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Cornell University Library PR 4995.M52A9 Avalon; a poetic romance. 3 1924 013 523 604 Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013523604 AVALON AVALON A POETIC ROMANCE. BY DORA STUART-MENTEATH. IConitan : JAMES ELLIOTT AND CO., TEMPLE CHAMBERS, FALCON COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C. 1894. & c& THE ARGUMENT. LABAN MORDRED, representing the ambition which is of earth and the achieve- ment which is of earth, seeks and believes himself to attain at lenglli the great Catholicon, the elixir of immortal life. Here is material ambition at its highest, science in the material order at the apex of achievement, but it is baffled even in the attainment of the Supreme Secret. Here also is reason perishing on the threshold of the Grand Mystery. By the side of this earthly ambition, and in one sense the daughter thereof, is spiritual aspiration, seeking the Holy Grail, the ideal of humanity, vi. ARGUMENT. and the perfect order. Angela is not of earth, and yet is she the child of earth ; she has another and truer home, and an in- heritance in the Great Mystery. Here is the sublimed efflorescence of purified desire ; here is that which accompanies and shares the pilgrimage of eartldy humanity, the daughter of reason, but differing from reason — it is the Soul. She is also the higher womanhood in search of the higher manhood, typified by Arthur. Arthur in one aspect represents the archetypal man, the divine pattern from which the race has deflected, and in this sense he is not wounded, but in another he is the inner greatness of humanity which is wounded by the imperfection of mankind. Under either aspect he is now withdrawn and unmani- fest, abiding in restful, spiritual Avalon, ARGUMENT. vii. the world of the within. The love of Angela for the hidden Khifi is the desire oj Psyche after Pneuma. The Holy Grail is the divine principle of healing, by which man is made whole. And this can be love alone, but it is love spiritualised, elevated, and directed to perfection. So is the gift sought without by Angela in reality to be found within, whence she attains it in vision only, or otherwise in the inner world. And the true manhood, the archetype, the divine pattern is within also, and so Arthur is likewise reached in vision. But these things, if they are to profit man, must be manifested outwardly in humanity, divine love must return to earth for the exaltation of the race, and hence in the final vision, under the ministry of the Holy Grail, the face of the King is manifested as the face of viii. ARGUMENT. Paul, the earthly lover of Angela. So is spiritual love brought into the service of man, and the natural desire of earth unified vnth higher desire begins to actualize here and now the sublime enthusiasm of the ideal. AVALON A ROMANCE. PEOEM. DESCEND in silence, and the world restore, Dew of the evening — from thy crystal height Fall, clarify, and cleanse ! In lane and hedge Awaken'd perfume breathes. And thou, cool mist, Subdue the flaming splendours of the sky, And modulate the glare of passing day To the rich twilight of the dreamful tone, Which leaves a holy space for haunting thought 2 AVALON. 'Twixt eve and night, when lambent vesper shews A broken beam ; when the soft wind is hnsh'd To tender breathings, and the life of earth, Held in the balance of the gloaming time, Soothes down to quiet music. Till the moon Lifts up, belated in the clouded East, The angry wonder of an orange arc, And all the mist, dissolving, leaves the vault Of purple heaven unveil'd from pole to pole; While in the glory of the northern stars, Through night's whole length, there dwells a lasting sign And certain promise of the day to come ; Swathed by phantasmal mystery and doubt, AVALON. 3 Some dreams may manifest a moment's space Where all is spectral, and will scarce betray Their ghostly vesture. In such eerie dusk Alone the mind immersed will muse on thee, Ghost-haunted, melancholy, far with- drawn, Avalon ! For that brief mystic space Beholding thee, will deem thy fable true, Pass to the valley which thy silent sea Has ring'd with magic, and have com- mune there With the antique, subdued, and patient shades That wait therein ; but when the moon is high The spell dissolves, and the wind, rising, sweeps 4 AVALON. The last pale vestige past. Perchance a few, Appraising life as something less than dream, And holding that the true and only life Is that which men call dream, illumined souls, May know the secret which prolongs such spells, And Avalon for them is dream indeed ; True dream, deep dream. A dream of Avalon ! Green isle of apples, from the world apart, Who enters thee, and on the savour sweet — The nest-world savour— of thy hidden fruit Pastures his soul, from him the earth- curse falls, AVALON. 5 Wrought first in the earth-mother of us all. Is Enoch waiting there, who walk'd with God? And rapt Elias, in the flaming car Past ocean's utmost bounds withdrawn in light- Does he, too, wait, as golden legends tell, In the hush'd temples of thy bowers remote ? Do their eyes' dark light fill thy mystic dales, Thy placid rivers, thy diffusive founts, Thy sprinkling springs of ballad melody, With the rich soul, the dim, mysterious soul Of prophecy ? — Where art thou — where ? Beyond The Cornish wilds, the mountain, and the mere, Beyond the riot of the raving sea, 6 AVALON. Spume-scatt'ring plumes and crumbling- crests of waves Crying in bitter madness, far beyond, In some enchanted zone, a moving' isle, As seafolk tell, hast thou one place of rest — The unknown centre of the western main 1 utmost island of this lower earth, Art thou bedew'd indeed hy Lethe's fount, Or art thou Paradise and Aden ring'd By the edged billows of the acrid sea As by angelic swords, and hiding there The crystal stairway of the starry world ? The elder legends name thee Isle of Saints, The Bardic Land, of inspiration home. Where thou art, there is peace ; but where art thou 1 Near as the lips of lovers when they meet, AVALON. 7 For close are all things beautiful and true : Hard by our lives as is the gracious time And Christ's good day. The present in the past Is merged for ever, and in turn sucks down The future hour, and no dividing line Subsists between them, for the three make up Duration's phases, being one in three : And when the ferment and the seething flow Have settled into stillness, time assumes The perfect mode, which is Eternity ; And so between eternity and time There is no greater cleavage than between The bay's smooth water and the waves beyond ; 8 AVALON. Through both the ebbing and the rising tide Pass and repass. Thou also, Avalon, Ait not a Sabbath journey's space from home ; And if the life of man seem far from thee, It is not distance, as of main or land, Which intervenes : some other bar obstructs, Some opposition in the state of life, Whereof the tempest's tumult and fierce stress Comport but little with thy grace serene, And thy dream's solemnness. Who wills may then Most surely win thy wonder, to a type Of softer life constrain that crusted mode Which now we wear ; and he shall meet in thee AVALON. 45 She cross'd the corridors ; the house was still As deep sleep dreaming at the gate of death, Or some hush'd watcher at the altar steps When, 'twixt the mystery of night and morn, The last red ray of the expending lamp Casts its tinged light upon the silken veil Which hides the mystery of life and peace. And all the breathing sweetness of her life Sank into stillness with a sudden chill When the soft knocking of her gentle hand Call'd forth no answer from the Alchemist. 48 AVALON. That is stony cold Which touches her ; it is all over — all Solved suddenly — do nothing : it is done And finish'd, and whatever is beyond, For act or thought, has settled ever- more To bitter unimportance. Ah, let be ! And let the dead arms take her, too, to death, And welcome void of death to void of life; So let her die, and raise from thy dim world, Spirit of dream, some other maid than this To take the task which thus will slip from her — The quest and healing of the King to come; Or otherwise God compass His great ends; 76 AVALON. Many a mile Along the seaboard where the warlocks dwelt In those old evil days by God wiped out — Where now a peaceful colony abode Bright as the smile sunning a gentle face When gentle hands have wiped its tears away — And many a mile along the country side — Had pass'd the praise of Angela; the maids And matrons, with the young men and the old, As if the one heart of a strong, true man, Loved her with something of the far-off love Whereby the tide- wave on the open sea Might yearn towards fair shores sphered in distant zones. AVALON. 77 And she loved all after the angels' mode. And shone on them as stars upon the sea Prom the unconscious height of heavenly thought. Yet pass'd she oft among the villagers, Mild grace diffusing, happy influence, The perfect courtesy and charm of Christ ; And, though the former wealth of Mor- dred House Had turn'd to ashes in the crucible, Some surplus still remain'd from daily needs For her sweet charity's dispensing hand, And comfort of the needy and the sick. But far away from other tower or hall The old hill-house lorded the land alone, And few came thither of her own degree. Yet some would come to woo her, whom report 78 AVALON. Had drawn from distant places up and down The Cornish land, because her beauty's fame Had spread through all the country of the West; And they went back who would have woo'd a maid And found an angel, worshipping went back, And evermore the house upon the hill Was holy ground. The alchemist, high up, Within his smoke-dried chamber, wrought in pain, Passing all matters through his crucible, And saw reluctant Nature one by one Give up her guarded secrets to his gaze, And aye the pure flame of his daughters prayers AVALON. 