An Autumn Vision

I.

Is it Midsummer here in the heavens that illumineOctober on earth?Can the year, when his heart is fulfilled with desire ofthe days of his mirth,Redeem them, recall, or remember?For a memory recalling the rapture of earth, andredeeming the sky,Shines down from the heights to the depths: will thewatchword of dawn be JulyWhen to-morrow acclaims November?

The stern salutation of sorrow to death or repentance toshameWas all that the season was wont to accord her of graceor acclaim;No lightnings of love and of laughter.But here, in the laugh of the loud west wind fromaround and above,In the flash of the waters beneath him, what sound orwhat light but of loveRings round him or leaps forth after?

II.

Wind beloved of earth and sky and sea beyond all windsthat blow,Wind whose might in fight was England's on hermightiest warrior day,South-west wind, whose breath for her was life, and fireto scourge her foe,Steel to smite and death to drive him down anunreturning way,

Well-beloved and welcome, sounding all the clarions ofthe sky,Rolling all the marshalled waters toward the chargethat storms the shore,We receive, acclaim, salute thee, we who live and dreamand die,As the mightiest mouth of song that ever spakeacclaimed of yore.We that live as they that perish praise thee, lord ofcloud and wave,Wind of winds, clothed on with darkness whence aslightning light comes forth,We that know thee strong to guard and smite, to scatterand to save,We to whom the south-west wind is dear as Athensheld the north.He for her waged war as thou for us against all powersdefiant,Fleets full-fraught with storm from Persia, laden deepwith death from Spain:

Thee the giant god of song and battle hailed as god andgiant,Yet not his but ours the land is whence thy praiseshould ring and rain;Rain as rapture shed from song, and ring as trumpetsblown for battle,Sound and sing before thee, loud and glad as leapsand sinks the sea:Yea, the sea's white steeds are curbed and spurred ofthee, and pent as cattle,Yet they laugh with love and pride to live, subduednot save of thee.Ears that hear thee hear in heaven the sound ofwidening wings gigantic,Eyes that see the cloud-lift westward see thydarkening brows divine;Wings whose measure is the limit of the limitlessAtlantic,Brows that bend, and bid the sovereign sea submither soul to thine.

III.

Twelve days since is it—twelve days gone,Lord of storm, that a storm-bow shoneHigher than sweeps thy sublime dark wing,Fair as dawn is and sweet like spring?

Never dawn in the deep wide eastSpread so splendid and strange a feast,Whence the soul as it drank and fedFelt such rapture of wonder shed.

Never spring in the wild wood's heartFelt such flowers at her footfall start,Born of earth, as arose on sightBorn of heaven and of storm and light.

Stern and sullen, the grey grim seaSwelled and strove as in toils, though free,Free as heaven, and as heaven sublime,Clear as heaven of the toils of time.

IV.

Suddenly, sheer from the heights to the depths of thesky and the sea,Sprang from the darkness alive as a vision of life to beGlory triune and transcendent of colour afar and afire,Arching and darkening the darkness with light as ofdream or desire.Heaven, in the depth of its height, shone wistful andwan from above:Earth from beneath, and the sea, shone stricken andbreathless with love.As a shadow may shine, so shone they; as ghosts of theviewless blest,That sleep hath sight of alive in a rapture of sunbrightrest,The green earth glowed and the grey sky gleamed for awondrous while;And the storm's full frown was crossed by the light of itsown deep smile.

As the darkness of thought and of passion is touched bythe light that givesLife deathless as love from the depth of a spirit that seesand lives,From the soul of a seer and a singer, wherein as a scrollunfurledLies open the scripture of light and of darkness, theword of the world,So, shapeless and measureless, lurid as anguish andhaggard as crime,Pale as the front of oblivion and dark as the heart oftime,The wild wan heaven at its height was assailed andsubdued and madeMore fair than the skies that know not of storm andendure not shade.The grim sea-swell, grey, sleepless, and sad as a soulestranged,Shone, smiled, took heart, and was glad of its wrath:and the world's face changed.

V.

Up from moorlands northward gleamingEven to heaven's transcendent height,Clothed with massive cloud, and seemingAll one fortress reared of night,Down to where the deep sea, dreamingAngry dreams, lay dark and white,White as death and dark as fate,Heaving with the strong wind's weight,Sad with stormy pride of state,One full rainbow shone elate.

Up from inmost memory's dwellingWhere the light of life abides,Where the past finds tongue, foretellingTime that comes and grace that guides,Power that saves and sways, compellingSouls that ebb and flow like tides,

Shone or seemed to shine and swimThrough the cloud-surf great and grim,Thought's live surge, the soul of himBy whose light the sun looks dim.

In what synod were they sitting,All the gods and lords of time,Whence they watched as fen-fires flittingYears and names of men sublime,When their counsels found it fittingOne should stand where none might climb--None of man begotten, noneBorn of men beneath the sunTill the race of time be run,Save this heaven-enfranchised one?

With what rapture of creationWas the soul supernal thrilled,With what pride of adorationWas the world's heart fired and filled,

Heaved in heavenward exaltationHigher than hopes or dreams might build,Grave with awe not known while heWas not, mad with glorious gleeAs the sun-saluted sea,When his hour bade Shakespeare be?

