A Memorial

(F.T.)          The cord broke, and the tent          Slipped, and the silken roof          Lay prone beneath the viewless hoof          Of the deliberate firmament.          Yet cared we not; how should we care?          Knowing that labourless now he breathes          A golden paradisal air          Where with more certain craft he wreathes          Bright braids of words more wise and fair          Than ever his earthly fabrics were,          That his unwavering eyes made fresh,          Purged and regarbed in fadeless flesh,          What he then darkly guessed behold,          And watch with an abiding joy              The eternal mysteries unfold          Which do his now transfigured songs evermore employ.              Brother, yet great thy power;              Thou stood'st as on a tower          Small 'neath the stars yet high above the fields;              In thy alembic song              Imagination strong          Distilled what essences the quest to mortals yields.              This thy reward well-won,              For every morning's sun          Found thy heart's firm allegiance still unshaken;              No temporal ache or smart              Drave Beauty from thy heart,          And by thy mighty mistress never wast forsaken.              Yes; for though stringent was the test,              When that thy trial was bitterest,          Steadfast thou did'st remain; unshod          The harrows of Pain thy feet once trod,          Humiliate as thy sad song tells          Before the vault's white sentinels.          Friendless and faint thou sojourned'st there,          A bowed, brave, timid wanderer,          A lonely nomad of the spirit,          Who did a triple curse inherit,          Hunger, regret and memory.          Yet never did they vanquish thee;          When nighest broken, most alone,          Thy unassuagd thoughts could clamber          To beauty on her ageless throne;          Thou wert as one in torture chamber          Who sees the blue through an open casement          And hammers his soul to endure the time          Of his corporeal abasement;          Nor writhed'st at thine or others' fault,              But with grim tenderness did salt              Thy cicatrices with a rhyme.              Not the most sable flame of gloom              Could penetrate thy inmost room;              But through the walls thy spirit sucked              Into that cloistral hermitage              Stray lovely things, moonbeams and snows              The far sky shed into thy cage,              And, from the very gutter plucked,              A lost and mired campestral rose.          Ended that purgatorial period,          Filled was thy wallet and thy feet were shod,          The leaden weights were moved, the rack withdrawn,          Thou didst traverse the dewy fields of dawn,          Watch sunsets blazoning over upland turf,          Pull poppies from the frontiers of the surf,              Dwelled'st with love and human eyes              Vigilant, calm and wise.              But still as when thy bark did ride              Derelict on the city's tide,              As then for penury now for pride              Thy bodily senses were denied;              Though they cried out and would not sleep,              Ascetic thou didst armour them          Lest acid pleasure should eat thine art's pure gem.              Hourly the tempter's ambuscades              But thou didst guard the gates and keep              Thy senses' hungry colonnades          Accessible but to Beauty's ministers,          Unlit by any ruby flame but hers.              Immuring so thy spirit eager              Within a body frail and meagre,          Far from the meads of earthly milk and honey,          Yet franchised of more wondrous territories,          Like those poor Bedouin of Arabia the Stony          Who roam spare-fed and hollow-eyed but free          By day to wander and by night to camp              In vast serenity,              Compassed by God's great silent glories          The sun's gold splendour and the moon's white lamp,              Folded and safe from harm          Beneath the mighty sky's protecting arm.              Ha! but the Titan's ardour              Wherewith thou scour'dst the vast,              To spoil the starry larder              Of fruits of heavenly taste!              Urania's fiercest servant,              With thirst as furnace fervent              And serene burning brow,              Worthy of thy great lineage, thou              Drankest without a shudder              In proud humility              Milk from that vast primval udder              That swells for such as thee,          Milk from the fountains of the Universe          That cowards deem infected with a curse,              That flushes him who drinks                  Nor shrinks          The exalted anguish of diurnal draughts          To a clear vision, more intolerable          In its blissful pain, than love's most ardent shafts,              Of the seats where she doth dwell,              She, whom thou didst confess                  Enticed              Thee hot to her throne to press              For the greater glory of Christ          To uplift the curtains of her closed eyes.              