The mortal limit of the Self was loosed,
And past into the Nameless, as a cloud
Melts into Heaven. I touch’d my limbs, the limbs
Were strange not mine — and yet no shade of doubt,
But utter clearness, and thro’ loss of Self
The gain of such large life as match’d with ours
Were Sun to spark — unshadowable in words,
Themselves but shadows of a shadow-world.
“And idle gleams will come and go,
But still the clouds remain;”
The clouds themselves are children of the Sun.
“And Night and Shadow rule below
When only Day should reign.”
And Day and Night are children of the Sun,
And idle gleams to thee are light to me.
Some say, the Light was father of the Night,
And some, the Night was father of the Light,
No night no day! — I touch thy world again —
No ill no good! such counter-terms, my son,
Are border-races, holding, each its own
By endless war: but night enough is there
In yon dark city: get thee back: and since
The key to that weird casket, which for thee
But holds a skull, is neither thine nor mine,
But in the hand of what is more than man,
Or in man’s hand when man is more than man,
Let be thy wail and help thy fellow men,
And make thy gold thy vassal not thy king,
And fling free alms into the beggar’s bowl,
And send the day into the darken’d heart;
Nor list for guerdon in the voice of men,
A dying echo from a falling wall;
Nor care — for Hunger hath the Evil eye —
To vex the noon with fiery gems, or fold
Thy presence in the silk of sumptuous looms;
Nor roll thy viands on a luscious tongue,
Nor drown thyself with flies in honied wine;
Nor thou he rageful, like a handled bee,
And lose thy life by usage of thy sting;
Nor harm an adder thro’ the lust for harm,
Nor make a snail’s horn shrink for wantonness;
And more — think well! Do-well will follow thought,
And in the fatal sequence of this world
An evil thought may soil thy children’s blood;
But curb the beast would cast thee in the mire,
And leave the hot swamp of voluptuousness
A cloud between the Nameless and thyself,
And lay thine uphill shoulder to the wheel,
And climb the Mount of Blessing, whence, if thou
Look higher, then — perchance — thou mayest — beyond
A hundred ever-rising mountain lines,
And past the range of Night and Shadow — see
The high-heaven dawn of more than mortal day
Strike on the Mount of Vision!
So, farewell.
The Flight
I.
ARE YOU sleeping? have you forgotten? do not sleep, my sister dear!
How can you sleep? the morning brings the day I hate and fear;
The cock has crow’d already once, he crows before his time;
Awake! the creeping glimmer steals, the hills are white with rime.
II.
Ah, clasp me in your arms, sister, ah, fold me to your breast!
Ah, let me weep my fill once more, and cry myself to rest!
To rest? to rest and wake no more were better rest for me,
Than to waken every morning to that face I loathe to see:
III.
I envied your sweet slumber, all night so calm you lay,
The night was calm, the morn is calm, and like another day;
But I could wish yon moaning sea would rise and burst the shore,
And such a whirlwind blow these woods, as never blew before.
IV.
For, one by one, the stars went down across the gleaming pane,
And project after project rose, and all of them were vain;
The blackthorn-blossom fades and falls and leaves the bitter sloe,
The hope I catch at vanishes and youth is turn’d to woe.
V.
Come, speak a little comfort! all night I pray’d with tears,
And yet no comfort came to me, and now the morn appears,
When he will tear me from your side, who bought me for his slave:
This father pays his debt with me, and weds me to my grave.
VI.
What father, this or mine, was he, who, on that summer day
When I had fall’n from off the crag we clamber’d up in play,
Found, fear’d me dead, and groan’d, and took and kiss’d me, and again
He kiss’d me; and I loved him then; he was my father then.
VII.
No father now, the tyrant vassal of a tyrant vice!
The Godless Jephtha vows his child . . . to one cast of the dice.
These ancient woods, this Hall at last will go — perhaps have gone,
Except his own meek daughter yield her life, heart, soul to one —
VIII.
