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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Cup of Comus, 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 Cup of Comus
+       Fact and Fancy
+
+Author: Madison J. Cawein
+
+Release Date: October 4, 2010 [EBook #34027]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CUP OF COMUS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Garcia, Josephine Paolucci 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 CUP OF COMUS
+
+by
+
+Madison Cawein
+
+
+
+
+THE CUP OF COMUS
+
+FACT AND FANCY
+
+BY
+
+MADISON CAWEIN
+
+MEMBER OF THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ARTS AND LETTERS
+
+[Illustration]
+
+THE CAMEO PRESS
+NEW YORK
+1915
+
+
+Copyright, 1915, by
+ROSE DE VAUX-ROYER
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_This edition is limited to Five Hundred copies of which this is Number_
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For permission to reprint most of the poems in this volume thanks are
+made to the various magazines and periodicals in which they first
+appeared.
+
+VAIL-BALLOU COMPANY
+BINGHAMTON AND NEW YORK
+
+
+TO MY GOOD FRIEND
+
+W. T. H. HOWE
+
+    Friend, for the sake of loves we hold in common,
+    The love of books, of paintings, rhyme and fiction;
+    And for the sake of that divine affliction,
+    The love of art, passing the love of woman;--
+    By which all life's made nobler, superhuman,
+    Lifting the soul above, and, without friction
+    Of Time, that puts failure in his prediction,--
+    Works to some end through hearts that dreams illumine:
+    To you I pour this Cup of Dreams--a striver,
+    And dreamer too in this sad world,--unwitting
+    Of that you do, the help that still assureth,--
+    Lifts up the heart, struck down by that dark driver,
+    Despair, who, on Life's pack-horse--effort--sitting,
+    Rides down Ambition through whom Art endureth.
+
+
+
+
+THRENODY IN MAY
+
+(In memory of Madison Cawein.)
+
+
+    Again the earth, miraculous with May,
+      Unfolds its vernal arras. Yesteryear
+        We strolled together 'neath the greening trees,
+      And heard the robin tune its flute note clear,
+      And watched above the white cloud squadrons veer.
+    And saw their shifting shadows drift away
+        Adown the Hudson, as ships seek the seas.
+    The scene is still the same. The violet
+      Unlids its virgin eye; its amber ore
+    The dandelion shows, and yet, and yet,
+      He comes no more, no more!
+
+    He of the open and the generous heart,
+      The soul that sensed all flowerful loveliness,
+        The nature as the nature of a child;
+      Who found some rapture in the wind's caress.
+      Beauty in humble weed and mint and cress.
+    And sang, with his incomparable art,
+        The magic wonder of the wood and wild.
+    The little people of the reeds and grass
+      Murmur their blithe, companionable lore,
+    The rills renew their minstrelsy. Alas,
+      He comes no more, no more!
+
+    And yet it seems as though he needs must come,
+      Albeit he has cast off mortality,
+        Such was his passion for the bourgeoning time,
+      Such to his spirit was the ecstasy
+      The hills and valleys chorus when set free,
+    No music mute, no lyric instinct dumb,
+        But keyed to utterance of immortal rhyme.
+    Ah, haply in some other fairer spring
+      He sees bright tides sweep over slope and shore,
+    But here how vain is ell my visioning!
+      He comes no more, no more!
+
+    Poet and friend, wherever you may fare
+      Enwrapt in dreams, I love to think of you
+        Wandering amid the meads of asphodel,
+      Holding high converse with the exalted few
+      Who sought and found below the elusive clue
+    To beauty, and in that diviner air
+        Bowing in worship still to its sweet spell.
+    Why sorrow, then, though fate unkindly lays
+      Upon our questioning hearts this burden sore,
+    And though through all our length of hastening days
+      He comes no more, no more!
+
+                                CLINTON SCOLLARD.
+
+
+
+
+FOREWORD
+
+
+It is with a sense of sadness and regret that this book, written by one
+who universally has endeared himself to lovers of nature through his
+revelation of her mysteries, must be prefaced as containing the last
+songs of this exquisite singer of the South.
+
+When the final word is spoken it is fitting that it be by one of
+authority. William Dean Howells, in the pages of _The North American
+Review_, offers this tribute:
+
+"I had read his poetry and loved it from the beginning, and in each
+successive expression of it, I had delighted in its expanding and
+maturing beauty. Between the earliest and the latest thing there may
+have been a hundred different things in the swan-like life of a singer
+... but we take the latest as if it summed him up in motive and range
+and tendency.... Not one of his lovely landscapes but thrilled with a
+human presence penetrating to it from his most sensitive and subtle
+spirit until it was all but painfully alive with memories, with regrets,
+with longings, with hopes, with all that from time to time mutably
+constitutes us men and women, and yet keeps us children. He has the
+gift, in a measure, that I do not think surpassed in any poet, of
+touching some commonest thing in nature, and making it live, from the
+manifold associations in which we have our being, and glow thereafter
+with an indistinguishable beauty.... No other poet can outword this poet
+when it comes to choosing some epithet fresh from the earth and air, and
+with the morning sun and light upon it, for an emotion or an experience
+in which the race renews its youth from generation to generation.... His
+touch leaves everything that was dull to the sense before glowing in the
+light of joyful recognition."
+
+With a tone of conviction Edwin Markham says:
+
+"No other poet of the later American choir offers so large a collection
+of verse as Mr. Cawein does, and no other American minstrel has so
+unvarying a devotion to nature. And none other, perhaps, has so keen an
+eye, so sure a word for nature's magic of mood, her trick of color, her
+change of form. He is not so wild and far-flying as Bliss Carmen, nor so
+large and elemental as Joaquin Miller; but he is often as delicate and
+eerie as Aldrich, and sometimes as warm and rich as Keats in the April
+affluence of 'Endymion.'"
+
+"Mr. Cawein's landscape is not the sea, nor the desert, nor the
+mountain, but the lovely inland levels of his Kentucky. His work is
+almost wholly objective. A dash more of human import mixed into the
+beauty and melody of his poetry would rank him with Lowell and the other
+great lyrists of our elder choir."
+
+Some of the new poems portray a high moral passion, potent with the
+belief of life beyond, where his delicacy of vision penetrates the
+shadow and seems to have sighted the shore that has given his soul
+greeting "somewhere yonder in a world uncharted."
+
+Clear, sure, and strong is the vocal loveliness and inevitable word with
+which this poet endears the little forms of life in the field of Faery.
+The "Song of Songs" (1913) could be characterized as prophecy, by one in
+whom seemed inherent the fatal instinct of the predestined. He sought
+for "Song to lead her way above the crags of wrong," and he gave
+
+                  "Such music as a bird
+                  Gives of its soul when dying
+                  Unconscious if it's heard!"
+    And so he went, singing, to his "Islands of Infinity."
+
+                              ROSE DE VAUX-ROYER.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+This edition is called the Friendship Edition, as it carries in its
+significance a testimonial of love and admiration for the author,
+extended by those who wish his last collected poems preserved for
+futurity.
+
+Acknowledgment is due W. D. Howells, _The North American Review_, The
+Macmillan Co., Clinton Scollard and Edwin Markham for their courtesy.
+
+
+
+
+BROKEN MUSIC
+
+(_IN MEMORIAM_)
+
+
+    _There it lies broken, as a shard,--
+      What breathed sweet music yesterday;
+      The source, all mute, has passed away
+    With its masked meanings still unmarred._
+
+    _But melody will never cease!
+      Above the vast cerulean sea
+      Of heaven, created harmony
+    Rings and re-echoes its release!_
+
+    _So, thin dumb instrument that lies
+      All powerless,--[with spirit flown,
+      Beyond the veil of the Unknown
+    To chant its love-hymned litanies,--]_
+
+    _Though it may thrill us here no more
+      With cadenced strain,--in other spheres
+      Will rise above the vanquished years
+    And breathe its music as before!_
+
+    [_Louisville Times_]
+
+    _Written December 7th, 1914._
+
+                           _Rose de Vaux-Royer._
+
+_The spirit of Madison Cawein passed at midnight from this world of
+intimate beauty "To stand a handsbreadth nearer Heaven and what is
+God!_"
+
+
+
+
+MADISON CAWEIN
+
+(1865-1914)
+
+
+    The wind makes moan, the water runneth chill;
+      I hear the nymphs go crying through the brake;
+    And roaming mournfully from hill to hill
+      The maenads all are silent for his sake!
+
+    He loved thy pipe, O wreathed and piping Pan!
+      So play'st thou sadly, lone within thine hollow;
+    He was thy blood, if ever mortal man,
+      Therefore thou weepest--even thou, Apollo!
+
+    But O, the grieving of the Little Things,
+      Above the pipe and lyre, throughout the woods!
+    The beating of a thousand airy wings,
+      The cry of all the fragile multitudes!
+
+    The moth flits desolate, the tree-toad calls,
+      Telling the sorrow of the elf and fay;
+    The cricket, little harper of the walls,
+      Puts up his harp--hath quite forgot to play!
+
+    And risen on these winter paths anew,
+      The wilding blossoms make a tender sound;
+    The purple weed, the morning-glory blue,
+      And all the timid darlings of the ground!
+
+    Here, here the pain is sharpest! For he walked
+      As one of these--and they knew naught of fear,
+    But told him daily happenings and talked
+      Their lovely secrets in his list'ning ear!
+
+    Yet we do bid them grieve, and tell their grief;
+      Else were they thankless, else were all untrue;
+    O wind and stream, O bee and bird and leaf,
+      Mourn for your poet, with a long adieu!
+
+                         MARGARET STEELE ANDERSON.
