Francis Joseph Sherman: Verses about Morning

Between the Winter and the Spring
One came to me at dead of night;
I heard him well as any might,
Although his lips, unmurmuring,
Made no sweet sounds for my delight;


Also, I knew him, though long days
(It seemed) had fallen across my ways
Since I had felt his comforting.

It was quite dark, but I could see
His hair was yellow as the sun;


And his soft garments, every one,
Were white as angels’ throats may be;
And as some man whose pain is done
At last, and peace is surely his,
His eyes were perfect with great bliss


And seemed so glad to look at me. [page 70]

I knew that he had come to bring
The change that I was waiting for,
And, as he crossed my rush-strewn floor,
I had no thought of questioning;


And then he kissed me, o’er and o’er,
Upon the eyes; so I fell
Asleep unfrightened,—knowing well
That morning would fulfill the Spring.

And when they came at early morn


And found that I at last was dead,―
Some two or three knelt by my bed
And prayed for one they deemed forlorn;
But he they wept for only said
(Thinking of when the old days were),


“Alas, that God had need of her
The very morning Spring was born!”

“O bloom of lilies oversea!


O throng’d and banner’d citadels!
O clanging of continual bells
Upon the air triumphantly!
Let Christ remember not that we
Await him by these bitter wells.



“Make France so very glad and fair
That Christ, arisen may know today
That he (O green land, leagues away!)
Hath come into his kingdom there;
Let him not dream that otherwhere


Sad men have little heart to pray.

“For we would have him glad; although,
For us, joy may no be again.
Yea, though all day we watch the rain
Striving to waste the pitiless snow,


We would not have him see or know
The limits of our grievous pain.

“And even if he should stoop, perchance,
(Touching you gently on the stem
As you brush by his garment’s hem,)


Saying, with lighted countenance,
‘Across the sea, in my New France,
O lilies, how is it with them?’—

“Lean you up nearer to his face
(Tenderly sad, supremely wise)


And answer, ‘Uncle fair, blue skies,
Lord Jesus, in a fruitful place,
Their souls—the stronger for thy grace—
Draw nigh unto the sacrifice.’”

…So, striving to arouse their heavy faith,


Unto their distant Christ they sang and prayed
Until the gray clouds thinned, and the dull east
Grew half prophetic of the laboring sun.
“See! He hath heard! and all is well!” she cried. [page 138]
But as her voice rang hopefully and clear


Down the dim chapel aisle, ere any man
Had caught delight from her fair bravery,
There came upon them sudden gathering sounds
Of strife, of men clamoring, and despair,
Rumor of clashing steel and crumbling walls.


Yet not in vain their prayers! O risen Christ,
Was not that fight a glorious thing to see?
Between thine altar and the front o’ the foe
Was not thy hand the hand that lent the strength
Wherewith she drave them backward through the breach,


Far from their wounded, calling all the while?
I think that thou wert very glad, O Christ,
Watching these things; and yet, was it not thou
Who hadst made her heart the heart of very woman—
Strong for the battle, and then, when all was over,

Weak, and too prone to trust (even as a child
That wonders not at all, having belief)
In any chance-flung flag, white to the wind?...

It was quite dark within the room
Wherein the Lady Alice sat;
One had not seen, who looked thereat,
The gathered dust upon her loom,
There was such gloom.



And though the hangings on the wall
Were wrought so well and cunningly
That many had come far to see
Their glory once (for they were all
Of cardinal,


And gold, and silk, and curious glass)
The ladies with the long red hair
Thereon, the strong men fighting there,
The little river edged with grass,—
Were now, alas,



As if they had been always gray.
Likewise the lily, whose perfume
Had once been over all the room,
In which dark corner now it lay,―
What man might say?



She did not see these things, or know
That they had changed since she had seen.
She like it best to sit between
Two little firs (they used to grow,
Once, long ago!)



That stood each in an earthen pot
Upon the window’s either side.
They had been green before they died,
But like the rest fell out their lot,—
To be forgot.



Yet what cared she for such as these,
Whose window was toward the sun
At sun-rising? There was not one
Of them so strong and sure to please,
Or bring her ease,



As what she saw when she looked through
Her window just before the dawn.
These were the sights she gazed upon:
Sir John, whose silken pennon flew,
Yellow and blue,



And proud to be upon his lance;
The horse he rode being gray and white;
A few men, unafraid to fight,
Followed (there were some men in France
Were brave, perchance!)



And they were armed with swords and spears;
Their horses, too, were mostly gray.
—They seemed not sad to go away,
For they were men had lost their fears
With their child-years.



They had such hope, there was but one
Looked back: Sir John had strength to look.
His men saw not that his lance shook
A little, for though night was done,
There was no sun.



And so they rode into the dawn
That waited just behind the hill;
(In France there were some men to kill!)
These were the things she looked upon
Till they were gone.