79 Went on in hope before his daring- quest, She holding somehow that its end attain'd Should help her own. So all her heart flow'd out To Arthur daily, and her dreams at night Beheld the blessed advent of the King, Great Arthur on the throne of all the world, And she that loved him somewhere at his feet Accorded place, and dwelling in his light. Angela, sweet maiden Angela, Blithe one and bright one, near us, dear to us, Type of our soul, seek the great type of us ! Go thou to Arthur ! Lets not in thee, most pure, That which lets in us. Avalon, Avaiou — 80 AVALON. Call we in vain thereon, — thou shalt go in! Tis not far travelling, here at thy hand — Oh, not one space beyond thy floral bower ! — It is within thee ; through thy window's eyes A poet lover, if his heart be clean, Might look directly in its sweet recess. Thou shalt bring Arthur out to us, out to us; So shall he rule us till we grow to him ; When we have grown to him, in the ripe time, Then shall he offer us perfect to Christ. Pass on, pale Alchemist, in peace pass on ! Up to thine utmost light thou hast well toil'd, The demiourgos of the world that is, AVALON. 81 Shaping the substance put into thy hands, Digesting, sublimating, cocting all, The separation of impure and pure Effecting, latent virtue out of all Evolving, and through all and all and all Seeking the grand Quintessence. Thou hast fail'd ; Thy crucible has burst, thy fires are out, The dust has gather'd on thine open scrolls, — Here is an end to thy long processes. Thou wast a patient searcher, well equipp'd To question Nature and response wring out. Thou hast transmuted, tinctured, modified, No form eluded thine analysis. But the great master Alchemist of death, The all-transmuter, having need of thee, Dissolves thee now into thine elements ; 82 AVALON. His simple process in a moment's time Has stultified thy life-time of research. not within the metal or the mine The secret lies ! Earth and the things of earth — These do not hold it or their elements. 'Tis in the soul alone ! Science breaks down, And reason, impotent to cross the bar, Stands in the night and struggles with the veil, Which seems to shift before the lightest touch, Yet never reason rends or raises it. Plash thy torch round it, thou strong faculty ! What seems that Titan shape in the blurr'd light ? The silent sphinx with its eternal smile. Long has it ceased to question or reply ; AVALON. 83 Waste not thy breath with riddles ! Hark, beyond That is the blind wind beating through the gulf Which roars and roars ! BOOK III. THE FINDING OF THE GRAIL. T HE maid has wrestled with her agony, Died like a daughter in her father's death — Precipitated from the height of doom In one fell moment on her daughter's love — And by the cup of immortality Snatch'd from her lips, has died a second time, Repulsed from peaks of the eternal stars Back to the level of mortality. Now from this double draught of acrid death, And the long wasting of the woe within, AVALON. 85 She brings a pallid fortitude at first To face the future time, the ashes grey Of dream and vision, and a sire's white shroud. But soon the soul asserts itself within, For Arthur lives, despite his grievous wound, And Laban Mordred, alchemist, despite Elixir spilt and shatter'd crucible, Lives somewhere in the shadow of God's wings. What, then, is immortality of earth 1 What any heritage of earthly wealth ? Let it dissolve and die, so the soul live, And come the King, sure master of the soul, Till Christ come, who is master of the King. And, more than all, come time, which time is not, 86 AVALON. When Christ and King into the Father's hands Shall give the kingdom and the keys thereof, And all things shall dissolve and rest with God ; When that without shall be as that within, And this poor life of self shall wholly end. So is she lighted by her suffering, And, further taken from the things of flesh, The loving quest regards with alter'd eye— Sees midst what mountains broods the Holy Grail, Sees o'er what waters shineth Avalon — Sees — chosen maiden, may we look with thee !— AVALON. 87 And, lo, the woe is past ! Peace comes, and light. So from the highest hopes of earthly life, Which in the ruddy tincture of the wise — The healing draught that makes men laugh at death And unto leprous metals can impart Gold's perfect form — have culminated, she Goes forth ; from poetry and pure romance — An argent world, by dainty fancy bless'd — To seek the exaltation of the soul She passes on, in her white light array'd, The samite raiment of her maidenhood ; And henceforth ideality is hers. Pass, holy vestal, pass from Mordred House ! Pass, Angela, to find the Perfect Man, And manifest a saviour to the age ! S8 AVALON. So from us also pass all earthly hopes, So be we free to seek the grand and true ! Pass cold mistrust, the hoarrfrost of the heart, Pass selfish ends, and let us also go Straight through the open portal of the flesh Into the world of mind ! The perfect man Perchance abode on the beloved earth All in the pearl and rainbow morning time, Master of light, ideal leader, lord ; Splendour and pomp of mind invested him, True prince of this world and the powers thereof, Not the poor fallen Lucifer who spreads J er earth this day his melancholy reign, AVALON. 89 But the Great King, the morning star, the King, The bright, white King. O'er whom in evil time Prevail'd the fractious commerce of mis- rule, And now the perfect man has gone from earth, Who kept the baser part in holy thrall, For man has sinn'd against the perfect state, And all the gracious order of the King Within him has been broken and destroy'd. So now the perfect leader and true King Has pass'd, sore wounded, from his thoughts' high throne, And waits withdrawn where those who drove him out Can never reach. Perchance his golden reign Not yet has brighten'd our beloved earth, 90 AVALOK But Angela is seeking for the King, And late or soon the pure aspiring soul Shall find her Bos in the inward world, Whom evermore the outward world desires, Yet evermore it wounds. fair and sweet The silken vesture of the outward world Shimmers about the Grand Beality, Veils and reveals it ever, with divine Half-truths enchants us, yearning leads us on To seek the soul within, yet evermore Withholds the essence and the soul with- holds, And dupes us with the dazzlement and dream ! Splendour of outward glory visible, Grace of deft folds of drapery divine, Elusive ever is your parable ! AVALON. 91 Deep, dread-sweet meaning lurks, we know, therein ; That pageant's smallest particle may hold The key to all ; but never bird has voiced, Nor strong sea-music, nor the breeze or wind, Nor any tone in all the world of tone ; Nor the mute mystery of painted things Hath pictured it. When shall we find it 1 When Discern the meaning written between the lines 1 Till then we love thee, world, thy lures allow ; But when the soul is in thy beauty most Profoundly steep'd, most then, she knows beyond What point thy virtue loses all its force. Thou art a satisfying, needed, great, Consoling glory, but for us — for us— Thou art not all-sufficient. Then away, 92 AVALON. Sweet Mother Nature, if thou be not all The soul seeks of the infinite, to her, Sweet, thou art nothing ! Pageant, pass ! And pass All things which shew, set forth, or stand for that Which is the one and only thing we need ! Pass, substitutes, how beautiful soe'er ! And come the signified, the beauty, truth, We need thee, being part of thee, the whole ! Behold, the alchemist has master'd death, And sets the cup of immortality With its sharp edge of joy against our lips ! That draught is of scant service to the soul; Pate intervenes ; we shall not drink thereof. AVALON. 93 Take back thy gifts, great Hermes ! If our path Lie straight through the strait gate of bitter death, Through bitter death, needs must, we go to thee ; Whatever price is ask'd we pay to reach ; We must have thee. The grave is open now Hard by the ancient church ; it is a morn Of summer, and the bright sea, churn'd and soft With a warm mist, low in the distance laughs Amidst the pauses of the requiem. The baffled seeker who had vanquish'd death Goes down into the dread, cold, oozing earth Amidst the gentle mockery of all 94 AVALON. That gleams upon the shallow glass of things. And Angela, sweet maiden Angela, Even for thee the glad world wears no weeds ! Dissolved in tears too long, she weeps no more, While humble villagers about her mourn Her orphanhood, and one with deep- bow'd head And hidden face, who long has loved the maid, The thought-pale master of the village school, Stands far away as his own hopes of love, And hollow in his empty, aching heart The death-chant utters a dull agony. Is that the clod upon the coffin-lid Which wakes an ominous echo in the bright AVALON. 95 And geuial air? We have all knock'd like that — Ah, once at least knock'd at the tomb like that ! — And found it ever of all answering voice Utterly void. Yes, we have knock'd. Perchance The ghost of that which once we loved replied, And that was void as any dust return 'd, Or crash of cold clay cast on senseless wood, For there was neither truth nor meaning there. So question we the grave or ghosts no more, But seek we still the Great Eeality, And in the ripe and perfect time of God The truth which never was in grave or ghost Shall answer us. 96 AVALOK. Well, it is ended now ; The highest quality of earthly hope, The most magnificent of mortal aims, Death swallow'd up in immortality, Wealth inexhaustible and endless youth, To see the spectacle of earthly things Pass by and ever perish as they pass, And to remain, the sole unshifting thing Where all mutates, where all things else are vain, And to partake with the eternal stars " The glory of going on and still to be"— All have gone down into the quiet grave, And into nothing with the Alchemist Softly dissolve. Perforce we leave it there. We know not why he labour'd all in vain, We know not why the secret died with him ; AVALON. 