Jehovah! Jehovah! art Thou not stronger than gods of the heathen?
I slew him, that Sisera, prince of the host Thou dost hate.
But fear of his blood is upon me, about me is breathen
His spirit – by night and by day come voices that wait.
Athirst and affrightened he fled from the star-wrought waters of Kishon.
His face was as wool when he swooned at the door of my tent.
The Lord hath given him into the hand of perdition,
I smiled – but he saw not the face of my cunning intent.
He thirsted for water: I fed him the curdless milk of the cattle.
He lay in the tent under purple and crimson of Tyre.
He slept and he dreamt of the surge and storming of battle.
Ah ha! but he woke not to waken Jehovah's ire.
He slept as he were a chosen of Israel's God Almighty.
A dog out of Canaan! – thought he I was woman alone?
I slipt like an asp to his ear and laughed for the sight he
Would give when the carrion kites should tear to his bone.
I smote thro' his temple the nail, to the dust, a worm, did I bind him.
My heart was a-leap with rage and a-quiver with scorn.
And I danced with a holy delight before and behind him —
I that am called blessèd o'er all unto Judah born.
"Aye, come, I will show thee, O Barak, a woman is more than a warrior,"
I cried as I lifted the door wherein Sisera lay.
"To me did he fly and I shall be called his destroyer —
I, Jael, who am subtle to find for the Lord a way!"
"Above all the daughters of men be blest – of Gilead or Asshur,"
Sang Deborah, prophetess, then, from her waving palm.
"Behold her, ye people, behold her the heathen's abasher;
Behold her the Lord hath uplifted – behold and be calm!
"The mother of him at the window looks out thro' the lattice to listen —
Why roll not the wheels of his chariot? why does he stay?
Shall he not return with the booty of battle, and glisten
In songs of his triumph – ye women, why do ye not say?"
And I was as she who danced when the Seas were rended asunder
And stood, until Egypt pressed in to be drowned unto death.
My breasts were as fire with the glory, the rocks that were under
My feet grew quick with the gloating that beat in my breath.
At night I stole out where they cast him, a sop to the jackal and raven.
But his bones stood up in the moon and I shook with affright.
The strength shrank out of my limbs and I fell, a craven,
Before him – the nail in his temple gleamed bloodily bright.
Jehovah! Jehovah! art Thou not stronger than gods of the heathen?
I slew him, that Sisera, prince of the host Thou dost hate.
But fear of his blood is upon me, about me is breathen
His spirit – by day and by night come voices that wait.
I fly to the desert, I fly to the mountain – but they will not hide me.
His gods haunt the winds and the caves with vengeance that cries
For judgment upon me; the stars in their courses deride me —
The stars Thou hast hung with a breath in the wandering skies.
Jehovah! Jehovah! I slew him, the scourge and sting of Thy Nation.
Take from me his spirit, take from me the voice of his blood.
With madness I rave – by day and by night, defamation!
Jehovah, release me! Jehovah! if still Thou art God!
Art thou enraged, O sea, with the blue peace
Of heaven, so to uplift thine armèd waves,
Thy billowing rebellion 'gainst its ease,
And with Tartarean mutter from cold caves,
From shuddering profundities where shapes
Of awe glide thro' entangled leagues of ooze,
To hoot thy watery omens evermore,
And evermore thy moanings interfuse
With seething necromancy and mad lore?
Or, dost thou labour with the drifting bones
Of countless dead, thou mighty Alchemist,
Within whose stormy crucible the stones
Of sunk primordial shores, granite and schist,
Are crumbled by thine all-abrasive beat?
With immemorial chanting to the moon,
And cosmic incantation, dost thou crave
Rest to be found not till thy wild be strewn
Frigid and desert over earth's last grave?
Thou seemest with immensity mad, blind —
With raving deaf, with wandering forlorn;
Parent of Demogorgon whose dire mind
Is night and earthquake, shapeless shame and scorn
Of the o'ermounting birth of Harmony.
Bound in thy briny bed and gnawing earth
With foamy writhing and fierce-panted tides,
Thou art as Fate in torment of a dearth
Of black disaster and destruction's strides.
And how thou dost drive silence from the world,
Incarnate Motion of all mystery!
Whose waves are fury-wings, whose winds are hurled
Whither thy Ghost tempestuous can see
A desolate apocalypse of death.
Oh, how thou dost drive silence from the world,
With emerald overflowing, waste on waste
Of flashing susurration, dashed and swirled
O'er isles and continents that shrink abased!
