MARJORIE L.C. PICKTHALL
1883 - 1922 GB / Canada
Miranda’s Tomb
MIRANDA? She died soon, and sick for home.
And dark Ilario the Milanese
Carved her in garments ’scutcheoned to the knees,
Holding one orchard-spray as fresh as foam.
One heart broke, many grieved. Ilario said:
“The summer is gone after her. Who knows
If any season shall renew his rose?
But this rose lives till Beauty’s self be dead.”
So wrought he, days and years, and half aware
Of a small, striving, sorrowing quick thing,
Wrapped in a furred sea-cloak, and deft to bring
Tools to his hand or light to the dull air.
Ghost, spirit, flame, he knew not,—could but tell
It had loved her, and its name was Ariel.
Christ in the Museum
BRONZE bells and incense burners, and a flight
Of birds born out of iron, and fine as spray;
A dial that told the longest summer day
How sure, how swift the night:
And o’er the silent treasury, so high
No lips may kiss, no grieving hands have clung,
Numbered and ticketed, the Christ is hung.
The many pass Him by,
None pause. Here come no agonies, no dreams.
Nothing is here to hurt Him, nor to wake.
Year after year the golden iris gleams
A little paler by her lacquered lake,
And the dust gathers on the hands, the side,
The lonely head of Love the crucified.
.
Bartimeus Grown Old
YEA, I am he that dwelt beside this tomb.
I was a child. God smote me from the sun.
A little while, I had forgot to run
Under the rain-sweet roof of almond bloom.
I had forgotten summer, and the flaw
Ruffling the gray sea and the yellowed grain.
Now I am old and I forget again,
But a man came and touched me, and I saw.
Long years he dowered me with imperial day,
Bright-blossomed night and all the stars in trust.
Now I am blind again, and by the way
Wait still to catch his footsteps in the dust.
Surely he comes?—and he will hear my cry,
Though he were stricken and dim and old as I.
Canada to England
GREAT names of thy great captains gone before
Beat with our blood, who have that blood of thee:
Raleigh and Grenville, Wolfe, and all the free,
Fine souls who dared to front a world in war;
Such only may outreach the envious years,
Where feebler crowns and fainter stars remove,
Nurtured in one remembrance and one love,
Too high for passion and too stern for tears.
O little isle our fathers held for home,
Not, not alone thy standards and thy hosts
Lead where thy sons shall follow, Mother Land.
Quick as the north wind, ardent as the foam,
Behold, behold the invulnerable ghosts
Of all past greatnesses about thee stand.
A Dreamer
AH! dost thou know that joy, by some unguess’d
When from a sheltered nook of slumb’rous ease
You idly gaze on undiscovered seas
And misty-seeming Islands of the Blest?
Where languid breezes sigh from out the West,
And lift the leaves of downward drooping trees
Shading with fancied boughs the phantom leas
And waking shadowy birds from nameless nest?
Ah! Gentle land, thine echoes call me clear,
For hard the bread that earth-born labour yields.
Thy flowers are fresher than our blossoms here,
Thy meads are sweeter than our furrowed fields.
Ah! Gentle place of Dreams! Where’er I roam
Thy half-seen skies are aye the skies of home.
November
IT is the time of vapours salt and chill,
And hoar-frost whitening all the fallen leaves,
No gleam there is of golden mellowing sheaves,
No south-bound bird-folk whistle high and shrill.
For now by barren banks the river grieves
Brown’d with dead water-stems and flowers, and still
The sad wind-voices sob about the eaves,
And far, faint echoes call upon the hill.
O stern November, in the hodden gray,
I see thee sitting by a yon tree, which shows
But one red berry to the unruffled pond.
Westward in deepening glory dies the day,
And lights with tenderer gleams the withered rose,
And stalks of earlier summer reared beyond.
Warfare
“My Spirit shall not always strive with man.”
STRIVE on, O Lord, and let us feel Thy flame,
Burned with all beauty as a rose of fire;
So only man shall meet Thy dread desire,
Forgetful of the pit from whence he came.
Crown him with thorn and sceptre him with shame,
Gird him with sorrow, fold him round with fears,
But give him, in his heritage of tears,
Hold on Thy hand and memory of Thy name.
So from his prison-house the martyred soul
May lend Thee strength for strength and power for power,
Calling the very angels to his place.
And when at length the lifted gates unroll,
Flash forth to meet his one immortal hour,
Slain at the half-seen vision of Thy face.
MADE IN HIS IMAGE
Between the archangels and the old eclipse
Of glory on perfect glory, does He feel
A vision, this as frost at midnight, steal
And lay a nameless shadow on His lips?
Does He, Who gave the power, endure the pain?—
Look down the hollow’d universe, and see
His works, His worlds, choiring Him endlessly,—
His worlds, His works, all made, and made in vain?
Then does He bid all heaven beneath His hand,
In blossom of worship, flame on flame of praise,
And taste their thunders, and grow sick, and gaze
At some gray silence that He had not planned,
And shiver among His stars, and nurse each spark
That wards Him from the uncreated dark?
VITA BREVIS
I
Soul, if indeed the dead do not arise
Drink and lie down. There’s nought required of thee.
If Shelley is but ash beside the sea,
And Homer bide forever with blind eyes,
If for tall Hector not a sea-breath sighs
On the gray plain, if Shakespeare’s laugh be broken
In a little dust, and all his sweet words spoken,
If Beatrix look no more from Paradise,—
If this be so, O Soul, cast out thy fears,
Worship of women and high pride of men,
The sad, the brave, the pure, the sacrificed.
They are one with death and thee, not worth thy tears.
Yea, even thy grief is vain if Magdalen
Kisses no more the silver feet of Christ.
VITA BREVIS
II
Once more our halcyon by the watercress
Flashes his sapphired sheathing, and once more
The partridge suns along the little shore;
Each silvered morning sees one rose the less,
One gold flake filch’d from out the poplar’s dress,
All fall’n, all passing, making room for those,
Bird unbegotten and unbudded rose,
New wings, new leaves, new-risen loveliness.
All the earth gave, again the earth shall take:
Blessed is she. Life falls to her like snow.
Grave is she, grave and mother, slayer and spouse.
But suns were built in heaven for thy sake.
Thou also shalt go home; perhaps shalt know
Great laughters greet thee from thy Father’s House.