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Title: Dymer

Author: C. S. Lewis

Release date: February 22, 2023 [eBook #70106]

Language: English

Original publication: United States: E. P. Dutton & Company

Credits: Tim Lindell, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DYMER ***





[Illustration:

  DYMER

  BY CLIVE
  HAMILTON

  NEW YORK
  E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY]




  Copyright, 1926
  By E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY

  _All rights reserved_

  _Printed in the United States of America_




DYMER

  “Nine nights I hung upon the Tree, wounded with the spear, as an
  offering to Odin, myself sacrificed to myself.”--_Havamal._




CONTENTS


  CANTO           PAGE

     I.              1

    II.             12

   III.             24

    IV.             36

     V.             49

    VI.             60

   VII.             73

  VIII.             85

    IX.             94




DYMER




DYMER




CANTO I


1

  You stranger, long before your glance can light
  Upon these words, time will have washed away
  The moment when I first took pen to write,
  With all my road before me--yet to-day,
  Here, if at all, we meet; the unfashioned clay
  Ready to both our hands; both hushed to see
  That which is nowhere yet come forth and be.


2

  This moment, if you join me, we begin
  A partnership where both must toil to hold
  The clue that I caught first. We lose or win
  Together; if you read, you are enrolled.
  And first, a marvel--Who could have foretold
  That in the city which men called in scorn
  The Perfect City, Dymer could be born?


3

  There you’d have thought the gods were smothered down
  Forever, and the keys were turned on fate.
  No hour was left unchartered in that town,
  And love was in a schedule and the State
  Chose for eugenic reasons who should mate
  With whom, and when. Each idle song and dance
  Was fixed by law and nothing left to chance.


4

  For some of the last Platonists had founded
  That city of old. And mastery they made
  An island of what ought to be, surrounded
  By this gross world of easier light and shade.
  All answering to the master’s dream they laid
  The strong foundations, torturing into stone
  Each bubble that the Academy had blown.


5

  This people were so pure, so law-abiding,
  So logical, they made the heavens afraid:
  They sent the very swallows into hiding
  By their appalling chastity dismayed:
  More soberly the lambs in springtime played
  Because of them: and ghosts dissolved in shame
  Before their common-sense--till Dymer came.


6

  At Dymer’s birth no comets scared the nation,
  The public crèche engulfed him with the rest,
  And twenty separate Boards of Education
  Closed round him. He was passed through every test,
  Was vaccinated, numbered, washed and dressed,
  Proctored, inspected, whipt, examined weekly,
  And for some nineteen years he bore it meekly.


7

  For nineteen years they worked upon his soul,
  Refining, chipping, moulding and adorning.
  Then came the moment that undid the whole--
  The ripple of rude life without a warning.
  It came in lecture-time one April morning
  --Alas for laws and locks, reproach and praise,
  Who ever learned to censor the spring days?


8

  A little breeze came stirring to his cheek.
  He looked up to the window. A brown bird
  Perched on the sill, bent down to whet his beak
  With darting head--Poor Dymer watched and stirred
  Uneasily. The lecturer’s voice he heard
  Still droning from the dais. The narrow room
  Was drowsy, over-solemn, filled with gloom.


9

  He yawned, and a voluptuous laziness
  Tingled down all his spine and loosed his knees,
  Slow-drawn, like an invisible caress.
  He laughed--The lecturer stopped like one that sees
  A Ghost, then frowned and murmured, “Silence, please.”
  That moment saw the soul of Dymer hang
  In the balance--Louder then his laughter rang.


10

  The whole room watched with unbelieving awe,
  He rose and staggered rising. From his lips
  Broke yet again the idiot-like guffaw.
  He felt the spirit in his finger-tips,
  Then swinging his right arm--a wide ellipse
  Yet lazily--he struck the lecturer’s head.
  The old man tittered, lurched and dropt down dead.


11

  Out of the silent room, out of the dark
  Into the sum-stream Dymer passed, and there
  The sudden breezes, the high hanging lark
  The milk-white clouds sailing in polished air,
  Suddenly flashed about him like a blare
  Of trumpets. And no cry was raised behind him.
  His class sat dazed. They dared not go to find him.


12

  Yet wonderfully some rumour spread abroad--
  An inarticulate sense of life renewing
  In each young heart--He whistled down the road:
  Men said: “There’s Dymer”--“Why, what’s Dymer doing?”
  “I don’t know”--“Look, there’s Dymer,”--far pursuing
  With troubled eyes--A long mysterious “Oh”
  Sighed from a hundred throats to see him go.


13

  Down the white street and past the gate and forth
  Beyond the wall he came to grassy places.
  There was a shifting wind to West and North
  With clouds in heeling squadron running races.
  The shadows following on the sunlight’s traces
  Crossed the whole field and each wild flower within it
  With change of wavering glories every minute.


14

  There was a river, flushed with rains, between
  The flat fields and a forest’s willowy edge.
  A sauntering pace he shuffled on the green,
  He kicked his boots against the crackly sedge
  And tore his hands in many a furzy hedge.
  He saw his feet and ankles gilded round
  With buttercups that carpeted the ground.


15

  He looked back then. The line of a low hill
  Had hid the city’s towers and domes from sight;
  He stopt: he felt a break of sunlight spill
  Around him sudden waves of searching light.
  Upon the earth was green, and gold, and white
  Smothering his feet. He felt his city dress
  An insult to that April cheerfulness.


16

  He said: “I’ve worn this dust heap long enough,
  Here goes!” And forthwith in the open field
  He stripped away that prison of sad stuff:
  Socks, jacket, shirt and breeches off he peeled
  And rose up mother-naked with no shield
  Against the sun: then stood awhile to play
  With bare toes dabbling in cold river clay.


17

  Forward again, and sometimes leaping high
  With arms outspread as though he would embrace
  In one act all the circle of the sky:
  Sometimes he rested in a leafier place,
  And crushed the wet, cool flowers against his face:
  And once he cried aloud, “Oh world, oh day,
  Let, let me,”--and then found no prayer to say.


18

  Up furrows still unpierced with earliest crop
  He marched. Through woods he strolled from flower to flower,
  And over hills. As ointment drop by drop
  Preciously meted out, so hour by hour
  The day slipped through his hands: and now the power
  Failed in his feet from walking. He was done,
  Hungry and cold. That moment sank the sun.


19

  He lingered--Looking up, he saw ahead
  The black and bristling frontage of a wood
  And over it the large sky swimming red
  Freckled with homeward crows. Surprised he stood
  To feel that wideness quenching his hot mood,
  Then shouted, “Trembling darkness, trembling green,
  What do you mean, wild wood, what do you mean?”


20

  He shouted. But the solitude received
  His noise into her noiselessness, his fire
  Into her calm. Perhaps he half believed
  Some answer yet would come to his desire.
  The hushed air quivered softly like a wire
  Upon his voice. It echoed, it was gone:
  The quiet and the quiet dark went on.


21

  He rushed into the wood. He struck and stumbled
  On hidden roots. He groped and scratched his face.
  The little birds woke chattering where he fumbled.
  The stray cat stood, paw lifted, in mid-chase.
  There is a windless calm in such a place.
  A sense of being indoors--so crowded stand
  The living trees, watching on every hand:


22

  A sense of trespass--such as in the hall
  Of the wrong house, one time, to me befell.
  Groping between the hatstand and the wall--
  A clear voice from above me like a bell,
  The sweet voice of a woman asking “Well?”
  No more than this. And as I fled I wondered
  Into whose alien story I had blundered.


23

  A like thing fell to Dymer. Bending low,
  Feeling his way he went. The curtained air
  Sighed into sound above his head, as though
  Stringed instruments and horns were riding there.
  It passed and at its passing stirred his hair.
  He stood intent to hear. He heard again
  And checked his breath half-drawn, as if with pain.


24

  That music could have crumbled proud belief
  With doubt, or in the bosom of the sage
  Madden the heart that had outmastered grief,
  And flood with tears the eyes of frozen age
  And turn the young man’s feet to pilgrimage--
  So sharp it was, so sure a path it found,
  Soulward with stabbing wounds of bitter sound.


25

  It died out on the middle of a note,
  As though it failed at the urge of its own meaning.
  It left him with life quivering at the throat,
  Limbs shaken and wet cheeks and body leaning,
  With strain towards the sound and senses gleaning
  The last, least, ebbing ripple of the air,
  Searching the emptied darkness, muttering “Where?”


26

  Then followed such a time as is forgotten
  With morning light, but in the passing seems
  Unending. Where he grasped the branch was rotten,
  Where he trod forth in haste the forest streams
  Laid wait for him. Like men in fever dreams
  Climbing an endless rope, he laboured much
  And gained no ground. He reached and could not touch.


27

  And often out of darkness like a swell
  That grows up from no wind upon blue sea,
  He heard the music, unendurable
  In stealing sweetness wind from tree to tree.
  Battered and bruised in body and soul was he
  When first he saw a little lightness growing
  Ahead: and from that light the sound was flowing.


28

  The trees were fewer now: and gladly nearing
  That light, he saw the stars. For sky was there,
  And smoother grass, white flowered--a forest clearing
  Set in seven miles of forest, secreter
  Than valleys in the tops of clouds, more fair
  Than greenery under snow or desert water
  Or the white peace descending after slaughter.


29

  As some who have been wounded beyond healing
  Wake, or half wake, once only and so bless
  Far off the lamplight travelling on the ceiling.
  A disk of pale light filled with peacefulness
  And wonder if this is the C.C.S.,
  Or home, or heaven, or dreams--then sighing win
  Wise, ignorant death before the pains begin:


30

  So Dymer in the wood-lawn blessed the light,
  A still light, rosy, clear, and filled with sound.
  Here was some pile of building which the night
  Made larger. Spiry shadows rose all round,
  But through the open door appeared profound
  Recesses of pure light--fire with no flame--
  And out of that deep light the music came.


31

  Tip-toes he slunk towards it where the grass
  Was twinkling in a lane of light before
  The archway. There was neither fence to pass
  Nor word of challenge given, nor bolted door,
  But where it’s open, open evermore,
  No knocker and no porter and no guard,
  For very strangeness entering in grows hard.


32

  Breathe not! Speak not! Walk gently. Someone’s here,
  Why have they left their house with the door so wide?
  There must be someone.... Dymer hung in fear
  Upon the threshold, longing and big-eyed.
  At last he squared his shoulders, smote his side
  And called, “I’m here. Now let the feast begin.
  I’m coming now. I’m Dymer,” and went in.




CANTO II


1

  More light. Another step, and still more light
  Opening ahead. It swilled with soft excess,
  His eyes yet quivering from the dregs of night,
  And it was nowhere more and nowhere less:
  In it no shadows were. He could not guess
  Its fountain. Wondering round around he turned:
  Still on each side the level glory burned.


2

  Far in the dome to where his gaze was lost
  The deepening roof shone clear as stones that lie
  In-shore beneath pure seas. The aisles, that crossed
  Like forests of white stone their arms on high,
  Past pillar after pillar dragged his eye
  In unobscured perspective till the sight
  Was weary. And there also was the light.


3

  Look with my eyes. Conceive yourself above
  And hanging in the dome: and thence through space
  Look down. See Dymer, dwarfed and naked, move,
  A white blot on the floor, at such a pace
  As boats that hardly seem to have changed place
  Once in an hour when from the cliffs we spy
  The same ship always smoking towards the sky.


