IX

Out of the deep, my dream, out of the deep,

Yrma, thy voice came to me in my sleep,

And through a rainbow woven of human tears

I saw two lovers wandering down the years;

Two children, first, that roamed a sunset land,

And then two lovers wandering hand in hand,

Forgetful of their childhood's Paradise,

For nine more years had darkened in their eyes,

And heaven itself could hardly find again

Anwyl, the star-child, or the flower, Etain.

For on a day in May, as through the wood

With earth's new passion beating in his blood

He went alone, an empty-hearted youth,

Seeking he knew not what white flower of truth

Or beauty, on all sides he seemed to see

Swift subtle hints of some new harmony,

Yet all unheard, ideal, and incomplete,

A silent song compact of hopes and fears,

A music such as lights the wandering feet

Of Yrma when on earth she reappears.

And he forgot that sad grey City of Pain,

For all earth's old romance returned again,

And as he went, his dreaming soul grew glad

To think that he might meet with Galahad

Or Parsifal in some green glade of fern,

Or see between the boughs a helmet burn

And hear a joyous laugh kindle the sky

As through the wood Sir Launcelot rode by

With face upturned to take the sun like wine.

Ah, was it love that made the whole world shine

Like some great angel's face, blinded with bliss,

While Anwyl dreamed of bold Sir Amadis

And Guinevere's white arms and Iseult's kiss,

And that glad island in a golden sea

Where Arthur lives and reigns eternally?

Surely the heavens were one wide rose-white flame

As down the path to meet him Yrma came;

Ah, was it Yrma, with those radiant eyes,

That came to greet and lead him through the skies,

The skies that gloomed and gleamed so far above

The little wandering prayers of human love?...

He had forgotten all except the gleam

Of light when once he kissed her in a dream,...

For surely then he knew that long before

Their eyes had met upon some distant shore....

Ah, was it Yrma whose red lips he met

Between the branches, where the leaves were wet?

Etain or Yrma, for it seemed her face

Bent down upon him from some happy place

And whispered to him, low and sweet and low,

In other worlds I loved you, long ago!

And he, too, knew his love could never die,

Because his queen was throned beyond the sky.

Yet In sweet mortal eyes he met her now

And kissed Etain beneath the hawthorn bough,

And dared to dream his infinite dream was true

On earth and reign with Etain, dream he knew

Why leaves were green and sides were fresh and blue;

Yea, dream he knew, as children dream they know

They knew all this a million years ago,

And watched the sea-waves wistfully westward wend

And heard a voice whispering in their flow

And calling through the silent sunset-glow

Love that hath no beginning hath no end.

Ah, could they see in the Valley of Gloom

That clove the cliffs behind the City;

Ah, could they hear in the forest of Doom

The peril that neared without pause or pity?

Behind the veils of ivy and vine,

Wild musk-roses and white woodbine,

In glens that were wan as with moonlit tears

And rosy with ghosts of eglantine

And pale as with lilies of long-past years,

Ah, could they see, could they hear, could they know

Behind that beautiful outward show,

Behind the pomp and glory of life

That seething old anarchic strife?

For there in many a dim blue glade

Where the rank red poppies burned,

And if perchance some dreamer strayed

He nevermore returned,

Cold incarnate memories

Of earth's retributory throes,

Deadly desires and agonies

Dark as the worm that never dies,

In the outer night arose,

And waited under those wonderful skies

With Hydra heads and mocking eyes

That winked upon the waning West

From out the gloom of the oak-forest,

Till all the wild profound of wood

That o'er the haunted valley slept

Glowed with eyes like pools of blood

As, lusting after a hideous food,

Through the haggard vistas crept

Without a cry, without a hiss,

The serpent broods of the abyss.

Ancestral folds in darkness furled

Since the beginnings of the world.

Ring upon awful ring uprose

That obscure heritage of foes,

The exceeding bitter heritage

Which still a jealous God bestows

From inappellable age to age,

The ghostly worms that softly move

Through every grey old corse of love

And creep across the coffined years

To batten on our blood and tears;

And there were hooded shapes of death

Gaunt and grey, cruel and blind,

Stealing softly as a breath

Through the woods that loured behind

The City; hooded shapes of fear

Slowly, slowly stealing near;

While all the gloom that round them rolled

With intertwisting coils grew cold.

And there with leer and gap-toothed grin

Many a gaunt ancestral Sin

With clutching fingers, white and thin,

Strove to put the boughs aside;

And still before them all would glide

Down the wavering moon-white track

One lissom figure, clad in black;

Who wept at mirth and mocked at pain

And murmured a song of the wind and the rain;

His laugh was wild with a secret grief;

His eyes were deep like woodland pools;

And, once and again, as his face drew near

In a rosy gloaming of eglantere,

All the ghosts that gathered there

Bowed together, naming his name:

Lead us, ah thou Shadow of a Leaf,

Child and master of all our shame,

Fool of Doubt and King of Fools.

Now the linnet had ended his evensong,

And the lark dropt down from his last wild ditty

And ruffled his wings and his speckled breast

Blossomwise over his June-sweet nest;

While winging wistfully into the West

As a fallen petal is wafted along

The last white sea-mew sought for rest;

And, over the gleaming heave and swell

Of the swinging seas,

Drowsily breathed the dreaming breeze.

Then, suddenly, out of the Valley of Gloom

That clove the cliffs behind the City,

Out of the silent forest of Doom

That clothed the valley with clouds of fear

Swelled the boom of a distant bell

Once, and the towers of the City of Pain

Echoed it, without hope or pity.

The tale of that tolling who can tell?

That dark old music who shall declare?

Who shall interpret the song of the bell?

Is it nothing to you, all ye that hear,

Sorrowed the bell, Is it nothing to you?

Is it nothing to you? the shore-wind cried,

Is it nothing to you? the cliffs replied.

But the low light laughed and the skies were blue,

And this was only the song of the bell.