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diff --git a/31712.txt b/31712.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c6141ca --- /dev/null +++ b/31712.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4842 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Garden of Dreams, by Madison J. Cawein + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Garden of Dreams + +Author: Madison J. Cawein + +Release Date: March 20, 2010 [EBook #31712] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GARDEN OF DREAMS *** + + + + +Produced by David Garcia and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Kentuckiana Digital Library) + + + + + + + + + + THE GARDEN OF DREAMS + + + MADISON CAWEIN + + _Author of "Intimations of the Beautiful," "Undertones," + and several other books of verse_ + + + LOUISVILLE + JOHN P MORTON & COMPANY + MDCCCXCVI + + + COPYRIGHT, 1896, + JOHN P. MORTON & COMPANY. + + + TO + MY BROTHERS. + + + + + _Not while I live may I forget + That garden which my spirit trod! + Where dreams were flowers, wild and wet, + And beautiful as God._ + + _Not while I breathe, awake adream, + Shall live again for me those hours, + When, in its mystery and gleam, + I met her 'mid the flowers._ + + _Eyes, talismanic heliotrope, + Beneath mesmeric lashes, where + The sorceries of love and hope + Had made a shining lair._ + + _And daydawn brows, whereover hung + The twilight of dark locks; and lips, + Whose beauty spoke the rose's tongue + Of fragrance-voweled drips._ + + _I will not tell of cheeks and chin, + That held me as sweet language holds; + Nor of the eloquence within + Her bosom's moony molds._ + + _Nor of her large limbs' languorous + Wind-grace, that glanced like starlight through + Her ardent robe's diaphanous + Web of the mist and dew._ + + _There is no star so pure and high + As was her look; no fragrance such + At her soft presence; and no sigh + Of music like her touch._ + + _Not while I live may I forget + That garden of dim dreams! where I + And Song within the spirit met, + Sweet Song, who passed me by._ + + + + +CONTENTS. + + + PAGE + A Fallen Beech 1 + The Haunted Woodland 3 + Discovery 4 + Comradery 5 + Occult 6 + Wood-Words 7 + The Wind at Night 10 + Airy Tongues 11 + The Hills 13 + Imperfection 14 + Arcanna 15 + Spring 15 + Response 16 + Fulfillment 16 + Transformation 17 + Omens 17 + Abandoned 18 + The Creek Road 19 + The Covered Bridge 19 + The Hillside Grave 20 + Simulacra 20 + Before the End 21 + Winter 21 + Hoar Frost 22 + The Winter Moon 22 + In Summer 23 + Rain and Wind 24 + Under Arcturus 25 + October 27 + Bare Boughs 28 + A Threnody 30 + Snow 31 + Vagabonds 31 + An Old Song 32 + A Rose o' the Hills 33 + Dirge 34 + Rest 35 + Clairvoyance 36 + Indifference 37 + Pictured 37 + Serenade 38 + Kinship 39 + She is So Much 40 + Her Eyes 41 + Messengers 42 + At Twenty-One 43 + Baby Mary 44 + A Motive in Gold and Gray 45 + A Reed Shaken with the Wind 50 + A Flower of the Fields 71 + The White Vigil 73 + Too Late 74 + Intimations 74 + Two 80 + Tones 81 + Unfulfilled 83 + Home 86 + Ashly Mere 87 + Before the Tomb 88 + Revisited 89 + At Vespers 91 + The Creek 92 + Answered 93 + Woman's Portion 95 + Finale 97 + The Cross 98 + The Forest of Dreams 99 + Lynchers 101 + Ku Klux 102 + Rembrandts 103 + The Lady of The Hills 104 + Revealment 106 + Heart's Encouragement 107 + Nightfall 108 + Pause 108 + Above the Vales 109 + A Sunset Fancy 110 + The Fen-Fire 110 + To One Reading the Morte D'Arthure 111 + Strollers 112 + Haunted 114 + Praeterita 115 + The Swashbuckler 115 + The Witch 116 + The Somnambulist 116 + Opium 117 + Music and Sleep 118 + Ambition 118 + Despondency 119 + Despair 119 + Sin 120 + Insomnia 120 + Encouragement 121 + Quatrains 122 + A Last Word 123 + + + + +THE GARDEN OF DREAMS + + + + +A FALLEN BEECH + + + Nevermore at doorways that are barken + Shall the madcap wind knock and the noonlight; + Nor the circle, which thou once didst darken, + Shine with footsteps of the neighboring moonlight, + Visitors for whom thou oft didst hearken. + + Nevermore, gallooned with cloudy laces, + Shall the morning, like a fair freebooter, + Make thy leaves his richest treasure-places; + Nor the sunset, like a royal suitor, + Clothe thy limbs with his imperial graces. + + And no more, between the savage wonder + Of the sunset and the moon's up-coming, + Shall the storm, with boisterous hoof-beats, under + Thy dark roof dance, Faun-like, to the humming + Of the Pan-pipes of the rain and thunder. + + Oft the satyr spirit, beauty-drunken, + Of the Spring called; and the music-measure + Of thy sap made answer; and thy sunken + Veins grew vehement with youth, whose pressure + Swelled thy gnarly muscles, winter-shrunken. + + And the germs, deep down in darkness rooted, + Bubbled green from all thy million oilets, + Where the spirits, rain-and-sunbeam-suited, + Of the April made their whispering toilets, + Or within thy stately shadow footed. + + Oft the hours of blonde Summer tinkled + At the windows of thy twigs, and found thee + Bird-blithe; or, with shapely bodies, twinkled + Lissom feet of naked flowers around thee, + Where thy mats of moss lay sunbeam-sprinkled. + + And the Autumn with his gipsy-coated + Troop of days beneath thy branches rested, + Swarthy-faced and dark of eye; and throated + Songs of hunting; or with red hand tested + Every nut-bur that above him floated. + + Then the Winter, barren-browed, but rich in + Shaggy followers of frost and freezing, + Made the floor of thy broad boughs his kitchen, + Trapper-like, to camp in; grimly easing + Limbs snow-furred and moccasoned with lichen. + + Now, alas! no more do these invest thee + With the dignity of whilom gladness! + They--unto whose hearts thou once confessed thee + Of thy dreams--now know thee not! and sadness + Sits beside thee where forgot dost rest thee. + + + + +THE HAUNTED WOODLAND + + + Here in the golden darkness + And green night of the woods, + A flitting form I follow, + A shadow that eludes-- + Or is it but the phantom + Of former forest moods? + + The phantom of some fancy + I knew when I was young, + And in my dreaming boyhood, + The wildwood flow'rs among, + Young face to face with Faery + Spoke in no unknown tongue. + + Blue were her eyes, and golden + The nimbus of her hair; + And crimson as a flower + Her mouth that kissed me there; + That kissed and bade me follow, + And smiled away my care. + + A magic and a marvel + Lived in her word and look, + As down among the blossoms + She sate me by the brook, + And read me wonder-legends + In Nature's Story Book. + + Loved fairy-tales forgotten, + She never reads again, + Of beautiful enchantments + That haunt the sun and rain, + And, in the wind and water, + Chant a mysterious strain. + + And so I search the forest, + Wherein my spirit feels, + In tree or stream or flower + Herself she still conceals-- + But now she flies who followed, + Whom Earth no more reveals. + + + + +DISCOVERY + + + What is it now that I shall seek, + Where woods dip downward, in the hills?-- + A mossy nook, a ferny creek, + And May among the daffodils. + + Or in the valley's vistaed glow, + Past rocks of terraced trumpet-vines, + Shall I behold her coming slow, + Sweet May, among the columbines? + + With redbud cheeks and bluet eyes, + Big eyes, the homes of happiness, + To meet me with the old surprise, + Her hoiden hair all bonnetless. + + Who waits for me, where, note for note, + The birds make glad the forest-trees? + A dogwood blossom at her throat, + My May among the anemones. + + As sweetheart breezes kiss the blooms, + And dewdrops drink the moonlight's gleams, + My soul shall kiss her lips' perfumes, + And drink the magic of her dreams. + + + + +COMRADERY + + + With eyes hand-arched he looks into + The morning's face, then turns away + With schoolboy feet, all wet with dew, + Out for a holiday. + + The hill brook sings, incessant stars, + Foam-fashioned, on its restless breast; + And where he wades its water-bars + Its song is happiest. + + A comrade of the chinquapin, + He looks into its knotted eyes + And sees its heart; and, deep within, + Its soul that makes him wise. + + The wood-thrush knows and follows him, + Who whistles up the birds and bees; + And 'round him all the perfumes swim + Of woodland loam and trees. + + Where'er he pass the supple springs' + Foam-people sing the flowers awake; + And sappy lips of bark-clad things + Laugh ripe each fruited brake. + + His touch is a companionship; + His word, an old authority: + He comes, a lyric at his lip, + Unstudied Poesy. + + + + +OCCULT + + + Unto the soul's companionship + Of things that only seem to be, + Earth points with magic fingertip + And bids thee see + How Fancy keeps thee company. + + For oft at dawn hast not beheld + A spirit of prismatic hue + Blow wide the buds, which night has swelled? + And stain them through + With heav'n's ethereal gold and blue? + + While at her side another went + With gleams of enigmatic white? + A spirit who distributes scent, + To vale and height, + In footsteps of the rosy light? + + And oft at dusk hast thou not seen + The star-fays bring their caravans + Of dew, and glitter all the green, + Night's shadow tans, + From many starbeam sprinkling-cans? + + Nor watched with these the elfins go + Who tune faint instruments? whose sound + Is that moon-music insects blow + When all the ground + Sleeps, and the night is hushed around? + + + + +WOOD-WORDS + + +I. + + The spirits of the forest, + That to the winds give voice-- + I lie the livelong April day + And wonder what it is they say + That makes the leaves rejoice. + + The spirits of the forest, + That breathe in bud and bloom-- + I walk within the black-haw brake + And wonder how it is they make + The bubbles of perfume. + + The spirits of the forest, + That live in every spring-- + I lean above the brook's bright blue + And wonder what it is they do + That makes the water sing. + + The spirits of the forest. + That haunt the sun's green glow-- + Down fungus ways of fern I steal + And wonder what they can conceal, + In dews, that twinkles so. + + The spirits of the forest, + They hold me, heart and hand-- + And, oh! the bird they send by light, + The jack-o'-lantern gleam by night, + To guide to Fairyland! + + +II. + + The time when dog-tooth violets + Hold up inverted horns of gold,-- + The elvish cups that Spring upsets + With dripping feet, when April wets + The sun-and-shadow-marbled wold,-- + + Is come. And by each leafing way + The sorrel drops pale blots of pink; + And, like an angled star a fay + Sets on her forehead's pallid day, + The blossoms of the trillium wink. + + Within the vale, by rock and stream,-- + A fragile, fairy porcelain,-- + Blue as a baby's eyes a-dream, + The bluets blow; and gleam in gleam + The sun-shot dog-woods flash with rain. + + It is the time to cast off care; + To make glad intimates of these:-- + The frank-faced sunbeam laughing there; + The great-heart wind, that bids us share + The optimism of the trees. + + +III. + + The white ghosts of the flowers, + The green ghosts of the trees: + They haunt the blooming bowers, + They haunt the wildwood hours, + And whisper in the breeze. + + For in the wildrose places, + And on the beechen knoll, + My soul hath seen their faces, + My soul hath met their races, + And felt their dim control. + + +IV. + + Crab-apple buds, whose bells + The mouth of April kissed; + That hang,--like rosy shells + Around a naiad's wrist,-- + Pink as dawn-tinted mist. + + And paw-paw buds, whose dark + Deep auburn blossoms shake + On boughs,--as 'neath the bark + A dryad's eyes awake,-- + Brown as a midnight lake. + + These, with symbolic blooms + Of wind-flower and wild-phlox, + I found among the glooms + Of hill-lost woods and rocks, + Lairs of the mink and fox. + + The beetle in the brush, + The bird about the creek, + The bee within the hush, + And I, whose heart was meek, + Stood still to hear these speak. + + The language, that records, + In flower-syllables, + The hieroglyphic words + Of beauty, who enspells + The world and aye compels. + + + + +THE WIND AT NIGHT + + +I. + + Not till the wildman wind is shrill, + Howling upon the hill + In every wolfish tree, whose boisterous boughs, + Like desperate arms, gesture and beat the night, + And down huge clouds, in chasms of stormy white + The frightened moon hurries above the house, + Shall I lie down; and, deep,-- + Letting the mad wind keep + Its shouting revel round me,--fall asleep. + + +II. + + Not till its dark halloo is hushed, + And where wild waters rushed,-- + Like some hoofed terror underneath its whip + And spur of foam,--remains + A ghostly glass, hill-framed; whereover stains + Of moony mists and rains, + And stealthy starbeams, like vague specters, slip; + Shall I--with thoughts that take + Unto themselves the ache + Of silence as a sound--from sleep awake. + + + + +AIRY TONGUES + + +I. + + I hear a song the wet leaves lisp + When Morn comes down the woodland way; + And misty as a thistle-wisp + Her gown gleams windy gray; + A song, that seems to say, + "Awake! 'tis day!" + + I hear a sigh, when Day sits down + Beside the sunlight-lulled lagoon; + While on her glistening hair and gown + The rose of rest is strewn; + A sigh, that seems to croon, + "Come sleep! 'tis noon!" + + I hear a whisper, when the stars, + Upon some evening-purpled height, + Crown the dead Day with nenuphars + Of dreamy gold and white; + A voice, that seems t' invite, + "Come love! 