The Rainbow and the Rose

VIII

AT THE GATE  THE monastery towers, as pure and fair  As virgin vows, reached up white hands to Heaven;  The walls, to guard the hidden heart of prayer,  Were strong as sin, and white as sin forgiven;  And there came holy men, by world's woe driven;  And all about the gold-green meadows lay  Flower-decked, like children dear that keep May-holiday.  "Here," said the Abbot, "let us spend our days,  Days sweetened by the lilies of pure prayer,  Hung with white garlands of the rose of praise;  And, lest the World should enter with her snare—  Enter and laugh and take us unaware  With her red rose, her purple and her gold—  Choose we a stranger's hand the porter's keys to hold."  They chose a beggar from the world outside  To keep their worldward door for them, and he,  Filled with a humble and adoring pride,  Built up a wall of proud humility  Between the monastery's sanctity  And the poor, foolish, humble folk who came  To ask for love and care, in the dear Saviour's name.  For when the poor crept to the guarded gate  To ask for succour, when the tired asked rest,  When weary souls, bereft and desolate,  Craved comfort, when the murmur of the oppressed  Surged round the grove where prayer had made her nest,  The porter bade such take their griefs away,  And at some other door their bane and burden lay.  "For this," he said, "is the white house of prayer,  Where day and night the holy voices rise  Through the chill trouble of our earthly air,  And enter at the gate of Paradise.  Trample no more our flower-fields in such wise,  Nor crave the alms of our deep-laden bough;  The prayers of holy men are alms enough, I trow."  So, seeing that no sick or sorrowing folk  Came ever to be healed or comforted,  The Abbot to his brothers gladly spoke:  "God has accepted our poor prayers," he said;  "Over our land His answering smile is spread.  He has put forth His strong and loving hand,  And sorrow and sin and pain have ceased in all the land.  "So make we yet more rich our hymns of praise,  Warm we our prayers against our happy heart.  Since God hath taken the gift of all our days  To make a spell that bids all wrong depart,  Has turned our praise to balm for the world's smart,  Fulfilled of prayer and praise be every hour,  For God transfigures praise, and transmutes prayer, to power."  So went the years. The flowers blossomed now  Untrampled by the dusty, weary feet;  Unbroken hung the green and golden bough,  For none came now to ask for fruit or meat,  For ghostly food, or common bread to eat;  And dreaming, praying, the monks were satisfied,  Till, God remembering him, the beggar-porter died.  When they had covered up the foolish head,  And on the foolish loving heart heaped clay,  "Which of us, brothers, now," the Abbot said,  "Will face the world, to keep the world away?"  But all their hearts were hard with prayer, and "Nay,"  They cried, "ah, bid us not our prayers to leave;  Ah, father, not to-day, for this is Easter Eve".  And, while they murmured, to their midst there came  A beggar saying, "Brothers, peace, be still!  I am your Brother, in our Father's name,  And I will be your porter, if ye will,  Guarding your gate with what I have of skill".  So all they welcomed him and closed the door,  And gat them gladly back unto their prayers once more.  But, lo! no sooner did the prayer arise,  A golden flame athwart the chancel dim,  Then came the porter crying, "Haste, arise!  A sick old man waits you to tend on him;  And many wait—a knight whose wound gapes grim,  A red-stained man, with red sins to confess,  A mother pale, who brings her child for you to bless".  The brothers hastened to the gate, and there  With unaccustomed hand and voice they tried  To ease the body's pain, the spirit's care;  But ere the task was done, the porter cried:  "Behold, the Lord sets your gate open wide,  For here be starving folk who must be fed,  And little ones that cry for love and daily bread!"  And, with each slow-foot hour, came ever a throng  Of piteous wanderers, sinful folk and sad,  And still the brothers ministered, but long  The day seemed, with no prayer to make them glad;  No holy, meditative joys they had,  No moment's brooding-place could poor prayer find,  Mid all those heart to heal and all those wounds to bind.  And when the crowded, sunlit day at last  Left the field lonely with its trampled flowers,  Into the chapel's peace the brothers passed  To quell the memory of those hurrying hours.  "Our holy time," they said, "once more is ours!  Come, let us pay our debt of prayer and praise,  Forgetting in God's light the darkness of man's ways!"  But, ere their voices reached the first psalm's end,  They heard a new, strange rustling round their house;  Then came the porter: "Here comes many a friend,  Pushing aside your budding orchard boughs;  Come, brothers, justify your holy vows.  Here be God's patient, poor, four-footed things  Seek healing at God's well, whence loving-kindness springs."  Then cried the Abbot in a vexed amaze,  "Our brethren we must aid, if 'tis God's will;  But the wild creatures of the forest ways  Himself God heals with His Almighty skill.  And charity is good, and love—but still  God shall not look in vain for the white prayers  We send on silver feet to climb the starry stairs;  "For, of all worthy things, prayer has most worth,  It rises like sweet incense up to heaven,  And from God's hand falls back upon the earth,  Being of heavenly bread the accepted leaven.  Through prayer is virtue saved and sin forgiven;  In prayer the impulse and the force are found  That bring in purple and gold the fruitful seasons round.  "For prayer comes down from heaven in the sun  That giveth life and joy to all things made;  Prayer falls in rain to make broad rivers run  And quickens the seeds in earth's brown bosom laid;  By prayer the red-hung branch is earthward weighed,  By prayer the barn grows full, and full the fold,  For by man's prayer God works his wonders manifold."  The porter seemed to bow to the reproof;  But when the echo of the night's last prayer  Died in the mystery of the vaulted roof,  A whispered memory in the hallowed air,  The Abbot turned to find him standing there.  "Brother," he said, "I have healed the woodland things  And they go happy and whole—blessing Love's ministerings,  "And, having healed them, I shall crave your leave  To leave you—for to-night I journey far.  But I have kept your gate this Easter Eve,  And now your house to heaven shines like a star  To show the Angels where God's children are;  And in this day your house has served God more  Than in the praise and prayer of all its years before.  "Yet I must leave you, though I fain would stay,  For there are other gates I go to keep  Of houses round whose walls, long day by day,  Shut out of hope and love, poor sinners weep—  Barred folds that keep out God's poor wandering sheep—  I must teach these that gates where God comes in  Must not be shut at all to pain, or want, or sin.  "The voice of prayer is very soft and weak,  And sorrow and sin have voices very strong;  Prayer is not heard in heaven when those twain speak,  The voice of prayer faints in the voice of wrong  By the just man endured—oh, Lord, how long?—  If ye would have your prayers in heaven be heard,  Look that wrong clamour not with too intense a word.  "But when true love is shed on want and sin,  Their cry is changed, and grows to such a voice  As clamours sweetly at heaven to be let in—  Such sound as makes the saints in heaven rejoice;  Pure gold of prayer, purged of the vain alloys  Of idleness—that is the sound most dear  Of all the earthly sounds God leans from heaven to hear.  "Oh, brother, I must leave thee, and for me  The work is heavy, and the burden great.  Thine be this charge I lay upon thee: See  That never again stands barred thy abbey gate;  Look that God's poor be not left desolate;  Ah me! that chidden my shepherds needs must be  When my poor wandering sheep have so great need of me.  "Brother, forgive thy Brother if he chide,  Thy Brother loves thee—and has loved—for see  The nails are in my hands, and in my side  The spear-wound; and the thorns weigh heavily  Upon my brow—brother, I died for thee—  For thee, and for my sheep that are astray,  And rose to live for thee, and them, on Easter Day!"  "My Master and my Lord!" the Abbot cried.  But, where that face had been, shone the new day;  Only on the marble by the Abbot's side,  Where those dear feet had stood, a lily lay—  A lily white for the white Easter Day.  He sought the gate—no sorrow clamoured there—  And, not till then, he dared to sink his soul in prayer.  And from that day himself he kept the gate  Wide open; and the poor from far and wide,  The weary, and wicked, and disconsolate,  Came there for succour and were not denied;  The sick were healed, the repentant sanctified;  And from their hearts rises more prayer and praise  Than ever the abbey knew in all its prayer-filled days.  