Ah! the dear old moorland path,
Consecrate by tiny feet!
Every nook and corner hath
A remembrance bitter-sweet.
Three long years, all winter, scenes
Afar have held me, many a care,
But my heart for ever leans
Here, until from otherwhere
My feet are carried to the place
Where dawned on me thy blessed face,
The holy moor where Love was born,
The moor where Love left me forlorn.
There is night upon the moor,
There is night upon my heart;
A low moon consoles the moor,
And his memory my heart.
All is redolent of him;
Here to us from heaven he came,
Loosed here many a merry whim,
Joy sparkling o'er the fountain brim
Of his white spirit; here the flame
Of Love's own life burned holily
On the moorland; his birth-name
The heather gave him; home to die
Amid the heath he journeyed; here
His baby form, that was so dear,
The lovely form we loved so well,
Lies under the heather-bell.
I think my ghost will haunt the place,
Even when I behold thy face
Glassed in some celestial lake,—
I love it so for thy dear sake.
But ah! if we were only sure!
Were only seeing thee secure,
Even afar off, now and then,
I were the happiest of men!
Aspens whisper in grey air,
Whisper as they whispered when,
Playing among them blithe and fair,
He drew my soul from a dark den
Of dismal shadows with his song;
Whisper like a gentle throng
Of spirits murmuring "Rejoice!"
To me, who faint for his dear voice,
Wandering ever in the wild
Till I find my little child,
Him to feel and hear and see,
Who cannot wholly perished be!
Somewhen, somewhere, the wan stem of endeavour
Shall flower in vision, radiant for ever!
Ah! may I not thy semblance find
In the low light, or the low wind?
Do I not yearn to clasp thy ghost,
My own beloved, O my lost?
Thee, thee, thee only do I want,
The very little child was mine;
Refuse me him for whom I pant,
God, Virtue, Heaven, I resign!
And surely in the dim pinewood,
Or in the garden where he leapt,
In the enchanted solitude
Under the window where he slept,
If anywhere within the bound
Of worldwide being he hath breath,
Is it not here he may be found,
Loosed from the monster fold of Death,
Safe from the hunger of dim Death?
Under the window where he slept,
Or in the day-time danced and sang
With his boy brother, where we wept
Hot tears of blood for his death-pang,
His long, long pain! and where he lay,
White lilies o'er him, the king-lily,
Moonpale and cold, who was the day,
Will he not come now, pure and stilly,
And touch, and whisper "Father mine,
I am not dead, dear; it is I!"
Like Jesus, when He saw them pine
So for Him after Calvary?
Yea, voices call to me, my love,
In twilight, and they name thy name!
Alas! I am not sure, my dove,
If they be thine! they do not seem the same!
And in my dreams they whisper still,
Often they seem to sob and moan,
That I may not, for all my will,
Surely know them for thine own:
I deem they may be demon hosts who jeer,
Maddening mortals with false hope and fear.
So rather I return within,
Afar from sense-deluding din;
By the upheaval of my being
Attain to realms of clearer seeing,
Find thy very self by faith,
High o'er the welter of dim death,
Throned o'er mists of mortal strife
In luminous airs of ampler life.
Death is a shadow of our fall;
But ah! how many a heavier pall
Hangs o'er dead souls! Oblivion!
Discord! all monster growths that overrun
Man's inner vision, veiling from the Sun,
And with His Light of life confounding all!
O my own baby boy! my child!
Thou art the Father of my soul!
In thee the Lord, the Undefiled,
Came on earth to make me whole.
"Welcome, Child Jesus!" on the walls
Our hands had wrought with berries gay,
In the season of snowfalls,
For we were nearing Christmas Day.
And thou wert leaving us, my love!
Nay, rather, faith beheld thee born!
Then was the advent of the Dove,
Our Christmas, and our Easter morn!
When he flew forth, our fluttered bird,
Carolling toward the sun,
Within our mournful souls there stirred
The living Child, the Eternal One!
