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THE HOMELESS GHOST
Still flowed the music, flowed the wine.
The youth in silence went;
Through naked streets, in cold moonshine,
His homeward way he bent,
Where, on the city's seaward line,
His lattice seaward leant.
He knew not why he left the throng,
But that he could not rest;
That something pained him in the song,
And mocked him in the jest;
And a cold moon-glitter lay along
One lovely lady's breast.
He sat him down with solemn book
His sadness to beguile;
A skull from off its bracket-nook
Threw him a lipless smile;
But its awful, laughter-mocking look,
Was a passing moonbeam's wile.
An hour he sat, and read in vain,
Nought but mirrors were his eyes;
For to and fro through his helpless brain,
Went the dance's mysteries;
Till a gust of wind against the pane,
Mixed with a sea-bird's cries,
And the sudden spatter of drifting rain
Bade him mark the altered skies.
The moon was gone, intombed in cloud;
The wind began to rave;
The ocean heaved within its shroud,
For the dark had built its grave;
But like ghosts brake forth, and cried aloud,
The white crests of the wave.
Big rain. The wind howled out, aware
Of the tread of the watery west;
The windows shivered, back waved his hair,
The fireside seemed the best;
But lo! a lady sat in his chair,
With the moonlight across her breast.
The moonbeam passed. The lady sat on.
Her beauty was sad and white.
All but her hair with whiteness shone,
And her hair was black as night;
And her eyes, where darkness was never gone,
Although they were full of light.
But her hair was wet, and wept like weeds
On her pearly shoulders bare;
And the clear pale drops ran down like beads,
Down her arms, to her fingers fair;
And her limbs shine through, like thin-filmed seeds,
Her dank white robe's despair.
She moved not, but looked in his wondering face,
Till his blushes began to rise;
But she gazed, like one on the veiling lace,
To something within his eyes;
A gaze that had not to do with place,
But thought and spirit tries.
Then the voice came forth, all sweet and clear,
Though jarred by inward pain;
She spoke like one that speaks in fear
Of the judgment she will gain,
When the soul is full as a mountain-mere,
And the speech, but a flowing vein.
"Thine eyes are like mine, and thou art bold;
Nay, heap not the dying fire;
It warms not me, I am too cold,
Cold as the churchyard spire;
If thou cover me up with fold on fold,
Thou kill'st not the coldness dire."
Her voice and her beauty, like molten gold,
Thrilled through him in burning rain.
He was on fire, and she was cold,
Cold as the waveless main;
But his heart-well filled with woe, till it rolled
A torrent that calmed him again.
"Save me, Oh, save me!" she cried; and flung
Her splendour before his feet;—
"I am weary of wandering storms among,
And I hate the mouldy sheet;
I can dare the dark, wind-vexed and wrung,
Not the dark where the dead things meet.
"Ah! though a ghost, I'm a lady still—"
The youth recoiled aghast.
With a passion of sorrow her great eyes fill;
Not a word her white lips passed.
He caught her hand; 'twas a cold to kill,
But he held it warm and fast.
"What can I do to save thee, dear?"
At the word she sprang upright.
To her ice-lips she drew his burning ear,
And whispered—he shivered—she whispered light.
She withdrew; she gazed with an asking fear;
He stood with a face ghost-white.
"I wait—ah, would I might wait!" she said;
"But the moon sinks in the tide;
Thou seest it not; I see it fade,
Like one that may not bide.
Alas! I go out in the moonless shade;
Ah, kind! let me stay and hide."
He shivered, he shook, he felt like clay;
And the fear went through his blood;
His face was an awful ashy grey,
And his veins were channels of mud.
The lady stood in a white dismay,
Like a half-blown frozen bud.
"Ah, speak! am I so frightful then?
I live; though they call it death;
I am only cold—say dear again"—
But scarce could he heave a breath;
The air felt dank, like a frozen fen,
And he a half-conscious wraith.