4

  The shouting mood had withered from his heart;
  The oppression of huge places wrapped him round.
  A great misgiving sent its fluttering dart
  Deep into him--some fear of being found,
  Some hope to find he knew not what. The sound
  Of music, never ceasing, took the rôle
  Of silence and like silence numbed his soul.


5

  Till, as he turned a corner, his deep awe
  Broke with a sudden start. For straight ahead,
  Far off, a wild eyed, naked man he saw
  That came to meet him: and beyond was spread
  Yet further depth of light. With quickening tread
  He leaped towards the shape. Then stopped and smiled
  Before a mirror, wondering like a child.


6

  Beside the glass, unguarded, for the claiming,
  Like a great patch of flowers upon the wall
  Hung every kind of clothes: silk, feathers flaming,
  Leopard skin, furry mantles like the fall
  Of deep mid-winter snows. Upon them all
  Hung the faint smell of cedar, and the dyes
  Were bright as blood and clear as morning skies.


7

  He turned from the white spectre in the glass
  And looked at these. Remember, he had worn
  Thro’ winter slush, thro’ summer flowers and grass
  One kind of solemn stuff since he was born,
  With badge of year and rank. He laughed in scorn
  And cried, “Here is no law, nor eye to see,
  Nor leave of entry given. Why should there be?


8

  “Have done with that--you threw it all behind.
  Henceforth I ask no licence where I need.
  It’s on, on, on, though I go mad and blind,
  Though knees ache and lungs labour and feet bleed,
  Or else--it’s home again: to sleep and feed,
  And work, and hate them always and obey
  And loathe the punctual rise of each new day.”


9

  He made mad work among them as he dressed,
  With motley choice and litter on the floor,
  And each thing as he found it seemed the best.
  He wondered that he had not known before
  How fair a man he was. “I’ll creep no more
  In secret,” Dymer said. “But I’ll go back
  And drive them all to freedom on this track.”


10

  He turned towards the glass. The space looked smaller
  Behind him now. Himself in royal guise
  Filled the whole frame--a nobler shape and taller,
  Till suddenly he started with surprise,
  Catching, by chance, his own familiar eyes,
  Fevered, yet still the same, without their share
  Of bravery, undeceived and watching there.


11

  Yet, as he turned, he cried, “The rest remain....
  If they rebelled ... if they should find me here,
  We’d pluck the whole taut fabric from the strain,
  Hew down the city, let live earth appear!
  --Old men and barren women whom through fear
  We have suffered to be masters in our home,
  Hide! hide! for we are angry and we come.”


12

  Thus feeding on vain fancy, covering round
  His hunger, his great loneliness arraying
  In facile dreams until the qualm was drowned,
  The boy went on. Through endless arches straying
  With casual tread he sauntered, manly playing
  At manhood lest more loss of faith betide him,
  Till lo! he saw a table set beside him.


13

  When Dymer saw this sight, he leaped for mirth,
  He clapped his hands, his eye lit like a lover’s.
  He had a hunger in him that was worth
  Ten cities. Here was silver, glass and covers.
  Cold peacock, prauns in aspic, eggs of plovers,
  Raised pies that stood like castles, gleaming fishes
  And bright fruit with broad leaves around the dishes.


14

  If ever you have passed a café door
  And lingered in the dusk of a June day,
  Fresh from the road, sweat-sodden and foot-sore,
  And heard the plates clink and the music play,
  With laughter, with white tables far away,
  With many lights--conceive how Dymer ran
  To table, looked once round him, and began.


15

  That table seemed unending. Here and there
  Were broken meats, bread crumbled, flowers defaced
  --A napkin, with white petals, on a chair,
  --A glass already tasted, still to taste.
  It seemed that a great host had fed in haste
  And gone: yet left a thousand places more
  Untouched, wherein no guest had sat before.


16

  There in the lonely splendour Dymer ate,
  As thieves eat, ever watching, half in fear.
  He blamed his evil fortune. “I come late.
  Whose board was this? What company sat here?
  What women with wise mouths, what comrades dear
  Who would have made me welcome as the one
  Free-born of all my race and cried, ‘Well done!’”


17

  Remember, yet again, he had grown up
  On rations and on scientific food,
  At common boards, with water in his cup,
  One mess alike for every day and mood:
  But here, at his right hand, a flagon stood.
  He raised it, paused before he drank, and laughed.
  “I’ll drown their Perfect City in this draught.”


18

  He fingered the cold neck. He saw within,
  Like a strange sky, some liquor that foamed blue
  And murmured. Standing now with pointed chin
  And head thrown back, he tasted. Rapture flew
  Through every vein. That moment louder grew
  The music and swelled forth a trumpet note.
  He ceased and put one hand up to his throat.


19

  Then heedlessly he let the flagon sink
  In his right hand. His staring eyes were caught
  In distance, as of one who tries to think
  A thought that is still waiting to be thought.
  There was a riot in his heart that brought
  The loud blood to the temples. A great voice
  Sprang to his lips unsummoned, with no choice.


20

  “Ah! but the eyes are open, the dream is broken!
  To sack the Perfect City?... a fool’s deed
  For Dymer! Folly of follies I have spoken!
  I am the wanderer, new born, newly freed....
  A thousand times they have warned me of men’s greed
  For joy, for the good that all desire, but never
  Till now I knew the wild heat of the endeavour.


21

  “Some day I will come back to break the City,
  --Not now. Perhaps when age is white and bleak
  --Not now. I am in haste. Oh God, the pity
  Of all my life till this, groping and weak,
  The shadow of itself! But now to seek
  That true most ancient glory whose white glance
  Was lost through the whole world by evil chance!


22

  “I was a dull, cowed thing from the beginning.
  Dymer the drudge, the blackleg who obeyed.
  Desire shall teach me now. If this be sinning,
  Good luck to it! Oh splendour long delayed,
  Beautiful world of mine, oh world arrayed
  For bridal, flower and forest, wave and field,
  I come to be your lover. Loveliest, yield!


23

  “World, I will prove you. Lest it should be said
  There was a man who loved the earth: his heart
  Was nothing but that love. With doting tread
  He worshipt the loved grass: and every start
  Of every bird from cover, the least part
  Of every flower he held in awe. Yet earth
  Gave him no joy between his death and birth.


24

  “I know my good is hidden at your breast.
  There is a sound of great good in my ear,
  Like wings. And, oh! this moment is the best;
  I shall not fail--I taste it--it comes near.
  As men from a dark dungeon see the clear
  Stars shining and the filled streams far away,
  I hear your promise booming and obey.


25

  “This forest lies a thousand miles, perhaps,
  Beyond where I am come. And farther still
  The rivers wander seaward with smooth lapse,
  And there is cliff and cottage, tower and hill.
  Somewhere, before the world’s end, I shall fill
  My spirit at earth’s pap. For earth must hold
  One rich thing sealed as Dymer’s from of old.


26

  “One rich thing--or, it may be, more than this....
  Might I not reach the borders of a land
  That ought to have been mine? And there, the bliss
  Of free speech, there the eyes that understand,
  The men free grown, not modelled by the hand
  Of masters--men that know, or men that seek,
  --They will not gape and murmur when I speak.”


27

  Then, as he ceased, amid the farther wall
  He saw a curtained and low lintelled door;
  --Dark curtains, sweepy fold, night-purple pall,
  He thought he had not noticed it before.
  Sudden desire for darkness overbore
  His will, and drew him towards it. All was blind
  Within. He passed. The curtains closed behind.


28

  He entered in a void. Night-scented flowers
  Breathed there, but this was darker than the night
  That is most black with beating thundershowers,
  --A disembodied world where depth and height
  And distance were unmade. No seam of light
  Showed through. It was a world not made for seeing,
  One pure, one undivided sense of being.


29

  Through darkness smooth as amber, warily, slowly
  He moved. The floor was soft beneath his feet.
  A cool smell that was holy and unholy,
  Sharp like the very spring and roughly sweet
  Blew towards him: and he felt his fingers meet
  Broad leaves and wiry stems that at his will
  Unclosed before and closed behind him still.


30

  With body intent he felt the foliage quiver
  On breast and thighs. With groping arms he made
  Wide passes in the air. A sacred shiver
  Of joy from the heart’s centre oddly strayed
  To every nerve. Deep sighing, much afraid,
  Much wondering, he went on: then, stooping, found
  A knee-depth of warm pillows on the ground.


31

  And there it was sweet rapture to lie still,
  Eyes open on the dark. A flowing health
  Bathed him from head to foot and great goodwill
  Rose springing in his heart and poured its wealth
  Outwards. Then came a hand as if by stealth
  Out of the dark and touched his hand: and after
  The beating silence budded into laughter:


32

  --A low grave laugh and rounded like a pearl,
  Mysterious, filled with home. He opened wide
  His arms. The breathing body of a girl
  Slid into them. From the world’s end, with the stride
  Of seven league boots came passion to his side.
  Then, meeting mouths, soft-falling hair, a cry,
  Heart-shaken flank, sudden cool-folded thigh:


33

  The same night swelled the mushroom in earth’s lap
  And silvered the wet fields: it drew the bud
  From hiding and led on the rhythmic sap
  And sent the young wolves thirsting after blood,
  And, wheeling the big seas, made ebb and flood
  Along the shores of earth: and held these two
  In dead sleep till the time of morning dew.




CANTO III


1

  He woke, and all at once before his eyes
  The pale spires of the chestnut-trees in bloom
  Rose waving and, beyond, dove-coloured skies;
  But where he lay was dark and, out of gloom,
  He saw them, through the doorway of a room
  Full of strange scents and softness, padded deep
  With growing leaves, heavy with last night’s sleep.


2

  He rubbed his eyes. He felt that chamber wreathing
  New sleepiness around him. At his side
  He was aware of warmth and quiet breathing.
  Twice he sank back, loose limbed and drowsy eyed;
  But the wind came even there. A sparrow cried
  And the wood shone without. Then Dymer rose,
  --“Just for one glance,” he said, and went, tip-toes,


3

  Out into crisp grey air and drenching grass.
  The whitened cobweb sparkling in its place
  Clung to his feet. He saw the wagtail pass
  Beside him and the thrush: and from his face
  Felt the thin-scented winds divinely chase
  The flush of sleep. Far off he saw, between
  The trees, long morning shadows of dark green.


4

  He stretched his lazy arms to their full height,
  Yawning, and sighed and laughed, and sighed anew:
  Then wandered farther, watching with delight
  How his broad naked footprints stained the dew,
  --Pressing his foot to feel the cold come through
  Between the spreading toes--then wheeling round
  Each moment to some new, shrill forest sound.


5

  The wood with its cold flowers had nothing there
  More beautiful than he, new waked from sleep,
  New born from joy. His soul lay very bare
  That moment to life’s touch, and pondering deep
  Now first he knew that no desire could keep
  These hours for always, and that men do die
  --But oh, the present glory of lungs and eye!


6

  He thought: “At home they are waking now. The stair
  Is filled with feet. The bells clang--far from me.
  Where am I now? I could not point to where
  The City lies from here,” ... then, suddenly,
  “If I were here alone, these woods could be
  A frightful place! But now I have met my friend
  Who loves me, we can talk to the road’s end.”


7

  Thus, quickening with the sweetness of the tale
  Of his new love, he turned. He saw, between
  The young leaves where the palace walls showed pale
  With chilly stone: but far above the green,
  Springing like cliffs in air, the towers were seen,
  Making more quiet yet the quiet dawn.
  Thither he came. He reached the open lawn.


