I

I dreamed — that God appeared to me,
And beckoned. Forth, in night, we went
To where a tall and lonely tree
With ropes of yew-dark bough was bent.
And, crowned by fiery sky of stars,
God said: ‘Thou man! confess thy faith!
The word thou speakest saves or bars,
For here are gallows of thy death!’

II

Then staring at that gallows yew,
And all the starry witness, I
With ague shuddered, well I knew
That I must speak, and tell no lie;
For if in cowardice I fled
The clean confession of my hope,
God would not spare, but hang me dead
Within that twine of yew-dark rope.

III

Yet even while I strove to find
Breath for my words, to make them live,
There stabbed such pity thro’ my mind
That I my happy life must give,
Give up my little day, my all,
With this my unrepentant breath,
And watch my choking body fall
Condemned by my own words to death.

IV

For surely what I had to tell,
The doubting story of my trust,
Denying faith in Heaven or Hell,
Would make me very gallows-dust
To this dark God stark standing there,
So like a tall black shadow flung
Up high on misty midnight air
By lighted lanthorn lowly swung.

V

And all my days of past delight,
As to a drowning man came by —
And all the litanies of night —
And prayed, and spoke me tenderly.
And all the perfume and the grace,
The stealing beauty of this earth,
Put out its fingers to my face,
And softly murmured me its worth.

VI

I saw my love with tender eyes,
And unbound hair, and girdle free;
I watched her darken with surprise,
And cry: ‘Dost thou abandon me?’
And what could I but answer then:
‘My flower, my pearl, my summer sky,
When God requires their faith of men,
What can they do, save speak and die?'

VII

I saw the pageantry of noon
Once more with gold and music pass;
I saw the silvery cold moon
Spill her last glamour on the grass,
I saw my dark leaf-gilded stream —
Whose twining waters draw me down
And down from gazing, till I seem
Myself to be that water brown.

VIII

I felt the last sweet wind creep up
To tell his tale from tree to tree,
And steal his last from honey-cup
And shake the fragrance over me.
I heard once more the cuckoo’s call —
And ah! the misery of pain,
To know that once was once for all.
And I ’d not hear my bird again.

IX

I heard a last proud battle-cry,
And felt my pulses leap once more,
And saw the lances pierce the sky
And all the wizardry of war.
I felt once more the wings of sleep
Soft closing round my drowsy head,
And all my languid being deep
Within the snowdrift of my bed.

X

And as I choked, and manned my soul
For death, two stars came flying low,
As might some disembodied owl,
Circling unsighted, but for glow
Of its twin yellow eyes; then all
The owlish stars came clustering near;
And from its horrid grandeur tall
That gallows-yew bent down to hear.

XI

Then faint I spoke: ‘I know my faith
But shadows that required of men;
And yet, O God! if only wraith
Of creed I hold, ’t is all I can.
For well I know that it is base
To hide in gray hypocrisy,
And glib pretend, to save my face,
And say “I see” — who do not see.

XII

‘This then, O God! is all my creed: —
In the beginning there was still
What there is now, no less, no more;
And at the end of all there will
Be just as much. There is no score
Of final judgment. Wonder’s tale
Will never, never all be told.
There will be none without the pale,
No saint elect within the fold.

XIII

’If then this mighty magic world
Has always been, will ever be,
There must be laws within it curled
That spin it thro’ Eternity.
I see twin equal laws obey
A sovran, never-captured Law —
For all this world would melt away
If Heart of Mystery we saw.

XIV

‘And first of these twin equal laws
Is that dynamic force which flows
In life, — of every birth the cause, —
Replumes the tree, and swells the rose;
Inflames and clouds the violet Spring,
Inhabits all the mighty flood,
The breezes’ lightest whispering,
The every impulse of our blood.

XV

‘The spirit force that cannot tire
Of franchisement, and keeps no troth,
Nor ever rests from building spire
And painting colors on the moth.
A quenchless flame that licks all air,
And lights and drives the wandering star,
And dyes with gold the maiden’s hair,
And rives with frost the granite spar.

XVI

‘The second equal law is this:
Implicit deep in all increase
And stir of living things, there is
A nothingness, a fate of peace,
A night, a death, an ebbing down,
A fading out of life. The bush
That bourgeons dons a funeral gown,
And every tune contains its hush.