"Ah, save me!" once more, with a hopeless cry,
That entered his heart, and lay;
But sunshine and warmth and rosiness vie
With coldness and moonlight and grey.
He spoke not. She moved not; yet to his eye,
She stood three paces away.
She spoke no more. Grief on her face
Beauty had almost slain.
With a feverous vision's unseen pace
She had flitted away again;
And stood, with a last dumb prayer for grace,
By the window that clanged with rain.
He stood; he stared. She had vanished quite.
The loud wind sank to a sigh;
Grey faces without paled the face of night,
As they swept the window by;
And each, as it passed, pressed a cheek of fright
To the glass, with a staring eye.
And over, afar from over the deep,
Came a long and cadenced wail;
It rose, and it sank, and it rose on the steep
Of the billows that build the gale.
It ceased; but on in his bosom creep
Low echoes that tell the tale.
He opened his lattice, and saw afar,
Over the western sea,
Across the spears of a sparkling star,
A moony vapour flee;
And he thought, with a pang that he could not bar,
The lady it might be.
He turned and looked into the room;
And lo! it was cheerless and bare;
Empty and drear as a hopeless tomb,—
And the lady was not there;
Yet the fire and the lamp drove out the gloom,
As he had driven the fair.
And up in the manhood of his breast,
Sprang a storm of passion and shame;
It tore the pride of his fancied best
In a thousand shreds of blame;
It threw to the ground his ancient crest,
And puffed at his ancient name.
He had turned a lady, and lightly clad,
Out in the stormy cold.
Was she a ghost?—Divinely sad
Are the guests of Hades old.
A wandering ghost? Oh! terror bad,
That refused an earthly fold!
And sorrow for her his shame's regret
Into humility wept;
He knelt and he kissed the footprints wet,
And the track by her thin robe swept;
He sat in her chair, all ice-cold yet,
And moaned until he slept.
He woke at dawn. The flaming sun
Laughed at the bye-gone dark.
"I am glad," he said, "that the night is done,
And the dream slain by the lark."
And the eye was all, until the gun
That boomed at the sun-set—hark!
And then, with a sudden invading blast,
He knew that it was no dream.
And all the night belief held fast,
Till thinned by the morning beam.
Thus radiant mornings and pale nights passed
On the backward-flowing stream.
He loved a lady with heaving breath,
Red lips, and a smile alway;
And her sighs an odour inhabiteth,
All of the rose-hued may;
But the warm bright lady was false as death,
And the ghost is true as day.
And the spirit-face, with its woe divine,
Came back in the hour of sighs;
As to men who have lost their aim, and pine,
Old faces of childhood rise:
He wept for her pleading voice, and the shine
Of her solitary eyes.
And now he believed in the ghost all night,
And believed in the day as well;
And he vowed, with a sorrowing tearful might,
All she asked, whate'er befel,
If she came to his room, in her garment white,
Once more at the midnight knell.
She came not. He sought her in churchyards old
That lay along the sea;
And in many a church, when the midnight tolled,
And the moon shone wondrously;
And down to the crypts he crept, grown bold;
But he waited in vain: ah me!
And he pined and sighed for love so sore,
That he looked as he were lost;
And he prayed her pardon more and more,
As one who had sinned the most;
Till, fading at length, away he wore,
And he was himself a ghost.
But if he found the lady then,
The lady sadly lost,
Or she had found 'mongst living men
A love that was a host,
I know not, till I drop my pen,
And am myself a ghost.
ABU MIDJAN
"It is only just
To laud good wine:
If I sit in the dust,
So sits the vine."
Abu Midjan sang, as he sat in chains,
For the blood of the grape was the juice of his veins.
The prophet had said, "O Faithful, drink not"—
Abu Midjan drank till his heart was hot;
Yea, he sang a song in praise of wine,
And called it good names, a joy divine.
And Saad assailed him with words of blame,
And left him in irons, a fettered flame;
But he sang of the wine as he sat in chains,
For the blood of the grape ran fast in his veins.
