Page:Dreams and Images.djvu/201

Days that the world's glare brightens not.
          Until the seraphim
Shake from their flashing hair
Lightnings, and weave serpents there,
          His days we reckon fair. . . .

          Yet more he had than this;
          Lord of the liberative kiss,
          To own and yet refrain,
          To hold his hand in reign.
High continence of his high power,
That turns from virtue's very flower,
          In loss of that elected pain
          A greater prize to gain.
As one who long had put wine by
          Would now himself deny
          Water, and thirsting die.
So, sometimes he was idle at the keys,
Pale fingers on the aged ivories;
          Then, like a prisoned bird,
          Music was seen, not heard,
Then were his quivering hands most strong
With blood of the repressed song,—
  A fruitful barrenness. Oh, where
          Out of angelic air,
  This side the heavens' spheres
  Such sight to start and hinder tears.
Who knows, perhaps while silence throbbed
He heard the De Profundis sobbed
  By his own organ at his bier to-day,—
  It is the saints' anticipative way,
  He knew both hand and ear were clay.
          That was one thought