And there the Heavenly vision comes no more,  Only, each Easter now, a lily sweet  Lies white and dewy on the chancel floor  Where once had stood the beloved wounded feet;  And the old Abbot feels the nearing beat  Of wings that bring him leave at last to go  And meet his Master, where the immortal lilies grow.VIA AMORISI  IT is not Love, this beautiful unrest,  This tremor of longing that invades my breast:  For Love is in his grave this many a year,  He will not rise—I do not wish him here.  It is not memory, for your face and eyes  Are not reflected where that dark pool lies:  It is not hope, for life makes no amends,  And hope and I are long no longer friends:  It is a ghost out of another Spring  It needs but little for its comforting—  That I should hold your hand and see your face  And muse a little in this quiet place,  Where, through the silence, I can hear you sigh  And feel you sadden, O Virgin Mystery,  And know my thought has in your thought begot  Sadness, its child, and that you know it not.II  If this were Love, if all this bitter pain  Were but the birth-pang of Love born again,  If through the doubts and dreams resolved, smiled  The prophetic promise of the holy child,  What should I gain? The Love whose dream-lips smiled  Could never be my own and only child,  But to Love's birth would come, with the last pain,  Renunciation, also born again.III  If this were Love why should I turn away?  Am I not, too, made of the common clay?  Is life so fair, am I so fortunate,  I can refuse the capricious gift of Fate,  The sudden glory, the unhoped-for flowers,  The transfiguration of my earthly hours?  Come, Love! the house is garnished and is swept,  Washed clean with all the tears that I have wept,  Washed from the stain of my unworthy fears,  Hung with the splendid spoils of wasted years,  Lighted with lamps of hope, and curtained fast  Against the gathered darkness of the past.  I draw the bolts! I throw the portals wide,  The darkness rushes shivering to my side,  Love is not here—the darkness creeps about  My house wherein the lamps of hope die out.  Ah Love! it was not then your hand that came  Beating my door? your voice that called my name?IV  "It is not Love, it is not Love," I said,  And bowed in fearful hope my trembling head.  "It is not Love, for Love could never rise  Out of the rock-hewn grave wherein he lies."  But as I spake, the heavenly form drew near  Where close I clasped a hope grown keen as fear,  Upon my head His very hand He laid  And whispered, "It is I, be not afraid!"V  And this is Love, no rose-crowned laughing guest  By whom my passionate heart should be caressed,  But one re-risen from the grave; austere,  Cold as the grave, and infinitely dear,  To follow whom I lay the whole world down,  Take up the cross, bind on the thorny crown;  And, following whom, my bleeding pilgrim feet  Find the rough pathway sure and very sweet.  The august environment of mighty wings  Shuts out the snare of vain imaginings,  For by my side, crowned with Love's death-white rose,  The Angel of Renunciation goes.RETRO SATHANAS  "REFUSE, refrain: for this is not the love  The Annunciation Angel warned you of;  This is the little candle, not the sun;  It burns, but will not warm, unhappy one!"  "But ah! suppose the sun should never shine,  Then what an anguish of regret were mine  To know that even from this I turned away!  Candles may serve, if there should be no day."  "Nay, better to go cold your whole life long  Than do the sun, than do your soul such wrong:  And if the sun shine not, be life's the blame  And yours the pride, who scorned the meaner flame."THE OLD DISPENSATION  O THOU, who, high in heaven,  To man hast given  This clouded earthly life  All storm and strife,  Blasted with ice and fire,  Love and desire,  Filled with dead faith, and love  That change is master of—  O Thou, who mightest have given  To all Thy heaven,  But who, instead, didst give  This life we live—  Who feedest with blood and tears  The hungry years—  I make one prayer to Thee,  O Great God! grant it me.  Some day when summer shows  Her leaf, her rose,  God, let Thy sinner lie  Under Thy sky,  And feel Thy sun's large grace  Upon his face;  Then grant him this, that he  May not believe in Thee!THE NEW DISPENSATION  OUT in the sun the buttercups are gold,  The daisies silver all the grassy lane,  And spring has given love a flower to hold,  And love lays blindness on the eyes of pain.  