"I will not think
That the Prophet said,
Ye shall not drink
Of the flowing red.
"But some weakling head,
In its after pain,
Moaning said,
Drink not again.
"But I will dare,
With a goodly drought,
To drink and not spare,
Till my thirst be out.
"For as I quaff
The liquor cool,
I do not laugh,
Like a Christian fool;
"But my bosom fills,
And my faith is high;
Through the emerald hills
Goes my lightning eye.
"I see them hearken,
I see them wait;
Their light eyes darken
The diamond gate.
"I hear the float
Of their chant divine;
Each heavenly note
Mingles with mine.
"Can an evil thing
Make beauty more?
Or a sinner bring
To the heavenly door?
"'Tis the sun-rays fine
That sink in the earth,
And are drunk by the vine,
For its daughters' birth.
"And the liquid light,
I drink again;
And it flows in might
Through the shining brain,
"Making it know
The things that are
In the earth below,
Or the farthest star.
"I will not think
That the Prophet said,
Ye shall not drink
Of the flowing Red.
"For his promise, lo!
Shows more divine,
When the channels o'erflow
With the singing wine.
"But if he did, 'tis a small annoy
To sit in chains for a heavenly joy."
Away went the song on the light wind borne.
His head sank down, and a ripple of scorn,
At the irons that fettered his brown limbs' strength.
Waved on his lip the dark hair's length.
But sudden he lifted his head to the north—
Like a mountain-beacon his eye blazed forth:
'Twas a cloud in the distance that caught his eye,
Whence a faint clang shot on the light breeze by;
A noise and a smoke on the plain afar—
'Tis the cloud and the clang of the Moslem war.
And the light that flashed from his black eyes, lo!
Was a light that paled the red wine's glow;
And he shook his fetters in bootless ire,
And called on the Prophet, and named his sire.
But the lady of Saad heard the clang,
And she knew the far sabres his fetters rang.
Oh! she had the heart where a man might rest,
For she knew the tempest in his breast.
She rose. Ere she reached him, he called her name,
But he called not twice ere the lady came;
And he sprang to his feet, and the irons cursed,
And wild from his lips the Tecbir burst:
"Let me go," he said, "and, by Allah's fear,
At sundown I sit in my fetters here,
Or lie 'neath a heaven of starry eyes,
Kissed by moon-maidens of Paradise."
The lady unlocked his fetters stout,
Brought her husband's horse and his armour out,
Clothed the warrior, and bid him go
An angel of vengeance upon the foe;
Then turned her in, and from the roof,
Beheld the battle, far aloof.
Straight as an arrow she saw him go,
Abu Midjan, the singer, upon the foe.
Like home-sped lightning he pierced the cloud,
And the thunder of battle burst more loud;
And like lightning along a thunderous steep,
She saw the sickle-shaped sabres sweep,
Keen as the sunlight they dashed away
When it broke against them in flashing spray;
Till the battle ebbed o'er the plain afar,
Borne on the flow of the holy war.
As sank from the edge the sun's last flame,
Back to his bonds Abu Midjan came.
"O lady!" he said, "'tis a mighty horse;
The Prophet himself might have rode a worse.
I felt beneath me his muscles' play,
As he tore to the battle, like fiend, away.
I forgot him, and swept at the traitor weeds,
And they fell before me like broken reeds;
Dropt their heads, as a boy doth mow
The poppies' heads with his unstrung bow.
They fled. The faithful follow at will.
I turned. And lo! he was under me still.
Give him water, lady, and barley to eat;
Then come and help me to fetter my feet."
He went to the terrace, she went to the stall,
And tended the horse like a guest in the hall;
Then to the singer in haste returned.
The fire of the fight in his eyes yet burned;
But he said no more, as if in shame
Of the words that had burst from his lips in flame.
She left him there, as at first she found,
Seated in fetters upon the ground.
But the sealed fountain, in pulses strong,
O'erflowed his silence, and burst in song.
