Chapter II: Tumult

SOLITUDES

My heart is a dark forest where no voice is heard,
Nor sound of foot, by day or night--nor echo, borne
Down the long aisles and shadowy arches, of a horn,
Trembling--nor cry of beast, nor call of any bird.

But always through the deep solitudes a grieving wind
Moves like the voice of a vast prayer; it is your love
Lifting and bending leaf and bough--while, far above,
One thought soars like a hawk, in the heaven of my mind.

THOSE TWO

It was love’s holy day, so great and sorrowful-hearted
That day was--all the little, all the common things
Shone with the light eternal; it was the day we parted--
The last of our evenings.

You whispered the old words, you broke the sacred bread,
You poured anew the living wine--and quietly
You lifted up your eyes, pleading, and your eyes said
Always, “Remember me.”

And lo! at the last supper, as once around the board
The disciples with the Master sat, I sat with you:
Judas was seated there, and Love, the very Lord--
Those two.

ONCE IN A LONELY HOUR

Upon my breast
Once, in a lonely hour, your head was laid,
And you had rest
From much that troubled you--you were no longer afraid.

But now, even here
No refuge is; you shall not ever lie,
As once, in my heart’s shelter here,
Poor heart, while the great hounds of Time go roaring by.

Vain was the strength
You leaned on in that hour, you did not guess
How vain the strength
Whereon you propped your ignorant lovingness.

And yet--what more
Has life to offer life, here in the lone
Tumult? A little rest, no more--
Upon a heart as troubled as its own.

COMPASSION

I had cried out to you From the darkness and the solitude of my pain; And yet you would not hear-- And so I cried again. Then--suddenly you were near.

Was it myself That answered when I cried so timidly? Yes--for the One Being has many forms. It was Myself, in another breast, that answered me.

TRUCE

Harsh is the struggle, and too soon we learn
In life’s blind tumult to give blow for blow,
Thrust for keen thrust; armed and alert we go,
Little is the security we earn
Before the dark tide of the battle turn,
Setting against us--and it has been so
From the beginning and, for all we know,
It shall be, to that end none may discern.

So to our hardened hearts all strange they come,
Those hours of truce amid the iron days,
When, unaccustomed, for a brief period--
Baffled and faint, incredulous and dumb--
On one kind human heart, in love’s amaze,
We lie at rest, as on the heart of God.

THE DARK MEMORY

It was our love’s Gethsemane, and you wept.
Around us, in the drab twilight, the little room
That had known our love, that had known our tears and our laughter, kept
Shamed silence. Silently ’round us rose the gloom--

And in the street the first few lamps were gleaming; day’s
Last fire on garish windows glared. The light
Feebled--over the huddled city’s wastes and ways
Gravely and pitifully came the night.

Darkness--and from far-off a siren mourned. The sands
Of time drew downward, but still no word was said,
No word--only your poor hands lying in my hands
So hopeless, against my shoulder your poor head.

You were so tired, you were so hushed, so fain,
Poor love, all blind with weeping; pinched and small
Your face shone in the glimmer--but I, who felt no pain
Save pity, I was so eager to end it all.

And I could not endure it; suddenly my heart grew old--
In the gray evening, in the drab twilight--while, one by one,
Your hot tears ached along my hands. O stern and cold
I sat beside you, in that last hour, and you wept alone.

* * * * *

Such was the stage appointed--with darkness ’round about--
For our youth’s drama; pitiful and bare
The scene--no crowds applauded, no sorrowing strings cried out,
But the eternal tragedy was there.

* * * * *

Brief was our parting, very brief, and without a word.
With a mute kiss we parted--you turned, and I,
Closing the door, in the outer hall-way heard,
Already as if from far away, your sudden cry.

That cry--what silences followed! What silences haunt the space
Of the years grown wide between us! On barren rhyme
I have wreaked my youth; I have followed a phantom loveliness--your face
Fades in the hungry darknesses of Time.

But now, in my nights, now, in my loneliness, I know
The bitter passion that moved those tears, and why,
When my life went home to you--when the tides groped--you shuddered so,
And the agony of that love, the dolor of that cry.

Had you foreseen, O wise and sad, the unkinder ways
My feet must wander on strange roads? Did you foresee,
Beyond that wilful hour, the desolate nights and days--
And the tears that I pitied so, were they shed for me?

O fatuous dream, that like a sword clove us apart!
Dear room, where once your sorrowing lips on mine
Trembled--where humbly for my proud and ignorant heart
You broke the bread and poured the living wine!

Love, I have heard it told, is God, and once Love found me--
Across my heart his very heart was bowed--
He came to me out of the darkness, his arms were laid around me:
But I was stubborn, I was foolish, and very proud.

Often, often now, in the silence of the after-years,
In the night I remember your weeping. O my own,
In the darkness I have remembered them, your sacred tears
Shed for my sake, and how you wept alone.

HUSHED MIDNIGHT

I heard the owlet call, A little, quavering call-- Timidly, timidly out of the dark it cried: ’Twas midnight, By candle-light I sat alone, and the light was burning low; And I thought of you that once had loved me so, And of my lonely youth, my stubborn pride. Heart of my heart, it was you out there in the night-- It was you that cried.

“I SOUGHT YOU”

I sought you but I could not find you, all night long
I called you, but you would not answer--all the night
I wandered over hill and valley; heaven was bright
With crowded stars, and I was calling you in many a song.

The road through wood and meadow rambled here and there:
Few were the travellers on that lonely road, and none
Had heard of you, by wood or meadowland--not one
Had heard of you, or seen you passing anywhere.

At midnight, thirsting for your loveliness, I lay
Under the shadow of the leafy hill, and cried
Three times, calling upon your name. No voice replied....
The pebbly brooks went babbling, babbling, all the way.

The waters had a drowsy sound, the hills were steep--
My heart grew tired travelling; but there was no place
That suited me, and I was homesick for your face.
Dreaming of you, at the wood’s edge I fell asleep.

UNREST

There are three tremblings sweet to think upon: The trembling of a poplar-leaf in the wind, The trembling of a woman in the moment of love, And the trembling of the stars....

STORM-WIND

You came--and like a stormy wind your love
Blew over the lone waters, and the sea
Of my heart’s life was shaken violently,
And all the trembling waves began to move,

And cried their love out to the shore, and cast
Their love upon the shore--but you were gone!
Yet still that restless flood is roaring on,
Where once so great a wind of beauty passed.

And still, from the calm heaven of my mind,
My thought, like a great hawk on lonely wing,
Watches those waters laboring, laboring,
In troubled multitude, broken and blind.

REVERBERATION

At night, in the old house of life I lie alone:
Spiders have fastened their soft webs, like clouds, between
Rafter and ceiling; threshold and gray floor are grown
Heavy with dust, where for so long no foot has been.

Mice, in the dark of the old walls, gnaw at the deep
Roots of the night, and softly on the dewy air
The cricket’s cry comes drifting in--even in sleep
I hear it, but I am too sorrowful to care.

Love has left me and Song has left me, and I know
I am a harp, silent to all those lovely Things
That laid such hands upon me here so long ago.
Night deepens. Darkness covers me with her wings.

So many a night, with all its stars, has come and gone,
Watching my rest; so many an evening all in vain
Has lit for me her trembling lamps. Sleep is upon
These eyelids that are sealed in slumber and disdain.

Only the murmur, vaguely felt, of the hushed blood
That on the shores of the old dream, like a vast sea,
Moves, in the darkness, mourning; and in the solitude
Of my heart’s forest a far horn sounds drowsily....