 Chapter 1 of THE RAINBOW AND THE ROSE This is a LibriVox recording. A LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Anna-Lisa Bodker. THE RAINBOW AND THE ROSE by E. Nesbitt. Chapter 1 The things that matter. Now that I've nearly done my days and grown too stiff to sweep or so, I sit and think till I'm amazed about what lots of things I know, things as I've found out one by one, and when I'm fast down in the clay. My knowing things and how they're done will all be lost and thrown away. There's things I know as won't be lost, things as folks write and talk about, the way to keep your roots from frost and how to get your ink spots out, what medicines good for sores and sprains, what way to salt your butter down, what charms will cure your different pains and what will bright your faded gown. But more important things than these. They can't be written in a book. How fast to boil your greens and peas, and how good bacon ought to look, the feel of real good-wearing stuff, the kind of apple as will keep, the look of bread that's rosy enough, and how to get a child to sleep. Whether the jam is fit to pot, whether the milk is going to turn, whether a hen will lay or not, is things as some folks never learn. I know the weather by the sky, I know what herbs grow in what lane, and if sick men are going to die, or if they'll get about again. Young wives come in a smiling grave with secrets that they itch to tell, I know what sort of times they'll have, and if they'll have a boy or girl. And if a lad is ill to bind, or some young maid is hard to lead, I know when you should speak them kind, and when it's scolding as they need. I used to know where birds had set, and likely spots for trout or hare, and God may want me to forget the way to set a line or snare. But not the way to truss a chick, to fry a fish or baste a roast, nor how to tell when folks are sick what kind of herb will ease them most. Forgetting seems such silly waste. I know so many little things, and now the angels will make haste to dust it all away with wings. Oh, God, you made me like to know. You kept the things straight in my head. Please, God, if you can make it so, let me know something when I'm dead. The Confession I haven't always acted good. I've taken things not meant for me, not other people's drink and food, but things they never seem to see. I haven't done the way I ought, if all they say in church is true, but all I've had I've fairly bought and paid for pretty heavy, too. For days and weeks are very long if you get nothing new and bright, and if you never do no wrong, somehow you never do no right. The chap that daresent go a yard, for fear the path should lead astray. Maybe a saint, though that seems hard, but he's no traveller anyway. Some things I can't be sorry for, the things that silly people hate. But some I did, I do deplore, I knew inside they wasn't straight. When my last account is filed and stuck up angels stop their song, I'll ask God's pardon, like a child, for what I really knew was wrong. If you've a child you'd rather see, a bit of temper off and on, a greedy grab, a silly spree, and then a brave thing said or done, then hear your boy whine all day long about the things he mustn't do. He's doing nothing, right or wrong, and God may feel the same as you. For God's our Father, so they say, he made his laws, and he made me. He'll understand about the way me and his laws could not agree. He might say, you're worth more, my son, than all my laws since law began. Take good with bad. Hear something done, and I'm your God, and you're my man. Work. When I am busying about, sewing on buttons, tapes and strings, hanging the weeks wet washing out, or ironing the children's things, sweeping and dusting, cleaning grates, scrubbing the dresser or the floors, washing the greasy dinner plates, scouring the brasses on the doors, I wonder what it's all about, and when did people first begin to keep the dirt and wariness out and keep the wholesome comfort in? How long it is since women bore this round of wash and make and mend, and what God makes us do it for, and whether it will ever end. When God began to do his work, he made a new thing every day. Even now he is not one to shirk, but makes things always some new way. He made the earth and sky and sun, the creatures of the sea and wood, and when his first week's work was done, he saw that it was very good. But he, for all he worked so fast to finish air and wave and shore, knew that this work of his would last forever and forever more. On Saturday night he was content, he knew that Monday would not bring, need for another firmament, another set of everything. But though my work is easier far than making sky and sea and sun, it's harder than God's labors are, because my work is never done. I sweep and churn, save and contrive, I bake and brew, I don't complain, but every Monday morning I've, last Monday's work to do again. I'm good at work, I work away, always the same my work must go. The flowers grow different every day, that's why I like to see them grow. If up in heaven God understood, he'd let me, for my paradise, make all things new and very good, and never make the same thing twice. The jilted lover to his mother. You needn't pray for me, old lady, I don't want no one's prayer. I'm fit and jolly as ever I was, you needn't think I care. When I go whistling down the road, when the warm night is falling, she needn't think I'm whistling her, it's another girl I'm calling. If I pass her house a dozen times, or fifty times a day, she needn't think I think of her, my work lies out that way. If they should tell her I've grown thin, for that is what they've told me, this cursed weather counts for that, and not the girl who sold me. And if they say I'm off my feet, I still can tip a can. If I get drunk, what's that to her, I'm not her young man. I know I've had a lucky let-off, she ain't no class, she ain't. For all she looked like a bush of roses and talked like a storybook saint. I never give a thought to her, don't worry, your old head. I've quite forgot her pretty ways, and the cruel things, she said. There's lots of other gals to be had, as any chap can see. So you cheer up, you've got no call to go and pray for me. But all the same, if you want to pray, you'd best pray God take care of them, for if I catch them two together, by hell I'll swing for the pair of them. The will to live, since faith is a veil that has nothing behind it, and hope wanders lost where no mortal can find it. Since love is a mirror we break in a minute, and snatching the image our soul has cast in it. What is the use of the summers and springs, the wave of the woods and the waft of the wings? Since all means nothing, and good things and ill make madness a mirage tormenting us still. Since all the fighting, the ardent endeavor, the heart cast bleeding to feed the ideal, are vain, vain, vain, and the one thing real is that all's vain forever and ever. Why then, be a man and stand back from the strife, fall by the sword but keep out of the snare, will but to be, and be willing to bear all that the gods may lay on your life. In the Far East were light ever dawns first, there has man learned how the fates may be cheated, how by our craft may their strength be defeated, though all are best, be no match for their worst. Kill the desire they set in your bosom, long not for fruit when you gaze on the blossom. Dream not of flowers when you gaze on the bud. Kill all the rebels that shout in your blood, sorrow and sickness, disease and decay, these toll the hours of life's desolate day, hopes unfulfilled and forbidden delight, these are the dreams of life's treacherous night. So let me imagine an infinite peace, touch with no joy but the ease of release, out of deities I climb and I cease, keeping in change for this man's soul of me, something which, by the eternal decree, is as like nothing as something can be. Not to desire, to admit, to adore, casting the robe of the soul that you bore just as the soul cast the body's robe down. This is man's destiny. This is man's crown. This is the splendor, the end of the feast. This is the light of the star in the east. So silence reconciles life's jarring phrases, far in the future, austere and august. Meanwhile the buds of the poplars are falling, springs on the lawn and a little voice calling. Daddy come out. Daddy darling, you must. Daddy come out and help Molly pick daisies. And sense one's here and the springs in the garden. How many lives hence will that thought earn pardon? Since one's a man and man's heart is insistent and sense nirvana is doubtful and distant. Though life's a hard road and thorny to travel, stones in the