"Oh! the wine
Of the vine
Is a feeble thing;
In the rattle
Of battle
The true grapes spring.
"When on force
Of the horse,
The arm flung abroad
Is sweeping,
And reaping
The harvest of God.
"When the fear
Of the spear
Makes way for its blow;
And the faithless
Lie breathless
The horse-hoofs below.
"The wave-crest,
Round the breast,
Tosses sabres all red;
But under,
Its thunder
Is dumb to the dead.
"They drop
From the top
To the sear heap below;
And deeper,
Down steeper,
The infidels go.
"But bright
Is the light
On the true-hearted breaking;
Rapturous faces,
Bent for embraces,
Wait on his waking.
"And he hears
In his ears
The voice of the river,
Like a maiden,
Love-laden,
Go wandering ever.
"Oh! the wine
Of the vine
May lead to the gates;
But the rattle
Of battle
Wakes the angel who waits.
"To the lord
Of the sword
Open it must;
The drinker,
The thinker,
Sits in the dust.
"He dreams
Of the gleams
Of their garments of white:
He misses
Their kisses,
The maidens of light.
"They long
For the strong,
Who has burst through alarms,
Up, by the labour
Of stirrup and sabre,
Up to their arms.
"Oh! the wine of the grape is a feeble ghost;
But the wine of the fight is the joy of a host."
When Saad came home from the far pursuit,
He sat him down, and an hour was mute.
But at length he said: "Ah! wife, the fight
Had been lost full sure, but an arm of might
Sudden rose up on the crest of the war,
With its sabre that circled in rainbows afar,
Took up the battle, and drove it on—
Enoch sure, or the good St. John.
Wherever he leaped, like a lion he,
The fight was thickest, or soon to be;
Wherever he sprang, with his lion cry,
The thick of the battle soon went by.
With a headlong fear, the sinners fled;
We followed—and passed them—for they were dead.
But him who had saved us, we saw no more;
He had gone, as he came, by a secret door;
And strange to tell, in his holy force,
He wore my armour, he rode my horse."
The lady arose, with her noble pride,
And she walked with Saad, side by side;
As she led him, a moon that would not wane,
Where Midjan counted the links of his chain!
"I gave him thy horse, and thy armour to wear;
If I did a wrong, I am here to bear."
"Abu Midjan, the singer of love and of wine!
The arm of the battle—it also was thine?
Rise up, shake the fetters from off thy feet;
For the lord of the battle, are fetters meet?
Drink as thou wilt—till thou be hoar—
Let Allah judge thee—I judge no more."
Abu Midjan arose and flung aside
The clanging fetters, and thus he cried:
"If thou give me to God and his decrees,
Nor purge my sin by the shame of these;
I dare not do as I did before—
In the name of Allah, I drink no more."
AN OLD STORY
They were parted at last, although
Each was tenderly dear;
As asunder their eyes did go,
When first alone and near.
'Tis an old story this—
A trembling and a sigh,
A gaze in the eyes, a kiss—
Why will it not go by?
A BOOK OF DREAMS
PART I
1.
I lay and dreamed. The master came
In his old woven dress;
I stood in joy, and yet in shame,
Oppressed with earthliness.
He stretched his arms, and gently sought
To clasp me to his soul;
I shrunk away, because I thought
He did not know the whole.
I did not love him as I would,
Embraces were not meet;
I sank before him where he stood,
And held and kissed his feet.
Ten years have passed away since then,
Oft hast thou come to me;
The question scarce will rise again,
Whether I care for thee.
To every doubt, in thee my heart
An answer hopes to find;
In every gladness, Lord, thou art,
The deeper joy behind.
And yet in other realms of life,
Unknown temptations rise,
Unknown perplexities and strife,
New questions and replies.
And every lesson learnt, anew,
The vain assurance lends
That now I know, and now can do,
And now should see thy ends.
So I forget I am a child,
And act as if a man;
Who through the dark and tempest wild
Will go, because he can.