'tis night!" + + +II. + + Before the rathe song-sparrow sings + Among the hawtrees in the lane, + And to the wind the locust flings + Its early clusters fresh with rain; + Beyond the morning-star, that swings + Its rose of fire above the spire, + Between the morning's watchet wings, + A voice that rings o'er brooks and boughs-- + "Arouse! arouse!" + + Before the first brown owlet cries + Among the grape-vines on the hill, + And in the dam with half-shut eyes + The lilies rock above the mill; + Beyond the oblong moon, that flies + Its pearly flower above the tower, + Between the twilight's primrose skies, + A voice that sighs from east to west-- + "To rest! to rest!" + + + + +THE HILLS + + + There is no joy of earth that thrills + My bosom like the far-off hills! + Th' unchanging hills, that, shadowy, + Beckon our mutability + To follow and to gaze upon + Foundations of the dusk and dawn. + Meseems the very heavens are massed + Upon their shoulders, vague and vast + With all the skyey burden of + The winds and clouds and stars above. + Lo, how they sit before us, seeing + The laws that give all Beauty being! + Behold! to them, when dawn is near, + The nomads of the air appear, + Unfolding crimson camps of day + In brilliant bands; then march away; + And under burning battlements + Of twilight plant their tinted tents. + The faith of olden myths, that brood + By haunted stream and haunted wood, + They see; and feel the happiness + Of old at which we only guess: + The dreams, the ancients loved and knew, + Still as their rocks and trees are true: + Not otherwise than presences + The tempest and the calm to these: + One shouting on them, all the night, + Black-limbed and veined with lambent light: + The other with the ministry + Of all soft things that company + With music--an embodied form, + Giving to solitude the charm + Of leaves and waters and the peace + Of bird-begotten melodies-- + And who at night doth still confer + With the mild moon, who telleth her + Pale tale of lonely love, until + Wan images of passion fill + The heights with shapes that glimmer by + Clad on with sleep and memory. + + + + +IMPERFECTION + + + Not as the eye hath seen, shall we behold + Romance and beauty, when we've passed away; + That robed the dull facts of the intimate day + In life's wild raiment of unusual gold: + Not as the ear hath heard, shall we be told, + Hereafter, myth and legend once that lay + Warm at the heart of Nature, clothing clay + In attribute of no material mold. + These were imperfect of necessity, + That wrought thro' imperfection for far ends + Of perfectness--As calm philosophy, + Teaching a child, from his high heav'n descends + To Earth's familiar things; informingly + Vesting his thoughts with that it comprehends. + + + + +ARCANNA + + + Earth hath her images of utterance, + Her hieroglyphic meanings which elude; + A symbol language of similitude, + Into whose secrets science may not glance; + In which the Mind-in-Nature doth romance + In miracles that baffle if pursued-- + No guess shall search them and no thought intrude + Beyond the limits of her sufferance. + So doth the great Intelligence above + Hide His own thought's creations; and attire + Forms in the dream's ideal, which He dowers + With immaterial loveliness and love-- + As essences of fragrance and of fire-- + Preaching th' evangels of the stars and flowers. + + + + +SPRING + + + First came the rain, loud, with sonorous lips; + A pursuivant who heralded a prince: + And dawn put on a livery of tints, + And dusk bound gold about her hair and hips: + And, all in silver mail, then sunlight came, + A knight, who bade the winter let him pass, + And freed imprisoned beauty, naked as + The Court of Love, in all her wildflower shame. + And so she came, in breeze-borne loveliness, + Across the hills; and heav'n bent down to bless: + Before her face the birds were as a lyre; + And at her feet, like some strong worshiper, + The shouting water paean'd praise of her, + Who, with blue eyes, set the wild world on fire. + + + + +RESPONSE + + + There is a music of immaculate love, + That breathes within the virginal veins of Spring:-- + And trillium blossoms, like the stars that cling + To fairies' wands; and, strung on sprays above, + White-hearts and mandrake blooms, that look enough + Like the elves' washing, white with laundering + Of May-moon dews; and all pale-opening + Wild-flowers of the woods, are born thereof. + There is no sod Spring's white foot brushes but + Must feel the music that vibrates within, + And thrill to the communicated touch + Responsive harmonies, that must unshut + The heart of beauty for song's concrete kin, + Emotions--that be flowers--born of such. + + + + +FULFILLMENT + + + Yes, there are some who may look on these + Essential peoples of the earth and air-- + That have the stars and flowers in their care-- + And all their soul-suggestive secrecies: + Heart-intimates and comrades of the trees, + Who from them learn, what no known schools declare, + God's knowledge; and from winds, that discourse there, + God's gospel of diviner mysteries: + To whom the waters shall divulge a word + Of fuller faith; the sunset and the dawn + Preach sermons more inspired even than + The tongues of Penticost; as, distant heard + In forms of change, through Nature upward drawn, + God doth address th' immortal soul of Man. + + + + +TRANSFORMATION + + + It is the time when, by the forest falls, + The touchmenots hang fairy folly-caps; + When ferns and flowers fill the lichened laps + Of rocks with color, rich as orient shawls: + And in my heart I hear a voice that calls + Me woodward, where the Hamadryad wraps + Her limbs in bark, or, bubbling in the saps, + Laughs the sweet Greek of Pan's old madrigals. + There is a gleam that lures me up the stream-- + A Naiad swimming with wet limbs of light? + Perfume, that leads me on from dream to dream-- + An Oread's footprints fragrant with her flight? + And, lo! meseems I am a Faun again, + Part of the myths that I pursue in vain. + + + + +OMENS + + + Sad o'er the hills the poppy sunset died. + Slow as a fungus breaking through the crusts + Of forest leaves, the waning half-moon thrusts, + Through gray-brown clouds, one milky silver side; + In her vague light the dogwoods, vale-descried, + Seem nervous torches flourished by the gusts; + The apple-orchards seem the restless dusts + Of wind-thinned mists upon the hills they hide. + It is a night of omens whom late May + Meets, like a wraith, among her train of hours; + An apparition, with appealing eye + And hesitant foot, that walks a willowed way, + And, speaking through the fading moon and + flowers, + Bids her prepare her gentle soul to die. + + + + +ABANDONED + + + The hornets build in plaster-dropping rooms, + And on its mossy porch the lizard lies; + Around its chimneys slow the swallow flies, + And on its roof the locusts snow their blooms. + Like some sad thought that broods here, old perfumes + Haunt its dim stairs; the cautious zephyr tries + Each gusty door, like some dead hand, then sighs + With ghostly lips among the attic glooms. + And now a heron, now a kingfisher, + Flits in the willows where the riffle seems + At each faint fall to hesitate to leap, + Fluttering the silence with a little stir. + Here Summer seems a placid face asleep, + And the near world a figment of her dreams. + + + + +THE CREEK-ROAD + + + Calling, the heron flies athwart the blue + That sleeps above it; reach on rocky reach + Of water sings by sycamore and beech, + In whose warm shade bloom lilies not a few. + It is a page whereon the sun and dew + Scrawl sparkling words in dawn's delicious speech; + A laboratory where the wood-winds teach, + Dissect each scent and analyze each hue. + Not otherwise than beautiful, doth it + Record the happ'nings of each summer day; + Where we may read, as in a catalogue, + When passed a thresher; when a load of hay; + Or when a rabbit; or a bird that lit; + And now a bare-foot truant and his dog. + + + + +THE COVERED BRIDGE + + + There, from its entrance, lost in matted vines,-- + Where in the valley foams a water-fall,--- + Is glimpsed a ruined mill's remaining wall; + Here, by the road, the oxeye daisy mines + Hot brass and bronze; the trumpet-trailer shines + Red as the plumage of the cardinal. + Faint from the forest comes the rain-crow's call + Where dusty Summer dreams among the pines. + This is the spot where Spring writes wildflower verses + In primrose pink, while, drowsing o'er his reins, + The ploughman, all unnoticing, plods along: + And where the Autumn opens weedy purses + Of sleepy silver, while the corn-heaped wains + Rumble the bridge like some deep throat of song. + + + + +THE HILLSIDE GRAVE + + + Ten-hundred deep the drifted daisies break + Here at the hill's foot; on its top, the wheat + Hangs meagre-bearded; and, in vague retreat, + The wisp-like blooms of the moth-mulleins shake. + And where the wild-pink drops a crimson flake, + And morning-glories, like young lips, make sweet + The shaded hush, low in the honeyed heat, + The wild-bees hum; as if afraid to wake + One sleeping there; with no white stone to tell + The story of existence; but the stem + Of one wild-rose, towering o'er brier and weed, + Where all the day the wild-birds requiem; + Within whose shade the timid violets spell + An epitaph, only the stars can read. + + + + +SIMULACRA + + + Dark in the west the sunset's somber wrack + Unrolled vast walls the rams of war had split, + Along whose battlements the battle lit + Tempestuous beacons; and, with gates hurled back, + A mighty city, red with ruin and sack, + Through burning breaches, crumbling bit by bit, + Showed where the God of Slaughter seemed to sit + With conflagration glaring at each crack. + Who knows? perhaps as sleep unto us makes + Our dreams as real as our waking seems + With recollections time can not destroy, + So in the mind of Nature now awakes + Haply some wilder memory, and she dreams + The stormy story of the fall of Troy. + + + + +BEFORE THE END + + + How does the Autumn in her mind conclude + The tragic masque her frosty pencil writes, + Broad on the pages of the days and nights, + In burning lines of orchard, wold, and wood? + What lonelier forms--that at the year's door stood + At spectral wait--with wildly wasted lights + Shall enter? and with melancholy rites + Inaugurate their sadder sisterhood?-- + Sorrow, who lifts a signal hand, and slow + The green leaf fevers, falling ere it dies; + Regret, whose pale lips summon, and gaunt Woe + Wakes the wild-wind harps with sonorous sighs; + And Sleep, who sits with poppied eyes and sees + The earth and sky grow dream-accessories. + + + + +WINTER + + + The flute, whence Autumn's misty finger-tips + Drew music--ripening the pinched kernels in + The burly chestnut and the chinquapin, + Red-rounding-out the oval haws and hips,-- + Now Winter crushes to his stormy lips + And surly songs whistle around his chin: + Now the wild days and wilder nights begin + When, at the eaves, the crooked icicle drips. + Thy songs, O Autumn, are not lost so soon! + Still dwells a memory in thy hollow flute, + Which, unto Winter's masculine airs, doth give + Thy own creative qualities of tune, + By which we see each bough bend white with fruit, + Each bush with bloom, in snow commemorative. + + + + +HOAR-FROST + + + The frail eidolons of all blossoms Spring, + Year after year, about the forest tossed, + The magic touch of the enchanter, Frost, + Back from the Heaven of the Flow'rs doth bring; + Each branch and bush in silence visiting + With phantom beauty of its blooms long lost: + Each dead weed bends, white-haunted of its ghost, + Each dead flower stands ghostly with blossoming. + This is the wonder-legend Nature tells + To the gray moon and mist a winter's night; + The fairy-tale, which her weird fancy 'spells + With all the glamour of her soul's delight: + Before the summoning sorcery of her eyes + Making her spirit's dream materialize. + + + + +THE WINTER MOON + + + Deep in the dell I watched her as she rose, + A face of icy fire, o'er the hills; + With snow-sad eyes to freeze the forest rills, + And snow-sad feet to bleach the meadow snows: + Pale as some young witch who, a-listening, goes + To her first meeting with the Fiend; whose fears + Fix demon eyes behind each bush she nears; + Stops, yet must on, fearful of following foes. + And so I chased her, startled in the wood, + Like a discovered Oread, who flies + The Faun who found her sleeping, each nude limb + Glittering betrayal through the solitude; + Till in a frosty cloud I saw her swim, + Like a drowned face, a blur beneath the ice. + + + + +IN SUMMER + + + When in dry hollows, hilled with hay, + The vesper-sparrow sings afar; + And, golden gray, dusk dies away + Beneath the amber evening-star: + There, where a warm and shadowy arm + The woodland lays around the farm, + To meet you where we kissed, dear heart, + To kiss you at the tryst, dear heart, + To kiss you at the tryst! + + When clover fields smell cool with dew, + And crickets cry, and roads are still; + And faint and few the fire-flies strew + The dark where calls the whippoorwill; + There, in the lane, where sweet again + The petals of the wild-rose rain, + To stroll with head to head, dear heart, + And say the words oft said, dear heart, + And say the words oft said! + + + + +RAIN AND WIND + + + I hear the hoofs of horses + Galloping over the hill, + Galloping on and galloping on, + When all the night is shrill + With wind and rain that beats the pane-- + And my soul with awe is still. + + For every dripping window + Their headlong rush makes bound, + Galloping up, and galloping by, + Then back again and around, + Till the gusty roofs ring with their hoofs, + And the draughty cellars sound. + + And then I hear black horsemen + Hallooing in the night; + Hallooing and hallooing, + They ride o'er vale and height, + And the branches snap and the shutters clap + With the fury of their flight. + + Then at each door a horseman,-- + With burly bearded lip + Hallooing through the keyhole,-- + Pauses with cloak a-drip; + And the door-knob shakes and the panel quakes + 'Neath the anger of his whip. + + All night I hear their gallop, + And their wild halloo's alarm; + The tree-tops sound and vanes go round + In forest and on farm; + But never a hair of a thing is there-- + Only the wind and storm. + + + + +UNDER ARCTURUS + + +I. + + "I belt the morn with ribboned mist; + With baldricked blue I gird the noon, + And dusk with purple, crimson-kissed, + White-buckled with the hunter's moon. + + "These follow me," the season says: + "Mine is the frost-pale hand that packs + Their scrips, and speeds them on their ways, + With gipsy gold that weighs their backs." + + +II. + + A daybreak horn the Autumn blows, + As with a sun-tanned band he parts + Wet boughs whereon the berry glows; + And at his feet the red-fox starts. + + The leafy leash that holds his hounds + Is loosed; and all the noonday hush + Is startled; and the hillside sounds + Behind the fox's bounding brush. + + When red dusk makes the western sky + A fire-lit window through the firs, + He stoops to see the red-fox die + Among the chestnut's broken burs. + + Then fanfaree and fanfaree, + Down vistas of the afterglow + His bugle rings from tree to tree, + While all the world grows hushed below. + + +III. + + Like some black host the shadows fall, + And darkness camps among the trees; + Each wildwood road, a Goblin Hall, + Grows populous with mysteries. + + Night comes with brows of ragged storm, + And limbs of writhen cloud and mist; + The rain-wind hangs upon her arm + Like some wild girl that will be kissed. + + By her gaunt hand the leaves are shed + Like nightmares an enchantress herds; + And, like a witch who calls the dead, + The hill-stream whirls with foaming words. + + Then all is sudden silence and + Dark fear--like his who can not see, + Yet