; 
 
 Is this permitted even to Omnipotence ? 
 
 Why didst thou suffer me to take her hand. 
 
 Her little earthly hand ? We met, we loved, 
 
 And nothing evermore can alter that ; 
 
 It has been, and can never not have been. 
 
 How should I greet her with a different soul, 
 
 Bleached like the lily to eternal white, 
 
 A listless angel ? Ah, not unto me 
 
 Hast thou commanded : Sleep thy fever off ! 
 
 Am I forgotten and cannot forget ? 
 
 Yet even her at times I lose awhile, 
 
 I cannot ever cling to her, for as 
 
 The strength of some strong word upon the tongue 
 
 Repeated oft, in repetition dies. 
 
 So she, whom I repeat unto myself 
 
 For evermore, to keep me from despair, 
 
 At length becomes far-off, impossible." 
 
 He ceased, and such a moment now it seemed 
 
 Passed over him, when even she, his love, 
 
 Began to fail, and in the stars, fading. 
 
 To leave him desolate. " O unhappy soul ! " 
 
 I answered, " yet than I much happier ! 
 
32 
 
 How am I now deceived ! for on our earth 
 
 I said farewell to Passion. Now I see 
 
 Passion still lives, and dies not with our death. 
 
 'Tis this alone that keeps thee from despair ; 
 
 'Tis this that, breaking in on thy repose, 
 
 Thunders out hope to thee, hope still and love 
 
 Eternal, that permits thee not to rest, 
 
 Or to decline in endless apathy. 
 
 But as for me, I have no living thing 
 
 To love, nor am beloved by living thing. 
 
 And if I drop in this great flight, from which 
 
 These dumb and apathetic plains afford 
 
 A moment's breathing space, I drop alone. 
 
 But thou hast still thy hope. On some far day 
 
 Thou shalt look up and hear that voice again 
 
 Speak softly to thee down the ardent night : 
 
 That face shall draw thee upward, upward yet, 
 
 From these dead tracts, until thou art at last 
 
 With her thou lovest, and, like her, made pure. 
 
 Thou canst not long abide in godlessness, 
 
 For fear of everlasting loss of her." 
 
 So saying, from all words I ceased, ashamed ; 
 
 For now it seemed that I, with trivial 
 
 Solace, upon his sorrow did intrude ; 
 
 And silence fell : then slowly in my ear 
 
 Returned that angel's voice, who now with wings 
 
 Wide-spread for flight, hung sullen in the void, 
 
33 
 
 Seen in that heavy air lurid and large. 
 
 As o'er a fog-bound city the red sun. 
 
 His voice again I heard, " Come to my side, 
 
 Come, we who love not, on ! on to the end ! " 
 
 I, looking back on Julian, beheld 
 
 His face once more uplifted to the heavens. 
 
 Forgetting me, and all things save his love. 
 
34 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Out of the desert urging endlessly 
 
 Our voyage, gradually the open winds, 
 
 Which there had dropped, rising beneath us, made 
 
 A murmur. " Now prepare thee," said the Spirit, 
 
 " For dangers, not to life alone, but mind ; 
 
 And not to body, only, but to soul. 
 
 The region we approach, of which even now 
 
 There comes the rumour, lies far off the realm 
 
 Of Order. Here all things are free, and roam 
 
 Unchecked ; seek not to encounter or oppose 
 
 These forces, or at once thou art o'erwhelmed." 
 
 Such warning give the Angel, hurrying 
 
 Toward the abyss ; but on the brink he paused. 
 
 " Hail, elements ! I call to you as friends. 
 
 Soon comes the hour, when we and ancient Night 
 
 Rising, shall wash away this stranger God, 
 
 Who, in a dream of beauty glowing, rose 
 
 And fevered darkness with a thousand stars. 
 
 I seem to see him pale as he beholds 
 
 The wall of our advance. His ardent eye 
 
 Vacant of inspiration, can no more 
 
 Conceive ; from that lax hand the thunderbolt 
 
35 
 
 Drops : he hath called, but none obeys his voice ; 
 
 Night, stride upon stride, blots out his worlds ! 
 
 See, he is gone, who would control us all, 
 
 God and his works ; and feverish man is past ; 
 
 And all is once again as once it was. 
 
