To Our Ladies of Death1

Tired with all these, for restful death I cry.     - SHAKESPEARE: Sonnet 66     Weary of erring in this desert Life,     Weary of hoping hopes for ever vain,     Weary of struggling in all-sterile strife,     Weary of thought which maketh nothing plain,     I close my eyes and calm my panting breath,     And pray to Thee, O ever-quiet Death!     To come and soothe away my bitter pain.     The strong shall strive, may they be victors crowned;     The wise still seek, may they at length find Truth;     The young still hope, may purest love be found     To make their age more glorious than their youth.     For me; my brain is weak, my heart is cold,     My hope and faith long dead; my life but bold     In jest and laugh to parry hateful ruth.     Over me pass the days and months and years     Like squadrons and battalions of the foe     Trampling with thoughtless thrusts and alien jeers     Over a wounded soldier lying low     He grips his teeth, or flings them words of scorn     To mar their triumph; but the while, outworn,     Inwardly craves for death to end his woe.     Thus I, in secret, call, O Death! to Thee,     Thou Youngest of the solemn Sisterhood,     Thou Gentlest of the mighty Sisters Three     Whom I have known so well since first endued     By Love and Grief with vision to discern     What spiritual life doth throb and burn     Through all our world, with evil powers and good.     The Three whom I have known so long, so well,     By intimate communion, face to face,     In every mood, of Earth, of Heaven, of Hell,     In every season and in every place,     That joy of Life has ceased to visit me,     As one estranged by powerful witchery,     Infatuate in a Sirens weird embrace.     First Thou, O priestess, prophetess, and queen,     Our Lady of Beatitudes, first Thou:     Of mighty stature, of seraphic mien,     Upon the tablet of whose broad white brow     Unvanquishable Truth is written clear,     The secret of the mystery of our sphere,     The regnant word of the Eternal Now.     Thou standest garmented in purest white;     But from thy shoulders wings of power half-spread     Invest thy form with such miraculous light     As dawn may clothe the earth with: and, instead     Of any jewel-kindled golden crown,     The glory of thy long hair flowing down     Is dazzling noonday sunshine round thy head.     Upon a sword thy left hand resteth calm,     A naked sword, two-edged and long and straight;     A branch of olive with a branch of palm     Thy right hand proffereth to hostile Fate.     The shining plumes that clothe thy feet are bound     By knotted strings, as if to tread the ground     With weary steps when thou wouldst soar elate.     Twin heavens uplifted to the heavens, thine eyes     Are solemn with unutterable thought     And love and aspiration; yet there lies     Within their light eternal sadness, wrought     By hope deferred and baffled tenderness:     Of all. the souls whom thou dost love and bless,     How few revere and love thee as they ought!     Thou leadest heroes from their warfare here     To nobler fields where grander crowns are won;     Thou leadest sages from this twilight sphere     To cloudless heavens and an unsetting sun;     Thou leadest saints into that purer air     Whose breath is spiritual life and prayer:     Yet, lo! they seek thee not, but fear and shun!     Thou takest to thy most maternal breast     Young children from the desert of this earth,     Ere sin hath stained their souls, or grief opprest,     And bearest them unto an heavenly birth,     To be the Vestals of Gods Fane above:     And, yet their kindred moan against thy love,     With wild and selfish moans in bitter dearth.     Most holy Spirit, first Self-conqueror;     Thou Victress over Time and Destiny     And Evil, in the all-deciding war     So fierce, so long, so dreadful! Would that me     Thou hadst upgathered in my lifes pure morn!     Unworthy then, less worthy now, forlorn,     I dare not, Gracious Mother, call on Thee.     Next Thou, O sibyl, sorceress and queen,     Our Lady of Annihilation, Thou!     Of mighty stature, of demoniac mien;     Upon whose swarthy face and livid brow     Are graven deeply anguish, malice, scorn,     Strength ravaged by unrest, resolve forlorn     Of any hope, dazed pride that will not bow.     Thy form is clothed with wings of iron gloom;     But round about thee, like a chain, is rolled,     Cramping the sway of every mighty plume,     A stark constringent serpent fold on fold:     Of its two heads, one sting is in thy brain,     The other in thy heart; their venom-pain     Like fire distilling through thee uncontrolled.     A rod of serpents wieldeth thy right hand;     Thy left a cup of raging fire, whose light     Burns lurid on thyself as thou dost stand;     Thy lidless eyes tenebriously bright;     Thy wings, thy vesture, thy dishevelled hair     Dark as the Grave; thou statue of Despair,     Thou Night essential radiating night.     Thus have I seen thee in thine actual form;     Not thus can see thee those whom thou dost sway,     Inscrutable Enchantress: young and warm,     Pard-beautiful and brilliant, ever gay;     Thy cup the very Wine of Life, thy rod     The wand of more voluptuous spells than God     Can wield in Heaven; thus charmest thou thy prey.     