Poems (Whitney)/Camille
CAMILLE.
I bore my mystic chalice unto earth, With vintage which no lips of hers might name:Only in token of its alien birth, Love crowned it with his soft, immortal flame; And 'mid the world's wide sound, Sacred reserves and -silences breathed round A spell, to keep it pure from low acclaim.
With joy that dulled-me to the touch of scorn, I served: not knowing that of all life's deeds,Service was first—nor that high powers are born In humble uses;—fragrance-folding seeds Must so through flowers expand, Then die:—God witness that I blest the Hand Which laid upon my heart such golden needs!
And yet I felt through all the blind, sweet ways Of life, for some clear shape its dreams to blend;Some thread of holy art to knit the days Each unto each, and all to some fair end, Which through unmarked removes, Should draw me upward, even as it behooves One whose deep spring-tides from His heart descend.
To swell some vast refrain beyond the sun, The very weed breathed music from its sod:And Night and Day in ceaseless antiphon, Rolled off through windless arches in the broad Abyss.—Thou saw'st I too Would in my place have blent accord as true, And justified this great enshrining, God!
Dreams!—Stain it on the bending amethyst, That one who came with visions of the PrimeFor guide, somehow her radiant pathway missed, And wandered in the darkest gulf of Time! No deed divine, thenceforth, Stood royal in its far-related worth— No God, in truth, might heal the wounded chime.
O how? I darkly ask.—And if I dare Take up a thought from this tumultuous streetTo the forgotten Silence, soaring there Above the hiving roofs, its calm depths meet My glance with no reply. Might I go back and spell this mystery In that new stillness at my mother's feet!
I would recall with importunings long Her so sad soul, once pierced as with a knife;And cry, Forgive! O think, youth's tide was strong, And the full torrent, shut from brain and life, Plunged through the heart, until It rocked to madness, and the o'erstrained will Grew wild, then weak, in the despairing strife.
And ever I think, What warning voice should call, Or show me bane from food, with tedious art,When love, the perfect instinct, flower of all Divinest potencies of choice, whose part Was set 'mid stars and flame, To keep the inner place of God, became A blind and ravening fever of the heart!
I laugh with scorn that men should think them praised In women's love;—chance-flung in weary hours,By sickly fire to bloated worship raised! O dream long-lost, so sweet of vernal flowers!— Wherein I stood, it seemed, And gave a gift of queenly mark;—I dreamed Of passion's joy aglow in rounded powers.
I dreamed! The roar, the tramp, the burthened air Pour round their sharp and subtle mockery.Here go the eager-footed men—and there The costly beggars of the world float by, Lilies that toil nor spin— How should they know so well the weft of sin, And hide me from them with such sudden eye?
But all the roaring crowd begins to make A whirl of humming shade:—for since the dayIs done, and there's no lower step to take, Life drops me here. Some rough, kind hand I pray, Thrust the sad wreck aside:, And shut the door on it! a little pride, That I may not offend who pass this way!
And this is all! O, thou wilt yet give heed! No soul but trusts some late, redeeming care—But walks the narrow plank with bitter speed, And, straining through the sweeping mist of air, In the great tempest-call, And greater silence deep'ning through it all, Refuses still, refuses to despair.
Some further end—whence thou refitt'st with aim Bewildered souls perhaps—? Some breath in me,By thee, the purest, found devoid of blame, Fit for large teaching—? Look, I cannot see, I can but feel!—Far off, Life seethes and frets, and from its shame and scoff, I take my broken crystal up to Thee.