 Ere he disturbed us with his fiery brain ; 
 
 Timeless and tideless, limitless and dark ! " 
 
 But I exclaimed : " Pity me ; cease, O cease I 
 
 This God, whom I saw perish, fashioned us, 
 
 He is our God, the only God we know ; 
 
 Let him reign on ! " Whereat the Spirit, plagued 
 
 By my small voice, and fretted from the dream 
 
 Which had absorbed him, turned, and in deep thought 
 
 With vast, unconscious eyes most fixedly 
 
 Beheld me, yet he saw me not the while : 
 
 And I in that abstracted, deep regard 
 
 Trembled, until at length he felt for me. 
 
 And found me at his side, and muttered soft : 
 
 " I had forgot thee, thou poor human thing : 
 
 I had a dream which I have often dreamed. 
 
 And thou wast gone from me a moment." Now 
 
 He, on the stormy edge of the abyss, 
 
 Rejoiced. But troubled, I looked back : far off, 
 
 As sinks the twinkling shore to those at sea. 
 
 The solemn coast of trembling light departs. 
 
 Then, on a sudden, in a stormy gap 
 
 Plunged, I am swept away as by a sea. 
 
 D — 2 
 
36 
 
 Rushing upon me, unharnessed elements, 
 
 Fire, not as in the constellations kept. 
 
 Or prisoned in a planetary sun, 
 
 But in careering continents of flame, 
 
 And winds, not held in leash, or trained to blow 
 
 Or breathe upon our globe, but all at large ! 
 
 Yet most in spirit am I now attacked. 
 
 Vague Fears assail me now. Dread undefined. 
 
 And roaming Apprehensions ; voices sweet 
 
 Wooing me into unimagined sins ; 
 
 Now fiendish Impulses seize on my soul. 
 
 And wild Suggestions of ungoverned minds 
 
 Are hurrying me away, were I not now 
 
 Met by some solitary Doubt, and stayed 
 
 As by a cloud ; or wintering in some 
 
 Drifted Despair, which holds my soul a space. 
 
 It may be moments, or it may be years. 
 
 At last on my tormented eyes uprose 
 
 A realm, where all things seemed to droop and die : 
 
 So still it seemed, my heart did almost break. 
 
 Is this, I said, at last the peace of heaven ? 
 
 Yet why, O spirit, art thou so faint within me ? 
 
 And why, O soul, hast thou such fear of peace ? 
 
 Through the dead air alone we rashly lived. 
 
 And rashly moved. Now hollow shells we passed 
 
 Which once were suns, and suns not yet quite dead, 
 
 Whose fires were burning low. As some strong beast. 
 
37 
 
 Who bears at his great heart a mortal wound, 
 
 And now the evening comes about him, he 
 
 With pain, rises, and drags his vast limbs out 
 
 liito a solitary place to die 
 
 Alone ; even so it seemed, these stricken things 
 
 Come here to die ; some pale and like to moons 
 
 Seen from our globe ; nor these alone, but stars 
 
 Outworn, and systems spent, run down and wrecked. 
 
 Which, drifting here, were cast up on these shores, 
 
 Xo rust, and rusting waste, and wear away 
 
 Under a careless and permitted rain. 
 
 And from them, rotting, there arose a smell 
 
 As of unnumbered, rich, decaying leaves. 
 
 In autumn heaped. Still we continued on j 
 
 Around us myriads upon myriads 
 
 Of ruined v/orlds : or some expiring star 
 
 Would for a moment blaze up as we passed, 
 
 Illumining those wide and dismal coasts. 
 
 Then darken hissing in the rain. " Behold ! " 
 
 Exclaimed the Spirit, "we are come at length 
 
 Into the region of the worlds that failed ! "' 
 
38 
 
 IX. 
 
 At last we paused beneath the rain, and I 
 
 Whispered up to the Angel : " O, what means 
 
 This region of spent systems and dead suns ? " 
 
 "Time was," he answered," when these foundered things 
 
 Were bright as any sapphire of the sky, 
 
 Peopled with creatures who adored the God 
 
 Ye now adore. But, wearying of them, he 
 
 Abandoned them ; until at last their sun, 
 
 Even as a dying lion lets go his prey, 
 
 Fainting relaxed his loose caress of fire 
 
 And let them slip. Then they began to drift 
 
 Till they came hither, where one day your world 
 
 Will come : even now, God is deserting it. 
 
 Think but a moment ; in old times indeed. 
 
 When the first bloom and down was on your star, 
 
 And when your world was young and in the heavens 
 
 Hung like a morning dew-drop, glistening, 
 
 Ye had wild glimpses of a God. The Jew 
 
 Conceived him then, a man, the creature too 
 
 Of whims, a thing of passions and of moods. 
 