borders and grass on the gravel, still there's the wisdom that wise men call folly. Still one can go and pick daisies with Molly. The beatific vision, oh God, if I do my duty and walk in a thorny way, will you pay me with heaven's beauty millions of lives away? Will you give me the music of heaven and the joy that none understands in place of what life would have given if I had held out my hands? I have lived in a narrow prison, I have writhed neath a bitter creed, and I dare to say that no heaven can pay the renounced dream and deed. But when my life's portal closes, if you have no heaven to spare, God, give me a garden of roses and someone to walk with there. CHAPTER II Mummy Wheat Laid close to death these many thousand years, in this small seed life hid herself and smiled. So while she hid, death was at least beguiled to set free the grain and lo, the seven-fold ears. Warmed by the sun, wooed by the wind's soft word, under blue canopy they hold their state. For this I was it not worthwhile to wait through all the centuries of hope deferred. What could they know who laid the seed with death of this divine fruition fixed and planned? Love, since life parts us, lend my hand to your hand, and look with me into the eyes of faith. For here, between your hand and mine, there lies a little seed we trust to death to keep through unimagined centuries of sleep, until the day when life shall bid it rise. Our harvest waits us, who knows where or how, what worlds away wrapped in what coil of pain. But life shall bid us plaque, gold seven-fold grain, grown from the love she bids us bury now, the beech tree. My beautiful beech, your smooth gray coat is trimmed, with letters once each stood for all things dear to foolish lovers, dead this many a year, whose lamp of lighted love so soon was dimmed. You have seen them come and go, and heard their kisses and vows, under your bows, the pitiful vows they swore, have seen their poor tears flow, have seen them part, to meet, and to return no more. And in old winters, through your branches bare, the north wind drove the blue home-scented smoke, that on the glowing Christmas hearth awoke, where the old logs, with eager flicker and flair, sang their low crackling song, of peace and of goodwill. The old song is still, the old voices have died away, the hearth has been cold so long, and the bright faces dimmed and covered up with clay. And summer after summer wakes to glow, the ordered pleasant with the clipped box-edge, the drooping lilac by the old moat's edge, the roses that throw you kisses from below, the orchard pink and white, the sedges whispered words, the nesting birds, all these return to revel round your feet. Even in the untroubled night the nightingale still sings, the jasmine still is sweet. My beautiful beach, I carve upon you here the master letter which begins her name, through whom to me the royal summer came, and nightingale and rose and all things dear. And in some far-off time I shall come here weary and old, when the hearth in my heart is cold, and the birds that nest there flown. I will remember this summer, in all its prime, and say, there was a day, thank God the giver, an unforgotten day, when I walked here, not alone. Oh God of pity and sorrow, not alone, in absence. Wake, do you wake in the dark, in the strange far place, window and door not set like the ones we knew, leaning your face through the dark for another face, stretching your arms to the arms that are far from you, even as I, through the depth of this darkness do. Sleep, do you sleep in the house, in the lonely land, in the lonely room, do you hear no steps draw near, do you miss in the darkness the hand that implores your hand, see through the darkness your last dream disappear, and weep as I weep in the outer darkness here. Dream, do you dream, nay never a dream will stay, never a phantom is fond or a vision kind, your dreams elude you and fly through the dark my way, my dreams fly forth to you, whom they may not find, and we in the darkness weep, we weep, and are left behind, silence. So silent is the world tonight, the lamp gives silence out like light, the lattice windows open wide, show silence like the night outside, the nightingale's faint song draws near, like musical silence to my near. The empty house calls not to me, here but for fate were thou and she, its jive for once is checked, tonight silence is queen in grief's despite, and even the longing of my soul is silent, neath this hour's control plays en detre. Oh weary night, oh weary day, when heart's delight is far away. What is the day, a frame of blue, the vacant glaring sun grins through? What is the night, a sable veil, through which the moon peers tired and pale? Oh weary day, oh weary night, how far away is heart's delight? Love hung the sun in his high place to give me light to see her face. And love spread out the veil of night to hide his two from all men's sight. Oh kindly night, oh pleasant day, your use has gone, why should you stay? My heart's delight is far away. Oh weary night, oh weary day, the onlooker. If I could make a pillow for your head, soft, pleasant, filled with every pretty thought, if I could lay a carpet where you tread, of all my life's most radiant fancies wrought, and spread my love as canopy above you, your sleep, your steps, should know how much I love you. But as life goes to the old sorry tune, I stand apart, I see thorns wound your feet, your sleeping eyes resenting sun and moon, your head lie restless on a breast, on meat, and say no word, and suffer without moan, lest you should guess how much you are alone, the tree of knowledge. I plucked the blossoms of delight, in many a wood and many a field, I made a garland fair and bright as any gardens yield, but when I sought the living tree to make new earth and heaven new, I found alas for you and me, its roots were set in you. Oh dear my garden, where the fruit of lovely knowledge sweetly springs, how jealously you guard the root of all enlightening things at parting. And you could leave me now, after the first remembered, whispered vow, which sings for ever and ever in my ears, the vow which God among his angels hears, after the long drawn years, the slow hard tears could break new ground and wake a strange new garden to blossom for your sake, and leave me here alone in the old garden that was once our own. How should I learn to bear our garden's pleasant ways and pleasant air, her flowers, her fruits, her lily, her rose and thorn, when only in a picture these appear, these once alive and always overdere? I think again, the rose you used to wear must still be more than other roses be, the flower of flowers? How pity, pity me! For in my acres is no plot of ground whereon could any garden site be bound, I have but little skill to water, weed, and till, and make the desert blossom like the rose. Yet our old garden knows, if I have loved its ways and walks and kept, the garden watered, and the pleasant swept. Yet, if you must go, go now, go with my blessing filling both your hands and mid the desert sands, which life drifts deep round every garden wall. Make your new festival of bud and blossom, red rose and green leaf. No blight borne of my grief shall touch your garden love, but my heart's prayer shall draw down blessings on you from the air, and all we learned of leaf and plant and tree shall serve you when you walk no more with me in garden ways, and when with her you tread the pleasant ways with blossoms overhead. And when she asks, how did you come to know the secrets of the waves these green things grow? Then you will answer, and I please God hear. I had another garden once, my dear song. I hear the waves tonight, piteously calling, calling, though the light of the kind moon is falling, like kisses on the sea, that calls for sunshine, dear, as my soul calls for thee. I see the sea lie gray, wrinkling her brows and sorrow, hear her say, pride love of yesterday, return tomorrow, sun, I am thine, am thine. O sea, thy love will come again. But what of mine? Renunciation Rose of the desert of my heart, moon of the night that is my soul, thy can'ts not know how sweet thou art, nor what wild tides thy beams control. For all thy soul a garden is, thy soul is like a dawn of may, and garden and dawn might both be his, who from them both must turn away. O garden of the spring's delight, O dewy dawn of perfect noon, I will not pluck thy roses white, or warm thy may time into June. A Kenba bless thee, moon and rose, and journey far and very far to where the night no moonbeam shows, to where no happy roses are. End of Chapter 2, Recording by Anna-Lisa Bodker Chapter 3 of The Rainbow and the Rose by Inesbeth The