The Three Hills, and Other Poems
Moveless in ecstasy, a sudden light Breaks in our eyes, and we discover We sit at windows gazing to the night. Wistful and tired, with eyes a-tingle Where still the sting of Beauty faintly smarts, But with our mute regrets there mingle Thanks for the resurrection of our hearts. O night so great that will not mock us! O stars so wise that understand the weak! O vast consoling hands that rock us! O strong and perfect tongues that speak! O night enrobed in azure splendour! O whispering stars whose radiance falls like dew! O mighty presences and tender, You have given us back the dreams our childhood knew! Lulled by your visions without number, We seek our beds content and void of pain, And dreaming drowse and dreaming slumber And dreaming wake to see the day again. A MEMORIAL  (F.T.)   The cord broke, and the tent Slipped, and the silken roof Lay prone beneath the viewless hoof Of the deliberate firmament. Yet cared we not; how should we care? Knowing that labourless now he breathes A golden paradisal air Where with more certain craft he wreathes Bright braids of words more wise and fair Than ever his earthly fabrics were, That his unwavering eyes made fresh, Purged and regarbed in fadeless flesh, What he then darkly guessed behold, And watch with an abiding joy The eternal mysteries unfold Which do his now transfigured songs evermore employ. Brother, yet great thy power; Thou stood'st as on a tower Small 'neath the stars yet high above the fields; In thy alembic song Imagination strong Distilled what essences the quest to mortals yields. This thy reward well-won, For every morning's sun Found thy heart's firm allegiance still unshaken; No temporal ache or smart Drave Beauty from thy heart, And by thy mighty mistress never wast forsaken. Yes; for though stringent was the test, When that thy trial was bitterest, Steadfast thou did'st remain; unshod The harrows of Pain thy feet once trod, Humiliate as thy sad song tells Before the vault's white sentinels. Friendless and faint thou sojourned'st there, A bowed, brave, timid wanderer, A lonely nomad of the spirit, Who did a triple curse inherit, Hunger, regret and memory. Yet never did they vanquish thee; When nighest broken, most alone, Thy unassuagèd thoughts could clamber To beauty on her ageless throne; Thou wert as one in torture chamber Who sees the blue through an open casement And hammers his soul to endure the time Of his corporeal abasement; Nor writhed'st at thine or others' fault, But with grim tenderness did salt Thy cicatrices with a rhyme. Not the most sable flame of gloom Could penetrate thy inmost room; But through the walls thy spirit sucked Into that cloistral hermitage Stray lovely things, moonbeams and snows The far sky shed into thy cage, And, from the very gutter plucked, A lost 
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