 Then too the Greek beheld him, or so dreamed. 
 
 At ease upon Olympus, in clear air 
 
39 
 
 Above the thunder, or gazing on the face 
 
 Of utter Truth and utter Purity. 
 
 Then ye beheld a God who left his heavens 
 
 For earth, your earth, now indistinguishable. 
 
 Somewhere, for ofF, the faintest of faint lights, 
 
 And lived amongst you, man among mankind ; 
 
 And he, it seems, the master of the stars. 
 
 Gasped out his life, nailed up between two thieves 
 
 On Golgotha ! Such flashes, wild perchance, 
 
 Yet flashes of his glory once ye had. 
 
 But now, what now ? What of this latest age, 
 
 This dim and shaken time in which your lot 
 
 Is cast ? Now Christ is failing ; and what now .? 
 
 In the dark rainy cities of your earth. 
 
 By smoke as by a blanket vast shut ofF, 
 
 Banished from heaven, and blind to heaven's sweet orb. 
 
 Ye have made unto yourselves new sun, new moon, 
 
 Of glare and gas ; by an unnatural light 
 
 Ye live ; and hearing but the throbbing mills, 
 
 The sullen beating of the heart of toil, 
 
 Or drudging at the desk, immortal man 
 
 Drearily keeps from yet more dreary death ! 
 
 Ye hear no voice upon the air, ye hear 
 
 The thundering hammer and the whizzing wheel. 
 
 The gasp of steam. And now, feeling at last 
 
 God's absence in the air, from very cold 
 
 And loneliness together crowding close 
 
40 
 
 On the doomed orb, man to his brother man 
 
 Turns, crying in despair : Thee at the least 
 
 I know, I see, I feel ; be thou my God ! 
 
 Of old at least, though as a man to men, 
 
 God spake to you, and saw you face to fece. 
 
 Then in his wrath was grief intolerable, 
 
 And ecstacy in sweet repentant tears ; 
 
 He stood above your battles, and he gave 
 
 The victory where victory was due. 
 
 Then death set free the imprisoned soul, to stray 
 
 In happy fields, or plunged it terribly 
 
 In purgatorial fires ; ye did believe 
 
 At least : a terrible and righteous God 
 
 Sat in the heavens ; he judged, he loathed, he loved* 
 
 But now ye see no more his face, nor hear 
 
 His voice upraised in anger or in love. 
 
 Why comes there not a God into the West 
 
 As once into the East ? No more his feet 
 
 Shall be upon your fields ; your planet comes 
 
 To a mechanic end, a wrecked machine. 
 
 To lie here like these worlds which waste around : 
 
 Once they could please God's eye, but now no more^ 
 
 Abandoned as he is abandoning you ! 
 
 Hence the long silence fallen on the world 
 
 In these sad days : and hence the cry for light. 
 
 Earth he hath left you to explore, to search. 
 
 To mine, to ransack ; until, masters grown 
 
41 
 
 Of the material world, after the long 
 
 Advance of science, now about at last 
 
 To burst beyond the limits of that earth 
 
 As conquerors, ye are suddenly brought up 
 
 By an appalling silence and a blank ! 
 
 A myriad, myriad worlds he hath left behind 
 
 To spin for ever desperately alone : 
 
 Worlds that have failed as thine is failing now ! 
 
 That vast cold spirit of the Beautiful 
 
 Which men call God, in his advance and march. 
 
 Sweeps onward, flashing out more glorious stars, 
 
 Lighting more splendid suns, crowding new spheres 
 
 With mightier beings ; but, ever and anon, 
 
 If, for a moment, he may rest from toil. 
 
 There comes into his ear the far-ofF cry 
 
 Of ruined worlds that he hath left behind. 
 
 Then he arises, shaking from his ears 
 
 That jarring sound, and spreads once more his wings. 
 
 Conceiving, and creating, and accursed ! " 
 
 But I, as in a frenzy, cried aloud : 
 
 "O that I might take wings made of the woes 
 
 Of men, and springing up, at length might break 
 
 God's long celestial silence with a cry. 
 
 Shivering his peace ! That he at least might know 
 
 That we are living, praying, loving, dying, 
 
 Aud that a human face might evermore. 
 
 Haggard with passion, haunt him in his heavens ! '* 
 
42 
 
 " Nay," said the Spirit, " Why these frenzied cries ? 
 
