The Sunlit Hours

Oh, thou the ever new, the ever old! Who earnest forth to me from deeps of self Ardour between thy hands and joy untold.

I breathe a scent of faint familiar flow'rs Within thy heart that sleep; And thirsty memory drinks deep Of kindred echoes from past years of ours; At the same instants in our childhood, tears, Unknowing, we have wept; We must have known like gladness and like fears, Like trysts with grief have kept; Long since was I bound to thee as thine own By One who came, inscrutable, unknown, Upon my life's adventurous battle field. Oh! had I searched His face, forgetting fear, I should have known thine eyes this many a year, That there between his eyelids were reveal'd!

Iv

The night, unfolding, banishes the day; The moon seems, in its long survey, To brood upon the sleeping silences; All the air is pure and clear, Pure and pale afar and near, And clear the waters in the friendly mead; What agony is in the slow And steady drip of water from a reed, That sounds and then is hushed below!

But in my hands thy hands I hold; Thy steadfast eyes enfold Mine eyes; I see Thy peace like purest water undefiled By cloudy fear, undimmed by hovering wraith Of doubt, and oh, I see The perfect faith That rests within us like a sleeping child.

V

Remembering thy gracious gift to me, So simple, so profound, My wondering heart is lost in prayer to thee. How long it seemed before I, groping, found And knocked at thy heart's door; And from how far I came at last to thee Whose hands were stretched in silent search for me. My heart was eaten by corroding rust That preyed upon my strength, Defiled my trust; I was weary, I was old with long mistrust, I sickened of the roadway's empty length. When thy feet wandered into my life's way They brought a joy so exquisite to me That, trembling and in tears, I can but stay To worship silently.

Vi

At times thou art the spacious light and air Of all this tranquil morning garden, where Sinuous paths wind in the blue haze Like swans upon the deep blue water-ways. At other times thou art the shivering wind Exultant, cool, Who passes, running fingers light and kind Along the clear brow of the pool. When with thy two hands thou touchest me, I feel the brushing of cool leaves Against my cheek; When midday cleaves The dimness, all the shadows secretly Meditate the words that thou didst speak. So all the hours pass by some sweet grace Of thine, into my heart; And when at last the wan night comes apace And rapt in sleep and still, apart, Thy spirit lies, Feel thro' thy closed eyelids how mine eyes Dwell on thee with a love beyond compare, More humble and more clinging than a prayer.

Vii

Oh, let it knock upon our door, That hand that taps with futile touch; We have our joy, the rest--what can it offer more? The rest with futile, listless touch? Let them pass our door, The wearied, mirthless joys With their tinsel and their toys. Let laughter rise and sound and disappear; The crowd move on with million voices clear.

The moment is so fair with light In this garden all about; The moment is so rare with new-born light Deep within us and without! Ah, 'tis the part of wisdom, dear; No longer seek we those who go By the long highway drear, With heavy feet and singing low. But stay we here, contented as of old, Though night itself strike out the sky above, Loving within us the idea we hold Of this most wondrous, steadfast thing, our love.

Viii

I have given all my heart to thee As simply as a child Giving a dewy flower, fresh and wild; I pressed it to my lips and gave it thee-- I broke the flower's stem with burning hand; Speak not, for words may hurt; but with thine eyes Speak to my soul that it may understand.

The flow'r that is my heart, my sacrifice, Tells thee quite simply that one must Confide in virgin love, as children trust In God who is so good and great and wise.

Let the bold spirit revel in the hills In wilful dalliance and vanity, But let us worship in simplicity The very truth that holds our hearts and wills; Nor can love be more fully said Than when soul speaks to soul at night, and overhead The innumerable silent stars like eyes Burn each on each, A speaking that surpasses speech, Amid the barkening silence of the skies.

Ix

The youthful spring with wondrous might Bursts out in all its clarity Upon our wistful words and sight, And bathes them deep in purity. The wind and the slender lips of the flowers, Trembling, scatter abroad in showers Their syllables of light.

But the soul of us will not be caught Within the chains that language wrought; One simple flight of spirit doth enshrine, Better than word or fitful thought, Our joy in its abiding place divine,-- That heaven of thine wherein thy soul Kneels gently down to mine, And that where wistfully my soul Kneels humbly there to thine.

X

Come out into the garden fair Where now the brooding eve Has closed the flowers with its tranquil light, And in thy soul let sink the peaceful night; For no longer may its gloom achieve To trouble our deep prayer.

Above, the crystal stars are shining forth With light translucent and more pure Than ever came from out the frozen North; Beyond them all, the peaceful skies endure.

