The Fourfold Aspect

When ye stood up in the house

      With your little childish feet,

And, in touching Life's first shows,

      First, the touch of Love, did meet,—

Love and Nearness seeming one,

      By the hearthlight cast before,—

And, of all beloveds, none

      Standing farther than the door—

Not a name being dear to thought,

      With its owner beyond call,—

Nor a face, unless it brought

      Its own shadow to the wall,—

When the worst recorded change

      Was of cherry dropt from bough,—

When love's sorrow seemed more strange

      Than love's treason can seem now,—

Then the Loving took you up

      Soft, upon their elder knees,—

Telling why the statues droop

      Underneath the churchyard trees,

And how ye must lie beneath them,

      Through the winters long and deep,

Till the last trump overbreathe them,

      And ye smile out of your sleep...

Oh ye lifted up your head, and it seemed as if they said

            A tale of fairy ships

                  With a swan-wing for a sail!—

            Oh, ye kissed their loving lips

                  For the merry, merry tale!—

So carelessly ye thought upon the Dead.

Soon ye read in solemn stories

      Of the men of long ago—

Of the pale bewildering glories

      Shining farther than we know,—

Of the heroes with the laurel,

      Of the poets with the bay,

Of the two worlds' earnest quarrel

      For that beauteous Helena,

How Achilles at the portal

      Of the tent, heard footsteps nigh

And his strong heart, half-immortal,

      Met the keitai with a cry,—

How Ulysses left the sunlight

      For the pale eidola race,

Blank and passive through the dun light,

      Staring blindly on his face!

How that true wife said to Pœtus,

      With calm smile and wounded heart,—

"Sweet, it hurts not!"—how Admetus

      Saw his blessed one depart!—

How King Arthur proved his mission,—

      And Sir Boland wound his horn,—

And at Sangreal's moony vision

      Swords did bristle round like corn,—

Oh! ye lifted up your head, and it seemed the while ye read,

            That this death, then, must he found

            A Valhalla for the crowned—

            The heroic who prevail!

            None, be sure, can enter in

            Far below a paladin

            Of a noble, noble tale!—

So, awfully, ye thought upon the Dead.

Ay! hut soon ye woke up shrieking,—

      As a child that wakes at night

From a dream of sisters speaking

      In a garden's summer-light,—

That wakes, starting up and bounding,

      In a lonely, lonely bed,

With a wall of darkness round him

      Stifling black about his head!

And the full sense of your mortal

      Rushed upon you deep and loud,

And ye heard the thunder hurtle

      From the silence of the cloud—

Funeral-torches at your gateway

      Threw a dreadful light within;

All things changed! you rose up straightway,

      And saluted Death and Sin!

Since,—your outward man has rallied,

      And your eye and voice grown bold—

Yet the Sphinx of Life stands pallid,

      With her saddest secret told!

Happy places have grown holy:

      If ye went where once ye went,

Only tears would fall down slowly,

      As a solemn sacrament;

Merry books, once read for pastime,

      If ye dared to read again,

Only memories of the last time

      Would swim darkly up the brain!

Household names, which used to flutter

      Through your laughter unawares,—

God's Divine one, would ye utter

      With less trembling in your prayers!

Ye have dropt adown your head, and it seems as if ye tread

            On your own hearts in the path

            Ye are called to in His wrath,—

            And your prayers go up m wail!

            —"Dost Thou see, then, all our loss,

            O Thou agonised on cross?

            Art Thou reading all its tale?"

So, mournfully, ye think upon the Dead!

Pray, pray, thou who also weepest,

      And the drops will slacken so;—

Weep, weep!—and the watch thou keepest,

      With a quicker count will go.

Think! the shadow on the dial

      For the nature most undone,

Marks the passing of the trial,

      Proves the presence of the sun!

Look, look up, in starry passion,

      To the throne above the spheres,—

Learn! the spirit's gravitation

      Still must differ from the tear's.

Hope! with all the strength thou usest

      In embracing thy despair?

Love! the earthly love thou losest

      Shall return to thee more fair.

Work! make clear the forest-tangles

      Of the wildest stranger-land;

Trust! the blessed deathly angels

      Whisper, "Sabbath hours at hand!"

By the heart's wound when most gory

      By the longest agony,

Smile!—Behold, in sudden glory

      The Transfigured smiles on thee!

And ye lifted up your head, and it seemed as if He said,

            "My Beloved, is it so?

            Have ye tasted of my woe?—

            Of my Heaven ye shall not fail!

            He stands brightly where the shade is,

            With the keys of Death and Hades,

            And there, ends the mournful tale!—

So, hopefully, ye think upon the Dead.