This poem was composed in 1890
I fled Him,
down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him,
down the arches of the years;
I fled Him,
down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own
mind; and in the mist of tears
I hid from
Him, and under running laughter.
Up vistaed
hopes I sped;
And shot,
precipitated,
Adown
Titanic glooms of chasmèd fears,
From those
strong Feet that followed, followed after.
But with
unhurrying chase,
And
unperturbèd pace,
Deliberate
speed, majestic instancy,
They
beat—and a Voice beat
More
instant than the Feet—
‘All things betray thee, who betrayest Me.’
I pleaded,
outlaw-wise,
By many a
hearted casement, curtained red,
Trellised
with intertwining charities;
(For,
though I knew His love Who followèd,
Yet was I
sore adread
Lest having
Him, I must have naught beside).
But, if one
little casement parted wide,
The gust of
His approach would clash it to.
Fear wist
not to evade, as Love wist to pursue.
Across the
margent of the world I fled,
And
troubled the gold gateways of the stars,
Smiting for
shelter on their clangèd bars;
Fretted to
dulcet jars
And silvern
chatter the pale ports o’ the moon.
I said to
Dawn: Be sudden—to Eve: Be soon;
With thy
young skiey blossoms heap me over
From this
tremendous Lover—
Float thy
vague veil about me, lest He see!
I tempted
all His servitors, but to find
My own
betrayal in their constancy,
In faith to
Him their fickleness to me,
Their
traitorous trueness, and their loyal deceit.
To all
swift things for swiftness did I sue;
Clung to
the whistling mane of every wind.
But whether
they swept, smoothly fleet,
The long
savannahs of the blue;
Or whether,
Thunder-driven,
They
clanged his chariot ’thwart a heaven,
Plashy with
flying lightnings round the spurn o’ their
feet:—
Fear wist
not to evade as Love wist to pursue.
Still with
unhurrying chase,
And
unperturbèd pace,
Deliberate
speed, majestic instancy,
Came on the
following Feet,
And a Voice
above their beat—
‘Naught shelters thee, who wilt
not shelter Me.’
I sought no
more that after which I strayed
In face of
man or maid;
But still
within the little children’s eyes
Seems
something, something that replies;
They at
least are for me, surely for me!
I turned me
to them very wistfully;
But just as
their young eyes grew sudden fair
With
dawning answers there,
Their angel
plucked them from me by the hair.
‘Come then,
ye other children, Nature’s—share
With me’
(said I) ‘your delicate fellowship;
Let me greet
you lip to lip,
Let me
twine with you caresses,
Wantoning
With our
Lady-Mother’s vagrant tresses,
Banqueting
With her in
her wind-walled palace,
Underneath
her azured daïs,
Quaffing,
as your taintless way is,
From a
chalice
Lucent-weeping
out of the dayspring.’
So it was
done:
I in their
delicate fellowship was one—
Drew the
bolt of Nature’s secrecies.
I knew all
the swift importings
On the
wilful face of skies;
I knew how
the clouds arise
Spumèd of
the wild sea-snortings;
All that’s
born or dies
Rose and
drooped with; made them shapers
Of mine own
moods, or wailful or divine;
With them
joyed and was bereaven.
I was heavy
with the even,
When she
lit her glimmering tapers
Round the
day’s dead sanctities.
I laughed in the morning’s eyes.
I triumphed
and I saddened with all weather,
Heaven and
I wept together,
And its
sweet tears were salt with mortal mine;
Against the
red throb of its sunset-heart
I laid my
own to beat,
And share
commingling heat;
But not by
that, by that, was eased my human smart.
In vain my
tears were wet on Heaven’s gray cheek.
For ah! we
know not what each other says,
These
things and I; in sound I speak—
Their sound
is but their stir, they speak by silences.
Nature,
poor stepdame, cannot slake my drouth;
Let her, if
she would owe me,
Drop yon
blue bosom-veil of sky, and show me
The breasts
o’ her tenderness:
Never did
any milk of hers once bless
My
thirsting mouth.
Nigh and
nigh draws the chase,
With
unperturbèd pace,
Deliberate
speed, majestic instancy;
And past
those noisèd Feet
A voice
comes yet more fleet—
‘Lo! naught
contents thee, who content’st
not Me.’
Naked I
wait Thy love’s uplifted stroke!
My harness
piece by piece Thou hast hewn from me,
And smitten
me to my knee;
I am
defenceless utterly.
I slept,
methinks, and woke,
And, slowly
gazing, find me stripped in sleep.
In the rash
lustihead of my young powers,
I shook the
pillaring hours
And pulled
my life upon me; grimed with smears,
I stand
amid the dust o’ the mounded years—
My mangled
youth lies dead beneath the heap.
My days
have crackled and gone up in smoke,
Have puffed
and burst as sun-starts on a stream.
Yea,
faileth now even dream
The
dreamer, and the lute the lutanist;
Even the
linked fantasies, in whose blossomy twist
I swung the
earth a trinket at my wrist,
Are
yielding; cords of all too weak account
For earth
with heavy griefs so overplussed.
Ah! is Thy
love indeed
A weed,
albeit an amaranthine weed,
Suffering
no flowers except its own to mount?
Ah! must—
Designer
infinite!—
Ah! must
Thou char the wood ere Thou canst limn
with it?
My
freshness spent its wavering shower i’ the dust;
And now my
heart is as a broken fount,
Wherein
tear-drippings stagnate, spilt down ever
From the
dank thoughts that shiver
Upon the
sighful branches of my mind.
Such is;
what is to be?
The pulp so
bitter, how shall taste the rind?
I dimly
guess what Time in mists confounds;
Yet ever
and anon a trumpet sounds
From the
hid battlements of Eternity;
Those
shaken mists a space unsettle, then
Round the
half-glimpsèd turrets slowly wash again.
But not ere
him who summoneth
I first
have seen, enwound
With
glooming robes purpureal, cypress-crowned;
His name I
know, and what his trumpet saith.
Whether
man’s heart or life it be which yields
Thee
harvest, must Thy harvest-fields
Be dunged with rotten death?
Now of that
long pursuit
Comes on at
hand the bruit;
That Voice
is round me like a bursting sea:
‘And is thy
earth so marred,
Shattered
in shard on shard?
Lo, all
things fly thee, for thou fliest Me!
Strange,
piteous, futile thing!
Wherefore
should any set thee love apart?
Seeing none
but I makes much of naught’ (He said),
‘And human
love needs human meriting:
How hast
thou merited—
Of all
man’s clotted clay the dingiest clot?
Alack, thou
knowest not
How little
worthy of any love thou art!
Whom wilt
thou find to love ignoble thee,
Save Me,
save only Me?
All which I
took from thee I did but take,
Not for thy
harms,
But just
that thou might’st seek it in My arms.
All which
thy child’s mistake
Fancies as
lost, I have stored for thee at home:
Rise, clasp
My hand, and come!’
Halts by me
that footfall:
Is my
gloom, after all,
Shade of
His hand, outstretched caressingly?
‘Ah,
fondest, blindest, weakest,
I am He
Whom thou seekest!
Thou dravest love from thee, who
dravest Me.’
Comments