Not all was for thy learning              Nor any mortal's else;              Only for thy discerning              Sporadic syllables              Of those supernal glances          Coffer of which her marble countenance is,              Yet vain was not the adventure,              Reluctant though the prize,              Thou gainedst a debenture              On the fringe of Beauty's eyes;              Such fragmentary trophy              As some cross-tunic'd knight              From Saladin or Sophy              May have won in sword's despite,              Not the dear polar shrines              Held captive by the Paynim              But still as fruit of wars              Some stone from Sion's lines,              Some relic that might sain him              Of life's uncounted scars.              Self-dedicated anchorite,              Never disdainful of the dust,          But conscious of the overcoming night          That must engulph the blooms and berries of lust,          And unforgetful of the enveloping day beyond;          Though a sweet show was spread for thy delight          Resolved not to be so fond          As, in ephemeral gauds caparisoned,          To station feet upon a world of vapour          Soft as a dream and fleeting as a taper;          Thou thoughtest nevertheless that thou shouldst occupy          Thyself, as it seemed to thee, most worthily          Until the rapid hour when thou shouldst die;              So, in a world of seemings,              Of shadows and of dreamings,          Busied thyself to fashion and record          Unto the greater glory of thy Lord,              For thy proud lady Beauty His          Most excellent and humble handmaid is.          Says one thy service was too ceremonial,          Thy vestments irised overmuch, thy ritual          Too elaborate and thy rubric too obscure,          Therefore thy gift of chant and orison          Beneath the perfect service men have done.              O but thy notes were pure,          And in a day like this we now endure          No fault it was in thee to set thy camp              Remote, aloof, aloof,              In a far fastness proof          'Gainst the mephitic odours of the swamp.              Which being so, no gain              'Twere to explain          An exquisiteness too meticulous;              Let us but say it pleased thee thus,          Dowered with imagination heavy-fruited,          To raise a column garlanded and fluted              For Him thy heavenly abacus.              This was thine offering thou didst make              In founded hope that He              The craftsman's best would take          Well knowing its unobscure sincerity.              The cord broke and the tent              Slipped and the silken roof              Lay prone beneath the viewless hoof              Of the deliberate firmament.              We still in this terrene abode              Forlorn must tread the difficult road,              And all meek thanks and all belief              Hardly suffice to rampart grief.          For gone is Beauty's votary apostolic          And are her temples now delivered over          To blindworms and libidinous goats that frolic          In places hallowed by that celestial lover.              Save only two or three              With undivided minds like thee,              None now remains that girds              The peregrinal loin,          None reverent of Beauty's holy tongue,          But counterfeiters of her imaged coin,          Iconoclasts, breakers of carven words,          Seekers of worthless treasure in the dung,          Mock mages and cacophonous charlatans,              And pismire artisans              Labouring to make          Such mirrored replicas of Nature's face          As might the surface of a stagnant lake.              Yet we should anger not,              Nor let that be forgot,              The testament of stateliest worth              He left us when he fled the earth.              The mausoleum made of rhyme,              Fair in its unfrequented field,              Which shall invulnerably shield              His memory to the end of Time;              The house with curtain-flaming halls              And roof of gold and jewelled walls              For which the fisher sank his net              Into the deepest pools of speech,              Scooping rich conchs and ribbons wet              That a less venturous could not reach,              The hunter tracked the metaphor              On many a foamy silver coast              A hundred leagues beyond the most              Fabulous Tellurian shore.              Magnificent he was and mild,              Glad to be still and glad to speak,              Daring yet delicate as a child,              Faithful, compassionate and holy,              And, being human, strong and weak,              And full of hope and melancholy.              No more than we, able to shed              Man's nature he inherited,              Neither sin's garrison to kill,          Yet at the last with constancy so great          As the world's vanities to abnegate,          Sternly to will the sacrifice of will          Upon the altars of the Uncreate,              So that he lived before he died          As one who hourly to himself denied              All joys save those that cannot pall,          Who having nothing yet had all.