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Page 1 of 11898 · PDF PAGE 71
…ls crowned, Lie dust upon the empty ground. She goes, our sorrow’s sacrifice, Our lamb, our firstling, frail and white, With large sweet love-illumined eyes Into the night, into the night. The throne of night shall be withdrawn ; So moveth she toward the dawn. All peoples and all kings that move By love and sacrifice inspired In light and holiness and love, And seek some end of God desired, Pass, though they seem to sink in night, To dawns more perdurably bright. So priest and people join to praise The secret wisdom of the Lord, Awaiting the ar…
1898 · PDF PAGE 66
62 JEPHTHAH. Flowers the ocean bears. All the garb that gladness wears To a rent uncouth attire Changed with cares ; Happy songs our love had made Ere the sun had sunk his fire, - In the moonrise fall and fade, And the dregs of our desire Fall away to death ; Tears divide our labouring breath That our sister—O our sister ! Moon and sun and stars have kissed her She must touch the lips of death, Touch the lips whose coldness saith : Thou art clay. Let us fare away, away To the ice whose ocean gray Tumbles on the beach of rock, Where the wheeling…
1898 · PDF PAGE 52
…ray beards, and goatish manners? Hearken them! CHORUS. In the brave old days ere men began To bind young hearts with an iron tether, Ere love was brief as life, a span, Ere love was light as life, a feather, Earth was free as the glad wild weather, God was father and friend to man. AHINOAM. Then when with mildness and much joy our judge Draw hither, let us send to meet his steps
1898 · PDF PAGE 53
…. CHORUS. In the heart of a conqueror mercy sits A brighter jewel than vengeance wroken, And grace is the web that his people knits, And love is the balm for the hearts nigh broken. Peace is arisen, a dove for token, Righteousness, bright as the swallow fiits. JARED [aszde}. So, in his victory is our disgrace. CHORUS. Fair as the dawn is the maiden wise, Pale as the poppies by still white water, Sunlight burns in her pure deep eyes, Love lights the tresses of Jephthah’s daughter ; Kissing rays of the moon have caught her, Rays of the moon that …
1898 · PDF PAGE 59
…y, and all such as are pure of heart ; Thy crown, Adulah, wears a double flower Of these fair blossoms wreathed in one device Of perfect love in perfect maidenhood. JARED [recovering himself \. Nay, but my voice must fill the song of joy With gratitude, and meet thanksgiving. Me More than these others it beseems, who love Less dearly for their innocence than I, Pardoned of my unpardonable sin. ADULAH. The flowers turn westerward ;. the sun is down Almost among those clouds that kiss the sea With heavy lashes drooping over it, A mother watching …
1898 · PDF PAGE 34
…tars. Yet of my own life they have never breathed One chilly word of fear, or one divine Roseate syllable of hope and joy. Still less of love. For no sweet life of love Lies to my hand, but I am bound by Fate To the strong compulsion of the sword; my lips Shall fasten on my wife’s not much; nor those Pure lips of innocent girlhood that call me Father ; but my lips must wreathe smiles no more, But set in fearful strength of purpose toward The blood of enemies, in horrid gouts And hideous fountains leaping from great gashes, Rather than that belo…
1898 · PDF PAGE 60
…ther. Let us go to him, Maidens, with song and gladness of full hearts. SEMICHORUS OF MAIDENS I. The conqueror rides at last To home, to love; The victory is past, The white-wing dove Sails through the crystal air of eve with a pzan deep and vast. Jephthah! SEMICHORUS OF MAIDENS II. Forth, maidens, with your hands White with new lilies ! Forth, maidens, in bright bands, Virgins whose one sweet will is To sing the victory of our God in all sky-girdled lands! Elohim! SEMICHORUS I. With dancing feet, and noise Of timbrels smitten, With tears and t…
1898 · PDF PAGE 65
… cold and keen, Cleft and stricken in between By the joy our bosoms shared ; Would to God we had not been, We, who see our maiden queen, Love has slain whom hate had spared. Sorrow for our sister sways All our maiden bosoms, bared To the dying vesper rays, Where the sun below the bays Of the West is stooping ; All our hearts together drooping,
1898 · PDF PAGE 72
…oward the night, toward the dawn ! Behold the moon that fails above, The stars that pale before the sun! How far, those figures light as love - . That laughing to the mountains run! Behold the flames of hair that leap Above her forehead mild and deep! She turns to bless her people still : So, passes to the golden gate Where snow burns fragrant on the hill, Where for her step those fountains wait Of light and brilliance that shall rise To greet her beauty lover-wise. The silver west fades fast, the skies | Are blue and silver overhead ; She stan…
1898 · PDF PAGE 55
…t move Like doves amid the waving wheat, Or swallows silver in the grove Where sylph and salamander meet, And gnome and undine swoon for love ! Her feet that flit upon the windy way Twin fawns, the daughters of the rosy day. Behold, the arms of her desire Wave, weave, and wander in the air, Vines life-endued by subtle fire So quick and comely, curving bare ; The white diaphanous attire Floats like a spirit pale and fair ; The dance is woven of the breeze, the tune Is like the ocean silvered by the moon. Behold the maidens following, And every o…
1898 · PDF PAGE 68
64 - JEPHTHAH Never cheeks that dimple over At the perfume of the clover, With the laughing summer seas Of the smile of hearts at ease ; Never bosoms bright and round Shall be garlanded and bound With the chain of myrtle, wreathed By the fingers of the maid Each has chosen for a mate, When the west wind lately breathed Murmurs in the wanton glade Of the day that dawneth late In a maiden’s horoscope, Dawning faith and fire and hope On the spring that only knew Flowers and butterflies and dew, Skies and seas and mountains blue, On the spring that…
1898 · PDF PAGE 24
…e thou our judge, as Joshua long ago. JEPHTHAH. Swear by the Name unspoken that the truth Flashes between the lips that tremble thus! Ye love me not; ye fear me; ye might thrust Some petty obstacle before my hands When I would grasp your promise, and betray Your faith for fear of me. I read thy thoughts, Old man; I trust no word of thine, but these Full-hearted mourners, them will I believe Upon their oath most solemn and secure. _ But take thou warning now, I shall not spare Grey hairs or faltering limbs for treachery. ELEAZAR. Lift up your ha…
1898 · PDF PAGE 14
…od. CHORUS. The large pale limbs of the earth are tanned With the sun and the sea and the yellow sand And the face of earth is dark with love Of the lords of hell and the spirits above That move in the foggy air of night, And the spirit of God, most like a dove, Hovers, and lingers, and wings his flight, Spurned and rejected and lost to sight; But we desire him, a holy bird, And we turn eyes to the hollow hills ; For God is strong, and His iron word Mocks at the gods of the woods and rills. For .our God is as a fire That consumeth every one Tha…
1898 · PDF PAGE 75
… mouths of uninitiates words appreciative of those glorious destinies that overrule the cruelties of fate, let me find my excuse in that love for, and faith in, “the holy spirit of man,” which itself may do so much toward the final regeneration of humanity, and the uniting of man once more with that God of whom Porphyry has written, ‘ We are but a little part of Him.”