 Ye yet are happy ; those whom thou didst leave 
 
 Behind live out their lives on earth content ; 
 
 They know not what thou knowest, and have peace. 
 
 As some dumb creature in a laboratory. 
 
 Quivering beneath the vivisector's knife, 
 
 Still licks the keen cold hand that tears him, still 
 
 With large and trusting eyes looks up, so ye. 
 
 Though he tear flesh from flesh, still with the same 
 
 Meek wistful look gaze up into his face." 
 
 " Is this the end ? Is this the end ? " I cried : 
 
 " Have we then striven for this, taken such care 
 
 For right and wrong, and lived the life denied. 
 
 And melancholy, stern, ascetic days ? 
 
 And has the martyr died, but for a dream. 
 
 Wrapping the flames about him, like a robe. 
 
 Forgetting his charred limbs, the while he saw 
 
 With Hfted, frenzied, and ecstatic eyes 
 
 The opening heavens, and on his raptured sight 
 
 The God for whom he died, began to loom ? 
 
 Is this the shore, the goal of fiery faith ? 
 
 A system come, like these I see around. 
 
 To a mechanic end, a wrecked machine ? 
 
 The lover, too, who made so light of death. 
 
 Fired with a love he swore should never die ! 
 
 Has he then perished for a dream, shall he 
 
 Slumber for ever on, or if he wake 
 
43 
 
 With half-asleep, unrealizing eyes, 
 
 Awake but to the rush of elements ? 
 
 Is all this vain ? All we have striven for ? " "Vain ! " 
 
 Answered the Spirit. "When God had made your earth, 
 
 And, stooping from his intellectual calm. 
 
 With cold, aesthetic gaze surveyed it o'er. 
 
 His roaming eye, ever unsatisfied, 
 
 Lacked something yet. His world was very good, 
 
 But wanted movement, to delight his eye. 
 
 Then he created man, to live and move 
 
 Before him, to the dead background of earth 
 
 A living foreground, full of motions sweet. 
 
 Nor rested here ; to give his picture warmth 
 
 And colour. Passion, and Desire, he gave. 
 
 That it might never pall upon his sight. 
 
 But when he glanced, be never still the same. 
 
 He gave you love and passion, as he gave 
 
 The springing field ; hate, as the sterile rock ; 
 
 And aspirations after higher things. 
 
 So that ye might not ever walk with eyes 
 
 Fastened on earth, but sigh unto the stars. 
 
 All is effect, contrast, variety. 
 
 Shadow and light, the just and the unjust; 
 
 And all these blotted out as with a sponge 
 
 When he paints out the picture that has failed ! 
 
 Why dost thou now draw back, and canst not bear 
 
 To look on Truth, pining again, it seems, 
 
44 
 
 For visions softer to the heart, for thought 
 
 Tempered as is the blast, tempered for earth ? 
 
 Why did I hear thy prayer ? Why did I Hght 
 
 At thy beseeching at thy side, with thee 
 
 Speaking, as with a Spirit, lifting thee 
 
 Out of that place of dreams to look on Truth ? 
 
 Because that like a God, upon thy globe 
 
 I found thee sane, above or love or hate : 
 
 Could I have carried thee on such a flight, 
 
 If I had found thee loving or beloved ? 
 
 No creature called to thee to stay ; no face 
 
 Beckoned thee back ; but thou wast free to plunge 
 
 With me into these deeps. Why dost thou now 
 
 Shrink back and sob, and durst not lift thine eyes ? 
 
 Hast thou endured so much, and canst thou now 
 
 Endure no more ? Hadst thou the stren2:th to steal 
 
 Through the great fires of space, and out beyond 
 
 Into the waste where God had not yet built ; 
 
 To live across that lawless flood, and come 
 
 Even unto this region of dim rain. 
 
 In thy exceeding great desire for Truth ? 
 
 But now what ails thee ? Here thy journey ends^ 
 
 Rejoice to look at last upon a God 
 
 Serene, above all fever of the soul, 
 
 A God after thy heart ; rejoice ! so near 
 
 Hast thou approached Divinity, this God, 
 
 This intellect with cold, majestic eyes, 
 
45 
 
 Conceiving and creating. Thou hast lived 
 
 But to see Truth, and, seeing, dost thou die ? " 
 
 Then in great agony I cried out aloud : 
 
 " O heaven and earth I How am I melted now ! 
 
