Poems (Sackville)/The Death of Beatrice

by Margaret Sackville

THE DEATH OF BEATRICE

Seeing that Death spares not the Spring,
 But even as of Autumn makes
Thereof continuous harvesting—
 How should he strike not for our sakes
Who has no care for anything?

Yet no wise as an enemy
 Comes Death—but deeming that the soul
Is held in shamed captivity
 Beneath the body's dark control—
He being stronger sets it free.

And since the Lady Beatrice was
 Merely on earth a traveller—
Weep not; she saw as through a glass
 The earth, but ever would confer
With angels that in God's sight pass.

Half consciously she moved within
 This world, not once her spirit grew
Clouded by any mist of sin—
 But all things that around her drew
Part of her beauty seemed to win.

As though her spirit were a pool
 Of such great virtue, all were saved
From some foul fever's loathed rule
 If they their sickly bodies laved
In those deep waters hushed and cool.

No evil thing possessed her eyes
 But rose transformed; before her sight
Fear clad himself in Hope's disguise—
 Hate turned to love, darkness to light,
And folly grew a thing most wise.

But who may know her dreams—too sweet
 Were they for any spoken word,
Or any fancy incomplete
 Of ours—they seemed the soft winds stirred
Round God's perpetual Mercy Seat.

Unfading harmonies and songs
 Such chords of lovely music wrought,
Full of all sounds for which life longs;
 In all the pauses of her thought
No discord lived that mars or wrongs.

One who has seen a river flow
 Across some bare and songless waste,
Reflecting not the dearth below
 But the fair sky, has surely gazed
On her and striven her soul to know.

One who has loved a prayer which kept
 His soul (the prayer scarce understood,
Yet beautiful), when his strength slept
 In tortuous paths of wrong and good,
Has felt how through men's souls she stept.

Love made her spirit like his own
 Moulded in all respects to him
In loveliness and round his throne
 Her thoughts, most mystical, most dim,
Discoursed sweet songs like music blown

From holy heights, unguessed, untrod,
 Save by an angel when he bares
His rapture in a living flood
 Of such pure chords the music dares
Live only in the sight of God.

Ah! Beatrice, what word have we
 Sufficient—vainly do we speak,
And vainly sing—what song to thee
 Of all our songs abashed and weak,
Shall wing towards Heaven worthily?

Alone our silence speaks—more strong,
 More passionate our silence seems
Than any chord of any song.
 Oh! Lady, take, oh! take our dreams,
Moulding them even as we long

To magnify them—yet our praise
 How shall it touch thee? Who shall weave
For thee around whose head the rays
 Of the sun's splendour burn and cleave
Discordant crowns of earthly days?

One sings indeed, but his voice is
 The very voice of sorrow; all
Death's most beloved mysteries
 He takes and weaves a coronal
To crown the brows of Beatrice.

Slowly he comes now the pale shades
 Of evening grow distinct, whilst still
The sun a flaming garland braids
 Round the calm forehead of the hill,
And, full of sleep, the long day fades.

There runs no murmur through the street,
 No voice of mirth, no hushed replies;
And no man's sorrow incomplete
 Breaks that grey woe that round him lies,
Or strives to stay his quiet feet.

God surely made beyond desire,
 Even of an angel, his great soul,
And filled it with eternal fire,
 And wrought for it an aureole
With flames for ever leaping higher

To flush the ages with their light,
 Intense in power that should consume
Men's souls, and clear their darkened sight
 Which Time's own fingers should relume—
His own breath blow the flame more bright.

He kneels beside our Lady's bier
 And we who gaze as though a spell
Held us, half deem the steps drew near
 Of very grief grown visible—
Sorrow made manifest and clear.

Lowly he kneels, thus murmuring,
 'Oh! face, beyond expression pure,
Oh! marvellous face, what offering,
 What gift is mine? How shall endure,
After the Spring, the songs of Spring!

'How pale art thou, who conquerest Death!
 Life sits beside thee winged and fair,
Thy silence quivers with his breath,
 The wind is still and the quiet air
Full, full of the great words he saith.

'Oh! Wonderful! not even Love
 May know thee, nay, not the white flame
Wherewith he writes all names above,
 Shall spell the letters of that name
Thou—thou alone—art worthy of.

'Sleep on—I would not have thee wake,
 For mirrored in thy sleep I see
Thy newer life, and the bonds break
 Which lie athwart the soul of me,
And I even in thy bliss partake.

'Ah! sleep, and let thy slumber guard
 The courts and palaces of life,
That nought may hinder nor retard
 My steps, nor paths unclean of strife
Lure me and leave my spirit marred.

'Oh! silence mystical—oh! eyes
 Silent; oh! silent lips; oh! hands
Most silent, hold me in such wise
 That I may find those holy lands
She treads—cool fields of Paradise.'

And now the evening wanes, and one
 Draws nigh, even as though he came
From out the portals of the sun,
 With wings that burn like a great flame,
And feet which seem to spurn and shun

The earth; who bending over him
 That weeps, and her, in one the twain
Joins with a thread wondrous and dim—
 Such as from out Love's crimson skein
Unravel still the Seraphim.