Christopher John Brennan: Verses about Success

When summer comes in her glory and brave the whole earth blows,
when colours burn and perfumes impassion the gladden'd air
then methinks thy laughter seeks me on every breeze that goes
and I feel thy breathing warmth about me everywhere.
Or in the dreamy eve, when our soul is spread in the skies,
when Life for an hour is hush'd, and the gaze is wide to behold
what day may not show nor night, then sure it were no surprise
to find thee beside me sitting, the pitying eyes of old.
But ah, when the winter rains drive hard on the blacken'd pane
and the grief of the lonely wind is lost in the waste outside,
when the room is high and chill and I seek my place in vain,
I know that seas splash cold in the night and the world is wide.

The grand cortège of glory and youth is gone
flaunt standards, and the flood of brazen tone:
I alone linger, a regretful guest,
here where the hostelry has crumbled down,
emptied of warmth and life, and the little town
lies cold and ruin'd, all its bravery done,
wind-blown, wind-blown, where not even dust may rest.
No cymbal-clash warms the chill air: the way
lies stretch'd beneath a slanting afternoon,
the which no piled pyres of the slaughter'd sun,
no silver sheen of eve shall follow: Day,
ta'en at the throat and choked, in the huge slum
o' the common world, shall fall across the coast,
yellow and bloodless, not a wound to boast.
But if this bare-blown waste refuse me home
and if the skies wither my vesper-flight,
'twere well to creep, or ever livid night
wrap the disquiet earth in horror, back
where the old church stands on our morning's track,
and in the iron-entrellis'd choir, among
rust tombs and blazons, where an isle of light
is bosom'd in the friendly gloom, devise
proud anthems in a long forgotten tongue:
so cozening youth's despair o'er joy that dies.

Scant majesty of stars prevails
across the uncreated night,
and fate is in the wind that wails
or clamours on the lonely height.

The years that go to make me man
this day are told a score and six
that should have set me magian
o'er my half-souls that struggle and mix.
But wisdom still remains a star
just hung within my aching ken,
and common prudence dwells afar
among contented homes of men.
In wide revolt and ruin tost
against whatever is or seems
my futile heart still wanders lost
in the same vast and impotent dreams.
On either hand life hurries by
its common joy, its common mirth;
I reach vague hands of sympathy,
a ghost upon this common earth.

I said, And let horizons tempt
and windy gates of eastern flame,
henceforth my place is close and kempt
who know their mockery the same.
Tho' nearer to my humble garth
no star may win its law's release,
patience shall tend my modest hearth
and trim a golden flame of peace,
wherein, perchance, from near and far
shall mingle boons right glad to wed,
the mild ray of the distant star
and the mild oil earth's patience bred.
— No roof-tree join'd the unfinish'd walls;
no lamp might shine, nor hearth-fire burn:
only the wind — the wind that calls —
may sing me welcome..who return.

The pangs that guard the gates of joy
the naked sword that will be kist,
how distant seem'd they to the boy,
white flashes in the rosy mist!
Ah, not where tender play was screen'd
in the light heart of leafy mirth
of that obdurate might we ween'd
that shakes the sure repose of earth.
And sudden, 'twixt a sun and sun,
the veil of dreaming is withdrawn:
lo, our disrupt dominion
and mountains solemn in the dawn;
hard paths that chase the dayspring's white,
and glooms that hold the nether heat:
oh, strange the world upheaved from night,
oh, dread the life before our feet!

My heart was wandering in the sands,
a restless thing, a scorn apart;
Love set his fire in my hands,
I clasped the flame unto my heart.
Surely, I said, my heart shall turn
one fierce delight of pointed flame;
and in that holocaust shall burn
its old unrest and scorn and shame:
surely my heart the heavens at last
shall storm with fiery orisons,
and know, enthroned in the vast,
the fervid peace of molten suns.
The flame that feeds upon my heart
fades or flares, by wild winds controll'd:
my heart still walks a thing apart,
my heart is restless as of old.