97 Perchance that liquor, had he lived to drink it, Because its ruddy mystery contain'd Some thrice ten years of his poor life, had proved Sufficient to restore him what he spent, And haply not. Perchance the quest itself Did overreach God's possible. We leave Another problem in the hands of God, And his kind, secret mystery of death — Conceal it, Master, and do Thou lead on ; Once we were quick to question and mis- doubt, Now we are weary of all questioning. Shape Thou our course, we leave it all to Thee; If we stand only in the night and wait, We set the little issue of our lives In Thy hands solely, stipulating nought ; If day be fair or night be dark about us, 98 AVALON. Safe in the harbour, out upon the sea, Anywhere, anywhere, so Thou be by ! Yet, Master, purify the foul and dark Within us ; make us fit to see Thy face, And Thy great day come, and the King return'd. The rite is ended : ite, missa est ! 0, may thy place be set in peace this day And holy Zion thine abiding place ! While we go forth in faith with Angela, Assured that God will one day judge the world, The great Accuser shall withdraw the case, And there shall none be guilty — no, not one. The weeping women of the house go up With Angela once more to Mordred House; AVALON. 99 The thought-pale teacher follows far away, With sadder mien than ever mourner wore — Over the hills and on to Mordred House — • Because the scant joy of his narrow life Must somehow fructify, or wholly cease, And he must speak with Angela, or die. Peace, Destiny, be sure he shall not die ! Peace, froward Fate, his joy shall surely cease ! Behold them speaking in the garden now ! There is a tremor in the red, red rose — He trembles ; the white lily is at peace With Angela. In perfect peace is she, But see thou call not cold that heart which beats So warmly in her for the whole world's weal : Say passion never has the tranquil depths Of her pure nature into ferment churn'd — 100 AVALON. And why 1 The perfect passion of its heights Has order'd all her nature unto God, His Christ, His King. Judge then— she does not look Prom the proud height of silent snow- peak down On the vexatious sea's disquietude In some abyss which is the base of it, And so with grace which is not gracious- ness Make all words wither on the teacher's lips, Till Paul's poor heart turns dead stone in his breast Before the blank of loveless life to come. She answers gently who has heard him well ; Must chide her heart if e'er it turn'd from him, AVALON. 101 Her childhood's playmate, ere her father went To live in that old house upon the hill, And in that feudal fastness follow up His early quest of Nature's secret ways. And since that time, if they had rarely met, The sister's love she bore him had not fail'd, A sister's pride she felt when tidings told Of college progress and of prizes won In open list. But when he came again, She knew not why, and took the village school (Ah, to be near thee ! cried the heart of Paul), Abasing talent to a humblest scope (Under thine eyes' light ! sigh'd the heart of Paul), 102 AVALON. And somehow grown to something more than youth, The childhood seem'd to leave her as she look'd ; And though with perfect love she loved him still, The new time never unto her or him Seem'd as the old dead days ; then all her thought For ever vigill'd by her father's toil Till the great woe came, and the end to-day. And now the sister's love was strong with her, And wheresoever in the future time God's will might lead her would his ways precede. Then, pleading softly, she would have said : " Dear friend, Bless me in taking all thy sister's heart ; Ask not that heart a sister cannot give." AVALON. 103 But, in among the lilies as she stood, She broke in tears, whereat her gentle voice Dissolved away. So stretch'd she forth her hand, As reaching out to one she could not see ; And then, beholding how his hope began To slip from him, to save it any way, He put love by, and on another count Would strive with her, urging her orphanhood, Beseeching leave to guard her and pro- tect ; Was she not, like him, in the bleak, cold world Alone ? Was any who would shield her there? Then she, replying : " From a distant town My father's sister writes of home and love.'' 104 AVALON. Whereat he urged her still, saying : " You go, And I shall never see your face again Who would have toil'd and bled and died for you. God help me, my good angel goes with you, Which ever kept me since we kiss'd as children In all right ways and clean for you alone ! " So, weeping still, upon her knees she fell, And cried : " My brother, do not press me more ! You wring my heart. Now well indeed I know Your love has pass'd from love in brotherhood, But I can never be a wife to you, AVALON. 105 And now am I more wretched in your woe, Who live and suffer, than in my father's death, Who is at peace with God, and com- forted. Yet in a little while it may be well Between us; God has call'd me, and I go; And He will call thee at a proper time, And thou wilt, too, be ready, and thou wilt go.'' Thereat she rose, and very maidenlike About him put the circle of her pure, Warm arms, and held his heart against her face, And kiss'd his cheek, and brush'd his tears away, And bless'd and smiled and cried at him and fled. 106 AVALON. But in the quiet chamber where she slept, Again she knelt, and pray'd for peace in him, Saying : " God, comfort him, and heal his hurt, As I shall heal the sword-thrust of the King, And give him also of the Holy Cup In Arthur's day ! " The bright thought broke in light About her lips and eyes ; she rose and set The streaming glory of her glad gold hair Behind her shoulders, then her mourning garb Exchanged for samite white of broider'd robe, Gold hemm'd and cinctured. As a bride she stood, And, wrought by inner ecstacy, raised up AVALON. 107 Her pale, pure hands above her pale, pure brow, And look'd as praying saints, so utterly Apart from earth that scarce her dainty feet Touch'd the oak boards, but rather poised in air She seemed, who in the middle heaven of thought Broke forth inspired, as the sky-seeking bird Amid the clouds shrilling sweet melody : "My stricken husband waits me far away — My king awaits me, and I go to him ! I go to heal, I go to lead him forth, And I shall come back to the world with him, Back from the dim dream-regions far away. 108 AVALON. " My royal husband draws me far away, Who is the wedded master of my soul. Sweet earth, farewell ; his magnet draws and draws. I loved him, I have lived for him, I seek, I know that I shall find him far away. " Christ-cup amidst the mountains far away, And blessed isle where pain itself is peace, All things of earth seem further now than you ; Fleet is the dove when she has found her wings ; For swift dove wings ye are not far away." The little window looks upon the Bast, And far beneath the scented garden ground AVALON. 109 Exhales its fragrance, as the lonely mau, From his poor books, from the poor village school, And from the squalid ring of vacant faces, Looks o'er the meadow where the school is built, And sees the hill which leads to Mordred House, And sees the house upon the hill's bleak top, And all his love, and life, and happiness Go up, like incense from a garden ground, To her who dwells on more exalted height Than ever house was wrought on. Well- aday, When she is gone the flowers will pine and die ! Will he, too, die when the rose light she makes 110 AVALON. Goes back into some undream'd heaven of God Where those who know not death in Him dissolve 1 He thinks he will not die ; he sees his life All grey and cold as any winter mist, And beyond what he sees more mist and grey. He hungers for the love which will not come, He thirsts for the sweet love which is not his; He is an earnest man, whom thought and books Have somewhat lifted o'er the common crowd, And his expanded heart is capable Of more than common love and misery. The Great Dispenser meets him misery — So is he wretched through his nature's range, AVALON. Ill And wretched more because his ache and pain Are such a common trouble in a world So sordid in its range of circumstance. Let him be wretched — if his hopeless life Hold anywhere by one despairing straw Of vain hope scarce acknowledged to himself, Let him be cut therefrom, and, when adrift, If he can feel another pang thereat, Let it be his ! Let the steel enter in ! Let it drive deep ! Why should his heart be spared ? Perhaps his heart will harden, and his soul Will wither, like a dry stick in the heat ; Perhaps a time will come when Angela, Her own dear self, could never melt the one 112 AVALON. Or vivify the other. What of that ? Such wretchedness is old as any sin. No doubt the man is earnest, true, and good, No doubt that love, our life, would make him great. We know not what he might achieve if loved, For lesser men than he have wrought the world Spans nearer up to God and the world's end Whom love has wrought upon with mastery. And what of that ? God needs not any man, Who any fashion can his ends fulfil. Then let him harden, desiccate, and die. He is not meet for Angela, the queen Of all high thought, and mistress of white worlds AVALON. 