Within are still, chill aisles and blazoned panes  And carven tombs where memory weeps no more.  And from the lost and holy days remains  One saint beside the long-closed western door.  Outside the world goes laughing lest it weep,  With here and there some happy child at play;  A mother worshipping the babe asleep,  Or two young lovers dreaming 'neath the May.  Within, the soul of love broods o'er the place;  The carven saint forgotten many a year  Still lifts to heaven his rapt adoring face  To pray, for those who leave him lonely here,  That once again the silent church may ring  With songs of joy triumphant over pain—  Ah! God, who makest the miracle of spring  Make Thou dead faith and love to rise again.THE THREE KINGS  WHEN the star in the East was lit to shine  The three kings journeyed to Palestine;  They came from the uttermost parts of earth  With long trains laden with gifts of worth.  The first king rode on a camel's back,  He came from the land where the kings are black,  Bringing treasures desired of kings,  Rubies and ivory and precious things.  An elephant carried the second king,  He came from the land of the sun-rising,  And gems and gold and spices he bare  With broidered raiment for kings to wear.  The third king came without steed or train  From the misty land where the white kings reign.  He bore no gifts save the myrrh in his hand,  For he came on foot from a far-off land.  Now when they had travelled a-many days  Through tangled forests and desert ways,  By angry seas and by paths thorn-set  On Christmas Vigil the three kings met.  And over their meeting a shrouded sky  Made dark the star they had travelled by.  Then the first king spake and he frowned and said:  "By some ill spell have our feet been led,  "Now I see in the darkness the fools we are  To follow the light of a lying star.  "Let us fool no more, but like kings and men  Each get him home to his land again!"  Then the second king with the weary face,  Gold-tinct as the sun of his reigning place,  Lifted sad eyes to the clouds and said,  "It was but a dream and the dream is sped.  "We dreamed of a star that rose new and fair,  But it sets in the night of the old despair.  "Yet night is faithful though stars betray,  It will lead to our kingdoms far away."  Then spake the king who had fared alone  From the far-off kingdom, the white-hung throne:  "O brothers, brothers, so very far  Ye have followed the light of the radiant star,  "And because for a while ye see it not  Shall its faithful shining be all forgot?  "On the spirit's pathway the light still lies  Though the star be hid from our longing eyes.  "To-morrow our star will be bright once more  The little pin-hole in heaven's floor—  "The Angels pricked it to let it bring  Our feet to the throne of the new-born King!"  And the first king heard and the second heard  And their hearts grew humble before the third.  And they laid them down beside bale and beast  and their sleeping eyes saw light in the East.  For the Angels fanned them with starry wings  And the waft of visions of unseen things.  And the next gold day waned trembling and white  And the star was born of the waxing night.  And the three kings came where the Great King lay,  A little baby among the hay,  The ox and the ass were standing near  And Mary Mother beside her Dear.  Then low in the litter the kings bowed down,  They gave Him gold for a kingly crown,  And frankincense for a great God's breath  and Myrrh to sweeten the day of death.  The Maiden Mother she stood and smiled  And she took from the manger her little child.  On the dark king's head she laid His hand  And anger died at that dear command.  She laid His hand on the gold king's head  And despair itself was comforted.  But when the pale king knelt in the stall  She heard on the straw his tears down fall.  And she stooped where he knelt beside her feet  And laid on his bosom her baby sweet.  And the king in the holy stable-place  Felt the little lips through the tears on his face.* * * * * * *  Christ! lay Thy hand on the angry king  Who reigns in my breast to my undoing,  And lay thy hands on the king who lays  The spell of sadness on all my days,  And give the white king my soul, Thy soul,  Of these other kings the high control.  That soul and spirit and sense may meet  In adoration before Thy feet!  Now Glory to God the Father Most High,  And the Star, the Spirit, He leads us by.  And to God's dear Son, the Babe who was born  And laid in the manger on Christmas morn!