VI.

There, clear as night beholds her crowning seven,The sea beheld his likeness set in heaven.The shadow of his spirit full in sightShone: for the shadow of that soul is light.Nor heaven alone bore witness: earth avowedHim present, and acclaimed of storm aloud.From the arching sky to the ageless hills and seaThe whole world, visible, audible, was he:Each part of all that wove that wondrous wholeThe raiment of the presence of his soul.

The sun that smote and kissed the dark to deathSpake, smiled, and strove, like song's triumphant breath;The soundless cloud whose thunderous heart was dumbSwelled, lowered, and shrank to feel its conqueror come.Yet high from heaven its empire vast and vainFrowned, and renounced not night's reluctant reign.The serpentine swift sounds and shapes whereinThe stainless sea mocks earth and death and sin,Crawls dark as craft, or flashes keen as hate,Subdued and insubmissive, strong like fateAnd weak like man, bore wrathful witness yetThat storms and sins are more than suns that set;That evil everlasting, girt for strifeEternal, wars with hope as death with life.The dark sharp shifting wind that bade the wavesFalter, lose heart, bow down like foes made slaves,And waxed within more bitter as they bowed,Baffling the sea, swallowing the sun with cloud,Devouring fast as fire on earth devoursAnd hungering hard as frost that feeds on flowers,

Clothed round with fog that reeked as fume from hell,And darkening with its miscreative spellLight, glad and keen and splendid as the swordWhose heft had known Othello's hand its lord,Spake all the soul that hell drew back to greetAnd felt its fire shrink shuddering from his feet.Far off the darkness darkened, and recoiled,And neared again, and triumphed: and the coiledColourless cloud and sea discoloured grewConscious of horror huge as heaven, and knewWhere Goneril's soul made chill and foul the mist,And all the leprous life in Regan hissed.Fierce homeless ghosts, rejected of the pit,From hell to hell of storm fear watched them flit.About them and before, the dull grey gloomShuddered, and heaven seemed hateful as the tombThat shrinks from resurrection; and from outThat sullen hell which girt their shades aboutThe nether soul that lurks and lowers withinMan, made of dust and fire and shame and sin,

Breathed: all the cloud that felt it breathe and blightWas blue as plague or black as thunderous night.Elect of hell, the children of his hateThronged, as to storm sweet heaven's triumphal gate.The terror of his giving rose and shoneImminent: life had put its likeness on.But higher than all its horrent height of shadeShone sovereign, seen by light itself had made,Above the woes of all the world, aboveLife, sin, and death, his myriad-minded love.From landward heights whereon the radiance leantFull-fraught from heaven, intense and imminent,To depths wherein the seething strengths of cloudScarce matched the wrath of waves whereon they bowed,From homeborn pride and kindling love of homeTo the outer skies and seas of fire and foam,From splendour soft as dew that sundawn thrillsTo gloom that shudders round the world it fills,From midnights murmuring round Titania's earTo midnights maddening round the rage of Lear,

The wonder woven of storm and sun becameOne with the light that lightens from his name.The music moving on the sea that feltThe storm-wind even as snows of springtide meltWas blithe as Ariel's hand or voice might makeAnd bid all grief die gladly for its sake.And there the soul alive in ear and eyeThat watched the wonders of an hour pass bySaw brighter than all stars that heaven inspheresThe silent splendour of Cordelia's tears,Felt in the whispers of the quickening windThe radiance of the laugh of Rosalind,And heard, in sounds that melt the souls of menWith love of love, the tune of Imogen.

VII.

For the strong north-east is not strong to subdue and toslay the divine south-west,And the darkness is less than the light that it darkens,and dies in reluctant rest.

It hovers and hangs on the labouring and tremblingascent of the dawn from the deep,Till the sun's eye quicken the world and the waters, andsmite it again into sleep.Night, holy and starry, the fostress of souls, with thefragrance of heaven in her breath,Subdues with the sense of her godhead the forces andmysteries of sorrow and death.Eternal as dawn's is the comfort she gives: but the mistthat beleaguers and slaysComes, passes, and is not: the strength of it withers,appalled or assuaged by the day's.Faith, haggard as Fear that had borne her, and dark asthe sire that begat her, Despair,Held rule on the soul of the world and the song of itsaddening through ages that were;Dim centuries that darkened and brightened and darkenedagain, and the soul of their songWas great as their grief, and sublime as their suffering,and strong as their sorrows were strong.

It knew not, it saw not, but shadows triune, and evokedby the strength of their spellDark hell, and the mountain of anguish, and heaven thatwas hollower and harder than hell.These are not: the womb of the darkness that bare themrejects them, and knows them no more:Thought, fettered in misery and iron, revives in the lightthat it lived in of yore.For the soul that is wisdom and freedom, the spirit ofEngland redeemed from her past,Speaks life through the lips of the master and lord of herchildren, the first and the last.Thought, touched by his hand and redeemed by hisbreath, sees, hears, and accepts from aboveThe limitless lightnings of vision and passion, themeasureless music of love.