113 Within the mind -which he has never glimpsed. She is a mate for Arthur or a god ; So let him hold his narrow nature bless'd If he be given, when the King returns, The scullion in the kitchen of the King ; Aud if he die this night — long live the King! The dun night settles on the dun dread sea, The black night deepens on the wolfish sea, The wind about the schoolhouse moans and craves, The waste without is like the want within, The want within is like the waste with- out, And both are cold, and horrible, and both Lonely and longing to be comforted. 114 AVALON. There is no crumb of comfort anywhere. The master sits amidst his books alone ; His love has read all meaning out of books, It takes the life and peace from all his thoughts ; There is no purpose left him to pursue ; There is no hope or light from anywhere. Yes, one star stills the trouble of the sea, One rising moon puts out the dark of things. Who is that knocking at the door so late? O, lonely teacher, open wide the door ! It is the heart He knocks at ; open wide ; Let Him come in ; let Him sit down with thee, Close by thy soul, and commune, com- mune there. It is black, stormy midnight, and the lamp AVALON. 115 Is dying- utterly, the house contains No oil; but is there none to help thee now? Burst forth, bright moon, behind the melting cloud ! Ah, lonely man; ah, heart o'erwrought, not thou Deserted ! It is Christ who sits with thee! No soul deserted, Christ with thee, with all! Come, Christ, in thy good time, and burst the bars By which our arid natures in their griefs Are so lock'd up from thee, so close withal ! The little window looks upon the East, And far beneath the scented garden ground Exhales its fragrance ; it is wafted up — 116 AVALON. The white magnolia sends a cloud of scent Which oft in certain quarters of the wind Pours tide-like through the casement. You detect The faint, sweet perfume of white rose and red. The lily languishes and droops and dies, But cannot reach it. Yet the maiden knows Its virgin bloom is ever pouring out Delicious life in aspiration there, And it stands first of all her garden queens In her pure love and vivifying care. The little window looks upon the East, The little table by the window stands, The high-back'd chair is to the table drawn, AVAL03ST. 117 The maiden sits therein. It is deep night — Deep night and silent — the beloved hills Make a mysterious darkness far away Against the phosphor splendour of the sky, And the moon's marvel o'er the hill-tops comes Full slowly. To the zenith she ascends, And ever marshals round her shining track The solemn pageant of all the starry heaven. She dreams — the miduight's chill towards winter's cold Lapses about her now. She dreams — the world Is wet with dew. She dreams— the moon has set, The mystic flush of morning fills the sky ; Birds in their nests stir, leaves upon the trees 118 AVALON. Tingle and wake, life comes, sweet life, sweet morn. She has dream'd well — she wakes — a rosy shaft Of horizontal light, through hill-cleft, falls Straight on her brow ; it dazzles in her eyes, It clothes her round, it slants upon the floor, It pauses straight between her and the hills ; Her seems a pathway to the upland world Expands before her. Is this waking now, Or some dream-state, or something more than both 1 She has not pass'd from out her gentle self, But rather in her true self wholly merged, Conscious of faculties and virtues new, AVALON. 119 She rises up. The antique masonry Which rings the little window seems to melt — She passes forth to find the Holy Grail Along the pathway of the risiDg suu, Along the red track, over the still earth, Into the world of hills. Assure her path, Thou strong attraction of the upland places ; We who have seen them, we have felt thy spells ; Tbou art the belt of some high mystery, Which none can reach who toils with feet of flesh To gain those summits. We must pass lifce her By aspiration's sudden rush to reach That which thou hidest, the world's further side. Attract us also ; we have long'd for thee ! It is not Gaul, Iberia, or Greece 120 AVALON. We look to reach, but on thy further side Another earth, another land and sea, Perchance that country far hight the Soul's Home. Oh, we have long'd for thee, sought thee through all ; Sin has surprised us, our degree and state Forgetting oft, but even in our sin, Reaching towards bliss, ever wast thou our end, Which art all bliss, thou true Home of the Soul ! Where is romance, where is there verse like thee ? Poets, romancers, we, spell we our hearts Ever with mysteries and melodies, Thinking of thee, ever adream of thee. Sweet is the world, gentle its ways are, bright AVALON. 121 Its pageants, and our brothers of the earth Are near and precious to our hearts. Take all- Wealth, glory, love, although we cling to them, Being all good — but take them ; and take us, And shew at any price the Soul to us. Ah, let us know the Soul, and God therein ! Ah, let God fill the dark and vacant space, Which makes the vanity and void within us, All and through all ! Yet bring us forth again, Illuminate and saturate with God, From out this Avalon, this ideal state, In its subjective mode of private bliss, Most beautiful, most dreamful, but for man 122 AVALON. Unrealized till manifest without. So may we ne'er find rest even in God Till all our brethren rest in God through us. Where is the Christ we seek in this late age? We dare not say He stands upon the roof, That is His light all sudden in the East, Or comes He sailing over the western main, Nor yet that Christ is in the Hidden Land. We know that He lies dead beneath the rock Outside the city in the Holy Place Till He is made alive in each of us. Hail to the world of hills !— Aspiring earth At its best, whitest, utmost apex point, AVALON. 123 Whatever is of transitory growth Stripp'd off, till naked under heaven it stands, Heaven half attain'd. Ah, keen, trans- lucent air ! Ah, cold, clear clusters, where the soul of man, Amidst a calmness of eternity, Amidst a stedfast spiritual wind, Enters in full possession of itself ! Ye govern the wide world which spreads beneath To yon most extreme bound which circles all, Which heaven alone enrings, and the beyond All merges into ether and the blue. Even so the mind which dwells upon the heights Sways both the height and depth, com- manding all, 124 AVALON. Beholds all earthly things in heaven dis- solve, And the eternal thought including all Hold all the possibility of man Within the circle of divinity. Man is alone upon the hills with God ; Man on the mountains of the mind abides As one encircled by divinity. Great is the sea, and the green world whereon It washes is instinct with messages Of vital moment ; but the hills have high And hidden secrets which are utter"d forth There only. Sweet is every phase of life, All human weakness sweet, but the strong man Abiding fortified in lifted ways Of highest thinking, puts the meaner man Beneath him, enters in his greater self, And so works upward towards the arche- type. AVALON. 125 And on the hills the inspiration came Which opens vision in the keen and pure. As Moses, leader of his nation, saw, In that same world, the mountain furze and wood Alive all suddenly with mystic flame, Beheld the Presence and the Shape Divine So formulated from the infinite That, as it seem'd, the fingers of a man, Amid the leven and the burning bolts, Wrote words of order and eternal law On unhewn tablets of the mountain rock — So ever Truth takes shape to lucid eyes In sign and type, the formless form assumes, And man himself seems but a woven veil Which hides an inner wonder passing thought ; When death that veil has rent, the light reveal'd Shall star-like rise full grandly o'er the verge 126 AVALON. And vast horizon of eternity. Then if the splendid symbol of the Grail, Amidst the azure altitudes of dream, In the live light, in the red light, before The burning glory of the solar disc, Shone like a vivid circle of white fire All in the morn, and all by unseen hands Uplifted, though it was a type alone, 'Twas true, God wot, as any face we love Which omens forth the love of God to us ; And Angela stretch'd forth her yearning arms, Standing tip-toe upon the crimson air, But whether from the bless'd and holy cup A magnet virtue drew the maiden on, Or whether from her sweet white cistus hands (Which angel lovers might have kiss'd, and so Assumed new glory and fresh beatitude) AVALOTT. 127 Some mystic force of soul-attraction brought The wonder down, that wrapt one, lost in awe, Knew nothing ; but it came, it brighten'd, paused Above her head, and at her fingers' ends A moment brooded ; in a moment more She held the holy cup, she bow'd her head Above it, till her gold hair in the sun Stream'd over it, and through the veil thereof Its darting rays possess'd all space with light, Possess'd the world with fragrance, and a sound Of canticles was voiced from all the chords Which in the deep heart of created things Are all creation's law and harmony. She worshipp'd long, then reach'd with gentle lips 128 AVALON. And kiss'd the rim. Ah, witchery t Ah, love ! The sudden image of the face of Paul Beneath her bent eyes shew'd a moment there. It seem'd his lips, as she had kiss'd them once In childhood, while the red wine in the cup Throbb'd like that heart rejected left to earth. It came, it pass'd, a haunting thought remain'd, While in the ether of the mountain's crown, The day's first lark sang love, and all at once The chorus broke from hill to further hill, For love possesses both the height and depth, And reaching towards the infinite we find Love there, as here, through all love, only love. AVALON. 