IX

AFTER DEATH  IF we must part, this parting is the best:  How would you bear to lay  Your head on some warm pillow far away—  Your head, so used to lying on my breast?  But now your pillow is cold;  Your hands have flowers, and not my hands, to hold;  Upon our bed the worn bride-linen lies.  I have put the death-money upon your eyes,  So that you should not wake up in the night.  I have bound your face with white;  I have washed you, yes, with water and not with tears,—  Those arms wherein I have slept so many years,  Those feet that hastened when they came to me,  And all your body that belonged to me.  I have smoothed your dear dull hair,  And there is nothing left to say for you  And nothing left to fear or pray for you;  And I have got the rest of life to bear:  Thank God it is you, not I, who are lying there.  If I had died  And you had stood beside  This still white bed  Where the white, scented, horrible flowers are spread,—  I know the thing it is,  And I thank God that He has spared you this.  If one must bear it, thank God it was I  Who had to live and bear to see you die,  Who have to live, and bear to see you dead.  You will have nothing of it all to bear:  You will not even know that in your bed  You lie alone. You will not miss my head  Beside you on the pillow: you will rest  So soft in the grave you will not miss my breast.  But I—but I—Your pillow and your place—  And only the darkness laid against my face,  And only my anguish pressed against my side—  Thank God, thank God, that it was you who died!CHLOE  NIGHT wind sighing through the poplar leaves,  Trembling of the aspen, shivering of the willow,  Every leafy voice of all the night-time grieves,  Mourning, weeping over Chloe's pillow.  Chloe, fresher than the breeze of dawn,  Fairer than the larches in their young spring glory,  Brighter than the glow-worms on the dewy lawn,  Hear the dirge the green trees sing to end your story:—  "Chloe lived and Chloe loved: she brought new gladness,  Hope and life and all things good to all who met her;  Only, dying, wept to know the lifelong sadness  Willed, against her will, to those who can't forget her."INVOCATION  COME to-night in a dream to-night,  Come as you used to do,  Come in the gown, in the gown of white,  Come in the ribbon of blue;  Come in the virgin's colours you wear,  Come through the dark and the dew,  Come with the scent of the night in your hair,  Come as you used to do.  Blue and white of your eyes and your face,  White of your gown and blue,  Will you not come from the happy place,  Come as you used to do?  Tears so many, so many tears  Where there were once so few—  Can they not wash the gray of the years  From the white of your gown and blue?THE LAST BETRAYAL  AND I shall lie alone at last,  Clear of the stream that ran so fast,  And feel the flower roots in my hair,  And in my hands the roots of trees;  Myself wrapt in the ungrudging peace  That leaves no pain uncovered anywhere.  What—this hope left? this way not barred?  This last best treasure without guard?  This heaven free—no prayers to pay?  Fool—are the Rulers of men asleep?  Thou knowest what tears They bade thee weep,  But, when peace comes, 'tis thou wilt sleep, not They.A PRAYER FOR THE KING'S MAJESTY

22nd January, 1901.