sleeper-box recording is in the public domain. Recording by Anna-Lisa Bodker Chapter 3 The Vale of Maya Sweet, I have loved before. I know this longing that invades my days, this shape that haunts life's busy ways. I know, since long and long ago, this starry mystery of delight that floats across my eager eyes, this pain that makes earth paradise, these magic songs of day and night. I know them for the things they are, a passing pain, a longing fleet, a shape that soon I shall not meet, a fading dream, a veil and star. Yet, even as my lips proclaim the wisdom that the years have lent, your absence is joy's banishment, and life's one music is your name. I love you to my heart's hit core. Those other loves, how should one learn from marsh lights how the great fires burn? I know, I never loved before. Song The sunshine of your presence lies on the glad garden of my heart, and bids the leaves of silence part to show the flowers to your dear eyes, and flower on flower blooms there and dies, and still new buds awaken spring, for sunshine makes the garden wise to know the time for blossoming. Night is no time for blossoming, your garden then dreams otherwise a vanished summer, vanished spring, and how the dearest flower first dies. Yet, from your ministering eyes, though night hath drawn me far apart, on the still garden of my heart, the moonlight of your memory lies, to Vera who asked a song. If I only had time, I could make you a rhyme, but my time is kept flying by smiling and sighing and living and dying for you. The song seed, I sow it, I water and hoe it, but never can grow it. Ah, traitors, you know it. What is a poor poet to do? Ah, let me take breath, I am harried to death, by the loves and the graces, that crowd where your face is, that lurk in your laces and throng. Call them off for a minute, once let me begin it. The devil is in it, if I cannot spin it, as sweet as a linnet. Your song, the poet to his love. All the flight of thoughts here, shy, bold, scared, intrusive, fluttering in the sun, between the green and blue, wheeling, whirling, poising, lovely and elusive, how to cage the flying thoughts, my wing delight for you. Set a spring of rhyme and hope to catch them in it. Strew my love as grain to lure them to the snare. Watch the hours built up, slow minute piled on minute. Still the wide sky guards their flight, and still the cage is bare. Gleam of hovering feathers, brushing me to flout me. Wings, be weary, rest, who loves you more than I? Caught, oh, fluttering pinions, whitening air about me. Wrestling wings and distant flight, an empty cage and sky. The maiden's prayer. Spring, pretty spring, what treasure do you bring to me? Green grass and buttercups, cherry bloom and may. Sunshine, to be glad with me, and little birds to sing to me. Warm nests to call me along the woodland way. Spring, happy spring, what wonder will you do for me? Light the tulip lanterns and set the furs afire. Fill your sky with sails of cloud on waves of living blue for me. Show me green cornfields and budding of the briar. Spring, darling spring, my days will not return to me. You who see them fleeting. You, all time above. You who move the whole world's heart. Ah, move one heart to turn to me. Bring me a lever, and teach me how to love. Song. Love me little, love me long. Is the burden of my song, and if nothing more may be, little shall suffice for me. But if you could crown with flowers all my radiant vestal hours, and console for hours of sorrow, love me more with each tomorrow, and if you could turn my days to one splendid hymn of praise, and set hopes like stars above me, love me much, and always love me, the magic flower. Through many days and many days the seed of love lay hidden close. We walked the dusty tiresome ways where never a leaf or blossom grows, and in the darkness all the while the little seed its heart uncurled. And we, by many a weary mile, traveled towards it round the world to the hid center of the maze at last we came and there we found. Oh happy day, oh day of days, twin seed-leaves breaking holy ground. We dropped life's joys, a garner chief, and spellbound watched, still hour by hour, magic on magic, leaf by leaf, the unfolding of our love's white flower. La durnée robe de soie. Oh silken gown all pink and pretty, bought quite a bargain in the city. Your ill-trained soul full faults has played me. No pair as gown would have betrayed me. You knew, my pretty silken treasure, I must not wed for love or pleasure before a settlement and title. Yet you encouraged his recital. He said, Oh faithless gown you listened, while on your sheen two teardrops glistened. He said, Let love to music set it, I'll never speak it nor forget it. No, no I cried. I tried to save you. False gown you showed the tears I gave you. You looked discreet when first I found you. How could you let his arm go round you? You darling dress, I'll smooth your creases. I'll wear you till you drop to pieces. But poor men's wives were cotton only. Dear gown, I hope you won't feel lonely. The least possible. Dear goddess of the shining shrine, where all my votive tapers burn, where every gold embroidered thought and all my flowers of life are brought, with many, alas, that are not mine, what will you give me in return? The vow in Bond Street, in the park, the smile I'll worship on your lips, the courteous word at dinner, dance, but never a blush, a conscious glance. At most, at Henley in the dark, your fleet mistaken fingertips. I just for once, once only, be an altar-server, stoop and set me upon the altar-richly wrought of your most secret flower-sweet thought. One nightlight's flicker burned for me, before you sleep, and quite forget me, on Tukkas. When I am glad, I need your eyes to be the stars of paradise, your lips to be the seal of all the joy-life grants and dreams recall, your hand to lie my hands between what time we walk the garden green. But most in grief I need your face to lean to mine in the desert place, your lips to mock the evil years, to sweeten me my cup of tears, your eyes to shine in clouds despite, your hands to hold mine through the night. Sublies, lest truth should grieve me, I could pardon much, believe me, dour me, daveness, or bereave me, kill me, kill me, love me, leave me, damn me, dear, but don't deceive me. St. Valentine's Day The south is a dream of flowers, with a jewel for sky and sea, rose crowns for the dancing hours, gold fruits upon every tree, but cold from the north the wind blows forth that blows my love to me. The stars in the south are gold, like lamps between sky and sea, the flowers that the forests hold, like stars between tree and tree, but little and white is the pale moon's light that lights my love to me. In the south the orange grove makes dusk by the dusky sea, white palaces wrought for love gleam white between tree and tree, but under bare boughs is the little house, warm lit for my love and me. Chagrin the Moor If love and I were all alone, I might forget to grieve, and for his pleasure and my own might happier garlands weave. But you sit there and watch us wear, the morning wreaths you wove, and while such mocking eyes you bear, I am not friends with love. Withdraw those cruel eyes and let me search the garden through, that I may weave ere love be set, the wreath of love for you, till you, whom love so well adorns, its hidden thorns discover, and know at last what crown of thorns it was you gave your lover. Bridal Eve Good night, my heart, my heart, good night, O good and dear and fair, with lips of life and eyes of light, and roses in your hair. Tomorrow brings the other crown, the orange blossoms sweet, and then the rose will be cast down with lilies at your feet. But in your soul a garden stands, where fair the white rose blows. God, teach my foolish, clumsy hands the way to tend my rose, that in the white rose garden still the lily may bloom fair. God help my heart and soul and will to keep the lily there. Love and Life Love only sings when love is young, when love is young and still at play. How shall we count the sweet song sung when love and joy kept all a day? But now love has to earn his bread, by lifelong stress and toil of tears. He finds his nest of songbirds dead, that sang so sweet in other years. For love's a man now, strong and brave, to fight for you, for you to live, and love that once such bright songs gave, has better things than songs to give. He gives you now a lifelong faith, a hand to help enjoy or pain, and he will sing no more till death shall come to make him young again. From the Italian As a little child whom his mother has chidden, wrecked in the dark in a storm of weeping, sleeps with his tear-stained