That is the language of a mystic, of a mystic who has passed beyond contemplation; who has known or imagined ecstasy. The joy is unmistakable; unmistakable, too, is the horror of the return: Oh! dreadful is the check--intense the agony-- When the ear begins to hear, and the eye begins to see; When the pulse begins to throb, the brain to think again; The soul to feel the flesh, and the flesh to feel the chain. There is no doubt about those three verses; that they are the expression of the rarest and the most tremendous experience that is given to humanity to know. If "The Visionary" does not touch that supernal place, it belongs indubitably to the borderland: Silent is the house; all are laid asleep: One alone looks out o'er the snow-wreaths deep, Watching every cloud, dreading every breeze That whirls the wildering drift and bends the groaning trees. Cheerful is the hearth, soft the matted floor; Not one shivering gust creeps through pane or door; The little lamp burns straight, the rays shoot strong and far I trim it well to be the wanderer's guiding-star. Frown, my haughty sire! chide, my angry dame! Set your slaves to spy; threaten me with shame; But neither sire nor dame, nor prying serf shall know, What angel nightly tracks that waste of frozen snow. What I love shall come like visitant of air, Safe in secret power from lurking human snare; What loves me no word of mine shall e'er betray, Though for faith unstained my life must forfeit pay. Burn then, little lamp; glimmer straight and clear-- Hush! a rustling wing stirs, methinks, the air; He for whom I wait, thus ever comes to me: Strange Power! I trust thy might; trust thou my constancy. Those who can see nothing in this poem but the idealization of an earthly passion must be strangely and perversely mistaken in their Emily Brontë. I confess I can never read it without thinking of one of the most marvellous of all poems of Divine Love: "En una Noche Escura". EN UNA NOCHE ESCURA[A] Upon an obscure night Fevered with Love's anxiety (O hapless, happy plight!) I went, none seeing me, Forth from my house, where all things quiet be. * * * * * Blest night of wandering In secret, when by none might I be spied, Nor I see anything; Without a light to guide Save that which in my heart burnt in my side. That light did lead me on More surely than the shining of noontide, Where well I knew that One Did for my coming bide; Where he abode might none but he abide. O night that didst lead thus; O night more lovely than the dawn of light; O night that broughtest us Lover to lover's sight, Lover to loved, in marriage of delight! [Footnote A: "St. John of the Cross: The Dark Night of the Soul." Translated by Arthur Symons in vol. ii. of his _Collected Poems_.] * * * * *