Louise Imogen Guiney

“ I seek thee also there: O dove! thou knowest
Thy hidden heavenly way through words withheld.
I kneel, but cords impede my hands. Pour thou,
Till I have slaked a supersensual thirst,
And, faint with salutation, drink to Him,
Christ Jesu, whom in dying I adore.
The Bailiff. Despatch: broad daylight comes.
The Headsman. All is prepared.
Theodora. Amen: and Alleluia! Heart flown home,
If thou wouldst speak, rise up.
Didymus. Ye worthy men,
I would not stay you long. ”

“ Flushed as the coral in clean sea-caves,
“I am!” he cries to his glorying heart,
And unto he knows not what: “Thou art!”
He leaps, he shines, he sinks, he is gone:
He will climb to the golden ledge anon.
Perfecter rite can none employ,
When the god of the isle is good to a boy. ”

“ Dearer than wine of roses, rouse thee: haste!
How else can I the pact maintain with Him
Who bade me loose thee from the snare? Come nigh:
Doff thine apparel; put mine armor on.
Think but of flight, and safety.
Theodora. Wingèd one,
Best brother, brighter than a star, and stronger,
Uphold me!
Didymus. Bind thy locks. Alas, I am
No angel sent of Christ, nor yet a Christian.
Theodora. Why dwell in lowland shadow? Thou, ere long,
Must drink of grace divine the deathless light.
On, happy soul: for there are hills to climb,
E’en Calvary hill. 14
Didymus. ”

“ O Didymus,
With thy shut eyes, thy youth undedicate,
Tell me the name of this new pastoral. 4
Didymus (asleep) . He said: “My yoke is sweet, My burden light.”
O light, O sweet, perchance, as it was said!
The Child. True heart! The hour rounds up; thy wine-press waits;
And so this music fades: the silver tones
Thin out, and faintly drip delight, and cease,
No willing man nor bird hears how. Good-night,
O soon-made-perfect!
II
Night. The same fields. Didymus wakes, alone.
Didymus. It is black, and chill. ”

“ Its moth-like play of silver, rose, and sapphire; shone
What arms of warring duchies glorious, bygone:
Lombardy, Desmond, Malta, suitored Aquitaine!
The while aloft in Art’s immortal summer-tide,
Fair is the carven hostel, fortunate either guest,
And men of moodier England pass, and hear outside
Fury of toil alone, and fate’s diurnal storm,
Hearts with the King of Saints, hearts beating light and warm! ”

“ Sir, there my hasty tongue spake for my heart.
A rebel girl I loved forsook me late,
Bit with the Galilean pestilence.
It rages, and it rots our best: be warned.
I am no spy; I will befriend thee. Come.
Didymus. Thou livest nigh? ”

“ Who fill one gourd with me, who cheer my heart,
Who come in, warm and singing, to the tent,
And miss me who am gone away, I think,
Forever, though a day; out of their world, 2
Though over a few leagues of upland grass!
Why hast Thou laid on me magic of pain,
God unrevealèd? Was I drawn from sleep,
Man’s duty, body’s health, to be mere wind,
Wind undirected over fallow wastes?
What wouldst Thou ask of me, no sword of Thine,
No ark of service? Yet aware of Thee
I am and shall be. ”

“ Top, tier on tier, the hundred-mountained tide,
Away, and far away, his pride is borne,
Riding the noisy morn,
Plunges, and preens her wings, and laughs to know
The helm and tightening halyards still
Follow the urging of his will,
And scoff at sullen earth a league below. ”

“ In all! and may He grant that unto thee,
(Who art both more and less than neophyte,)
Denial of that quiet sepulture
Be not so keen a pain.—His look’s afar:
He has not answered.
Didymus. ... Whole on every side! ”

“ WELL we know, not ever here is a footing for thy dream:
Thou art sick for horse and spear beside an Asian stream,
For the hearth-smoke in the wild, for the goatherd’s stave,
For a beauty far exiled, a belief within its grave. ”

“ And interchange of love by natural right
With the high few, a kinship not of clay.
Be these thy present comfort! Like a man
Who tends a watchlight on the hills alone
At Childermas, (and through a night so cold,
The red clots of the rowan-berry twirl
Incorporate with a small stiff cone of ice,
And the wind breaks his flail, and swineherds hear
Outside, the pine-boles crack with frost i’ the heart,)
Thou shalt, ere long, upon a distant peak
Descry a doubted smoke, a likelier spark,
A shadow shot across a glare, and then
Two spurts of flame that bare the under sea ”