The selfish, fatuous, proud, and pitiless,     All who have falsified lifes royal trust;     The strong whose strength bath basked in idleness,     The great heart given up to worldly lust,     The great mind destitute of moral faith;     Thou scourgest down to Night and utter Death,     Or penal spheres of retribution just.     O mighty Spirit, fraudful and malign,     Demon of madness and perversity!     The evil passions which may make me thine     Are not yet irrepressible in me;     And I have pierced thy mask of riant youth,     And seen thy form in all its hideous truth:     I will not, Dreadful Mother, call on Thee.     Last Thou, retird nun and throneless queen,     Our Lady of Oblivion, last Thou:     Of human stature, of abstracted mien;     Upon whose pallid face and drooping brow     Are shadowed melancholy dreams of Doom,     And deep absorption into silent gloom,     And weary bearing of the heavy. Now.     Thou art all shrouded in a gauzy veil,     Sombrous and cloudlike; all, except that face     Of subtle loveliness though weirdly pale.     Thy soft, slow-gliding footsteps leave no trace,     And stir no sound. Thy drooping hands infold     Their frail white fingers; and, unconscious, hold     A poppy-wreath, thine anodyne of grace.     Thy hair is like a twilight round thy head     Thine eyes are shadowed wells, from Lethe-stream     With drowsy subterranean waters fed;     Obscurely deep, without a stir or gleam;     The gazer drinks in from them with his gaze     An opiate charm to curtain all his days,     A passive languor of oblivious dream.     Thou hauntest twilight regions, and the trance     Of moonless nights when stars are few and wan:     Within black woods; or over the expanse     Of desert seas abysmal; or upon     Old solitary shores whose populous graves     Are rocked in rest by ever-moaning waves;     Or through vast ruined cities still and lone.     The weak, the weary, and the desolate,     The poor, the mean, the outcast, the opprest,     All trodden down beneath the march of Fate,     Thou gatherest, loving Sister, to thy breast,     Soothing their pain and weariness asleep;     Then in thy hidden Dreamland hushed and deep     Dost lay them, shrouded in eternal rest.     O sweetest Sister, and sole Patron Saint     Of all the humble eremites who flee     From out lifes crowded tumult, stunned and faint,     To seek a stern and lone tranquillity     In Libyan wastes of time: my hopeless life     With famished yearning craveth rest from strife;     Therefore, thou Restful One, I call on Thee!     Take me, and lull me into perfect sleep;     Down, down, far-hidden in thy duskiest cave;     While all the clamorous years above me sweep     Unheard, or, like the voice of seas that rave     On far-off coasts, but murmuring oer my trance,     A dim vast monotone, that shall enhance     The restful rapture of the inviolate grave     Upgathered thus in thy divine embrace,     Upon mine eyes thy soft mesmeric hand,     While wreaths of opiate odour interlace     About my pulseless brow; babe-pure and bland,     Passionless, senseless, thoughtless, let me dream     Some ever-slumbrous, never-varying theme,     Within the shadow of thy Timeless Land.     That when I thus have drunk my inmost fill     Of perfect peace, I may arise renewed;     In soul and body, intellect and will,     Equal to cope with Life whateer its mood;     To sway its storm and energise its calm;     Through rhythmic years evolving like a psalm     Of infinite love and faith and sanctitude.     But if this cannot be, no less I cry,     Come, lead me with thy terrorless control     Down to our Mothers bosom, there to die     By abdication of my separate soul:     So shall this single, self-impelling piece     Of mechanism from lone labour cease,     Resolving into union with the Whole.     Our Mother feedeth thus our little life,     That we in turn may feed her with our death:     The great Sea sways, one interwoven strife,     Wherefrom the Sun exhales a subtle breath,     To float the heavens sublime in form and hue,     Then turning cold and dark in order due     Rain weeping back to swell the Sea beneath.     One part of me shall feed a little worm,     And it a bird on which a man may feed;     One lime the mould, one nourish insect-sperm;     One thrill sweet grass, one pulse in bitter weed;     This swell a fruit, and that evolve in air;     Another trickle to a springlets lair,     Another paint a daisy on the mead:     With cosmic interchange of parts for all,     Through all the modes of being numberless     Of every element, as may befall.     And if earths general soul hath consciousness,     Their new life must with strange new joy be thrilled,     Of perfect law all perfectly fulfilled;     No sin, no fear, no failure, no excess.     Weary of living, isolated life,     Weary of hoping hopes for ever vain,     Weary of struggling in all-sterile strife,     Weary of thought which maketh nothing plain,     I close my eyes and hush my panting breath,     And yearn for Thee, divinely tranquil Death,     To come and soothe away my bitter pain.