William Rose Benét

“ When all dim heaven is trembling into stars.
THE PALE DANCER My heart's a still shore; all the golden sails are gone.
A pale, silver floor in the hugeness of dawn
My heart lies once more, and the little ripples beat
This small, idle tune, like the fall of elves' feet,
"Oh, come, airy dancer—come dance on us, Sweet!"
She comes like a breeze in the midnight of May.
The tumbling of the seas makes a tune far away.
She comes with closed eyes, with light footsteps she nears,
And she sings the low song that each lipping ripple hears.
"In love there is laughter, and after—come tears!" ”

“ But it lived in my heart, it broke to flame and stirred
My self to a purpose at last not self could mar,
And I cried "We are delivered!" and I heard it echo far
Up to the vault of heaven past star on shrinking star.
So then I was running through poppies that I knew
Above a blue sea basking—and you—and you
Were running on the headland in the world made anew.
I know some force is mighty, some force I cannot reach.
I know that words are said to me that are not said with speech.
My heart has learned a lesson that I can never teach. ”

“ Saying, "Be of comfort. Death is a little thing."
Oh, magic child and woman, who crept into my heart,
Who hold me with strong arms from all the world apart—
No, I will not say it—for your eyes grieve;
I will say you draw us all to Heaven—your Heaven, by your
leave!
Lady Simplicitas, who hummed like any bee
Little quaint and olden rhymes to keep simplicity,
Lady of the downcast eyes and sudden starry mirth,
And eloquence by torchlight for the wronged of all the earth,
True love runs wild and wildly understands! ”

“ And my heart, that some grim God fashioned
To be visited of a star!
MAN POSSESSED Shaken, a thousand times shaken, with the millions that grieve,
Now at last I am overtaken. I will say I believe.
I ran with the pennons of morning astream over me.
On the precipice, scorning its warning, I ran to be free.
Still I love high winds and the great running and the steep verge,
But strength past my strength overtakes my cunning, and stars emerge
High over me, eternal, deathless, deep over deep,
And my head sways heavy as I run breathless, my eyelids droop with
sleep. ”

“ The torrent of the hours like a veil veiling heaven,
The war with bitter powers—I am given.
But light that you left me—light, your own decision,
Your secret and your vision.
Time? What is Time now. Standing to the thong
And the dream that is passing, time is not long.
And I shall find the valley past the mountains that defeat me,
And see you come to meet me.
V Not all the spoils you cast, not all the dark was bearing
In dream across the sea, across the murmurous sea;
Not beauty that has passed or crowns the stars were wearing
Or flame that fierce and fast through darkness hunted me ”

“ Coward!) Take the honest light and pray for grace. Where her lightning struck, where her pureness flowered, (Coward! Coward!) Dare to see her face.
Through the sea of lies—skies have always lowered!— (Coward! Coward!) Be she your horizon or your mist, Make straight on, though dawn be still undowered, (Coward! Coward!) Toward the timeless tryst.
One thing now you know for truth at least,
One thing more than groan of witless beast,
One thing more than jest at mumming feast,
Pain is still increased, increased, increased
Marking life like milestones toward Love's East. ”

“ My outlawed heart might gasp at him appearing
So sudden and dazzling upon my rage and fearing,—
Such pale announcement, such quietude should endue
Tall, proud, grave Death, with noble footsteps nearing!
Immortal goddess, thus beautiful are you!
God knows that you are passionate as Life,
On rhythmic curves of bosom and limb attending,—
Sweet as clear water, and acid as a knife
Thrust through fresh fruit wherewith the bough is bending,—
Yet rule the riotous blood to Man's befriending,—
Yea, hush his ghastly tears the midnight through,
To flesh of flesh your ageless mystery lending. ”

“ Longs for what nought of earth may satisfy.
My heart breaks as I clutch love's breaking strands.
I clutch—they part—to the wide winds are blown.
And she stands gazing on a cloud, a star,—
Blind to earth's heart of love where heaven lies furled.
God, wilt Thou never leave my love alone?
Thou hast all powers, dominions, worlds that are;
And she is all my world—is all my world!
THE TAMER OF STEEDS Beyond this world where skies are free from stain,
Where brilliant flowers blow in open meads,
I heard the drumming hoofs of many steeds
Raise maddening music from a grassy plain. ”

