So Graven

Was she of spirit race, or was she one
Of earth's least earthly daughters, one to whom
A gift of loveliness and soul is given,
Only to make them wretched?There is an antique gem, on which her brow
Retains its graven beauty even now.
Her hair is braided, but one curl behind
Floats as enamour'd of the summer wind;
The rest is simple. Is she not too fair

There was a graven image of Desire
Painted with red blood on a ground of gold
Passing between the young men and the old,
And by him Pain, whose body shone like fire,
And Pleasure with gaunt hands that grasped their hire.
Of his left wrist, with fingers clenched and cold,
The insatiable Satiety kept hold,
Walking with feet unshod that pashed the mire.
The senses and the sorrows and the sins,
And the strange loves that suck the breasts of Hate
Till lips and teeth bite in their sharp indenture,
Followed like beasts with flap of wings and fins.
Death stood aloof behind a gaping grate,
Upon whose lock was written Peradventure.

[Supposed of Pamphylax the Antiochene:
It is a parchment, of my rolls the fifth,
Hath three skins glued together, is all Greek,
And goeth from Epsilon down to Mu:
Lies second in the surnamed Chosen Chest,
Stained and conserved with juice of terebinth,
Covered with cloth of hair, and lettered Xi,
From Xanthus, my wife's uncle, now at peace:
Mu and Epsilon stand for my own name.
I may not write it, but I make a cross
To show I wait His coming, with the rest,
And leave off here: beginneth Pamphylax.]

I said, "If one should wet his lips with wine,
"And slip the broadest plantain-leaf we find,

As unto lighter strains a boy might turn
From where great altars burn
And Music’s grave archangels tread the night,
So I, in seasons past,
Loved not the bitter might
And merciless control
Of thy bleak trumpets calling to the soul.
Their consummating blast

In dogma
is the secret that renders God unconditioned,

on one condition.
“If you are not My people,
I am not your God.”
As fashioned by His people's witness,

a made thing,
God,

In my youth I was told that in a certain city every one lived
according to the Scriptures.

And I said, “I will seek that city and the blessedness thereof.”
And it was far. And I made great provision for my journey. And
after forty days I beheld the city and on the forty-first day I
entered into it.

And lo! the whole company of the inhabitants had each but a single
eye and but one hand. And I was astonished and said to myself,
“Shall they of this so holy city have but one eye and one hand?”

Then I saw that they too were astonished, for they were marveling
greatly at my two hands and my two eyes. And as they were speaking
together I inquired of them saying, “Is this indeed the Blessed
City, where each man lives according to the Scriptures?” And they
said, “Yes, this is that city.”

“And what,” said I, “hath befallen you, and where are your right
eyes and your right hands?”

And all the people were moved. And they said, “Come thou and see.”

And they took me to the temple in the midst of the city. And in
the temple I saw a heap of hands and eyes. All withered. Then said
I, “Alas! what conqueror hath committed this cruelty upon you?”

And there went a murmur amongst them. And one of their elders
stood forth and said, “This doing is of ourselves. God hath made
us conquerors over the evil that was in us.”

And he led me to a high altar, and all the people followed. And
he showed me above the altar an inscription graven, and I read:


“If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee;
for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish,
and not that the whole body should be cast into hell. And if thy
right hand offend thee, cut it off and cast it from thee; for it
is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and
not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.”


Then I understood. And I turned about to all the people and cried,
“Hath no man or woman among you two eyes or two hands?”

And they answered me saying, “No, not one. There is none whole save
such as are yet too young to read the Scripture and to understand
its commandment.”

And when we had come out of the temple, I straightway left that
Blessed City; for I was not too young, and I could read the scripture.

I have seen a face with a thousand countenances, and a face thatwas but a single countenance as if held in a mould.

I have seen a face whose sheen I could look through to the uglinessbeneath, and a face whose sheen I had to lift to see how beautifulit was.

I have seen an old face much lined with nothing, and a smooth facein which all things were graven.

I know faces, because I look through the fabric my own eye weaves,and behold the reality beneath.

Thou twist of gold, woven so curiously,
Be filled with warmth and urgent tenderness,
And cool not on her throat’s white nakedness,
Like metal death, but burn insistently,
Reminding her of me!

To save her from the serpent’s little eye
I set a stone of blue chalcedony
Within a cunning loop—so it shall be
Aware and mindful when her lashes lie
Untaught of danger nigh.

To keep her from the dragon’s hungry tooth
In seven laps the quorls were subtly twined;
From seven rivers grains of gold were mined,

1

People who have no children can be hard:
Attain a mail of ice and insolence:
Need not pause in the fire, and in no sense
Hesitate in the hurricane to guard.
And when wide world is bitten and bewarred
They perish purely, waving their spirits hence
Without a trace of grace or of offense

Not in the world of light alone,
Where God has built his blazing throne,
Nor yet alone in earth below,
With belted seas that come and go,
And endless isles of sunlit green,
Is all thy Maker’s glory seen:
Look in upon thy wondrous frame,—
Eternal wisdom still the same!

I
Ye Clouds! that far above me float and pause,
Whose pathless march no mortal may control!
Ye Ocean-Waves! that, wheresoe'er ye roll,
Yield homage only to eternal laws!
Ye Woods! that listen to the night-birds singing,
Midway the smooth and perilous slope reclined.
Save when your own imperious branches swinging,

When the breeze of a joyful dawn blew free
In the silken sail of infancy,
The tide of time flow'd back with me,
The forward-flowing tide of time;
And many a sheeny summer-morn,
Adown the Tigris I was borne,
By Bagdat's shrines of fretted gold,
High-walled gardens green and old;

Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind,
But as for me, hélas, I may no more.
The vain travail hath wearied me so sore,
I am of them that farthest cometh behind.
Yet may I by no means my wearied mind
Draw from the deer, but as she fleeth afore
Fainting I follow. I leave off therefore,
Sithens in a net I seek to hold the wind.