THE MUSIC

LOVE IS ENOUGH

Enter before the curtain, LOVE, holding a crown and palm-branch.

If love be real, if I whom ye behold Be aught but glittering wings and gown of gold, Be aught but singing of an ancient song Made sweet by record of dead stingless wrong, How shall we part at that sad garden's end Through which the ghosts of mighty lovers wend? How shall ye faint and fade with giftless hands Who once held fast the life of all the lands?     —Beloved, if so much as this I say, I know full well ye need it not to-day, As with full hearts and glorious hope ablaze Through the thick veil of what shall be ye gaze, And lacking words to name the things ye see Turn back with yearning speechless mouths to me.—     —Ah, not to-day—and yet the time has been When by the bed my wings have waved unseen Wherein my servant lay who deemed me dead; My tears have dropped anigh the hapless head Deep buried in the grass and crying out For heaven to fall, and end despair or doubt:     Lo, for such days I speak and say, believe That from these hands reward ye shall receive.     —Reward of what?—Life springing fresh again.—     Life of delight?—I say it not—Of pain? It may be—Pain eternal?—Who may tell? Yet pain of Heaven, beloved, and not of Hell.     —What sign, what sign, ye cry, that so it is? The sign of Earth, its sorrow and its bliss, Waxing and waning, steadfastness and change; Too full of life that I should think it strange Though death hang over it; too sure to die But I must deem its resurrection nigh.     —In what wise, ah, in what wise shall it be? How shall the bark that girds the winter tree Babble about the sap that sleeps beneath, And tell the fashion of its life and death? How shall my tongue in speech man's longing wrought Tell of the things whereof he knoweth nought? Should I essay it might ye understand How those I love shall share my promised land! Then must I speak of little things as great, Then must I tell of love and call it hate, Then must I bid you seek what all men shun, Reward defeat, praise deeds that were not done.

Have faith, and crave and suffer, and all ye The many mansions of my house shall see In all content: cast shame and pride away, Let honour gild the world's eventless day, Shrink not from change, and shudder not at crime, Leave lies to rattle in the sieve of Time! Then, whatsoe'er your workday gear shall stain, Of me a wedding-garment shall ye gain No God 

 Prev. P 47/54 next