And so, O Lord, not yet I dare
To clasp thee to my breast;
Though well I know that only there
Is hid the secret rest.
And yet I shrink not, as at first:
Be thou the judge of guilt;
Thou knowest all my best and worst,
Do with me as thou wilt.
Spread thou once more thine arms abroad,
Lay bare thy bosom's beat;
Thou shalt embrace me, O my God,
And I will kiss thy feet.
2.
I stood before my childhood's home,
Outside the belt of trees;
All round, my dreaming glances roam
On well-known hills and leas.
When sudden, from the westward, rushed
A wide array of waves;
Over the subject fields they gushed
From far-off, unknown caves.
And up the hill they clomb and came,
On flowing like a sea:
I saw, and watched them like a game;
No terror woke in me.
For just the belting trees within,
I saw my father wait;
And should the waves the summit win,
I would go through the gate.
For by his side all doubt was dumb,
And terror ceased to foam;
No great sea-billows dared to come,
And tread the holy home.
Two days passed by. With restless toss,
The red flood brake its doors;
Prostrate I lay, and looked across
To the eternal shores.
The world was fair, and hope was nigh,
Some men and women true;
And I was strong, and Death and I
Would have a hard ado.
And so I shrank. But sweet and good
The dream came to my aid;
Within the trees my father stood,
I must not be dismayed.
My grief was his, not mine alone;
The waves that burst in fears,
He heard not only with his own,
But heard them with my ears.
My life and death belong to thee,
For I am thine, O God;
Thy hands have made and fashioned me,
'Tis thine to bear the load.
And thou shalt bear it. I will try
To be a peaceful child,
Whom in thy arms right tenderly
Thou carriest through the wild.
3.
The rich man mourns his little loss,
And knits the brow of care;
The poor man tries to bear the cross,
And seeks relief in prayer.
Some gold had vanished from my purse,
Which I had watched but ill;
I feared a lack, but feared yet worse
Regret returning still.
And so I knelt and prayed my prayer
To Him who maketh strong,
That no returning thoughts of care
Should do my spirit wrong.
I rose in peace, in comfort went,
And laid me down to rest;
But straight my soul grew confident
With gladness of the blest.
For ere the sleep that care redeems,
My soul such visions had,
That never child in childhood's dreams
Was more exulting glad.
No white-robed angels floated by
On slow, reposing wings;
I only saw, with inward eye,
Some very common things.
First rose the scarlet pimpernel,
With burning purple heart;
I saw it, and I knew right well
The lesson of its art.
Then came the primrose, childlike flower;
It looked me in the face;
It bore a message full of power,
And confidence, and grace.
And winds arose on uplands wild,
And bathed me like a stream;
And sheep-bells babbled round the child
Who loved them in a dream.
Henceforth my mind was never crossed
By thought of vanished gold,
But with it came the guardian host
Of flowers both meek and bold.
The loss is riches while I live,
A joy I would not lose:
Choose ever, God, what Thou wilt give,
Not leaving me to choose.
"What said the flowers in whisper low,
To soothe me into rest?"
I scarce have words—they seemed to grow
Right out of God's own breast.
They said, God meant the flowers He made,
As children see the same;
They said the words the lilies said
When Jesus looked at them.
And if you want to hear the flowers
Speak ancient words, all new,
They may, if you, in darksome hours,
Ask God to comfort you.
4.
Our souls, in daylight hours, awake,
With visions sometimes teem,
Which to the slumbering brain would take
The form of wondrous dream.
Thus, once, I saw a level space,
With circling mountains nigh;
And round it grouped all forms of grace,
A goodly company.
And at one end, with gentle rise,
Stood something like a throne;
And thither all the radiant eyes,
As to a centre, shone.
And on the seat the noblest form
Of glory, dim-descried;
His glance would quell all passion-storm,
All doubt, and fear, and pride.
But lo! his eyes far-fixed burn
Adown the widening vale;
The looks of all obedient turn,
And soon those looks are pale.