8

  No bird was moving here. Against the wall
  Out of the unscythed grass the nettle grew.
  The doors stood open wide, but no footfall
  Rang in the colonnades. Whispering through
  Arches and hollow halls the light wind blew....
  His awe returned. He whistled--then, no more,
  It’s better to plunge in by the first door.


9

  But then the vastness threw him into doubt.
  Was this the door that he had found last night?
  Or that, beneath the tower? Had he come out
  This side at all? As the first snow falls light
  With following rain before the year grows white,
  So the first, dim foreboding touched his mind,
  Gently as yet, and easily thrust behind.


10

  And with it came the thought, “I do not know
  Her name--no, nor her face.” But still his mood
  Ran blithely as he felt the morning blow
  About him, and the earth-smell in the wood
  Seemed waking for long hours that must be good
  Here, in the unfettered lands, that knew no cause
  For grudging--out of reach of the old laws.


11

  He hastened to one entry. Up the stair,
  Beneath the pillared porch, without delay,
  He ran--then halted suddenly: for there
  Across the quiet threshold something lay,
  A bundle, a dark mass that barred the way.
  He looked again and lo, the formless pile
  Under his eyes was moving all the while.


12

  And it had hands, pale hands of wrinkled flesh,
  Puckered and gnarled with vast antiquity,
  That moved. He eyed the sprawling thing afresh,
  And bit by bit (so faces come to be
  In the red coal) yet surely, he could see
  That the swathed hugeness was uncleanly human,
  A living thing, the likeness of a woman.


13

  In the centre a draped hummock marked the head;
  Thence flowed the broader lines with curve and fold
  Spreading as oak roots do. You would have said
  A man could hide among them and grow old
  In finding a way out. Breasts manifold
  As of the Ephesian Artemis might be
  Under that robe. The face he did not see.


14

  And all his being answered, “Not that way!”
  Never a word he spoke. Stealthily creeping
  Back from the door he drew. Quick! No delay!
  Quick, quick, but very quiet!--backward peeping
  Till fairly out of sight. Then shouting, leaping,
  Shaking himself he ran--as puppies do
  From bathing--till that door was out of view.


15

  Another gate--and empty. In he went
  And found a courtyard open to the sky
  Amidst it dripped a fountain. Heavy scent
  Of flowers was here; the foxglove standing high
  Sheltered the whining wasp. With hasty eye
  He travelled round the walls. One doorway led
  Within: one showed a further court ahead.


16

  He ran up to the first--a hungry lover,
  And not yet taught to endure, not blunted yet,
  But weary of long waiting to discover
  That loved one’s face. Before his foot was set
  On the first stair, he felt the sudden sweat,
  Cold on his sides. That sprawling mass in view,
  That shape--the horror of heaviness--here too.


17

  He fell back from the porch. Not yet--not yet--
  There must be other ways where he would meet
  No watcher in the door. He would not let
  The fear rise, nor hope falter, nor defeat
  Be entered in his thoughts. A sultry heat
  Seemed to have filled the day. His breath came short,
  And he passed on into that inner court.


18

  And (like a dream) the sight he feared to find
  Was waiting here. Then cloister, path and square
  He hastened through: down paths that needed blind,
  Traced and retraced his steps. The thing sat there
  In every door, still watching, everywhere,
  Behind, ahead, all round--So! Steady now,
  Lest panic comes. He stopped. He wiped his brow.


19

  But, as he strove to rally, came the thought
  That he had dreamed of such a place before
  --Knew how it all would end. He must be caught
  Early or late. No good! But all the more
  He raged with passionate will that overbore
  That knowledge: and cried out, and beat his head,
  Raving, upon the senseless walls, and said,


20

  “Where? Where? Dear, look once out. Give but one sign.
  It’s I, I, Dymer. Are you chained and hidden?
  What have they done to her? Loose her! She is mine.
  Through stone and iron, haunted and hag-ridden,
  I’ll come to you--no stranger, nor unbidden,
  It’s I. Don’t fear them. Shout above them all.
  Can you not hear? I’ll follow at your call.”


21

  From every arch the echo of his cry
  Returned. Then all was silent, and he knew
  There was no other way. He must pass by
  That horror: tread her down, force his way through,
  Or die upon the threshold. And this too
  Had all been in a dream. He felt his heart
  Beating as if his throat would burst apart.


22

  There was no other way. He stood a space
  And pondered it. Then, gathering up his will,
  He went to the next door. The pillared place
  Beneath the porch was dark. The air was still,
  Moss on the steps. He felt her presence fill
  The threshold with dull life. Here too was she.
  This time he raised his eyes and dared to see.


23

  Pah! Only an old woman!... but the size,
  The old, old matriarchal dreadfulness,
  Immoveable, intolerable ... the eyes
  Hidden, the hidden head, the winding dress
  Corpselike.... The weight of the brute that seemed to press
  Upon his heart and breathing. Then he heard
  His own voice, strange and humbled, take the word.


24

  “Good Mother, let me pass. I have a friend
  To look for in this house. I slept the night
  And feasted here--it was my journey’s end,
  --I found it by the music and the light,
  And no one kept the doors, and I did right
  To enter--did I not? Now, Mother, pray,
  Let me pass in ... good Mother, give me way.”


25

  The woman answered nothing: but he saw
  The hands, like crabs, still wandering on her knee.
  “Mother, if I have broken any law,
  I’ll ask a pardon once: then let it be,
  --Once is enough--and leave the passage free.
  I am in haste. And though it were a sin
  By all the laws you have, I must go in.”


26

  Courage was rising in him now. He said,
  “Out of my path, old woman. For this cause
  I am new born, new freed, and here new wed,
  That I might be the breaker of bad laws.
  The frost of old forbiddings breaks and thaws
  Wherever my feet fall. I bring to birth
  Under its crust the green, ungrudging earth.”


27

  He had started, bowing low: but now he stood
  Stretched to his height. His own voice in his breast
  Made misery pompous, firing all his blood.
  “Enough,” he cried. “Give place. You shall not wrest
  My love from me. I journey on a quest
  You cannot understand, whose strength shall bear me
  Through fire and earth. A bogy will not scare me.


28

  “I am the sword of spring; I am the truth.
  Old night put out your stars, the dawn is here,
  The sleeper’s wakening, and the wings of youth.
  With crumbling veneration and cowed fear
  I make no truce. My loved one, live and dear,
  Waits for me. Let me in! I fled the City,
  Shall I fear you or ... Mother, ah, for pity.”


29

  For his high mood fell shattered. Like a man
  Unnerved, in bayonet-fighting, in the thick,
  --Full of red rum and cheers when he began,
  Now, in a dream, muttering: “I’ve not the trick.
  It’s no good. I’m no good. They’re all too quick.
  There! Look there! Look at that!” So Dymer stood,
  Suddenly drained of hope. It was no good.


30

  He pleaded then. Shame beneath shame. “Forgive.
  It may be there are powers I cannot break.
  If you are of them, speak. Speak. Let me live.
  I ask so small a thing. I beg. I make
  My body a living prayer whose force would shake
  The mountains. I’ll recant--confess my sin--
  But this once let me pass. I must go in.


31

  “Yield but one inch, once only from your law
  Set any price--I will give all, obey
  All else but this, hold your least word in awe,
  Give you no cause for anger from this day.
  Answer! The least things living when they pray
  As I pray now bear witness. They speak true
  Against God. Answer! Mother, let me through.”


32

  Then when he heard no answer, mad with fear
  And with desire, too strained with both to know
  What he desired or feared, yet staggering near,
  He forced himself towards her and bent low
  For grappling. Then came darkness. Then a blow
  Fell on his heart, he thought. There came a blank
  Of all things. As the dead sink, down he sank.


33

  The first big drops are rattling on the trees,
  The sky is copper dark, low thunder pealing.
  See Dymer with drooped head and knocking knees
  Comes from the porch. Then slowly, drunkly reeling,
  Blind, beaten, broken, past desire of healing,
  Past knowledge of his misery, he goes on
  Under the first dark trees and now is gone.




CANTO IV


1

  First came the peal that split the heavens apart
  Straight overhead. Then silence. Then the rain;
  Twelve miles of downward water like one dart,
  And in one leap were launched along the plain,
  To break the budding flower and flood the grain,
  And keep with dripping sound an undersong
  Amid the wheeling thunder all night long.


2

  He put his hands before his face. He stooped
  Blind with his hair. The loud drops’ grim tattoo
  Beat him to earth. Like summer grass he drooped,
  Amazed, while sheeted lightning large and blue
  Blinked wide and pricked the quivering eyeball through.
  Then, scrambling to his feet, with downward head
  He fought into the tempest as chance led.


3

  The wood was mad. Soughing of branch and straining
  Was there: drumming of water. Light was none
  Nor knowledge of himself. The trees’ complaining
  And his own throbbing heart seemed mixed in one,
  One sense of bitter loss and beauty undone;
  All else was blur and chaos and rain-steam
  And noise and the confusion of a dream.


4

  Aha!... Earth hates a miserable man:
  Against him even the clouds and winds conspire.
  Heaven’s voice smote Dymer’s ear-drum as he ran,
  Its red throat plagued the dark with corded fire
  --Barbed flame, coiled flame that ran like living wire
  Charged with disastrous current, left and right
  About his path, hell-blue or staring white.


5

  Stab! Stab! Blast all at once. What’s he to fear?
  Look there--that cedar shrivelling in swift blight
  Even where he stood! And there--ah, that came near!
  Oh, if some shaft would break his soul outright,
  What ease so to unload and scatter quite
  On the darkness this wild beating in his skull,
  Too burning to endure, too tense and full.


6

  All lost: and driven away: even her name
  Unknown. O fool, to have wasted for a kiss
  Time when they could have talked! An angry shame
  Was in him. He had worshipt earth, and this
  --The venomed clouds fire spitting from the abyss,
  This was the truth indeed, the world’s intent
  Unmasked and naked now, the thing it meant.


7

  The storm lay on the forest a great time
  --Wheeled in its thundery circuit, turned, returned.
  Still through the dead-leaved darkness, through the slime
  Of standing pools and slots of clay storm-churned
  Went Dymer. Still the knotty lightning burned
  Along black air. He heard the unbroken sound
  Of water rising in the hollower ground.


8

  He cursed it in his madness, flung it back,
  Sorrow as wild as young men’s sorrows are,
  Till, after midnight, when the tempest’s track
  Drew off, between two clouds appeared one star.
  Then his mood changed. And this was heavier far,
  When bit by bit, rarer and still more rare,
  The weakening thunder ceased from the cleansed air;


9

  When leaves began to drip with dying rain
  And trees showed black against the glimmering sky,
  When the night-birds flapped out and called again
  Above him: when the silence cool and shy
  Came stealing to its own, and streams ran by
  Now audible amid the rustling wood
  --Oh, then came the worst hour for flesh and blood.


10

  It was no nightmare now with fiery stream
  Too horrible to last, able to blend
  Itself and all things in one hurrying dream;
  It was the waking world that will not end
  Because hearts break, that is not foe nor friend,
  Where sane and settled knowledge first appears
  Of workday desolation, with no tears.


11

  He halted then, foot-sore, weary to death
  And heard his heart beating in solitude,
  When suddenly the sound of sharpest breath
  Indrawn with pain and the raw smell of blood
  Surprised his sense. Near by to where he stood
  Came a long whimpering moan--a broken word,
  A rustle of leaves where some live body stirred.