To one who knows I scorn him. O the formal mocking bow,
The cruel smile, the courtly phrase that masks his malice now —
But often in the sidelong eyes a gleam of all things ill —
It is not Love but Hate that weds a bride against her will;
IX.
Hate, that would pluck from this true breast the locket that I wear,
The precious crystal into which I braided Edwin’s hair!
The love that keeps this heart alive beats on it night and day —
One golden curl, his golden gift, before he past away.
X.
He left us weeping in the woods; his boat was on the sand;
How slowly down the rocks he went, how loth to quit the land!
And all my life was darken’d, as I saw the white sail run,
And darken, up that lane of light into the setting sun.
XI.
How often have we watch’d the sun fade from us thro’ the West,
And follow Edwin to those isles, those islands of the Blest!
Is he not there? would I were there, the friend, the bride, the wife,
With him, where summer never dies, with Love, the Sun of life!
XII.
O would I were in Edwin’s arms — once more — to feel his breath
Upon my cheek — on Edwin’s ship, with Edwin, ev’n in death,
Tho’ all about the shuddering wreck the death-white sea should rave,
Or if lip were laid to lip on the pillows of the wave.
XIII.
Shall I take him? I kneel with him? I swear and swear forsworn
To love him most, whom most I loathe, to honour whom I scorn?
The Fiend would yell, the grave would yawn, my mother’s ghost would rise —
To lie, to lie — in God’s own house — the blackest of all lies!
XIV.
Why — rather than that hand in mine, tho’ every pulse would freeze,
I’d sooner fold an icy corpse dead of some foul disease:
Wed him? I will not wed him, let them spurn me from the doors,
And I will wander till I die about the barren moors.
XV.
The dear, mad bride who stabb’d her bridegroom on her bridal night —
If mad, then I am mad, but sane, if she were in the right.
My father’s madness makes me mad — but words are only words!
I am not mad, not yet, not quite — There! listen how the birds
XVI.
Begin to warble yonder in the budding orchard trees!
The lark has past from earth to Heaven upon the morning breeze!
How gladly, were I one of those, how early would I wake!
And y
et the sorrow that I bear is sorrow for his sake.
XVII.
They love their mates, to whom they sing; or else their songs, that meet
The morning with such music, would never be so sweet!
And tho’ these fathers will not hear, the blessed Heavens are just,
And Love is fire, and burns the feet would trample it to dust.
XVIII.
A door was open’d in the house — who? who? my father sleeps!
A stealthy foot upon the stair! he — some one — this way creeps!
If he? yes, he . . . lurks, listens, fears his victim may have fled —
He! where is some sharp-pointed thing? he comes, and finds me dead.
XIX.
Not he, not yet! and time to act — but how my temples burn!
And idle fancies flutter me, I know not where to turn;
Speak to me, sister; counsel me; this marriage must not be.
You only know the love that makes the world a world to me!
XX.
Our gentle mother, had she lived — but we were left alone:
That other left us to ourselves; he cared not for his own;
So all the summer long we roam’d in these wild woods of ours,
My Edwin loved to call us then ‘His two wild woodland flowers.’
XXI.
Wild flowers blowing side by side in God’s free light and air,
Wild flowers of the secret woods, when Edwin found us there,
Wild woods in which we roved with him, and heard his passionate vow,
Wild woods in which we rove no more, if we be parted now!
XXII.
You will not leave me thus in grief to wander forth forlorn;
We never changed a bitter word, not once since we were born;
Our dying mother join’d our hands; she knew this father well;
She bid its love, like souls in Heaven, and now I fly from Hell,
XXIII.
And you with me; and we shall light upon some lonely shore,
Some lodge within the waste sea-dunes, and hear the waters roar,
And see the ships from out the West go dipping thro’ the foam,
And sunshine on that sail at last which brings our Edwin home.
XXIV.