The banners of the king unfold
to tend me on my evening way:
my trumpets flood the air with gold;
my pride uplifts the vanquish'd day.
The riches of my heart are bled
to feed the passion of the west:
the limpid springs of life are shed,
and Beauty bares her secret breast.
Hasten, O night with nuptial breath!
O hour remote from any face!
vain-glories fade to sweetest death
heart-whelm'd in her divine embrace.

What of the battles I would win?
alas! their glory is unheard:
the wind of song wakes not their din
wandering in shadowy glens unstirr'd.
— And the great sorrows that I dream'd?
not all unscathed I thought to rise
high in the dateless dawn, redeem'd,
and bare before eternal eyes.
— And is it then the end of dream?
O heart, that long'd for splendid woe,
our shame to endure this dire extreme
of joy we scorned so long ago!

Disaster drives the shatter'd night
before its coming thro' the deep:
the soul is swept with monstrous flight
of fears upstartled from their sleep.
Its silent heaven is rolled away,
and shaken stars flit to and fro:
the mother-face is livid grey
with dumb apocalypse of woe.
The heart that knows its naked doom
awaits the unspoken shock of fate:
perchance, beyond these powers that loom
its hidden god shall rise more great.

The mother-deep, wise, yearning, bound,
I feel it press beneath my heart,
the deep where I were free and crown'd
o'er mine own realm, alone, apart.
It haunts, a grey unlit abysm,
thro' solitary eyelet-slits
pierced in the mean inflicted schism
where day deludes my purblind wits.
But mighty hands have lock'd the keep
and flung the key, long ages past:
there lies no way into the deep
that is myself, alone, aghast.

What do I know? myself alone,
a gulf of uncreated night,
wherein no star may e'er be shown
save I create it in my might.
What have I done? Oh foolish word,
and foolish deed your question craves!
think ye the sleeping depths are stirr'd
tho' tempest hound the madden'd waves?
What do I seek? I seek the word
that shall become the deed of might
whereby the sullen gulfs are stirr'd
and stars begotten on their night.

This is the sea where good and evil merge.
The night is black: we sail towards what sun
or lurid star may flare below the verge.
This is the night where good or bad is none.
O wandering soul upon this darkling surge,
does it not pain thee for the days now done,
the narrow days ere some dark god did urge
to seek some isle where life is whole and one!