eyes closed hidden, and with this clenched sob still in his sleeping. So in my breast sleeps love, oh white lady, what does he care though the rest are playing, with rattles and drums in the woodlands shady? Happy children, whom joy takes me. Ah, do not wake him, lest you should hear him, scolding the others, breaking their rattles, smashing their drums when their play comes near him. Love, who for me, is a god of battles. End of Chapter 3 Recording by Annalisa Bodker Chapter 4 Out of the fullness of the heart the mouth speaketh in answer to those who have said that English poets give no personal love to their country England, my country, austere in the clamorous council of nations, set in the seat of the mighty, wielding the sword of the strong, have weep at song of your glory, firm in eternal foundations, are not your woods and your meadows the core of our heart in our song? Oh dear fields of my country, grass growing green, glowing golden, green in the patience of winter, gold in the pageant of spring, oaks and young larches awaking, windflowers and violets blowing. What, if God sets us to singing, what save you shall we sing? Who but our England is bare through the veil of her poet's praises? What but the pastoral face, the fruitful, beautiful breast, are not your poet's meadows starred with the English daisies? Were not the wings of their songbirds fledged in an English nest? Songs of the leaves and the sunlight, songs of the fernbreak and shadow, songs of the world of the woods and songs of the marsh and the mare. Are they not English woods, dear English marshland and meadow? Have not your poets loved you? England, are you not, dear? Shoulders of upland brown laid dark to the sunsets bosom, living amber of wheat and copper of new plowed loam. Downs where the white sheep wander, little gardens and blossom, roads that wind through the twilight up to the lights of home. Lanes that are white with hawthorn, dykes where the sedges shiver, hollows where caged winds slumber, moorlands where winds wake free, sowing and reaping and gleaning, spring and torrent and river. Are they not moor by worlds than the whole of the world can be? Is there a corner of land, a fur's fringe rag of a byway, coin of your foam-white cliffs or swirl of your grass-green waves, leaf of your peaceful cops or dust of your strenuous highway? But in our hearts is sacred, dear as our cradles, our graves. Is not each bow in your orchards, each cloud in the skies above you? Is not each bire or homestead, furrow or farm or fold, dear as the last dear drops of the blood in the hearts that love you? Filling those hearts till the love is more than the heart can hold. Therefore the song breaks forth from the depths of the hidden fountain, singing your leased frail flower, your rain-ment of seas and skies, singing your pasture and cornfield, then and valley and mountain, England, desire of my heart, England, delight of mine eyes. Take my song too, my country, many a sun and debtor, pays you in praise and homage out of your gifts full store. Life of my life, my England, many will praise you better, none by the God that made you ever can love you more. Summer song. There are white moon-daisies in the mist of the meadow, where the flowered grass scatters its seeds like spray. There are purple orcas by the wood-way's shadow. There are pale dog roses by the white highway. And the grass, the grass is tall, the grass is up for hay, with daisies white like silver and butter-cups like gold. And it's oh, for once to play through the long, the lovely day, to laugh before the year grows old. There is silver moonlight on the breast of the river, where the willows tremble to the kiss of night, where the nine tall aspins in the meadow shiver, shiver in the night wind that turns them white. And the lamps, the lamps are lit, the lamps are glow-worms light between the silver aspins and the west's last gold. And it's oh, to drink delight in the lovely lonely night, to be young before the heart grows old, the lower room. How soft the lamp-light falls on pictures, books, and pleasant-colored walls and curtains drawn, how happily one looks on glowing flame and ember. Ah, why should one remember, do and dawn? Here age and wisdom sit, calm and discreet, life and the fruit of it, are here in truth. Whose gathering once was sweet, wisdom and age well met, yet neither can forget folly and youth. Song The summer down the garden walks, swept in her garments bright. She touched the pale, still lily stalks, and crowned them with delight. She breathed upon the rose's head and filled its heart with fire, and with the golden carpet spread, the path of my desire. The lark's burrs stood like sentinels to greet her as she came, soft rang the canterbury bells, the music of her name. She passed across the happy land, where all dear dreams flower free. She took my true love by the hand and led her out to me. May song Birds in the green of my garden, black birds and throsel and ren, wet your dear wings in the tears that are springs, and so to your singing again. Birds in my blossoming orchard, chaffinch and goldfinch and lark, preen your bright wings, little happy-live things, the matries grow white in the park. Birds in the leafy wet woodlands, cuckoo and nightingale brown, sing to the sound of the rain on green ground, the rain on green leaves dripping down. Fresh with the rain of the May time, rich with the promise of June, deep in her heart where the little leaves part, love like a bird, sings in tune. End of Chapter 4 Recording by Anna-Lisa Bodker Chapter 5 Of The Rainbow and the Rose by E. Nesbitt The sleepervox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Anna-Lisa Bodker Chapter 5 To Iris If I might build the palace fair with every joy of soul and sense, and set my heart as sentry there to guard your happy innocence. If I might plant a hedge so strong no creeping sorrow could writhe through, and find my whole life not too long to give to make your heads for you. If I could teach the wandering air to bring no sounds that were not sweet, could teach the earth that only fair untrodden flower deserved your feet. Would I not tear the secret scroll where all your griefs lie closely curled, and give your little hand control of all the joys of all the world. But ah, I have no skill to raise the palace, teach the hedge to grow, the common airs blow through your days, by common ways your dear feet go, and you must twine of common flowers the wreath that happy women wear, and bear in desolate darkened hours the common griefs that all men bear. The pinions of my love I fold your little shoulders close about. Ah, could my love keep out the cold and shut the creeping sorrows out. Rough paths will tire your darling feet, grey skies will weep your tears above, while round you still in torment beat the impotent wings of mother love. To a child, Rosamund. The fairies have been busy while you slept. They have been laughing where the sad rain wept. They have taught beauty to the ignorant flowers, set tasks of hope to weary wind-torn bowers, and heard the lessons learned in school rooms cold, by seedling the snapdragon and marigold. At dawn, while still you slept, I grew aware how good the fairies are, how many and fair. The fairy whose delightful gown is red across a corner of our garden's bed. And, where her flying raindment fluttered past, its rosy at reflection still is cast. Red poppies, by the rhododendron's side, peonies gorgeous in their summer pride, and red maybushes, by the old red wall, shower down their crimson petals over all. Then she, whose gown is gold and gold her hair, swept down the golden, steep, straight sunbeam stair. She lit the tulip lamps, she lit the torch, of hollyhock, beside the cottage porch. She dressed the honeysuckle in fringe of gold. She gave the king-cups very wealth to hold. She kissed St. John's wart till it opened wide. She set the arrow by the riverside. Then came the lady, all whose robes are white. She made the pale buds blossom in delight, set silver stars upon the jasmine's hair, and gave the stream white lily buds to wear. She painted lilies white, and pearl-white flocks, white poppies, passion flowers, and gray-leaved stalks. Her pure kind touch redeemed the most forlorn, and even the vile petunia-smiled newborn. The dearest fairy of all, green is her gown. She kissed the plain trees in the tiresome town. She smoothed the pastures and the lawn's pale sheen. She decked the boughs with hangings fresh and green. She showed each flower the one and only way, its beauty of shape and color to display. She taught the world to be a paradise, of changing leaf and blade for tired eyes. Then one in all, they