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To Our Ladies of Death 1

by James Thomson - (Bysshe Vanolis)

'Tired with all these, for restful death I cry.'

- SHAKESPEARE: Sonnet 66

Weary of erring in this desert Life,

Weary of hoping hopes for ever vain,

Weary of struggling in all-sterile strife,

Weary of thought which maketh nothing plain,

I close my eyes and calm my panting breath,

And pray to Thee, O ever-quiet Death!

To come and soothe away my bitter pain.

The strong shall strive, may they be victors crowned;

The wise still seek, may they at length find Truth;

The young still hope, may purest love be found

To make their age more glorious than their youth.

For me; my brain is weak, my heart is cold,

My hope and faith long dead; my life but bold

In jest and laugh to parry hateful ruth.

Over me pass the days and months and years

Like squadrons and battalions of the foe

Trampling with thoughtless thrusts and alien jeers

Over a wounded soldier lying low

He grips his teeth, or flings them words of scorn

To mar their triumph; but the while, outworn,

Inwardly craves for death to end his woe.

Thus I, in secret, call, O Death! to Thee,

Thou Youngest of the solemn Sisterhood,

Thou Gentlest of the mighty Sisters Three

Whom I have known so well since first endued

By Love and Grief with vision to discern

What spiritual life doth throb and burn

Through all our world, with evil powers and good.

The Three whom I have known so long, so well,

By intimate communion, face to face,

In every mood, of Earth, of Heaven, of Hell,

In every season and in every place,

That joy of Life has ceased to visit me,

As one estranged by powerful witchery,

Infatuate in a Siren's weird embrace.

First Thou, O priestess, prophetess, and queen,

Our Lady of Beatitudes, first Thou:

Of mighty stature, of seraphic mien,

Upon the tablet of whose broad white brow

Unvanquishable Truth is written clear,

The secret of the mystery of our sphere,

The regnant word of the Eternal Now.

Thou standest garmented in purest white;

But from thy shoulders wings of power half-spread

Invest thy form with such miraculous light

As dawn may clothe the earth with: and, instead

Of any jewel-kindled golden crown,

The glory of thy long hair flowing down

Is dazzling noonday sunshine round thy head.

Upon a sword thy left hand resteth calm,

A naked sword, two-edged and long and straight;

A branch of olive with a branch of palm

Thy right hand proffereth to hostile Fate.

The shining plumes that clothe thy feet are bound

By knotted strings, as if to tread the ground

With weary steps when thou wouldst soar elate.

Twin heavens uplifted to the heavens, thine eyes

Are solemn with unutterable thought

And love and aspiration; yet there lies

Within their light eternal sadness, wrought

By hope deferred and baffled tenderness:

Of all. the souls whom thou dost love and bless,

How few revere and love thee as they ought!

Thou leadest heroes from their warfare here

To nobler fields where grander crowns are won;

Thou leadest sages from this twilight sphere

To cloudless heavens and an unsetting sun;

Thou leadest saints into that purer air

Whose breath is spiritual life and prayer:

Yet, lo! they seek thee not, but fear and shun!

Thou takest to thy most maternal breast

Young children from the desert of this earth,

Ere sin hath stained their souls, or grief opprest,

And bearest them unto an heavenly birth,

To be the Vestals of God's Fane above:

And, yet their kindred moan against thy love,

With wild and selfish moans in bitter dearth.

Most holy Spirit, first Self-conqueror;

Thou Victress over Time and Destiny

And Evil, in the all-deciding war

So fierce, so long, so dreadful! Would that me

Thou hadst upgathered in my life's pure morn!

Unworthy then, less worthy now, forlorn,

I dare not, Gracious Mother, call on Thee.

Next Thou, O sibyl, sorceress and queen,

Our Lady of Annihilation, Thou!

Of mighty stature, of demoniac mien;

Upon whose swarthy face and livid brow

Are graven deeply anguish, malice, scorn,

Strength ravaged by unrest, resolve forlorn

Of any hope, dazed pride that will not bow.

Thy form is clothed with wings of iron gloom;

But round about thee, like a chain, is rolled,

Cramping the sway of every mighty plume,

A stark constringent serpent fold on fold:

Of its two heads, one sting is in thy brain,

The other in thy heart; their venom-pain

Like fire distilling through thee uncontrolled.

A rod of serpents wieldeth thy right hand;

Thy left a cup of raging fire, whose light

Burns lurid on thyself as thou dost stand;

Thy lidless eyes tenebriously bright;

Thy wings, thy vesture, thy dishevelled hair

Dark as the Grave; thou statue of Despair,

Thou Night essential radiating night.

Thus have I seen thee in thine actual form;

Not thus can see thee those whom thou dost sway,

Inscrutable Enchantress: young and warm,

Pard-beautiful and brilliant, ever gay;

Thy cup the very Wine of Life, thy rod

The wand of more voluptuous spells than God

Can wield in Heaven; thus charmest thou thy prey.