hears, aye in a haunted land, + Death rattling on a gallow's tree. + + +IV. + + The days approach again; the days, + Whose mantles stream, whose sandals drag; + When in the haze by puddled ways + Each gnarled thorn seems a crooked hag. + + When rotting orchards reek with rain; + And woodlands crumble, leaf and log; + And in the drizzling yard again + The gourd is tagged with points of fog. + + Oh, let me seat my soul among + Your melancholy moods! and touch + Your thoughts' sweet sorrow without tongue, + Whose silence says too much, too much! + + + + +OCTOBER + + + Long hosts of sunlight, and the bright wind blows + A tourney trumpet on the listed hill: + Past is the splendor of the royal rose + And duchess daffodil. + + Crowned queen of beauty, in the garden's space, + Strong daughter of a bitter race and bold, + A ragged beggar with a lovely face, + Reigns the sad marigold. + + And I have sought June's butterfly for days, + To find it--like a coreopsis bloom-- + Amber and seal, rain-murdered 'neath the blaze + Of this sunflower's plume. + + Here basks the bee; and there, sky-voyaging wings + Dare God's blue gulfs of heaven; the last song, + The red-bird flings me as adieu, still rings + Upon yon pear-tree's prong. + + No angry sunset brims with rosier red + The bowl of heaven than the days, indeed, + Pour in each blossom of this salvia-bed, + Where each leaf seems to bleed. + + And where the wood-gnats dance, a tiny mist, + Above the efforts of the weedy stream, + The girl, October, tired of the tryst, + Dreams a diviner dream. + + One foot just dipping the caressing wave, + One knee at languid angle; locks that drown + Hands nut-stained; hazel-eyed, she lies, and grave, + Watching the leaves drift down. + + + + +BARE BOUGHS + + + O heart, that beat the bird's blithe blood, + The blithe bird's message that pursued, + Now song is dead as last year's bud, + What dost thou in the wood? + + O soul, that kept the brook's glad flow, + The glad brook's word to sun and moon, + What dost thou here where song lies low + As all the dreams of June? + + Where once was heard a voice of song, + The hautboys of the mad winds sing; + Where once a music flowed along, + The rain's wild bugles ring. + + The weedy water frets and ails, + And moans in many a sunless fall; + And, o'er the melancholy, trails + The black crow's eldritch call. + + Unhappy brook! O withered wood! + O days, whom death makes comrades of! + Where are the birds that thrilled the blood + When life struck hands with love? + + A song, one soared against the blue; + A song, one bubbled in the leaves; + A song, one threw where orchards grew + All appled to the eaves. + + But now the birds are flown or dead; + And sky and earth are bleak and gray; + The wild winds sob i' the boughs instead, + The wild leaves sigh i' the way. + + + + +A THRENODY + + +I. + + The rainy smell of a ferny dell, + Whose shadow no sunray flaws, + When Autumn sits in the wayside weeds + Telling her beads + Of haws. + + +II. + + The phantom mist, that is moonbeam-kissed, + On hills where the trees are thinned, + When Autumn leans at the oak-root's scarp, + Playing a harp + Of wind. + + +III. + + The crickets' chirr 'neath brier and burr, + By leaf-strewn pools and streams, + When Autumn stands 'mid the dropping nuts, + With the book, she shuts, + Of dreams. + + +IV. + + The gray "alas" of the days that pass, + And the hope that says "adieu," + A parting sorrow, a shriveled flower, + And one ghost's hour + With you. + + + + +SNOW + + + The moon, like a round device + On a shadowy shield of war, + Hangs white in a heaven of ice + With a solitary star. + + The wind is sunk to a sigh, + And the waters are stern with frost; + And gray, in the eastern sky, + The last snow-cloud is lost. + + White fields, that are winter-starved, + Black woods, that are winter-fraught, + Cold, harsh as a face death-carved + With the iron of some black thought. + + + + +VAGABONDS + + + Your heart's a-tune with April and mine a-tune with June, + So let us go a-roving beneath the summer moon: + Oh, was it in the sunlight, or was it in the rain, + We met among the blossoms within the locust lane? + All that I can remember's the bird that sang aboon, + And with its music in our hearts we'll rove beneath the moon. + + A love-word of the wind, dear, of which we'll read the rune, + While we still go a-roving beneath the summer moon: + A love-kiss of the water we'll often stop to hear-- + The echoed words and kisses of our own love, my dear: + And all our path shall blossom with wild-rose sweets that swoon, + And with their fragrance in our hearts we'll rove beneath the moon. + + It will not be forever, yet merry goes the tune + While we still go a-roving beneath the summer moon: + A cabin, in the clearing, of flickering firelight + When old-time lanes we strolled in the winter snows make white: + Where we can nod together above the logs and croon + The songs we sang when roving beneath the summer moon. + + + + +AN OLD SONG + + + It's Oh, for the hills, where the wind's some one + With a vagabond foot that follows! + And a cheer-up hand that he claps upon + Your arm with the hearty words, "Come on! + We'll soon be out of the hollows, + My heart! + We'll soon be out of the hollows!" + + It's Oh, for the songs, where the hope's some one + With a renegade foot that doubles! + And a kindly look that he turns upon + Your face with the friendly laugh, "Come on! + We'll soon be out of the troubles, + My heart! + We'll soon be out of the troubles!" + + + + +A ROSE O' THE HILLS + + + The hills look down on wood and stream, + On orchard-land and farm; + And o'er the hills the azure-gray + Of heaven bends the livelong day + With thoughts of calm and storm. + + On wood and stream the hills look down, + On farm and orchard-land; + And o'er the hills she came to me + Through wildrose-brake and blackberry, + The hill wind hand in hand. + + The hills look down on home and field, + On wood and winding stream; + And o'er the hills she came along, + Upon her lips a woodland song, + And in her eyes, a dream. + + On home and field the hills look down, + On stream and vistaed wood; + And breast-deep, with disordered hair, + Fair in the wildrose tangle there, + A sudden space she stood. + + O hills, that look on rock and road, + On grove and harvest-field, + To whom God giveth rest and peace, + And slumber, that is kin to these, + And visions unrevealed! + + O hills, that look on road and rock, + On field and fruited grove, + What now is mine of peace and rest + In you! since entered at my breast + God's sweet unrest of love! + + + + +DIRGE + + + What shall her silence keep + Under the sun? + Here, where the willows weep + And waters run; + Here, where she lies asleep, + And all is done. + + Lights, when the tree-top swings; + Scents that are sown; + Sounds of the wood-bird's wings; + And the bee's drone: + These be her comfortings + Under the stone. + + What shall watch o'er her here + When day is fled? + Here, when the night is near + And skies are red; + Here, where she lieth dear + And young and dead. + + Shadows, and winds that spill + Dew; and the tune + Of the wild whippoorwill; + And the white moon; + These be the watchers still + Over her stone. + + + + +REST + + + Under the brindled beech, + Deep in the mottled shade, + Where the rocks hang in reach + Flower and ferny blade, + Let him be laid. + + Here will the brooks, that rove + Under the mossy trees, + Grave with the music of + Underworld melodies, + Lap him in peace. + + Here will the winds, that blow + Out of the haunted west, + Gold with the dreams that glow + There on the heaven's breast, + Lull him to rest. + + Here will the stars and moon, + Silent and far and deep, + Old with the mystic rune + Of the slow years that creep, + Charm him with sleep. + + Under the ancient beech, + Deep in the mossy shade, + Where the hill moods may reach, + Where the hill dreams may aid, + Let him be laid. + + + + +CLAIRVOYANCE + + + The sunlight that makes of the heaven + A pathway for sylphids to throng; + The wind that makes harps of the forests + For spirits to smite into song, + Are the image and voice of a vision + That comforts my heart and makes strong. + + I look in one's face, and the shadows + Are lifted: and, lo, I can see, + Through windows of evident being, + That open on eternity, + The form of the essence of Beauty + God clothes with His own mystery. + + I lean to one's voice, and the wrangle + Of living hath pause: and I hear + Through doors of invisible spirit, + That open on light that is clear, + The radiant raiment of Music + In the hush of the heavens sweep near. + + + + +INDIFFERENCE + + + She is so dear the wildflowers near + Each path she passes by, + Are over fain to kiss again + Her feet and then to die. + + She is so fair the wild birds there + That sing upon the bough, + Have learned the staff of her sweet laugh, + And sing no other now. + + Alas! that she should never see, + Should never care to know, + The wildflower's love, the bird's above, + And his, who loves her so! + + + + +PICTURED + + + This is the face of her + I've dreamed of long; + Here in my heart's despair, + This is the face of her + Pictured in song. + + Look on the lily lids, + The eyes of dawn, + Deep as a Nereid's, + Swimming with dewy lids + In waters wan. + + Look on the brows of snow, + The locks brown-bright; + Only young sleep can show + Such brows of placid snow, + Such locks of night. + + The cheeks, like rosy moons, + The lips of fire; + Love thinks no sweeter tunes + Under enchanted moons + Than their desire. + + Loved lips and eyes and hair, + Lo, this is she! + She, who sits smiling there + Over my heart's despair, + Never for me! + + + + +SERENADE + + + The pink rose drops its petals on + The moonlit lawn, the moonlit lawn; + The moon, like some wide rose of white, + Drops down the summer night. + No rose there is + As sweet as this-- + Thy mouth, that greets me with a kiss. + + The lattice of thy casement twines + With jasmine vines, with jasmine vines; + The stars, like jasmine blossoms, lie + About the glimmering sky. + No jasmine tress + Can so caress + As thy white arms' soft loveliness. + + About thy door magnolia blooms + Make sweet the glooms, make sweet the glooms; + A moon-magnolia is the dusk + Closed in a dewy husk. + However much, + No bloom gives such + Soft fragrance as thy bosom's touch. + + The flowers, blooming now, shall pass, + And strew the grass, and strew the grass; + The night, like some frail flower, dawn + Shall soon make gray and wan. + Still, still above, + The flower of + True love shall live forever, love. + + + + +KINSHIP + + +I. + + There is no flower of wood or lea, + No April flower, as fair as she: + O white anemone, who hast + The wind's wild grace, + Know her a cousin of thy race, + Into whose face + A presence like the wind's hath passed. + + +II. + + There is no flower of wood or lea, + No Maytime flower, as fair as she: + O bluebell, tender with the blue + Of limpid skies, + Thy lineage hath kindred ties + In her, whose eyes + The heav'n's own qualities imbue. + + +III. + + There is no flower of wood or lea, + No Juneday flower, as fair as she: + Rose,--odorous with beauty of + Life's first and best,-- + Behold thy sister here confessed! + Whose maiden breast + Is fragrant with the dreams of love. + + + + +SHE IS SO MUCH + + + She is so much to me, to me, + And, oh! I love her so, + I look into my soul and see + How comfort keeps me company + In hopes she, too, may know. + I love her, I love her, I love her, + This I know. + + So dear she is to me, so dear, + And, oh! I love her so, + I listen in my heart and hear + The voice of gladness singing near + In thoughts she, too, may know. + I love her, I love her, I love her, + This I know. + + So much she is to me, so much, + And, oh! I love her so, + In heart and soul I feel the touch + Of angel callers, that are such + Dreams as she, too, may know. + I love her, I love her, I love her, + This I know. + + + + +HER EYES + + + In her dark eyes dreams poetize; + The soul sits lost in love: + There is no thing in all the skies, + To gladden all the world I prize, + Like the deep love in her dark eyes, + Or one sweet dream thereof. + + In her dark eyes, where thoughts arise, + Her soul's soft moods I see: + Of hope and faith, that make life wise; + And charity, whose food is sighs-- + Not truer than her own true eyes + Is truth's divinity. + + In her dark eyes the knowledge lies + Of an immortal sod, + Her soul once trod in angel-guise, + Nor can forget its heavenly ties, + Since, there in Heaven, upon her eyes + Once gazed the eyes of God. + + + + +MESSENGERS + + + The wind, that gives the rose a kiss + With murmured music of the south, + Hath kissed a sweeter thing than this,-- + The wind, that gives the rose a kiss-- + The perfume of her mouth. + + The brook, that mirrors skies and trees, + And echoes in a grottoed place, + Hath held a fairer thing than these,-- + The brook, that mirrors skies and trees,-- + The image of her face. + + O happy wind! O happy brook! + So dear before, so free of cares! + How dearer since her kiss and look,-- + O happy wind! O happy brook!-- + Have blessed you unawares! + + + + +AT TWENTY-ONE + + + The rosy hills of her high breasts, + Whereon, like misty morning, rests + The breathing lace; her auburn hair, + Wherein, a star point sparkling there, + One jewel burns; her eyes, that keep + Recorded dreams of song and sleep; + Her mouth, with whose comparison + The richest rose were poor and wan; + Her throat, her form--what masterpiece + Of man can picture half of these! + She comes! a classic from the hand + Of God! wherethrough I understand + What Nature means and Art and Love, + And all the lovely Myths thereof. + + + + +BABY MARY + +TO LITTLE M. E. C. G. + + + Deep in baby Mary's eyes, + Baby Mary's sweet blue eyes, + Dwell the golden memories + Of the music once her ears + Heard in far-off Paradise; + So she has no time for tears,-- + Baby Mary,-- + Listening to the songs she hears. + + Soft in baby Mary's face, + Baby Mary's lovely face, + If you watch, you, too, may trace + Dreams her spirit-self hath seen + In some far-off Eden-place, + Whence her soul she can not wean,-- + Baby Mary,-- + Dreaming in a world between. + + + + +A MOTIVE IN GOLD AND GRAY + + +I. + + To-night he sees their star burn, dewy-bright, + Deep in the pansy, eve hath made for it, + Low in the west; a placid purple lit + At its far edge with warm auroral light: + Love's planet hangs above a cedared height; + And there in shadow, like gold music writ + Of dusk's dark fingers, scale-like fire-flies flit + Now up, now down the balmy bars of night. + How different from that eve a year ago! + Which was a stormy flower in the hair + Of dolorous day, whose sombre eyes looked, blurred, + Into night's sibyl face, and saw the woe + Of parting near, and imaged a despair, + As now a hope caught from a homing word. + + +II. + + She came unto him--as the springtime does + Unto the land where all lies dead and cold, + Until her rosary of days is told + And beauty, prayer-like, blossoms where death was.