129 infinite, eternal light of love, Exalting all things in thy glory rare, Our human beauty grows divine in thee. Till in the vision of the world within All types of beauty take the form of man, And then, wherever we may pass in quest, "We still find man and love in God made one : So may all love, from passion purely free, With those we love pass on, and merge in thee, God ! Soft on the sea fell in the morning tide Joy of the gold gleam, joy of the rose gleam, joy Of virgin heaven's inviolate, laughing eye; Whereat the spuming, turbulent sea waves Sank every one to ripples like a rill's, K 130 AVALON. And all the aureated ocean laugh'd, Responding, with a bell-tone far and near, And silvern cadences involved for ever In their own echoes. Then at once there rose A vocal rapture o'er the teeming- land ; The breeze-swept pastures took inteuser green, The cornfields mellow'd to an August moon's Red saffron gat from dream-magnificence, The gilded upland's furrow'd earth put on A plum-bloom vesture over violet, And all the white-robed choir of mountains stood Their snow-crowns' diamonds touch'd with Horeb light. And once again up from both earth and sea Amidst all festal notes a fragrance fill'd AVALON. 131 The free, vibrating, lucent height of air As light and happy as the lark therein. So the descending mystery of the Grail Diffused its blessings — peace of perfect light, Grace of all gracious odours, ministry Of universal music, and the world Was fed and rested. Such is Arthur's day, The preface to the coming of the Christ. Ah, knightly vigil, to the end persist, Over the morn and on to starry eve, And yet again through visionary dark, That so we may not miss the perfect end, True dawn, true daystar, and true plenitude ! That morn amid the marshes by the main The confluential harmonies supreme Centred about the hard-wrung heart of Paul, 132 AVALON. Who also felt that Arthur's day was nigh, And half expectant towards the mountains look'd Because perchance upon that central peak Yon glitter's glory held the Holy Grail ; Whereat the vision'd mystery declared Amidst the altitudes to Angela Shed sanctity and sweetness on his soul, And when that gentle benediction pass'd It left the soft light of a chasten'd hope, As when tried hearts are comforted by prayer. Then, all the marsh commanding, Mordred House Uplifted in the summer glory drew The teacher's eyes, a mile or more away, But Angela seem'd close against his heart, And close once seem'd her mouth against his lips. BOOK IV. THE KING'S COMING. COME, let us leave the earth ! Forth let us pass, Upward aspire and rise, seeking the soul ! Here now is neither recompense nor peace Till we have found the soul. Peace shall be then — A compensation full for common toil, And a contented heart in little things, Wherein our joy were mean till that be won Which voids all littleness in life, and finds The deep, magnalian mystery of God As much behind the acorn as the oak, As much within the emmet and the ant As in the flying bird or soaring mind. 134 AVALON. All other crowns save that which crowns the soul Are but a bubble's lustre ; nothing worth Is any kinghood, if it lack the one Eternal royalty which vests in soul. But when the mind is royally therewith Invested, verily the man is King, Though he may scavenger in pauper garb The king's highway. Peace, let us pass in thought, Ah, gently pass where all is thought in peace ! Let now the sinking sediment of sense Settle in silence, and sublime above, Potent and splendid spirit ! Prompts thee not Pride in thy flight; thou art detach'd indeed From things of earth ; thou hast thy way to cleave ; There is a treasure and a height to win — AVALOK 135 Speed swiftly, who shall stay thee? Speed amain ! We know not where, but somewhere, somewhere far Amidst the vistas and the violet, Lone searcher of the pathway of the stars, There looms the lucent kingdom of the mind, Where is thy home, and where thy heritage ! Ascend, the city and the seat are thine, And in the mystic courts and haunted halls Learu the grand secret which our hearts are all Burning to snatch; Yet when the light thereof Euwraps thee, when its wisdom, master'd, makes A vastness and magnificence within 136 AVALON. Thy ravish'd nature, thou shalt surely come Back to the gentle and beloved earth, From which no true mind ever took a sure And lofty flight but for the health and wealth Of that alone. Come, let us leave thee, Earth ! rfut wheresoever in the world within The mind shall quest, its rest is all in thee, Till thou shalt rest in everlasting God. Come, let us leave the earth ! Forth let us pass. Angela stood upon the mount alone, Bearing the mystic chalice of her dream. That was a high-uplifted place, most keeu And mind-inspiring; far beneath her feet AVALON. 137 The sweet world lay in the red light of morn Like a rose garden ; from such heights of thought The level highways of our daily life Look fair of aspect ; 'tis proud thought, not high, Contemns the common lessons of the clay. cherish earth, thy footstool, and the part Thou hast therein, thou dreamer, that thy dreams May be true gold ! Ascend, bring down the light ! Wherever thought may soar, here it re- turns, And those who, upward striving, reach such height As Angela's, know well their end is here, And here the consummation of their toil. So midst the adoration and the awe, 138 AVALON. And in the ecstacy of light arcane, While potent tides of spiritual strength Through all her nature's open floodgates pour'd, An intuition of her quest's sole term Inform'd her, as at times the sacred guest, Received beneath the sacramental sign, Will all the darkness of the heart and mind Enlighten suddenly with Godhead. Paused The lark in ether, paused the choric song Creation litanied in light and joy, And paused in dream upon the golden stairs The feet of starry angels, while she sang So ever in the silence and the spell May wo pause also when the soul would speak — So also we when something, not our- selves, AVALON. 139 Which makes for more than righteous- ness, which makes For very God in very inmost man Abiding, all untraceably sets forth The secret of the leader whom we need, Till we know verily that leader lives, And is not far from any walk in life, Waiting to bend our nature towards the law : The trembling light upon the golden stairs Was hush'd into still glory, and she sang : — " Speak, heart, and tell me where to find my lord ! While earth and sea keep silence, let the heart Make answer from behind the bridal gift Which in my hands I bring to heal my lord. 140 AVALON. " The world is wounded like my soul's dear lord ; slricken world, thy master and my own, Has never tarried far from thee or me ! 1 must return to thee to find my lord. " I bear a bridal gift to bless my lord, I bear a gift to bless thee, world, in him ; Thy bitter pain shall end when he returns, And my lord evermore shall be thy lord. "01 have quested far to find my lord, And now I know my lord is at thy gate ! He will not fail to heal and strengthen thee, And evermore thy leader is my lord. " So I return to earth and my great lord; Eeceive me, earth, and love I bring with me : AVALON. 141 Sing evermore, wondrous main and shore, And welcome in thy leader and my lord ! " So from that sunkiss'd mountain's mystic height The gentle maiden, like a shower of dew After a dry and ardent August day — So pure, so silent, and so life-bearing — Descended, carrying the Holy Grail. The companies of angels and of saints On those bright stairs whereby the world below Communicates with that which is above, As shore with shore by tides that roll between, With the harp-music of their wings possess'd The upward path of bliss ; from those bright walls 142 AVALON. Which gird God's city, and from the towers thereof, The warders watcli'd the maiden as she went, And far into the mortal mists and clouds They mark'd the white light of the holy cup, Till once again the world which is not dream Closed round the dreaming soul of Angela. Fair are the mountain heights, keen is the air, Blithe is the soul upon the peaks of earth Abiding ! Blessed are the high blue hills, And bless'd the snow-bound, inaccessible, Eternal Alpine crags and apices, When on the highest platforms, far above The line of ice, we stand, accomplish'd all The human possibility of ascent, AVALON. 143 While that which none can reach impends above, And through the bleak East's shroud of pearl and grey Widens a silent cleft, purple and vast, Day on the mountains dawning blnrr'd and red ! Yet from those mountains to the scented, soft, Luxuriant plains, rich pastures wet with dew, Exhaling ghostly mists beneath the moon, Or in the noon, under the sky's white glare, Wind-kiss'd and undulous and Ianguor- steep'd, The dreamer drawn by love of light divine Seeks not in vain : him every phase of life Illuminates ; prophetic are the woods And forests, rivers revelations give, 144 AVALON. Informs the humblest stream, the naked waste Is haunted by strange voices of the soul, And most, where'er it washes, the deep sea, Sullen, monotonous, and multiple, Interprets aye the mystery of God. Then hail, old ocean! May thy strong, thy free, Thy turbulent, unconquerable life Increase within thee ! May a soul be thine — 0, may some mighty soul, by God breathed in, Inform thy vastness and thy voices fill With still more varied meaning — every crest Which spumes upon thee in this wind of May Be some bright thought forth from thy nature's depth AVALON. 