+
+    _Louisville Post_, December 12th, 1914.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+                                             PAGE
+
+THE CUP OF COMUS                               11
+
+THE INTRUDER                                   13
+
+A GHOST OF YESTERDAY                           15
+
+LORDS OF THE VISIONARY EYE                     16
+
+THE CREAKING DOOR                              18
+
+AT THE END OF THE ROAD                         20
+
+THE TROUBADOUR OF TREBIZEND                    21
+
+GHOSTS                                         23
+
+THE LONELY LAND                                24
+
+THE WIND WITCH                                 27
+
+OLD GHOSTS                                     28
+
+THE NAME ON THE TREE                           29
+
+THE HAUNTED GARDEN                             31
+
+THE CLOSED DOOR                                33
+
+THE LONG ROOM                                  34
+
+IN PEARL AND GOLD                              35
+
+MOON FAIRIES                                   37
+
+HAEC OLIM MEMINISSE                            40
+
+THE MAGIC PURSE                                41
+
+THE CHILD AT THE GATE                          42
+
+THE LOST DREAM                                 44
+
+WITCHCRAFT                                     45
+
+TRANSPOSED SEASONS                             46
+
+THE OLD DREAMER                                47
+
+A LAST WORD                                    49
+
+THE SHADOW                                     50
+
+ON THE ROAD                                    52
+
+RECONCILIATION                                 53
+
+PORTENTS                                       55
+
+THE IRON CRAGS                                 57
+
+THE IRON CROSS                                 58
+
+THE WANDERER                                   60
+
+THE END OF SUMMER                              62
+
+THE LUST OF THE WORLD                          63
+
+CHANT BEFORE BATTLE                            64
+
+NEARING CHRISTMAS                              65
+
+A BELGIAN CHRISTMAS                            67
+
+THE FESTIVAL OF THE AISNE                      69
+
+THE CRY OF EARTH                               70
+
+CHILD AND FATHER                               71
+
+THE RISING OF THE MOON                         72
+
+WHERE THE BATTLE PASSED                        73
+
+THE IRON AGE                                   74
+
+THE BATTLE                                     75
+
+ON RE-READING CERTAIN GERMAN POETS             76
+
+ON OPENING AN OLD SCHOOL VOLUME OF HORACE      77
+
+LAUS DEO                                       78
+
+THE NEW YORK SKYSCRAPER                        79
+
+ROBERT BROWNING                                80
+
+RILEY                                          81
+
+DON QUIXOTE                                    82
+
+THE WOMAN                                      83
+
+THE SONG OF SONGS                              84
+
+OGLETHORPE                                     90
+
+A POET'S EPITAPH                               96
+
+
+
+
+_THE CUP OF COMUS_
+
+PROEM
+
+
+    The Nights of song and story,
+    With breath of frost and rain,
+    Whose locks are wild and hoary,
+    Whose fingers tap the pane
+    With leaves, are come again.
+
+    The Nights of old October,
+    That hug the hearth and tell,
+    To child and grandsire sober,
+    Tales of what long befell
+    Of witch and warlock spell.
+
+    Nights, that, like gnome and faery,
+    Go, lost in mist and moon.
+    And speak in legendary
+    Thoughts or a mystic rune,
+    Much like the owlet's croon.
+
+    Or whirling on like witches,
+    Amid the brush and broom,
+    Call from the Earth its riches,
+    Of leaves and wild perfume,
+    And strew them through the gloom.
+
+    Till death, in all his starkness,
+    Assumes a form of fear,
+    And somewhere in the darkness
+    Seems slowly drawing near
+    In raiment torn and sere.
+
+    And with him comes November,
+    Who drips outside the door,
+    And wails what men remember
+    Of things believed no more,
+    Of superstitious lore.
+
+    Old tales of elf and daemon,
+    Of Kobold and of Troll,
+    And of the goblin woman
+    Who robs man of his soul
+    To make her own soul whole.
+
+    And all such tales, that glamoured
+    The child-heart once with fright,
+    That aged lips have stammered
+    For many a child's delight,
+    Shall speak again to-night.
+
+    To-night, of moonlight minted,
+    That is a cup divine,
+    Whence Death, all opal-tinted,--
+    Wreathed red with leaf and vine,--
+    Shall drink a magic wine.
+
+    A wonder-cup of Comus,
+    That with enchantment streams,
+    In which the heart of Momus,--
+    That, moon-like, glooms and gleams,
+    Is drowned with all its dreams.
+
+
+
+
+_THE INTRUDER_
+
+
+    There is a smell of roses in the room
+    Tea-roses, dead of bloom;
+    An invalid, she sits there in the gloom,
+    And contemplates her doom.
+
+    The pattern of the paper, and the grain.
+    Of carpet, with its stain,
+    Have stamped themselves, like fever, on her brain,
+    And grown a part of pain.
+
+    It has been long, so long, since that one died,
+    Or sat there by her side;
+    She felt so lonely, lost, she would have cried,--
+    But all her tears were dried.
+
+    A knock came on the door: she hardly heard;
+    And then--a whispered word,
+    And someone entered; at which, like a bird,
+    Her caged heart cried and stirred.
+
+    And then--she heard a voice; she was not wrong:
+    _His_ voice, alive and strong:
+    She listened, while the silence filled with song--
+    Oh, she had waited long!
+
+    She dared not turn to see; she dared not look;
+    But slowly closed her book,
+    And waited for his kiss; could scarcely brook
+    The weary time he took.
+
+    There was no one remembered her--no one!
+    But him, beneath the sun,--
+    _Who_ then had entered? entered but to shun
+    Her whose long work was done.
+
+    She raised her eyes, and--no one!--Yet she felt
+    A presence near, that smelt
+    Like faded roses; and that seemed to melt
+    Into her soul that knelt.
+
+    She could not see, but _knew_ that he was there,
+    Smoothing her hands and hair;
+    Filling with scents of roses all the air,
+    Standing beside her chair.
+
+        * * * *
+
+    And so they found her, sitting quietly,
+    Her book upon her knee,
+    Staring before her, as if she could see--
+    What was it--Death? or he?
+
+
+
+
+_A GHOST OF YESTERDAY_
+
+
+    There is a house beside a way,
+    Where dwells a ghost of Yesterday:
+    The old face of a beauty, faded,
+    Looks from its garden: and the shaded
+    Long walks of locust-trees, that seem
+    Forevermore to sigh and dream,
+    Keep whispering low a word that's true,
+    Of shapes that haunt its avenue,
+    Clad as in days of belle and beau,
+      Who come and go
+    Around its ancient portico.
+
+    At first, in stock and beaver-hat,
+    With flitting of the moth and bat,
+    An old man, leaning on a cane,
+    Comes slowly down the locust lane;
+    Looks at the house; then, groping, goes
+    Into the garden where the rose
+    Still keeps sweet tryst with moth and moon;
+    And, humming to himself a tune,
+    --"Lorena" or "Ben Bolt" we'll say,--
+      Waits, bent and gray,
+    For some fair ghost of Yesterday.
+
+    The Yesterday that holds his all--
+    More real to him than is the wall
+    Of mossy stone near which he stands,
+    Still reaching out for her his hands--
+    For her, the girl, who waits him there,
+    A lace-gowned phantom, dark of hair,
+    Whose loveliness still keeps those walks,
+    And with whose Memory he talks;
+    Upon his heart her happy head,--
+      So it is said,--
+    The girl, now half a century dead.
+
+
+
+
+_LORDS OF THE VISIONARY EYE_
+
+
+    I came upon a pool that shone,
+    Clear, emerald-like, among the hills,
+    That seemed old wizards round a stone
+    Of magic that a vision thrills.
+
+    And as I leaned and looked, it seemed
+    Vague shadows gathered there and here--
+    A dream, perhaps the water dreamed
+    Of some wild past, some long-dead year....
+
+    A temple of a race unblessed
+    Rose huge within a hollow land,
+    Where, on an altar, bare of breast,
+    One lay, a man, bound foot and hand.
+
+    A priest, who served some hideous god,
+    Stood near him on the altar stair,
+    Clothed on with gold; and at his nod
+    A multitude seemed gathered there.
+
+    I saw a sword descend; and then
+    The priest before the altar turned;
+    He was not formed like mortal man,
+    But like a beast whose eyeballs burned.
+
+    Amorphous, strangely old, he glared
+    Above the victim he had slain,
+    Who lay with bleeding bosom bared,
+    From which dripped slow a crimson rain.
+
+    Then turned to me a face of stone
+    And mocked above the murdered dead,
+    That fixed its cold eyes on his own
+    And cursed him with a look of dread.
+
+    And then, it seemed, I knew the place,
+    And how this sacrifice befell:
+    I knew the god, the priest's wild face,
+    I knew the dead man--knew him well.
+
+    And as I stooped again to look,
+    I heard the dark hills sigh and laugh,
+    And in the pool the water shook
+    As if one stirred it with a staff.
+
+    And all was still again and clear:
+    The pool lay crystal as before,
+    Temple and priest were gone; the mere
+    Had closed again its magic door.
+
+    A face was there; it seemed to shine
+    As round it died the sunset's flame--
+    The victim's face?--or was it mine?--
+    They were to me the very same.
+
+    And yet, and yet--could this thing be?--
+    And in my soul I seemed to know,
+    At once, this was a memory
+    Of some past life, lived long ago.
+
+    Recorded by some secret sense,
+    In forms that we as dreams retain;
+    Some moment, as experience,
+    Projects in pictures on the brain.
+
+
+
+
+_THE CREAKING DOOR_
+
+
+    Come in, old Ghost of all that used to be!--
+      You find me old,
+      And love grown cold,
+    And fortune fled to younger company:
+    Departed, as the glory of the day,
+    With friends!--And you, it seems, have come to stay.--
+      'T is time to pray.
+
+    Come; sit with me, here at Life's creaking door,
+      All comfortless.--
+      Think, nay! then, guess,
+    What was the one thing, eh? that made me poor?--
+    The love of beauty, that I could not bind?
+    My dream of truth? or faith in humankind?--
+      But, never mind!
+
+    All are departed now, with love and youth,
+      Whose stay was brief;
+      And left but grief
+    And gray regret--two jades, who tell the truth;--
+    Whose children--memories of things to be,
+    And things that failed,--within my heart, ah me!
+      Cry constantly.
+
+    None can turn time back, and no man delay
+      Death when he knocks,--
+      What good are clocks,
+    Or human hearts, to stay for us that day
+    When at Life's creaking door we see his smile,--
+    Death's! at the door of this old House of Trial?--
+      Old Ghost, let's wait awhile.
+
+
+
+
+_AT THE END OF THE ROAD_
+
+
+    This is the truth as I see it, my dear,
+      Out in the wind and the rain:
+    They who have nothing have little to fear,--
+      Nothing to lose or to gain.
+    Here by the road at the end o' the year,
+    Let us sit down and drink o' our beer,
+    Happy-Go-Lucky and her cavalier,
+      Out in the wind and the rain.
+
+    Now we are old, oh isn't it fine
+      Out in the wind and the rain?
+    Now we have nothing why snivel and whine?--
+      What would it bring us again?--
+    When I was young I took you like wine,
+    Held you and kissed you and thought you divine--
+    Happy-Go-Lucky, the habit's still mine,
+      Out in the wind and the rain.
