Book VI, Canto I: Heaven

" Then burst asunder prison bars,
Men name earth, ocean, air, or stars !
So to my inner sense revealed
A world their glory but concealed.
Like a pageantry of cloud.
Or enchantment disavowed,
Yanished, and were rolled away,
As a dream at dawn of day !
Laughing children, all in play,
Round one another veering flew.
Swift, dallying swallows in the blue.
While the pulse of their white wings
Made audible soft winnowings,
In many a threefold flower-cluster
Dewy-eyed, a pure white lustre,
Delicate shadow falling fast
From each on either as they passed. . . .
Joy ! I knew them for the same,
Emerged from purgatorial flame 1
Surely there I see the boy
One killed because he bought the toy,
And there the spectre-child, whose arms
The cruel double iron harms ;
(Ever up and down the stair !
Nor Madness snatched him from Despair !)
These the little ones who starved ;
One all unheeded, while they carved
Under her their toothsome meats ;
These whom the hungry fire eats ;
Yonder those hell-lust hath mangled ;
And whom God's laughing water strangled
The Holy Innocents ! are they
In God's garden here at play ?
Lo ! my little one among them !
Many lovely flowers he flung them !
Where are, then, the scald, the scar,
That may their beauty-marvel mar?
All unremembered, transitory !
Yet a richer, rarer glory
It was theirs indeed to gain
From their crucibles of pain ;
From the bruising of the stone
A myriadfold the rainbow shone.
Starry gleams are in their eyes,
Lighted by no cloudless day,
A glory-glow of sacrifice,
Born of night, and pale dismay ;
A world of stars, a milky way !
Every child a Christ as well,
A Holy Babe of Raffaelle.
Are they dews in their soft hair.
The laughing irises at play ?
No, wild whirled wheels that never spare.
Like fierce attritions of despair.
Ground the diamond to spray.
For tendril locks a laughing light !
Red roses on their flower-white
Have fervent hues of human blood ;
Nor are they born of only light ;
Mother Earth, her lowly wood.
Fed them, our grey rain for food.

" Then, with a fountain's delicate rain noises
(A silver moss leaps plashing where it poises),
I heard afar melodious young tones
Of children, warbling limpid antipbons.
Of singing children, sister answering brother,
And flying, flying after one another.

Fountain Song

First. ' ' ' Where is the rainbow ?
Where may I find it ? '
Second. ' In a fountain falling
With the sun behind it ! '
First. ' Where the flying silver
Falls loose, dishevelled?'
Second. ' At an airier fountain
Your look be levelled ! —
Where gems enhancing
Aerial blue,
Are glimmering, glancing,
A delicate dew !'
First. ' Come you, and show !
I never shall find ! '
Second. ' Wait till he blow I
Ah ! whims of the wind ! '
First. ' Silent in airy dew
Playfully wafted,
Rainbow, the fairy, flew
Swift from the shafted
Watery column !
He will beguile
Old over-solemn
Faces to smile ! '
Second. ' Here, over the leafage
Glowing to golden.
Not for a moment
Will he be holden ;
A glamour of glory
Over the trees !
Ever murmuring story.
Low melodies ! '
First. ' Now he is laving
Clear in the pool !
Wavelets are waving
Delicate, cool!
He is all azure,
Purple and yellow,
Following pleasure.
Beautiful fellow !
Awhile appearing,
Now here, now there !
Vanishing, veering,
A Glendoveer !
Everywhere ! '
Second. ' A bird who is washing
In a waterlily bath
A very fine flashing
Leaf-laver hath !
The young jet of joyance.
Clear with no colour,
Will yield all her buoyance
In a ruffling corolla,
Fall, a resolving
Soft silvery flower.
Woven water involving
Heaven-hues in a shower !
Deliciously dying is
Dear as the fleet
Swift thrill of flying
Morning to meet ! '