Matin Bells and Scarlet and Gold

Front matter

Matin Bells and Scarlet and Gold. L MATIN BELLS AND SCARLET AND GOLD. By F. HARALD WILLIAMS," B.A., Oxford, OT. Author os " IVomen Must Weep? Fourth Edition {Setnina æternitatis, Abp. os Armagh); 'niter the Swords' " Baby Pilgrims," and" Confessions of a Poet." [First Edition.] 1897. The Roxburghe Press, Fifteen, Victoria Street, Westminster. TO MY WIFE. I picked these blossoms by the way, Which yet have something of the morn — A blush, a perfume, that may stay : I give the flower, I keep the thorn. (Soft sIDatttt Belle anfc Scarlet atto oi. Dedication — Cooing Time. 2. Apologia pro Arte Med (Prologue) Section I. — White Magic. II. — Songs of Gramarye. III. — Kingdom of the Cross. IV. — Grammar of Grace. V.— Matin Bells. „ VI. — Prisoner of Eternity. „ VII.— Scarlet and Gold. VIII.— Thorns and Thistles.

Vindicatio Vitæ Meæ. Contents. Dedication . . . . Cooing Time. Prologue . . . . . . Apologia pro Arte Mt a. Section I. — White Magic. I'AGE. i. White Magic .. .. .. .. •• 26 2. White Wings 27 3. White Rose 31 4. White Words 33 5. Coming of White Soul 35 6. Making of White Soul 37 7. White Thoughts 38 8. White Service 39 9. White Hands 41 10. White Feet 42 1 1 . White Breasts . . . . . . . ■ • • 44 12. White Life 45 13. White Book 46 14. White God .. .. .. .. •• •• 48 Section II. — Songs of Gramarye. 1 . Song of Gramarye . . . . . . . . • • 5 ' 2. Naked Nature .. .. .. •• ■• 53 3. Architekton . . . . . . • • • ■ • • 62 4. Easter Eve . . . . • ■ • • • • • • 72 5. The Secret . . . . . . • • • ■ • • 73 6. Daffodil 74 7. Dirty Night 76 8. Baby Pilgrims . . . . . . • • • • 77 9. Living Dead . . . . • • • • • ■ 79 10.

Cloudland .. .. .. •• •• •• 8l 1 1 . She Came . . . . . . • • • • • • 84 12. Things to be 8S 13. Yellow Leaf 86 14. Cross of Fire .. .. •• •• •• 88 1 5 . River of Tears . . . . • • • ■ • • 9 ' 16. Nature's Secret .. .. •• •• •• 95 17. Castle in the Air Contents — Continued. 8 PAGS. 1 8. Dark Angel 98 19. Ruling Passion .. .. ■• •• •• '00 20. Crossing the Threshold .. •• •• •• I03 21. Bridge of Dread .. .. .- •• ■• I04 22. Follow thy Star <°4 23. Wind of Iron Peaks 106 24. Mandate of Silence . . . . • • • • '°7 25. Lost Lady of Honour .. .. .. •• 108 26. Mountain-top View. . . . . . . ■ • • 112 27. Circle of Life 115 28. Genius of Waiting .. .. .. .. .. 119 29. The Sorrow of it .. .. .. .. .. 119 30. Nepenthe .. .. .. .. . • •• 121 31. What is the Vision?. . .. .. .. .. 123 32. Lark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124 33.

Prologue

. 19 And see nothing still but motes In my every rhyme or ray — Just because it is my way, Is my way, Is my way. For indeed I know no other Better plan, And I never had a brother, Born of man. And my heart yet will not smother Music learnt of winds and brooks, (Not of books) And must warble what it can. Others yield to custom's tie, Rest in any silken lie — I must sing, or I shall die. Is it instinct or obtuseness, Art or shoddy, Fraud or truth, But I do believe in body, And the rich and ripe profuseness Of a warm, full blooded youth, Plump and real, Not a marble cold ideal. And exuberance in woman Never yet has found a foeman, Never will, Never shall, At the fast or festival, In the fight or funeral, While old love retains the skill Chief in woman, And the beating heart is human. Ah, abundance is no fault ; Its totality (Not a swinish animality Where we are agreed to halt) Is its favour And its beauty, And without it were as salt Which has lost its saving savour And its duty.

