VIGIL

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 851, 20 December 1929, Page 4 (Supplement)

VIGIL

This was my dream. I seemed to know her face— The sea-dark eyes, the questing mouth upeuried In a strange, secret smile: hair like the smoke Of those old Norman torches, their black cloak Pierced through with little dancing points of flame. I seemed to know how softly fell her name, And how, like sun in coal, a gleaming grace Was sheathed in those still limbs, how m her throat A tender flute was hushed. Green banners, furled And drooping, shone about the silent place, And ghostlike winds, unquiet in the halls. Beat their thin hands against old, solemn walls. I and her brother, all the haunted night, (The torchlight fluttering in some phantom breath) Kept vigil by her. . . .

So he touched the light Chill silks like moonbeams, gathered on her breast: “She was a golden woman: it were best We sent her out to greet her Master, Death, Royal in gold. Yet blossoms, for a maid, White as spun foam are gathered, and her shroud Woven of thin uncoloured silks, and pale Lilies are twisted in her winding veil.”

And then that dead flute whispered. Unafraid I listened, and the darkness laughed aloud Her little bells of laughter, as I stood And spoke, "Lay back your silver cloths, fine-spun— She was a golden woman. The strong sun Found her on warm white beaches, and the wind Painted her breast of his mind Such ripening tints as fruits in autumn know. Warmed at the heart of earth’s soft afterglow. The sunshine sought her in the tangled wood, Girt on its gleaming scabbard at her side And kissed her small hands brown. She was the bride Of light, and her sweet wedding-gown was woofed From sunbeams, in earth’s mansion azure-roofed. Let her go bridal-dressed. So may the light, Her royal lover, find her, in her dim And mazy prison, warded by the night.

So 1 drew back the silks from throat and limb, And laid one burning flower beneath her breast. And 10, the torchlight leapt like naked spears, And colours shook the darkness, and our ears Heard laughter, uttered from the heart that sings— Then the swift throbbing of triumphant wings. As her clean soul sped outward on its quest.

A golden shell lay empty, till the grey Dawn-flood lapped quietly about us there, And sunrise twined bright fingers in her hair— Till the deep bells spake faintly, far away . . . But I sate moveless, in that opal glow. Praying in dream—for one I do not know. ROBIN HYDE Wanganui.