The million voices of this mystery Murmur around thee, The million laws of nature's realm Are stirring about thee. The silver tides from all the universe o'erwhelm Thy heart, but thou hast naught of fear or strife, For thy soul knows--it is that love may be, The love that is the work of life And its mystery in thee.

Take then this peace the skies have sent, And lay it to thy soul, since fear has gone, This peace that floats, like some strange dawn, Across the midnight of the firmament.

Xi

How swiftly is she caught in ecstasy, With her clear eyes of leaping flame; She, so sweet with clarity, Meek before life's sternest claim. This eve how sudden fervour rayed Her eyes! A simple word did entrance yield To the garden where she stood revealed Both queen and serving maid! So meek herself, but for us two on fire; To her must kneel whoever doth desire The harvest of that joy that rolls From out our two surchargèd souls. We heard exulting love within us seek The quiet refuge of our hearts once more, And the living silence speak Words we dreamed not of before!

Xii

At that time when in loneliness I stood, And desolation deep within me froze My life, you shone from out the multitude-- A glowing window on a winter eve Across the windy surface of the snows. Your piteous heart brought sweet reprieve, Caressingly, to me in need, Like breath of spring from off some warmèd mead. And faith did then command That frankness, tenderness and troth Should dwell with friendly hand in hand Within the wind-hushed stillness of us both. Since then, though summer melts the winter cold Within, and under skies whose leaping fire Designs with gold All the winding pathways of our thought; Though flaming love itself is brought To far-flung blossoms of desire, That endlessly, to gain in might, Seek endless birth anew; Always I look to that dear light Whose sweetness first I knew.

Xiii

Of what avail the hectic reasoning Of what we were and what we may attain? All doubt is dead within this close where spring Unfolds within us far from life and pain. I reason not, nor do I seek to know, For naught can trouble that within whose scope Are all of sweet impulse and sudden fervour's glow, And tranquil flight to sanctuaried hope. Before I knew, I felt thy clarity; And 'tis my joy above All else to fill my heart with love Nor question why thy voice so calls to me. Come, let our hearts be true--the day insure To us the tenderness without the strife, And let them say that life Was never made to reach a love so pure.

Xiv

Quietly, like stately queens of old Who, step by languid step, descend the stairs of gold In fairy tales, thou movest in my dream; Names I give thee, such as must beseem All beauty and all radiance; names that soothe, Resounding silken-smooth, Sounds that wind and waver, glide and glance, Weaving my poems, as in subtle dance.

Ah, but how soon I leave this play When I behold thy wistful way, Thine unadorned, profoundly wistful way; Thy forehead unafraid and calmer than the day, Thy peaceful child-like hands laid open on thy knees, Thy breathing bosom and the dreamful ease That on thy deep and limpid spirit lies. How useless and how little in the sight Of this are all things--all things, save the naked light That wells up from thy heart and gathers in thine eyes.

Xv

To all thy smiles and tears My sweetest thoughts I give, Those from a brimming heart, And those that live Too deep for language to impart.

To all thy smiles and tears, And to thy soul, my soul, With all its smiles and tears, And its caress.

See thou, how dawn has blanched all the earth, The shades of gloom seem put to flight, To vanish comfortless; The lonely lakes have caught the morning's light, The wet flow'rs glisten and are filled with mirth, And the golden woods have swept away the night.

Oh, that I might at last Enter upon the joyous way, Oh, that I might at last, With a victor's joy and a victor's pride, And thou by my side-- Oh, that I might at last Enter with thee into love's full day!

Xvi

I bathe in thy two eyes my soul entire, As tho' in purest water it were laid, And in their sanctities I quench its fire That tempered and more keen it may be made. Oh, to join in utter purity, As two stain'd windows, smitten by the sun, Mingle their lights in separate clarity And melt to one!

I am sometimes impatient of my lot As being one who has not and can not Attain the perfectness he would espouse; My heart beats on the bars that are its vows-- My heart whose evil blossoms push their way Between the rocks of blind brutality And flaunt shamefacedly Their swarthy flow'rs in sinister array. My heart so false--so true--as change the years, My heart of very contradiction made-- Exaggerating heart where merge and shade Immensities of joy and startl'd fears.

Xvii

That love within our eyes may be Uttered with all clarity; Oh, let us cleanse our looks from those That chose The way of life's brutality.

The dawn has flowered in red and gold, Strange softened light And mist; It seems as though some tender down of gold And silver through the twilight kissed, With dim caresses, all our garden-ways; Our mysterious lake displays Its trembling sheen of golden light; Beneath the trees swoon birds in emerald flight; And dawn, from off the gloomy plain, the hillside steep, Doth sweep The last grey ashes of unwilling night.