came where you were laid, in your straight bed, my little lovely maid. The red-robed fairy kissed your lips, your face. The white robe made your heart her dwelling place. Into your eyes the green-robed fairy smiled. The golden fairy touched your dreams, my child, and one, not named, but mightiest, made, my dear, the innermost rose of the re-flowered year. May, 1898. Birthday talk for a child, Iris. Daddy, dear, I'm only four, and I'd rather not be more. Four is the nicest age to be, two and two, or one and three. All I love is two and two, mother, baby, and Paul, and you. All you love is one and three, mother, baby, and Paul, and me. Give your little girl a kiss, because she learned and told you this. To Rosamund. And it is fair and very fair, this maze of blossom and sweet air, this drift of orchard snows, this royal promise of the rose, where in your young eyes see such buds of scented joys to be, a gay green garden softly fanned by the blithe breeze that blows to speed your ship of dreams to the enchanted land. But I, beyond the budding screen, have green and red and white and green behind the radiant show are things that cling and grow and glow. I see the plains where lie, the hopes of days gone by. Grey breaths of melancholy crossed by winds that coldly blow from that cold sea, wherein my argacy is lost from the Tuscan. When in the west the red sun sank in glory, the cypress trees stood up like gold, fine gold, the mother told her little child the story of the gold trees the heavenly gardens hold. In golden dreams the child sees golden rivers, gold trees, gold blossoms, golden boughs, and leaves. Without the cypress in the night wind shivers, weeps with the rain and with the darkness grieves, mother's song from the Portuguese. Heavy my heart is, heavy to carry, full of soft downy emrapments, and the outer fold of all is love, and the next soft fold is love, and the next finer and softer is love again, and were they unwound before the eyes, more folds and more folds and more folds would unroll of love, always love, and quite at the last, deep in the nest in the soft packed nest, one last fold turned back would disclose, you, little heart of my heart, laid there so warm, so soft, so soft, not knowing where you lie nor how softly, nor why your nest is so soft, nor how your nest is so warm, you, little heart of my heart, you lie in my heart, warm, safe and soft as this body of yours, this dear kissed body of yours that lies here in my arms and sucks the strength from my breast, the strength you will break my heart with one of these days. End of Chapter 5 Recording by Anna-Lisa Bodker Chapter 6 Of the Rainbow and the Rose by E. Nesbitt This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Anna-Lisa Bodker Chapter 6 The Island Does the wind sing in your ears at night, in the town, rattling the windows and doors of the cheap-built place? Do you hear its song as it flies over Martian down? Do you feel the kiss that the wind leaves here on my face? Or wrapped in a lamplit quiet, do you restrain thoughts that would take the wind's way hither to me, and bid them rest safe-anchored, nor tempt again, the tumult and torment and passion that live in the sea? I, for my part, when the wind sings loud in its might, I bid it hush, nor awaken again the storm that swept my heart out to sea on a moonless night, and dashed it ashore on an island wondrous and warm, where all things fair and forbidden, forever flower, where the worst of life is a dream, and the best comes true when the harvest of years was reaped in a single hour, and the gods for once were honest with me and you. I will not hear when the wind and the sea cry out, I will not trust again to the hurrying wind, I will not swim again in a sea of doubt, and reach that shore with the world left well behind. But you, I would have you listen to every call of the changing wind as it blows over marsh and main, and heap life's joys in your hands and offer them all, if only your feet might touch that island again. Possession. The child was yours, and none of mine, and yet you gave it me to keep, and bade me so it rainmen fine, and wrapped my kisses round its sleep. I carried it upon my breast, I fed it in a world apart, I wrapped my kisses round its rest, I rocked its cradle with my heart. When in mad nights of rain and storm you turned us homeless from your door, I wrapped it close, I kept it warm, and brought it safe to you once more. But the last time you drove us forth the snow was wrapped about its head, that night the wind blew from the north, and on my heart the child was dead. The child is mine, and none of yours, my life was his while he had breath, what of your claim to him endures, who only gave him birth and death? A session. Once I loved, and my heart bowed down, subject and slave, for love was a king, he sat above with scepter and crown, turning his eyes from my sorrowing. The laugh of a god on his lips lay light, his lips victorious that mocked my pain, and I mourned in the cold, in the outer night, and my tears and my prayers were vain. Now the old spell is over and done, myself I wear the ermine and gold, my brows are crowned, I ascend the throne, I have taken the scepter and orb to hold. I smile victorious, set far above, the music of voices that moan and pray, my feet are wet with the tears of love, and I turn my eyes away, the destroyer. Across the quiet pastures of my soul, the invading army marched in splendid might, my few poor forces fled beyond control, scattered, defeated, hidden in the night. My fields were green, their hedges white with may, with gold of butter-cups made bright and fair, the careless conquerors did not even stay, to gather one of all the blossoms there. Only when they had passed, the fields were brown, the grass and blossoms trampled in the mud, the flowering hedges withered and torn down, and no one richer by a single bud. The egoists, two strangers from opposing poles, met in the torrid zone of love, and their desires seemed set above the limitation of their souls. This is the trap, this is the snare, this is the false enchanting light, and when it smolders in to-night, how can each know the other is there? They own no bond of common speech, each from far shores of wild winds brought, gropes for some chord of common thought, to draw the other within reach. Each when the dark tide drowns their star, cries out, Thou art not one with me, one flesh we seemed when eyes could see, but now how far Thou art, how far? Each calling, come, be mine, be wise, stands obstinately in his place. How can these two come face to face, to light springs from their meeting eyes? Could both but once cry, far Thou art, but I am coming, how the beat of waves that part them would retreat, research and find them, heart to heart, the way of love. The butterfly loves the rose, he flutters around her bed, till the soft curl leaves unclose and she raises her darling head. He whispers of dawn and of dew, of love and the heart of love, of worship timid and true, and she takes no joy thereof. But when, through the noon's blind heat, the arrogant be flaunts by, she yields him her heart's hid sweet, and he leaves her alone to die. The depth of her dying bliss, her grief-white butterfly knows, and the bee laughs low in the kiss of another, a redder rose, to one who pleaded for candor in love. Here is the dim enchanted wood, your face a mystery divine, but half revealed, half understood, appears the counterpart of mine. Beyond the wood the daylight lies, cool and hard, it lies in wait, to steal the magic from your eyes and from your lips the thrill of fate. Ah, stay with me a little while, here where the magic shadows rest, where all my world is in your smile and all my heaven on your breast. Ah, no, cling close, what need to move, what need to advance or explore. We came here blindly, led by love, who will not lead us any more. Thank God that here we too have stood. Thank God this shade was ours to win. Time, with his axe, has marked our wood, and he will let the daylight in. The Enchanted Garden Oh, what a garden it was, living gold, living green, full of enchantments like spices embalming the air, there where you fled and I followed you ever unseen. Yet each glad pulse of me cried to my heart, she is there. Roses and lilies and lilies and roses again, tangle of leaves and white magic of blossoming trees, sunlight that lay where, last moment, your footstep had lain, was not the garden enchanted that proffered me these? Ah, what a garden it is, since I caught you at last. Scattered the magic and shattered the spell with a kiss, wintry and dreary and cold with the wind of the past. Ah, that a garden enchanted