Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922.

Epilogue

Lascelles Abercrombie (1881–1938)

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 window’d 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 seem’d a jar

Cut in the substance of a star,

Wherein a wine, that will be pour’d

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 muskèd silences

Listen’d 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 play’d 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 cool’d sunbeams broke in wrack,

Spilt shatter’d gold about his back.

So within that green-veil’d air,

Within that white-wall’d quiet, where

Innocent water thought aloud,—

Childish prattle that must make

The wise sunlight with laughter shake

On the leafage overbow’d,—

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 naming 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.