The Strong City

Arm, when it was darkest, I came to a strong City.

No earthly tongue can tell how I journeyed there, Deaf to this world's compassion, Blind to its pity, With a heart wrung empty, even of its last dumb prayer.

I had left the chattering throngs in the night behind me, And stumbled into a desert that had no name.

Torn, bleeding of foot, Through cactus and thorn I stumbled, And, when it was darkest, to that strong City I came.

Gate, there was none, nor window. It towered above me Like a vast fortress into the midnight sky.

And I beat on the granite walls, But I found no doorway ; And the blood ran over my wrists, but I heard no reply.

Yet—I knew well—no tongue can tell how I knew it— Though the walls were harder than adamant, blacker than night, Within that City Was glory beyond all glory Of wisdom and power enthroned in absolute light.

Could I have entered there, all doubt were over. Stones would be bread at last, and water wine ; All questioning closed In absolute vision ; The long sad riddle solved, and the answer mine.

But Oh, on those cloud-wreathed walls, there stood no sentry.

Naked as cliffs they towered, abrupt as doom.

No shining gateway, No shadowy postern, No least small spark of a window broke their gloom.

Hour after hopeless hour I groped around them. League after league, I followed that girdling wall. Burning with thirst, I dragged through the drifted sand-heaps Round its great coigns, and found them adamant all.

Once, every league, a shadowy buttress Like a vast Sphinx, outstretched in the moon's pale sheen, Loomed through the night, With flanks worn sleek by the sand-storms,

And calm strange face that gazed as s at worlds unseen.

I groped around them ; I groped around them ; Stared up at their cold eyes and found them stone ; And crawled on, on, Till I overtook strange foot-prints Going my way, and knew them for my own.

Strange foot-prints, clotted with blood, in the sand before me, Trailing the hopeless way I had trailed before ; For, in that night, I had girdled the whole dark City, Feeling each adamant inch, and found no door.

I fell on my face in the rank salt of the desert. Slow, hot, like blood, out of my hopeless eyes, The salt tears bled.

The salt of the desert drank them, And I cried, once, to God, as a child cries.

Then, then, I cannot tell What strange thing happened, Only, as at a breath of the midnight air, These eyes, like two staunched wounds, had ceased their bleeding And my despair had ended my despair.

Far over the desert, like shadows trailed by a moon-cloud, I saw a train of mourners, two by two, Following an open coffin.

They halted near me.

And I beheld, once more, the face I knew. Blissful the up-turned face—the cold hands folded. Blissful the up-turned face, cold as cold stone, Cold as a midnight flower.

1 bent above it—

Sweet, sweet cold kiss, the saddest earth had known.

Quietly they moved on, in slow procession.

They breathed no prayer. They sang no funeral song.

Up to the adamant walls Of that strong City, Slowly they moved, a strange inscrutable throng.

Behind their shining burden they stole like shadows Up to the shadowy City, two by two.

And like two ponderous doors of a tomb revolving Two stones in the wall swung back, And they passed through.

I followed after. I followed after.

Theirs was the secret key, and the sure goal : And the adamant doors Revolved again like midnight, And closed, like a silent thunder, behind my soul.

Dark ! It was dark ; but through that strange new darkness Great aisles of beauty rapturously burned ; And I stole on, Like a remembering pilgrim From a long exile now at last returned.

All round me burned strange lights and banners.

Above, great arches grasped and spanned the sky.

Then, like a bell, In the armoured hands of Michael, I heard Time ring its aeons out and die.

I saw that strange procession winding On through a veil that shielded my dazed sight From the absolute Dark that would have drowned me At the first dreadful touch of absolute Light.

Yet I saw glory on glory on glory Burning through those ethereal folds Dusked by a myriad dawns, a myriad sunsets With smouldering mercies, merciful blood-red golds.

Before it smoked the Eternal Altar Branched with great trembling lights that shone As though at last all stars, all constellations, Had swung to their true place before God's throne.

There, there, at last, they burned in order, Round that high Altar, under that rich East.

All clouds, all snows, on that pure Table Were spread like one white cloth for God's own feast.

And I heard Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dominus Deus, echoing everywhere, In tongues of earth, in tongues of ocean, In tongues of fire, in tongues of air.

Far off, I heard once more the centuries pealing Like one brief sacring bell, I heard Time die. I saw Space fading, forms dissolving, I saw the Host uplifted high.

Spirit and Substance, Victim—Victor, One life in all, all lives in One, Fast-bound to feed man's bounded vision Shone through that strict concentering Sun.

Anima Mundi, World-Sustainer, Sower to whom all seeds returned, Through earth's dissolving mist of atoms The Body of God in splendour burned.

And I heard Agnus, Agnus Dci,

Pleading for man with Love's own breath ;

And Love drew near me, And Love drew near me And I drank Life through God's own death.

ALFRED NOYES.