The room was dark, and full of fear;
And so the Lady Alice stayed
Beside the window. Here she prayed
Each morning, and when night drew near,
Year after year.


Beside her lay some unused things:
A trumpet that had long been mute;
A vellum book; a little lute
That once had ten unrusted strings;
And four gold rings;


A piece of faded cloth-of-gold;
And three black pennies that were white
As silver once:—the great delight
She had of all these things of old
Was not quite cold.



Only the things that she could see
Out of the window gladdened her;
After the morning, those things were:
A ship that rode triumphantly
(This sight would be



Plainest a little ere the noon)
On wide blue waters, with the wind
Strong from the west that lay behind;
Its sail curved like a slender moon,
Born into June.



An empty ship beside the shore
Of some unconquered foreign land;
Some brave men fighting on the sand
As they had never fought before
In any war;



A few men fleeing to the hills
(This came a little after noon),
God, but the fight was ended soon!
They were not hard to wound and kill!
A trumpet shrill



Echoes, and many knights pursue!
And on the hillside dead men lie,
Who learned before they came to die
The yellow flags the victors flew
Were crossed with blue!


No wonder that this window-place
Could make the Lady Alice glad,
When sights like these were what she had!
Yet there was one that made her face
For a little space



Grow like a face that God has known.
I think she was the happiest
When the sun dropped into the west;
This was the thing she then was shown,
And this alone:



A laden ship that followed fast
The way the setting sun had led;
In the east wind her great sail spread;
A brave knight standing near the mast;
The shore at last!



Of all things, this the best did seem.
And now the gathering darkness fell;
The morn would bring him, she knew well;
She slept; and in her sleep, I deem,
She had one dream



Against the window-side she slept.
This window-place was very strange;
Since it was made it had known change.
Beneath it once no women wept,
And no vines crept



And twisted in the broken glass.
Some time ago, the little tree
That she had planted tenderly
Was not much higher than tall grass;
But now, alas,



Its branches were the greatest where
Her window looked toward the sun.
One branch, indeed, its way had won
Into her room,—it did not bear
Green leaves in there.

135

Above the window, and inside,
Great spider-webs were spun across.
Where stone was, there was wet green moss
Wherein small creeping things did hide
Until they died.

140

The leaves that looked toward the room
Were hardly anything but veins;
They had been wasted by the rains,
Like some dead naked girl in the gloom
Of some old tomb.



But those outside were broad and green,
And lived between the sun and shade.
A perfect bower they had made,—
Beneath them there should sit some queen,
Born to be seen!


It was quite dark within the place
Wherein the Lady Alice slept.
I heard the girls below who wept,
But God did not (of His good grace)
Show me her face

O ye who so unceasing praise the Sun;
Ye who find nothing worthy of your love
But the Sun's face and the strong light thereof;
Who, when the day is done,
Are all uncomforted

Unless the night be crowned with many a star,
Or mellow light be shed
From the ancient moon that gazeth from afar,
With pitiless calm, upon the old, tired Earth;
O ye to whom the skies

Must be forever fair to free your eyes
From mortal pain; ―
Have ye not known the great exceeding worth
Of that soft peace which cometh with Rain?

Behold! the wisest of you knows no thing

That hath such title to man's worshipping
As the first sudden day [page 40]
The slumberous Earth is wakened into Spring;
When heavy clouds and gray
Come up the southern way,

And their bold challenge throw
In the face of the frightened snow
That covereth the ground.
What need they now the armies of the Sun
Whose trumpets now do sound?

25
Alas, the powerless Sun!
Hath he not waged his wars for days gone past,
Each morning drawing up his cohorts vast
And leading them with slow and even paces
To assault once more the impenetrable places,

Where, crystal-bound,
The river moveth on with silent sound?
O puny, powerless Sun!
On the pure white snow where are the lightest traces
Of what thy forces' ordered ways have done?

35
On these large spaces
No footsteps are imprinted anywhere;
Still the white glare
Is perfect; yea, the snows are drifted still
On plain and hill;


And still the river knows the Winter's iron will.

Thou wert most wise, O Sun, to hide thy face
This day beneath the cloud's gray covering;
Thou wert most wise to know the deep disgrace
In which thy name is holden of the Spring.


She deems thee now an impotent, useless thing,
And hath dethroned thee from thy mighty place;
Knowing that with the clouds will come apace
The Rain, and that the rain will be a royal king.
A king? —Nay, queen! [page 41]

For in soft girlish-wise she takes her throne
When first she cometh in the young Spring-season;
Gentle and mild,
Yet with no dread of any revolution,
And fearing not a land unreconciled,


And unafraid of treason.
In her dark hair
Lieth the snow's most certain dissolution;
And in her glance is known
The freeing of the rivers from their chainings;


And in her bosom's strainings
Earth's teeming breast is tokened and foreshown.