“ Aye, till the singing break Man's heart
Where sorrows glory to rejoice
In perfect notes of perfect choice
And strains of One deep, tender voice
Transfigured joys from sorrows start.
In all this world I have no choice.
If I would sing a lasting thing,
Thou art my singing and my voice.
Poor rhymes that earn no welcoming,
Rhymes that are nothing learned in art,
From heaven, from her, such worlds apart,—
Creep then unto her tender heart
And from her living learn to sing!
"ALWAYS I KNOW YOU ANEW" I press my hands on my eyes
And will that you come to me. ”

“ By your blessed heart unplanned,
It is mine to surprise each sweeter phase,
Adore you, and understand;
For through every delicious change in you
Truth burns with a clear still flame;
And, though always I know you anew,
Always I find you the same!
THE RIVAL CELESTIAL God, wilt Thou never leave my love alone?
Thou comest when she first draws breath in sleep,
Thy cloak blue night, glittering with stars of gold.
Thou standest in her doorway to intone
The promise of Thy troth that she must keep,
The wonders of Thy heaven she shall behold. ”

“ All the ringing roads of fame glittered broad and bright.
On again! with new visions to pursue;
And dawn again, dawn again, dawn again—with you!
Other dawns may keep joy as pure and deep?
Dawns of greater splendor may awaken me from sleep?
Nay! they never can bless a stubborn man
Like the dawn, the wonder-dawn with which this day began!
Oh, my deeds must take triumph for its sake!
Loud my heart shall sing it while the mind remains awake:
Words I never knew could so thrill me through—
Dawn again, dawn again, dawn again—with you! ”

“ In the eerie still brightness of heaven and sea,
And the little ripples whisper, "What thing can it be?"
Pale dancer, pale dancer, atread without breath,
Majestic and yearning and brooding as death,
Oh, passion of my heart, oh, enchanted despair
That glides before God like a bird from a snare,
Return, then, return to me, clothe me with care!—
But the beautiful dancer has vanished in air.
PREMONITION (Written in absence and unaware of her desperate condition, a few days before her death.)
This is the song I shall make.
Love with white wing bids it wake.
Love with dark wing bids it die. ”

“ Your beauty is the sunset's streaming flag,
It is the vivid standard of the dawn
Flapping over dazed dream-voyagers
That kneel on new sun-pooled, mysterious strands.
It wasted the moon to pallor, set the sun
Pulsing with burning blood—it shattered the mind
Of heaven into stars.
The beauty of your spirit has sent the winds
Eternally sighing, and sharpened the cold ache
Of the heart-broken, incessantly-sobbing sea. ”

“ Now veil her and disguise her, gone from the spectral lands.
The spectral lands of time, the eternal torrent pouring
Of dark and light around us, who fear both dark and light;
And grief that wails in rhyme, and flesh the soul abhorring,
And dismal pantomine played on a stage moon-bright;
Why should such things as these assail her happy meadow,
Creep on the court of children, come crying through the shine?
We who are too unskilled even to taunt the shadow
Groan only in the darkness and spill the precious wine! ”

“ And the heart unthought-of throbs its appalling strength—
Tireless—till it too in the dust is laid.
But something lives—say there is something lives!
Our passion it is, all of our will to be—
Something in men like a rout of fugitives
Hurrying on the shore of a phantom sea,
Hurrying, wailing, questing, seeing the moon
Light that waste of beauty and terror and plangent sound ”

“ Brimming with all the secrets of the stars!
DEATH WILL MAKE CLEAR What in the night says the clock that ticks time to eternity,
Swimmer of waves of your thought that are dark waves and deep?
What in the night says the moon, from her patient infinity,
Laying pale hands on your heart, hands of peace and of sleep?
What say the stars to her eyes, who has loosed by the window
The billow of her hair, as the dark of the trees feels her fear? ”

“ Your name through trumpets down its central hall,
And the rapt choral praise
Before your dais raise;
And you should see, should hear, be glad and smile
That I so love you. Ah, but all the while
I may not show nor teach
Save through my paupered speech!
Beggar in guise, who am so rich at heart
Where you have set your pure white shrine apart
And keep your cherished state
Dear and immaculate,
How should you know or hear me, when my tongue
Turns a dull rebel and doth ready wrong
To thoughts my dreams repeat?—
Perhaps too proud, too sweet! ”

