Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895.
Cosmo Monkhouse b. 1840The Dream of the World without Death
N
Behold, I fell to sleep, and had a vision,
Wherein I heard a wondrous Voice intoning:
Openeth now the seventh seal of wonder,
And beckoneth back the angel men name Death.
Breathing not; and the Lord doth look upon him,
Saying, ‘Thy wanderings on earth are ended.’
Even at the silver gates of heaven,
Drowsily looking in on quiet waters,
And puts his silence among men no longer.”
Cast looks over their shoulders; pallid seamen
Shiver’d to walk upon the decks alone;
In the silence of the night; and at the sunrise
Trembled behind the husbandmen afield.
I thirsted for a green grave, and my vision
Was weary for the white gleam of a tombstone.
I heard a cry out of a human dwelling,
And felt the cold wind of a lost one’s going.
And faded in a darkness; and that other
Tore his hair, and was afraid, and could not perish.
And she vanish’d with a gray grief from his hearthstone.
One melted from her bairn, and on the ground
And many made a weeping among mountains,
And hid themselves in caverns, and were drunken.
Whose side roll’d up from winter into summer,
Crying, “I am grievous for my children.”
Crying, “Burial in the breast of me were better,
Yea, burial in the salt flags and green crystals.”
Saying, “The thing ye curs’d hath been abolish’d—
Corruption and decay, and dissolution!”
And men and women fear’d the air behind them;
And for lack of its green graves the world was hateful.
I came upon a woman thin with sorrow,
Whose voice was like the crying of a seagull:
And bring me him I seek for on thy bosom,
That I may close his eyelids and embrace him.
I curse thee that I know not he is sleeping!
Yet know that he has vanish’d upon God!
And very sweet she seem’d, and near unto me;
And slipping flowers into her shroud was comfort.
And kiss’d her, and was solaced by her kisses,
And set a stone, to mark the place, above her.
So green that it was pleasant to remember
That I and my tall man would sleep beside them.
For comfort comes upon us when we close them,
And tears fall, and our sorrow grows familiar;
And spin a dreamy pain into a sweetness,
And know indeed that we are very near them.
And to feel the hollow empty world is awful,
And bitter grows the silence and the distance.
No touch, no cold, no agony to strive with,
And nothing but a horror and a blankness!”
Raking the white spent embers with her fingers,
And fouling her bright hair with the white ashes.
Her eyes with dust were blinded; and her sorrow
Sobb’d in the throat of her like gurgling water.
But red lights scorch’d their edges; and above her
There was a soundless trouble of the vapors.
“O Spirit of the Lord, hast thou convey’d them,
My little ones, my little son and daughter?
And winds were blowing round us, and their mouths
Blew rosebuds to the rosebuds, and their eyes
Made sunshine in the sunshine, and their passing
Left a pleasure in the dewy leaves behind them;
And his eyes were dried like dewdrops; and his going
Was like a blow of fire upon my face;
Look’d round me for him, clinging to my vesture;
But the Lord had drawn him from me, and I knew it
Lingers nowhere on the earth, on the hill or valley,
Neither underneath the grasses nor the tree roots.
And I sank among my hair, and all my palm
Was moist and warm where the little hand had fill’d it.
Though I knew that he was stricken from me wholly
By the token that the Spirit gives the stricken.
I sought him in great forests, and in waters
Where I saw my own pale image looking at me.
Though her voice was like a wild-bird’s far behind me,
Till the voice ceas’d, and the universe was silent.
To the forest where I miss’d him; and no voices
Brake the stillness as I stoop’d down in the starlight,
And no mark of little footsteps any farther,
And knew my little daughter had gone also.”
The milk-cow in the meadow, and the sheep,
And the dog upon the doorstep: and men envied.
The swan upon the waters, and the farm fowl,
And the swallows on the housetops: and men envied.
The slimy, speckled snake among the grass,
The lizard on the ruin: and men envied.
The body of his master; but it miss’d him,
And whin’d into the air, and died, and rotted.
And the blue fly fed upon it; but no traveller
Was there; nay, not his footprint on the ground.
Gave a rustle, and the lamp burnt blue and faint,
And the father’s bed was empty in the morning.
Rocking it, while she slumber’d, with her foot,
And waken’d,—and the cradle there was empty.
And he found a dead white bird upon the doorway,
And laugh’d, and ran to show it to his mother.
And flung the dead white bird across the threshold;
And another white bird flitted round and round it,
And lit beside its dead mate, and grew busy,
Strewing it over with green leaves and yellow.
So far, so far to seek for were the limits
Of affliction; and men’s terror grew a homeless
Terror, yea, and a fatal sense of blankness.
There was no visible presence of bereavement,
Such as the mourner easeth out his heart on.
No gentle shutting of beloved eyes,
Nor beautiful broodings over sleeping features.
No weaving of white grave-clothes, no last pondering
Over the still wax cheeks and folded fingers.
There was no dreadful beauty slowly fading,
Fading like moonlight softly into darkness.
How near the well-beloved ones are lying.
There were no sweet green graves to sit and muse on,
The shadow of the passing of an angel,
And sleeping should seem easy, and not cruel.
And I pray’d within the chamber where she slumber’d,
And my tears flow’d fast and free, but were not bitter.
And made her pillow sweet with scent and flowers,
And could bear at last to put her in the darkness.
And the priests were in their vestments, and the earth
Dripp’d awful on the hard wood, yet I bore it.
I bless Thee for the wonder of Thy mercy,
Which softeneth the mystery and the parting:
The bloomless face, shut eyes, and waxen fingers,—
For Sleeping, and for Silence, and Corruption.”