THE HOUND OF HEAVEN
I fled Him, down the nights
and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches
of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine
ways
Of my own mind; and in the
mist of tears
I hid from Him, and under
running laughter.
Up vistaed hopes I sped;
And shot, precipitated,
Adown Titanic glooms of chasmèd
fears,
From those strong Feet that
followed, followed after.
But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbèd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic
instancy,
They beat -- and a voice
beat
More instant than the Feet
--
"All things betray thee,
who betrayest Me."
I pleaded, outlaw-wise,
By many a hearted casement,
curtained red,
Trellised with intertwining
charities;
(For, though I knew His love
Who followèd,
Yet was I sore adread
Lest, having Him, I must
have naught beside.)
But, if one little casement
parted wide,
The gust of his approach
would clash it to :
Fear wist not to evade, as
Love wist to pursue.
Across the margent of the
world I fled,
And troubled the gold gateways
of the stars,
Smiting for shelter on their
clangèd bars ;
Fretted to dulcet jars
And silvern chatter the pale
ports o' the moon.
I said to Dawn : Be sudden
-- to Eve : Be soon ;
With thy young skiey blossoms
heap me over
From this tremendous Lover--
Float thy vague veil about
me, lest He see !
I tempted all His servitors,
but to find
My own betrayal in their
constancy,
In faith to Him their fickleness
to me,
Their traitorous trueness,
and their loyal deceit.
To all swift things for swiftness
did I sue ;
Clung to the whistling mane
of every wind.
But whether they swept, smoothly
fleet,
The long savannahs of the
blue ;
Or whether, Thunder-driven,
They clanged his chariot
'thwart a heaven,
Plashy with flying lightnings
round the spurn o' their feet--
Fear wist not to evade as
Love wist to pursue.
Still with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbèd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic
instancy,
Came on the following Feet,
And a Voice above their beat--
"Naught shelters thee, who
wilt not shelter Me."
I sought no more that after
which I strayed,
In face of man or maid ;
But still within the little
children's eyes
Seems something, something
that replies,
They at least are for me,
surely for me !
I turned me to them very
wistfully ;
But just as their young eyes
grew sudden fair
With dawning answers there,
Their angel plucked them
from me by the hair.
"Come then, ye other children,
Nature's -- share
With me" (said I) "your delicate
fellowship ;
Let me greet you lip to lip,
Let me twine with you caresses,
Wantoning
With our Lady-Mother's vagrant
tresses,
Banqueting
With her in her wind-walled
palace,
Underneath her azured daïs,
Quaffing, as your taintless
way is,
From a chalice
Lucent-weeping out of the
dayspring."
So it was done :
I in their delicate fellowship
was one --
Drew the bolt of Nature's
secrecies.
I knew all the swift importings
On the wilful face of skies
;
I knew how the clouds arise
Spumèd of the wild
sea-snortings ;
All that's born or dies
Rose and drooped with ; made
them shapers
Of mine own moods, or wailful
or divine ;
With them joyed and was bereaven.
I was heavy with the even,
When she lit her glimmering
tapers
Round the day's dead sanctities.
I laughed in the morning's
eyes.
I triumphed and I saddened
with all weather,
Heaven and I wept together,
And its sweet tears were
salt with mortal mine ;
Against the red throb of
its sunset-heart
I laid my own to beat,
And share commingling heat
;
But not by that, by that,
was eased my human smart.
In vain my tears were wet
on Heaven's grey cheek.
For ah ! we know not what
each other says,
These things and I ; in sound
I speak--
Their sound is but their
stir, they speak by silences.
Nature, poor stepdame, cannot
slake my drouth ;
Let her, if she would owe
me,
Drop yon blue bosom-veil
of sky, and show me
The breasts o' her tenderness
;
Never did any milk of hers
once bless
My thirsting mouth.
Nigh and nigh draws the chase,
With unperturbèd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic
instancy ;
And past those noisèd
Feet
A Voice comes yet more fleet
--
"Lo ! naught contents thee,
who content'st not Me."
Naked I wait thy Love's uplifted
stroke !
My harness piece by piece
Thou hast hewn from me,
And smitten me to my knee
;
I am defenceless utterly.
I slept, methinks, and woke,
And, slowly gazing, find
me stripped in sleep.
In the rash lustihead of
my young powers,
I shook the pillaring hours
And pulled my life upon me
; grimed with smears,
I stand amid the dust o'
the mounded years --
My mangled youth lies dead
beneath the heap.
My days have crackled and
gone up in smoke,
Have puffed and burst as
sun-starts on a stream.
Yea, faileth now even dream
The dreamer, and the lute
the lutanist ;
Even the linked fantasies,
in whose blossomy twist
I swung the earth a trinket
at my wrist,
Are yielding ; cords of all
too weak account
For earth with heavy griefs
so overplussed.
Ah ! is Thy love indeed
A weed, albeit an amaranthine
weed,
Suffering no flowers except
its own to mount ?
Ah ! must --
Designer infinite !--
Ah ! must Thou char the wood
ere Thou canst limn with it?
My freshness spent its wavering
shower i' the dust ;
And now my heart is as a
broken fount,
Wherein tear-drippings stagnate,
spilt down ever
From the dank thoughts that
shiver
Upon the sighful branches
of my mind.
Such is ; what is to be ?
The pulp so bitter, how shall
taste the rind ?
I dimly guess what Time in
mists confounds ;
Yet ever and anon a trumpet
sounds
From the hid battlements
of Eternity ;
Those shaken mists a space
unsettle, then
Round the half-glimpsed turrets
slowly wash again.
But not ere him who summoneth
I first have seen, enwound
With glooming robes purpureal,
cypress-crowned ;
His name I know, and what
his trumpet saith.
Whether man's heart or life
it be which yields
Thee harvest, must Thy harvest-fields
Be dunged with rotten death
?
Now of that long pursuit
Comes on at hand the bruit
;
That Voice is round me like
a bursting sea :
"And is thy earth so marred,
Shattered in shard on shard
?
Lo, all things fly thee,
for thou fliest me !
"Strange, piteous, futile
thing !
Wherefore should any set
thee love apart ?
Seeing none but I makes much
of naught" (He said),
"And human love needs human
meriting :
How hast thou merited --
Of all man's clotted clay
the dingiest clot ?
Alack, thou knowest not
How little worthy of any
love thou art !
Whom wilt thou find to love
ignoble thee,
Save Me, save only Me ?
All which I took from thee
I did but take,
Not for thy harms,
But just that thou might'st
seek it in My arms.
All which thy child's mistake
Fancies as lost, I have stored
for thee at home :
Rise, clasp My hand, and
come !"
Halts by me that footfall
:
Is my gloom, after all,
Shade of His hand, outstretched
caressingly ?
"Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest,
I am He Whom thou seekest
!
Thou dravest love from thee,
who dravest me."