The selfish, fatuous, proud, and pitiless,

All who have falsified life's royal trust;

The strong whose strength bath basked in idleness,

The great heart given up to worldly lust,

The great mind destitute of moral faith;

Thou scourgest down to Night and utter Death,

Or penal spheres of retribution just.

O mighty Spirit, fraudful and malign,

Demon of madness and perversity!

The evil passions which may make me thine

Are not yet irrepressible in me;

And I have pierced thy mask of riant youth,

And seen thy form in all its hideous truth:

I will not, Dreadful Mother, call on Thee.

Last Thou, retir'd nun and throneless queen,

Our Lady of Oblivion, last Thou:

Of human stature, of abstracted mien;

Upon whose pallid face and drooping brow

Are shadowed melancholy dreams of Doom,

And deep absorption into silent gloom,

And weary bearing of the heavy. Now.

Thou art all shrouded in a gauzy veil,

Sombrous and cloudlike; all, except that face

Of subtle loveliness though weirdly pale.

Thy soft, slow-gliding footsteps leave no trace,

And stir no sound. Thy drooping hands infold

Their frail white fingers; and, unconscious, hold

A poppy-wreath, thine anodyne of grace.

Thy hair is like a twilight round thy head

Thine eyes are shadowed wells, from Lethe-stream

With drowsy subterranean waters fed;

Obscurely deep, without a stir or gleam;

The gazer drinks in from them with his gaze

An opiate charm to curtain all his days,

A passive languor of oblivious dream.

Thou hauntest twilight regions, and the trance

Of moonless nights when stars are few and wan:

Within black woods; or over the expanse

Of desert seas abysmal; or upon

Old solitary shores whose populous graves

Are rocked in rest by ever-moaning waves;

Or through vast ruined cities still and lone.

The weak, the weary, and the desolate,

The poor, the mean, the outcast, the opprest,

All trodden down beneath the march of Fate,

Thou gatherest, loving Sister, to thy breast,

Soothing their pain and weariness asleep;

Then in thy hidden Dreamland hushed and deep

Dost lay them, shrouded in eternal rest.

O sweetest Sister, and sole Patron Saint

Of all the humble eremites who flee

From out life's crowded tumult, stunned and faint,

To seek a stern and lone tranquillity

In Libyan wastes of time: my hopeless life

With famished yearning craveth rest from strife;

Therefore, thou Restful One, I call on Thee!

Take me, and lull me into perfect sleep;

Down, down, far-hidden in thy duskiest cave;

While all the clamorous years above me sweep

Unheard, or, like the voice of seas that rave

On far-off coasts, but murmuring o'er my trance,

A dim vast monotone, that shall enhance

The restful rapture of the inviolate grave

Upgathered thus in thy divine embrace,

Upon mine eyes thy soft mesmeric hand,

While wreaths of opiate odour interlace

About my pulseless brow; babe-pure and bland,

Passionless, senseless, thoughtless, let me dream

Some ever-slumbrous, never-varying theme,

Within the shadow of thy Timeless Land.

That when I thus have drunk my inmost fill

Of perfect peace, I may arise renewed;

In soul and body, intellect and will,

Equal to cope with Life whate'er its mood;

To sway its storm and energise its calm;

Through rhythmic years evolving like a psalm

Of infinite love and faith and sanctitude.

But if this cannot be, no less I cry,

Come, lead me with thy terrorless control

Down to our Mother's bosom, there to die

By abdication of my separate soul:

So shall this single, self-impelling piece

Of mechanism from lone labour cease,

Resolving into union with the Whole.

Our Mother feedeth thus our little life,

That we in turn may feed her with our death:

The great Sea sways, one interwoven strife,

Wherefrom the Sun exhales a subtle breath,

To float the heavens sublime in form and hue,

Then turning cold and dark in order due

Rain weeping back to swell the Sea beneath.

One part of me shall feed a little worm,

And it a bird on which a man may feed;

One lime the mould, one nourish insect-sperm;

One thrill sweet grass, one pulse in bitter weed;

This swell a fruit, and that evolve in air;

Another trickle to a springlet's lair,

Another paint a daisy on the mead:

With cosmic interchange of parts for all,

Through all the modes of being numberless

Of every element, as may befall.

And if earth's general soul hath consciousness,

Their new life must with strange new joy be thrilled,

Of perfect law all perfectly fulfilled;

No sin, no fear, no failure, no excess.

Weary of living, isolated life,

Weary of hoping hopes for ever vain,

Weary of struggling in all-sterile strife,

Weary of thought which maketh nothing plain,

I close my eyes and hush my panting breath,

And yearn for Thee, divinely tranquil Death,

To come and soothe away my bitter pain.