| I FLED Him, down the nights and down the days; |
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| I fled Him, down the arches of the years; |
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| I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways |
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| Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears |
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| I hid from Him, and under running laughter. |
5 |
| Up vistaed hopes I sped; |
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| And shot, precipitated, |
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| Adown Titanic glooms of chasmèd fears, |
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| From those strong Feet that followed, followed after. |
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| But with unhurrying chase, |
10 |
| And unperturbèd pace, |
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| Deliberate speed, majestic instancy, |
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| They beat—and a Voice beat |
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| More instant than the Feet— |
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| ‘All things betray thee, who betrayest Me.’ |
15 |
|
| I pleaded, outlaw-wise, |
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| By many a hearted casement, curtained red, |
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| Trellised with intertwining charities; |
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| (For, though I knew His love Who followèd, |
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| Yet was I sore adread |
20 |
| Lest, having Him, I must have naught beside). |
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| But, if one little casement parted wide, |
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| The gust of His approach would clash it to. |
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| Fear wist not to evade, as Love wist to pursue. |
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| Across the margent of the world I fled, |
25 |
| And troubled the gold gateways of the stars, |
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| Smiting for shelter on their clangèd bars; |
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| Fretted to dulcet jars |
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| And silvern chatter the pale ports o’ the moon. |
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| I said to Dawn: Be sudden—to Eve: Be soon; |
30 |
| With thy young skiey blossoms heap me over |
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| From this tremendous Lover— |
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| Float thy vague veil about me, lest He see! |
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| I tempted all His servitors, but to find |
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| My own betrayal in their constancy, |
35 |
| In faith to Him their fickleness to me, |
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| Their traitorous trueness, and their loyal deceit. |
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| To all swift things for swiftness did I sue; |
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| Clung to the whistling mane of every wind. |
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| But whether they swept, smoothly fleet, |
40 |
| The long savannahs of the blue; |
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| Or whether, Thunder-driven, |
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| They clanged his chariot ’thwart a heaven, |
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| Plashy with flying lightnings round the spurn o’ their feet:— |
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| Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue. |
45 |
| Still with unhurrying chase, |
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| And unperturbèd pace, |
|
| Deliberate speed, majestic instancy, |
|
| Came on the following Feet, |
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| And a Voice above their beat— |
50 |
| ‘Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me.’ |
|
|
| I sought no more that after which I strayed |
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| In face of man or maid; |
|
| But still within the little children’s eyes |
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| Seems something, something that replies, |
55 |
| They at least are for me, surely for me! |
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| I turned me to them very wistfully; |
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| But just as their young eyes grew sudden fair |
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| With dawning answers there, |
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| Their angel plucked them from me by the hair. |
60 |
| ‘Come then, ye other children, Nature’s—share |
|
| With me’ (said I) ‘your delicate fellowship; |
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| Let me greet you lip to lip, |
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| Let me twine with you caresses, |
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| Wantoning |
65 |
| With our Lady-Mother’s vagrant tresses, |
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| Banqueting |
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| With her in her wind-walled palace, |
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| Underneath her azured daïs, |
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| Quaffing, as your taintless way is, |
70 |
| From a chalice |
|
| Lucent-weeping out of the dayspring.’ |
|
| So it was done: |
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| I in their delicate fellowship was one— |
|
| Drew the bolt of Nature’s secrecies. |
75 |
| I knew all the swift importings |
|
| On the wilful face of skies; |
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| I knew how the clouds arise |
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| Spumèd of the wild sea-snortings; |
|
| All that’s born or dies |
80 |
| Rose and drooped with; made them shapers |
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| Of mine own moods, or wailful or divine; |
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| With them joyed and was bereaven. |
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| I was heavy with the even, |
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| When she lit her glimmering tapers |
85 |
| Round the day’s dead sanctities. |
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| I laughed in the morning’s eyes. |
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| I triumphed and I saddened with all weather, |
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| Heaven and I wept together, |
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| And its sweet tears were salt with mortal mine; |
90 |
| Against the red throb of its sunset-heart |
|
| I laid my own to beat, |
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| And share commingling heat; |
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| But not by that, by that, was eased my human smart. |
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| In vain my tears were wet on Heaven’s grey cheek. |
95 |
| For ah! we know not what each other says, |
|
| These things and I; in sound I speak— |
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| Their sound is but their stir, they speak by silences. |
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| Nature, poor stepdame, cannot slake my drouth; |
|
| Let her, if she would owe me, |
100 |
| Drop yon blue bosom-veil of sky, and show me |
|
| The breasts o’ her tenderness: |
|
| Never did any milk of hers once bless |
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| My thirsting mouth. |
|
| Nigh and nigh draws the chase, |
105 |
| 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!’ |
110 |
| Naked I wait Thy love’s uplifted stroke! |
|
| My harness piece by piece Thou hast hewn from me, |
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| And smitten me to my knee; |
|
| I am defenceless utterly. |
|
| I slept, methinks, and woke, |
115 |
| 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— |
120 |
| My mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap. |
|
| My days have crackled and gone up in smoke, |
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| Have puffed and burst as sun-starts on a stream. |
|
| Yea, faileth now even dream |
|
| The dreamer, and the lute the lutanist; |
125 |
| 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 |
130 |
| 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? |
135 |
| 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. |
140 |
| 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; |
145 |
| 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; |
150 |
| 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 |
155 |
| 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! |
160 |
| 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— |
165 |
| 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? |
170 |
| 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: |
175 |
| 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, |
180 |
| I am He Whom thou seekest! |
|
| Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me.’ |
