III. MY LADY'S VOICE FROM HEAVEN.

I had been sitting by her tomb

In torpor one dark night;

When fitful tremours shook the doom

Of cold lethargic settled gloom,

That weighed upon my sight:

And while I sat, and sickly heaves

Disturbed my spirit's sloth,

A wind came, blown o'er distant sheaves,

That hissing, tore and lashed the leaves

And lashed the undergrowth:

It roared and howled, it raged about

With some determined aim;

And storming up the night, brought out

The moon, that like a happy shout,

Called forth My Lady's name,

In sudden splendour on the stone.

Then, for an instant, I

Snatched and heaped up my past, bestrown

With hopes and kisses, struggling moan,

And pangs: as suddenly,

Oppressed with overwhelming weight,

Down fell the edifice;

When touched, as by the hand of Fate,

My gloom was gone. I felt my state

So light, I sobbed for bliss.

The loud winds, spent in seeking rest,

Dropped dead. My fevered brow

Drank coolness from the grass it pressed;

And in my desolated breast

A change began to grow,

While feeling those tears slowly drain

The load of grief which had

A sluggish curse within me lain,

Save when remembrance wrought my brain

For vivid moments mad.

My tears, as treasures of a wreck

That in the ocean slept,

Recovered, ran without a check;

And earth was my good mother's neck

To which I clung and wept.

I rose at length, and felt a dense

Benumbed dead weight. And now

The night air hung in deep suspense!

A singing hush that pressed my sense

And stunned me like a blow:

Through my lids clenched the living air

In gold and purple rings

Danced musically round me there,

The light it held throbbed with the glare

And beat of rapid wings.

Mine eyes I dared not try to raise;

My Lady's beamed on me

In fixed serenity of gaze,

And were what old sunshiny days

In childhood used to be.

A gasping lapse; and I was whirled

Round the faint void of space;

In dizzy circles hugely hurled,

I saw the constellated world

With every orb embrace,

To one stupendous vortex-light,

Spinning a fiery ram,

Then fail, struck out by sudden night;

When swung adown in headlong might,

Earth's touch shook through my brain.

The dumb sound in mine ears was burst

By her portentous voice;

As sweet as death to one accursed,

As unto one near blind for thirst

A running water's noise.

Her voice in some translucent star,

Remote, beyond my sight,

Was singing marvellously far;

And yet so strangely near to jar,

As jars too strong a light.

She sang a song. She warbled low,

She did not sing in words;

I felt it in my spirit glow,

And knew it, as with joy I know

The morning shouts of birds.

But hard the task I undertake,

With mortal tongue to reach

The utterance of my Love, and make

Her high immortal meaning break

To clearness through my speech!

I can no more, with glimmering trope

That into darkness runs,

Reveal its depth, than they could hope,

Who on in lifelong blindness grope,

To sing of rising suns.

“Or e'er that life my King had lent

Was lifted into rest,

His message through my lips He sent,

And on thy path His glory went

To guide thee to the blessed.

“But thou didst turn thy face, and scorn

His grace divine as nought;

And set thy gaze to earth forlorn,

And rage at fate, till gaunt and worn,

Death mouldered in thy thought.

“Thou, blindly gross, didst toy with clay,

And in the ghastly gleam

Of charnel gloom didst kiss decay;

And many full moons waned away,

And left thee in thy dream.

“For with thy Lily's worldly dress

Thou didst thine eyesight fill;

And scorn to know its loveliness

Were but an empty boast unless

Made living by His will.

“Thou mourn'dst not most the vanished soul

Which was my Lord's through thine;

But more the broken pleasure-bowl,

Whose golden richness shed, when whole,

Its splendour in thy wine.

“And therefore living wert thou made

To taste the cup of death;

And therefore did the glory fade,

From guidance into deadly shade

That iced thy shuddering breath.

“Permitted, now I come to thee:

I warn thee of thy sin;

I urge thee cleanse thine eyesight free,

That purified thy soul may see

The way his love to win.

“His love incomprehensible

Did never turn away

From penitent whom harm befell;

But springeth like a desert well

For thirsting poor estray.

“Let him who scorneth mercy shown,

Unhappy one, beware!

For whoso lives in pride alone,

His pride shall harden to a stone

Too great for him to bear.

“And whoso, having warned been,

Refuseth still to turn,

Behind his shadow, shrunken mean,

A poring spectre shall be seen

With livid stare and girn.

“Thou troubled one, who unto me

Art next my Lord's own grace,

O turn to Him, and He will be

A refuge from thy misery,

A smile upon thy face!

“A righteous strength will nerve thine arm,

And courage fill thy breast:

And having bravely warred on harm,

The cries of victory shall charm

Thy dying eyes to rest.

“And succoured ones shall praise his name

Who, toiling for them, died.

And, nobly sung, his honest fame

Shall beat in hearts unborn, and claim

Their love and grateful pride.

“And Love will lead her sacrifice

To where a shining row

Stand beckoning to the heights of bliss;

And she will clasp his hands and kiss

Welcome upon his brow.”

I knew not when the singing ceased

To trance my brightened soul,

Then from that long eclipse released.

But looking hopeful towards the East,

I saw flush pole to pole

The dawn, that had begun to show,

And through dank vapour burned,

As in a sick face lying low

The rich incarnadine would glow,

When healthy life returned.

Small drowsy chirping met the light,

And dim in lowlands far

Lone marsh-birds winged their misty flight;

What time Her aspect on my sight

Beamed from the morning star.

It waned into the warbling day;

That, rising fierce and strong,

Now looked the Western gloom away,

And kindled such a roundelay,

The world awoke with song,

And fresh delicious breezes came

With scents of paradise

So tingling through my knitted frame,

That never since I lisped a name

Knew I such joy arise.

Pure was the azure over head;

Bright was the earth around;

While I on resolution fed,

And moved, as one called from the dead,

In silence on the ground.

Toward my home I walked, elate

With hope and settled plan:

And reverent to the will of Fate,

In every step I trod my weight,

A sober-minded man.