 My heart I thought was dead, I feel again 
 
 Bursting within me ! I dissolve and faint 
 
 Beneath this God, this pitiless Intellect, 
 
 Creating and again abandoning 
 
 To rain the ruined planets he creates ! 
 
 How can I choose but weep remembering 
 
 Those human things, who in that far-away 
 
 Deserted star, are living holy lives ; 
 
 Loving and praying, and enduring pain, 
 
 Dreaming that God, their father, at the last 
 
 Shall wipe away all tears ? What should they do, 
 
 Poor quivering things with hearts, and hopes, and fears. 
 
 In such a scheme ? Have I endured across 
 
 The rushing heavens, and dangers not alone 
 
 To body but to soul, to come at last 
 
 To this ? a waste, and an appalling blank ! 
 
 My eyes at last are human ; they were made 
 
 For tears, and not to gaze on Truth, if this 
 
 Be Truth ! O hear me, God ! O stay thy flight 
 
 A moment, ere thou stretchest forth thy hand 
 
 To light another star. O speak to me ! 
 
 To me, thy creature, wandered far beyond 
 
 The limits thou didst set ! Thou didst at least 
 
4-6 
 
 Fire me with inextinguishable thirst 
 For Truth ; hast thou then urged me on to this, 
 And driven me to this waste ? O, look on me ! 
 I stand amid thy wrecks, and on my head 
 Feel thy relentless rain, and I lose hope 
 Amid discarded stars, and systems spent; 
 I dare not live amid dead planets ! Speak ! 
 I have such need of love, such piteous need j 
 
 ^peak to me, and let me hear from thee 
 A word, a living whisper, that shall save 
 My soul from this great waste, or I shall die, 
 Where never living mortal yet hath died, 
 
 At the feet of this great angel. Speak, O speak ! " 
 
 1 ceased, and there is silence everywhere ; 
 Silence upon the worlds abandbned. 
 Silence upon the Spirit at my side ; 
 
 And in that silence I despaired, and fell ! 
 
47 
 
 X. 
 
 When I revived and lifted up my eyes 
 
 I was on earth again, and lay Hlce one 
 
 Who, half awake, cares not to wholly wake. 
 
 But lies content, and for a while puts ofF 
 
 Reality: and if the thought came back 
 
 Of all that I had seen and heard, it came 
 
 Dimly: while to myself in sweet relief 
 
 I murmured. Ah, thank God, it was a dream ! 
 
 I lay back in the fields, and stretched myself 
 
 Amid the grasses ; and I found repose 
 
 To my space-wearied eyes in watching there 
 
 The innumerable, tiny, creeping things 
 
 That people the green roots and blades of grass ; 
 
 Dim citadels and cities thronged with life ; 
 
 And common flowers and all the wayside blooms, 
 
 Which I had scorned, or passed unheeded by ; 
 
 The daisy with her crown of bubbling gold, 
 
 The corn, with poppy and convolvulus, 
 
 I wept to see again. And Earth, my mother, 
 
 As though to welcome back her wandering son. 
 
 More sweet to her than sons who wandered not, 
 
 Seemed to me to spread out her lavish lap, 
 
48 
 
 And for my sake to bring her treasures forth, 
 
 And in a thousand sweet and silent ways 
 
 Showed her delight ; I all the while reclined 
 
 At ease upon the sweet abundant grass. 
 
 As you perchance, when one you loved has died j 
 
 Have you not waked upon the after-morn 
 
 As upon other morns, and so for one 
 
 Brief moment lain at peace, and have forgot 
 
 To be unhappy for a short sweet space : 
 
 Then suddenly remembered ? Even so, I 
 
 Remembered on a sudden all that voyage, 
 
 The regions whence I came, and knew that joy 
 
 Was a forbidden thing for evermore ! 
 
 I started to my feet, and sighed : Alas ! 
 
 This is the last dream I shall ever dream ; 
 
 I may not dream, nor hope. O ye sweet winds 
 
 Who flatter me with peace ! ye come not now 
 
 Ambassadors inspired from some great Power, 
 
 But, with a wandering and uncertain voice, 
 
 At random speak. And thou, O rising sun, 
 
 Thou comest not, as once, fresh from God's hand, 
 
 And red and glowing from his glorious touch ! 
 
 O dead unhappy earth, how art thou changed ! 
 
 What is it that I miss ? What hast thou lost ? 
 
 There is no secret in the winds, no spell 
 
 Is in the air ; the magic and the bliss 
 
 Is gone i thou still art fair, but O how cold ! 
 
