Epilogue to Emblems of Love

What shall we do for Love these days?     How shall we make an altar-blaze     To smite the horny eyes of men     With the renown of our Heaven,     And to the unbelievers prove     Our service to our dear god, Love?     What torches shall we lift above     The crowd that pushes through the mire,     To amaze the dark heads with strange fire?     I should think I were much to blame,     If never I held some fragrant flame     Above the noises of the world,     And openly 'mid men's hurrying stares,     Worshipt before the sacred fears     That are like flashing curtains furl'd     Across the presence of our lord Love.     Nay, would that I could fill the gaze     Of the whole earth with some great praise     Made in a marvel for men's eyes,     Some tower of glittering masonries,     Therein such a spirit flourishing     Men should see what my heart can sing:     All that Love hath done to me     Built into stone, a visible glee;     Marble carried to gleaming height     As moved aloft by inward delight;     Not as with toil of chisels hewn,     But seeming poised in a mighty tune.     For of all those who have been known     To lodge with our kind host, the sun,     I envy one for just one thing:     In Cordova of the Moors     There dwelt a passion-minded King,     Who set great bands of marble-hewers     To fashion his heart's thanksgiving     In a tall palace, shapen so     All the wondering world might know     The joy he had of his Moorish lass.     His love, that brighter and larger was     Than the starry places, into firm stone     He sent, as if the stone were glass     Fired and into beauty blown.         Solemn and invented gravely     In its bulk the fabric stood,     Even as Love, that trusteth bravely     In its own exceeding good     To be better than the waste     Of time's devices; grandly spaced,     Seriously the fabric stood.     But over it all a pleasure went     Of carven delicate ornament,     Wreathing up like ravishment,     Mentioning in sculptures twined     The blitheness Love hath in his mind;     And like delighted senses were     The windows, and the columns there     Made the following sight to ache     As the heart that did them make.     Well I can see that shining song     Flowering there, the upward throng     Of porches, pillars and windowed walls,     Spires like piercing panpipe calls,     Up to the roof's snow-cloud flight;     All glancing in the Spanish light     White as water of arctic tides,     Save an amber dazzle on sunny sides.     You had said, the radiant sheen     Of that palace might have been     A young god's fantasy, ere he came     His serious worlds and suns to frame;     Such an immortal passion     Quiver'd among the slim hewn stone.     And in the nights it seemed a jar     Cut in the substance of a star,     Wherein a wine, that will be poured     Some time for feasting Heaven, was stored.         But within this fretted shell,     The wonder of Love made visible,     The King a private gentle mood     There placed, of pleasant quietude.     For right amidst there was a court,     Where always muskd silences     Listened to water and to trees;     And herbage of all fragrant sort, -     Lavender, lad's-love, rosemary,     Basil, tansy, centaury, -     Was the grass of that orchard, hid     Love's amazements all amid.     Jarring the air with rumour cool,     Small fountains played into a pool     With sound as soft as the barley's hiss     When its beard just sprouting is;     Whence a young stream, that trod on moss,     Prettily rimpled the court across.     And in the pool's clear idleness,     Moving like dreams through happiness,     Shoals of small bright fishes were;     In and out weed-thickets bent     Perch and carp, and sauntering went     With mounching jaws and eyes a-stare;     Or on a lotus leaf would crawl,     A brinded loach to bask and sprawl,     Tasting the warm sun ere it dipt     Into the water; but quick as fear     Back his shining brown head slipt     To crouch on the gravel of his lair,     Where the cooled sunbeams broke in wrack,     Spilt shatter'd gold about his back.         So within that green-veiled air,     Within that white-walled quiet, where     Innocent water thought aloud, -     Childish prattle that must make     The wise sunlight with laughter shake     On the leafage overbowed, -     Often the King and his love-lass     Let the delicious hours pass.     All the outer world could see     Graved and sawn amazingly     Their love's delighted riotise,     Fixt in marble for all men's eyes;     But only these twain could abide     In the cool peace that withinside     Thrilling desire and passion dwelt;     They only knew the still meaning spelt     By Love's flaming script, which is     God's word written in ecstasies.     And where is now that palace gone,     All the magical skill'd stone,     All the dreaming towers wrought     By Love as if no more than thought     The unresisting marble was?     How could such a wonder pass?     Ah, it was but built in vain     Against the stupid horns of Rome,     That pusht down into the common loam     The loveliness that shone in Spain.     But we have raised it up again!     A loftier palace, fairer far,     Is ours, and one that fears no war.     Safe in marvellous walls we are;     Wondering sense like builded fires,     High amazement of desires,     Delight and certainty of love,     Closing around, roofing above     Our unapproacht and perfect hour     Within the splendours of love's power.