  THE Queen is dead. God save the King,  In this his hour of grief,  When sorrow gathers memories in a sheaf  To lay them on his shoulders as he stands  Inheriting her glories and her lands—  First gain of his at which his Mother's voice  Has not been first to bless and to rejoice—  A man, set lonely between gain and loss.  (O words of love the heart remembereth,  O mighty loss outweighing every gain!)  A Son whose kingdom Death's arm lies across,  A King whose Mother lies alone with Death  Wrapped in the folds of white implacable sleep.  O God, who seest the tears Thy children weep,  O God, who countest each sad heart-beat, see  How our King needs the grace we ask of Thee!  Thou knowest how little and how vain a thing  Is Empire, when the heart is sick with pain—  God, save the King!  The Queen is dead. The splendour of her days,  The sorrow of them both alike merge now  In the new aureole that lights her brow.  The clamour of her people's voice in praise  Must hush itself to the still voice that prays  In the holy chamber of Death. Tread softly here,  A mighty Queen lies dead.  Her people's heart wears black,  The black bells toll unceasing in their ear,  And on the gold sun's track  The great world round  Like a black ring the voice of mourning goes,  Till even our ancient foes  With eyes downbent, and brotherly bared head,  Keep mourning watch with us. This is the hour  When Love lends all his power  To speed grief's arrows from the bow of Death,  When sighs are idle breath,  When tears are fountains vain.  She will not wake again,  Not now, not here.  O great and good and infinitely dear,  O Mother of your people, sleep is sweet,  No more Life's thorny ways will wound your feet.  O Mother dear, sleep sound!  When you shall wake,  Your brows freed from the crown that made them ache  So many a time, and wear the heavenly crown,  Then, then you will look down  On us who love you, and, remembering,  The love of earth will breathe with us our prayer,  Our prayer prayed here, joined to your prayer prayed there:  Who knows what radiant answer it may bring?  "God save the King!"  The Queen is dead. God save the King!  From all ill thought and deed,  From heartless service and from selfish sway,  From treason, and the vain imagining  Of evil counsellors, and the noisome breed  Of flatterers who eat the soul away,  God save the King!  From loss and pain and tears  Such as her many years  Brought her; from battle and strife,  And the inmost hurt of life,  The wounds that no crown can heal,  No ermine robes conceal,  God save the King!  God, by our memories of his Mother's face,  By the love that makes our heart her dwelling-place,  Grant to our sorrow this desired grace:  God save the King!* * * * * * * * *  The Queen is dead. God save the King.  This is no hour when joy has leave to sing;  Only, amid our tears, we are bold to pray,  More boldly, in that we pray sorrowing,  In this most sorrowful day.  God, who wast of a mortal Mother born,  Who driest the tears with which Thy children mourn,  God, save the King!  Look down on him whose crown is wet with tears  In which its splendour fades and disappears—  His tears, our tears, tears out of all her lands.  The Queen is dead.  God! strengthen the King's hands!  God, save the King!TRUE LOVE AND NEW LOVE  OVER the meadow and down the lane  To the gate by the twisted thorn:  Your feet should know each turn of the way  You trod so many many a day,  Before the old love was put out of its pain,  Before the new love was born.  Kiss her, hold her and fold her close,  Tell her the old true tale:  You ought to know each turn of the phrase,—  You learned them all in the poor old days  Before the birth of the new red rose,  Before the old rose grew pale.  And do not fear I shall creep to-night  To make a third at your tryst:  My ghost, if it walked, would only wait  To scare the others away from the gate  Where you teach your new love the old delight,  With the lips that your old love kissed.DEATH  NEVER again:  No child shall stir the inmost heart of her  And teach her heaven by that first faint stir;  No little lips shall lie against her breast  Save the cold lips that now lie there at rest;  No little voice shall rouse her from her sleep  And bid her wake to pain:  Her sleep is calm and deep,  Call not! refrain.  Close in her arm  As though even death drew back before the face  Of Motherhood in this white stilly place,  The gathered bud lies waxen white and cold,  As ever a flower your winter gardens hold.  She bore the pain, she never wore the crown,  She worked the bitter charm,  But all she won thereby is here laid down  Renounced—for good or harm.  Dream? Feed your soul  With dreams, while we must starve our hearts on clay,  Dream of a glorious white-winged sun-crowned day  When you shall see her once more face to face  Beside Christ's Mother in the blessed place!  But while you dream, they carry her from here,  The black bells toll and toll.  Oh God! if only she cannot see or hear,  Not hear those ghoul-like bells that crowd so near,  Not see that cold clay hole.IN MEMORY OF SARETTA DEAKIN

Who Died on October 25th, 1899.