145 By joy forced up to gem thy starry crown — Be thy beatitude attain'd therein — grand and generous soul, the salt of earth ! May each white crest transport some joyful thought From thine unfathomable nature's depth To gem thy poet's crown ! Homage to thee, Because thy changeful nature never fails To reproduce on earth the heaven above, Bright type of that we long for ! Homage, too, For constant earth on which our race abides And waits the coming issues of the law. Earth is another vesture of the One, The One reveal'd in all, wherein we wait The ultimate unveiling, and the Face. L 146 AVALON. Lo, now it comes, as morning slowly works Towards doubtful eve ! The space seems long betwixt To us, my brothers ; it is short to her Who, bringing 1 ministration to mankind, From heights uplifted in the infinite, Wots nothing of time's passage, and the lapse Of vivid hopes with moments in the gulf Whence nothing can be brought till God gives back The past to His beatified, and makes ' ' Life's broken circle whole." Another day Has pass'd, and dim upon the water falls The grateful silence of a windless eve ; It is too still for any star to shine, There is a pale mist on the main and sky, AVALON. 147 And the main spell-bound broods beneath the rocks, And the sky spell-bound over earth and sea Broods in the dewy hush. There are no sounds In Mordred House : the spirit of the place Is watching still, upon the West it sets The old expectant patience of its eyes. 'Tis one day nearer now to Arthur's time, And on such eve as this might Arthur come — When all the world has lapsed so far towards peace That sweet death seems to have released the world, And it lies spiritual, pale, serene, A gentle ghost, from all its labours free. Ah, loving leader we have lack'd so long, We are all ghosts of our best purposes 148 AVALON. Till we can join with thee, so bright, so bold, The inner spirit of the soul within, The principle which binds our life with God, The bond of brotherhood with Christ in God! And thou art wounded and withdrawn and far : Who hurt thee, Master, who hath stricken thee? All we have done it, as we dimly know, Yet know not how, for in our foolish way We love and yearn towards thee, our own best part : While every day we live we hurt thee more, And thou recedest day by day from us. The mystic, weeping queens do bear thee far AVALON. 149 In that strange barge along the waters dim, Or thy far Avalon, the moving isle, Drifts further with thee over seas un- known, While all our higher manhood goes with thee. Yet in another sense we feel thee near, We know that none in truth has stricken thee: We have aim'd at thee madly in the dark And pierced ourselves ; we bleed at every pore, But thou art whole; thou art in very strength And lustre, and thou standest at the gate ; Thou would'st come in and take us to thyself And make us whole like thee. open wide ! 150 AVALON. What lets, my brothers? Is it lock'd? The key Lost somewhere in the wilds through which we came, Or wrench'd in battle from these van- quish'd hands 1 Then break the senseless bars and let him in ! We cannot do it ; they are fast, my friends. Ah, pity, Master, come to us, come to us! We cannot reach thee, open thou the gate ! He does not hear; to-day our need is deep, It will be dread to-morrow, and he will come. The house looks shrouded on the darkling hill. AVALON. 151 The path is vague and dim which leads thereto, The roads below upon the level lands Are folded by thin vapours from the sea, A broken byway passes Mordred Church, And through rank meadows which the kine despise, Amidst red weeds, up to the village school Struggles with sad persistence, and is lost Far in the melancholy miles of marsh Which skirt the sad-voiced ocean in the West. Be glory ever to the turbid sea And that far-reaching marsh full oft explored In many moods of visionary bliss By gentle Angela ! May silent streams Among the sedges and saturated grass Their complex sinuosities pursue 152 AVALON. And irrigate unseen the wide expanse For ever ! May the bittern and the jay- Abide therein, the mournful plover call, The plaintive sea-mew cry, the lark in spring Sprinkle the crystal spaces of the air With lucent dews of melody ! And thou, The manifold in aspect and in voice, Spread wide thy space, increase thy nature's depth, And thy white-crested surges seen afar Bleach in the wind and lift and multiply In thy divine, immeasurable wrath And in thy might for ever ! When the clouds Disperse above thee in the central watch Of the dread night, a thousand heavens of stars Diffuse awhile tranquillity and light On thy deep-breathing breast ! And joy be thine — AVALON. 153 Joy in the revolution of the world, In thy returning moon, auroral rays, Sun's splendour, pageantry of evening red, And the oracular vast of thine own voice Which answers ever to itself, while earth Shakes and is silent. The wind mocks thee not, Which mocks at all things ; tempest wrecks not thee, Because thou art a lone and awful being Sublimed in tempest to the prophet's point, Yet in the sunshine like a vestal soul Still'd, fined, infused as with the peace of Christ. From the high Eastern platforms of the earth, Prom the steep mountains of the Morning Land, 154 AVALON. Possess'd by vision, of the Grail possess'd, The maid hath now descended, as it were, Awaking out of her adoring trance To find the golden chalice still enring'd By spiritual splendour, to rejoice Because she clasp'd it with her hands of flesh, Because it was no vision of the night But true, and with her in the world of old— Beyond belief, bright, beautiful, and true ! Long hours unmark'd in that deep dream have pass'd ; Years might have flown, the hour of all the dead Might pulse upon the threshold, he be nigh For whom we look, and Christ Himself at hand. She stands at evening in the wilding path AVALON. 155 Betwixt the village church and village school ; She knows that Mordred House is desolate And cold and waiting. The church, too, is dark — It is most lone and sorrowful and void. The dead, expectant in their graves of God, Lie sadly with the heavy earth above, And still no angel comes to roll away The stones, and no one to awaken them. Ah, let us pity all the poor dead world ! Let us pray humbly for this world so dead; To meet the doom divine by God decreed Fill all our beings with nobility ! Perchance we shall escape unhappy sleep ; So may we rather wake and watch with Christ, Prepared against His glory when it comes. 156 AVALON. The mist about the dreaming 1 maiden folds, The night grows deeper round our Angela ; There is a nimbus o'er the Holy Grail, And in the light thereof, as she fares on, All suddenly she sees the village school, And that is also empty, dark, and void ; The gentle heart of her most gentle breast In pure compassion unto Paul goes out ; The narrow door is open, and the house Looks blank within, as all things bare of thee, Oh, Love, are empty, and are dark, oh, Love ! I see thy hands uplifted, priest and King, From thine anointed fingers pour in streams A healing aura : whether late or soon AVALON. 157 We do not know, but thou wilt come to us, And nothing shall be sad that dwells without, Or dark within; but we shall be like God Forgiving all, because the world is full Of pain and folly : none is wise but Love, And that is God .... The house was dark without And blank within, yet in such gloom perchance He dwelt alone, and there was sorrowing. She muses mildly in her maiden soul, And says : This sacred cup shall comfort him ; It cannot fail to heal and strengthen Love, And on the other side of this poor place God knows that I may chance on Avalon. About the narrow corridors, within 158 AVALON. Low ceiling'd rooms, the Holy Grail gave light, And what it lighted in the humble place That also it transfigured ; so it seem'd That through the splendour of deserted halls She traversed, up the stairways of a great And royal palace, with that gift divine, Ascended ghostlike. Seeking as she went, There seem'd a parable about h6r spelt, And like that village school the village youth, Its teacher, stood reveal'd, in outward mien Lowly and little in the world's account, But great within and full of mystery. The Holy Grail made all things rare to her, And love at work on Paul had grandeur'd him, AVALON. 159 Who in the agony of wounded love Pound earth itself too little for emprize, And from the barren flint of hopeless life Had struck already with the spirit's steel The fire of lofty purpose in the gloom : So though the naked and unlitten world It yet might pass electric, terrible, Possessing being as a grand, strong thing, Which if it did not beautify might yet Inform. So spake the parable. The maid, With understanding mind accepting, saw The vistas fill with glory, that pale youth Whom thought, and haply something more than thought, Had hallow'd slowly towards the beauti- ful, Mounting the star-track of the infinite, While the drawn nations follow'd from afar. 160 AVALON. And then the thought of what the lad might prove Did she but love him as he loved her, sent The maid's blood flushing to the maid's pure brow, And all at once the vision'd form of Paul, Invested by the whole white light of love, Shot up into the furthest heaven of stars, Divine and dread. The sacred cup gave out The fragrance of the purple grapes of God Which in the Father's Kingdom, and upon The old world walls of our dear Father's House, Grow ripe and sweet against that day to come, AVALON. 