-- + Nature divined her coming--yea, the dusk + Seemed thinking of that happiness: behold, + No cloud it had to blot its marigold + Moon, great and golden, o'er the slopes of musk; + Whereon earth's voice made music; leaf and stream + Lilting the same low lullaby again, + To coax the wind, who romped among the hills + All day, a tired child, to sleep and dream: + When through the moonlight of the locust-lane + She came, as spring comes through her daffodils. + + +III. + + White as a lily molded of Earth's milk + That eve the moon swam in a hyacinth sky; + Soft in the gleaming glens the wind went by, + Faint as a phantom clothed in unseen silk: + Bright as a naiad's leap, from shine to shade, + The runnel twinkled through the shaken brier; + Above the hills one long cloud, pulsed with fire, + Flashed like a great, enchantment-welded blade. + And when the western sky seemed some weird land, + And night a witching spell at whose command + One sloping star fell green from heav'n; and deep + The warm rose opened for the moth to sleep; + Then she, consenting, laid her hands in his, + And lifted up her lips for their first kiss. + + +IV. + + There where they part, the porch's step is strewn + With wind-tossed petals of the purple vine; + Athwart the porch the shadow of a pine + Cleaves the white moonlight; and, like some calm rune + Heaven says to Earth, shines the majestic moon; + And now a meteor draws a lilac line + Across the welkin, as if God would sign + The perfect poem of this night of June. + The wood-wind stirs the flowering chestnut-tree, + Whose curving blossoms strew the glimmering grass + Like crescents that wind-wrinkled waters glass; + And, like a moonstone in a frill of flame, + The dew-drop trembles on the peony, + As in a lover's heart his sweetheart's name. + + +V. + + In after years shall she stand here again, + In heart regretful? and with lonely sighs + Think on that night of love, and realize + Whose was the fault whence grew the parting pain? + And, in her soul, persuading still in vain, + Shall doubt take shape, and all its old surmise + Bid darker phantoms of remorse arise + Trailing the raiment of a dead disdain? + Masks, unto whom shall her avowal yearn, + With looks clairvoyant seeing how each is + A different form, with eyes and lips that burn + Into her heart with love's last look and kiss?-- + And, ere they pass, shall she behold them turn + To her a face which evermore is his? + + +VI. + + In after years shall he remember how + Dawn had no breeze soft as her murmured name? + And day no sunlight that availed the same + As her bright smile to cheer the world below? + Nor had the conscious twilight's golds and grays + Her soul's allurement, that was free of blame,-- + Nor dusk's gold canvas, where one star's white flame + Shone, more bewitchment than her own sweet ways.-- + Then as the night with moonlight and perfume, + And dew and darkness, qualifies the whole + Dim world with glamour, shall the past with dreams-- + That were the love-theme of their lives--illume + The present with remembered hours, whose gleams, + Unknown to him, shall face them soul to soul? + + +VII. + + No! not for her and him that part;---the Might- + Have-Been's sad consolation;--where had bent, + Haply, in prayer and patience penitent, + Both, though apart, before no blown-out light. + The otherwise of fate for them, when white + The lilacs bloom again, and, innocent, + Spring comes with beauty for her testament, + Singing the praises of the day and night. + When orchards blossom and the distant hill + Is vague with haw-trees as a ridge with mist, + The moon shall see him where a watch he keeps + By her young form that lieth white and still, + With lidded eyes and passive wrist on wrist, + While by her side he bows himself and weeps. + + +VIII. + + And, oh, what pain to see the blooms appear + Of haw and dogwood in the spring again; + The primrose leaning with the dragging rain, + And hill-locked orchards swarming far and near. + To see the old fields, that her steps made dear, + Grow green with deepening plenty of the grain, + Yet feel how this excess of life is vain,-- + How vain to him!--since she no more is here. + What though the woodland burgeon, water flow, + Like a rejoicing harp, beneath the boughs! + The cat-bird and the hermit-thrush arouse + Day with the impulsive music of their love! + Beneath the graveyard sod she will not know, + Nor what his heart is all too conscious of! + + +IX. + + How blessed is he who, gazing in the tomb, + Can yet behold, beneath th' investing mask + Of mockery,--whose horror seems to ask + Sphinx-riddles of the soul within the gloom,-- + Upon dead lips no dust of Love's dead bloom; + And in dead hands no shards of Faith's rent flask; + But Hope, who still stands at her starry task, + Weaving the web of comfort on her loom! + Thrice blessed! who, 'though he hear the tomb proclaim, + How all is Death's and Life Death's other name; + Can yet reply: "O Grave, these things are yours! + But that is left which life indeed assures-- + Love, through whose touch I shall arise the same! + Love, of whose self was wrought the universe!" + + + + +A REED SHAKEN WITH THE WIND + + +I. + + Not for you and me the path + Winding through the shadowless + Fields of morning's dewiness! + Where the brook, that hurries, hath + Laughter lighter than a boy's; + Where recurrent odors poise, + Romp-like, with irreverent tresses, + In the sun; and birds and boughs + Build a music-haunted house + For the winds to hang their dresses, + Whisper-silken, rustling in. + Ours a path that led unto + Twilight regions gray with dew; + Where moon-vapors gathered thin + Over acres sisterless + Of all healthy beauty; where + Fungus growths made sad the air + With a phantom-like caress: + Under darkness and strange stars, + To the sorrow-silenced bars + Of a dubious forestland, + Where the wood-scents seemed to stand, + And the sounds, on either hand, + Clad like sleep's own servitors + In the shadowy livery + Of the ancient house of dreams; + That before us,--fitfully, + With white intermittent gleams + Of its pale-lamped windows,--shone; + Echoing with the dim unknown. + + +II. + + To say to hope,--Take all from me, + And grant me naught: + The rose, the song, the melody, + The word, the thought: + Then all my life bid me be slave,-- + Is all I crave. + + To say to time,--Be true to me, + Nor grant me less + The dream, the sigh, the memory, + The heart's distress; + Then unto death set me a task, + Is all I ask. + + +III. + + I came to you when eve was young. + And, where the park went downward to + The river, and, among the dew, + One vesper moment lit and sung + A bird, your eyes said something dear. + How sweet it was to walk with you! + How, with our souls, we seemed to hear + The darkness coming with its stars! + How calm the moon sloped up her sphere + Of fire-filled pearl through passive bars + Of clouds that berged the tender east! + While all the dark inanimate + Of nature woke; initiate + With th' moon's arrival, something ceased + In nature's soul; she stood again + Another self, that seemed t' have been + Dormant, suppressed and so unseen + All day; a life, unknown and strange + And dream-suggestive, that had lain,-- + Masked on with light,--within the range + Of thought, but unrevealed till now. + It was the hour of love. And you, + With downward eyes and pensive brow, + Among the moonlight and the dew,-- + Although no word of love was spoken,-- + Heard the sweet night's confession broken + Of something here that spoke in me; + A love, depth made inaudible, + Save to your soul, that answered well, + With eyes replying silently. + + +IV. + + Fair you are as a rose is fair, + There where the shadows dew it; + And the deeps of your brown, brown hair, + Sweet as the cloud that lingers there + With the sunset's auburn through it. + Eyes of azure and throat of snow, + Tell me what my heart would know! + + Every dream I dream of you + Has a love-thought in it, + And a hope, a kiss or two, + Something dear and something true, + Telling me each minute, + With three words it whispers clear, + What my heart from you would hear. + + +V. + + Summer came; the days grew kind + With increasing favors; deep + Were the nights with rest and sleep: + Fair, with poppies intertwined + On their blonde locks, dreamy hours, + Sunny-hearted as the rose, + Went among the banded flowers, + Teaching them, how no one knows, + Fresher color and perfume.-- + In the window of your room + Bloomed a rich azalea. Pink, + As an egret's rosy plumes, + Shone its tender-tufted blooms. + From your care and love, I think, + Love's rose-color it did drink, + Growing rosier day by day + Of your 'tending hand's caress; + And your own dear naturalness + Had imbued it in some way. + Once you gave a blossom of it, + Smiling, to me when I left: + Need I tell you how I love it + Faded though it is now!--Reft + Of its fragrance and its color, + Yet 'tis dearer now than then, + As past happiness is when + We regret. And dimmer, duller + Though its beauty be, when I + Look upon it, I recall + Every part of that old wall; + And the dingy window high, + Where you sat and read; and all + The fond love that made your face + A soft sunbeam in that place: + And the plant, that grew this bloom + Withered here, itself long dead, + Makes a halo overhead + There again--and through my room, + Like faint whispers of perfume, + Steal the words of love then said. + + +VI. + + All of my love I send to you, + I send to you, + On thoughts, like paths, that wend to you, + Here in my heart's glad garden, + Wherein, its lovely warden, + Your face, a lily seeming, + Is dreaming. + + All of my life I bring to you, + I bring to you, + In deeds, like birds, that sing to you, + Here, in my soul's sweet valley, + Wherethrough, most musically, + Your love, a fountain, glistens, + And listens. + + My love, my life, how blessed in you! + How blessed in you! + Whose thoughts, whose deeds find rest in you, + Here, on my self's dark ocean, + Whereo'er, in heavenly motion, + Your soul, a star, abideth, + And guideth. + + +VII. + + Where the old Kentucky wound + Through the land,--its stream between + Hills of primitive forest green,-- + Like a goodly belt around + Giant breasts of grandeur; with + Many an unknown Indian myth, + On the boat we steamed. The land + Like an hospitable hand + Welcomed us. Alone we sat + On the under-deck, and saw + Farm-house and plantation draw + Near and vanish. 'Neath your hat, + Your young eyes laughed; and your hair, + Blown about them by the air + Of our passage, clung and curled. + Music, and the summer moon; + And the hills' great shadows hewn + Out of silence; and the tune + Of the whistle, when we whirled + Round a moonlit bend in sight of + Some lone landing heaped with hay + Or tobacco; where the light of + One dim solitary lamp + Signaled through the evening's damp: + Then a bell; and, dusky gray, + Shuffling figures on the shore + With the cable; rugged forms + On the gang-plank; backs and arms + With their cargo bending o'er; + And the burly mate before. + Then an iron bell, and puff + Of escaping steam; and out + Where the stream is wheel-whipped rough; + Music, and a parting shout + From the shore; the pilot's bell + Beating on the deck below; + Then the steady, quivering, slow + Smooth advance again. Until + Twinkling lights beyond us tell + There's a lock or little town, + Clasped between a hill and hill, + Where the blue-grass fields slope down.-- + So we went. That summer-time + Lingers with me like a rhyme + Learned for dreamy beauty of + Its old-fashioned faith and love, + In some musing moment; sith + Heart-associated with + Joy that moment's quiet bore, + Thought repeated evermore. + + +VIII. + + Three sweet things love lives upon: + Music, at whose fountain's brink + Still he stoops his face to drink; + Seeing, as the wave is drawn, + His own image rise and sink. + Three sweet things love lives upon. + + Three sweet things love lives upon: + Odor, whose red roses wreathe + His bright brow that shines beneath; + Hearing, as each bud is blown, + His own spirit breathe and breathe. + Three sweet things love lives upon. + + Three sweet things love lives upon: + Color, to whose rainbow he + Lifts his dark eyes burningly; + Feeling, as the wild hues dawn, + His own immortality. + Three sweet things love lives upon. + + +IX. + + Memories of other days, + With the whilom happiness, + Rise before my musing gaze + In the twilight ... And your dress + Seems beside me, like a haze + Shimmering white; as when we went + 'Neath the star-strewn firmament, + Love-led, with impatient feet + Down the night that, summer-sweet, + Sparkled o'er the lamp-lit street. + Every look love gave us then + Comes before my eyes again, + Making music for my heart + On that path, that grew for us + Roses, red and amorous, + On that path, from which oft start, + Out of recollected places, + With remembered forms and faces, + Dreams, love's ardent hands have woven + In my life's dark tapestry, + Beckoning, soft and shadowy, + To the soul. And o'er the cloven + Gulf of time, I seem to hear + Words, once whispered in the ear, + Calling--as might friends long dead, + With familiar voices, deep, + Speak to those who lie asleep, + Comforting--So I was led + Backward to forgotten things, + Contiguities that spread + Sudden unremembered wings; + And across my mind's still blue + From the nest they fledged in, flew + Dazzling shapes affection knew. + + +X. + + Ah! over full my heart is + Of sadness and of pain; + As a rose-flower in the garden + The dull dusk fills with rain; + As a blown red rose that shivers + And bends to the wind and rain. + + So give me thy hands and speak me + As once in the days of yore, + When love spoke sweetly to us, + The love that speaks no more; + The sound of thy voice may help him + To speak in our hearts once more. + + Ah! over grieved my soul is, + And tired and sick for sleep, + As a poppy-bloom that withers, + Forgotten, where reapers reap; + As a harvested poppy-flower + That dies where reapers reap. + + So bend to my face and kiss me + As once in the days of yore, + When the touch of thy lips was magic + That restored to life once more; + The thought of thy kiss, which awakens + To life that love once more. + + +XI. + + Sitting often I have, oh! + Often have desired you so-- + Yearned to kiss you as I did + When your love to me you gave, + In the moonlight, by the wave, + And a long impetuous kiss + Pressed upon your mouth that chid, + And upon each dewy lid-- + That, all passion-shaken, I + With love language will address + Each dear thing I know you by, + Picture, needle-work or frame: + Each suggestive in the same + Perfume of past happiness: + Till, meseems, the ways we knew + Now again I tread with you + From the oldtime tryst: and there + Feel the pressure of your hair + Cool and easy on my cheek, + And your breath's aroma: bare + Hand upon my arm, as weak + As a lily on a stream: + And your eyes, that gaze at me + With the sometime witchery, + To my inmost spirit speak. + And remembered ecstacy + Sweeps my soul again ... I seem + Dreaming, yet I do not dream. + + +XII. + + When day dies, lone, forsaken, + And joy is kissed asleep; + When doubt's gray eyes awaken, + And love, with music taken + From hearts with sighings shaken, + Sits in the dusk to weep: + + With ghostly lifted finger + What memory then shall rise?