Welcome, Child Jesus! Christ is come
In glory, not in earthly weed!
Still a child, He makes His home
Within our soiled and lowly need,
From His own Life our lives to feed.
He is called Eric, and He dwells
In our soul's flower-hallowed dells,
By Lady Memory's holy wells;
Ah! not under the heather bells!
And while he dwelleth in high heaven,
Under some sweet angel's care,
He also sootheth our sad even,
Ever radiantly fair.
Why seek the living among the dead?
They are not here! alive, arisen,
Only a ray of them hath fled;
Angels deliver them from prison!
Child Eric! when He saw thee bleed,
Child Jesus came to call thee home;
But while bereft of thee we roam,
Thou art more near us, love, indeed,
More near than in thine earlier state,
Although we seem so desolate!
The dead from our wan eyes depart,
Only to nestle in our heart.
Mary, weeping, sought the Lord
In the grave, nor found Him there;
Mary with her living Lord
Was communing in her despair,
Nor knew who communed with her there!
We are surely travelling home
O'er the weary waste of foam,
Drawn by pure and tranquil eyes
Of living Orbs within the skies,
Who rising, we in them arise;
For all are souls within a Soul,
And hierarchies of one Spirit whole.
Our own true selves, alive in God,
Call our lost selves to His abode,
Halting along earth's dreary road.
We are wildered in the gloom,
Feel blind for one another here,
In a phantom world of doom;
Unfathomable gulfs of fear
Sunder our numb human hearts;
Faint feet slide upon the snow,
While a drifting vapour parts,
Nor others, nor ourselves we know:
Thought, dissolved, reels to and fro,
Stunned as from a mortal blow.
Ah! dearest darling, we have loved!
None part who once indeed have met;
But thou and I have never proved
Love's eternal summer yet!
And if the mortal spring be sweet,
What will the immortal summer be?
Only a while we may not meet,
Maturing for eternity.
The garden is a wilderness;
His little plot of flowers
Fallen to weed, and tenantless
The silent house! acacia bowers,
With many a gold laburnum tress,
Hang white blossom in warm June
O'er lowlands, tender as a tune
Of turtle-doves, o'er harebell-hued
Fair corn, fair meadow-land, and wood.
The trees win ampler foliage, height,
But all the soul hath taken flight
From the scene of our delight.
'Tis a warm night now of June;
And in the twilight of the moon
That glimmers on the nursery pane,
Under the window where we wept,
Under the window where he slept,
Behold! a wild wee flower is fain
To unclose soft eyes, though it be night,
Revealing a meek visage white,
A wild white flower, whose very bane
Is garish day, who blossoms only
In a twilight cool and lonely;
Here, where with bitter tears I wept,
Bitter tears for him who slept,
Tears for him who seemed to wane,
Lo! the little flower hath spoken,
The frail white blossom hath a token
For my faint spirit from her love;
It is an olive leaf the Dove
Brings for my solace from the wild,
Telling the deeps have not devoured my child,
The child who is my world, my mead, my grove,
The fruit, the flower, the fountain of my love!
He lives and blooms anew, fresh, pure, and undefiled.
Our blossom breathes a holier breath
In the calm cool night of Death;
Tho' he so fair in life reposed,
The petals of his soul were closed.
A dorhawk whirrs around the plain,
Philomel hath ceased to sing,
But a cuckoo still is fain
To send his voice on languid wing
Through the elflight at intervals,
As in a drowsy vision calls;
A dream of groves and waterfalls,
And pale gold of young corn imbues
His languid tone that flows and falls
Among star-worlds, and starry dews.
O balmy nights within the dells
So far behind of vanished years!
O nights within the blessed years!
How are ye reft of all your spells,
Returning so! ye know that one
Out of your stilly trance hath gone,
Lost! and do ye calmly breathe? …
… What is our life, and what is death?
