Collected Works (Vol. I)

Long avenues of sleepy trees And Lowers arched with love, And kisses woven for a breeze, And lips that scarcely move, Save as long ripples on the seas, That murmur like a dove. T saw the burning lips of God Set fast on Mary’s face, I saw the Christ, with fire shod, Walk through the holy place, And the lilies rosier where he trod Blushed for a little space. I saw myself, and still I sang With lips in clearer tune, Like to the nightingale’s that rang Through all those nights of June ; Such nights when stars in slumber hang Beneath the quiet moon. Still, in those avenues of light, No maid, with golden zone, And lily garment that from sight Half hides the ivory throne, Lay in my arms the livelong night To call my soul her own. The Christ’s cold lips my lips did taste On Time’s disastrous tide ; His bruiséd arms my soul embraced, My soul twice crucified ; And always then the thin blood raced From out the stricken side. The incense fumes, the chant is low, Perfume around is shed ; I am as one of Them who know The secrets of the dead : The sorrows that walk to and fro, The love that hides his head. O living Head ! whose thorns are keen To bruise and pierce and slay ; O Christ ! whose eyes have always been Fixed fast upon the way, Where dim Jerusalem was seen A city cold and grey ! BY THE CAM 53 The flowers of fire that grow beneath And blossom on the Tree Are fed from his despair and death Who sings of land and sea, And all those mountains where thy breath, Jehovah, still must be. The censer swings to slower time 5 The darkness falleth deep : My cyes, so solemn and sublime, Relent, and close, and weep; And on the silence, like a chime, L heard the wings of Sleep. BY ‘TITE CAM, TwibiGur is over, and the noon of night Draws to its zenith. Were beyond the stream Dance the wild witches that dispel imy dream Of gardens naked in Diana's sight. Foul censers, altars desecrated, blight The corpse-lit river, whose dank vapours teem Tfeavy and horrible, a deadly steam Of murder’s black intolerable might. The stagnant pools rejoice; the human feast Revels at height; the sacrament is come; God wakes no lightning in the broken East ; His awful thunders listen and are dumb; Earth gapes not for that sin; the skies renew At break of day their vestiture of blue. ASTROLOGY. A LONELY spirit seeks the midnight hour, When souls have power To cast away one moment bonds of clay, And touch the day With pallid wistful lips beyond the earth, And bring to birth New thoughts with which life long has travailed ; As if one dead