12

  He groped towards the sound. “What, brother, brother,
  Who groaned?”--“I’m hit. I’m finished. Let me be.”
  --“Put out your hand, then. Reach me. No, the other.”
  --“Don’t touch. Fool! Damn you. Leave me.”--“I can’t see.
  Where are you?” Then more groans. “They’ve done for me.
  I’ve no hands. Don’t come near me. No, but stay,
  Don’t leave me ... oh my God! Is it near day?”


13

  --“Soon now, a little longer. Can you sleep?
  I’ll watch for you.”--“Sleep, is it? That’s ahead,
  But none till then. Listen, I’ve bled too deep
  To last out till the morning. I’ll be dead
  Within the hour--sleep then. I’ve heard it said
  They don’t mind at the last, but this is Hell.
  If I’d the strength--I have such things to tell.”


14

  All trembling in the dark and sweated over
  Like a man reared in peace, unused to pain,
  Sat Dymer near him in the lightless cover,
  Afraid to touch and shamefaced to refrain.
  Then bit by bit and often checked again
  With agony the voice told on. (The place
  Was dark, that neither saw the other’s face.)


15

  “There is a City which men call in scorn
  The Perfect City--eastward of this wood--
  You’ve heard about the place. There I was born.
  I’m one of them, their work. Their sober mood,
  The ordered life, the laws, are in my blood
  --A life ... well, less than happy, something more
  Than the red greed and lusts that went before.


16

  “All in one day one man and at one blow
  Brought ruin on us all. There was a boy
  --Blue eyes, large limbs, were all he had to show,
  You need no greater prophets to destroy.
  He seemed a man asleep. Sorrow and joy
  Had passed him by--the dreamiest, safest man,
  The most obscure, until this curse began.


17

  “Then--how or why it was, I cannot say,
  This Dymer, this fool baby pink-and-white,
  Went mad beneath his quiet face. One day,
  With nothing said, he rose and laughed outright
  Before his master: then, in all our sight,
  Even where we sat to watch, he struck him dead
  And screamed with laughter once again and fled.


18

  “Lord! how it all comes back. How still the place is,
  And he there lying dead ... only the sound
  Of a bluebottle buzzing ... sharpened faces
  Strained, gaping from the benches all around...
  The dead man hunched and quiet with no wound,
  And minute after minute terror creeping
  With dreadful hopes to set the wild heart leaping.


19

  “Then one by one at random (no word spoken),
  We slipt out to the sunlight and away.
  We felt the empty sense of something broken
  And comfortless adventure all that day.
  Men loitered at their work and could not say
  What trembled at their lips or what new light
  Was in girls’ eyes. Yet we endured till night.


20

  “Then ... I was lying wide awake in bed,
  Shot through with tremulous thought, lame hopes, and sweet
  Desire of reckless days--with burning head.
  And then there came a clamour from the street,
  Came nearer, nearer, nearer--stamping feet
  And screaming song and curses and a shout
  Of ‘Who’s for Dymer, Dymer?--Up and out!’


21

  “We looked out from our window. Thronging there
  A thousand of our people, girls and men,
  Raved and reviled and shouted by the glare
  Of torches and of bonfire blaze. And then
  Came tumult from the street beyond: again
  ‘Dymer’ they cried. And farther off there came
  The sound of gun-fire and the gleam of flame.


22

  “I rushed down with the rest. Oh, we were mad!
  After this, it’s all nightmare. The black sky
  Between the housetops framed was all we had
  To tell us that the old world could not die
  And that we were no gods. The flood ran high
  When first I came, but after was the worse,
  Oh, to recall...! On Dymer rest the curse!


23

  “Our leader was a hunchback with red hair
  --Bran was his name. He had that kind of force
  About him that will hold your eyes fast there
  As in ten miles of green one patch of gorse
  Will hold them--do you know? His lips were coarse
  But his eyes like a prophet’s--seemed to fill
  The whole face. And his tongue was never still.


24

  “He cried: ‘As Dymer broke, we’ll break the chain.
  The world is free. They taught you to be chaste
  And labour and bear orders and refrain.
  Refrain? From what? All’s good enough. We’ll taste
  Whatever is. Life murmurs from the waste
  Beneath the mind ... who made the reasoning part
  The jailer of the wild gods in the heart?’


25

  “We were a ragtail crew--wild-haired, half dressed,
  All shouting, ‘Up, for Dymer! Up away!’
  Yet each one always watching all the rest
  And looking to his back. And some were gay
  Like drunk men, some were cringing, pinched and grey
  With terror dry on the lip. (The older ones
  Had had the sense enough to bring their guns.)


26

  “The wave where I was swallowed swelled and broke,
  After long surge, into the open square.
  And here there was more light: new clamour woke.
  Here first I heard the bullets sting the air
  And went hot round the heart. Our lords were there
  In barricade with all their loyal men.
  For every one man loyal Bran led ten.


27

  “Then charge and cheer and bubbling sobs of death,
  We hovered on their front. Like swarming bees
  Their spraying bullets came--no time for breath.
  I saw men’s stomachs fall out on their knees;
  And shouting faces, while they shouted, freeze
  Into black, bony masks. Before we knew
  We’re into them.... ‘Swine!’--‘Die, then’--‘That’s for you.’


28

  “The next that I remember was a lull
  And sated pause. I saw an old, old man
  Lying before my feet with shattered skull
  And both my arms dripped red. And then came Bran
  And at his heels a hundred murderers ran,
  With prisoners now, clamouring to take and try them
  And burn them, wedge their nails up, crucify them.


29

  “God!... Once the lying spirit of a cause
  With maddening words dethrones the mind of men,
  They’re past the reach of prayer. The eternal laws
  Hate them. Their eyes will not come clean again,
  But doom and strong delusion drive them then
  Without ruth, without rest ... the iron laughter
  Of the immortal mouths goes hooting after.


30

  “And we had firebrands too. Tower after tower
  Fell sheathed in thundering flame. The street was like
  A furnace mouth. We had them in our power!
  Then was the time to mock them and to strike,
  To flay men and spit women on the pike,
  Bidding them dance. Wherever the most shame
  Was done the doer called on Dymer’s name.


31

  “Faces of men in torture ... from my mind
  They will not go away. The East lay still
  In darkness when we left the town behind
  Flaming to light the fields. We’d had our will:
  We sang, ‘Oh, we will make the frost distil
  From Time’s grey forehead into living dew
  And break whatever has been and build new.’


32

  “Day found us on the border of this wood,
  Blear-eyed and pale. Then the most part began
  To murmur and to lag, crying for food
  And shelter. But we dared not answer Bran.
  Wherever in the ranks the murmur ran
  He’d find it--‘You, there, whispering. Up, you sneak,
  Reactionary, eh? Come out and speak.’


33

  “Then there’d be shrieks, a pistol shot, a cry,
  And someone down. I was the third he caught.
  The others pushed me out beneath his eye,
  Saying, ‘He’s here; here, Captain.’ Who’d have thought,
  My old friends? But I know now. I’ve been taught ...
  They cut away my two hands and my feet
  And laughed and left me for the birds to eat.


34

  “Oh, God’s name! If I had my hands again
  And Dymer here ... it would not be my blood
  I am stronger now than he is, old with pain,
  One grip would make him mine. But it’s no good,
  I’m dying fast. Look, Stranger, where the wood
  Grows lighter. It’s the morning. Stranger dear,
  Don’t leave me. Talk a little while. Come near.”


35

  But Dymer, sitting hunched with knee to chin,
  Close to the dying man, answered no word.
  His face was stone. There was no meaning in
  His wakeful eyes. Sometimes the other stirred
  And fretted, near his death; and Dymer heard,
  Yet sat like one that neither hears nor sees.
  And the cold east whitened beyond the trees.




CANTO V


1

  Through bearded cliffs a valley has driven thus deep
  Its wedge into the mountain and no more.
  The faint track of the farthest-wandering sheep
  Ends here, and the grey hollows at their core
  Of silence feel the dulled continuous roar
  Of higher streams. At every step the skies
  Grow less and in their place black ridges rise.


2

  Hither, long after noon, with plodding tread
  And eyes on earth, grown dogged, Dymer came,
  Who all the long day in the woods had fled
  From the horror of those lips that screamed his name
  And cursed him. Busy wonder and keen shame
  Were driving him, and little thoughts like bees
  Followed and pricked him on and left no ease.


3

  Now, when he looked and saw this emptiness
  Seven times enfolded in the idle hills,
  There came a chilly pause to his distress,
  A cloud of the deep world despair that fills
  A man’s heart like the incoming tide and kills
  All pains except its own. In that broad sea
  No hope, no change, and no regret can be.


4

  He felt the eternal strength of the silly earth,
  The unhastening circuit of the stars and sea,
  The business of perpetual death and birth,
  The meaningless precision. All must be
  The same and still the same in each degree--
  Who cared now? And he smiled and could forgive,
  Believing that for sure he would not live.


5

  Then, where he saw a little water run
  Beneath a bush, he slept. The chills of May
  Came dropping and the stars peered one by one
  Out of the deepening blue, while far away
  The western brightness dulled to bars of grey.
  Half-way to midnight, suddenly, from dreaming
  He woke wide into present horror, screaming.


6

  For he had dreamt of being in the arms
  Of his beloved and in quiet places;
  But all at once it filled with night alarms
  And rapping guns: and men with splintered faces,
  --No eyes, no nose, all red--were running races
  With worms along the floor. And he ran out
  To find the girl and shouted: and that shout


7

  Had carried him into the waking world.
  There stood the concave, vast, unfriendly night,
  And over him the scroll of stars unfurled.
  Then wailing like a child he rose upright
  Heart-sick with desolation. The new blight
  Of loss had nipt him sore, and sad self-pity
  Thinking of her--then thinking of the City.


8

  For, in each moment’s thought, the deeds of Bran,
  The burning and the blood and his own shame,
  Would tease him into madness till he ran
  For refuge to the thought of her; whence came
  Utter and endless loss--no, not a name,
  Not a word, nothing left--himself alone
  Crying amid that valley of old stone,


9

  “How soon it all ran out! And I suppose
  They, they up there, the old contriving powers,
  They knew it all the time--for someone knows
  And waits and watches till we pluck the flowers,
  Then leaps. So soon--my store of happy hours
  All gone before I knew. I have expended
  My whole wealth in a day. It’s finished, ended.


10

  “And nothing left. Can it be possible
  That joy flows through and, when the course is run,
  It leaves no change, no mark on us to tell
  Its passing? And as poor as we’ve begun
  We end the richest day? What we have won,
  Can it all die like this?... Joy flickers on
  The razor-edge of the present and is gone.


11

  “What have I done to bear upon my name
  The curse of Bran? I was not of his crew,
  Nor any man’s. And Dymer has the blame--
  What have I done? Wronged whom? I never knew.
  What’s Bran to me? I had my deed to do
  And ran out by myself, alone and free.
  --Why should earth sing with joy and not for me?


12

  “Ah, but the earth never did sing for joy....
  There is a glamour on the leaf and flower
  And April comes and whistles to a boy
  Over white fields: and, beauty has such power
  Upon us, he believes her in that hour,
  For who could not believe? Can it be false,
  All that the blackbird says and the wind calls?


13

  “What have I done? No living thing I made
  Nor wished to suffer harm. I sought my good
  Because the spring was gloriously arrayed
  And the blue eyebright misted all the wood.
  Yet to obey that springtime and my blood,
  This was to be unarmed and off my guard
  And gave God time to hit once and hit hard.