-- + Of dark regret the bringer-- + To tell the sorrowing singer + Of days whose echoes linger, + Till dawn unstars the skies. + + When night is gone and, beaming, + Faith journeys forth to toil; + When hope's blue eyes wake gleaming, + And life is done with dreaming + The dreams that seem but seeming, + Within the world's turmoil: + + Can we forget the presence + Of death who walks unseen? + Whose scythe casts shadowy crescents + Around life's glittering essence, + As lessens, slowly lessens, + The space that lies between. + + +XIII. + + Bland was that October day, + Calm and balmy as the spring, + When we went a forest-way, + 'Neath paternal beeches gray, + To a valleyed opening: + Where the purple aster flowered, + And, like torches shadow-held, + Red the fiery sumach towered; + And, where gum-trees sentineled + Vistas, robed in gold and garnet, + Ripe the thorny chestnut shelled + Its brown plumpness. Bee and hornet + Droned around us; quick the cricket, + Tireless in the wood-rose thicket, + Tremoloed; and, to the wind + All its moon-spun silver casting, + Swung the milk-weed pod unthinned; + And, its clean flame on the sod + By the fading golden-rod, + Burned the white life-everlasting. + It was not so much the time, + Nor the place, nor way we went, + That made all our moods to rhyme, + Nor the season's sentiment, + As it was the innocent + Carefree childhood of our hearts, + Reading each expression of + Death and care as life and love: + That impression joy imparts + Unto others and retorts + On itself, which then made glad + All the sorrow of decay, + As the memory of that day + Makes this day of spring, now, sad. + + +XIV. + + The balsam-breathed petunias + Hang riven of the rain; + And where the tiger-lily was + Now droops a tawny stain; + While in the twilight's purple pause + Earth dreams of Heaven again. + + When one shall sit and sigh, + And one lie all alone + Beneath the unseen sky-- + Whose love shall then deny? + Whose love atone? + + With ragged petals round its pod + The rain-wrecked poppy dies; + And where the hectic rose did nod + A crumbled crimson lies; + While distant as the dreams of God + The stars slip in the skies. + + When one shall lie asleep, + And one be dead and gone-- + Within the unknown deep, + Shall we the trysts then keep + That now are done? + + +XV. + + Holding both your hands in mine, + Often have we sat together, + While, outside, the boisterous weather + Hung the wild wind on the pine + Like a black marauder, and + With a sudden warning hand + At the casement rapped. The night + Read no sentiment of light, + Starbeam-syllabled, within + Her romance of death and sin, + Shadow-chaptered tragicly.-- + Looking in your eyes, ah me! + Though I heard, I did not heed + What the night read unto us, + Threatening and ominous: + For love helped my heart to read + Forward through unopened pages + To a coming day, that held + More for us than all the ages + Past, that it epitomized + In its sentence; where we spelled + What our present realized + Only--all the love that was + Past and yet to be for us. + + +XVI. + + 'Though in the garden, gray with dew, + All life lies withering, + And there's no more to say or do, + No more to sigh or sing, + Yet go we back the ways we knew, + When buds were opening. + + Perhaps we shall not search in vain + Within its wreck and gloom; + 'Mid roses ruined of the rain + There still may live one bloom; + One flower, whose heart may still retain + The long-lost soul-perfume. + + And then, perhaps, will come to us + The dreams we dreamed before; + And song, who spoke so beauteous, + Will speak to us once more; + And love, with eyes all amorous, + Will ope again his door. + + So 'though the garden's gray with dew, + And flowers are withering, + And there's no more to say or do, + No more to sigh or sing, + Yet go we back the ways we knew + When buds were opening. + + +XVII. + + Looking on the desolate street, + Where the March snow drifts and drives, + Trodden black of hurrying feet, + Where the athlete storm-wind strives + With each tree and dangling light,-- + Centers, sphered with glittering white,-- + Hissing in the dancing snow ... + Backward in my soul I go + To that tempest-haunted night + Of two autumns past, when we, + Hastening homeward, were o'ertaken + Of the storm; and 'neath a tree, + With its wild leaves whisper-shaken, + Sheltered us in that forsaken, + Sad and ancient cemetery,-- + Where folk came no more to bury.-- + Haggard grave-stones, mossed and crumbled, + Tottered 'round us, or o'ertumbled + In their sunken graves; and some, + Urned and obelisked above + Iron-fenced in tombs, stood dumb + Records of forgotten love. + And again I see the west + Yawning inward to its core + Of electric-spasmed ore, + Swiftly, without pause or rest. + And a great wind sweeps the dust + Up abandoned sidewalks; and, + In the rotting trees, the gust + Shouts again--a voice that would + Make its gaunt self understood + Moaning over death's lean land. + And we sat there, hand in hand; + On the granite; where we read, + By the leaping skies o'erhead, + Something of one young and dead. + Yet the words begot no fear + In our souls: you leaned your cheek + Smiling on mine: very near + Were our lips: we did not speak. + + +XVIII. + + And suddenly alone I stood + With scared eyes gazing through the wood. + For some still sign of ill or good, + To lead me from the solitude. + + The day was at its twilighting; + One cloud o'erhead spread a vast wing + Of rosy thunder; vanishing + Above the far hills' mystic ring. + + Some stars shone timidly o'erhead; + And toward the west's cadaverous red-- + Like some wild dream that haunts the dead + In limbo--the lean moon was led. + + Upon the sad, debatable + Vague lands of twilight slowly fell + A silence that I knew too well, + A sorrow that I can not tell. + + What way to take, what path to go, + Whether into the east's gray glow, + Or where the west burnt red and low-- + What road to choose, I did not know. + + So, hesitating, there I stood + Lost in my soul's uncertain wood: + One sign I craved of ill or good, + To lead me from its solitude. + + +XIX. + + It was autumn: and a night, + Full of whispers and of mist, + With a gray moon, wanly whist, + Hanging like a phantom light + O'er the hills. We stood among + Windy fields of weed and flower, + Where the withered seed pod hung, + And the chill leaf-crickets sung. + Melancholy was the hour + With the mystery and loneness + Of the year, that seemed to look + On its own departed face; + As our love then, in its oneness, + All its dead past did retrace, + And from that sad moment took + Presage of approaching parting.-- + Sorrowful the hour and dark: + Low among the trees, now starting, + Now concealed, a star's pale spark-- + Like a fen-fire--winked and lured + On to shuddering shadows; where + All was doubtful, unassured, + Immaterial; and the bare + Facts of unideal day + Changed to substance such as dreams. + And meseemed then, far away-- + Farther than remotest gleams + Of the stars--lost, separated, + And estranged, and out of reach, + Grew our lives away from each, + Loving lives, that long had waited. + + +XX. + + There is no gladness in the day + Now you're away; + Dull is the morn, the noon is dull, + Once beautiful; + And when the evening fills the skies + With dusky dyes, + With tired eyes and tired heart + I sit alone, I sigh apart, + And wish for you. + + Ah! darker now the night comes on + Since you are gone; + Sad are the stars, the moon is sad, + Once wholly glad; + And when the stars and moon are set, + And earth lies wet, + With heart's regret and soul's hard ache, + I dream alone, I lie awake, + And wish for you. + + These who once spake me, speak no more, + Now all is o'er; + Day hath forgot the language of + Its hopes of love; + Night, whose sweet lips were burdensome + With dreams, is dumb; + Far different from what used to be, + With silence and despondency + They speak to me. + + +XXI. + + So it ends--the path that crept + Through a land all slumber-kissed; + Where the sickly moonlight slept + Like a pale antagonist. + Now the star, that led us onward,-- + Reassuring with its light,-- + Fails and falters; dipping downward + Leaves us wandering in night, + With old doubts we once disdained ... + So it ends. The woods attained-- + Where our heart's desire builded + A fair temple, fire-gilded, + With hope's marble shrine within, + Where the lineaments of our love + Shone, with lilies clad and crowned, + 'Neath white columns reared above + Sorrow and her sister sin, + Columns, rose and ribbon-wound,-- + In the forest we have found + But a ruin! All around + Lie the shattered capitals, + And vast fragments of the walls ... + Like a climbing cloud,--that plies, + Wind-wrecked, o'er the moon that lies + 'Neath its blackness,--taking on + Gradual certainties of wan, + Soft assaults of easy white, + Pale-approaching; till the skies' + Emptiness and hungry night + Claim its bulk again, while she + Rides in lonely purity: + So we found our temple, broken, + And a musing moment's space + Love, whose latest word was spoken, + Seemed to meet us face to face, + Making bright that ruined place + With a strange effulgence; then + Passed, and left all black again. + + + + +A FLOWER OF THE FIELDS. + + + Bee-bitten in the orchard hung + The peach; or, fallen in the weeds, + Lay rotting: where still sucked and sung + The gray bee, boring to its seed's + Pink pulp and honey blackly stung. + + The orchard path, which led around + The garden,--with its heat one twinge + Of dinning locusts,--picket-bound, + And ragged, brought me where one hinge + Held up the gate that scraped the ground. + + All seemed the same: the martin-box-- + Sun-warped with pigmy balconies-- + Still stood with all its twittering flocks, + Perched on its pole above the peas + And silvery-seeded onion-stocks. + + The clove-pink and the rose; the clump + Of coppery sunflowers, with the heat + Sick to the heart: the garden stump, + Red with geranium-pots and sweet + With moss and ferns, this side the pump. + + I rested, with one hesitant hand + Upon the gate. The lonesome day, + Droning with insects, made the land + One dry stagnation; soaked with hay + And scents of weeds, the hot wind fanned. + + I breathed the sultry scents, my eyes + Parched as my lips. And yet I felt + My limbs were ice. As one who flies + To some strange woe. How sleepy smelt + The hay-sweet heat that soaked the skies! + + Noon nodded; dreamier, lonesomer, + For one long, plaintive, forestside + Bird-quaver.--And I knew me near + Some heartbreak anguish ... She had died. + I felt it, and no need to hear! + + I passed the quince and peartree; where + All up the porch a grape-vine trails-- + How strange that fruit, whatever air + Or earth it grows in, never fails + To find its native flavor there! + + And she was as a flower, too, + That grows its proper bloom and scent + No matter what the soil: she, who, + Born better than her place, still lent + Grace to the lowliness she knew.... + + They met me at the porch, and were + Sad-eyed with weeping. Then the room + Shut out the country's heat and purr, + And left light stricken into gloom-- + So love and I might look on her. + + + + +THE WHITE VIGIL. + + + Last night I dreamed I saw you lying dead, + And by your sheeted form stood all alone: + Frail as a flow'r you lay upon your bed, + And on your still face, through the casement, shone + The moon, as lingering to kiss you there + Fall'n asleep, white violets in your hair. + + Oh, sick to weeping was my soul, and sad + To breaking was my heart that would not break; + And for my soul's great grief no tear I had, + No lamentation for my heart's deep ache; + Yet all I bore seemed more than I could bear + Beside you dead, white violets in your hair. + + A white rose, blooming at your window-bar, + And glimmering in it, like a fire-fly caught + Upon the thorns, the light of one white star, + Looked on with me; as if they felt and thought + As did my heart,--"How beautiful and fair + And young she lies, white violets in her hair!" + + And so we watched beside you, sad and still, + The star, the rose, and I. The moon had past, + Like a pale traveler, behind the hill + With all her echoed radiance. At last + The darkness came to hide my tears and share + My watch by you, white violets in your hair. + + + + +TOO LATE. + + + I looked upon a dead girl's face and heard + What seemed the voice of Love call unto me + Out of her heart; whereon the charactery + Of her lost dreams I read there word for word:-- + How on her soul no soul had touched, or stirred + Her Life's sad depths to rippling melody, + Or made the imaged longing, there, to be + The realization of a hope deferred. + So in her life had Love behaved to her. + Between the lonely chapters of her years + And her young eyes making no golden blur + With god-bright face and hair; who led me to + Her side at last, and bade me, through my tears, + With Death's dumb face, too late, to see and know. + + + + +INTIMATIONS. + + +I. + + Is it uneasy moonlight, + On the restless field, that stirs? + Or wild white meadow-blossoms + The night-wind bends and blurs? + + Is it the dolorous water, + That sobs in the wood and sighs? + Or heart of an ancient oak-tree, + That breaks and, sighing, dies? + + The wind is vague with the shadows + That wander in No-Man's Land; + The water is dark with the voices + That weep on the Unknown's strand. + + O ghosts of the winds who call me! + O