should wither to this, the poor man's guest. One came to me in royal guise, with banners flying, fair and free, but many griefs had made me wise, and I refused to bow the knee. Then one drew near, who bore the flower, of all the flowers of June and May, but many griefs had lent me power, and I was strong to turn away. Then came a beggar to my gate, with shoulders bowed to sorrow's pack. So weary and so desolate, I had no heart to turn him back. I let him share my board, my bed, I warmed him in my shrinking breast. I gave him all I had, and said, You, only You, have been my guest. Love passed in many a fair disguise, but never could an entrance win. But You came, in such piteous wise, poor friend, I could but let you win. Lo laughed my guest, kind friend, said he, and dropped the rags he was weary of, and I, betrayed, saw over me the terrible face of outraged love. In the shallows, among the shallows where the sand is golden, and the waves are small, I love to lie, and to my hand, how many little treasures fall. What shells and seaweed grace the shore, what happy birds on happy wings, and four companions, what a store of humble, happy, living things. Yet the sea's depths are also mine, and in the old days I used to dive into the caves where corals shine, and where the shimmering merfolk live. I am the master of the sea, in deeps where fairy flowers uncurl, that treasure house belongs to me, those amber halls, those stairs of pearl. But now there too I go no more, because of all the argoses deep sunk upon the ocean floor, where all the world's lost treasure lies, where loveless laughter curls the lips of wild sea creatures at their sport, about the bones of noble ships, my ships, that never came to port, and the rains descended and the floods came. Now the far waves roll nearer and more near, the winds awake, the pitiless winds awake, it shrieks the menace that I dare not hear. Soon at my feet the angry waves will break, in desolating wrath, and here I stand, helpless, my house is built upon the sand. O you whose house upon a rock is set, laugh safe and sure, a threatening wave and win. You chose the better part, and yet, and yet, there was no other ground that I could find, and I was weary, and I longed to raise, a house to guard my shivering nights and days. And it was pleasant in the house I made, while still the floods and winds were held asleep. I blessed it at the dawn, at night I prayed, as though its dear foundations had been deep, sunk in the rock I whispered in surmise. What if the winds never wake, floods never rise, and now the waves are nearer and very near, and here I wait and wonder which may be, the wave in which my house will disappear, my little house that loved and sheltered me, where joy still sings, her garland in her hand. Built on the sand, O God, built on the sand, the star. I had a star to sing by, a beautiful star that led, but when I sang of its splendour, the world in its wisdom said, Sweet are your songs, yet the singer sings but in madness when he hymns but stars unbeholden of us, his fellows of men. Glow worms we see, and marsh lights, sing us sweet songs of those, for the burdens we have to give you, laurel and gold and rose. Or if you must sing of stars, unseen of your brother man, go, starve with your eyes on your vision, your star may save if it can. So I said, if I starve and die, I never again shall see, the glory, the high white radiance that hallows the world for me. I will sing their songs, if it must be, and when I have golden store, I will turn from the marsh and the glow worms, and sing of my star once more. So I walked in the warm wet byways, not daring to lift my eyes, lest love should drive me to singing my star supreme in the skies. And the world cried out, we will crown him, he sings of the lights that are, glories of marsh light and glow worms, not visions vain of a star. I said, now my brows are laurel'd, my hands filled full of their gold. I will sing the starry songs that these earthworms bade withhold. It is time to sing of my star, for I dreamed that my star still shone. Then I lifted my eyes and triumphed, night, night, and my star was gone. End of Chapter 6 Recording by Anna-Lisa Bodker Chapter 7 Of the Rainbow and the Rose by E. Nesbitt This LibriVox Recording is in the public domain, Recording by Anna-Lisa Bodker Chapter 7 The Prodigal Son Come home, come home, for your eyes are sore with the glare of the noonday sun, and nothing looks as it did before and the best of the day is done. You have played your match and ridden your race, you have fought in your fight and lost, and life has set its claws in your face, and you know what the scratches cost. Out there the world is cruel and loud, it strikes at the beaten man. Come out of the press of the stranger crowd to the place where your life began. The best robe lies in the cedar chest and your father's ring is here. You have known the worst, come home to the best. You will pay for it, never fear. In every kiss of your sister's mouth, in each tear from your mother's eyes, you will pay the price of the days in the south where the far-off country lies. Despair. Smile on me, mouth of red, so much too red. Shine on me, eyes which darkened lashes shade. Turn, turn my way, oh glorious golden head. My soul is lost, then let the price be paid. Amid rich flowers your rosy lamp-light gleams. Amid rich hangings pass your scented hours. And woods and fields are green but in my dreams, and only in my dreams grow meadow-flowers. I have forgotten everything but you, the apple orchard where the white throat sings, the quiet fields, the moonlight and the dew, the virgin's bower that in wet hedgerow clings. I have forgotten how the cool grass waves were clean winds blow, and where good women pray for happy, honest men safe in their graves. And oh my God, I would, I were as they, the temptation. You bring your love too late, dear. I have no love to buy it. I spent my love on worthless toys at fairs you do not know. I am a bankrupt trader, dear eyes, do not deny it. I could have bought your love, dear, but that was long ago. My soul has left me widowed, my heart has made me orphan. Leave me, all good things, dear, have left me, leave me too. For here is ice, no tears of yours, no smiles of yours can soften. Leave me, leave me, leave me, I have no love for you. I have no flowers to give you, they grow not in my garden. I have no songs to sing you, my songs have all been sung. I have no hope of heaven, no faith in any pardon. I might have loved you once, dear, when I was good and young. I will not steal nor cheat you, take back the heart you lent me. O God, whom I have outraged, now teach me how to pray, that love come never again so near me to torment me, lest I be found less faithful than by thy grace to-day. Second Nature When I was young, how fair the skies, such folly of cloud, such blue depths wise, such do's of mourn, such calms of eve, so many the lure and the reprieve. Life seemed a toy to break and mend, and make a charm of in the end. Then slowly all the dew dried up, and only dust lay in the cup, and since to slake his thirst man must. I sought a cup that had no dust, and found it at the goat and vine, mingled the brandy beer and wine. The goat-cup straight drew down the skies, and lit them in lunatic wise. What had been rose once scarlet red, and the pearl tints grew like the dead, and a fresh prim rose of the mourn was the wet red of rain-spoiled corn. Now, with a head that aches and nods, I hold weak hands out to the gods, and oh, forgiving gods and kind, they give me healing to my mind, and show me once again the lawn, green and clear gemmed with do's of dawn. Oh, gods, who look down from above, upon our tangle of lust and love, and in your purity perceive the worth of what our follies leave, give us but this, and sink the rest, to know that dew and dawn are best. Day profundus. Now I am cast into the serpent pit, and catching difficult breath from the writhing, lonesome, ceaseless stir of it, the venomous whispers of curling, clasping death. I lift my soul out of the pit to thee, and reaching with my soul to where thou art. Look down, seeing with free heart, the beast God gave my soul for company. Lie with companions fit, and bid with a good will, the serpent fangs of ill, take their foul fill, of the foul fell it wore. Though a thousand serpent heads were raised to slay, a thousand twisting coils writhed where it lay. There lies the beast, there let it lie for me, and agonize and rave, for thou has raised my soul, thy soul to thee, thy soul, dear Lord, thou has been strong to save. End of Chapter 7 8. At the gate The monastery towers, as pure and fair as virgin