For, through the shining multitude,
With feeble step and slow,
A weary man, in garments rude,
All falteringly did go.
His face was white, and still-composed,
Like one that had been dead;
The eyes, from eyelids half unclosed,
A faint, wan splendour shed.
And to his brow a strange wreath clung,
And drops of crimson hue;
And his rough hands, oh, sadly wrung!
Were pierced through and through.
And not a look he turned aside;
His eyes were forward bent;
And slow the eyelids opened wide,
As towards the throne he went.
At length he reached the mighty throne,
And sank upon his knees;
And clasped his hands with stifled groan,
And spake in words like these:—
"Father, I am come back—Thy will
Is sometimes hard to do."
From all the multitude so still,
A sound of weeping grew.
And mournful-glad came down the One,
And kneeled, and clasped His child;
Sank on His breast the outworn man,
And wept until he smiled.
And when their tears had stilled their sighs,
And joy their tears had dried,
The people saw, with lifted eyes,
Them seated side by side.
5.
I lay and dreamed. Three crosses stood
Amid the gloomy air.
Two bore two men—one was the Good;
The third rose waiting, bare.
A Roman soldier, coming by,
Mistook me for the third;
I lifted up my asking eye
For Jesus' sign or word.
I thought He signed that I should yield,
And give the error way.
I held my peace; no word revealed,
No gesture uttered nay.
Against the cross a scaffold stood,
Whence easy hands could nail
The doomed upon that altar-wood,
Whose fire burns slow and pale.
Upon this ledge he lifted me.
I stood all thoughtful there,
Waiting until the deadly tree
My form for fruit should bear.
Rose up the waves of fear and doubt,
Rose up from heart to brain;
They shut the world of vision out,
And thus they cried amain:
"Ah me! my hands—the hammer's knock—
The nails—the tearing strength!"
My soul replied: "'Tis but a shock,
That grows to pain at length."
"Ah me! the awful fight with death;
The hours to hang and die;
The thirsting gasp for common breath,
That passes heedless by!"
My soul replied: "A faintness soon
Will shroud thee in its fold;
The hours will go,—the fearful noon
Rise, pass—and thou art cold.
"And for thy suffering, what to thee
Is that? or care of thine?
Thou living branch upon the tree
Whose root is the Divine!
"'Tis His to care that thou endure;
That pain shall grow or fade;
With bleeding hands hang on thy cure,
He knows what He hath made."
And still, for all the inward wail,
My foot was firmly pressed;
For still the fear lest I should fail
Was stronger than the rest.
And thus I stood, until the strife
The bonds of slumber brake;
I felt as I had ruined life,
Had fled, and come awake.
Yet I was glad, my heart confessed,
The trial went not on;
Glad likewise I had stood the test,
As far as it had gone.
And yet I fear some recreant thought,
Which now I all forget,
That painful feeling in me wrought
Of failure, lingering yet.
And if the dream had had its scope,
I might have fled the field;
But yet I thank Thee for the hope,
And think I dared not yield.
6.
Methinks I hear, as I lie slowly dying,
Indulgent friends say, weeping, "He was good."
I fail to speak, a faint denial trying,—
They answer, "His humility withstood."
I, knowing better, part with love unspoken;
And find the unknown world not all unknown.
The bonds that held me from my centre broken,
I seek my home, the Saviour's homely throne.
How He will greet me, I walk on and wonder;
And think I know what I will say to Him.
I fear no sapphire floor of cloudy thunder,
I fear no passing vision great and dim.
But He knows all my unknown weary story:
How will He judge me, pure, and good, and fair?
I come to Him in all His conquered glory,
Won from such life as I went dreaming there!
I come; I fall before Him, faintly saying:
"Ah, Lord, shall I thy loving favour win?
Earth's beauties tempted me; my walk was straying—
I have no honour—but may I come in?"
"I know thee well. Strong prayer did keep me stable;
To me the earth is very lovely too.
Thou shouldst have come to me to make thee able
To love it greatly—but thou hast got through."