ghosts of the whispering waves! + As sad as forgotten flowers, + That die upon nameless graves! + + What is this thing you tell me + In tongues of a twilight race, + Of death, with the vanished features, + Mantled, of my own face? + + +II. + + The old enigmas of the deathless dawns, + And riddles of the all immortal eves,-- + That still o'er Delphic lawns + Speak as the gods spoke through oracular leaves-- + I read with new-born eyes, + Remembering how, a slave, + I lay with breast bared for the sacrifice, + Once on a temple's pave. + + Or, crowned with hyacinth and helichrys, + How, towards the altar in the marble gloom,-- + Hearing the magadis + Dirge through the pale amaracine perfume,-- + 'Mid chanting priests I trod, + With never a sigh or pause, + To give my life to pacify a god, + And save my country's cause. + + Again: Cyrenian roses on wild hair, + And oil and purple smeared on breasts and cheeks, + How with mad torches there-- + Reddening the cedars of Cithaeron's peaks-- + With gesture and fierce glance, + Lascivious Maenad bands + Once drew and slew me in the Pyrrhic dance, + With Bacchanalian hands. + + +III. + + The music now that lays + Dim lips against my ears, + Some wild sad thing it says, + Unto my soul, of years + Long passed into the haze + Of tears. + + Meseems, before me are + The dark eyes of a queen, + A queen of Istakhar: + I seem to see her lean + More lovely than a star + Of mien. + + A slave, I stand before + Her jeweled throne; I kneel, + And, in a song, once more + My love for her reveal; + How once I did adore + I feel. + + Again her dark eyes gleam; + Again her red lips smile; + And in her face the beam + Of love that knows no guile; + And so she seems to dream + A while. + + Out of her deep hair then + A rose she takes--and I + Am made a god o'er men! + Her rose, that here did lie + When I, in th' wild-beasts' den, + Did die. + + +IV. + + Old paintings on its wainscots, + And, in its oaken hall, + Old arras; and the twilight + Of slumber over all. + + Old grandeur on its stairways; + And, in its haunted rooms, + Old souvenirs of greatness, + And ghosts of dead perfumes. + + The winds are phantom voices + Around its carven doors; + The moonbeams, specter footsteps + Upon its polished floors. + + Old cedars build around it + A solitude of sighs; + And the old hours pass through it + With immemorial eyes. + + But more than this I know not; + Nor where the house may be; + Nor what its ancient secret + And ancient grief to me. + + All that my soul remembers + Is that,--forgot almost,-- + Once, in a former lifetime, + 'Twas here I loved and lost. + + +V. + + In eoens of the senses, + My spirit knew of yore, + I found the Isle of Circe, + And felt her magic lore; + And still the soul remembers + What flesh would be once more. + + She gave me flowers to smell of + That wizard branches bore, + Of weird and sorcerous beauty, + Whose stems dripped human gore-- + Their scent when I remember + I know that world once more. + + She gave me fruits to eat of + That grew beside the shore, + Of necromantic ripeness, + With human flesh at core-- + Their taste when I remember + I know that life once more. + + And then, behold! a serpent, + That glides my face before, + With eyes of tears and fire + That glare me o'er and o'er-- + I look into its eyeballs, + And know myself once more. + + +VI. + + I have looked in the eyes of poesy, + And sat in song's high place; + And the beautiful spirits of music + Have spoken me face to face; + Yet here in my soul there is sorrow + They never can name nor trace. + + I have walked with the glamour gladness, + And dreamed with the shadow sleep; + And the presences, love and knowledge, + Have smiled in my heart's red keep; + Yet here in my soul there is sorrow + For the depth of their gaze too deep. + + The love and the hope God grants me, + The beauty that lures me on, + And the dreams of folly and wisdom + That thoughts of the spirit don, + Are but masks of an ancient sorrow + Of a life long dead and gone. + + Was it sin? or a crime forgotten? + Of a love that loved too well? + That sat on a throne of fire + A thousand years in hell? + That the soul with its nameless sorrow + Remembers but can not tell? + + + + +TWO. + + + With her soft face half turned to me, + Like an arrested moonbeam, she + Stood in the cirque of that deep tree. + + I took her by the hands; she raised + Her face to mine; and, half amazed, + Remembered; and we stood and gazed. + + How good to kiss her throat and hair, + And say no word!--Her throat was bare; + As some moon-fungus white and fair. + + Had God not giv'n us life for this? + The world-old, amorous happiness + Of arms that clasp, and lips that kiss! + + The eloquence of limbs and arms! + The rhetoric of breasts, whose charms + Say to the sluggish blood what warms! + + Had God or Fiend assigned this hour + That bloomed,--where love had all of power,-- + The senses' aphrodisiac flower? + + The dawn was far away. Nude night + Hung savage stars of sultry white + Around her bosom's Ethiop light. + + Night! night, who gave us each to each, + Where heart with heart could hold sweet speech, + With life's best gift within our reach. + + And here it was--between the goals + Of flesh and spirit, sex controls-- + Took place the marriage of our souls. + + + + +TONES. + + +I. + + A woman, fair to look upon, + Where waters whiten with the moon; + While down the glimmer of the lawn + The white moths swoon. + + A mouth of music; eyes of love; + And hands of blended snow and scent, + That touch the pearl-pale shadow of + An instrument. + + And low and sweet that song of sleep + After the song of love is hushed; + While all the longing, here, to weep, + Is held and crushed. + + Then leafy silence, that is musk + With breath of the magnolia-tree, + While dwindles, moon-white, through the dusk + Her drapery. + + Let me remember how a heart, + Romantic, wrote upon that night! + My soul still helps me read each part + Of it aright. + + And like a dead leaf shut between + A book's dull chapters, stained and dark, + That page, with immemorial green, + Of life I mark. + + +II. + + It is not well for me to hear + That song's appealing melody: + The pain of loss comes all too near, + Through it, to me. + + The loss of her whose love looks through + The mist death's hand hath hung between: + Within the shadow of the yew + Her grave is green. + + Ah, dream that vanished long ago! + Oh, anguish of remembered tears! + And shadow of unlifted woe + Athwart the years! + + That haunt the sad rooms of my days, + As keepsakes of unperished love, + Where pale the memory of her face + Is framed above. + + This olden song, she used to sing, + Of love and sleep, is now a charm + To open mystic doors and bring + Her spirit form. + + In music making visible + One soul-assertive memory, + That steals unto my side to tell + My loss to me. + + + + +UNFULFILLED. + + + In my dream last night it seemed I stood + With a boy's glad heart in my boyhood's wood. + + The beryl green and the cairngorm brown + Of the day through the deep leaves sifted down. + + The rippling drip of a passing shower + Rinsed wild aroma from herb and flower. + + The splash and urge of a waterfall + Spread stairwayed rocks with a crystal caul. + + And I waded the pool where the gravel gray, + And the last year's leaf, like a topaz lay. + + And searched the strip of the creek's dry bed + For the colored keel and the arrow-head. + + And I found the cohosh coigne the same, + Tossing with torches of pearly flame. + + The owlet dingle of vine and brier, + That the butterfly-weed flecked fierce with fire. + + The elder edge with its warm perfume, + And the sapphire stars of the bluet bloom; + + The moss, the fern, and the touch-me-not + I breathed, and the mint-smell keen and hot. + + And I saw the bird, that sang its best, + In the moted sunlight building its nest. + + And I saw the chipmunk's stealthy face, + And the rabbit crouched in a grassy place. + + And I watched the crows, that cawed and cried, + Hunting the hawk at the forest-side; + + The bees that sucked in the blossoms slim, + And the wasps that built on the lichened limb. + + And felt the silence, the dusk, the dread + Of the spot where they buried the unknown dead. + + The water murmur, the insect hum, + And a far bird calling, _Come, oh, come!_-- + + What sweeter music can mortals make + To ease the heart of its human ache!-- + + And it seemed in my dream, that was all too true, + That I met in the woods again with you. + + A sun-tanned face and brown bare knees, + And a hand stained red with dewberries. + + And we stood a moment some thing to tell, + And then in the woods we said farewell. + + But once I met you; yet, lo! it seems + Again and again we meet in dreams. + + And I ask my soul what it all may mean; + If this is the love that should have been. + + And oft and again I wonder, _Can_ + _What God intends be changed by man?_ + + + + +HOME. + + + Among the fields the camomile + Seems blown steam in the lightning's glare. + Unusual odors drench the air. + Night speaks above; the angry smile + Of storm within her stare. + + The way for me to-night?--To-night, + Is through the wood whose branches fill + The road with dripping rain-drops. Till, + Between the boughs, a star-like light-- + Our home upon the hill. + + The path for me to take?--It goes + Around a trailer-tangled rock, + 'Mid puckered pink and hollyhock, + Unto a latch-gate's unkempt rose, + And door whereat I knock. + + Bright on the old-time flower-place + The lamp streams through the foggy pane. + The door is opened to the rain; + And in the door--her happy face, + And eager hands again. + + + + +ASHLY MERE. + + + Come! look in the shadowy water here, + The stagnant water of Ashly Mere: + Where the stirless depths are dark but clear, + What is the thing that lies there?-- + A lily-pod half sunk from sight? + Or spawn of the toad all water-white? + Or ashen blur of the moon's wan light? + Or a woman's face and eyes there? + + Now lean to the water a listening ear, + The haunted water of Ashly Mere: + What is the sound that you seem to hear + In the ghostly hush of the deeps there?-- + A withered reed that the ripple lips? + Or a night-bird's wing that the surface whips? + Or the rain in a leaf that drips and drips? + Or a woman's voice that weeps there? + + Now look and listen! but draw not near + The lonely water of Ashly Mere!-- + For so it happens this time each year + As you lean by the mere and listen: + And the moaning voice I understand,-- + For oft I have watched it draw to land, + And lift from the water a ghastly hand + And a face whose eyeballs glisten. + + And this is the reason why every year + To the hideous water of Ashly Mere + I come when the woodland leaves are sear, + And the autumn moon hangs hoary: + For here by the mere was wrought a wrong ... + But the old, old story is over long-- + And woman is weak and man is strong ... + And the mere's and mine is the story. + + + + +BEFORE THE TOMB. + + + The way went under cedared gloom + To moonlight, like a cactus bloom, + Before the entrance of her tomb. + + I had an hour of night and thin + Sad starlight; and I set my chin + Against the grating and looked in. + + A gleam, like moonlight, through a square + Of opening--I knew not where-- + Shone on her coffin resting there. + + And on its oval silver-plate + I read her name and age and date, + And smiled, soft-thinking on my hate. + + There was no insect sound to chirr; + No wind to make a little stir. + I stood and looked and thought on her. + + The gleam stole downward from her head, + Till at her feet it rested red + On Gothic gold, that sadly said:-- + + "God to her love lent a weak reed + Of strength: and gave no light to lead: + Pray for her soul; for it hath need." + + There was no night-bird's twitter near, + No low vague water I might hear + To make a small sound in the ear. + + The gleam, that made a burning mark + Of each dim word, died to a spark; + Then left the tomb and coffin dark. + + I had a little while to wait; + And prayed with hands against the grate, + And heart that yearned and knew too late. + + There was no light below, above, + To point my soul the way thereof,-- + The way of hate that led to love. + + + + +REVISITED. + + + It was beneath a waning moon when all the woods were sear, + And winds made eddies of the leaves that whispered far and near, + I met her on the old mill-bridge we parted at last year. + + At first I deemed it but a mist that faltered in that place, + An autumn mist beneath the trees that sentineled the race; + Until I neared and in the moon beheld her face to face. + + The waver of the summer-heat upon the drouth-dry leas; + The shimmer of the thistle-drift a down the silences; + The gliding of the fairy-fire between the swamp and trees; + + They qualified her presence as a sorrow may a dream-- + The vague suggestion of a self; the glimmer of a gleam; + The actual unreal of the things that only seem. + + Where once she came with welcome and glad eyes all loving-wise, + She passed and gave no greeting that my heart might recognize, + With far-set face unseeing and sad unremembering eyes. + + It was beneath a waning moon when woods were bleak and sear, + And winds made whispers of the leaves that eddied far and near, + I met her ghost upon the bridge we parted at last year. + + + + +AT VESPERS. + + + High up in the organ-story + A girl stands slim and fair; + And touched with the casement's glory + Gleams out her radiant hair. + + The young priest kneels at the altar, + Then lifts the Host above; + And the psalm intoned from the psalter + Is pure with patient love. + + A sweet bell chimes; and a censer + Swings gleaming in the gloom; + The candles glimmer and denser + Rolls up the pale perfume. + + Then high in the organ choir + A voice of crystal soars, + Of patience and soul's desire, + That suffers and adores. + + And out of the altar's dimness + An answering voice doth swell, + Of passion that cries from the grimness + And anguish of its own hell. + + High up in the organ-story + One kneels with a girlish grace; + And, touched with the vesper glory, + Lifts her madonna face. + + One stands at the cloudy altar, + A form bowed down and thin; + The text of the psalm in the psalter + He reads, is sorrow and sin. + + + + +THE CREEK. + + + O cheerly, cheerly by the road + And merrily down the billet; + And where the acre-field is sowed + With bristle-bearded millet. + + Then o'er a pebbled path that goes, + Through vista and through dingle, + Unto a farmstead's windowed rose, + And roof of moss and shingle. + + O darkly, darkly through the bush, + And dimly by the bowlder, + Where cane and water-cress grow lush, + And woodland wilds are older. + + Then o'er the cedared way that leads, + Through burr and bramble-thickets, + Unto a burial-ground of weeds + Fenced in with broken pickets. + + Then sadly, sadly down the vale, + And wearily through the rushes, + Where sunlight of the noon is pale, + And e'en the zephyr hushes. + + For oft her young face smiled upon + My deeps here, willow-shaded; + And oft with bare feet in the sun + My shallows there she waded. + + No more beneath the twinkling leaves + Shall stand the farmer's daughter!