161 After the wine-press and the vintage- time, When at the supper-table of the Lord We all shall quench the thirst of mortal things, And drink with Christ, the brother of our hearts, New wine, rich wine, eternal wine of life. That vision paled. Again the Grail gave light; She knew the house was empty; with her lips Against that sacred cup, she pray'd for Paul, That he might never fail of any end, However great, that God would gift him for, And might God gift him to eternity And the eternal weal of all the world ; But ever and through all things God's true grace M 162 AVALON. And all true love make glad and comfort him. So through a narrow portal passing out She found an aromatic garden fair, Wherein a gate which on a generous mead All in the moonlight gave. For, lo, the mist Had lifted now, and, lo, the air was keen And clear and cool, seem'd every purpose fair, Assured and close, while all high dreams were true ! With open and illuminated mind, Prom every doubt set free, in the scented time Of silent dews and piping nightingales, Amidst the magic and the mystery Of moon-enchanted meadows and remote All melancholy music of the main, AVALON. 163 The white-robed maiden bore the Holy Grail. xVh, never haply here in mortal life Shall we who toil beneath the cross of sin Bear that bless'd cup whereof she did not drink For that her starry nature needed naught ; But would to God in this autumnal doubt Where all that once was bloom is fallen leaf, And all the woods wherein we worshipp'd once Are wrapp'd in mist and drip with dreary rain (There we invoke and nothing answers us, But tempests scatter our poor holocausts, The lightnings wreck our altars), would to God We might awhile her virgin insight know, Might see the end of all, as there she saw, 164 AVALON. And taste the rest of the enlighten'd soul ! Eeturn, thou clarity of sight and mind — Expound the world ! Soul-Magic, weave thy spells ! Project the strength of the ecstatic mind — Bid every gate unfold, all veils be rent, All windows open'd ! . . . Inner Truth of Things, The incandescence of thy secret light, Made manifest to spiritual eyes, Evolved its golden visions, vistas bright Of scenic revelation ; and the maid Drank wisdom in through all her faculties. The mystic secret, unto God's elect Alone reveal'd, in all things flash'd on her, While night and wind were round her, stars and night, While soaring upward, with no cloud involved — AVALON. 165 stellar, zenith-seeking sign of God ! Bright wax'd the orb'd moon-mistress of the world. So was she drawn, she knew not how nor where, But haunted ever by most holy thoughts, And passing as she went from mortal state To something spiritual, strange, supreme, A ghostly nature which from will to act Did, void of effort or fatigue or pain, Proceed with swift transition. . . Fell the moon And stately constellations sinking slowly Behind the waters to the South went down, Till in a wondrous visionary way, Beyond the meadows and bej^ond the marsh, And out upon a jutting point of rock, As at the very end of all the earth, 166 AVALON. In the first early saffron of the morn, She, midst a magic hush of joy and awe, Stood very pure and very maidenlike, And the soft, small, caressing wavelets came, Amidst a perfect stillness of the sea, Up from that sweet, salt, splendid water- waste, And sank with little melodies and chimes All gently, gently, gently at her feet. The early saffron turn'd a mystic gold, As o'er the hill-tops, with a joyful shout From all awaken'd Nature, rose the sun, While like a parable of beauty there, Stood Angela, the beautiful, the bless'd, How still and stately in the morning light, In the most royal light of that new day, Which came so fair, so radiant, so peach- fresh, AVALON. 167 That well indeed it might be Arthur's day, And if the leader and the King we love Should seem to tarry still, be still unseen, For that his holy presence does not want Invisibly about us. It is here And now, the impulse and the trust return, The long-seal'd fount of fairy fantasy O'erflows our soul once more, by life's dim deep Long pausing, musing long. No dream is dead, We only slept and wake in dream again ; No golden hope is o'er, no faith hath fled; The fortified intelligence within, That virtue never in the past invoked In vain from Nature, now collects her strength, While benedictions from the world around 16S AVALON. Shed down most sweet, most sacred in- fluence. It comes in dew, it comes at lapsing night, In Eastern flames and flashes, in the sea — In the grey sheen of the full-breasted sea — Which breaks in ripples, crested, curling, crisp, Speaking great things — the mighty in- flux comes. Wind, darkness, distant, solitary downs, Faint sky in morning reverie involved, First lark, grand singer, in thy music's cloud Involved, invisible — and new-mown hay — Their precious help vouchsafe ! The soul is clothed With priestly vestments ; it is seal'd and sign'd With chrism of inspiration. AVALON. 169 Is it thus With you and me 1 Can it be thus, my friends 1 The light illuminates, the transport fills, The joy uplifts to very heaven of God Us who have sinn'd and suffer'd, and been shamed, Us who are falling when we dream we stand, Who know not whether we are worthy love At our soul's best. But she was pure and fair, And God's love girt her like a garment round, Poised where our senses at the height would swim, And being wholly clean and. void of stain Was visited by suffering indeed But fashion'd further unto sanctity. What marvel then if in the morniDg light, 170 AVALON. Beside the ocean's revelation, she Pass'd onward through the dream of her desire, As if the pavement of the waters smooth'd To crystal stillness, while the Grail's white light Encircled her, as ever sheeny cloud Might fold the singing wonder of a lark, And the wind's breath was full of balm and softness, Even as God's grace breath'd in gift to man? And so the mystic waters of the main Were dared and cross'd, and so the sacred isle Shone suddenly, and the stairway of the stars, With Arthur face to face in Avalon ; So all the angel swords were beaten down, So all the mists dissolving roll'd away ; AVALON. 171 But was it Arthur thus in mystic state, maid most sweet, amidst us here and now, To whom the bridal gift, the healing cup, The mystery of love of all the world, Was by thee, white one, offer'd kneeling there 1 The glad hair all her sacred form enfold- ing In wavy ripples to her feet went down, And o'er her shoulders fell, on either side Of that most glittering chalice, star- begemm'd, Exhaling fragrance like a flower of light, From her head's crown depended, as it hung Was gently lifted outward by the wind, So looking like the curtain and the crown Above the altar when the monstrance rays Gold sheen betwixt, the typal God within. 172 AVALON. Her pure heart throbb'd behind it, and sent forth Those dim and mystic chords o£ melody Which in the hush of spiritual love, Even on this bleak side of Avalon, Do sometimes offer to the sense within The secret of that island far withdrawn. Where is the voice which shall in this late day Shew forth the praises of the place of peace 1 When sacred love has taught it to the heart, What tongue can utter that the heart has learn'd ? It was the perfect peace of purest soul, It was the region of the soul attain'd, Where man alone shall rest, which thus in dream Took outward shape about that spotless maid, AVALON. 173 And, taking shape, obey'd sweet Nature's law, And being close to Nature's inmost self, Assumed the gentlest phase which Nature gives To soothe and sanctify the outward world — An amber softness in the solar ray, A placid breadth upon the glassy stream, Kich darkness in the verdure of the meads, A languid curve about the upland slopes, A wealth of woodland shade — but nothing strange — No ghostly shapes which flitted through the gloom In thickets ever from the light conceal'd, No airy winnowing of unseen wings, No bird or bloom unknown ; and yet through all The hush expectant hinting mystery, 174 AVALON. The visible impress of a quietude Which pointed pathways towards a deeper peace, The graciousness which spoke of other grace, And a mild music murmuring through all Which seemed an overture by Nature made Before the veil which is the bound of her. The deep enchantment lulling outer sense Awaken'd new activities within ; So sleep they not that dwell in Avalon, Save as the saints do sleep who wake in God: The heart and centre of the moving world Is heart and centre of its energy. Ah, blessed place wherein the archetypes Of all things here most perfect do abide And actuate the types that we behold — High thought, nobility, and rectitude, And that transcendent love we call divine AVALON. 175 Because devoted towards the perfect life— That precious love which an eternal law Gives ultimately back to human things So to exalt them towards the archetype ! Thus, in the centre of that world of love The virgin seeker found the love she sought, As we shall also find our heart's own quest At the true centre of the world within, And whatsoever we have nobly dream'd Consummately accomplish then and there. But Angela had sought the perfect man, That inner nature whom our outward life Has long afflicted with such grievous hurt That the true manhood no more strives with us, But drawn apart awaits in kingly state 176 AVALON. The coming of the far off healing time. When shall a saviour of the age arise To heal the leader's wounds 1 . . . At least may we Who cannot minister to man at large, Except in lowly parable and song , The individual King within ourselves Make whole against tbe great day of the King, And lead him forth with our own Angela, Spirit and soul conjoin 'd, and one hence- forth. And so it seem'd the leader and the King, Whom we have long'd for, in a lifted state Of contemplation, as in waking dream, Beheld the maiden and the cup beheld, And, conscious of the old and unheal'd wound, Stretch'd forth his kingly, venerable hands, AVALON. 