49 
 
 For like some maid in lonely, dreamy youth, 
 
 Married to one who is not what he seemed, 
 
 Each day, each hour, each moment brings to her 
 
 Some little loss, some little ebb of faith, 
 
 Some petty disenchantment ; till at last 
 
 She wakes, to see him as he is, and moans : 
 
 Can I live out my disenchanted life ? 
 
 So I, at last, had shivered, and awaked 
 
 Amid the spell-less air, and cried aloud : 
 
 Can I live on, for evermore to walk 
 
 Upon a disillusioned earth, and watch 
 
 Each hour, a little glory leave the fields ? 
 
 I fled away from nature, grown to me 
 
 Voiceless and cold, until I now had come 
 
 Into some city ; and, passing on, I stood 
 
 In the thronged market place. I paused amazed 
 
 At all the littleness of life ; for here 
 
 Men haggled, chattered, wrangled, trifled, laughed, 
 
 Nor realized a moment where they were ; 
 
 Babbling, besieged by noiseless hosts and Powers. 
 
 Whence I had come, spirits indeed I saw 
 
 Silent, intense for evil or for good ; 
 
 Defiance there, but here indifference. 
 
 And still I stood amid the crowd appalled. 
 
 And muttered to myself: What does this world 
 
 Here in mid-space ? Is it as a relief 
 
 Amid God's sterner works, thrown off perchance 
 
 £ 
 
so 
 
 In some light interval, not starting straight 
 
 From the white glow and frenzy of his brain ? 
 
 And to what end this little life of ours, 
 
 This trifling life ? Scarce serious, so it seems. 
 
 Not to be taken in too grave a sense ! 
 
 What doth it here, this sudden glimpse of farce, 
 
 Amid the gloom of solemn tragedy. 
 
 This trivial trembling on the terrible ? 
 
 Once more I left the city, and went out 
 
 To cool me in the field, and there abode 
 
 Till evening found me ; evening, sad and clear. 
 
 Pierced with a large star ; and now, one by one. 
 
 They came, those bright stars, and looked down on me. 
 
 It seemed as though an angel passed through heaven 
 
 And with a rushing torch was kindling all 
 
 Her golden lamps ; but soon that vision fled. 
 
 I knew them now. I watched till I could watch 
 
 No more, and turned away my eyes ; but still 
 
 I felt them, millions upon millions. 
 
 Still crowding in on me ! With head bent down. 
 
 Restless I wandered on, until the sound 
 
 Of many bells came to me, and I said : 
 
 Better to seek again my fellow men. 
 
 To drown in sound and light and crowds this sense 
 
 Of heavy silence, and of loneliness. 
 
 I will go hence, and in the whirl of the world 
 
 And in the hum of never-ceasing tongues 
 
51 
 
 Live furiously, or drink my life away, 
 
 Till on my reeling brain, if memory 
 
 Break in, I shall but laugh as at a dream ! 
 
 I fled away over the darkening fields. 
 
 And still those bells, like happy voices, drew 
 
 My steps, until at length a city vast 
 
 Rose up before me. Through the lighted streets- 
 
 I laughed and wept, and cast from mc at length 
 
 The weight and the long strain of solitude. 
 
 Drinking the light and sound, the rush of men y 
 
 Till carried onward by a multitude. 
 
 That hurried all one way, I stood at last 
 
 In a dim ancient church ; and, as I stood, 
 
 The multitude as with a rustling hush. 
 
 Fell on their knees ; and with one voice arose 
 
 The cry. Our Father ! Then, at that low cry, 
 
 I woke from my wild trance, and realized 
 
 Whence I had come, and where I was, and knew 
 
 They still were praying to a God, whom I 
 
 Had seen abandoning upon his path 
 
 His ruined worlds. Then said I to myself, 
 
 Lo, I will tell them ! But they seemed to me 
 
 So happy : here strong men, fresh from the world, 
 
 Found peace ; and weak men spent with many a wave 
 
 Found strength ; and here about me children sang j 
 
 And women, out of grim unlovely lives. 
 
 Tired women, who in that cool place forgot 
 
Their feverish hours, here wept and found reh'ef. 
 