+
+    Oh, my old Heart, what a life we have led,
+      Out in the wind and the rain!
+    How we have drunken and how we have fed!
+      Nothing to lose or to gain!--
+    Cover the fire now; get we to bed.
+    Long was the journey and far has it led:
+    Come, let us sleep, lass, sleep like the dead,
+      Out in the wind and the rain.
+
+
+
+
+_THE TROUBADOUR OF TREBIZEND_
+
+
+    Night, they say, is no man's friend:
+    And at night he met his end
+    In the woods of Trebizend.
+
+    Hate crouched near him as he strode
+    Through the blackness of the road,
+    Where my Lord seemed some huge toad.
+
+    Eyes of murder glared and burned
+    At each bend of road he turned,
+    And where wild the torrent churned.
+
+    And with Death _we_ stood and stared
+    From the bush as by he fared,--
+    But he never looked or cared.
+
+    He went singing; and a rose
+    Lay upon his heart's repose--
+    With what thought of her--who knows?
+
+    He had done no other wrong
+    Save to sing a simple song,
+    "_I have loved you--loved you long_."
+
+    And my lady smiled and sighed;
+    Gave a rose and looked moist eyed,
+    And forgot she was a bride.
+
+    My sweet lady, Jehan de Grace,
+    With the pale Madonna face,
+    He had brought to his embrace.
+
+    And my Lord saw: gave commands:
+    I was of his bandit bands.--
+    Love should perish at our hands.
+
+    Young the Knight was. He should sing
+    Nevermore of love or spring,
+    Or of any gentle thing.
+
+    When he stole at midnight's hour,
+    To my Lady's forest bower,
+    We were hidden near the tower.
+
+    In the woods of Trebizend
+    There he met an evil end.--
+    Night, you know, is no man's friend.
+
+    He has fought in fort and field;
+    Borne for years a stainless shield,
+    And in strength to none would yield.
+
+    But we seized him unaware,
+    Bound and hung him; stripped him bare,
+    Left him to the wild boars there.
+
+    Never has my Lady known.--
+    But she often sits alone,
+    Weeping when my Lord is gone....
+
+    Night, they say, is no man's friend.--
+    In the woods of Trebizend
+    There he met an evil end.
+
+    Now my old Lord sleeps in peace,
+    While my Lady--each one sees--
+    Waits, and keeps her memories.
+
+
+
+
+_GHOSTS_
+
+
+    Low, weed-climbed cliffs, o'er which at noon
+      The sea-mists swoon:
+    Wind-twisted pines, through which the crow
+      Goes winging slow:
+    Dim fields, the sower never sows,
+      Or reaps or mows:
+    And near the sea a ghostly house of stone
+      Where all is old and lone.
+
+    A garden, falling in decay,
+      Where statues gray
+    Peer, broken, out of tangled weed
+      And thorny seed:
+    Satyr and Nymph, that once made love
+      By walk and grove:
+    And, near a fountain, shattered, green with mold,
+      A sundial, lichen-old.
+
+    Like some sad life bereft,
+      To musing left,
+    The house stands: love and youth
+      Both gone, in sooth:
+    But still it sits and dreams:
+      And round it seems
+    Some memory of the past, still young and fair,
+      Haunting each crumbling stair.
+
+    And suddenly one dimly sees,
+      Come through the trees,
+    A woman, like a wild moss-rose:
+      A man, who goes
+    Softly: and by the dial
+      They kiss a while:
+    Then drowsily the mists blow round them, wan,
+      And they, like ghosts, are gone.
+
+
+
+
+_THE LONELY LAND_
+
+
+    A river binds the lonely land,
+    A river like a silver band,
+    To crags and shores of yellow sand.
+
+    It is a place where kildees cry,
+    And endless marches eastward lie,
+    Whereon looks down a ghostly sky.
+
+    A house stands gray and all alone
+    Upon a hill, as dim of tone,
+    And lonely, as a lonely stone.
+
+    There are no signs of life about:
+    No barnyard bustle, cry and shout
+    Of children who run laughing out.
+
+    No crow of cocks, no low of cows,
+    No sheep-bell tinkling under boughs
+    Of beech, or song in garth or house.
+
+    Only the curlew's mournful call,
+    Circling the sky at evenfall,
+    And loon lamenting over all.
+
+    A garden, where the sunflower dies
+    And lily on the pathway lies,
+    Looks blindly at the blinder skies.
+
+    And round the place a lone wind blows,
+    As when the Autumn grieving goes,
+    Tattered and dripping, to its close.
+
+    And on decaying shrubs and vines
+    The moon's thin crescent, dwindling shines,
+    Caught in the claws of sombre pines.
+
+    And then a pale girl, like a flower,
+    Enters the garden: for an hour
+    She waits beside a wild-rose bower.
+
+    There is no other one around;
+    No sound, except the cricket's sound
+    And far-off baying of a hound.
+
+    There is no fire or candle-light
+    To flash its message through the night
+    Of welcome from some casement bright.
+
+    Only the moon, that thinly throws
+    A shadow on the girl and rose,
+    As to its setting slow it goes.
+
+    And when 'tis gone, from shore and stream
+    There steals a mist, that turns to dream
+    That place where all things merely seem.
+
+    And through the mist there goes a cry,
+    Not of the earth nor of the sky,
+    But of the years that have passed by.
+
+    And with the cry there comes the rain,
+    Whispering of all that was in vain
+    At every door and window-pane.
+
+    And she, who waits beside the rose,
+    Hears, with her heart, a hoof that goes,
+    Galloping afar to where none knows.
+
+    And then she bows her head and weeps....
+    And suddenly a shadow sweeps
+    Around, and in its darkening deeps.
+
+    The house, the girl, the cliffs and stream
+    Are gone.--And they, and all things seem
+    But phantoms, merely, in a dream.
+
+
+
+
+_THE WIND WITCH_
+
+
+    The wind that met her in the park,
+    Came hurrying to my side--
+    It ran to me, it leapt to me,
+    And nowhere would abide.
+
+    It whispered in my ear a word,
+    So sweet a word, I swear,
+    It smelt of honey and the kiss
+    It'd stolen from her hair.
+
+    Then shouted me the flowery way
+    Whereon she walked with dreams,
+    And bade me wait and watch her pass
+    Among the glooms and gleams.
+
+    It ran to meet her as she came
+    And clasped her to its breast;
+    It kissed her throat, her chin, her mouth,
+    And laughed its merriest.
+
+    Then to my side it leapt again,
+    And took me by surprise:
+    The kiss it'd stolen from her lips
+    It blew into my eyes.
+
+    Since then, it seems, I have grown blind
+    To every face but hers:
+    It haunts me sleeping or awake,
+    And is become my curse.
+
+    The spell, that kiss has laid on me,
+    Shall hold my eyes the same,
+    Until I give it back again
+    To lips from which it came.
+
+
+
+
+_OLD GHOSTS_
+
+
+    Clove-spicy pinks and phlox that fill the sense
+      With drowsy indolence;
+      And in the evening skies
+    Interior splendor, pregnant with surprise,
+      As if in some new wise
+      The full moon soon would rise.
+
+    Hung with the crimson aigrets of its seeds
+      The purple monkshood bleeds;
+      The dewy crickets chirr,
+    And everywhere are lights of lavender;
+      And scents of musk and myrrh
+      To guide the foot of her.
+
+    She passes like a misty glimmer on
+      To where the rose blooms wan,--
+      A twilight moth in flight,--
+    As in the west its streak of chrysolite
+      The dusk erases quite,
+      And ushers in the night.
+
+    And now another shadow passes slow,
+      With firefly light a-glow:
+      The scent of a cigar,
+    And two who kiss beneath the evening-star,
+      Where, in a moonbeam bar,
+      A whippoorwill cries afar.
+
+    Again the tale is told, that has been told
+      So often here of old:
+      Ghosts of dead lovers they?
+    Or memories only of some perished day?--
+      Old ghosts, no time shall lay,
+      That haunt the place alway.
+
+
+
+
+_THE NAME ON THE TREE_
+
+
+    I saw a name carved on a tree--"Julia";
+    A simpler name there could not be--Julia:
+    But seeing it I seemed to see
+    A Devon garden,--pleasantly
+    About a parsonage,--the bee
+    Made drowsy-sweet; where rosemary
+    And pink and phlox and peony
+      Bowed down to one
+    Whom Herrick made to bloom in Poetry.
+
+    A moment there I saw her stand,--Julia;
+    A gillyflower in her hand,--Julia:
+    And then, kind-faced and big and bland,
+    As raised by some magician's wand,
+    Herrick himself passed by, sun-tanned,
+    And smiling; and the quiet land
+    Seemed to take on and understand
+      A dream long dreamed,
+    And for the lives of two some gladness planned.
+
+    And then I seemed to hear a sigh,--"Julia!"
+    And someone softly walking nigh,--Julia:
+    The leaves shook; and a butterfly
+    Trailed past; and through the sleepy sky
+    A bird flew, crying strange its cry--
+    Then suddenly before my eye
+    Two lovers strolled--They knew not why
+      I looked amazed,--
+    But I had seen old ghosts of long dead loves go by.
+
+
+
+
+_THE HAUNTED GARDEN_
+
+
+    There a tattered marigold
+    And dead asters manifold,
+    Showed him where the garden old
+      Of time bloomed:
+    Briar and thistle overgrew
+    Corners where the rose once blew,
+    Where the phlox of every hue
+      Lay entombed.
+
+    Here a coreopsis flower
+    Pushed its disc above a bower,
+    Where once poured a starry shower,
+      Bronze and gold:
+    And a twisted hollyhock,
+    And the remnant of a stock,
+    Struggled up, 'mid burr and dock,
+      Through the mold.
+
+    Flower-pots, with mossy cloak,
+    Strewed a place beneath an oak,
+    Where the garden-bench lay broke
+      By the tree:
+    And he thought of _her_, who here
+    Sat with him but yesteryear;
+    Her, whose presence now seemed near
+      Stealthily.
+
+    And the garden seemed to look
+    For her coming. Petals shook
+    On the spot where, with her book,
+      Oft she sat.--
+    Suddenly there blew a wind:
+    And across the garden blind,
+    Like a black thought in a mind,
+      Stole a cat.