The diffuseness of my song Does no wrong, Has no harm, Is its glory and its charm, Is its beauty and its strength, And the ease that comes at length (Only late, Fair as fate) — Is the final grace of art, And perfection of each part With the flowering of the heart ; Though this power, In the hand Not accustomed to command Or to prune, May be still a deadly dower And make discord in the tune. If my singing errs as such, Is too much, 'Tis because I love the latitude Of the boundless air and sea And the rolling prairie lea, Not one attitude Stiff and starved, As if carved Out of stone, Nor one tone ; I want room wherein to range Up and down Field and town, Chance and change, Ocean billows Where the petrels hang and play, Purple pillows In the old night's starry day. As the moorland breezes blow, Breezes blow Over miles of fragrant heather,

PROLOGUE.

. 21 Where the blue bells nod together ; As the rippling waters flow, Waters flow, Through the pastures' daisied sweep To the deep, To the deep ; As the birdies wave their wing And make woods with music ring, Music ring, In an ecstasy of trust, All and each because they must ; So I sing, So I sing, In the poetry of trust, For I must, For I must. Passion like a leaping fire, Tears that start From my heart, Heaven's delight and earth's desire, Bid my art Play a part, Seize its lute and strike the strings, Till the sleeping thoughts and things Which of miracle partake Born in melody awake — Lisping leaves, Rustling sheaves, Brooks that babble, Girls that dabble Feet of snow in kissing waves Falling at those feet like slaves. Blushing roses' Red reposes, Lilies' anguish As they languish, Bleeding under Bees that plunder Them of gold They withhold, And the yellow nectar dust, Unto which they climb and cling, These I worship, these I sing, For I must.

For I must. O, the method is the man — Is the man, And I cannot change my plan Foul or fair, For it is the very air Which I breathe, And wherein my fancies wreathe Or array themselves in light, And in shade ; Nor in borrowed robe or right, Would I ever, if I might With false trappings masquerade. Yes, my manner Is my banner, It means more, It is J. Whether darkly soaring high, Or with vague and venturous prow On a far untravelled shore, Touching, just to pay some vow As no pilgrim paid before ; Dropping now Into coy forbidden nooks, Where no prying sunbeam looks. Well I know there may be others, Sisters, brothers, Who uplift a loftier voice And possess a larger choice, And in liberty rejoice To be silent or to sing. I am one, Who have none ; But, as blossoms in the spring At the waft of warmer air And new times,

PROLOGUE.

. 23 Rush to resurrection fair, — So my spirit chants and chimes And upon the sunbeam stair Romps in rhymes To and fro, As the living currents go, Ever bound to sing and fly From a sweet necessity. Others wander as they will, As they will, Like the straydng of a stream Now in vigil, now in dream, With the pride of scornful skill, Through the vista of the valley, Here asleep, there with a sally Rioting, Murmuring Musically, In the most approved of measure, At their pleasure. But they feel no higher law Than their own, Not the awe Of the unseen and unknown In the study of a straw, And bestrown With the stardust, and the grace Like a world All upcurled In a tiny dewdrop's face ; And for their capricious course They admit no deeper source Than some dim, Devious whim, Not a budding revelation's Obligations.

But I hear the calling, calling And I feel the thralling, thralling Of the Powers Sweet as flowers, Soft as showers On green bowers, Drawing, guiding, Cheering, chiding, With a beautiful revulsion From this vulgar rack and wrong, By a dear supreme compulsion, Flooding me with silver song And a glamour and a glow, Till the flame Without name Must in music overflow. What the secret Voices fling From their lonely sacred summits, What the Silences may bring Deeper than the deepest plummets, Mirth and madness, Love and sadness, Tears of gladness, Mist on mountains, Fire of fountains, God Refiner, Man diviner, Breasts that no man Kissed on woman, Insect's wing, Lips of scarlet, Hair all starlit, Uncrowned king, These I sing, These I sing. Others step aside and play By the way Night and day ; Others yield to lower lust, Baser strife, Wallowing in din and dust And red wrong Loved too long ; But the point of passion's knife

PROLOGUE.