14

  “The men build right who made that City of ours,
  They knew their world. A man must crouch to face
  Infinite malice, watching at all hours,
  Shut nature out--give her no moment’s space
  For entry. The first needs of all our race
  Are walls, a den, a cover. Traitor I
  Who first ran out beneath the open sky.


15

  “Our fortress and fenced place I made to fall,
  I slipt the sentries and let in the foe.
  I have lost my brothers and my love and all.
  Nothing is left but me. Now let me go.
  I have seen the world stripped naked and I know.
  Great God, take back your world. I will have none
  Of all your glittering gauds but death alone.”


16

  Meanwhile the earth swung round in hollow night.
  Souls without number in all nations slept,
  Snug on her back, safe speeding towards the light,
  Hours tolled, and in damp woods the night beast crept,
  And over the long seas the watch was kept
  In black ships, twinkling onward, green and red:
  Always the ordered stars moved overhead.


17

  And no one knew that Dymer in his scales
  Had weighed all these and found them nothing worth.
  Indifferently the dawn that never fails
  Troubled the east of night with gradual birth,
  Whispering a change of colours on cold earth,
  And a bird woke, then two. The sunlight ran
  Along the hills and yellow day began.


18

  But stagnant gloom clung in the valley yet;
  Hills crowded out a third part of the sky,
  Black-looking, and the boulders dripped with wet:
  No bird sang. Dymer, shivering, heaved a sigh
  And yawned and said: “It’s cruel work to die
  Of hunger”; and again, with cloudy breath
  Blown between chattering teeth, “It’s a bad death.”


19

  He crouched and clasped his hands about his knees
  And hugged his own limbs for the pitiful sense
  Of homeliness they had--familiars these,
  This body, at least, his own, his last defence.
  But soon his morning misery drove him thence,
  Eating his heart, to wander as chance led
  On, upward, to the narrowing gulley’s head.


20

  The cloud lay on the nearest mountain-top
  As from a giant’s chimney smoking there,
  But Dymer took no heed. Sometimes he’d stop,
  Sometimes he hurried faster, as despair
  Pricked deeper, and cried out: “Even now, somewhere,
  Bran with his crew’s at work. They rack, they burn,
  And there’s no help in me. I’ve served their turn.”


21

  Meanwhile the furrowed fog rolled down ahead,
  Long tatters of its vanguard smearing round
  The bases of the crags. Like cobweb shed
  Down the deep combes it dulled the tinkling sound
  Of water on the hills. The spongy ground
  Faded three yards ahead: then nearer yet
  Fell the cold wreathes, the white depth gleaming wet.


22

  Then after a long time the path he trod
  Led downward. Then all suddenly it dipped
  Far steeper, and yet steeper, with smooth sod.
  He was half running now. A stone that slipped
  Beneath him, rattled headlong down: he tripped,
  Stumbled and clutched--then panic, and no hope
  To stop himself, once lost upon that slope.


23

  And faster, ever faster, and his eye
  Caught tree-tops far below. The nightmare feeling
  Had gripped him. He was screaming: and the sky
  Seemed hanging upside down. Then struggling, reeling,
  With effort beyond thought he hung half kneeling,
  Halted one saving moment With wild will
  He clawed into the hillside and lay still,


24

  Half hanging on both arms. His idle feet
  Dangled and found no hold. The moor lay wet
  Against him and he sweated with the heat
  Of terror, all alive. His teeth were set.
  “By God, I will not die,” said he. “Not yet.”
  Then slowly, slowly, with enormous strain,
  He heaved himself an inch: then heaved again,


25

  Till saved and spent he lay. He felt indeed
  It was the big, round world beneath his breast,
  The mother planet proven at his need.
  The shame of glad surrender stood confessed,
  He cared not for his boasts. This, this was best,
  This giving up of all. He need not strive;
  He panted, he lay still, he was alive.


26

  And now his eyes were closed. Perhaps he slept
  Lapt in unearthly quiet--never knew
  How bit by bit the fog’s white rearguard crept
  Over the crest and faded, and the blue
  First brightening at the zenith trembled through
  And deepening shadows took a sharper form
  Each moment, and the sandy earth grew warm.


27

  Yet, dreaming of blue skies, in dream he heard
  The pure voice of a lark that seemed to send
  Its song from heights beyond all height That bird
  Sang out of heaven, “The world will never end,”
  Sang from the gates of heaven, “Will never end,”
  Sang till it seemed there was no other thing
  But bright space and one voice set there to sing.


28

  It seemed to be the murmur and the voice
  Of beings beyond number, each and all
  Singing I am. Each of itself made choice
  And was: whence flows the justice that men call
  Divine. She keeps the great worlds lest they fall
  From hour to hour, and makes the hills renew
  Their ancient youth and sweetens all things through.


29

  It seemed to be the low voice of the world
  Brooding alone beneath the strength of things,
  Murmuring of days and nights and years unfurled
  Forever, and the unwearied joy that brings
  Out of old fields the flowers of unborn springs,
  Out of old wars and cities burned with wrong,
  A splendour in the dark, a tale, a song.


30

  The dream ran thin towards waking, and he knew
  It was a bird’s piping with no sense.
  He rolled round on his back. The sudden blue,
  Quivering with light, hard, cloudless and intense,
  Shone over him. The lark still sounded thence
  And stirred him at the heart Some spacious thought
  Was passing by too gently to be caught.


31

  With that he thrust the damp hair from his face
  And sat upright. The perilous cliff dropped sheer
  Before him, close at hand, and from his place
  Listening in mountain silence he could hear
  Birds crying far below. It was not fear
  That took him, but strange glory, when his eye
  Looked past the edge into surrounding sky.


32

  He rose and stood. Then lo! the world beneath
  --Wide pools that in the sun-splashed foot hills lay,
  Sheep-dotted downs, soft-piled, and rolling heath,
  River and shining weir and steeples grey
  And the green waves of forest Far away
  Distance rose heaped on distance: nearer hand,
  The white roads leading down to a new land.




CANTO VI


1

  The sun was high in heaven and Dymer stood
  A bright speck on the endless mountain-side.
  Till, blossom after blossom, that rich mood
  Faded and truth rolled homeward, like a tide
  Before whose edge the weak soul fled to hide
  In vain, with ostrich head, through many a shape
  Of coward fancy, whimpering for escape.


2

  But only for a moment; then his soul
  Took the full swell and heaved a dripping prow
  Clear of the shattering wave-crest. He was whole.
  No veils should hide the truth, no truth should cow
  The dear self-pitying heart “I’ll babble now
  No longer,” Dymer said. “I’m broken in.
  Pack up the dreams and let the life begin.”


3

  With this he turned. “I must have food to-day,”
  He muttered. Then among the cloudless hills
  By winding tracks he sought the downward way
  And followed the steep course of tumbling rills
  --Came to the glens the wakening mountain fills
  In springtime with the echoing splash and shock
  Of waters leaping cold from rock to rock.


4

  And still, it seemed, that lark with its refrain
  Sang in the sky and wind was in his hair
  And hope at heart. Then once, and once again,
  He heard a gun fired off. It broke the air
  As a stone breaks a pond, and everywhere
  The dry crags echoed clear: and at the sound
  Once a big bird rose whirring from the ground.


5

  In half an hour he reached the level land
  And followed the field-paths and crossed the stiles,
  Then looked and saw, near by, on his left hand
  An old house, folded round with billowy piles
  Of dark yew hedge. The moss was on the tiles,
  The pigeons in the yard, and in the tower
  A clock that had no hands and told no hour.


6

  He hastened. In warm waves the garden scent
  Came stronger at each stride. The mountain breeze
  Was gone. He reached the gates; then in he went
  And seemed to lose the sky--such weight of trees
  Hung overhead. He heard the noise of bees
  And saw, far off, in the blue shade between
  The windless elms, one walking on the green.


7

  It was a mighty man whose beardless face
  Beneath grey hair shone out so large and mild
  It made a sort of moonlight in the place.
  A dreamy desperation, wistful-wild,
  Showed in his glance and gait: yet like a child,
  An Asian emperor’s only child, was he
  With his grave looks and bright solemnity.


8

  And over him there hung the witching air,
  The wilful courtesy, of the days of old.
  The graces wherein idleness grows fair;
  And somewhat in his sauntering walk he rolled
  And toyed about his waist with seals of gold,
  Or stood to ponder often in mid-stride,
  Tilting his heavy head upon one side.


9

  When Dymer had called twice, he turned his eye:
  Then, coming out of silence (as a star
  All in one moment slips into the sky
  Of evening, yet we feel it comes from far),
  He said, “Sir, you are welcome. Few there are
  That come my way”: and in huge hands he pressed
  Dymer’s cold hand and bade him in to rest.


10

  “How did you find this place out? Have you heard
  My gun? It was but now I killed a lark.”
  “What Sir,” said Dymer, “shoot the singing bird?”
  “Sir,” said the man, “they sing from dawn till dark,
  And interrupt my dreams too long. But hark...
  Another? Did you hear no singing? No?
  It was my fancy, then ... pray, let it go.


11

  “From here you see my garden’s only flaw.
  Stand here, Sir, at the dial.” Dymer stood.
  The Master pointed; then he looked and saw
  How hedges and the funeral quietude
  Of black trees fringed the garden like a wood,
  And only, in one place, one gap that showed
  The blue side of the hills, the white hill-road.


12

  “I have planted fir and larch to fill the gap,”
  He said, “because this too makes war upon
  The art of dream. But by some great mishap
  Nothing I plant will grow there. We pass on....
  The sunshine of the afternoon is gone.
  Let us go in. It draws near time to sup
  --I hate the garden till the moon is up.”


13

  They passed from the hot lawn into the gloom
  And coolness of the porch: then, past a door
  That opened with no noise, into a room
  Where green leaves choked the window and the floor
  Sank lower than the ground. A tattered store
  Of brown books met the eye: a crystal ball:
  And masks with empty eyes along the wall.


14

  Then Dymer sat, but knew not how nor where,
  And supper was set out before these two,
  --He saw not how--with silver old and rare
  But tarnished. And he ate and never knew
  What meats they were. At every bite he grew
  More drowsy and let slide his crumbling will.
  The Master at his side was talking still.


15

  And all his talk was tales of magic words
  And of the nations in the clouds above,
  Astral and aerish tribes who fish for birds
  With angles. And by history he could prove
  How chosen spirits from earth had won their love,
  As Arthur, or Usheen: and to their isle
  Went Helen for the sake of a Greek smile.


16

  And ever in his talk he mustered well
  His texts and strewed old authors round the way,
  “Thus Wierus writes,” and “Thus the Hermetics tell,”
  “This was Agrippa’s view,” and “Others say
  With Cardan,” till he had stolen quite away
  Dymer’s dull wits and softly drawn apart
  The ivory gates of hope that change the heart.


17

  Dymer was talking now. Now Dymer told
  Of his own love and losing, drowsily.
  The Master leaned towards him, “Was it cold,
  This spirit, to the touch?”--“No, Sir, not she,”
  Said Dymer. And his host: “Why this must be
  Aethereal, not aereal! Oh my soul,
  Be still ... but wait. Tell on, Sir, tell the whole.”


18

  Then Dymer told him of the beldam too,
  The old, old, matriarchal dreadfulness.
  Over the Master’s face a shadow drew,
  He shifted in his chair and “Yes” and “Yes,”
  He murmured twice. “I never looked for less!
  Always the same ... that frightful woman shape
  Besets the dream-way and the soul’s escape.”