+
+    Lean as hunger; like the shade
+    Of a dream; a ghost unlaid;
+    Through the weeds its way it made,
+      Gaunt and old:
+    Once 't was _hers_. He looked to see
+    If _she_ followed to the tree.--
+    Then recalled how long since she
+      Had been mold.
+
+
+
+
+_THE CLOSED DOOR_
+
+
+    Shut it out of the heart--this grief,
+    O Love, with the years grown old and hoary!
+    And let in joy that life is brief,
+    And give God thanks for the end of the story.
+    The bond of the flesh is transitory,
+    And beauty goes with the lapse of years--
+    The brow's white rose and the hair's dark glory--
+    God be thanked for the severing shears!
+
+    Over the past, Heart, waste no tears!
+    Over the past, and all its madness,
+    Its wine and wormwood, hopes and fears,
+    That never were worth a moment's sadness.
+    Here she lies who was part o' its gladness,
+    Wife and mistress, and shared its woe,
+    The good of life as well as its badness,--
+    Look on her face and see if you know.
+
+    Is this the face?--yea, ask it slow!--
+    The hair, the form, that we used to cherish?--
+    Where is the glory of long-ago?
+    The beauty we said would never perish.--
+    Like a dream we dream, or a thought we nourish,
+    Nothing of earth immortal is:
+    This is the end however we flourish--
+    All that is fair must come to this.
+
+
+
+
+_THE LONG ROOM_
+
+
+    He found the long room as it was of old,
+    Glimmering with sunset's gold;
+    That made the tapestries seem full of eyes
+    Strange with a wild surmise:
+    Glaring upon a Psyche where she shone
+    Carven of stainless stone,
+    Holding a crystal heart where many a sun
+    Seemed starrily bound in one:
+    And near her, grim in rigid metal, stood
+    An old knight in a wood,
+    Groping his way: the bony wreck, that was
+    His steed, at weary pause.
+    And over these a canvas--one mad mesh
+    Of Chrysoprase tints of flesh
+    And breasts--Bohemian cups, whose glory gleamed
+    For one who, brutish, seemed
+    A hideous Troll, unto whose lustful arms
+    She yielded glad her charms.
+
+    Then he remembered all _her_ shame; and knew
+    The thing that he must do:
+    These were but records of _his_ life: the whole
+    Portrayed to him his soul.--
+    So, drawing forth the slim Bithynian phial,
+    He drained it with a smile.
+    And 'twixt the Knight and Psyche fell and died;
+    The arras, evil-eyed,
+    Glared grimly at him where all night he lay,
+    And where a stealthy ray
+    Pointed her to _him_--her, that nymph above,
+    Who gave the Troll her love.
+
+
+
+
+_IN PEARL AND GOLD_
+
+
+    When pearl and gold, o'er deeps of musk,
+    The moon curves, silvering the dusk,--
+    As in a garden, dreaming,
+    A lily slips its dewy husk
+    A firefly in its gleaming,--
+    I of my garden am a guest;
+    My garden, that, in beauty dressed
+    Of simple shrubs and oldtime flowers,
+    Chats with me of the perished hours,
+    When _she_ companioned me in life,
+    Living remote from care and strife.
+
+    It says to me: "How sad and slow
+    The hours of daylight come and go,
+    Until the Night walks here again
+    With moon and starlight in her train,
+    And she and I with perfumed words
+    Of winds and waters, dreaming birds,
+    And flowers and crickets and the moon,
+    For hour on hour, in soul commune.--"
+      And you, and you,
+    Sit here and listen in the dew
+    For her, the love, you used to know,
+    Who often walked here, long ago,
+      Long ago;
+    The young, sweet love you used to know
+      Long ago
+    Whom oft I watched with violet eye,
+    Or eye of dew, as she passed by:
+      As she passed by.
+
+    And I reply, with half a sigh:--
+    "You knew her too as well as I,
+    That young sweet love of long-ago!
+    That young sweet love, who walked here slow.--
+    Oh, speak no more of the days gone by,
+      Dear days gone by,
+    Lest I lay me down on your heart and die!"
+
+
+
+
+_MOON FAIRIES_
+
+
+    The moon, a circle of gold,
+    O'er the crowded housetops rolled,
+    And peeped in an attic, where,
+    'Mid sordid things and bare,
+    A sick child lay and gazed
+    At a road to the far-away,
+    A road he followed, mazed,
+    That grew from a moonbeam-ray,
+
+    A road of light that led
+    From the foot of his garret-bed
+    Out of that room of hate,
+    Where Poverty slept by his mate,
+    Sickness--out of the street,
+    Into a wonderland,
+    Where a voice called, far and sweet,
+    "Come, follow our Fairy band!"
+
+    A purple shadow, sprinkled
+    With golden star-dust, twinkled
+    Suddenly into the room
+    Out of the winter gloom:
+    And it wore a face to him
+    Of a dream he'd dreamed: a form
+    Of Joy, whose face was dim,
+    Yet bright with a magic charm.
+
+    And the shadow seemed to trail,
+    Sounds that were green and frail:
+    Dew-dripples; notes that fell
+    Like drops in a ferny dell;
+    A whispered lisp and stir,
+    Like winds among the leaves,
+    Blent with a cricket-chirr,
+    And coo of a dove that grieves.
+
+    And the Elfin bore on its back
+    A little faery pack
+    Of forest scents: of loam
+    And mossy sounds of foam;
+    And of its contents breathed
+    As might a clod of ground
+    Feeling a bud unsheathed
+    There in its womb profound.
+
+    And the shadow smiled and gazed
+    At the child; then softly raised
+    Its arms and seemed to grow
+    To a tree in the attic low:
+    And from its glimmering hands
+    Shook emerald seeds of dreams,
+    From which grew fairy bands,
+    Like firefly motes and gleams.
+
+    The child had seen them before
+    In his dreams of Fairy lore:
+    The Elves, each with a light
+    To guide his feet a-right,
+    Out of this world to a world
+    Where Magic built him towers,
+    And Fable old, unfurled,
+    flags like wonderful flowers.
+
+    And the child, who knew this, smiled,
+    And rose, a different child:
+    No more he knew of pain,
+    Or fear of heart and brain.--
+    At Poverty there that slept
+    He never even glanced,
+    But into the moon-road stept,
+    And out of the garret danced.
+
+    Out of the earthly gloom,
+    Out of the sordid room,
+    Out, on a moonbeam ray!--
+    Now at last to play
+    There with comrades found!
+    Children of the moon,
+    There on faery ground,
+    Where none would find him soon!
+
+
+
+
+_HAEC OLIM MEMINISSE_
+
+
+    Febrile perfumes as of faded roses
+      In the old house speak of love to-day,
+    Love long past; and where the soft day closes,
+      Down the west gleams, golden-red, a ray.
+
+    Pointing where departed splendor perished,
+      And the path that night shall walk, and hang,
+    On blue boughs of heaven, gold, long cherished--
+      Fruit Hesperian,--that the ancients sang.
+
+    And to him, who sits there dreaming, musing,
+      At the window in the twilight wan,
+    Like old scent of roses interfusing,
+      Comes a vision of a day that's gone.
+
+    And he sees Youth, walking brave but dimly
+      'Mid the roses, in the afterglow;
+    And beside him, like a star seen slimly,
+      Love, who used to meet him long-ago.
+
+    And again he seems to hear the flowers
+      Whispering faintly of what no one knows--
+    Of the dreams they dreamed there for long hours,
+      Youth and Love, between their hearts a rose.
+
+    Youth is dead; and Love, oh, where departed!
+      Like the last streak of the dying day,
+    Somewhere yonder, in a world uncharted,
+      Calling him, with memories, away.
+
+
+
+
+_THE MAGIC PURSE_
+
+
+    What is the gold of mortal-kind
+    To that men find
+    Deep in the poet's mind!--
+    That magic purse
+    Of Dreams from which
+    God builds His universe!
+    That makes life rich
+    With many a vision;
+    Taking the soul from out its prison
+    Of facts with the precision
+    A wildflower dons
+    When Spring comes knocking at the door
+    Of Earth across the windy lawns;
+    Calling to Joy to rise and dance before
+    Her happy feet:
+    Or with the beat
+    And bright exactness of a star,
+    Hanging its punctual point afar,
+    When Night comes tripping over Heaven's floor,
+    Leaving a gate ajar.
+    That leads the Heart from all its aching
+    Far above where day is breaking;
+    Out of the doubts, the agonies,
+    The strife and sin, to join with these--
+    Hope and Beauty and Joy that build
+    Their golden walls
+    Of sunset where, with spirits filled,
+    A Presence calls,
+    And points a land
+    Where Love walks, silent; hand in hand
+    With the Spirit of God, and leads Man right
+    Out of the darkness into the light.
+
+
+
+
+_THE CHILD AT THE GATE_
+
+
+    The sunset was a sleepy gold,
+      And stars were in the skies
+    When down a weedy lane he strolled
+      In vague and thoughtless wise.
+
+    And then he saw it, near a wood,
+      An old house, gabled brown,
+    Like some old woman, in a hood,
+      Looking toward the town.
+
+    A child stood at its broken gate,
+      Singing a childish song,
+    And weeping softly as if Fate
+      Had done her child's heart wrong.
+
+    He spoke to her:--"Now tell me, dear,
+      Why do you sing and weep?"--
+    But she--she did not seem to hear,
+      But stared as if asleep.
+
+    Then suddenly she turned and fled
+      As if with soul of fear.
+    He followed; but the house looked dead,
+      And empty many a year.
+
+    The light was wan: the dying day
+      Grew ghostly suddenly:
+    And from the house he turned away,
+      Wrapped in its mystery.
+
+        * * * *
+
+    They told him no one dwelt there now:
+      It was a haunted place.--
+    And then it came to him, somehow,
+      The memory of a face.
+
+    That child's--like hers, whose name was Joy--
+      For whom his heart was fain:
+    The face of her whom, when a boy,
+      He played with in that lane.
+
+
+
+
+_THE LOST DREAM_
+
+
+    The black night showed its hungry teeth,
+    And gnawed with sleet at roof and pane;
+    Beneath the door I heard it breathe--
+    A beast that growled in vain.
+
+    The hunter wind stalked up and down,
+    And crashed his ice-spears through each tree;
+    Before his rage, in tattered gown,
+    I saw the maid moon flee.
+
+    There stole a footstep to my door;
+    A voice cried in my room and--there!
+    A shadow cowled and gaunt and hoar,
+    Death, leaned above my chair.