. 25 Never more allowed to rust, At my breast With unrest But anointed, Still is pointed. And I own the stormy gust, As I feel the yearning strong, Ripe and rife, With a doubt sublime as trust ; While the singing is my life, And the living is my song, So I babble what I must, What I must, What I must.

Section I

Mbite slDagic. WHITE MAGIC. Take, O take the magic bowl, Feed it with most lovely things, Tears and laughter that will shake the very rafter, Echoing on in the hereafter, Light of lilies and the soul Of our hidden spells and springs, And the death-bell's passing toll With the waft of angel wings ; Mix them kindly, mix them madly, dumbly, blindly With the moonlit dews that rest, And the red so unconfin'dly Sleeping on the rose's breast. Take, O take a virgin heart From the baby as it dreams Of its mother and the kisses rained that smother Lips responding to no other ; Mingle it with masons' art, Deft to catch the morning gleams, White on turrets as they start Upward like embodied beams ; Throw in buttercups and daisies, and the shutter Dropt by shadows when they fall, Mirth and melodies that utter Pain within the woof of all.

Take, O take the lambent fire, And the cunning flowers of frost Dimly painted on the windows as if sainted And for evermore untainted ; Blend them with the marriage tire Of a maiden loved and lost, And ineffable desire For the pathway yet uncrost ; Freely scatter snow, and honeyed words that flatter Fools and still have something true, Grace of children and their chatter, And a blessed rift of blue. Take, O take from clouded skies Thunder, and of purple air Bloom and winning charms from breezes all a-spinning Webs that break and keep beginning ; Add to colour where it lies On the cheek and haunting hair Of a woman's sorceries, Innocent that she is fair ; Join to clamour of the strife that secret glamour Softening low the steps of lust, And on waves that stir and stammer Cast a handful of gray dust.

WHITE WINGS— A THEOPHANY. There was silence in the city, there was silence on the lea When that fateful voice went forth Through the night, into the north, And the leaves that made a music like the murmur of the sea, As in sounds of solemn worth Rode the White Wings on the stillness that responded to their plea ; For that vision With decision Cut the vapours, as they hung Like a curtain In uncertain Light, and as a censer swung ; And the oaring of those White Wings was a wonder to the eye, While they voyaged grandly on As of old in Babvlon, With a message for the earth life, and a mission from the sky, That reached out into the future, and reached back across the past, Calling man of peace and slayer From their slothful dreams to prayer And the holy preparations of the vigil and the fast — " O ye sinners who transgress, Come to penance and confess, And your evil deeds redress, While the door of grace is open and the hours of mercy last."

And beneath the ancient belfry in the shadow of the tower, With the magic of the moon And its candle, that would soon Be extinguished by the sun-blaze as it burst again in flower, Death was waiting for its boon And a quiet resurrection when the White Wings gave it power ; For the mortal From its portal Then once more in beauty broke, And the sleeping Graces keeping Their long trysting-time awoke ; As they heard that cry of ages, in their centuried retreat And their fellowship with dust, Which aroused the quickening trust And the seed of everlastingness that could not own defeat ; While it robbed the grave of victory, and took from fear the sting, Calling through the earthly layer, " O ye corpses, come to prayer, For your trance is but a trouble that will final glory bring To the darkness of the clods, And the winter rains like rods, Ye shall yet up spring as gods, And those crumbling frames be crowned with delight — arise and sing !

" But the White Wings seemed to order me to follow as they flew, As they floated like a cloud Which was shaping in a shroud Some new miracle of life, that of the mist and starlight grew, Till the night wind waxing proud Of the marvel and the mystery its gentle trumpet blew ; And a whisper Clear and crisper, As it gathered of all good From the numbers And the slumbers Of the water and the wood, Like the speaking of the Universal Spirit fell on me And it kindled me like fire, With an infinite desire, And those White Wings seemed a symbol of the better things to be ; While it trembled on my heart-strings like a finger on a lute, Calling doers and the sayer To the awful shrine of prayer, Where the shining walls are worship and the shouts of passion mute, " O ye peoples ofthe lands Come with praises in your hands That will wash away the brands, And array you in the righteousness of the Divine repute."