vows, reached up white hands to heaven. The walls, to guard the hidden heart of prayer, were strong as sin and white as sin forgiven, and there came holy men by the world's woe-driven, and all about the gold-green meadows lay, flower-decked, like children dear they keep may holiday. Here, said the abbot, let us spend our days, days sweetened by the lilies of pure prayer, hung with white garlands of the rose of praise, and lest the world should enter with her snare, enter and laugh and take a sun-aware with her red rose, her purple, and her gold, choose we a stranger's hand the porter's keys to hold. They chose a beggar from the world outside to keep their worldward door for them, and he, filled with the humble and adoring pride, built up a wall of proud humility between the monastery sanctity and the poor, foolish, humble folk who came to ask for love and care in the dear Savior's name. For when the poor crept to the guarded gate, to ask for sucker, when the tired asked rest, when weary souls bereft and desolate, craved comfort, when the murmur of the oppressed surged round the grove where prayer had made its nest, the porter bade such take their griefs away, and at some other door their bane and burden lay. For this, he said, is the White House of Prayer, where day and night the holy voices rise through the chill trouble of our earthly air, and enter at the gate of paradise. Trample no more our flower fields in such wise, nor crave the alms of our deep laden bow, the prayers of holy men are alms enough, I trow. So seeing that no sick or sorrowing folk came ever to be healed or comforted, the abbot to his brothers gladly spoke. God has accepted our poor prayers, he said. Over our land his answering smile is spread. He has put forth his strong and loving hand, and sorrow and sin and pain have ceased in all the land. So make we yet more rich our hymns of praise, warm we our prayers against our happy heart, since God hath taken the gift of all our days to make a spell that bids all wrong depart, has turned our praise to bomb for the world smart, fulfilled the prayer and praise be every hour for God transfigures praise and transmutes prayer to power. So when the years, the flowers blossomed now, untrampled by the dusty weary feet, unbroken hung the green and golden bow, for none came now to ask for fruit or meat, for ghostly food or common bread to eat, and dreaming, praying, the monks were satisfied, till God, remembering him, the beggar porter died. When they had covered up the foolish head, and on the foolish loving heart heaped clay, which of us brothers now, the abbot said, will face the world to keep the world away, but all their hearts were hard with prayer, and, nay, they cried, ah, bid us not our prayers to leave, ah, Father, not to-day, for this is Easter Eve. And while they murmured, to their midst there came, a beggar saying, Brothers, peace, be still, I am your brother in our Father's name, and I will be your porter, if ye will, guarding your gate, with what I have of skill. So all they welcomed him, and closed the door, and got them gladly back unto their prayers once more. But lo, no sooner did the prayer arise, a golden flame athwart the chancel dim, then came the porter crying, Haste, arise, a sick old man waits you to tend on him, and many wait a night whose wound gapes grim, a red-stained man with red sins to confess, a mother pale, who brings her child for you to bless. The brothers hastened to the gate and there, with unaccustomed hand and voice they tried, to ease the body's pain, the spirit's care. But ere the task was done, the porter cried, Behold, the Lord sets your gate open wide, for here be starving folk who must be fed, and little ones that cry for love and daily bread. And, with each low-foot hour came ever a throng of piteous wanderers, sinful folk and sad, and still the brothers ministered, but long the day seemed, with no prayer to make them glad, no holy meditative joys they had, no moments brooding place could poor prayer find, midst all those heart to heal, and all those wounds to bind. And when the crowded, sunlit day at last, left the field lonely with its trampled flowers, into the chapel's peace the brothers passed, to quell the memory of those hurrying hours, her holy time, they said, once more is ours, come, let us pay our debt of prayer and praise, forgetting in God's light the darkness of man's ways. But ere their voices reached the first psalm's end, they heard a new, strange wrestling round their house, then came the porter, here comes many a friend, pushing aside your budding orchard boughs, come, brothers, justify your holy vows, hear be God's patient, poor, forefooted things, seek healing at God's will when sloving kindness springs, then cried the abbot in a vexed amaze, our brethren we must aid, if tis God's will, but the wild creatures of the forest ways, himself God heals with his almighty skill, and charity is good and love, but still God shall not look in vain for the white prayers we send on silver feet to climb the starry stairs. For, of all worthy things, prayer has most worth, it rises like sweet incense up to heaven, and from God's hand falls back upon the earth, being of heavenly bread the accepted leaven, through prayer is virtue saved and sin forgiven, in prayer the impulse and the force are found that bring in purple and gold the fruitful seasons round, for prayer comes down from heaven in the sun that giveth life and joy to all things made, prayer falls in rain to make broad rivers run, and quickens the seeds in earth's brown bosom laid, by prayer the red hung branch is earthward weighed, by prayer the barn grows full and fold the fold, for by man's prayer God works his wonders manifold. The porter seemed to bow to the reproof, but when the echo of the night's last prayer died in the mystery of the vaulted roof, a whispered memory in the hallowed air, the abbot turned to find him standing there. Brother, he said, I have healed the woodland things, and they go happy and whole, blessing love's ministries, and having healed them I shall crave your leave, to leave you, for tonight I journey far, but I have kept your gate this Easter eve, and now your house to heaven shines like a star to show the angels where God's children are, and in this day your house has served God more than in the praise and prayer of all its years before. Yet I must leave you, though I feign would stay, for there are other gates I go to keep, of houses round whose walls, long day by day, shut out of hope and love poor sinners weep, barred folds that keep out God's poor wandering sheep. I must teach these that gates where God comes in must not be shut at all to pain or want or sin. The voice of prayer is very soft and weak, and sorrow and sin have voices very strong. Prayer is not heard in heaven when those twain speak. The voice of prayer faints in the voice of wrong, by the just man endured. O Lord, how long? If ye would have your prayers in heaven be heard, look that wrong clamor not with too intense a word. But when true love is shed on want and sin, their cry is changed and grows to such a voice as clamors sweetly at heaven to be let in. Such sound as makes the saints in heaven rejoice. Pure gold of prayer, purged of the vain alloys of idleness, that is the sound most dear, of all the earthly sounds God leans from heaven to hear. O brother, I must leave thee, and for me the work is heavy and the burden great. Thine be this charge I lay upon thee. See, that never again stands barred thy abbey gate. Look that God's poor, be not left desolate. Ah, me, that chidden my shepherd's needs must be, when my poor wandering sheep have so great need of me. Brother, forgive thy brother if ye chide. Thy brother loves thee and has loved. For see, the nails are in my hands, and in my side the spear wound, and the thorns weigh heavily upon my brow. Brother, I died for thee, for thee, and for my sheep that are astray, and rose to live for thee and them on Easter day. My master and my lord, the abbot cried, but where that face had been shone the new day, only on the marble by the abbot's side, where those dear feet had stood, a lily lay, a lily white for the white Easter day. He sought the gate, no sorrow clambered there, and, not till then, he dared to sink his soul in prayer. And from that day himself he kept the gate wide open, and the poor from far and wide, the weary and wicked, and desolate, came there for sucker, and were not denied. The sick were healed, the repentant sanctified, and from their hearts rises more prayer and praise than ever the abbey knew in all its prayer-filled days. And there the heavenly vision comes no more, only each Easter now, a lily sweet, lies wet and dewy on the chancel floor, where once had stood the beloved wounded feet, and the old abbot feels the nearing beat of wings that bring him, leave at last to go, and meet his master, where the immortal lilies grow. Via Amoris 1 It is not love, this beautiful unrest, this tremor of logging that embades my breast, for love is in his grave this many a year. He will not rise, I do not wish him here. It is not memory, for your face and eyes are not reflected where that dark pool lies. It is not hope, for life makes no amends, and hope and I are long no longer friends. It is a ghost out of another spring, it needs but little for its comforting, that I should hold your hand and see your face, amuse a little in this quiet place, where through the silence I can hear you sigh, and feel you sadden, O virgin mystery, and know my thought has in your thought begot, sadness its child, and that you know it not. 2. If this were love, if all this bitter pain, where but the birth-paying of love born again? If through the doubts and dreams resolved, smiled, the prophetic promise of the holy child, what should I gain? The love whose dream lips smiled could never be my own and only child, but to love's birth would come with the last pain, renunciation also born again. 