+
+    He beckoned me; he bade me rise,
+    And follow through the madman night;
+    Into my heart's core pierced his eyes,
+    And lifted me with might.
+
+    I rose; I made no more delay;
+    And followed where his eyes compelled;
+    And through the darkness, far away,
+    They lit me and enspelled.
+
+    Until we reached an ancient wood,
+    That flung its twisted arms around,
+    As if in anguish that it stood
+    On dark, unhallowed ground.
+
+    And then I saw it--cold and blind--
+    The dream, that had my heart to share,
+    That fell, before its feet could find
+    Its home, and perished there.
+
+
+
+
+_WITCHCRAFT_
+
+
+    This world is made a witchcraft place
+    With gazing on a woman's face.
+
+    Now 'tis her smile, whose sorcery
+    Turns all my thoughts to melody.
+
+    Now 'tis her frown, that comes and goes,
+    That makes my day a page of prose.
+
+    And now her laugh, or but a word,
+    That in my heart frees wild a bird.
+
+    Some day, perhaps, a kiss of hers,
+    Will lift from my dumb life the curse
+
+    Of longing, inarticulate,
+    That keeps me sad and celibate.
+
+
+
+
+_TRANSPOSED SEASONS_
+
+
+    The gentian and the bluebell so
+      Can change my calendar,
+    I know not how the year may go,
+      Or what the seasons are:
+    The months, in some mysterious wise,
+    Take their expression from her eyes.
+
+    The gentian speaks to memory
+      Of autumns long since gone,
+    When _her_ blue eyes smiled up at me,
+      And heaven was flushed with dawn:
+    'T was autumn then and leaves were sere,
+    But in my heart 't was spring o' the year.
+
+    The bluebell says a message too
+      Of springs long passed away,
+    When in my eyes her eyes of blue
+      Gazed and 't was close of day:
+    Spring spread around her fragrant chart,
+    But it was autumn in my heart.
+
+
+
+
+_THE OLD DREAMER_
+
+
+    Come, let's climb into our attic,
+    In our house that's old and gray!
+    Life, you're old and I'm rheumatic,
+    And--it's close of day.
+
+    Lay aside your rags and tatters,
+    Shirt and shoes so soiled with clay!
+    They're no use now. Nothing matters--
+    It is close of day.
+
+    Let's to bed. It's cold. No fire.
+    And no lamp to make a ray.--
+    Where's our servant, young Desire?--
+    Gone at close of day.
+
+    Oft she served us with fine glances,
+    Helped us out at work and play:
+    She is gone now; better chances;
+    And it's close of day.
+
+    Where is Hope, who flaunted scarlet?
+    Hope, who led us oft astray?
+    Has she proved herself a harlot
+    At the close of day?
+
+    What's become of Dream and Vision?
+    Friends we thought were here to stay?
+    Has life clapped the two in prison
+    At the close of day?
+
+    They are gone; and how we miss them!
+    They who made our garret gay.
+    How we used to hug and kiss them!--
+    But--'tis close of day.
+
+    Where's friend Love now?--Who supposes?--
+    Has he flung himself away?
+    Left us for a wreath of roses
+    At the close of day?
+
+    And where's Song? the soul elected--
+    Has he quit us too for aye?--
+    Was it poverty he suspected
+    Near the close of day?
+
+    How our attic rang their laughter!
+    How it echoed laugh and lay!
+    None may take their place hereafter?--
+    It is close of day.
+
+    We have done the best we could do.
+    Let us kneel awhile and pray.
+    Now, no matter what we would do,
+    It is close of day.
+
+    Let's to bed then! It's December.
+    Long enough since it was May!--
+    Let's forget it, and remember
+    Now 'tis close of day.
+
+
+
+
+_A LAST WORD_
+
+
+    Oh, for some cup of consummating might,
+    Filled with life's kind conclusion, lost in night!
+    A wine of darkness, that with death shall cure
+    This sickness called existence!--Oh to find
+    Surcease of sorrow! quiet for the mind,
+    An end of thought in something dark and sure!
+    Mandrake and hellebore, or poison pure!--
+    Some drug of death, wherein there are no dreams!--
+    No more, no more, with patience, to endure
+    The wrongs of life, the hate of men, it seems;
+    Or wealth's authority, tyranny of time,
+    And lamentations and the boasts of man!
+    To hear no more the wild complaints of toil,
+    And struggling merit, that, unknown, must starve:
+    To see no more life's disregard for Art!
+    Oh God! to know no longer anything!
+    Nor good, nor evil, or what either means!
+    Nor hear the changing tides of customs roll
+    On the dark shores of Time! No more to hear
+    The stream of Life that furies on the shoals
+    Of hard necessity! No more to see
+    The unavailing battle waged of Need
+    Against adversity!--Merely to lie, at last,
+    Pulseless and still, at peace beneath the sod!
+    To think and dream no more! no more to hope!
+    At rest at last! at last at peace and rest,
+    Clasped by some kind tree's gnarled arm of root
+    Bearing me upward in its large embrace
+    To gentler things and fairer--clouds and winds,
+    And stars and sun and moon! To undergo
+    The change the great trees know when Spring comes in
+    With shoutings and rejoicings of the rain,
+    To swiftly rise an atom in a host,
+    The myriad army of the leaves; and stand
+    A handsbreadth nearer Heaven and what is God!
+    To pulse in sap that beats unfevered in
+    The life we call inanimate--the heart
+    Of some great tree. And so, unconsciously,
+    As sleeps a child, clasped in its mother's arm,
+    Be taken back, in amplitudes of grace,
+    To Nature's heart, and so be lost in her.
+
+
+
+
+_THE SHADOW_
+
+
+    A shadow glided down the way
+    Where sunset groped among the trees,
+    And all the woodland bower, asway
+    With trouble of the evening breeze.
+
+    A shape, it moved with head held down;
+    I knew it not, yet seemed to know
+    Its form, its carriage of a clown,
+    Its raiment of the long-ago.
+
+    It never turned or spoke a word,
+    But fixed its gaze on something far,
+    As if within its heart it heard
+    The summons of the evening star.
+
+    I turned to it and tried to speak;
+    To ask it of the thing it saw,
+    Or heard, beyond Earth's outmost peak--
+    The dream, the splendor, and the awe.
+
+    What beauty or what terror there
+    Still bade its purpose to ascend
+    Above the sunset's sombre glare,
+    The twilight and the long day's end.
+
+    It looked at me but said no word:
+    Then suddenly I saw the truth:--
+    _This_ was the call that once I heard
+    And failed to follow in my youth.
+
+    Now well I saw that this was I--
+    My own dead self who walked with me,
+    Who died in that dark hour gone by
+    With all the dreams that used to be.
+
+
+
+
+_ON THE ROAD_
+
+
+    Let us bid the world good-by,
+    Now while sun and cloud's above us,
+    While we've nothing to deny,
+    Nothing but our selves to love us:
+    Let us fancy, I and you,
+    All the dreams we dreamed came true.
+
+    We have gone but half the road,
+    Rugged road of root and bowlder;
+    Made the best of Life's dark load,
+    Cares, that helped us to grow older:
+    We, my dear, have done our best--
+    Let us stop awhile and rest.
+
+    Let us, by this halfway stile,
+    Put away the world's desire,
+    And sit down, a little while,
+    With our hearts, and light a fire:
+    Sing the songs that once we sung
+    In the days when we were young.
+
+    Haply they will bring again,
+    From the Lands of Song and Story,
+    To our sides the elfin train
+    Of the dreams we dreamed of glory,
+    That are one now with the crew
+    Of the deeds we did not do.
+
+    Here upon the road of Life
+    Let us rest us; take our pleasure:
+    Free from care and safe from strife,
+    Count again our only treasure--
+    Love, that helped us on our way,
+    Our companion night and day.
+
+
+
+
+_RECONCILIATION_
+
+
+    Listen, dearest! you must love me more,
+    More than you did before!--
+    Hark, what a beating here of wings!
+    Never at rest,
+    Dear, in your breast!--
+    Is it your heart with its flutterings,
+    Making a music, love, for us both?
+    Or merely a moth, a velvet-winged moth,
+    Which out of the garden's fragrance swings,
+    Weaving a spell,
+    That holds the rose and the moon in thrall?--
+    I love you more than I can tell;
+    And no recall
+    How long ago
+    Our quarrel and all!--
+    You say, you know,
+    A perfect pearl grows out of--well,
+    A little friction; tiny grain
+    Of sand or shell--
+    So love grew out of that moment's pain,
+    The heart's disdain--
+    Since then I have thought of no one but you,
+    And how your heart would beat on mine,
+    Like light on dew.
+    And I thought how foolish to fret and pine!
+    Better to claim the fault all mine!
+    To go to you and tell you that:
+    And how stale and flat
+    All life without you was, and vain!
+    And when I came, you turned and smiled,
+    Like a darling child,
+    And I knew from your look that, in your heart,
+    You had followed the self-same train
+    Of thought that made me yours again.--
+
+    Dearest! no more!--
+    We shall never part!--
+    So. Turn your face as you did before.--
+
+    I smooth your brow
+    And kiss you.--Now....
+    Tell me true--
+    Did you miss me, dear, as I missed you?
+
+
+
+
+_PORTENTS_
+
+
+    Above the world a glare
+    Of sunset--guns and spears;
+    An army, no one hears,
+    Of mist and air:
+    Long lines of bronze and gold,
+    Huge helmets, each a cloud;
+    And then a fortress old
+    There in the night that phantoms seem to crowd.
+
+    A face of flame; a hand
+    Of crimson alchemy
+    Is waved: and, solemnly,
+    At its command,
+    Opens a fiery well,
+    A burning hole,
+    From which a stream of hell,
+    A river of blood, in frenzy, seems to roll.
+
+    And there, upon a throne,
+    Like some vast precipice,
+    Above that River of Dis,
+    Behold a King! alone!
+    Around whom shapes of blood
+    Take form: each one the peer
+    Of those, who, in the wood
+    Of Dante's Hell froze up the heart with fear.
+
+    Then shapes, that breast to breast
+    Gallop to face a foe:
+    And through the crimson glow
+    Th' imperial crest
+    Of him whose banner flies
+    Above a world that burns,
+    A raven in the skies,
+    And as it flies into a Death's-Head turns.