“ There are enough angels to serve the mass in Heaven! Have pity on me, who am only a man without wings, who rejoiced in this companion God had given me, and that I should hear her sigh with her head resting on my shoulder!... the bitterness like the bitterness of myrrh... And for you age is already come. But how hard it is to renounce when the heart is young! ”

“ In her heart a field laughed with golden flowers
Where Her soul could tread.
Swift, serene, she passed all that snarls and cowers,
White of will.
Song can give her nothing. We who brave the night
Say Her name again
Raise it like a cup full of sacred light
Up to Heaven.
Now we know our pain blinding, burning bright
In the world of men.
Yet we know our joy, knowing now aright
What was given.
IV Base rewards and glamours, the beating tide of hours,
The crying and clamors and the surge of silent powers
Pass me and pass me now. Silently I go
The one road, the only road I know. ”

“ DEDICATION TO A FIRST BOOK Braver than sea-going ships with the dawn in their sails,
Than the wind before dawn more healing and fragrant and free,
Fairer than sight of a city all white from the mountain-top viewed in
the vales,
Or the silver-bright flakes of the moonlight in lakes, when the moon
rides the clouds and the forest awakes,
You are to me! ”

“ They shall speak truth when prayer to prayer responds,
"Death but precedes us as the shadow of Love.
Light falls about us from a surer sphere!"
LOVE IN THE DAWN Dawn, with hallowed flame, seemed to sing your name
Through our open window as the golden glory came.
Ardor thrilled me through; Dawn again—with you!
"Up and at the world again! The world is made anew!" ”

“ That light my dark heart from their white-hot forge—
a glory to take one's breath—
Like the dove-gray, rose-faint veils of faith you wind
round the skull of death!
But when was a sword or a crown
For praise or for honor meet,
When the truth transcends, and sees
Knighthood kneeling at your feet?
In the darkness they go down! ”

“ The satyr and the centaur race below
Deriding wings above.
Manful they meet and fight to overthrow
All they are wearied of,—
Manful they build, demolish, drive, are driven,—
But you are free, who have more greatly striven,
Yours is the light above their lightless heaven,
For yours is Love!
THE SILVER HIND Through the black forest
You glance, you start,—
Through the black forest
That is my heart! ”

“ Save there is sweetness round my heart and the world a screen
Of interwoven mystery to a world unseen.
Can one drink the air, can one seize the sea, can one grasp the fire?
Even so intangible to me the answer to my desire.
The elements we feel and see shift and drift and suspire
And we therein behind the screen, with glimmering brains that tire. ”

“ Cæsar's screaming eagles black as Hell's vultures flew,
But birds went up our dawning splendid and wing and wing
And bright for the slaves and captives your fearless banner blew
And laughing-glad as a trumpet the faith you still could sing.
Old as the world is evil and disenchantment old.
Man's ancient heart is bitter, his hard eyes doubt of a sign. ”

“ I stood at a window looking out at the snow upon the roofs, and began to think (as you would have in my place) , "Deep on the convent roofs the snows are sparkling to the moon,"—and suddenly I realized that it was St. Agnes Eve, and that long ago, when I was perhaps fifteen or sixteen, I had prayed that I might be a Carmelite nun in England. It was a thrill. No one else knew it. No one else could possibly have brought either of those two things about but Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever." ”

“ No heart's emotion bindeth
A shadow to a shade."
Then within me, lying near you,
A dark sadness grew
That, to cherish or to cheer you,
There was nought left to do.
Of happy daily service
Nought now remained to me—
Of good news for you and comfort
As once it used to be.
No beauty save the spirit's
Abode wide heaven's scrolls;
No charm the flesh inherits,
No strength save the soul's ”

“ She dances like the moonlight—light, languorous, aswoon.
Her face floats uplifted, a flower to the moon,
To the moon pale in heaven and the dawn coming slow,
And under her measure the ripples breathe low,
"The dancer, the dancer from ages ago!"
Oh, dance me no more! Witching dancer be gone! ”