3. If this were love, why should I turn away? Am I not too made of the common clay? Is life so fair? Am I so fortunate? I can refuse the capricious gift of fate, the sudden glory, the unhoped-for flowers, the transfiguration of my earthly hours. Come, love, the house is garnished and is swept, washed clean with all the tears that I have wept, washed from the stain of my unworthy fears, hung with the splendid spoils of wasted years, lighted with lamps of hope and curtained fast against the gathered darkness of the past. I draw the bolts, I throw the portals wide, the darkness rushes shivering to my side. Love is not here, the darkness creeps about, my house wherein the lamps of hope die out. Ah, love, it was not then your hand that came, beating my door, your voice that called my name? 4. It is not love, it is not love, I said, and bowed in fearful hope my trembling head. It is not love, for love could never rise, out of the rock-hewn grave wherein he lies. But as I spake, the heavenly form drew near, where close I clasped a hope-grown keenness fear, upon my head, his very hand he laid, and whispered, It is I, be not afraid. 5. And this is love, no rose-crowned laughing-guest by whom my passionate heart should be caressed, but one re-risen from the grave, austere, cold as the grave, and infinitely dear, to follow whom I lay the whole world down, take up the cross, bind on the thorny crown, and following whom my bleeding pilgrim feet find the rough pathway sure and very sweet. The august environment of mighty wings shuts out the snare of vain imaginings, for by my side, crowned with love's death-white rose, the angel of renunciation goes. Retro Sathanas Refuse, refrain, for this is not the love, the enunciation angel warned you of. This is the little candle, not the sun. It burns, but will not warm unhappy one. But ah, suppose the sun should never shine, then what an anguish of regret were mine, to know that even from this I turned away. Candles may serve, if there should be no day. Nay, better to go cold your whole life long than do the sun, than do your soul such wrong, and if the sun shine not, be life's the blame, and yours the pride, who scorn the meaner flame, the old dispensation. O thou who high in heaven, to man hast given, this clouded earthly life, all storm and strife, blasted with ice and fire, love and desire, filled with dead faith and love, that change is master of. O thou who mightest have given, to all thy heaven, but who instead didst give, this life we live, who feedest with blood and tears, the hungry years, I make one prayer to thee, O great God, grant it me. Someday, when summer shows, her leaf, her rose, God, let thy sinner lie under thy sky, and feel thy son's large grace upon his face, then grant him this, that he may not believe in thee, the new dispensation. Out in the sun the buttercups are gold, the daisy silver, all the grassy lane, and spring has given love of flower to hold, and love lays blindness on the eyes of pain. Within are still chill aisles and blazoned pains, and carven tombs where memory weeps no more, and from the lost and holy days remains, one saint beside the long-closed western door. Outside the world goes laughing, lest it weep, with here and there some happy child at play, a mother worshiping the babe asleep, or two young lovers dreaming neath the may. Within the soul of love broods o'er the place, the carven saint forgotten many a year, still lives to heaven his rapt adoring face, to pray for those who leave him lonely here. That once again the silent church may ring, with songs of joy triumphant over pain, O God, who makest the miracle of spring, make thou dead faith and love to rise again. THE THREE KINGS When the star in the east was lit to shine, the three kings journeyed to Palestine. They came from the uttermost parts of earth, with long trains laden, with gifts of worth. The first king rode on a camel's back, he came from the land where the kings are black, bringing treasures desired of kings, rubies and ivory and precious things. An elephant carried the second king, he came from the land of the sun rising, and gems and gold and spices he bear, with broidered rain-ment for kings to wear. The third king came, without steed or train, from the misty land where the white kings reign. He bore no gifts, save the myrrh in his hand, for he came on foot from a far-off land. Now when they had travelled a many days, through tangled forests and desert ways, by angry seas and by paths thorn-set, on Christmas vigil the three kings met, and over their meeting a shrouded sky made dark the star they had travelled by. Then the first king spake, and he frowned and said, by some ill spell have our feet been led, now I see in the darkness the fools we are, to follow the light of a lying star. Let us fool no more, but like kings and men, each get him home to his land again. Then the second king, with a weary face, gold-tinked as the sun of his reigning place, lifted sad eyes to the clouds and said, it was but a dream, and the dream is sped. We dreamed of a star that rose new and fair, but it sets in the night of the old despair. Yet night is faithful, though stars betray, it will lead to our kingdoms far away. Then spake the king who had fared alone, from the far-off kingdom the white hung throne. Oh, brothers, brothers, so very far, ye have followed the light of the radiant star, and because for a while ye see it not, shall its faithful shining be all forgot? On the spirit's pathway the light still lies, though the star be hid from our longing eyes. Tomorrow our star will be bright once more, the little pinhole in heaven's floor. The angels pricked it to let it bring our feet to the throne of the newborn king. And the first king heard, and the second heard, and their hearts grew humble before the third, and they laid them down beside bale and beast, and their sleeping eyes saw light in the east, for the angels fanned them with starry wings, and the waft of visions of unseen things, and the next gold day waned trembling and white, and the star was born of the waxing night, and the three kings came where the great king lay, a little baby among the hay, the ox and the ass were standing near, and Mary mother beside her dear. Then low in the litter the kings bowed down, they gave him gold for a kingly crown, and frankincense for a great God's breath, and myrrh to sweeten the day of death. The maiden mother she stood and smiled, and she took from the manger her little child. On the dark king's head she laid his hand, and anchor died at that dear command. She laid his hand on the gold king's head, and despair itself was comforted. But when the pale king knelt in the stall, she heard on the straw his tears downfall, and she stooped where he knelt beside her feet, and laid on his bosom her baby sweet, and the king in the holy stable place felt the little lips through the tears on his face. Christ, lay thy hand on the angry king who reigns in my breast to my undoing, and lay thy hands on the king who lays the spell of sadness on all my days, and give the white king my soul, thy soul, of these other kings the high control, that soul and spirit and sense may meet in adoration before thy feet. Now glory to God, the Father most high, and the star, the spirit, he leads us by, and to God's dear Son, the babe who was born, and laid in the manger on Christmas morn.