+    The wild trees writhe and twist
+    Their gaunt limbs, wrung with fear:
+    And now into my ear
+    A word seems hissed;
+    A message, filled with dread,
+    A dark, foreboding word,--
+    "Behold! we are the dead,
+    Who here on Earth lived only by the sword!"
+
+
+
+
+_THE IRON CRAGS_
+
+
+    Upon the iron crags of War I heard his terrible daughters
+    In battle speak while at their feet,
+    In gulfs of human waters,
+    A voice, intoning, "Where is God?" in ceaseless sorrow beat:
+    And to my heart, in doubt, I said,
+              "God?--God's above the storm!
+              O heart, be brave, be comforted,
+              And keep your hearth-stone warm
+              For her who breasts the storm--
+              God's Peace, the fair of form."
+    I heard the Battle Angels cry above the slain's red mountains,
+    While from their wings the lightnings hurled
+    Of Death's destroying fountains,
+    And thunder of their revels rolled around the ruined world:
+              Still to my heart, in fear, I cried,
+              "God?--God is watching there!
+              My heart,--oh, keep the doorway wide
+              Here in your House of Care,
+              For her who wanders there,
+              God's Peace, with happy hair."
+
+    The darkness and the battle passed: and rushing on wild pinions
+    The hosts of Havoc shrieked their hate
+    And fled to Hell's dominions,--
+    And, lo! I heard, out in the night, a knocking at the gate:
+              And one who cried aloud to me:--
+              "The night and storm are gone!
+              Oh, open wide the door and see
+              Who waits here in the dawn!--
+              Peace, with God's splendor on
+              Back to the sad world drawn!"
+
+
+
+
+_THE IRON CROSS_
+
+
+    They pass, with heavy eyes and hair,
+    Before the Christ upon the Cross,
+    The Nations, stricken with their loss,
+    And lifting faces of despair.
+
+    What is the prayer they pray to Him,
+    Christ Jesus on the Iron Cross?
+    The Christ, neglected, dark with moss,
+    Whose hands are pierced, whose face is grim.
+
+    Is it forgiveness for great sin
+    They plead before the Iron Cross?
+    Or for some gift of gold or dross?
+    Or battle lost, that they would win?
+
+    With eyes where hate and horror meet,
+    They pass before the Iron Cross,
+    The Cross, that ancient words emboss,
+    Where hangs the Christ with nail-pierced feet.
+
+    His hair is fallen on his face.
+    His head hangs sidewise from the Cross--
+    The Crucified, who knows all loss,
+    And had on Earth no resting place.
+
+    "O world of men," he seems to say,
+    "Behold me on your Iron Cross!
+    To me why kneel and tell your loss?
+    Why kneel to me and weep and pray?
+
+    "Have I not taught you to forgive?
+    And bade you from my Iron Cross
+    Believe, and bear your grief and loss,
+    That after death you too may live?
+
+    "You have not followed at my call!
+    You keep me on this Iron Cross,
+    And pray me keep you from all loss,
+    And save and comfort you withal.--
+
+    "You ask for love, and hate the more!--
+    You keep me on this Iron Cross!--
+    Restore to me my greater loss,
+    The brotherhood of rich and poor."
+
+        * * * *
+
+    They pass, with weary eyes and hair,
+    Before the Christ upon the Cross--
+    The Nations, wailing of their loss,
+    And lifting faces of despair.
+
+
+
+
+_THE WANDERER_
+
+
+    Between the death of day and birth of night,
+                By War's red light,
+    I met with one in trailing sorrows clad,
+                Whose features had
+    The look of Him who died to set men right.
+
+    Around him many horrors, like great worms,
+                Terrific forms,
+    Crawled, helmed like hippogriff and rosmarine,--
+                Gaunt and obscene,
+    Urged on to battle with a thousand arms.
+
+    Columns of steel, and iron belching flame,
+                Before them came:
+    And cities crumbled; and amid them trod
+                Havoc, their god,
+    With Desolation that no tongue may name.
+
+    And out of Heaven came a burning breath,
+                And on it Death,
+    Riding: before him, huge and bellowing herds
+                Of beasts, like birds,
+    Bat-winged and demon, nothing conquereth.
+
+    Hag-lights went by, and Fear that shrieks and dies;
+                And mouths, with cries
+    Of famine; and the madness of Despair;
+                And everywhere
+    Curses, like kings, with ever-burning eyes.
+
+    And, lo! the shadow shook and cried a name,
+                That grew a flame
+    Above the world, and said, "Give heed! give heed!
+                See how they bleed!
+    My wounds! my wounds!--Was it for this I came?
+
+    "Where is the love for which I shed my blood?
+                And where the good
+    I preached and died for?--Lo! ye have denied
+                And crucified
+    Me here again, who swore me brotherhood!"
+
+    Then overhead the vault of night was rent:
+                The firmament
+    Winged thunder over of aerial craft;
+                And Battle laughed
+    Titanic laughter as its way it went.
+
+
+
+
+_THE END OF SUMMER_
+
+
+    The rose, that wrote its message on the noon's
+    Bright manuscript, has turned her perfumed face
+    Towards Fall, and waits, heart-heavy, for the moon's
+            Pale flower to take her place.
+
+    With eyes distraught, and dark disheveled hair,
+    The Season dons a tattered cloak of storm
+    And waits with Night that, darkly, seems to share
+            Her trouble and alarm.
+
+    It is the close of summer. In the sky
+    The sunset lit a fire of drift and sat
+    Watching the last Day, robed in empire, die
+            Upon the burning ghat.
+
+    The first leaf crimsons and the last rose falls,
+    And Night goes stalking on, her cloak of rain
+    Dripping, and followed through her haunted halls
+            By ail Death's phantom train.
+
+    The sorrow of the Earth and all that dies,
+    And all that suffers, in her breast she bears;
+    Outside the House of Life she stops and cries
+            The burden of her cares.
+
+    Then on the window knocks with crooked hands,
+    Her tree-like arms to Heaven wildly-hurled:
+    Love hears her crying, "Who then understands?--
+            Has God forgot the world?"
+
+
+
+
+_THE LUST OF THE WORLD_
+
+
+    Since Man first lifted up his eyes to hers
+    And saw her vampire beauty, which is lust,
+    All else is dust
+    Within the compass of the universe.
+
+    With heart of Jael and with face of Ruth
+    She sits upon the tomb of Time and quaffs
+    Heart's blood and laughs
+    At all Life calls most noble and the truth.
+
+    The fire of conquest and the wine of dreams
+    Are in her veins; and in her eyes the lure
+    Of things unsure,
+    Urging the world forever to extremes.
+
+    Without her, Life would stagnate in a while.--
+    Her touch it is puts pleasure even in pain.--
+    So Life attain
+    Her end, she cares not if the means be vile.
+
+    She knows no pity, mercy, or remorse.--
+    Hers is to build and then exterminate:
+    To slay, create,
+    And twixt the two maintain an equal course.
+
+
+
+
+_CHANT BEFORE BATTLE_
+
+
+    Ever since man was man a Fiend has stood
+    Outside his House of Good,--
+    War, with his terrible toys, that win men's hearts
+    To follow murderous arts.
+
+    His spurs, death-won, are but of little use,
+    Except as old refuse
+    Of Life; to hang and testify with rust
+    Of deeds, long one with dust.
+
+    A rotting fungus on a log, a tree,
+    A toiling worm, or bee,
+    Serves God's high purpose here on Earth to build
+    More than War's maimed and killed.
+
+    The Hebetude of asses, following still
+    Some Emperor's will to kill,
+    Is that of men who give their lives--for what?--
+    The privilege to be shot!
+
+    Grant men more vision, Lord! to read thy words,
+    That are not guns and swords,
+    But trees and flowers, lovely forms of Earth,
+    And all fair things of worth.
+
+    So he may rise above the brute and snake,
+    And of his reason make
+    A world befitting, as thou hast designed,
+    His greater soul and mind!
+
+    So he may rid himself of worm and beast,
+    And sit with Love at feast,
+    And make him worthy to be named thy son,
+    As He, thy Holy One! Amen.
+
+
+
+
+_NEARING CHRISTMAS_
+
+
+    The season of the rose and peace is past:
+    It could not last.
+    There's heartbreak in the hills and stormy sighs
+    Of sorrow in the rain-lashed plains and skies,
+    While Earth regards, aghast,
+    The last red leaf that flies.
+
+    The world is cringing in the darkness where
+    War left his lair,
+    And everything takes on a lupine look,
+    Baring gaunt teeth at every peaceful nook,
+    And shaking torrent hair
+    At every little brook.
+
+    Cancers of ulcerous flame his eyes, and--hark!
+    There in the dark
+    The ponderous stir of metal, iron feet;
+    And with it, heard around the world, the beat
+    Of Battle; sounds that mark
+    His heart's advance, retreat.
+
+    With shrapnel pipes he goes his monstrous ways;
+    And, screeching, plays
+    The hell-born music Havoc dances to;
+    And, following with his skeleton-headed crew
+    Of ravening Nights and Days,
+    Horror invades the blue.
+
+    Against the Heaven he lifts a mailed fist
+    And writes a list
+    Of beautiful cities on the ghastly sky:
+    And underneath them, with no reason why,
+    In blood and tears and mist,
+    The postscript, "These must die!"
+
+    Change is the portion and chief heritage
+    Of every Age.
+    The spirit of God still waits its time.--And War
+    May blur His message for a while, and mar
+    The writing on His page,
+    To this our sorrowful star.
+
+    But there above the conflict, orbed in rays,
+    Is drawn the face
+    Of Peace; at last who comes into her own;
+    Peace, from whose tomb the world shall roll the stone,
+    And give her highest place
+    In the human heart alone.
+
+
+
+
+_A BELGIAN CHRISTMAS_
+
+_The "happy year" of 1914_
+
+
+            An hour from dawn:
+            The snow sweeps on
+    As it swept with sleet last night:
+            The Earth around
+            Breathes never a sound,
+    Wrapped in its shroud of white.
+
+            A waked cock crows
+            Under the snows;
+    Then silence.--After while
+            The sky grows blue,
+            And a star looks through
+    With a kind o' bitter smile.
+
+            A whining dog;
+            An axe on a log,
+    And a muffled voice that calls:
+            A cow's long low;
+            Then footsteps slow
+    Stamping into the stalls.
+
+            A bed of straw
+            Where the wind blows raw
+    Through cracks of the stable door:
+            A child's small cry,
+            A voice nearby,
+    That says, "One mouth the more."