But look, the morning grows apace, and lights the old church-tower,
And lights the clock! the hand points five — O me — it strikes the hour —
I bide no more, I meet my fate, whatever ills betide!
Arise, my own true sister, come forth! the world is wide.
XXV.
And yet my heart is ill at ease, my eyes are thin with dew,
I seem to see a new-dug grave up yonder by the yew!
If we should never more return, but wander hand in hand
With breaking hearts. without a friend, and in a distant land.
XXVI.
O sweet, they tell me that the world is hard, and harsh of mind,
But can it be so hard, so harsh, as those that should be kind?
That matters not: let come what will; at last the end is sure,
And every heart that loves with truth is equal to endure.
Tomorrow
I.
HER, that yer Honour was spakin’ to? Whin, yer Honour? last year —
Standin’ here be the bridge, when last yer Honour was here?
An’ yer Honour ye gev her the top of the mornin’, ‘Tomorra’ says she.
What did they call her, yer Honour? They call’d her Molly Magee.
An’ yer Honour’s the thrue ould blood that always manes to be kind,
But there’s rason in all things, yer Honour, for Molly was out of her mind.
II.
Shure, an’ meself remimbers wan night comin’ down be the sthrame,
An’ it seems to me now like a bit of yisther-day in a dhrame —
Here where yer Honour seen her — there was but a slip of a moon,
But I hard thim — Molly Magee wid her batchelor, Danny O’Roon —
‘You’ve been takin’ a dhrop o’ the crathur’ an’ Danny says ‘Troth, an’ I been
Dhrinkin’ yer health wid Shamus O’Shea at Katty’s shebeen;1
But I must be lavin’ ye soon.’ ‘Ochone are ye goin’ away?’
‘Goin’ to cut the Sassenach whate’ he says ‘over the say’ —
‘An’ whin will ye meet me agin?’ an’ I hard him ‘Molly asthore,
I’ll meet you agin tomorra,’ says he, ‘be the chapel-door.’
‘An’ whin arc ye goin’ to lave me?’ ‘O’ Monday mornin’’ says he;
‘An’ shore thin ye’ll meet me tomorra?’ ‘Tomorra, tomorra, Machree!’
Thin Molly’s ould mother, yer Honour, that had no likin’ for Dan,
Call’d from her cabin an’ tould her to come away from the man,
An’ Molly Magee kern flyin’ acrass me, as light as a lark,
Au’ Dan stood there for a minute, an’ thin wint into the dark.
But wirrah! the storm that night — the tundher, an’ rain that fell,
An’ the sthrames runnin’ down at the back o’ the glin ‘ud ‘a dhrownded Hell.
III.
But airth was at pace nixt mornin’, an’ Hiven in its glory smiled,
As the Holy Mother o’ Glory that smiles at her sleepin’ child —
Ethen — she stept an the chapel-green, an’ she turn’d herself roun’
Wid a diamond dhrop in her eye, for Danny was not to be foun’,
An’ many’s the time that I watch’d her at mass lettin’ down the tear,
For the Divil a Danny was there, yet Honour, for forty year.
IV.
Och, Molly Magee, wid the red o’ the rose an’ the white o’ the May,
An’ yer hair as black as the night, an’ yer eyes as bright as the day
Achora, yer laste little whishper was sweet as the lilt of a bird!
Acushla, ye set me heart batin’ to music wid ivery word!
An’ sorra the Queen wid her sceptre in sich an illigant han’,
An’ the fall of yer foot in the dance was as light as snow an the lan’,
An’ the sun kem out of a cloud whiniver ye walkt in the shtreet,
An’ Shamus O’Shea was yer shadda, an’ laid himself undher yer feet,
An’ I loved ye meself wid a heart and a half, me darlin’, and he
‘Ud ‘a shot his own sowl dead for a kiss of ye, Molly Magee.
V.
But shure we wor betther frinds whin I crack’d his skull for her sake.