 Thrice I essayed to speak, but all my voice 
 
 Went out in sobs ; but soon the irony, 
 
 The piteous irony of it all, so worked 
 
 Upon me, that I started up and cried : 
 
 " O fellow-men and women, hear me ? I 
 
 Bring to you such a message, that even now 
 
 I tremble at it : better to let you still 
 
 Live on, believing, hoping, praying still, 
 
 A life that ye can live ; but yet, the thought 
 
 Of all this multitude feUen on its knees, 
 
 Wrought on me so that I must speak. O hear I 
 
 Lo, I have left this world behind, and saw 
 
 This earth, with all her continents and seas, 
 
 Fade to a point of light : still I endured, 
 
 And soaring did abide the starry heaven. 
 
 In glory rushing, silent as a dream. 
 
 This I have dared in my exceeding thirst 
 
 For Truth ; and at the last I came to see 
 
 Her face, whom none hath seen ; yet how should I 
 
 Tell what I saw with human eyes ? O how 
 
 Begin, and if begin, how ever end ? 
 
 The God, whom ye call Father ; he who made 
 
 Us and our world, and many myriads more. 
 
 Conceived it in his intellectual soul, 
 
 And drew it as a picture beautiful. 
 
 On space as oft ^ eai>va», large and free. 
 
S3 
 
 Green fields he gave us, and the radiant sky, 
 
 And filled the earth with glory, and us too 
 
 He made, a living foreground to give change 
 
 And movement for his eye : nor stayed he there j 
 
 Passion he gave, and aspirations wild. 
 
 Fire of the soul to give his picture warmth 
 
 But he, cold artist of the heavens, at length 
 
 Grew weary, and his picture 'gan to pall 
 
 Upon his eye, and at this very hour 
 
 He is discarding it ! Can ye not hear 
 
 Even now the rushing of his wings, as he 
 
 Is hurrying from us, on more splendid toils 
 
 Intent ; conceiving other, fairer stars, 
 
 And peopling them with mightier beings ? Us 
 
 He hath left for evermore ! Still spins the earth, 
 
 Beautiful as of old ; but never now 
 
 Rises the sun red from his glowing hand. 
 
 Hence comes the silence fallen upon the world 
 
 In these sad days ; hence the incessant cry 
 
 For some new God, some streak of that fresh light, 
 
 Which in the world's first youth was wont to play 
 
 In flashes on the Hebrew and the Greek. 
 
 Then fear no more the final great assize. 
 
 The moon of blood, the throne, the scroll unrolled. 
 
 The looming judge, the sentence and the doom. 
 
 Nor that blast blown in the dead world's ear. 
 
 Still spins the orb, but with a dying whirl 
 
54 
 
 And slower revolution labouring, 
 
 Till, with a last roll, spent she stands, run down i 
 
 And man there, master of the earth at last, 
 
 But godless, stretched amid his vast machines^ 
 
 Slowly the cold sun shall relax his hold. 
 
 And Earth begin to drift, until she come 
 
 Unto a shore where myriads more have come, 
 
 To rust in ceaseless and remorseless rain. 
 
 Lo, I have stood amid God's foundered stars, 
 
 And felt his pitiless rain : but he still moves 
 
 Onward, to newer orbs and fresher stars 
 
 Than ours, which fails ; and on this failing star 
 
 We now are breathing desperately alone ! 
 
 Then kneel no more, for sin he heedeth not. 
 
 Nor sin's forgiveness ; nothing ye can do 
 
 Can urge his anger, or arouse his love : 
 
 Once we could please his eye, but now no more ! 
 
 Let these hysteric cries for love, for peace 
 
 Go, and find peace, if ye can find it now, 
 
 In that ye know truth ; look on her, and despair, 
 
 As I despaired ; as I am dying, die 1 " 
 
 I swooned, and knew no more, till I beheld 
 
 Your faces bending over me, and you 
 
 I prayed to carry me to these cold peaks 
 
 Where ye have laid me ; for it seemed that I 
 
 Might cool my fever on the eternal snows. 
 
55 
 
 XI. 
 
 Here let me die : upon this hush of snow 
 
 Which deadens the world's footfall, let me die ! 
 
 Into the valley I descend no more, 
 
 Having no friend there, on whose human breast 
 
 To fall, and weep a little, and confess 
 
 That I have sinned, and say : You loved me once ; 
 
 let me lay my head upon your breast, 
 And be at rest a little hour and die ! 
 