Thus I seemed to flit for ages over map-like sea and shore, And uncharted earth and sky, Where the White Wings rustled by With the burden of the warning that to every clime they bore, As from old eternity, While the dry bones stirred behind them and the heavens flamed out before ; And I pondered As I wandered Through the chambers of the air, Would my travel Now unravel, The dark riddles of despair ? But none answered, though I followed the one watchman of the night, As he uncompanioned sped On his task unpiloted In the dieadfulness of twilight and his ministering flight ; And a ghostly presence bathed me in a rapture more than bliss, Calling drudge alike and player To the marriage feast of prayer, When before the sob of penitence comes absolution's kiss — " O ye sinners, who are lost Or by gusts of craving tost, The grim border can be crost, And the White Wings yet shall carry you safe o'er the black abyss."

And now ever when the evening falls and owls begin to sweep On their broad majestic vans, With another way than man's, I go sailing with the White Wings through the spaces dim and deep, And decipher the dark plans Of the margin of the mysteries that haunt the worlds of sleep ; And no stigma Of enigma Now is bitter as of old, And raie petals Like rich metals In the silent hours unfold ; I go sailing with those White Wings over mountain, moor and dale, Over forest, fields and brooks Which to me are open books, And they sigh to me their secrets of the far and future tale ; But the Voice proclaims its teaching to the inward upturned eye, Calling pilgrim soul and stayer To themselves in solemn prayer, While the Vision gives them seeing of the sacred euphrasy, " O ye dead at length upstart, And ye thoughts that death impart From the white and new-washed heart Take its colour, till each skeleton is a theophany."

WHITE ROSE. There it lay in the terrible slough of the slums, There it lay in the gutter and mire, And it burned with the beauty of fire That repelled the rude grasp of the envious thumbs, And hard fingers that quarrelled with dogs for mere crumbs, But shrunk back from one dainty desire ; There it lay In broad day, A white rose, That looked bigger and brighter, And fairer and whiter Because of its muddy repose. How it came in that squalid and pestilent gloom, With its message of mercy and light For the shadow more dreadful than night, No one knew as they gazed at the delicate bloom All askance when they passed to the sin and the doom, Though they felt and they hated their blight ; No one knew Where it grew, Whence it dropt, As it seemed to wax sweeter And blossom completer, But no one to gather it stopt.

There it lay in the thick of the horror and shame Like a challenge from heaven sent down, To the drab with her mud-spattered gown And the creature unsexed, and but woman in name ; While to each it seemed different — awful as flame, A reproach, or the glimpse of a crown ; There it lay On their way, A white rose, Just like silvery metal, No stain in a petal, As if it had more to disclose. Now and then some went slower and almost stood still, A rough child that if tended were fair With the halo not fled from his hair Which the angels had fondled, before his blind will In the darkness around him as comrade chose ill, Or a girl with yet innocent air ; But none could, And none would Venture quite For a moment to linger Or touch with a finger, That purity dreadful and white. Till at last from the mob and the misery crept A lame girl with the glory of fears, And the jewels of penitent tears ; While virginity that had so long in her slept, Now awoke as from dreams, and in melody leapt To the early desire of the years ; Sweet and low In the glow Of delight, Down she knelt with her meanness And conscious uncleanness, That turned a sick bloom to the light.