An’ he ped me back wid the best he could give at ould Donovan’s wake —
For the boys wor about her agin whin Dan didn’t come to the fore,
An’ Shamus along wid the rest, but she put thim all to the door.
An’, afther, I thried her meself av the bird ‘ud come to me call,
But Molly, begorrah, ‘ud listhen to naither at all, at all.
VI.
An’ her nabours an frinds ‘ud consowl an’ condowl wid her, airly and late,
‘Your Danny,’ they says, ‘niver crasst over say to the Sassenach whate;
He’s gone to the States, aroon, an’ he’s married another wife,
An’ ye’ll niver set eyes an the face of the thraithur agin in life
An’ to dhrame of a married man, death alive, is a mortial sin.’
But Molly says ‘I’d his hand-promise, an’ shure he’ll meet me agin.’
VII.
An’ afther her paärints had inter’d glory, an’ both in wan day,
She began to spake to herself, the crathur, an’ whishper, an’ say
‘Tomorra, Tomorra!’ an’ Father Molowny he tuk her in han’,
‘Molly, you’re manin’,’ he says, ‘me dear, av I undherstan’,
That ye’ll meet your paärints agin an’ yer Danny O’Roon afore God
Wid his blessed Marthyrs an’ Saints;’ an’ she gev him a frindly n
od,
‘Tomorra, Tomorra,’ she says, an’ she didn’t intind to desave,
But her wits wor dead, an’ her hair was as white as the snow an a grave.
VIII.
Arrah now, here last month they wor diggin’ the bog, an’ they foun’
Dhrownded in black bog-wather a corp lyin’ undher groun’.
IX.
Yer Honour’s own agint, he says to me wanst, at Katty’s shebeen,
‘The Divil take all the black lan’, for a blessin’ ‘ud come wid the green!’
An’ where ‘ud the poor man, thin, cut his bit o’ turf for the fire?
But och! bad scran to the bogs whin they swallies the man intire!
An’ sorra the bog that’s in Hiven wid all the light an’ the glow,
An’ there’s hate enough, shure, widout thim in the Divil’s kitchen below.
X.
Thim ould blind nagers in Agypt, I hard his Riverence say,
Could keep their haithen kings in the flesh for the Jidgemint day,
An’, faix, be the piper o’ Moses, they kep the cat an’ the dog,
But it ‘ud ‘a been aisier work av they lived be an Irish bog.
XI.
How-an-iver they laid this body they foun’ an the grass
Be the chapel-door, an’ the people ‘ud see it that wint in to mass —
But a frish gineration had riz, an’ most of the ould was few,
An’ I didn’t know him meself, an’ none of the parish knew.
XII.
But Molly kem limpin’ up wid her stick, she was lamed iv a knee,
Thin a slip of a gossoon call’d, ‘Div ye know him, Molly Magee?’
An’ she stood up strait as the Queen of the world — she lifted her head —
‘He said he would meet me tomorra!’ an’ dhropt down dead an the dead.
XIII.
Och, Molly, we thought, machree, ye would start back agin into life,
Whin we laid yez, aich be aich, at yet wake like husban’ an’ wife.
Sorra the dhry eye thin but was wet for the frinds that was gone!
Sorra the silent throat but we hard it cryin’ ‘Ochone!’
An’ Shamus O’Shea that has now ten childer, hansome an’ tall,
Him an’ his childer wor keenin’ as if he had lost thim all.
XIV.
Thin his Riverence buried thim both in wan grave be the dead boor-tree,2
The young man Danny O’Roon wid his ould woman, Molly Magee.
XV.
May all the flowers o’ Jeroosilim blossom an’ spring from the grass,
Imbrashin’ an’ kissin’ aich other — as ye did — over yer Crass!
An’ the lark fly out o’ the flowers wid his song to the Sun an’ the Moon,
Alfred, Lord Tennyson - Delphi Poets Series Page 120