+
+            A different note
+            In a man's rough throat
+    As he turns at an entering tread--
+            Satyrs! see!
+            "My woman--she
+    Was brought last night to bed!"
+
+            A cry of "Halt!"--
+            "Ach! ich bin kalt!"
+    "A spy!"--"No."--"That is clear!
+            There's a good shake-down
+            I' the jail in town--
+    For her!"--And then, "My orders here."
+
+            A shot, sharp-rolled
+            As the clouds unfold:
+    A scream; and a cry forlorn....
+            Clothed red with fire,
+            Like the Heart's Desire,
+    Look down the Christmas Morn.
+
+            The babe with light
+            Is haloed bright,
+    And it is Christmas Day:
+            A cry of woe;
+            Then footsteps slow,
+    And the wild guns, far away.
+
+
+
+
+_THE FESTIVAL OF THE AISNE_
+
+
+    Imperial Madness, will of hand,
+    Builds vast an altar here, and rears
+    Before the world, on godly land,
+    A Moloch form of blood and tears.
+
+    And far as eye can see, behold,
+    Priests plunge into its brazen arms
+    Men, that its iron maw of mold
+    Mangles, returning horrible forms.
+
+    Its Priests are armies, moving slow,
+    And crowned like kings, in human-guise:
+    And theirs it is to make it flow--
+    The crimson stream of sacrifice.
+
+
+
+
+_THE CRY OF EARTH_
+
+
+    The Season speaks this year of life
+    Confusing words of strife,
+    Suggesting weeds instead of fruits and flowers
+    In all Earth's bowers.
+
+    With heart of Jael, face of Ruth,
+    She goes her way uncouth
+    Through hills and fields, where fog and sunset seem
+    Wild smoke and steam.
+
+    Around her, spotted as a leopard skin,
+    She draws her cloak of whin,
+    And through the dark hills sweeps dusk's last red glare
+    Wild on her hair.
+
+    Her hands drip leaves, like blood, and burn
+    With frost; her moony urn
+    She lifts, where Death, 'mid driving stress and storm,
+    Rears his gaunt form.
+
+    And all night long she seems to say
+    "Come forth, my Winds, and slay!--"
+    And everywhere is heard the wailing cry
+    Of dreams that die.
+
+
+
+
+_CHILD AND FATHER_
+
+
+    A little child, one night, awoke and cried,
+    "Oh, help me, father! there is something wild
+    Before me! help me!" Hurrying to his side
+    I answered, "I am here. You dreamed, my child."
+
+    "A dream?--" he questioned. "Oh, I could not see!
+    It was so dark!--Take me into your bed!"--
+    And I, who loved him, held him soothingly,
+    And smiling on his terror, comforted.
+
+    He nestled in my arms. I held him fast;
+    And spoke to him and calmed his childish fears,
+    Until he smiled again, asleep at last,
+    Upon his lashes still a trace of tears....
+
+    How like a child the world! who, in this night
+    Of strife, beholds strange monsters threatening
+    And with black fear, having so little light,
+    Cries to its Father, God, for comforting.
+
+    And well for it, if, answering the call,
+    The Father hear and soothe its dread asleep!--
+    How many though, whom thoughts and dreams appall,
+    Must lie awake and in the darkness weep.
+
+
+
+
+_THE RISING OF THE MOON_
+
+
+    The Day brims high its ewer
+    Of blue with starry light,
+    And crowns as King that hewer
+    Of clouds (which take their flight
+    Across the sky) old Night.
+
+    And Tempest there, who houses
+    Within them, like a cave,
+    Lies down and dreams and drowses
+    Upon the Earth's huge grave,
+    With wandering wind and wave.
+
+    The storm moves on; and winging
+    From out the east--a bird,
+    The moon drifts, calmly bringing
+    A message and a word
+    Of peace, in Heaven it heard.
+
+    Of peace and times called golden,
+    Whose beauty makes it glow
+    With love, like that of olden,
+    Which mortals used to know
+    There in the long-ago.
+
+
+
+
+_WHERE THE BATTLE PASSED_
+
+
+    One blossoming rose-tree, like a beautiful thought
+    Nursed in a broken mind, that waits and schemes,
+    Survives, though shattered, and about it caught,
+          The strangling dodder streams.
+
+    Gaunt weeds: and here a bayonet or pouch,
+    Rusty and rotting where men fought and slew:
+    Bald, trampled paths that seem with fear to crouch,
+          Feeling a bloody dew.
+
+    Here nothing that was beauty's once remains.
+    War left the garden to its dead alone:
+    And Life and Love, who toiled here, for their pains
+      Have nothing once their own.
+
+    Death leans upon the battered door, at gaze--
+    The house is silent where there once was stir
+    Of husbandry, that led laborious days,
+          With Love for comforter.
+
+    Now in Love's place, Death, old and halt and blind,
+    Gropes, searching everywhere for what may live.--
+    War left it empty as his vacant mind;
+          It has no more to give.
+
+
+
+
+_THE IRON AGE_
+
+
+    And these are Christians!--God! the horror of it--
+    How long, O Lord! how long, O Lord! how long
+    Wilt Thou endure this crime? and there, above it,
+    Look down on Earth nor sweep away the wrong!
+
+    Are these Thy teachings?--Where is then that pity,
+    Which bade the weary, suffering come to Thee?--
+    War takes its toll of life in field and City,
+    And Thou must see!--O Christianity!
+
+    And then the children!--Oh, Thou art another!
+    Not God! but Fiend, whom God has given release!--
+    Will prayer avail naught? tears of father, mother?
+    To give at last the weary world surcease
+
+    From butchery? that back again hath brought her
+    Into that age barbarian that priced
+    Hate above Love; and, shod with steel and slaughter,
+    Stamped on the Cross and on the face of Christ.
+
+
+
+
+_THE BATTLE_
+
+
+    Black clouds hung low and heavy,
+    Above the sunset glare;
+    And in the garden dimly
+    We wandered here and there.
+
+    So full of strife, of trouble
+    The night was dark, afraid,
+    Like our own love, so merely
+    For tears and sighings made.
+
+    That when it came to parting,
+    And I must mount and go,
+    With all my soul I wished it--
+    That God would lay me low.
+
+
+
+
+_ON RE-READING CERTAIN GERMAN POETS_
+
+
+    They hold their own, they have no peers
+    In gloom and glow, in hopes and fears,
+      In love and terror, hovering round
+      The lore of that enchanted ground!--
+    That mystic region, where one hears,
+    By bandit towers, the hunt that nears
+      Wild through the Hartz; the demon cheers
+      Of Hackelnberg; his horn and hound--
+              They hold their own.
+
+    Dark Wallenstein; and, down the years,
+    The Lorelei; and, creased with sneers,
+      Faust, Margaret;--the Sabboth sound,
+      Witch-whirling, of the Brocken, drowned
+    In storm, through which Mephisto leers,--
+              They hold their own.
+
+
+
+
+_ON OPENING AN OLD SCHOOL VOLUME OF HORACE_
+
+
+    I had forgot how, in my day
+      The Sabine fields around me lay
+      In amaranth and asphodel,
+      With many a cold Bandusian well
+    Bright-bubbling by the mountain-way.
+    In forest dells of Faun and Fay
+    How, lounging in the fountain's spray,
+      I talked with Horace; felt his spell,
+        I had forgot.
+
+    With Pyrrha and with Lydia
+      How oft I sat, while Lalaga
+      Sang, and the fine Falerian fell,
+      Sparkling, and heard the poet tell
+    Of loves whose beauty lasts for aye,
+        I had forgot.
+
+
+
+
+_LAUS DEO_
+
+
+    In her vast church of glimmering blue,
+      Gray-stoled from feet to chin,
+    Her dark locks beaded with the dew,
+      The nun-like dawn comes in:
+    At once the hills put on their spencers
+    Of purple, swinging streaming censers
+    Of mist before the God of Day
+    Who goes with pomp his way.
+
+    With sapphire draperies of light
+      Is hung the sombre pines;
+    Filling each valley, every height
+      With sacerdotal lines--
+    Shrines, where, like priests with worship vestured,
+    The forests bow and, heavenly gestured,
+    Lift high the chalice of the sun,
+    Intoning, "Night is done!"
+
+
+
+
+_THE NEW YORK SKYSCRAPER_
+
+_The Woolworth Building_
+
+
+    Enormously it lifts
+    Its tower against the splendor of the west;
+    Like some wild dream that drifts
+    Before the mind, and at the will's behest,--
+    Enchantment-based, gigantic steel and stone,--
+    Is given permanence;
+    A concrete fact,
+    Complete, alone,
+    Glorious, immense,
+    Such as no nation here on Earth has known:
+    Epitomizing all
+    That is American, that stands for youth,
+    And strength and truth;
+    That's individual,
+    And beautiful and free,--
+    Resistless strength and tireless energy.
+
+    Even as a cataract,
+    Its superb fact
+    Suggests vast forces Nature builds with--Joy,
+    And Power and Thought,
+    She to her aid has brought
+    For eons past, will bring for eons yet to be,
+    Shaping the world to her desire: the three
+    Her counsellors constantly,
+    Her architects, through whom her dreams come true,--
+    Her workmen, bringing forth,
+    With toil that shall not cease,
+    Mountains and plains and seas,
+    That make the Earth
+    The glory that it is:
+    And, one with these,
+    Such works of man as this,
+    This building, towering into the blue,
+    A beacon, round which like an ocean wide,
+    Circles and flows the restless human tide.
+
+
+
+
+_ROBERT BROWNING_
+
+
+    Master of human harmonics, where gong
+    And harp and violin and flute accord;
+    Each instrument confessing you its lord,
+    Within the deathless orchestra of Song.
+    Albeit at times your music may sound wrong
+    To our dulled senses, and its meaning barred
+    To Earth's slow understanding, never marred
+    Your message brave: clear, and of trumpet tongue.
+    Poet-revealer, who, both soon and late,
+    Within an age of doubt kept clean your faith,
+    Crying your cry of "With the world all's well!"
+    How shall we greet you from our low estate,
+    Keys in the keyboard that is life and death,
+    The organ whence we hear your music swell?
