The Feaster

OH, Who will hush that cry outside the doors
While we are glad within ?
Go forth, go forth, all you my servitors,
And gather round, my kin.
Go out to her: tell her we keep a feast, —
Lost Loveliness who will not sit her down
Though one implore.
It is her silence binds me unreleased;
It is her silence that no flute will drown;
It is her moonlit silence at my door,
Wide as the whiteness, but a fire on high,
That hurts my heart with an immortal cry,
Calling me, evermore.

Louder my flutes; and louder, O my harp!
Let me not hear her voice ;
And drown her keener silence, silver-sharp,
With waves of golden noise.
For she is wise as Eden, being mute,
To search my spirit through the depth and height
For its deep pain.
Outpierce her with your singing, dawn-like flute;
And you, gloom over, viols of the night,
With color lost in umber, with all pain
Of richest world’s desire; prevail, — sing down
All memory with pleading, so you drown
Her merciless refrain !

Ah, can you not with music, nor with din,
Hide me from stress and stir
Here in my spirit, throned among my kin,
From that same voice of her ? —
The everlasting query she hath had
Only to wake my soul and only then,
Wake it to weep,
With “ Why ? ” and “ Art thou happy ? Art thou glad ?
And hast thou fellowship with fellow-men ? ”
So, through my mirth and deep beneath all sleep,
The voice, — abysmal hunger unfulfilled,
The calling, calling, evermore unstilled,
Calling of deep to deep.

Nay, I have that shall fill this hurt of mine,
Since loveliness must be;
Since loveliness must save us, or we pine
To dust, — die utterly.
All that the years have left us undismayed
Of age, or death, and happier fair than truth,
When truth is fair.
Shapes of immortal sweetness to persuade
Iron and fire and marble with their youth ;
Wild graces trapped from every kingdom’s lair
Of wildest beauty; shadow and smile and hush ;
Fleet colors,—of a daybreak, of a blush,
For my sad soul to wear.

Let April fade. For me unfading bloom ;
The little fruitless seed
Deep sown of fire within the midmost gloom,
A sterner fire to feed :
The rainbow frozen in a lasting dew ;
Green gazing emerald, fresh as grass beneath
The placid rose.
Fair pearl, and you, fair pearl, and you, — all you
Rained from the moon and kissing in a wreath,
As eager moment unto moment goes !
Look back at me, you sapphires, blue and wise
With farthest twilight,—blue, resplendent eyes
That never weep, nor close.

O, house me, glories! Give me house and home
Here for my homelessness.
Set forth for me the wine—the honeycomb
Whereto desire saith Yes!
O senses, weave me from all lovely dust
Some home array, some right familiar garb
For me, exiled.
Charm me some fair anointment I may trust
Against her query, searching like a barb
The dumbness of my heart unreconciled.
Fold me with silver ; clothe me from dismay ;
Save me from pity. For I hear her say,
“Alas, alas, poor child !

“ Alas, alas, poor child and lost, how long?
Why wilt thou suffer want ?
Why must I hear thy weeping through thy song,
And see thine eyes grow gaunt?—
Making sad feast upon the crumbs of light
Shed long ago from the far highways where
Thy brethren are ;
And thy heart smoulders in thee to be bright,—
Thine own sole refuge from thine own despair—
Fraying the thwarted body with a scar!
Mow long, before thine eyelids, desolate,
Must the blind dark of thy dominions wait
For thee, —belated Star ?”