Messages, -- from the dead? Thou hast not heard them? No; Nor shalt thou ever hear What whisperings come and go. But, when thou hast bowed thy head In the quietude of despair, When thou hast ceased to listen, A meaning shall draw near And startle thee like a light, From valleys of surprise, Opening out of sight Behind thee; for 'tis written They must not meet thine eyes. Between effect and cause They dare not intervene. From the unseen to the seen Their roads are Nature's laws; But, through them, they can breathe What none could speak aloud; And quietly inter-wreathe Through sea-wave and white cloud Strange gleams of loveliness Whose deep unearthly drift Thou couldst not even guess; Light that no eyes can see; Music no ear hath heard; Till they strike home to thee Through star and sunset rift Or the cry of a wandering bird; And where the rainbow shone Across unshadowing skies, Clear as through tear-lashed eyes Thy love smiles, and is gone. Rememberest thou that hour, Under the naked boughs, When, desolate and alone, Returning to thy house, Thou stoodst amazed to find Dropt on the lintel-stone Which thou hadst left so bare, A radiant dew-drenched flower -- And thou couldst never know Whose hand had dropt it there, Fragrant and white as snow, To save thy soul from hell? Yet, in thy deepest mind, Thou didst know, and know well. Not thine to understand How the two worlds accord, -- The will of Love, our Lord, With this dark wheel of Time. Yet thou didst hear them chime Like one deep Sanctus bell For the pure host revealed In the exquisite miracle Of that white chance-dropt flower; A flower from a known field, And dropt by a mortal hand; But, breathing its wild dew, O, simply as tears flow, Thou didst most surely know The hand from which it fell Was thy lost angel's, too. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE LION'S SKELETON by CHARLES TENNYSON TURNER TOM O' BEDLAM'S SONG by FRANCIS BEAUMONT ON A RAINBOW AT NIGHT by JOHN GARDINER CALKINS BRAINARD BEAUTY AND BEAUTY by RUPERT BROOKE PETRUCHIO'S WIFE by AMELIA JOSEPHINE BURR |