With a thrill of unworthiness flushing her face, Then she guiltily thrust in her breast The strange prize that in passion was prest , And the freshness with all its ineffable grace In a moment came back to her tender embrace, As a homing shy bird to its nest ; There it grew, There it blew, As with those Who are true to their nature And rise to full stature, With roots in her heart — the White Rose WHITE WORDS. There was worship in heaven and wonder on earth When the white queen of purity spoke, And the pauper forgot all the bondage of dearth, While the ashes leapt up and awoke, As they broke Into beauty and blossom of fire ; The dead hearts renewed ancient desire, And wan maidens their snowy attire ; For her voice had the glamour and gladness of truth And the thoughts were themselves all in rhyme With the dew and delight and enchantment of youth And the infinite story of time. i Not the words of our wisdom the fair and the fit, Not the speech of the reverend sage With his splendour of learning and sparkle of wit, In the mellowing harvest of age ; Not a page From the richest resultings of years ; But a music that sell on the ears, With the babble of song birds and tears ; And the voice of the spirit that pierces the soul As the arrow that goes to its mark, And brings back to the deaf their departed control With a murmur of morn in the dark.

From her lips flew the message of virginal life, A new ministry breathed in old names On the hardness and squalor of bestial strife, And the vilest of shadows and shames ; Winged flames, That set animal natures aglow With a freshness no art could bestow. As if heaven surged up from below ; Crystal flakes which alit on the petrified rest With a soft'ning appeal, and were such That they kindled at once the dull stone of the breast Into glory and grace with their touch. Words of hope from the depths of an infinite joy, Like the whisper of Spring in the air, That just seemed as they dropt to consume the alloy And the evil of all things not fair — To repair What was broken with promise of dawn, And its colours of paradise drawn On gray brothel as on the green lawn ; For she spoke as a queen who has passed beyond hell And yet carries the scorching and stain, And has tasted all sacraments trial can tell Being crowned with the crowning of pain.

Warm white words from the fountain of love and the light Freely scattered as jewels on all, That were seeds of a manhood to come in its might, The auguster because of its fall And the pall ; For she uttered herself, and the blind Yet in her did their heritage find, And partook of that beautiful mind ; She came down to the sorrow and down to the sin, She was one with the feeble and faint, She revealed to the meanest the marvels within, And in rags the sweet aureoled saint. Ah, they listened to her, the poor, starving and stained As they drank in the music of hope, While the captives remembered no more they were chained, And the murderer saw not the rope, But the slope. That leads up to blue roses of skies, As he gazed with his red rheumy eyes, And beheld a new Eden arise ; For the halt, and the maimed, and the crippled in heart Everyone found some quickening tone, A new life that sent shoots through the sickliest part Within each, as for each all alone.

THE COMING OF THE WHITE SOUL. She was wrapt in a garment of snow, She was bathed in the beauty of fire, While her eyes had a heavenly glow, And her breath was a holy desire, When she came, Sweet as blossoms of flame, With a love that burned brighter than wine And a tenderness human, divine, Robing round In a passion profound All the horror and evil and shame — When she came. There was silence in Heaven, and earth For a season of worship stood still, And the poverty dreamed not of dearth, While the famishing once had their fill ; When she came, With the wonderful Name That is whispered by angels in awe, The new service that springs not from law, And the light That is perfected might, To transform each unvirginal frame — When she came. There was movement in desolate graves, And a rustling of beautiful wings, While the drudges forgot they were slaves And in dignity rose up as kings ; When she came, And the lepers and lame Started forth from the gloom of their dens, And remembered their bodies were men's, And their hearts Should play worthier parts, And had finished with fretting and blame — When she came.

There was lisping of joy in the air, And a stirring of all the dry bones, As when birds are beginning to pair, And the leaves laugh in musical tones ; When she came, As serene and the same As the march of a conquerer's tread, And the buds from the darkness and dead Leapt to life, And the dolorous strife Of the ages felt one who could tame — When she came. THE MAKING OF THE WHITE SOUL. Fired with the battle fever, tost upon iron waves Still by the grim deceiver death among open graves, Vainly I sought the purging needed by my sick breast, All in the bloody surging, all in the red unrest. Wounded but yet no cleaner, broken but yet the same, Dying but yet the meaner out of the wreck I came. Where should I bathe my sorrows, where should I wash me white, Ere the avenging morrow's reckoning infinite ?