Behold her coming surely, calmly down,
Where late the clear skies were,
With gray clouds for a gown;


Her fragile draperies
Caught by the little breeze
Which loveth her!
She weareth yet no crown,
Nor is there any sceptre in her hands;

70
Yea, in all lands,
Whatever Spring she cometh, men know well
That it is right and good for her to come;
And that her least commands
Must be fulfilled, however wearisome;


And that they all must guard the citadel
Wherein she deigns to dwell!

And so, even now, her feet pass swiftly over
The impressionable snow
That vanisheth as woe


Doth vanish from the rapt face of a lover,
Who, after doubting nights, hath come to know
His lady loves him so! [page 42]
(Yet not like him
Doth the snow bear the signs of her light touch!


It is all gray in places, and looks worn
With some most bitter pain;
As he shall look, perchance,
Some early morn
While yet the dawn is dim,


When he awakens from the enraptured trance
In which he, blind, hath lain,
And knows also that he hath loved in vain
The lady who, he deemed, had loved him much.
And though her utter worthlessness is plain


He hath no joy of his deliverance,
But only asketh God to let him die,―
And getteth no reply.)
Yea, the snows fade before the calm strength of the rain!

And while the rain is unabated,


Well-heads are born and streams created
On the hillsides, and set a-flowing
Across the fields. The river, knowing
That there hath surely come at last
Its freedom, and that frost is past,


Gathereth force to break its chains;
The river's faith is in the Spring's unceasing rains!
See where the shores even now were firmly bound
The slowly widening water showeth black,
As from the fields and meadows all around


Come rushing over the dark and snowless ground
The foaming streams!
Beneath the ice the shoulders of the tide
Lift, and from shore to shore a thin, blue crack
Starts, and the dark, long-hidden water gleams,


Glad to be free.
And now the uneven rift is growing wide;
The breaking ice is fast becoming gray;
It hears the loud beseeching of the sea,
And moveth on its way.


Surely at last the work of the rain is done!
Surely the Spring at last is well begun,
O unavailing Sun!

O ye who worship only at the noon,
When will ye learn the glory of the rain?


Have ye not seen the thirsty meadow-grass
Uplooking piteous at the burnished sky,
And all in vain?
Even in June
Have ye not seen the yellow flowers swoon


Along the roadside, where the dust, alas,
Is hard to pass?
Have ye not heard
The song cease in the throat of every bird
And know the thing all these were stricken by?



Ye have beheld these things, yet made no prayer,
O pitiless and uncompassionate!
Yet should the weeping
Of Death's wide wings across your face unsleeping
Be felt of you to-night,


And all your hair
Know the soft stirring of an alien breath
From out the mouth of Death,
Would ye not then have memory of these
And how their pain was great?


Would ye not wish to hear among the trees
The wind in his great night,
And on the roof the rain's unending harmonies?

For when could death be more desired by us
(Oh, follow, Death, I pray thee, with the Fall!)


Than when the night
Is heavy with the wet wind born of rain?
When flowers are yellow, and the growing grass
Is not yet tall,
Or when all living things are harvested

155
And with bright gold the hills are glorious,
Or when all colors have faded from our sight
And all is gray that late was gold and red?
Have ye not lain awake the long night through
And listened to the falling of the rain


On fallen leaves, withered and brown and dead?
Have none of you,
Hearing its ceaseless sound, been comforted
And made forgetful of the day's live pain?
Even Thou, who wept because the dark was great


Once, and didst pray that dawn might come again,
Has noon not seemed to be a dreaded thing
And night a thing not wholly desolate
And Death thy soul's supremest sun-rising?
Did not thy hearing strain


To catch the moaning of the wind-swept sea,
Where great tides be,
And swift, white rain?
Did not its far exulting teach thy soul
That of all things the sea alone is free


And under no control?
Its liberty,―
Was it not most desired by thy soul?
I say,
The Earth is alway glad, yea, and the sea


Is glad alway
When the rain cometh; either tranquilly [page 45]
As at the first dawn of a Summer day
Or in late Autumn wildly passionate,
Or when all things are all disconsolate


Because that Winter has been long their king,
Or in the Spring.
―Therefore let now your joyful thanksgiving
Be heard on Earth because the Rain hath come!
While land and sea give praise, shall ye be dumb?


Shall ye alone await the sun-shining?
Your days, perchance, have many joys to bring;
Perchance with woes they shall be burthensome;
Yet when night cometh, and ye journey home,
Weary, and sore, and stained with travelling,


When ye seek out your homes because the night―
The last, dark night—falls swift across your path,
And on Life's altar your last day lies slain,
Will ye not cry aloud with that new might
One dying with great things unfinished hath,


"O God! If Thou wouldst only send Thy Rain! "