How often have I paced the path
Near yon moon-gleaming window-pane,
Feeling the little chamber hath
More loan of wealth than ere again
My love may render unto heaven!
(I was unworthy; so at even
He resumed what He had given!)
Kingcups and daisies, and white rose,
With languid lilies find repose,
And his dear eyes in slumber close,
Who will leap among them, love them,
And will weave a necklace of them,
All free from sorrow,
If 'tis fair to-morrow!
There, in the days that are no more,
Thy mother sang thee soft to sleep;
There sang thee into rest more deep,
Hushed to sleep for evermore!
Yea, upon our world of woe
Shut thy pure eyes, dear baby, so!
Better, better, so!
Earth's fairest promise founders on the deep
Better innocent sleep;
What heritage I leagued thee, love!
Sleep, sleep, my dove!
Fly me! take refuge in the blue above
From our dim grove
Of earthly love!
Thou would mimic the cock crowing,
Cheerily in yonder room;
How thy voice thrilled through me glowing,
Gleam waking vaults of age-long gloom!
Heard from afar by me, as in a tomb
By bitter memory wrought,
And solitary thought,
Passion fraught!
There at morn thou and thy brother
Let your frolic fancies bubble,
Not for worlds your nurse or mother
Would have lived without their trouble!
In yon firwood I roved alone,
Hearing a dove's tender moan;
There he ever flew to meet me,
A very warbling rill he came,
I knew where he would run to greet me
Like a gentle gush of flame,
Where red squirrels leapt and twirled,
Or song's airy rillet purled
From birds in sun-illumined leaves,
Where young foliage gently heaves,
As delicate green tresses do
In clear pulses of sea-blue.
And there he lay upon my breast,
For he was very tired with play;
The sun was sinking in the west;
Cold horror held me as he lay;
… I thought I heard him called away!
Once, when I brought him forth for air,
I set him ailing on the stile,
Till I should fetch from over there
His pet toy creature; with a smile,
He prayed that I would go; "for he
Wants the air like you and me!"
Ah, child! to think that I was here
Or ever thou, love, did appear
On our earth-sphere!
How I wonder from what regions,
From what shadowy love-legions,
Thou camest here!
I thank thee, Heaven, that I quaffed
Such a deep delicious draught
From his clear life! None came to waft
Warnings of woe about the boy;
How brief the tenure of our joy;
We never, never dreamed of this,
Lingering in vistas of immortal bliss!
Ah! scornful irony of lordly Fate,
Dallying with mortals in their mean estate!
Nay, surely he hath grown my guide,
Who lately faltered by my side.
He is my saint now! his clear eyes
Have deepened, widened into skies,
With sweet star influences fraught;
Ah! let me fare beneath them as I ought!
Thou art the Lord's own minister!
Here are frankincense and myrrh;
Burn them in thy golden censer,
Till odorous fumes rise ever denser
From my poor life consumed by fire,
Diffused, sweet circling, ranging ever higher!
Baby, in thy wee white cot
Thou wert embraced! there thou art not!
Angel now, filling the whole
Earth and heaven, heart and soul!
For that thou, my child, endurest,
In some more royal form maturest,
Is of all sure things the surest!
Sights and sounds dissolve, a dream;
But never what hath made them seem!
All may perish save the Soul,
Who breathes and forms the living whole.
But O Thou Spirit at the core
Of our numb spirits, more and more
May we hold and feel thy truth,
Ever aging into youth!
Thou who wert awake in God,
What time Thy feet storm-beaten trod
Grey waves of our bewilderment,
Oh, save us from the death where we lie pent!
To form us in Thee Thy dear Life is lent!
Enthral us with Thine own unfathomable eyes,
Till rapt into Thy vision we surprise
The grand Foundation-stone that under the World-temple lies!
Or with a child's meek wisdom make us wise!
Pardon our presumptuous tone,
Teach us to feel, Thy Holy will be done!
For that is good alone!