The Man to the Angel

I have wept a million tears;
        Pure and proud one, where are thine? 
What the gain of all your years
        That undimmed in beauty shine?

All your beauty cannot win
        Truth we learn in pain and sighs;
You can never enter in
        To the Circle of the Wise.

They are but the slaves of light
        Who have never known the gloom,
And between the dark and bright
        Willed in freedom their own doom.

Think not in your pureness there
        That our pain but follows sin;
There are fires for those who dare
        Seek the Throne of Might to win.

Pure one, from your pride refrain;
        Dark and lost amid the strife,
I am myriad years of pain
        Nearer to the fount of life.

When defiance fierce is thrown
        At the God to whom you bow,
Rest the lips of the Unknown
        Tenderest upon the brow.

—­September 15, 1894

Songs of Olden Magic—­II.

The Robing of the King
—­“His candle shined upon my head, and by his light I walked
through darkness.”—­Job, xxix. 3

On the bird of air blue-breasted
        glint the rays of gold,
And a shadowy fleece above us
        waves the forest old,
Far through rumorous leagues of midnight
        stirred by breezes warm. 
See the old ascetic yonder,
        Ah, poor withered form! 
Where he crouches wrinkled over
        by unnumbered years
Through the leaves the flakes of moonfire
        fall like phantom tears. 
At the dawn a kingly hunter
        passed proud disdain,
Like a rainbow-torrent scattered
        flashed his royal train. 
Now the lonely one unheeded
        seeks earth’s caverns dim,
Never king or princes will robe them
        radiantly as him. 
Mid the deep enfolding darkness,
        follow him, oh seer,
While the arrow will is piercing
        fiery sphere on sphere. 
Through the blackness leaps and sparkles
        gold and amethyst,
Curling, jetting and dissolving
        in a rainbow mist. 
In the jewel glow and lunar
        radiance rise there
One, a morning star in beauty,
        young, immortal, fair. 
Sealed in heavy sleep, the spirit
        leaves its faded dress,
Unto fiery youth returning
        out of weariness. 
Music as for one departing,
        joy as for a king,
Sound and swell, and hark! above him
        cymbals triumphing. 
Fire an aureole encircling
        suns his brow with gold
Like to one who hails the morning
        on the mountains old. 
Open mightier vistas changing
        human loves to scorns,
And the spears of glory pierce him
        like a Crown of Thorns. 
As the sparry rays dilating
        o’er his forehead climb