 If I might feel upon my space-singed brow 
 A woman's hand, a white hand that we love, 
 Thrilling my brain with peace ! If I might be 
 A child again, as once I was, and find 
 The God which I have lost, my mother's God, 
 Of whom she told me in the evening dim, 
 KneeHng beside my childish bed, for me 
 Praying with passion, and with tears. But now 
 
 1 am too old to be abandoned thus ; 
 
 I have such need of love. Ah ! leave me not, 
 O God, to linger here and flutter on, 
 A bird that hath thy arrow in his side, 
 Thy desolating arrow ! Look on me, 
 
56 
 
 Whom Space hath strained close to her barren breast, 
 
 And strangled ; who have fallen so far from thee. 
 
 Is there some other way to find thee out ? 
 
 If I have been deceived ? If that strong Spirit, 
 
 From afar off beholding me, raised up 
 
 Above all passion, scorning to be loved 
 
 Or love, with a dead heart but living brain. 
 
 Tempted my loneliness, and snatched me up 
 
 From earth, and circling me with ruined worlds 
 
 Made me to see God even as myself. 
 
 An Intellect with brain of fire, and heart 
 
 Of ice, creating and abandoning : 
 
 O ! if it were so, and I could believe 
 
 That he, that angel, whom I thought my guide, 
 
 Had stood between me and the light ! That way 
 
 Was open to temptation most. What if 
 
 There be some other way ! It might be so. 
 
 Else where is hope for thee, thou pining soul, 
 
 Julian ? and yet hope there is ; for thou 
 
 Art fired with everlasting love, whose fire 
 
 Suffers thee not to drop into despair. 
 
 Was not thy stillness broken in upon 
 
 By storms of hope ? Ah ! happier far than I, 
 
 Who feel no quickening tempest, but lie here 
 
 Bewildered, and belated, and becalmed ! 
 
 If I have been deceived ! If this were true ! 
 
 And in his irony God took my hand, 
 
57 
 
 And smiling led me down the abyss of hell ; 
 
 If God is love indeed, one mighty heart, 
 
 One breast, to which he clasps his weeping earth ! 
 
 If this be so, the meanest hind that loves. 
 
 And loves in vain, is nearer him than 1 1 
 
 For he hath clasped his garments in the dark. 
 
 And caught some wild and splendid stormy gleams 
 
 Of that high Love ; but upon me no gleam. 
 
 No faint light plays ; I freeze in a great night. 
 
 If I have been deceived ! Ah ! let me die 
 
 Now, while I can believe it, not that voice 
 
 Which, with a whisper, did away my peace ! 
 
 I am dying ! yes I feel it. What is this ? 
 
 I see again the rushing elements : 
 
 Fire and great winds ! I am besieged by Fears, 
 
 And set aflame by Lusts, and now again 
 
 Shaken by Doubts, or hurried fast away 
 
 By fiendish Impulses : hold, hold my brain 
 
 From wandering Despairs ! Let me not sink 
 
 Into the abysses of ungoverned thought ! 
 
 O God, abandon not my soul again 
 
 To desolating elements. Thou hast 
 
 Power on the blast, and in the raving gulph 
 
 Of passion : take me unto thee at last ! 
 
 Canst thou not find forgiveness for the soul 
 
 Which broke all barriers, and soaring, dared 
 
 Thy starry heavens, and the godless waste. 
 
58 
 
 And dropt far-ofF thee in its flight, yet meant 
 That flight for thee ! I fail, I die at last. 
 But you, descend into the vale of the world. 
 For you have homes and faces that you love ; 
 Cling to them, and on some warm heart forget 
 The lone man dying on the eternal snows ! 
 But ere you go — think me not fond — but I 
 Entreat you to bend over me, and once 
 Kiss me upon the brow, that I may die 
 As others die, not utterly alone ! " 
 
 He fell back dead : and those two cowled men 
 
 Softly arose, and bending over him. 
 
 They kissed him once upon the brow, and then 
 
 Left him alone in everlasting snow. 
 
 And down into the valley, to the earth 
 
 Began now to descend: and, as they crept 
 
 From ledge to ledge, night lifted, and they stole 
 
 Down through the glimmering dawn ; and ever down 
 
 Continuing, all suddenly the sun 
 
 Burst on them, and they saw the smoke up-curl 
 
 From homes of men beneath. Then with delight 
 
 They sped from rock to rock ; and now at times 
 
 A solitary shepherd with his sheep 
 
 Would pass them singing j lower still they caught 
 
59 
 
 At last the hum of life; till suddenly 
 They came upon a village, all awake, 
 And hailed the labourer, now striding forth, 
 With glittering scythe, into the dewy fields, 
 And heard the faggot cracking on the hearth. 
 
 THE END. 
 
im