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THE POETS' CHANTRY
Dark Angel, with thine aching lust
To rid the world of penitence:
Malicious Angel, who still dost
My soul such subtle violence!
Because of thee, no thought, no thing
Abides for me undesecrate:
Dark Angel, ever on the wing,
Who never reachest me too late!
To rid the world of penitence:
Malicious Angel, who still dost
My soul such subtle violence!
Because of thee, no thought, no thing
Abides for me undesecrate:
Dark Angel, ever on the wing,
Who never reachest me too late!
There is something well-nigh intolerable in the verisimilitude of the poem, in its frightful arraignment of this "venomous spirit" who broods over the world of Nature and art, tormenting the land of dreams, blackening the face of spring and youth and life itself. The lines would be almost sinister were it not for the splendid courage of those final stanzas:—
I fight thee in the Holy Name!
Yet, what thou dost is what God saith:
Tempter! should I escape thy flame,
Thou wilt have helped my soul from Death.
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Do what thou wilt, thou shalt not so,
Dark Angel! triumph over me:
Lonely, unto the Lone I go;
Divine, to the Divinity.
Yet, what thou dost is what God saith:
Tempter! should I escape thy flame,
Thou wilt have helped my soul from Death.
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Do what thou wilt, thou shalt not so,
Dark Angel! triumph over me:
Lonely, unto the Lone I go;
Divine, to the Divinity.
The man who wrote those lines felt, indeed; but upon his lips lay the seal of culture and of temperamental repression. This was the veil of his heart's inner sanctuary—that "Precept of Silence" which one of his most characteristic poems has immortalised:
I know you! Solitary griefs,
Desolate passions, aching hours!
I know you: tremulous beliefs,
Agonised hopes, and ashen flowers!
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Desolate passions, aching hours!
I know you: tremulous beliefs,
Agonised hopes, and ashen flowers!
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