The Great Mirror of Same-Sex Love - Poetry - 4. “…Of a rainbow’s fire and spray…”

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“…Of a rainbow’s fire and spray…”

(Robert Nichols was one of the most admired and oft-quoted poets of his generation. He wrote the following glorious tribute to Pride while he was in uniform, recovering from battle wounds.)

The Passion

Those whose Love, unborn to sight,

Never did itself disclose

Save in water's cry; a rose;

Meteor furrowing the night;

Mote of any turning ray;

Pipe of bird mid sunset's flush;

Rain stilled, leaves flame-wet, and hush

Of a rainbow's fire and spray;

Any straight road leads afar

'Cross a hill-brow—What's beyond?

Seven hung notes of music fond;

Seven dark poplars, one white star;

Cloud lifting a tower aloft;

Light and play and shadowy grace

Of the soul behind a face

Flitting by on motion soft;

Lonely figure on a height;

Those whose love but shines a hint

Fainter than the far sea's glint

To the inland gazer's sight—

These alone, and but in part,

Guess of what my songs are spun,

And Who holds communion

Subtly with my troubled heart.

But the substance of my grief

Scarcely can their thought surmise,

Who but glimpse through these my eyes

Joy as fathomless as brief.

Others in this strange world flung,

Orphans, too, of Destiny,

Have the virtue, but not I,

Keeps heart crystal, single tongue;

And know not, whose hearts are whole,

How—when sickened and unclean,

Unfit or to see, be seen—

Close thorns pack and prick the soul.

Yet though here soul suffereth,

Complicate by vision's light,

Never would I cede this right

Of a sharpened life and death.

For I keep in confidence

In my breast a subtle faith

'Scapes alway by narrow scathe

And I draw my succour thence.

One Day, or maybe one Night—

Living? dying?—I shall see

The Rose open gloriously

On its heart of living light.

Know what any bird may mean,

Meteor in my heart shall rest,

Spelled on my brain blaze th' unguessed

Words of the rainbow's dazzling sheen.

O the hour for which I wait!

Lovers of the Secret Love

Watch with me, and we will prove

Constancy can be elate.

For the sigil we have now

Is but echo, shadow, less

Than a nothing's nothingness,

To what that hour will allow:

Lost and found! The Shining Ones!

Music, passion, scent, delight,

Light and depth and space and height:

Heaven and its seven suns!

—Robert Nichols,[i]

1916

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