XVII

‘All forms upswelling have within
Their hearts a static decadence;
In utter stillness does the thin
Reverberation lose its sense;
To ash the spark of spirit dies,
Each revolution of each sphere,
Each swoop of every bird that flies
To its own stilly death draws near.

XVIII

‘And there ’s between these Laws the leap,
And drive, and stir of endless war;
The sway from rage of lust to Sleep,
And all the cosmic whims that mar
Perfection. Out of Strife is born
All variance of shape and flight —
As clouds of mountain-sunset torn
From slumber gray by flare of light.

XIX

‘Yet these two laws so fixed apart
As day and night, are brought to fold
Within that one and Sovran Heart
Whose secret never shall be told.
Yet shall thro’ time, and thro’ all space,
With mystery pervade the world,
And make it holy, like the face
Of dawn, that sun and mist have pearled.

XX

‘That Sovran Heart is Harmony!
Its face unseen, its ways unknown.
’T is utter Justice; boundless Sea
Of Unity; and Secret Throne
Of Love; a spirit Meeting-Place
Of vital dust and mortal breath,
That needs no point of time or space
To bind together Life and Death.

XXI

'’T is thus, O God! I see the Vast —
Self-fashioned, and Self-wonderful.
A jewel infinite, so fast
With secret light, can never dull.
It is all Space, so cannot fall,
It is all Motion, may not move,
It is of Time the very all,
And has within itself all Love.

XXII

‘And that brief gathering of dust
And breath — myself — doth bear this All
Resemblance, both of outer crust
And inner fire, perpetual.
I, too, a battlefield of laws,
And rhymed with Harmony Divine;
I bear within myself the cause
Of me, the end of me is mine.

XXIII

‘Yea, I am nothing but a gleam
Of mystery — a tiny pearl
Of sunlit water, but a dream
Immune from waking. Through the whirl
Of ages I shall never earn
Reality; and if I might,
I would not. Wherefore should I yearn
To darken joy, and strip delight.

XXIV

‘The rush and stab of pain bemuse,
And snakes of evil coil me round
With slimy torment; dark with hues
Of Mystery, Grief and Pity hound
Me to rebel with aching heart —
Rebel, rebel until I die!
But, in my secret soul apart,
That all is rhymèd — that know I!

XXV

‘ If through our night stalk comrades Pain
And Wrong — ’t is but the dipping half
Of Equipoise. This life again
I shall not live, and I would have
My living self in flower with love
Of Harmony — that so my death
Shall be no fall, and no remove,
But reconcilement’s very breath.'

XXVI

I ceased. Then that dark, tall-up Thing
Of terror, that great shadow flung
On curtained Night, black-menacing.
Stretched hand to where the gallows hung.
And all the owlish stars abased
Their staring; and the yew-ropes twined
And caught me, where I desperate faced
It — all my vanished life behind.

XXVII

Then, in that bravery of soul
Which flames in icy clutching death,
I bade my parching tongue outroll
A last defiance of my breath:
‘Thou art not Him I know! Thou hast
No part in all my vision. Thou
Art Dissonance and Hatred. Fast
Is my God throned. No God art Thou!’

XXVIII

Then all the firmament gave groan
Of death. And lo! That was not there!
The curious stars had winged, and gone
To their far glitter; all the air
Was crystal. Swift, that gallows-yew,
Unbinding all her branches, meshed
My face with shade; and sudden dew
With frost my nightmared soul refreshed.

XXIX

And there around me dark had flowered
With day; and summer moths as bright
As amethysts uprose, and towered
To gem with color all the night.
The blossoms smelled like noon, and shone
In crimson patines on the dark.
And — wonder! Caroling alone
In sky of night, I heard a lark.

XXX

A silent music — grass and leaf,
And stream, and whispered morning — blew
Around me; and a burning sheaf
Of Sun, in darkness, glistened thro’.
The breathless wind, of fire and frost,
Flew to the leaves, yet stirred not one.
And round me all the happy host
Of life was there, and yet was gone.

XXXI

No more were death and life apart,
No more the winter longed for June.
And oh! the marriage in my heart
Of sun and shadow, hush and tune!
It still was night, and yet was day!
O magic dream of God revealed,
Of waking sleep, and golden-gray —
O Utter Mystery unsealed!