19

  But now when Dymer made to talk of Bran,
  A huge indifference fell upon his host,
  Patient and wandering-eyed. Then he began,
  “Forgive me. You are young. What helps us most
  Is to find out again that heavenly ghost
  Who loves you. For she was a ghost, and you
  In that place where you met were ghostly too.


20

  “Listen! for I can launch you on the stream
  Will roll you to the shores of her own land....
  I could be sworn you never learned to dream,
  But every night you take with careless hand
  What chance may bring? I’ll teach you to command
  The comings and the goings of your spirit
  Through all that borderland which dreams inherit.


21

  “You shall have hauntings suddenly. And often,
  When you forget, when least you think of her
  (For so you shall forget) a light will soften
  Over the evening woods. And in the stir
  Of morning dreams (oh, I will teach you, Sir)
  There’ll come a sound of wings. Or you shall be
  Waked in the midnight murmuring, ‘It was she.’”


22

  “No, no,” said Dymer, “not that way. I seem
  To have slept for twenty years. Now--while I shake
  Out of my eyes that dust of burdening dream,
  Now when the long clouds tremble ripe to break
  And the far hills appear, when first I wake,
  Still blinking, struggling towards the world of men,
  And longing--would you turn me back again?


23

  “Dreams? I have had my dream too long. I thought
  The sun rose for my sake. I ran down blind
  And dancing to the abyss. Oh, Sir, I brought
  Boy-laughter for a gift to Gods who find
  The martyr’s soul too soft But that’s behind.
  I’m waking now. They broke me. All ends thus
  Always--and we’re for them, not they for us.


24

  “And she--she was no dream. It would be waste
  To seek her there, the living in that den
  Of lies.” The Master smiled. “You are in haste!
  For broken dreams the cure is, Dream again
  And deeper. If the waking world, and men,
  And nature marred your dream--so much the worse
  For a crude world beneath its primal curse.”


25

  --“Ah, but you do not know! Can dreams do this,
  Pluck out blood-guiltiness upon the shore
  Of memory--and undo what’s done amiss,
  And bid the thing that has been be no more?”
  --“Sir, it is only dreams unlock that door,”
  He answered with a shrug. “What would you have?
  In dreams the thrice-proved coward can feel brave.


26

  “In dreams the fool is free from scorning voices.
  Grey-headed whores are virgin there again.
  Out of the past dream brings long-buried choices,
  All in a moment snaps the tenfold chain
  That life took years in forging. There the stain
  Of oldest sins--how do the good words go?--
  Though they were scarlet, shall be white as snow.”


27

  Then, drawing near, when Dymer did not speak,
  “My little son,” said he, “your wrong and right
  Are also dreams: fetters to bind the weak
  Faster to phantom earth and blear the sight.
  Wake into dreams, into the larger light
  That quenches these frail stars. They will not know
  Earth’s bye-laws in the land to which you go.”


28

  --“I must undo my sins,”--“An earthly law,
  And, even in earth, the child of yesterday.
  Throw down your human pity; cast your awe
  Behind you; put repentance all away.
  Home to the elder depths! for never they
  Supped with the stars who dared not slough behind
  The last shred of earth’s holies from their mind.”


29

  “Sir,” answered Dymer, “I would be content
  To drudge in earth, easing my heart’s disgrace,
  Counting a year’s long service lightly spent
  If once at the year’s end I saw her face
  Somewhere, being then most weary, in some place
  I looked not for that joy--or heard her near
  Whispering, ‘Yet courage, friend,’ for one more year.”


30

  “Pish,” said the Master. “Will you have the truth?
  You think that virtue saves? Her people care
  For the high heart and idle hours of youth;
  For these they will descend our lower air,
  Not virtue. You would nerve your arm and bear
  Your burden among men! Look to it, child:
  By virtue’s self vision can be defiled.


31

  “You will grow full of pity and the love of men,
  And toil until the morning moisture dries
  Out of your heart. Then once, or once again
  It may be you will find her: but your eyes
  Soon will be grown too dim. The task that lies
  Next to your hand will hide her. You shall be
  The child of earth and gods you shall not see.”


32

  Here suddenly he ceased. Tip-toes he went.
  A bolt clicked--then the window creaked ajar,
  And out of the wet world the hedgerow scent
  Came floating; and the dark without one star
  Nor shape of trees nor sense of near and far,
  The undimensioned night and formless skies
  Were there, and were the Master’s great allies.


33

  “I am very old,” he said. “But if the time
  We suffered in our dreams were counting age,
  I have outlived the ocean and my prime
  Is with me to this day. Years cannot gauge
  The dream-life. In the turning of a page,
  Dozing above my book, I have lived through
  More ages than the lost Lemuria knew.


34

  “I am not mortal. Were I doomed to die
  This hour, in this half-hour I interpose
  A thousand years of dream: and, those gone by,
  As many more, and in the last of those,
  Ten thousand--ever journeying towards a close
  That I shall never reach: for time shall flow,
  Wheel within wheel, interminably slow.


35

  “And you will drink my cup and go your way
  Into the valley of dreams. You have heard the call.
  Come hither and escape. Why should you stay?
  Earth is a sinking ship, a house whose wall
  Is tottering while you sweep; the roof will fall
  Before the work is done. You cannot mend it.
  Patch as you will, at last the rot must end it.”


36

  Then Dymer lifted up his heavy head
  Like Atlas on broad shoulders bearing up
  The insufferable globe. “I had not said,”
  He mumbled, “Never said I’d taste the cup.
  What, is it this you give me? Must I sup?
  Oh lies, all lies.... Why did you kill the lark?
  Guide me the cup to lip ... it is so dark.”




CANTO VII


1

  The host had trimmed his lamp. The downy moth
  Came from the garden. Where the lamplight shed
  Its circle of smooth white upon the cloth,
  Down mid the rinds of fruit and broken bread,
  Upon his sprawling arms lay Dymer’s head;
  And often, as he dreamed, he shifted place,
  Muttering and showing half his drunken face.


2

  The beating stillness of the dead of night
  Flooded the room. The dark and sleepy powers
  Settled upon the house and filled it quite;
  Far from the roads it lay, from belfry towers
  And hen-roosts, in a world of folded flowers,
  Buried in loneliest fields where beasts that love
  The silence through the unrustled hedgegrows move.


3

  Now from the Master’s lips there breathed a sigh
  As of a man released from some control
  That wronged him. Without aim his wandering eye,
  Unsteadied and unfixed, began to roll.
  His lower lip dropped loose. The informing soul
  Seemed fading from his face. He laughed out loud
  Once only: then looked round him, hushed and cowed.


4

  Then, summoning all himself, with tightened lip,
  With desperate coolness and attentive air,
  He touched between his thumb and finger tip,
  Each in its turn, the four legs of his chair,
  Then back again in haste--there!--that one there
  Had been forgotten ... once more! ... safer now;
  That’s better! and he smiled and cleared his brow.


5

  Yet this was but a moment’s ease. Once more
  He glanced about him like a startled hare,
  His big eyes bulged with horror. As before,
  Quick!--to the touch that saves him. But despair
  Is nearer by one step; and in his chair
  Huddling he waits. He knows that they’ll come strong
  Again and yet again and all night long;


6

  And after this night comes another night
  --Night after night until the worst of all.
  And now too even the noonday and the light
  Let through the horrors. Oh, could he recall
  The deep sleep and the dreams that used to fall
  Around him for the asking. But, somehow,
  Something’s amiss ... sleep comes so rarely now.


7

  Then, like the dog returning to its vomit,
  He staggered to the bookcase to renew
  Yet once again the taint he had taken from it,
  And shuddered as he went. But horror drew
  His feet, as joy draws others. There in view
  Was his strange heaven and his far stranger hell,
  His secret lust, his soul’s dark citadel:--


8

  Old Theogmagia, Demonology,
  Cabbala, Chemic Magic, Book of the Dead,
  Damning Hermetic rolls that none may see
  Save the already damned--such grules are bred
  From minds that lose the Spirit and seek instead
  For spirits in the dust of dead men’s error,
  Buying the joys of dream with dreamland terror.


9

  This lost soul looked them over one and all
  Now sickened at the heart’s root; for he knew
  This night was one of those when he would fall
  And scream alone (such things they made him do)
  And roll upon the floor. The madness grew
  Wild at his breast, but still his brain was clear
  That he could watch the moment coming near.


10

  But, ere it came, he heard a sound, half groan,
  Half muttering, from the table. Like a child
  Caught unawares that thought it was alone,
  He started as in guilt. His gaze was wild,
  Yet pitiably with all his will he smiled,
  --So strong is shame, even then. And Dymer stirred,
  Now waking, and looked up and spoke one word:


11

  “Water!” he said. He was too dazed to see
  What hell-wrung face looked down, what shaking hand
  Poured out the draught. He drank it thirstily
  And held the glass for more. “Your land ... your land
  Of dreams,” he said. “All lies!... I understand
  More than I did. Yes, water. I’ve the thirst
  Of hell itself. Your magic’s all accursed.”


12

  When he had drunk again he rose and stood,
  Pallid and cold with sleep. “By God,” he said,
  “You did me wrong to send me to that wood.
  I sought a living spirit and found instead
  Bogys and wraiths.” The Master raised his head
  Calm as a sage and answered, “Are you mad?
  Come, sit you down. Tell me what dream you had.”


13

  --“I dreamed about a wood ... an autumn red
  Of beech-trees big as mountains. Down between--
  The first thing that I saw--a clearing spread,
  Deep down, oh, very deep. Like some ravine
  Or like a well it sank, that forest green
  Under its weight of forest--more remote
  Than one ship in a landlocked sea afloat.


14

  “Then through the narrowed sky some heavy bird
  Would flap its way, a stillness more profound
  Following its languid wings. Sometimes I heard
  Far off in the long woods with quiet sound
  The sudden chestnut thumping to the ground,
  Or the dry leaf that drifted past upon
  Its endless loiter earthward and was gone.


15

  “Then next ... I heard twigs splintering on my right
  And rustling in the thickets. Turning there
  I watched. Out of the foliage came in sight
  The head and blundering shoulders of a bear,
  Glistening in sable black, with beady stare
  Of eyes towards me, and no room to fly
  --But padding soft and slow the beast came by.


16

  “And--mark their flattery--stood and rubbed his flank
  Against me. On my shaken legs I felt
  His heart beat. And my hand that stroked him sank
  Wrist-deep upon his shoulder in soft pelt.
  Yes ... and across my spirit as I smelt
  The wild thing’s scent, a new, sweet wildness ran
  Whispering of Eden-fields long lost by man.


17

  “So far was well. But then came emerald birds
  Singing about my head. I took my way
  Sauntering the cloistered woods. Then came the herds,
  The roebuck and the fallow deer at play
  Trooping to nose my hand. All this, you say,
  Was sweet? Oh sweet!... do you think I could not see
  That beasts and wood were nothing else but me?


18

  “... That I was making everything I saw,
  Too sweet, far too well fitted to desire
  To be a living thing? Those forests draw
  No sap from the kind earth: the solar fire
  And soft rain feed them not: that fairy brier
  Pricks not: the birds sing sweetly in that brake
  Not for their own delight but for my sake!


19

  “It is a world of sad, cold, heartless stuff,
  Like a bought smile, no joy in it.”--“But stay;
  Did you not find your lady?”--“Sure enough!
  I still had hopes till then. The autumn day
  Was westering, the long shadows crossed my way,
  When over daisies folded for the night
  Beneath rook-gathering elms she came in sight.”