Death only mocked me ever though I pursued its path, Cleansed not my wild endeavour with its refining wrath. Then within court and column sought I the blessed balm, Craved with devotion solemn, wooed in the sacred psalm ; Gazing my eyes grew moister, fixed on the fateful cross, Sealed in the silent cloister armed to assay my dross. Vainly I met the lashes, vainly I did endure Sackcloth and fast and ashes — still I remained impure. How should I lose my tainted nature and make me white, Clothed in apparel sainted, holiness infinite? Then by my awful study, eager I hoped to leave Sin and pollution muddy, holding me down a slave ; Digging the dusty treasure torn from the jealous years, Reaping a sober pleasure purchased with time and tears; Turning the yellow pages hourly and day and night, Torturing sere old ages still for the questioned light.

Vainly I asked each sentence all that from flesh might wean, Vainly I read repentance — still I abode unclean. When should I drop my chaining rags for a vesture white, Weaving instead of staining comeliness infinite ? So in the woe and welter made by the miry street Merged I forsook the shelter cold as a winding sheet ; Hailed in the lost my brothers gained from no musty shelf, Hoping at last in others thus to redeem myself. Bravely I put my shoulder now to a humble part, Gathering grace and bolder strength for my hungryheart, Till from the kindly toiling done in the common way, Slowly the sin and soiling faded and fell away ; While, though by tardy stages, dawned like a sunrise sure, Blessings not bought by wages, giving a franchise pure; And to my empty bosom, till it possessed the whole, Breaking all into blossom, beautiful came the Soul.

For, as the shadow dwindled, waxed the new nature white, Shedding a peace that kindled happiness infinite. THE WHITE THOUGHT. In Mente Dei. Hid In the mind of God beautiful there it lay, Pure as a world untrod, shy as an opening day ; Virginal, the White Thought brooded on joys to be, Ravishment yet unwrought, mightiness of the sea ; All in Divinity draped breathing of earth and sky, Infinite and unshaped dream of Eternity. Moved in the mind of God, wonderful as the beams Spilled on a moonlit sod, splashed upon mountain streams ; Thought as refined as gold, big with most blessed things, Seeking the meetest mould where to expand its wings ; Yearning for outward form somewhere at last in Time, Stronger than winter storm, soft as a silver chime. Fed in the mind of God, craving a holy vent Whence it might make the clod glow as the firmament; Thought that would roll the earth drooping with shame and lack, Out of its dusky dearth into a broader track; Sweet as the heart of a child, dim as love's refuges, Splendid as undefil'd soul of the silences.

THE WHITE SERVICE. Come, lay one hand upon the cross and lift one hand to Heaven, And swear whatever be the loss to purge out all the leaven Of evil from thy treacherous heart, and do a soldier's worthy part Unsoiled by sinful revel ; To guard the Church, which others trod in rapine, by the grace of God Against the world and Devil. Come, kneel and keep a trustful tryst from midnight to the morning Alone with the White Blessed Christ in simple unadorning, Within the shadow of this fane beneath the storied blood-red pane That breathes a brighter morrow ; If in this ghostly place at length thy Lord may clothe thee with His strength And cleanse thee in His sorrow. With all my priestly power I bid thee weep and wait thy season, And hold the watch our Captain did on that dark night of treason ; To face the banded hosts of ill with armed breast and iron will, And prayers shot up like arrows.

The death-bell, it may be, will toll the sin away that sears thy soul, When darkness round thee narrows. Lay down thy head and keep the tryst which saints have kept for ever, These hours with the White Blessed Christ by true and strong endeavour, In penance and the bitter woe which is the demon's dying throe That parts not but by rending ; And ere the dawn upon thee shakes its shafts and sunrise in thee wakes, May come the conqueror's ending. Perchance the Lord will tarry long, or break on thee in thunder, And crashing with the tempest song burst the black night asunder ; Perchance in visits of the moon the love that lives will meet thee soon In bridal sweet and solemn, And somewhere in this reverend wall will rise the dear expected call From cloistered depth or column. But be thou brave and keep the tryst which all must keep who cherish The faith of the White Blessed Christ and for that faith would perish ; Perchance with calm compelling voice that makes the saddest heart rejoice He will descend in meekness, Who feels for thy exceeding shame and has put on our mortal frame And knows each want and weakness.