-- + Sing softly past the cottage eaves, + O memory-haunted water! + + No more shall bend her laughing face + Above me where the rose is!-- + Sigh softly past the burial-place, + Where all her youth reposes! + + + + +ANSWERED. + + + Do you remember how that night drew on? + That night of sorrow, when the stars looked wan + As eyes that gaze reproachful in a dream, + Loved eyes, long lost, and sadder than the grave? + How through the heaven stole the moon's gray gleam, + Like a nun's ghost down a cathedral nave?-- + Do you remember how that night drew on? + + Do you remember the hard words then said? + Said to the living,--now denied the dead,-- + That left me dead,--long, long before I died,-- + In heart and spirit?--me, your words had slain, + Telling how love to my poor life had lied, + Armed with the dagger of a pale disdain.-- + Do you remember the hard words then said? + + Do you remember, now this night draws down + The threatening heavens, that the lightnings crown + With wrecks of thunder? when no moon doth give + The clouds wild witchery?--as in a room, + Behind the sorrowful arras, still may live + The pallid secret of the haunted gloom.-- + Do you remember, now this night draws down? + + Do you remember, now it comes to pass + Your form is bowed as is the wind-swept grass? + And death hath won from you that confidence + Denied to life? now your sick soul rebels + Against your pride with tragic eloquence, + That self-crowned demon of the heart's fierce hells.-- + Do you remember, now it comes to pass? + + Do you remember?--Bid your soul be still. + Here passion hath surrendered unto will, + And flesh to spirit. Quiet your wild tongue + And wilder heart. Your kiss is naught to me. + The instrument love gave you lies unstrung, + Silent, forsaken of all melody. + Do you remember?--Bid your soul be still. + + + + +WOMAN'S PORTION. + + +I. + + The leaves are shivering on the thorn, + Drearily; + And sighing wakes the lean-eyed morn, + Wearily. + + I press my thin face to the pane, + Drearily; + But never will he come again. + (Wearily.) + + The rain hath sicklied day with haze, + Drearily; + My tears run downward as I gaze, + Wearily. + + The mist and morn spake unto me, + Drearily: + "What is this thing God gives to thee?" + (Wearily.) + + I said unto the morn and mist, + Drearily: + "The babe unborn whom sin hath kissed." + (Wearily.) + + The morn and mist spake unto me, + Drearily: + "What is this thing which thou dost see?" + (Wearily.) + + I said unto the mist and morn, + Drearily: + "The shame of man and woman's scorn." + (Wearily.) + + "He loved thee not," they made reply. + Drearily. + I said, "Would God had let me die!" + (Wearily.) + + +II. + + My dreams are as a closed up book, + (Drearily.) + Upon whose clasp of love I look, + Wearily. + + All night the rain raved overhead, + Drearily; + All night I wept awake in bed, + Wearily. + + I heard the wind sweep wild and wide, + Drearily; + I turned upon my face and sighed, + Wearily. + + The wind and rain spake unto me, + Drearily: + "What is this thing God takes from thee?" + (Wearily.) + + I said unto the rain and wind, + Drearily: + "The love, for which my soul hath sinned." + (Wearily.) + + The rain and wind spake unto me, + Drearily: + "What are these things thou still dost see?" + (Wearily.) + + I said unto the wind and rain, + Drearily: + "Regret, and hope despair hath slain." + (Wearily.) + + "Thou lov'st him still," they made reply, + Drearily. + I said, "That God would let me die!" + (Wearily.) + + + + +FINALE. + + + So let it be. Thou wilt not say 't was I! + Here in life's temple, where thy soul may see, + Look how the beauty of our love doth lie, + Shattered in shards, a dead divinity! + Approach: kneel down: yea, render up one sigh! + This is the end. What need to tell it thee! + So let it be. + + So let it be. Care, who hath stood with him, + And sorrow, who sat by him deified, + For whom his face made comfort, lo! how dim + They heap his altar which they can not hide, + While memory's lamp swings o'er it, burning slim. + This is the end. What shall be said beside? + So let it be. + + So let it be. Did we not drain the wine, + Red, of love's sacramental chalice, when + He laid sweet sanction on thy lips and mine? + Dash it aside! Lo, who will fill again + Now it is empty of the god divine! + This is the end. Yea, let us say Amen. + So let it be. + + + + +THE CROSS. + + + The cross I bear no man shall know-- + No man can ease the cross I bear!-- + Alas! the thorny path of woe + Up the steep hill of care! + + There is no word to comfort me; + No sign to help my bended head; + Deep night lies over land and sea, + And silence dark and dread. + + To strive, it seems, that I was born, + For that which others shall obtain; + The disappointment and the scorn + Alone for me remain. + + One half my life is overpast; + The other half I contemplate-- + Meseems the past doth but forecast + A darker future state. + + Sick to the heart of that which makes + Me hope and struggle and desire, + The aspiration here that aches + With ineffectual fire; + + While inwardly I know the lack, + The insufficiency of power, + Each past day's retrospect makes black + Each morrow's coming hour. + + Now in my youth would I could die!-- + As others love to live,--go down + Into the grave without a sigh, + Oblivious of renown! + + + + +THE FOREST OF DREAMS. + + +I. + + Where was I last Friday night?-- + Within the forest of dark dreams + Following the blur of a goblin-light, + That led me over ugly streams, + Whereon the scum of the spawn was spread, + And the blistered slime, in stagnant seams; + Where the weed and the moss swam black and dead, + Like a drowned girl's hair in the ropy ooze: + And the jack-o'-lantern light that led, + Flickered the fox-fire trees o'erhead, + And the owl-like things at airy cruise. + + +II. + + Where was I last Friday night?-- + Within the forest of dark dreams + Following a form of shadowy white + With my own wild face it seems. + Did a raven's wing just flap my hair? + Or a web-winged bat brush by my face? + Or the hand of--something I did not dare + Look round to see in that obscene place? + Where the boughs, with leaves a-devil's-dance, + And the thorn-tree bush, where the wind made moan, + Had more than a strange significance + Of life and of evil not their own. + + +III. + + Where was I last Friday night?-- + Within the forest of dark dreams + Seeing the mists rise left and right, + Like the leathery fog that heaves and steams + From the rolling horror of Hell's red streams. + While the wind, that tossed in the tattered tree, + And danced alone with the last mad leaf ... + Or was it the wind?... kept whispering me-- + "Now bury it here with its own black grief, + And its eyes of fire you can not brave!"-- + And in the darkness I seemed to see + My own self digging my soul a grave. + + + + +LYNCHERS. + + + At the moon's down-going, let it be + On the quarry bill with its one gnarled tree.... + + The red-rock road of the underbrush, + Where the woman came through the summer hush. + + The sumach high, and the elder thick, + Where we found the stone and the ragged stick. + + The trampled road of the thicket, full + Of foot-prints down to the quarry pool. + + The rocks that ooze with the hue of lead, + Where we found her lying stark and dead. + + The scraggy wood; the negro hut, + With its doors and windows locked and shut. + + A secret signal; a foot's rough tramp; + A knock at the door; a lifted lamp. + + An oath; a scuffle; a ring of masks; + A voice that answers a voice that asks. + + A group of shadows; the moon's red fleck; + A running noose and a man's bared neck. + + A word, a curse, and a shape that swings; + The lonely night and a bat's black wings.... + + At the moon's down-going, let it be + On the quarry hill with its one gnarled tree. + + + + +KU KLUX. + + + We have sent him seeds of the melon's core, + And nailed a warning upon his door; + By the Ku Klux laws we can do no more. + + Down in the hollow, 'mid crib and stack, + The roof of his low-porched house looms black; + Not a line of light at the doorsill's crack. + + Yet arm and mount! and mask and ride! + The hounds can sense though the fox may hide! + And for a word too much men oft have died. + + The clouds blow heavy towards the moon. + The edge of the storm will reach it soon. + The killdee cries and the lonesome loon. + + The clouds shall flush with a wilder glare + Than the lightning makes with its angled flare, + When the Ku Klux verdict is given there. + + In the pause of the thunder rolling low, + A rifle's answer--who shall know + From the wind's fierce burl and the rain's blackblow? + + Only the signature written grim + At the end of the message brought to him-- + A hempen rope and a twisted limb. + + So arm and mount! and mask and ride! + The hounds can sense though the fox may hide! + And for a word too much men oft have died. + + + + +REMBRANDTS. + + +I. + + I shall not soon forget her and her eyes, + The haunts of hate, where suffering seemed to write + Its own dark name, whose syllables are sighs, + In strange and starless night. + + I shall not soon forget her and her face, + So quiet, yet uneasy as a dream, + That stands on tip-toe in a haunted place + And listens for a scream. + + She made me feel as one, alone, may feel + In some grand ghostly house of olden time, + The presence of a treasure, walls conceal, + The secret of a crime. + + +II. + + With lambent faces, mimicking the moon, + The water lilies lie; + Dotting the darkness of the long lagoon + Like some black sky. + + A face, the whiteness of a water-flower, + And pollen-golden hair, + In shadow half, half in the moonbeams' glower, + Lifts slowly there. + + A young girl's face, death makes cold marble of, + Turned to the moon and me, + Sad with the pathos of unspeakable love, + Floating to sea. + + +III. + + One listening bent, in dread of something coming, + He can not see nor balk-- + A phantom footstep, in the ghostly gloaming, + That haunts a terraced walk. + + Long has he given his whole heart's hard endeavor + Unto the work begun, + Still hoping love would watch it grow and ever + Turn kindly eyes thereon. + + Now in his life he feels there nears an hour, + Inevitable, alas! + When in the darkness he shall cringe and cower, + And see his dead self pass. + + + + +THE LADY OF THE HILLS. + + + Though red my blood hath left its trail + For five far miles, I shall not fail, + As God in Heaven wills!-- + The way was long through that black land. + With sword on hip and horn in hand, + At last before thy walls I stand, + O Lady of the Hills! + + No seneschal shall put to scorn + The summons of my bugle-horn! + No man-at-arms shall stay!-- + Yea! God hath helped my strength too far + By bandit-caverned wood and scar + To give it pause now, or to bar + My all-avenging way. + + This hope still gives my body strength-- + To kiss her eyes and lips at length + Where all her kin can see; + Then 'mid her towers of crime and gloom, + Sin-haunted like the Halls of Doom, + To smite her dead in that wild room + Red-lit with revelry. + + Madly I rode; nor once did slack. + Before my face the world rolled, black + With nightmare wind and rain. + Witch-lights mocked at me on the fen; + And through the forest followed then + Gaunt eyes of wolves; and ghosts of men + Moaned by me on the plain. + + Still on I rode. My way was clear + From that wild time when, spear to spear, + Deep in the wind-torn wood, + I met him!... Dead he lies beneath + Their trysting oak. I clenched my teeth + And rode. My wound scarce let me breathe, + That filled my eyes with blood. + + And here I am. The blood may blind + My eyesight now ... yet I shall find + Her by some inner eye! + For God--He hath this deed in care!-- + Yea! I shall kiss again her hair, + And tell her of her leman there, + Then smite her dead--and die. + + + + +REVEALMENT. + + + At moonset when ghost speaks with ghost, + And spirits meet where once they sinned, + Between the bournes of found and lost, + My soul met her soul on the wind, + My late-lost Evalind. + + I kissed her mouth. Her face was wild. + Two burning shadows were her eyes, + Wherefrom the maiden love, that smiled + A heartbreak smile of severed ties, + Gazed with a wan surprise. + + Then suddenly I seemed to see + No more her shape where beauty bloomed ... + My own sad self gazed up at me-- + My sorrow, that had so assumed + The form of her entombed. + + + + +HEART'S ENCOURAGEMENT. + + + Nor time nor all his minions + Of sorrow or of pain, + Shall dash with vulture pinions + The cup she fills again + Within the dream-dominions + Of life where she doth reign. + + Clothed on with bright desire + And hope that makes her strong, + With limbs of frost and fire, + She sits above all wrong, + Her heart, a living lyre, + Her love, its only song. + + And in the waking pauses + Of weariness and care, + And when the dark hour draws his + Black weapon of despair, + Above effects and causes + We hear its music there. + + The longings life hath near it + Of love we yearn to see; + The dreams it doth inherit + Of immortality; + Are callings of her spirit + To something yet to be. + + + + +NIGHTFALL. + + + O day, so sicklied o'er with night! + O dreadful fruit of fallen dusk!-- + A Circe orange, golden-bright, + With horror 'neath its husk. + + And I, who gave the promise heed + That made life's tempting surface fair, + Have I not eaten to the seed + Its ashes of despair! + + O silence of the drifted grass! + And immemorial eloquence + Of stars and winds and waves that pass! + And God's indifference! + + Leave me alone with sleep that knows + Not any thing that life may keep-- + Not e'en the pulse that comes and goes + In germs that climb and creep. + + Or if an aspiration pale + Must quicken there--oh, let the spot + Grow weeds! that dost may so prevail, + Where spirit once could not! + + + + +PAUSE. + + + So sick of dreams! the dreams, that stain + The aisle, along which life must pass, + With hues of mystic colored glass, + That fills the windows of the brain. + + So sick of thoughts! the thoughts, that carve + The house of days with arabesques + And gargoyles, where the mind grotesques + In masks of hope and faith who starve. + + Here lay thy over weary head + Upon my bosom! Do not weep!