Classic Poem

I had been sitting by her tomb
In torpor one dark night;
When fitful tremours shook the doom
Of cold lethargic settled gloom,
That weighed upon my sight:

And while I sat, and sickly heaves
Disturbed my spirit's sloth,
A wind came, blown o'er distant sheaves,
That hissing, tore and lashed the leaves
And lashed the undergrowth:

It roared and howled, it raged about
With some determined aim;
And storming up the night, brought out
The moon, that like a happy shout,
Called forth My Lady's name,

In sudden splendour on the stone.
Then, for an instant, I
Snatched and heaped up my past, bestrown
With hopes and kisses, struggling moan,
And pangs: as suddenly,

Oppressed with overwhelming weight,
Down fell the edifice;
When touched, as by the hand of Fate,
My gloom was gone. I felt my state
So light, I sobbed for bliss.

The loud winds, spent in seeking rest,
Dropped dead. My fevered brow
Drank coolness from the grass it pressed;
And in my desolated breast
A change began to grow,

While feeling those tears slowly drain
The load of grief which had
A sluggish curse within me lain,
Save when remembrance wrought my brain
For vivid moments mad.

My tears, as treasures of a wreck
That in the ocean slept,
Recovered, ran without a check;
And earth was my good mother's neck
To which I clung and wept.

I rose at length, and felt a dense
Benumbed dead weight. And now
The night air hung in deep suspense!
A singing hush that pressed my sense
And stunned me like a blow:

Through my lids clenched the living air
In gold and purple rings
Danced musically round me there,
The light it held throbbed with the glare
And beat of rapid wings.

Mine eyes I dared not try to raise;
My Lady's beamed on me
In fixed serenity of gaze,
And were what old sunshiny days
In childhood used to be.

A gasping lapse; and I was whirled
Round the faint void of space;
In dizzy circles hugely hurled,
I saw the constellated world
With every orb embrace,

To one stupendous vortex-light,
Spinning a fiery ram,
Then fail, struck out by sudden night;
When swung adown in headlong might,
Earth's touch shook through my brain.

The dumb sound in mine ears was burst
By her portentous voice;
As sweet as death to one accursed,
As unto one near blind for thirst
A running water's noise.

Her voice in some translucent star,
Remote, beyond my sight,
Was singing marvellously far;
And yet so strangely near to jar,
As jars too strong a light.

She sang a song. She warbled low,
She did not sing in words;
I felt it in my spirit glow,
And knew it, as with joy I know
The morning shouts of birds.

But hard the task I undertake,
With mortal tongue to reach
The utterance of my Love, and make
Her high immortal meaning break
To clearness through my speech!

I can no more, with glimmering trope
That into darkness runs,
Reveal its depth, than they could hope,
Who on in lifelong blindness grope,
To sing of rising suns.

"Or e'er that life my King had lent
Was lifted into rest,
His message through my lips He sent,
And on thy path His glory went
To guide thee to the blessed.

"But thou didst turn thy face, and scorn
His grace divine as nought;
And set thy gaze to earth forlorn,
And rage at fate, till gaunt and worn,
Death mouldered in thy thought.

"Thou, blindly gross, didst toy with clay,
And in the ghastly gleam
Of charnel gloom didst kiss decay;
And many full moons waned away,
And left thee in thy dream.

"For with thy Lily's worldly dress
Thou didst thine eyesight fill;
And scorn to know its loveliness
Were but an empty boast unless
Made living by His will.

"Thou mourn'dst not most the vanished soul
Which was my Lord's through thine;
But more the broken pleasure-bowl,
Whose golden richness shed, when whole,
Its splendour in thy wine.

"And therefore living wert thou made
To taste the cup of death;
And therefore did the glory fade,
From guidance into deadly shade
That iced thy shuddering breath.

"Permitted, now I come to thee:
I warn thee of thy sin;
I urge thee cleanse thine eyesight free,
That purified thy soul may see
The way his love to win.

"His love incomprehensible
Did never turn away
From penitent whom harm befell;
But springeth like a desert well
For thirsting poor estray.

"Let him who scorneth mercy shown,
Unhappy one, beware!
For whoso lives in pride alone,
His pride shall harden to a stone
Too great for him to bear.

"And whoso, having warned been,
Refuseth still to turn,
Behind his shadow, shrunken mean,
A poring spectre shall be seen
With livid stare and girn.

"Thou troubled one, who unto me
Art next my Lord's own grace,
O turn to Him, and He will be
A refuge from thy misery,
A smile upon thy face!

"A righteous strength will nerve thine arm,
And courage fill thy breast:
And having bravely warred on harm,
The cries of victory shall charm
Thy dying eyes to rest.

"And succoured ones shall praise his name
Who, toiling for them, died.
And, nobly sung, his honest fame
Shall beat in hearts unborn, and claim
Their love and grateful pride.

"And Love will lead her sacrifice
To where a shining row
Stand beckoning to the heights of bliss;
And she will clasp his hands and kiss
Welcome upon his brow."

I knew not when the singing ceased
To trance my brightened soul,
Then from that long eclipse released.
But looking hopeful towards the East,
I saw flush pole to pole

The dawn, that had begun to show,
And through dank vapour burned,
As in a sick face lying low
The rich incarnadine would glow,
When healthy life returned.

Small drowsy chirping met the light,
And dim in lowlands far
Lone marsh-birds winged their misty flight;
What time Her aspect on my sight
Beamed from the morning star.

It waned into the warbling day;
That, rising fierce and strong,
Now looked the Western gloom away,
And kindled such a roundelay,
The world awoke with song,

And fresh delicious breezes came
With scents of paradise
So tingling through my knitted frame,
That never since I lisped a name
Knew I such joy arise.

Pure was the azure over head;
Bright was the earth around;
While I on resolution fed,
And moved, as one called from the dead,
In silence on the ground.

Toward my home I walked, elate
With hope and settled plan:
And reverent to the will of Fate,
In every step I trod my weight,
A sober-minded man.