“ Long ago. This thing the fathers had whispered of, I beheld and heard!
Though not yet my splendid dreamer the answer win to his uttered word,
“Patience: that shall be, hereafter. The chief is late, but he seeks his own,
Riding up to break the quiet in all the farm-lands of all Tyrone.
“They have hid so, they have waited; to hate that smoulders their blood is leal. ”

“ The same crowd, leading Didymus.
A Voice. A long march is well ended. How fares he?
The Bailiff. He thrives; I hear him murmuring idle spells.
Didymus. Soft is the twilight breeze, soaked full of sea.
The veiled isle yonder rears her breathing lamp ”

“ How man’s coöperate or revolted will
Doth color, in the councils of high Heaven,
Both what we do, and suffer. Violence,
Though sent to seek my soul, shall by her gate
Sit pilgrim-meek. Christ keeps His citadel.”
The prefect bent again, compassionate:
“O girl! rememberest not thy sires august?
Pity thy beauty, heirloom of their house,
And precious most in thee. Choose to obey;
Since even thee my duty cannot spare.”
But she: “The nail-pierced Hands that have my vow,
Defend it.” “Save thyself,” he cried, “and trust
No crucifièd ghost. From foul disgrace
Snatch thine own youth.” ”

“ Midnight. A brothel. Theodora alone. Didymus breaks in.
Didymus. Grant me forgiveness, lady Theodora!
And fear not. I have spent my breath of life,
Beating the human hurricane outside,
To reach thee first of any. ”

“ There is a Hand that will not let thine fall,
As mine doth.
Didymus. Sign me slowly with the cross.
Theodora. So: on predestined brows.
Didymus (after a pause) . Thy sandal’s fast,
The breastplate firm and fine, each joint in place;
Draw low the vizor; let the short cloak hang;
And stoop in issuing forth: step hurriedly,
As one ashamed, whom his loud sins pursue.
Go thus, secure.
Theodora. Thou shalt not always hunger!
O thy requital: might I see it!
Didymus. Go:
Go, even as I said. 16
Theodora. ”

“ Shall I be rescued: He is faithful yet.”
Softly she prayed: “Lord, Lord! deliver straight
Thy bounden servant, overshadowing
Thine own, in dread mid-battle, with Thy wing.
Out of Thy mercy, let them harm me not:
By thy most bitter Passion borne for man,
O Fount of chastity, O Fortitude
Of all Thy saints, Jesu! remember me.”
Thus, in that voice which I shall hear no more.
I turned away, dragging my leaden limbs
Hillward, and homeward.
Didymus. And these shouts, these shouts,
Incessant, brutal, terrible, they mean—
Cratidas. ”

“ Mighty troopers drunk with battle, the bridle in every iron hand.
“Sunburn on their folded faces was fresh as childhood and fierce as death.
Think: the sunburn got in marches against the demon Elizabeth!
“Next my knee, then, rose a hero, rose up a little, not loosening rein;
Gazing steady, softly said he, and sharply said to me, over again:
“‘Is the time come?’ (That’s for vengeance: the clan is hungry and hot to start.)
‘Is the time come, is the time come?’ Thrice the sound of it stabbed my heart. ”

“ And what thine heart uptorn,
My Juvenal! distraught with love of violated Law.
41 VALSE JEUNE
ARE there favoring ladies above thee?
Are there dowries and lands? Do they say
Seven others are fair? But I love thee:
Aultre n’auray!
All the sea is a lawn in our county;
All the morrow, our star of delay.
I am King: let me live on thy bounty!
Aultre n’auray!
To the fingers so light and so rosy
That have pinioned my heart, (welladay!)
Be a kiss, be a ring with this posy:
Aultre n’auray!
42 THE CHANTRY
A LOYAL lady young ”

“ O to help them cheer and follow O’Neil, O’Neil from his foreign grave!
O to throne thee, saddest, fairest, as once thou wert, on the warless wave!
“Drift of moss for many a summer conceals the door on the charmed hillside;
Clouds and hail of death blow over the Earl Hugh’s men that never have died. 47
“Nine full hundred, nine and ninety, (O’Neil the thousandth when he comes back!)
Lie a-row, asleep in armor, by horses magical white or black:
“Mighty horses satin-shouldered, with sheen of the golden stirrups grand ”