177 When of the healing draught she gave him free And full libation ; all about the seat Whereon he waited for the call of God The mystic mourning Queens that girt him round Broke forth with one accord in strange sweet song, While through their voices' ballad-music still The heart of Angela, more subtly sweet, Spoke from the inner world of melody, And round that choric band the wide, wide world Was manifest with mystic harmony. So also, since the vision of the maid Was passing slowly towards its perfect end, And all earth's voices call'd on Angela, Because the world, athirst from end to end, 178 AVALON. Desired the healing draught, the Holy Grail, The destin'd revelatioD follow'd on Fulfilment of that mystic ministry. In that same hour the heart of Angela Vibrated with the great heart of the King, And towards his throne the monarch raised the maid, And the maid looking in his face beheld And knew the King, yea, in that utmost isle Of all the world, spoke his familiar name, Not Arthur, but another, and still the King, For love is King. So round about the throne All music died, so all things round it changed, The King was with her in the world we love, AVALON. 179 And all the world in that same moment pass'd Into the quiet mode of Avalon. Now why King Arthur wore the face of Paul, And why the cup sought out to heal the King Was offer'd in the visionary world To that pale youth aggrieved by wounded love, Is haply one of love's deep mysteries. 0. unto us as to Saint Angela It brings the profit of a secret law, For haply we have left the world behind, Renouncing also in our weaker way All coarser ministries of sense and joy, And quested after ideality ! So also we apart from human love Have trembling enter'd in those upward paths 180 AVALON. Where far away we glimpse the Love Divine, Aspiring towards the Master of the Soul. Now, she was pure by all her nature's law, And meeter far than we to touch with God, To unify with that which is within, The mighty leader, the true spirit King. But when within the visionary isle She thus at length beheld him face to face, 'Twas human love that manifested there ; And so through man alone we reach to God; Who loves man best ranks nearest to divine — A lesson for the leader and the king, A lesson for the potentate and priest, And most for those who, leaving earth behind, AVALON. 181 To mystic heights, and that ecstatic bliss Which comes in vision, from our human life Would stand apart. all ye sons of song, Chorus of silver tongues speaking to earth, True poem makers, if to one unknown Ye list, forgive this maiden ecstacy Which thus awhile forgets its parable — Poets, forgive ! What she, the maid I sing, Intuitive, divined, I reach alone By labour'd processes of conscious thought ; It dawn'd on her, a revelation sure, But all in the sweet rose light of romance, While round about the monarch's royal face, And in the dusk light of his dreadmost eyes, 182 AVALON. Eose light and gold light deepen'd solemnly To purple's perfect splendour, type of love. So royal love in that most holy light, And virgin beauty's aspiration pure Beheld each other in the peace and joy Which is of Avalon. The world beyond Pass'd from them like a troubled and moaning wind Before the bright face of the arising sun, And there was silence for a little space — Sweet silence, sweeter lapse from con- scious thought, And down the tide of spiritual bliss Floated the happy spirit of Angela. * * From out deep vision, from illumined sleep, The maid awoke, as she had waken'd oft ; AVALON. 183 The little chamber from the world apart Was filled with morning splendour, the free song Of soaring larks, and all its floral scents. What days had passed since Laban Mordred died, Or unto earth his orphan'd daughter gave Her father back, in such auroral light As then ray'd out, such full swell of the sea, She wot not, waking, nor what fever lapp'd Her gentle limbs in langour. Round about That bed the women folk of Mordred House Were gather'd, and the good old village priest, With purple stole about his shoulders thrown, Recited ever from his open book 184 AVALON. In murmur'd monotone of mortified Kind lips, Ab omni malo libera Nos, Domine : A subitanea Ft improvisa morte libera Nos, Domine — as dying in the dawn She might have lain. Suddenly then she knew That some high seeming trance had steep'd her sense In outward death, and, suddenly reveal'd, Divinely bright above her waking eyes, Bent down the dark, magnificent face of Paul. She towards him lifting milk-white maiden arms By that one gesture gave him love for love, And all the world made music round his life When such joy met him in the morning tide. EPILOGUE. SPIRIT of patience, spirit of faith and trust, Look forth again from those dim win- dows' eyes In haunted Mordred House. It is a morn Of lotus melodies, of autumn sun's Ambrosial mellowness and amber tints. Wake in the woodland deeps, all blithe birds, wake ! Chime in the meadow world, all ye light streams ! Chorus of heaven's larks, on those wild wings Soaring, entranced in light, through the long day Sing ye, in ether lost, sing till the blue Turns in the eventide purple and gold ! 186 AVALON. Sing till the hush of night heralds the stars ! Sing till the crescent moon brightens and sinks, Palters and plunges and follows the sun! Sing till the cradled sea rocks into rest — Swelters and swirls in diaphanous sleep — Lullaby, lullaby, sweet be the sleep ! Eye fields and wheat fields, undulous and ripe, Strong for the sickle, for the harvest rich, multiply still more your golden ears, And bow your bearded heads, and let the sun Still further fructify your fair returns To kine that plough'd and hands that sow'd in spring ! Here is a golden morn of Lyonnesse, And here the day of Arthur and the King : AVALON. 187 All hail, Lord Love ! Behold thy temple clean ! Strew'd roses scent it, and a thousand white And vestal blooms, with folded baby buds, Press'd by the passage of angelic feet, Dispense their fragrance in the sacred fane, Through nave and aisle, and wafted up to where Thine altar looms. The lamps are lighted; now The doves of young desire with censers stand To sanctify the holocaust this day That temple offers. There the mystse stand, And there the epopts of uplifted thought, In circle drawn about a presence veil'd And curtain'd in, where none but Love may come — 188 AVALON. " Not Lancelot nor another," but the king. Ah, golden gates and ivory towers which gird The cedar citadel of maidenhood, Fall down in music when his horns are blown, And welcome, welcome, welcome in the king ! For evermore, alike at board and bed, Until the sacrament of outward life Shall pass away and shew the secret grace Of inward being, to the bridal pair More truly then than now in God made one. And thus it fell upon a golden day That Arthur enter'd into Lyonnesse, More truly king than ever knight of old, As Christ comes down and enters in the heart, AVALON. 189 And then the void which aches and echoes there Is straightway fill'd so full with light and joy That all the human nature overflow'd Assumes the likeness of divinity, And makes about the peace-imparted soul A nimbus whence, so long as Christ shall stay, It sees the world transfigured. So he came, A fair embodiment of human love, Whereof whatever is of best in us Is type and shadow, which through all these ills Stills leads the race, still takes it slowly up The starry track, and, howsoe'er remote, In God's good time which never is too late, Shall good and bad to our dear Father's feet 190 AVALON. Most surely bring-, all, all, in him made pure. not with hosts uprisen from Avalon, And not in ships over the western sea, And not with banners and emblazonments, Nor manifested unto outward sense, But felt and known and worshipp'd in the heart — Thus came — thus only comes — the Spirit Prince ! So was it Arthur's day for Angela, And when from out the visionary world All men and women have their purest part Of aspiration drawn to centre here And beautify the race of which they are, It shall be Arthur's day upon the earth, While perfect human love as lord acclaim'd Shall lightly lead us to the day of Christ. And then, our Father, not in heaven withdrawn, AVALON. 191 As Arthur now in dreamful Avalon, Long quested, seldom found, Thou shalt be seen, And lightly, Father, shall we pass to Thee, While the poor limits of our human part Dissolve before Thee, and our meagre wells Of brackish love shall all be broken up, And melt in music into Thy great sea ! Pass into Love Divine, pass, human love! But from thy waters first deep shall we drink, That we may thirst the more, and quench in God — Quench all the thirst of life and end in God, And then in Him be one with all we love. So pause, feeble song, and die before The utter stillness of that silent sea Wherein the pmall libations of ourselves We pour, suspiring to be part thereof ! 192 AVALON. And thou, pure virgin, pass to purer wife, And qualify through thy bright days to come To drink the chalice of the Mastery ; It is not lost to thee, nor thy dear dream, Which more and more henceforth in out- ward life Fulfils itself, revealing also more New lights uplifted in the world within, Stars beyond stars, up through the path of stars : The light of Christ is on the mountains, lo, Beyond the morning redness of the soul The spirit's lustre sparkles from afar, And overlighting all, Father above, Thy glory manifests the infinite ! FINIS. JAMES ELLIOTT AND CO. ; _-^ TEMPLE CHAMBERS, FALCON COURT, FLEET STREET, LONDON, B.C. t.»