-- + "He giveth His beloved sleep."-- + Heart of my heart, be comforted. + + + + +ABOVE THE VALES. + + + We went by ways of bygone days, + Up mountain heights of story, + Where lost in vague, historic haze, + Tradition, crowned with battle-bays, + Sat 'mid her ruins hoary. + + Where wing to wing the eagles cling + And torrents have their sources, + War rose with bugle voice to sing + Of wild spear thrust, and broadsword swing, + And rush of men and horses. + + Then deep below, where orchards show + A home here, here a steeple, + We heard a simple shepherd go, + Singing, beneath the afterglow, + A love-song of the people. + + As in the trees the song did cease, + With matron eyes and holy + Peace, from the cornlands of increase. + And rose-beds of love's victories, + Spake, smiling, of the lowly. + + + + +A SUNSET FANCY. + + + Wide in the west, a lake + Of flame that seems to shake + As if the Midgard snake + Deep down did breathe: + An isle of purple glow, + Where rosy rivers flow + Down peaks of cloudy snow + With fire beneath. + + And there the Tower-of-Night, + With windows all a-light, + Frowns on a burning height; + Wherein she sleeps,-- + Young through the years of doom,-- + Veiled with her hair's gold gloom, + The pale Valkyrie whom + Enchantment keeps. + + + + +THE FEN-FIRE. + + + The misty rain makes dim my face, + The night's black cloak is o'er me; + I tread the dripping cypress-place, + A flickering light before me. + + Out of the death of leaves that rot + And ooze and weedy water, + My form was breathed to haunt this spot, + Death's immaterial daughter. + + The owl that whoops upon the yew, + The snake that lairs within it, + Have seen my wild face flashing blue + For one fantastic minute. + + But should you follow where my eyes + Like some pale lamp decoy you, + Beware! lest suddenly I rise + With love that shall destroy you. + + + + +TO ONE READING THE MORTE D'ARTHURE. + + + O daughter of our Southern sun, + Sweet sister of each flower, + Dost dream in terraced Avalon + A shadow-haunted hour? + Or stand with Guinevere upon + Some ivied Camelot tower? + + Or in the wind dost breathe the musk + That blows Tintagel's sea on? + Or 'mid the lists by castled Usk + Hear some wild tourney's paeon? + Or 'neath the Merlin moons of dusk + Dost muse in old Caerleon? + + Or now of Launcelot, and then + Of Arthur, 'mid the roses, + Dost speak with wily Vivien? + Or where the shade reposes, + Dost walk with stately armored men + In marble-fountained closes? + + So speak the dreams within thy gaze. + The dreams thy spirit cages, + Would that Romance--which on thee lays + The spell of bygone ages-- + Held me! a memory of those days, + A portion of its pages! + + + + +STROLLERS. + + +I. + + We have no castles, + We have no vassals, + We have no riches, no gems and no gold; + Nothing to ponder, + Nothing to squander-- + Let us go wander + As minstrels of old. + + +II. + + You with your lute, love, + I with my flute, love, + Let us make music by mountain and sea; + You with your glances, + I with my dances, + Singing romances + Of old chivalry. + + +III. + + "Derry down derry! + Good folk, be merry! + Hither, and hearken where happiness is!-- + Never go borrow + Care of to-morrow, + Never go sorrow + While life hath a kiss." + + +IV. + + Let the day gladden + Or the night sadden, + We will be merry in sunshine or snow; + You with your rhyme, love, + I with my chime, love, + We will make time, love, + Dance as we go. + + +V. + + Nothing is ours, + Only the flowers, + Meadows, and stars, and the heavens above; + Nothing to lie for, + Nothing to sigh for, + Nothing to die for + While still we have love. + + +VI. + + "Derry down derry! + Good folk, be merry! + Hither, and hearken a word that is sooth:-- + Care ye not any, + If ye have many + Or not a penny, + If still ye have youth!" + + + + +HAUNTED. + + + When grave the twilight settles o'er my roof, + And from the haggard oaks unto my door + The rain comes, wild as one who rides before + His enemies that follow, hoof to hoof; + And in each window's gusty curtain-woof + The rain-wind sighs, like one who mutters o'er + Some tale of love and crime; and, on the floor, + The sunset spreads red stains as bloody proof; + From hall to hall and stealthy stair to stair, + Through all the house, a dread that drags me toward + The ancient dusk of that avoided room, + Wherein she sits with ghostly golden hair, + And eyes that gaze beyond her soul's sad doom, + Bending above an unreal harpsichord. + + + + +PRAETERITA. + + + Low belts of rushes ragged with the blast; + Lagoons of marish reddening with the west; + And o'er the marsh the water-fowl's unrest + While daylight dwindles and the dusk falls fast. + Set in sad walls, all mossy with the past, + An old stone gateway with a crumbling crest; + A garden where death drowses manifest; + And in gaunt yews the shadowy house at last. + Here, like some unseen spirit, silence talks + With echo and the wind in each gray room + Where melancholy slumbers with the rain: + Or, like some gentle ghost, the moonlight walks + In the dim garden, which her smile makes bloom + With all the old-time loveliness again. + + + + +THE SWASHBUCKLER. + + + Squat-nosed and broad, of big and pompous port; + A tavern visage, apoplexy haunts, + All pimple-puffed; the Falstaff-like resort + Of fat debauchery, whose veined cheek flaunts + A flabby purple: rusty-spurred he stands + In rakehell boots and belt, and hanger that + Claps when, with greasy gauntlets on his hands, + He swaggers past in cloak and slouch-plumed hat. + Aggression marches armies in his words; + And in his oaths great deeds ride cap-a-pie; + His looks, his gestures breathe the breath of swords; + And in his carriage camp all wars to be: + With him of battles there shall be no lack + While buxom wenches are and stoops of sack. + + + + +THE WITCH. + + + She gropes and hobbies, where the dropsied rocks + Are hairy with the lichens and the twist + Of knotted wolf's-bane, mumbling in the mist, + Hawk-nosed and wrinkle-eyed with scrawny locks. + At her bent back the sick-faced moonlight mocks, + Like some lewd evil whom the Fiend hath kissed; + Thrice at her feet the slipping serpent hissed, + And thrice the owl called to the forest fox.-- + What sabboth brew dost now intend? What root + Dost seek for, seal for what satanic spell + Of incantations and demoniac fire? + From thy rude hut, hill-huddled in the brier, + What dark familiar points thy sure pursuit, + With burning eyes, gaunt with the glow of Hell? + + + + +THE SOMNAMBULIST. + + + Oaks and a water. By the water--eyes, + Ice-green and steadfast as cold stars; and hair + Yellow as eyes deep in a she-wolf's lair; + And limbs, like darkness that the lightning dyes. + The humped oaks stand black under iron skies; + The dry wind whirls the dead leaves everywhere; + Wild on the water falls a vulture glare + Of moon, and wild the circling raven flies. + Again the power of this thing hath laid + Illusion on him: and he seems to hear + A sweet voice calling him beyond his gates + To longed-for love; he comes; each forest glade + Seems reaching out white arms to draw him near-- + Nearer and nearer to the death that waits. + + + + +OPIUM. + +_On reading De Quincey's "Confessions of an Opium Eater."_ + + + I seemed to stand before a temple walled + From shadows and night's unrealities; + Filled with dark music of dead memories, + And voices, lost in darkness, aye that called. + I entered. And, beneath the dome's high-halled + Immensity, one forced me to my knees + Before a blackness--throned 'mid semblances + And spectres--crowned with flames of emerald. + Then, lo! two shapes that thundered at mine ears + The names of Horror and Oblivion, + Priests of this god,--and bade me die and dream. + Then, in the heart of hell, a thousand years + Meseemed I lay--dead; while the iron stream + Of Time beat out the seconds, one by one. + + + + +MUSIC AND SLEEP. + + + These have a life that hath no part in death; + These circumscribe the soul and make it strong; + Between the breathing of a dream and song, + Building a world of beauty in a breath. + Unto the heart the voice of this one saith + Ideals, its emotions live among; + Unto the mind the other speaks a tongue + Of visions, where the guess, we christen faith, + May face the fact of immortality-- + As may a rose its unembodied scent, + Or star its own reflected radiance. + We do not know these save unconsciously. + To whose mysterious shadows God hath lent + No certain shape, no certain countenance. + + + + +AMBITION. + + + Now to my lips lift then some opiate + Of black forgetfulness! while in thy gaze + Still lures the loveless beauty that betrays, + And in thy mouth the music that is hate. + No promise more hast thou to make me wait; + No smile to cozen my sick heart with praise! + Far, far behind thee stretch laborious days, + And far before thee, labors soon and late. + Thine is the fen-fire that we deem a star, + Flying before us, ever fugitive, + Thy mocking policy still holds afar: + And thine the voice, to which our longings give + Hope's siren face, that speaks us sweet and fair, + Only to lead us captives to Despair. + + + + +DESPONDENCY. + + + Not all the bravery that day puts on + Of gold and azure, ardent or austere, + Shall ease my soul of sorrow; grown more dear + Than all the joy that heavenly hope may don. + Far up the skies the rumor of the dawn + May run, and eve like some wild torch appear; + These shall not change the darkness, gathered here, + Of thought, that rusts like an old sword undrawn. + Oh, for a place deep-sunken from the sun! + A wildwood cave of primitive rocks and moss! + Where Sleep and Silence--breast to married breast-- + Lie with their child, night-eyed Oblivion; + Where, freed from all the trouble of my cross, + I might forget, I might forget, and rest! + + + + +DESPAIR. + + + Shut in with phantoms of life's hollow hopes, + And shadows of old sins satiety slew, + And the young ghosts of the dead dreams love knew, + Out of the day into the night she gropes. + Behind her, high the silvered summit slopes + Of strength and faith, she will not turn to view; + But towards the cave of weakness, harsh of hue, + She goes, where all the dropsied horror ropes. + There is a voice of waters in her ears, + And on her brow a wind that never dies: + One is the anguish of desired tears; + One is the sorrow of unuttered sighs; + And, burdened with the immemorial years, + Downward she goes with never lifted eyes. + + + + +SIN. + + + There is a legend of an old Hartz tower + That tells of one, a noble, who had sold + His soul unto the Fiend; who grew not old + On this condition: That the demon's power + Cease every midnight for a single hour, + And in that hour his body should be cold, + His limbs grow shriveled, and his face, behold! + Become a death's-head in the taper's glower.-- + So unto Sin Life gives his best. Her arts + Make all his outward seeming beautiful + Before the world; but in his heart of hearts + Abides an hour when her strength is null; + When he shall feel the death through all his parts + Strike, and his countenance become a skull. + + + + +INSOMNIA. + + + It seems that dawn will never climb + The eastern hills; + And, clad in mist and flame and rime, + Make flashing highways of the rills. + + The night is as an ancient way + Through some dead land, + Whereon the ghosts of Memory + And Sorrow wander hand in hand. + + By which man's works ignoble seem, + Unbeautiful; + And grandeur, but the ruined dream + Of some proud queen, crowned with a skull. + + A way past-peopled, dark and old, + That stretches far-- + Its only real thing, the cold + Vague light of sleep's one fitful star. + + + + +ENCOURAGEMENT. + + + To help our tired hope to toil, + Lo! have we not the council here + Of trees, that to all hope appear + As sermons of the soil? + + To help our flagging faith to rise, + Lo! have we not the high advice + Of stars, that for all faith suffice + As gospels of the skies? + + Sustain us, Lord! and help us climb, + With hope and faith made strong and great, + The rock-rough pathway of our fate, + The care-dark way of time! + + + + +QUATRAINS. + + +PENURY. + + Above his misered embers, gnarled and gray, + With toil-twitched limbs he bends; around his hut, + Want, like a hobbling hag, goes night and day, + Scolding at windows and at doors tight-shut. + + +STRATEGY. + + Craft's silent sister and the daughter deep + Of Contemplation, she, who spreads below + A hostile tent soft comfort for her foe, + With eyes of Jael watching till he sleep. + + +TEMPEST. + + With helms of lightning, glittering in the skies, + On steeds of thunder, cloudy form on form, + Terrific beauty in their hair and eyes, + Behold the wild Valkyries of the storm. + + +THE LOCUST BLOSSOM. + + The spirit Spring, in rainy raiment, met + The spirit Summer for a moonlit hour: + Sweet from their greeting kisses, warm and wet, + Earth shaped the fragrant purity of this flower. + + +MELANCHOLY. + + With shadowy immortelles of memory + About her brow, she sits with eyes that look + Upon the stream of Lethe wearily, + In hesitant hands Death's partly-opened book. + + +CONTENT. + + Among the meadows of Life's sad unease-- + In labor still renewing her soul's youth-- + With trust, for patience, and with love, for peace, + Singing she goes with the calm face of Ruth. + + +LIFE AND DEATH. + + Of our own selves God makes a glass, wherein + Two shadows image them as might a breath: + And one is Life, whose other name is Sin; + And one is Love, whose other name is Death. + + +SORROW. + + Death takes her hand and leads her through the waste + Of her own soul, wherein she hears the voice + Of lost Love's tears, and, famishing, can but taste + The dead-sea fruit of Life's remembered joys. + + + + +A LAST WORD. + + + Not for thyself, but for the sake of Song, + Strive to succeed as others have, who gave + Their lives unto her; shaping sure and strong + Her lovely limbs that made them god and slave. + + Not for thyself, but for the sake of Art, + Strive to advance beyond the others' best; + Winning a deeper secret from her heart + To hang it moonlike 'mid the starry rest. + + + + +_For permission to reprint a number of the poems included in this +volume, thanks are due to The Chap-Book, Cosmopolitan, Lippincott's, +Century, New England, Atlantic, and Harper's._ + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Garden of Dreams, by Madison J. 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