Sartor Resartus
Ah, God be merciful to him who sees Thro' ermined pomp and pageantry of kings, Thro' regal mien and beauty's witcheries The poor, weak, shrivelled soul that crouches hid Within the body's hold! Thrice-cursed is he Whose soul sees souls of others face to face, Who strips the outer man like vestments off And views the naked heart in all its shame And poverty; who still must rend the veil Of motive, purpose, false humanity And futile pretense! God! to walk this world Doomed still to see what others fain would hide, Reading men's thoughts as scholars read the page Of some old language dead to all save them; Seeing beneath the tender woman flesh, The woman-grace, the pleading woman-eyes, The grisly skeleton, the hollow ribs, The eyeless sockets and the grinning jaw; Reading for aye the sneer beneath the smile, The lie that lurks behind the seeming truth; To know that such, or haply worse, am I, A living lie, false prophet to myself, Clothed on with shimmering robes of fallacy And vain deceit! Ah God, where is the truth?
Are all men false or lies the fault in me Who, vulture-like, seize only on the taint, And leave the pure? If haply thus it be In pity take away the subtle sight That pierces thought. Give back the old fond faith, The young belief in all humanity; Hide from my view the canker in the rose, The taint in truth, the blight upon the bloom.
Far better 'twere to drink the hemlock draught And, happy, deem it nectar than to find The drop of gall within the nectared cup.
Far better trust repaid with treachery Than doubt confirmed! Ah, Thou all-seeing God Who art the Truth, make me to see the truth; Lift from my soul the shadow; in the room Of doubt, send trust. Let me believe again; Help me to see the highest in mankind!
Illumed
Like to a little child, whose straying feet, Tracking the fox-fire's guiling glint and gleam, Have wandered far afield by marsh and stream While just before the wavering glimmers fleet On and still on where sky and meadow meet, Till, spent and fearful in the gathering gloom, At last he sees the guiding light of home, Where love awaits and mother-kisses sweet.
So was it mine through fens of doubt to stray Pursuing still some fair ephemeron, Or fleeting gleam, or shimmering fallacy, Till through the deepening dusk a beacon shone Set by the hand of Love to light the way O Father, to implicit trust in Thee!
In the Play
In a painted "Forest of Arden," in the glare of the garish light, In doublet and hose, be-powdered and rouged, you sigh to me night by night; Attuned to the sway of your cadenced voice, as a harp to the wooing wind, I thrill at the touch of your painted lips--for--"_I am your Rosalind!_"
Could you know that my art in seeming was a dearer thing than art, That the love-words spoken nightly spring straight from a loving heart; Could you know that my soul speaks to you--aye soul and spirit and mind!
When I gaze deep into your eyes and breathe--"_And I am your Rosalind!_"
To you 'tis a vain dissembling--a part of the work of the day, And the words that your voice makes music, but the dull, dead lines of the play.
Little you care for the woman you woo, save as a foil designed.
To prove your skill as a lover--yet--"_I am your Rosalind!_"
I merge in the player, the woman! The actress good at her art Must needs look well to each glance and tone, must needs play still her part--
Tho' the woman's soul that must else be mute; aye soul and spirit and mind!
Cry to your soul in another's words--"_And I am your Rosalind!_"
To E. P. B.
Imperial as that famed Elizabeth Before whose feet a knight his cloak cast down-- A sovereign--altho' thine only crown Love's roses 'twine for thee, Elizabeth.
Ah, maiden sweeter than morn's nectared breath, Across thy path no regal robe I fling-- Only a living, loving heart I bring To lay at thy dear feet, Elizabeth.
Through the Dark
Last night they laid me in my winding sheet, Set burning tapers at my feet and head, Decked me with wan white blossoms faint and sweet, And told each other softly, "She is dead."
Ay, dumb and dead! Enshrouded, cold and stark I lay where waned the tawny tapers dim, Pulseless and pale; yet thro' the dreadful dark I lived in thoughts of _him_.
The morning came. One who had loved me bent Above my face with tears and bated breath; Laid on my heart the roses _he_ had sent-- And I--was glad of death!
Preluding
Frail fronds of ferns uncurling, Blue iris flags unfurling, Pale showers of blossoms swirling Like clouds of wind-blown snow; With fragile wildings playing, Like two blithe children maying, Across the glad meads straying, Together, dear, we go.
The silver clouds far-drifting, Vague lights and shadows shifting, The sungleams gold-dust sifting Down thro' the latticed leaves; Gray brooks the meadows lacing, Young flow'rs the uplands gracing, Her faery 'broidery tracing The skillful spider weaves.
From long, long day-dreams shaken, The vivid violets waken; His Southern haunts forsaken, The bluebird flecks the sky; Ah, breath of bloom-bright heather, Ah, golden Maytime weather, We drift in dreams together-- Together, you and I.
The Heights of Silence
(Transcribed from "The Choir Invisible.")
Above the valleys, peopled, fair and warm, Rise the bleak, silent uplands where abide Wraiths of lost loves, love's recompense denied, Unspoken, unconfessed, unsatisfied....
Cold, silent heights, engirt with zones of storm, Where Love for aye unmated must abide.
The broad, sweet downward vistas of the flesh Stretch fair and far; the calm white spirit-height Is lone and chill; there dimly shines the light Of sun and star that burns and beacons bright Where Sin spreads still her guiling, glitt'ring mesh.
Ah, warm the valley! Lone and chill the height!
Yet he who wins the height's sublimity-- The silent height where loves unlived abide, Loves stainless, sublimated, purified-- Shall glimpse that land, to grosser view denied, Where love and longing infinite shall be Or ever stilled--or ever satisfied.
Andromeda
Bound ever to a great grey rock of Doom, Striving with futile hands to rive the chain Of woven fear, distrust and subtle pain, While gaunt wolf-waves that leap from out the gloom Of doubt's cold sea are snarling at my feet, As nearer writhes the dragon of Despair Foul with dank horrors of his caverned lair, And like a clock of doom the dark tides beat....
I lift my eyes; Lo! sudden sweeps along Thought's empyrean and the vast of dreams One star-browed, Jove-like, human-orbed; meseems His feet are winged with music, shod with song; Ah, Perseus, should'st thou, pitying, leave the sky To loose my bonds--then all the fear were gone, Soul touching soul, trust from distrust were won, Like god and goddess 'fronted, thou and I; Despair were slain, closed the unequal strife, Thy great soul's strength should make weak purpose strong, Thy hand should lead me up the slopes of Song, Thy winged feet guide me to the peaks of Life!