_To C. K. P._
Song and silence ever be
All the grace, life bring to me:
Song well winged with sunrise fire;
Silence holy and entire:
Silence of a marble sea,
Song of an immortal lyre.
Take my thanks, who profferest
Wistful song and musical:
Melodies memorial,
Melancholy, augural:
Meaning, that Old World is best:
Ours, a witless palimpsest.
Not cool glades of Fontainebleau
Hold the secret; not French plains,
Crowned with monumental fanes;
Not the Flemish waters' flow:
Light the fair days come, light go:
But the mystery remains.
Here, beneath the carven spires,
We have dreams, revolts, desires:
Here each ancient, haunted Hall
Holds its Brocken carnival;
Where Philosophy attires
All her forms, to suit us all.
In a ring her witches crowd:
Faces passionate and proud,
Luring eyes and voices loud:
_Death ends life: And life is death:
Man is dust: The soul a breath:
Who knows aught?_ Each fair Lie saith.
Master of the revel rout,
Flaunts him Mephistopheles:
Leading up, to where he sees
Faith, alone and ill at ease,
Many a winning, light-foot Doubt:
_Knows each other: dance it out!_
Ah, the whirling, bacchant dance!
Then no more Faith's crystal glance
Pierces the benighted skies:
Then, for her inheritance,
Hath she but each dream, that lies
Dying in her wildered eyes.
Breaking hearts! For you the lark
Cries at morn: for you the deep
Silence deepens in the dark,
When invisible angels mark
Your tired eyes, that burn and weep,
Hardly wearied into sleep.
Fearful hearts! For you all song
Sighs, and laughs, and soars: for you
Low-preluding winds prolong
Meditative music through
Twilight: till for you there throng
Calm stars, unprofaned and true.
Song and silence ever be
All the grace, life bring to me:
Song of Mary, mighty Mother;
Song of whom she bare, my Brother:
Silence of an ecstasy,
When I find Him, and none other.
Song thou sendest, singing fair:
But what music past compare
That must be when, gathered home,
Poor strayed children kneel in prayer:
Confessors of Christendom
Unto thee, O royal Rome!
Silence all is mine alone
Now, before the altar throne
Darkling, waiting, happier thus,
Till the night watches be gone.
Holy Aloysius!
Holy Mother! pray for us.
1887.