But in my soul's high belfry,chill The bitter wind of doubt has blown,The summer swallows all have flown,The bells are frost-bound,mute and still.
Upon the crumbling boards the snow Has drifted deep,the clappers hang Prismed with icicles,their clang Unheard since ages long ago.
The rope I pull is stiff and cold,My straining ears detect no sound Except a sigh,as round and round The wind rocks through the timbers old.
Below,I know the church is bright With haloed tapers,warm with prayer;But here I only feel the air Of icy centuries of night.
Beneath my feet the snow is lit And gemmed with colours,red,and blue,Topaz,and green,where light falls through The saints that in the windows sit.
Here darkness seems a spectred thing,Voiceless and haunting,while the stars Mock with a light of long dead years The ache of present suffering.
Silent and winter-killed I stand,No carol hymns my debt to you;But take this frozen thought in lieu,And thaw its music in your hand.
The Promise of the Morning Star Thou father of the children of my brain By thee engendered in my willing heart,How can I thank thee for this gift of art Poured out so lavishly,and not in vain.
What thou created never more can die,Thy fructifying power lives in me And I conceive,knowing it is by thee,Dear other parent of my poetry!
For I was but a shadow with a name,Perhaps by now the very name's forgot;So strange is Fate that it has been my lot To learn through thee the presence of that aim Which evermore must guide me.All unknown,By me unguessed,by thee not even dreamed,A tree has blossomed in a night that seemed Of stubborn,barren wood.For thou hast sown This seed of beauty in a ground of truth.
Humbly I dedicate myself,and yet I tremble with a sudden fear to set New music ringing through my fading youth.
J--K.Huysmans A flickering glimmer through a window-pane,A dim red glare through mud bespattered glass,Cleaving a path between blown walls of sleet Across uneven pavements sunk in slime To scatter and then quench itself in mist.
And struggling,slipping,often rudely hurled Against the jutting angle of a wall,And cursed,and reeled against,and flung aside By drunken brawlers as they shuffled past,A man was groping to what seemed a light.
His eyelids burnt and quivered with the strain Of looking,and against his temples beat The all enshrouding,suffocating dark.
He stumbled,lurched,and struck against a door That opened,and a howl of obscene mirth Grated his senses,wallowing on the floor Lay men,and dogs and women in the dirt.
He sickened,loathing it,and as he gazed The candle guttered,flared,and then went out.
Through travail of ignoble midnight streets He came at last to shelter in a porch Where gothic saints and warriors made a shield To cover him,and tortured gargoyles spat One long continuous stream of silver rain That clattered down from myriad roofs and spires Into a darkness,loud with rushing sound Of water falling,gurgling as it fell,But always thickly dark.Then as he leaned Unconscious where,the great oak door blew back And cast him,bruised and dripping,in the church.
His eyes from long sojourning in the night Were blinded now as by some glorious sun;He slowly crawled toward the altar steps.
He could not think,for heavy in his ears An organ boomed majestic harmonies;He only knew that what he saw was light!
He bowed himself before a cross of flame And shut his eyes in fear lest it should fade.
March Evening Blue through the window burns the twilight;Heavy,through trees,blows the warm south wind.
Glistening,against the chill,gray sky light,Wet,black branches are barred and entwined.
Sodden and spongy,the scarce-green grass plot Dents into pools where a foot has been.
Puddles lie spilt in the road a mass,not Of water,but steel,with its cold,hard sheen.
Faint fades the fire on the hearth,its embers Scattering wide at a stronger gust.
Above,the old weathercock groans,but remembers Creaking,to turn,in its centuried rust.
Dying,forlorn,in dreary sorrow,Wrapping the mists round her withering form,Day sinks down;and in darkness to-morrow Travails to birth in the womb of the storm.