20

  --“Was she not fair?”--“So beautiful, she seemed
  Almost a living soul. But every part
  Was what I made it--all that I had dreamed--
  No more, no less: the mirror of my heart,
  Such things as boyhood feigns beneath the smart
  Of solitude and spring. I was deceived
  Almost. In that first moment I believed.


21

  “For a big, brooding rapture, tense as fire
  And calm as a first sleep had soaked me through
  Without thought, without word, without desire....
  Meanwhile above our heads the deepening blue
  Burnished the gathering stars. Her sweetness drew
  A veil before my eyes. The minutes passed
  Heavy like loaded vines. She spoke at last.


22

  “She said, for this land only did men love
  The shadow-lands of earth. All our disease
  Of longing, all the hopes we fabled of,
  Fortunate islands or Hesperean seas
  Or woods beyond the West, were but the breeze
  That blew from off those shores: one farspent breath
  That reached even to the world of change and death.


23

  “She told me I had journeyed home at last
  Into the golden age and the good countrie
  That had been always there. She bade me cast
  My cares behind forever:--on her knee
  Worshipped me, lord and love--oh, I can see
  Her red lips even now! Is it not wrong
  That men’s delusions should be made so strong?


24

  “For listen, I was so besotted now
  She made me think that I was somehow seeing
  The very core of truth ... I felt somehow,
  Beyond all veils, the inward pulse of being.
  Thought was enslaved, but oh, it felt like freeing
  And draughts of larger air. It is too much!
  Who can come through untainted from that touch?


25

  “There I was nearly wrecked. But mark the rest:
  She went too fast. Soft to my arms she came.
  The robe slipped from her shoulder. The smooth breast
  Was bare against my own. She shone like flame
  Before me in the dusk, all love, all shame--
  Faugh!--and it was myself. But all was well,
  For, at the least, that moment snapped the spell.


26

  “As when you light a candle, the great gloom
  Which was the unbounded night, sinks down, compressed
  To four white walls in one familiar room,
  So the vague joy shrank wilted in my breast
  And narrowed to one point, unmasked, confessed;
  Fool’s paradise was gone: instead was there
  King Lust with his black, sudden, serious stare.


27

  “That moment in a cloud among the trees
  Wild music and the glare of torches came.
  On sweated faces, on the prancing knees
  Of shaggy satyrs fell the smoky flame,
  On ape and goat and crawlers without name,
  On rolling breast, black eyes and tossing hair,
  On old bald-headed witches, lean and bare.


28

  “They beat the devilish tom-tom rub-a-dub;
  Lunging, leaping, in unwieldy romp,
  Singing Cotytto and Beelzebub,
  With devil dancers mask and phallic pomp,
  Torn raw with briers and caked from many a swamp
  They came, among the wild flowers dripping blood
  And churning the green mosses into mud.


29

  “They sang, ‘Return! Return! We are the lust
  That was before the world and still shall be
  When your last law is trampled into dust,
  We are the mother swamp, the primal sea
  Whence the dry land appeared. Old, old are we.
  It is but a return ... it’s nothing new,
  Easy as slipping on a well-worn shoe.’


30

  “And then there came warm mouths and finger-tips
  Preying upon me, whence I could not see,
  Then ... a huge face, low browed, with swollen lips
  Crooning ‘I am not beautiful as she,
  But I’m the older love; you shall love me
  Far more than Beauty’s self. You have been ours
  Always. We are the world’s most ancient powers.’


31

  “First flatterer and then bogy--like a dream!
  Sir, are you listening? Do you also know
  How close to the soft laughter comes the scream
  Down yonder?” But his host cried sharply, “No.
  Leave me alone. Why will you plague me? Go!
  Out of my house! Begone.”--“With all my heart,”
  Said Dymer. “But one word before we part.”


32

  He paused, and in his cheek the anger burned:
  Then turning to the table, he poured out
  More water. But before he drank he turned--
  Then leaped back to the window with a shout
  For there--it was no dream--beyond all doubt
  He saw the Master crouch with levelled gun
  Cackling in maniac voice, “Run, Dymer, run!”


33

  He ducked and sprang far out. The starless night
  On the wet lawn closed round him every way.
  Then came the gun-crack and the splash of light
  Vanished as soon as seen. Cool garden clay
  Slid from his feet. He had fallen and he lay
  Face downward among leaves--then up and on
  Through branch and leaf till sense and breath were gone.




CANTO VIII


1

  When next he found himself no house was there,
  No garden and great trees. Beside a lane
  In grass he lay. Now first he was aware
  That, all one side, his body glowed with pain:
  And the next moment and the next again
  Was neither less nor more. Without a pause
  It clung like a great beast with fastened claws;


2

  That for a time he could not frame a thought
  Nor know himself for self, nor pain for pain,
  Till moment added on to moment taught
  The new, strange art of living on that plane,
  Taught how the grappled soul must still remain,
  Still choose and think and understand beneath
  The very grinding of the ogre’s teeth.


3

  He heard the wind along the hedges sweep,
  The quarter striking from a neighbouring tower.
  About him was the weight of the world’s sleep;
  Within, the thundering pain. That quiet hour
  Heeded it not. It throbbed, it raged with power
  Fit to convulse the heavens; and at his side
  The soft peace drenched the meadows far and wide.


4

  The air was cold, the earth was cold with dew,
  The hedge behind him dark as ink. But now
  The clouds broke and a paler heaven showed through
  Spacious with sudden stars, breathing somehow
  The sense of change to slumbering lands. A cow
  Coughed in the fields behind. The puddles showed
  Like pools of sky amid the darker road.


5

  And he could see his own limbs faintly white
  And the blood black upon them. Then by chance
  He turned ... and it was strange; there at his right
  He saw a woman standing, and her glance
  Met his: and at the meeting his deep trance
  Changed not, and while he looked the knowledge grew
  She was not of the old life but the new.


6

  “Who is it?” he said. “The loved one, the long lost.”
  He stared upon her. “Truly?”--“Truly indeed.”
  “Oh, lady, you come late. I am tempest-tossed,
  Broken and wrecked. I am dying. Look, I bleed.
  Why have you left me thus and given no heed
  To all my prayers?--left me to be the game
  Of all deceits?”--“You should have asked my name.”


7

  --“What are you, then?” But to his sudden cry
  She did not answer. When he had thought awhile
  He said: “How can I tell it is no lie?
  It may be one more phantom to beguile
  The brain-sick dreamer with its harlot smile.”
  “I have not smiled,” she said. The neighbouring bell
  Tolled out another quarter. Silence fell.


8

  And after a long pause he spoke again:
  “Leave me,” he said. “Why do you watch with me?
  You do not love me. Human tears and pain
  And hoping for the things that cannot be,
  And blundering in the night where none can see,
  And courage with cold back against the wall,
  You do not understand.”--“I know them all.


9

  “The gods themselves know pain, the eternal forms.
  In realms beyond the reach of cloud, and skies
  Nearest the ends of air, where come no storms
  Nor sound of earth, I have looked into their eyes
  Peaceful and filled with pain beyond surmise,
  Filled with an ancient woe man cannot reach
  One moment though in fire; yet calm their speech.”


10

  “Then these,” said Dymer, “were the world I wooed ...
  These were the holiness of flowers and grass
  And desolate dews ... these, the eternal mood
  Blowing the eternal theme through men that pass.
  I called myself their lover--I that was
  Less fit for that long service than the least
  Dull, workday drudge of men or faithful beast.


11

  “Why do they lure to them such spirits as mine,
  The weak, the passionate, and the fool of dreams?
  When better men go safe and never pine
  With whisperings at the heart, soul-sickening gleams
  Of infinite desire, and joy that seems
  The promise of full power? For it was they,
  The gods themselves that led me on this way.


12

  “Give me the truth! I ask not now for pity.
  When gods call, can the following them be sin?
  Was it false light that lured me from the City?
  Where was the path--without it or within?
  Must it be one blind throw to lose or win?
  Has heaven no voice to help? Must things of dust
  Guess their own way in the dark?” She said, “They must.”


13

  Another silence: then he cried in wrath,
  “You came in human shape, in sweet disguise
  Wooing me, lurking for me in my path,
  Hid your eternal cold with woman’s eyes,
  Snared me with shows of love--and all was lies.”
  She answered, “For our kind must come to all
  If bidden, but in the shape for which they call.”


14

  “What,” answered Dymer. “Do you change and sway
  To serve us, as the obedient planets spin
  About the sun? Are you but potter’s clay
  For us to mould--unholy to our sin
  And holy to the holiness within?”
  She said, “Waves fall on many an unclean shore,
  Yet the salt seas are holy as before.


15

  “Our nature is no purer for the saint
  That worships, nor from him that uses ill
  Our beauty, can we suffer any taint.
  As from the first we were, so are we still:
  With incorruptibles the mortal will
  Corrupts itself, and clouded eyes will make
  Darkness within from beams they cannot take.”


16

  “Well ... it is well,” said Dymer. “If I have used
  The embreathing spirit amiss ... what would have been
  The strength of all my days I have refused
  And plucked the stalk, too hasty, in the green,
  Trusted the good for best, and having seen
  Half-beauty, or beauty’s fringe, the lowest stair,
  The common incantation, worshipped there.”


17

  But presently he cried in his great pain,
  “If I had loved a beast it would repay,
  But I have loved the Spirit and loved in vain.
  Now let me die ... ah, but before the way
  Is ended quite, in the last hour of day,
  Is there no word of comfort, no one kiss
  Of human love? Does it all end in this?”


18

  She answered, “Never ask of life and death.
  Uttering these names you dream of wormy clay
  Or of surviving ghosts. This withering breath
  Of words is the beginning of decay
  In truth, when truth grows cold and pines away
  Among the ancestral images. Your eyes
  First see her dead: and more, the more she dies.


19

  “You are still dreaming, dreams you shall forget
  When you have cast your fetters, far from here.
  Go forth, the journey is not ended yet.
  You have seen Dymer dead and on the bier
  More often than you dream and dropped no tear,
  You have slain him every hour. Think not at all
  Of death lest into death by thought you fall.”


20

  He turned to question her, then looked again,
  And lo! the shape was gone. The darkness lay
  Heavy as yet and a cold, shifting rain
  Fell with the breeze that springs before the day.
  It was an hour death loves. Across the way
  The clock struck once again. He saw near by
  The black shape of the tower against the sky.


21

  Meanwhile above the torture and the riot
  Of leaping pulse and nerve that shot with pain,
  Somewhere aloof and poised in spectral quiet
  His soul was thinking on. The dizzied brain
  Scarce seemed her organ: link by link the chain
  That bound him to the flesh was loosening fast
  And the new life breathed in unmoved and vast.


22

  “It was like this,” he thought. “Like this, or worse
  For him that I found bleeding in the wood ...
  Blessings upon him ... there I learned the curse
  That rests on Dymer’s name, and truth was good.
  He has forgotten now the fire and blood,
  He has forgotten that there was a man
  Called Dymer. He knows not himself nor Bran.


23

  “How long have I been moved at heart in vain
  About this Dymer, thinking this was I ...
  Why did I follow close his joy and pain
  More than another man’s? For he will die,
  The little cloud will vanish and the sky
  Reigns as before. The stars remain and earth
  And Man, as in the years before my birth.


24

  “There was a Dymer once who worked and played
  About the City; I sloughed him off and ran.
  There was a Dymer in the forest glade
  Ranting alone, skulking the fates of man.
  I cast him also, and a third began
  And he too died. But I am none of those.
  Is there another still to die.... Who knows?”