Nay, frustrate Hope art thou, of the Unknown,
Gathered from primal mist and firmament;
A surging shape of Life's unfathomed moan,
Whelming humanity with fears unmeant.
Yet do I love thee, O, above all fear,
And loving thee unconquerably trust
The runes that from thy ageless surfing start
Would read, were they revealed, gust upon gust,
That Immortality is might of heart!
So wan, so unavailing,
Across the vacant day-blue dimly trailing!
Last night, sphered in thy shining,
A Circe – mystic destinies divining;
To-day but as a feather
Torn from a seraph's wing in sinful weather,
Down-drifting from the portals
Of Paradise, unto the land of mortals.
Yet do I feel thee awing
My heart with mystery, as thy updrawing
Moves thro' the tides of Ocean
And leaves lorn beaches barren of its motion;
Or strands upon near shallows
The wreck whose weirded form at night unhallows
The fisher maiden's prayers —
"For him! – that storms may take not unawares!"
So wan, so unavailing,
Across the vacant day-blue dimly trailing!
But Night shall come atoning
Thy phantom life thro' day, and high enthroning
Thee in her chambers arrased
With star-hieroglyphs, leave thee unharassed
To glide with silvery passion,
Till in earth's shadow swept thy glowings ashen.
Oh, fisher-fleet, go in from the sea
And furl your wings.
The bay is gray with the twilit spray
And the loud surf springs.
The chill buoy-bell is rung by the hands
Of all the drowned,
Who know the woe of the wind and tow
Of the tides around.
Go in, go in! Oh, haste from the sea,
And let them rest —
A son and one who was wed and one
Who went down unblest.
Aye, even as I, whose hands at the bell
Now labour most.
The tomb has gloom, but Oh, the doom
Of the drear sea-ghost!
He evermore must wander the ooze
Beneath the wave,
Forlorn – to warn of the tempest born,
And to save – to save!
Then go, go in! and leave us the sea,
For only so
Can peace release us and give us ease
Of our salty woe.
I met a child upon the moor
A-wading down the heather;
She put her hand into my own,
We crossed the fields together.
I led her to her father's door —
A cottage mid the clover.
I left her – and the world grew poor
To me, a childless rover.
I met a maid upon the moor,
The morrow was her wedding.
Love lit her eyes with lovelier hues
Than the eve-star was shedding.
She looked a sweet good-bye to me,
And o'er the stile went singing.
Down all the lonely night I heard
But bridal bells a-ringing.
I met a mother on the moor,
By a new grave a-praying.
The happy swallows in the blue
Upon the winds were playing.
"Would I were in his grave," I said,
"And he beside her standing!"
There was no heart to break if death
For me had made demanding.
Down the palm-way from Eden in the mid-night
Lay dreaming Eve by her outdriven mate,
Pillowed on lilies that still told the sweet
Of birth within the Garden's ecstasy.
Pitiful round her face that could not lose
Its memory of God's perfecting was strewn
Her troubled hair, and sigh grieved after sigh
Along her loveliness in the white moon.
Then sudden her dream, too cruelly impent
With pain, broke and a cry fled shuddering
Into the wounded stillness from her lips —
As, cold, she fearfully felt for his hand,
And tears, that had before ne'er visited
Her lids with anguish, drew from her the moan:
"Oh, Adam! What have I dreamed?
Now do I understand His words, so dim
To creatures that had quivered but with bliss!
Since at the dusk thy kiss to me, and I
Wept at caresses that were once all joy,
I have slept, seeing through Futurity
The uncreated ages visibly!
Foresuffering phantoms crowded in the womb
Of Time, and all with lamentable mien
Accusing without mercy, thee and me!
And without pity! for tho' some were far
From birth, and without name, others were near —
Sodom and dark Gomorrah – from whose flames
Fleeing one turned … how like her look to mine
When the tree's horror trembled on my taste!
And Babylon upbuilded on our sin;
And Nineveh, a city sinking slow
Under a shroud of sandy centuries
That hid me not from the buried cursing eyes
Of women who e'er-bitterly gave birth!
Ah, to be mother of all misery!
To be first-called out of the earth and fail
For a whole world! To shame maternity
For women evermore – women whose tears
Flooding the night, no hope can wipe away!
To see the wings of Death, as, Adam, thou
Hast not, endlessly beating, and to hear
The swooning ages suffer up to God!
And Oh, that birth-cry of a guiltless child
In it are sounding of our sin and woe,
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