The hollow crystal of my winter dream
and silences, where thought for worship, white,
shimmer'd within the icy mirror-gleam,
vanishes down the flood of broader light.
The royal weft of arduous device
and starr'd with strangest gems, my shadowy pride
and ritual of illusive artifice
is shed away, leaving the naked side.
No more is set within the secret shrine
a wonder wherein day nor night has part;
my passing makes the ways of earth divine
with the wild splendours of a mortal heart.
A whisper thrills the living fringe of green
on my retreat; tiptoe the silence stands;
the breathless morn waits till her step be seen,
my summer bride, new life from nuptial lands.
The hidden places of her beauty hold
the savours shed o'er wastes of island air,
and her crown'd body's wealth of torrid gold
burns dusky in her summer-storm of hair.
Her breasts in baffling curves, an upward hope,
strain towards the lips pain'd with too eager life,
and the rich noons faint on each lustrous slope
where thunder-hush in the ardent brake is rife.
I cannot tell what god is in her gaze,
such depths of slumbrous passion drown my breath,
but where the charmed shadow clings and stays
Fate cowers before that high disdain of death.
Oh, take me to thy bosom's sultry beat,
steep all my sense in thy long breath of flame,
oppress me with thy summer's heavy heat,
consume all me that wears an uncrown'd name;
burn this my flesh to a clear web of light,
send thy keen airy spirit to search each vein,
that the hard pulse may throb with strong delight,
o'ermastering life and life's divinest pain.
Then, then we twain will seek each farthest way,
mingled in radiance over cloud and lea,
our joy shall swell the exultant heart of day,
our love shall tinge the rose of sky and sea.
And we shall know the steep pride of the hills
and the dark meditation of the wood,
or quench our rage where the red wine-god spills
o'er glowing rocks the madness of his blood.
Our link'd approach shall flush the water-maid
that dreams her limpid realm with wistful eyes,
our noon-tide rest shall haunt her memory's shade,
vexing her dim breast with unwonted sighs.
And where our fiercer joys have thrill'd the earth
shall burst hard stalks and cruel cups that keep
strong soul of seasons dead to fill the dearth
of lesser lives whose dream is dull with sleep.
And gloriously our summer's reign shall end:
in some dark pass that leads into the west,
burnt incense-wise, each blood shall sweetly blend,
exhaled in music from the love-slain breast,
some eve whose dragon-dying hides the sky
and holds the hour on its empurpled wings,
while pallid seers proclaim the doom-day nigh
and shuddering nations watch the death of kings.
See now the time (O eve of smoky brown!)
the morbid season of my close content,
drown'd flame, broad swathes of vapour closing down
round the clear gaze that pierces, vainly pent,
and knows how vain the hero-death that flung
far flame against the craven face of dark
(poor hero-heart the minstrel summer sung,
O brooding hidden over a bitter cark!),
how vain! did not the hot strength of the earth
exude in drifts of colour, dwindling
to dimmer odour-wafts, a hearted worth
the long-defeated tribes to altar bring.
The unslaked caravans of vast desire
seeking in furnace-sands some fierier rose
with deadly heart, the red crusades of ire
following some dusky king of mighty woes
unto a nameless fall in distant fight
(such only freedom from the daily mesh
spun by the crafty lord of wrong and right);
the pride and splendour of rebellious flesh,
full-sated with wild honey of summer's heart,
the golden lot of ignominy that cast
and craved the honour of a menial part,
to follow on bleeding feet, nor fell the last;
how high their pyre blazed with insensate will
that the last word of their red tale be told,
and o'er their darkening blood, a moment, still,
hung on horizon-wings the spirit's gold,
the ghost of flame, in the vast crucible
transmuted of some viewless Trismegist —
haply the same whose touch, inaudible,
dissolves the lingering leaf to evening mist.
Now with the lucid flower-cups in their hands
that star the pale fields of Thulean spring,
and silver from the moon-made table-lands
of snow, the glimmering distance vanishing,
with opals that engeal the Boreal gleam
and diamond-drip of ether's crystal thrill
miraculous, the cortèges of dream
over the hills of legend gathering, fill
the imaginary avenues of gloom
up to the watching windows that betray
the House of Contemplation, vaulted room
soaring, with shade that broods above pale day;
pale day that wastes even since morning, drain'd
by ambush'd mystery of its wanton breath:
see now the time that rises, pale, unstain'd,
the fixed light that charms the fields of death.
A little yet, a little — wait, O files
obedient to my dumb command — the brow
may waive its frigid lordliness, the wiles
of the spent heart becloud it — wait; and thou,
dark presence, large above the passing world,
biding the full hour of the fated stroke,
ere in the sudden gust of truth be whirl'd
the veils of kindly Maya, leaf or smoke,
let their suspense of smouldering glory be
yet mirror'd in this mind's unruffled pool
or e'er beneath the implacable certainty
of icy light and thought's untarnish'd rule
the vacant world stand rigid; let me yet
this vesper ween I am not all alone,
and ponder with luxurious regret
over the singing golden morning flown:
soon, soon enough the spirit, unreproved,
shall on its proud predestin'd circle range,
in dread indifferent solitude removed
above the poignant pageantry of change,
and the broad brows whose curves are centuries
arise of Isis' carven front supreme
that bids the lucid soul in silence freeze,
the glittering crystal of my winter dream.