25

  Then in his pain, half wondering what he did,
  He made to struggle towards that belfried place.
  And groaning down the sodden bank he slid
  And groaning in the lane he felt his trace
  Of bloodied mire: then halted with his face
  Upwards, towards the gateway, breathing hard
  --An old lych-gate before a burial-yard.


26

  He looked within. Between the huddling crosses,
  Over the slanted tombs and sunken slate
  Spread the deep quiet grass and humble mosses,
  A green and growing darkness, drenched of late,
  Smelling of earth and damp. He reached the gate
  With failing hand. “I will rest here,” he said,
  “And the long grass will cool my burning head.”




CANTO IX


1

  Even as he heard the wicket clash behind
  Came a great wind beneath that seemed to tear
  The solid graves apart; and deaf and blind
  Whirled him upright like smoke, through towering air.
  Whose levels were as steps of a sky stair.
  The parching cold roughened his throat with thirst
  And pricked him at the heart. This was the first.


2

  And as he soared into the next degree,
  Suddenly all around him he could hear
  Sad strings that fretted inconsolably
  And ominous horns that blew both far and near.
  There broke his human heart, and his last tear
  Froze scalding on his chin. But while he heard
  He shot like a sped dart into the third.


3

  And its first stroke of silence could destroy
  The spring of tears forever and compress
  From off his lips the curved bow of the boy
  Forever. The sidereal loneliness
  Received him, where no journeying leaves the less
  Still to be journeyed through: but everywhere,
  Fast though you fly, the centre still is there.


4

  And here the well-worn fabric of our life,
  Fell from him. Hope and purpose were cut short,
  --Even the blind trust that reaches in mid-strife
  Towards some heart of things. Here blew the mort
  For the world spirit herself. The last support
  Was fallen away--Himself, one spark of soul,
  Swam in unbroken void. He was the whole,


5

  And wailing: “Why hast Thou forsaken me?
  Was there no world at all, but only I
  Dreaming of gods and men?” Then suddenly
  He felt the wind no more: he seemed to fly
  Faster than light but free; and scaled the sky
  In his own strength--as if a falling stone
  Should wake to find the world’s will was its own.


6

  And on the instant, straight before his eyes
  He looked and saw a sentry shape that stood
  Leaning upon its spear, with hurrying skies
  Behind it and a moonset red as blood.
  Upon its head were helmet and mailed hood
  And shield upon its arm and sword at thigh,
  All black and pointed sharp against the sky.


7

  Then came the clink of metal, the dry sound
  Of steel on rock, and challenge: “Who comes here?”
  And as he heard it, Dymer at one bound
  Stood in the stranger’s shadow, with the spear
  Between them. And his human face came near
  That larger face. “What watch is this you keep?”
  Said Dymer, “On the edge of such a deep.”


8

  And answer came, “I watch both night and day
  This frontier ... there are beasts of the upper air
  As beasts of the deep sea ... one walks this way
  Night after night, far scouring from his lair,
  Chewing the cud of lusts which are despair
  And fill not, while his mouth gapes dry for bliss
  That never was.”--“What kind of beast is this?”


9

  “A kind of things escaped that have no home,
  Hunters of men. They love the spring uncurled,
  The will worn down, the wearied hour. They come
  At night-time when the mask is off the world
  And the soul’s gate ill-locked and the flag furled
  --Then, softly, a pale swarm, and in disguise
  Flit past the drowsy watchman, small as flies.”


10

  “I’ll see this aerish beast whereof you speak.
  I’ll share the watch with you.”--“Nay, little One,
  Begone. You are of earth. The flesh is weak....”
  --“What is the flesh to me? My course is run,
  All but some deed still waiting to be done,
  Some moment I may rise on, as the boat
  Lifts with the lifting tide and steals afloat.


11

  “You are a spirit, and it is well with you,
  But I am come out of great folly and shame,
  The sack of cities, wrongs I must undo....
  But tell me of the beast, and whence it came;
  Who were its sire and dam? What is its name?”
  --“It is my kin. All monsters are the brood
  Of heaven and earth, and mixed with holy blood.”


12

  --“How can this be?”--“My son, sit here awhile.
  There is a lady in that primal place
  Where I was born, who with her ancient smile
  Made glad the sons of heaven. She loved to chase
  The springtime round the world. To all your race
  She was a sudden quivering in the wood
  Or a new thought springing in solitude.


13

  “Till, in prodigious hour, one swollen with youth,
  Blind from new broken prison, knowing not
  Himself nor her, nor how to mate with truth,
  Lay with her in a strange and secret spot,
  Mortal with her immortal, and begot
  This walker-in-the-night.”--“But did you know
  This mortal’s name?”--“Why ... it was long ago.


14

  “And yet, I think, I bear the name in mind;
  It was some famished boy whom tampering men
  Had crippled in their chains and made him blind
  Till their weak hour discovered them: and then
  He broke that prison. Softly!--it comes again,
  I have it. It was Dymer, Little One,
  Dymer’s the name. This spectre is his son.”


15

  Then, after silence, came an answering shout
  From Dymer, glad and full: “Break off! Dismiss!
  Your watch is ended and your lamp is out
  Unarm, unarm. Return into your bliss.
  You are relieved, Sir. I must deal with this
  As in my right. For either I must slay
  This beast or else be slain before the day.”


16

  “So mortal and so brave?” that other said,
  Smiling, and turned and looked in Dymer’s eyes,
  Scanning him over twice from heel to head
  --Like an old sergeant’s glance, grown battle wise
  To know the points of men. At last, “Arise,”
  He said, “and wear my arms. I can withhold
  Nothing; for such an hour has been foretold.”


17

  Thereat, with lips as cold as the sea-surge,
  He kissed the youth, and bending on one knee
  Put all his armour off and let emerge
  Angelic shoulders marbled gloriously
  And feet like frozen speed and, plain to see,
  On his wide breast dark wounds and ancient scars,
  The battle honours of celestial wars.


18

  Then like a squire or brother born he dressed
  The young man in those plates, that dripped with cold
  Upon the inside, trickling over breast
  And shoulder: but without, the figured gold
  Gave to the tinkling ice its jagged hold,
  And the icy spear froze fast to Dymer’s hand.
  But where the other had stood he took his stand


19

  And searched the cloudy landscape. He could see
  Dim shapes like hills appearing, but the moon
  Had sunk behind their backs. “When will it be?”
  Said Dymer: and the other, “Soon now, soon.
  For either he comes past us at night’s noon
  Or else between the night and the full day,
  And down there, on your left, will be his way.”


20

  --“Swear that you will not come between us two
  Nor help me by a hair’s weight if I bow.”
  --“If you are he, if prophesies speak true,
  Not heaven and all the gods can help you now.
  This much I have been told, but know not how
  The fight will end. Who knows? I cannot tell.”
  “Sir, be content,” said Dymer. “I know well.”


21

  Thus Dymer stood to arms, with eyes that ranged
  Through aching darkness: stared upon it, so
  That all things, as he looked upon them, changed
  And were not as at first. But grave and slow
  The larger shade went sauntering to and fro,
  Humming at first the snatches of some tune
  That soldiers sing, but falling silent soon.


22

  Then came steps of dawn. And though they heard
  No milking cry in the fields, and no cock crew,
  And out of empty air no twittering bird
  Sounded from neighbouring hedges, yet they knew.
  Eastward the hollow blackness paled to blue,
  Then blue to white: and in the West the rare,
  Surviving stars blinked feebler in cold air.


23

  Far beneath Dymer’s feet the sad half-light
  Discovering the new landscape oddly came,
  And forms grown half familiar in the night
  Looked strange again: no distance seemed the same.
  And now he could see clear and call by name
  Valleys and hills and woods. The phantoms all
  Took shape, and made a world, at morning’s call.


24

  It was a ruinous land. The ragged stumps
  Of broken trees rose out of endless clay
  Naked of flower and grass: the slobbered humps
  Dividing the dead pools. Against the grey
  A shattered village gaped. But now the day
  Was very near them and the night was past,
  And Dymer understood and spoke at last.


25

  “Now I have wooed and won you, bridal earth,
  Beautiful world that lives, desire of men.
  All that the spirit intended at my birth
  This day shall be born into deed ... and then
  The hard day’s labour comes no more again
  Forever. The pain dies. The longings cease.
  The ship glides under the green arch of peace.


26

  “Now drink me as the sun drinks up the mist.
  This is the hour to cease in, at full flood,
  That asks no gift from following years--but, hist!
  Look yonder! At the corner of that wood--
  Look! Look there where he comes! It shocks the blood,
  The first sight, eh? Now, sentinel, stand clear
  And save yourself. For God’s sake come not near.”


27

  His full-grown spirit had moved without command
  Or spur of the will. Before he knew he found
  That he was leaping forward spear in hand
  To where that ashen brute wheeled slowly round
  Nosing, and set its ears towards the sound,
  The pale and heavy brute, rough-ridged behind,
  And full of eyes, clinking in scaly rind.


28

  And now ten paces parted them: and here
  He halted. He thrust forward his left foot,
  Poising his straightened arms, and launched the spear,
  And gloriously it sang. But now the brute
  Lurched forward: and he saw the weapon shoot
  Beyond it and fall quivering on the field.
  Dymer drew out his sword and raised the shield.


29

  What now, my friends? You get no more from me
  Of Dymer. He goes from us. What he felt
  Or saw from henceforth no man knows but he
  Who has himself gone through the jungle belt
  Of dying, into peace. That angel knelt
  Far off and watched them close but could not see
  Their battle. All was ended suddenly.


30

  A leap--a cry--flurry of steel and claw,
  Then silence. As before, the morning light
  And the same brute crouched yonder; and he saw
  Under its feet, broken and bent and white,
  The ruined limbs of Dymer, killed outright
  All in a moment, all his story done.
  ... But that same moment came the rising sun;


31

  And thirty miles to Westward, the grey cloud
  Flushed into answering pink. Long shadows streamed
  From every hill, and the low hanging shroud
  Of mist along the valleys broke and steamed
  Gold-flecked to heaven. Far off the armour gleamed
  Like glass upon the dead man’s back. But now
  The sentinel ran forward, hand to brow,


32

  And staring. For between him and the sun
  He saw that country clothed with dancing flowers
  Where flower had never grown; and one by one
  The splintered woods, as if from April showers,
  Were softening into green. In the leafy towers
  Rose the cool, sudden chattering on the tongues
  Of happy birds with morning in their lungs.


33

  The wave of flowers came breaking round his feet,
  Crocus and bluebell, primrose, daffodil
  Shivering with moisture: and the air grew sweet
  Within his nostrils, changing heart and will,
  Making him laugh. He looked, and Dymer still
  Lay dead among the flowers and pinned beneath
  The brute: but as he looked he held his breath;


34

  For when he had gazed hard with steady eyes
  Upon the brute, behold, no brute was there,
  But someone towering large against the skies,
  A wing’d and sworded shape, through whom the air
  Poured as through glass: and its foam-tumbled hair
  Lay white about the shoulders and the whole
  Pure body brimmed with life, as a full bowl.


35

  And from the distant corner of day’s birth
  He heard clear trumpets blowing and bells ring,
  A noise of great good coming into earth
  And such a music as the dumb would sing
  If Balder had led back the blameless spring
  With victory, with the voice of charging spears,
  And in white lands long-lost Saturnian years.


THE END



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