+
+
+
+
+_RILEY_
+
+_His Birthday, October the 7th, 1912_
+
+
+    Riley, whose pen has made the world your debtor,
+    Whose Art has kept you young through sixty years,
+    Brimming our hearts with laughter and with tears,
+    Holding her faith pure to the very letter:
+    We come to you to-day, both man and woman,
+    And happy little children, girl and boy,--
+    To laurel you with all our love and joy,
+    And crown you for the dreams your pen made human:
+    For Orphant Annie and for Old Aunt Mary,
+    The Raggedty Man, who never will grow older,
+    And all the kindly folks from Griggsby's Station,
+    Immortal throngs, with Spirk and Wunk and Faery,
+    Who swarm behind you, peering o'er your shoulder,
+    Sharing with you the blessings of a Nation.
+
+
+
+
+_DON QUIXOTE_
+
+_On receiving a bottle of Sherry Wine of the same name_
+
+
+    What "blushing Hippocrene" is here! what fire
+    Of the "warm South" with magic of old Spain!--
+    Through which again I seem to view the train
+    Of all Cervantes' dreams, his heart's desire:
+    The melancholy Knight, in gaunt attire
+    Of steel rides by upon the windmill-plain
+    With Sancho Panza by his side again,
+    While, heard afar, a swineherd from a byre
+    Winds a hoarse horn.
+
+                          And all at once I see
+    The glory of that soul who rode upon
+    Impossible quests,--following a deathless dream
+    Of righted wrongs, that never were to be,--
+    Like many another champion who has gone
+    Questing a cause that perished like a dream.
+
+
+
+
+_THE WOMAN_
+
+
+    With her fair face she made my heaven,
+    Beneath whose stars and moon and sun
+    I worshiped, praying, having striven,
+    For wealth through which she might be won.
+
+    And yet she had no soul: A woman
+    As fair and cruel as a god;
+    Who played with hearts as nothing human,
+    And tossed them by and on them trod.
+
+    She killed a soul; she did it nightly;
+    Luring it forth from peace and prayer,
+    To strangle it, and laughing lightly,
+    Cast it into the gutter there.
+
+    And yet, not for a purer vision
+    Would I exchange; or Paradise
+    Possess instead of Hell, my prison,
+    Where burns the passion of her eyes.
+
+
+
+
+_THE SONG OF SONGS_
+
+     _Read November 14th, 1913, before the American Academy and
+     National Institute of Arts and Letters in joint session at
+     Chicago, Ill._
+
+
+    I heard a Spirit singing as, beyond the morning winging,
+      Its radiant form went swinging like a star:
+    In its song prophetic voices mixed their sounds with trumpet-noises,
+    As when, loud, the World rejoices after war.
+    And it said:
+
+
+    I
+
+    Hear me!
+    Above the roar of cities,
+    The clamor and conflict of trade,
+    The frenzy and fury of commercialism,
+    Is heard my voice, chanting, intoning.--
+    Down the long corridors of time it comes,
+    Bearing my message, bidding the soul of man arise
+    To the realization of his dream.
+    Now and then discords seem to intrude,
+    And tones that are false and feeble--
+    Beginnings of the perfect chord
+    From which is evolved the ideal, the unattainable.
+    Hear me!
+    Ever and ever,
+    Above the tumult of the years,
+    The blatant cacophonies of war,
+    The wrangling of politics,
+    Demons and spirits of unrest,
+    My song persists,
+    Addressing the soul
+    With the urge of an astral something,
+    Supernal,
+    Elemental,
+    Promethean,
+    Instinct with an everlasting fire.
+
+
+    II
+
+    Hear me!
+    I am the expression of the subconscious,
+    The utterance of the intellect,
+    The voice of mind,
+    That stands for civilization.
+    Out of my singing sprang, Minerva-like,
+    Full-armed and fearless,
+    Liberty,
+    Subduer of tyrants, who feed on the strength of Nations.
+    Out of my chanting arose,
+    As Aphrodite arose from the foam of the ocean,
+    The Dream of Spiritual Desire,
+    Mother of Knowledge,
+    Victor o'er Hate and Oppression,--
+    Ancient and elemental daemons,
+    Who, with Ignorance and Evil, their consorts,
+    Have ruled for eons of years.
+
+
+    III
+
+    Hear me!
+    Should my chanting cease,
+    My music utterly fail you,
+    Behold!
+    Out of the hoary Past, most swiftly, surely,
+    Would gather the Evils of Earth,
+    The Hydras and Harpies, forgotten,
+    And buried in darkness:
+    Amorphous of form,
+    Tyrannies and Superstitions
+    Torturing body and soul:
+    And with them,
+    Gargoyls of dreams that groaned in the Middle Ages--
+    Aspects of darkness and death and hollow eidolons,
+    Cruel, inhuman,
+    Wearing the faces and forms of all the wrongs of the world.
+    Barbarian hordes whose shapes make hideous
+    The cycles of error and crime:
+    Grendels of darkness,
+    Devouring the manhood of Nations:
+    Demogorgons of War and Misrule,
+    Blackening the world with blood and the lust of destruction.
+    Hear me!--
+    Out of my song have grown
+    Beauty and joy,
+    And with them
+    The triumph of Reason;
+    The confirmation of Hope,
+    Of Faith and Endeavor:
+    The Dream that's immortal,
+    To whose creation Thought gives concrete form,
+    And of which Vision makes permanent substance.
+
+
+    IV
+
+    Fragmentary,
+    Out of the Past,
+    Down the long aisles of the Centuries,
+    Uncertain at first and uneasy,
+    Hesitant, harsh of expression,
+    My song was heard,
+    Stammering, appealing,
+    A murmur merely:
+    Coherent then,
+    Singing into form,
+    Assertive,
+    Ecstatic,
+    Louder, lovelier, and more insistent,
+    Sonorous, proclaiming;
+    Clearer and surer and stronger.
+    Attaining expression, evermore truer and clearer:
+    Masterful, mighty at last,
+    Committed to conquest,
+    And with Beauty coeval;
+    Part of the wonder of life,
+    The triumph of light over darkness:
+    Taking the form of Art--
+    Art, that is voice and vision of the soul of man.--
+    Hear me!
+    Confident ever,
+    One with the Loveliness song shall evolve,
+    My voice is become as an army of banners,
+    Marching irresistibly forward,
+    With the roll of the drums of attainment,
+    The blare of the bugles of fame:
+    Tramping, tramping, evermore advancing,
+    Till the last redoubt of prejudice is down,
+    And the Eagles and Fasces of Learning
+    Make glorious the van o' the world.
+
+
+    V
+
+    They who are deaf to my singing,
+    Who disregard me.--
+    Let them beware lest the splendor escape them,
+    The glory of light that is back o' the darkness of life,
+    And with it--
+    The blindness of spirit o'erwhelm them.--
+    They who reject me,
+    Reject the gleam
+    That goes to the making of Beauty;
+    And put away
+    The loftier impulses of heart and of mind.
+    They shall not possess the dream, the ideal,
+    Of ultimate worlds,
+    That is part of the soul that aspires;
+    That sits with the Spirit of Thought,
+    The radiant presence who weaves,
+    Directed of Destiny,
+    There in the Universe,
+    At its infinite pattern of stars.
+    They shall not know,
+    Not they,
+    The exaltations that make endurable here on the Earth
+    The ponderable curtain of flesh.
+    Not they! Not they!
+
+
+    VI
+
+    Hear me!
+    I control, and direct;
+    I wound and heal,
+    Elevate and subdue
+    The vaulting energies of Man.
+    I am part of the cosmic strain o' the Universe:
+    I captain the thoughts that grow to deeds,
+    Material and spiritual facts,
+    Pointing the world to greater and nobler things.--
+    Hear me!
+    My daedal expression peoples the Past and Present
+    With forms of ethereal thought
+    That symbolize Beauty:
+    The Beauty expressing itself now,
+    As Poetry,
+    As Philosophy:
+    As Truth and Religion now,
+    And now,
+    As science and Law,
+    Vaunt couriers of Civilization.
+
+
+
+
+_OGLETHORPE_
+
+     _An Ode to be read on the laying of the foundation stone of
+     the new Oglethorpe University, January, 1915, at Atlanta,
+     Georgia_
+
+
+    I
+
+    As when with oldtime passion for this Land
+    Here once she stood, and in her pride, sent forth
+    Workmen on every hand,
+    Sowing the seed of knowledge South and North,
+    More gracious now than ever, let her rise,
+    The splendor of a new dawn in her eyes;
+    Grave, youngest sister of that company,
+              That smiling wear
+              Laurel and pine
+    And wild magnolias in their flowing hair;
+              The sisters Academe,
+              With thoughts divine,
+    Standing with eyes a-dream,
+    Gazing beyond the world, into the sea,
+    Where lie the Islands of Infinity.
+
+
+    II
+
+    Now in these stormy days of stress and strain,
+            When Gospel seems in vain,
+    And Christianity a dream we've lost,
+            That once we made our boast;
+    Now when all life is brought
+    Face to grim face with naught,
+    And a condition speaking, trumpet-lipped,
+    Of works material, leaving Beauty out
+    Of God's economy; while, horror-dipped,
+    Lies our buried faith, full near to perish,
+            'Mid the high things we cherish,
+    In these tempestuous days when, to and fro
+    The serpent, Evil, goes and strews his way
+            With dragon's teeth that play
+    Their part as once they did in Jason's day;
+            And War, with menace loud,
+            And footsteps, metal-slow,
+            And eyes a crimson hot,
+    Is seen, against the Heaven a burning blot
+            Of blood and tears and woe:
+    Now when no mortal living seems to know
+    Whither to turn for hope, we turn to thee,
+    And such as thou art, asking "What's to be?"
+            And that thou point the path
+            Above Earth's hate and wrath,
+    And Madness, stalking with his torch aglow
+    Amid the ruins of the Nations slow
+    Crumbling to ashes with Old Empire there
+            In Europe's tiger lair.
+
+
+    III
+
+            A temple may'st thou be,
+    A temple by the everlasting sea,
+    For the high goddess, Ideality,
+            Set like a star,
+    Above the peaks of dark reality:
+            Shining afar
+            Above the deeds of War,
+    Within the shrine of Love, whose face men mar
+            With Militarism,
+            That is the prism
+    Through which they gaze with eyes obscured of Greed,
+    At the white light of God's Eternity,
+    The comfort of the world, the soul's great need,
+            That beacons Earth indeed,
+    Breaking its light intense
+    With turmoil and suspense
+    And failing human Sense.
+
+
+    IV
+
+            From thee a higher Creed
+            Shall be evolved.
+            The broken lights resolved
+    Into one light again, of glorious light,
+    Between us and the Everlasting, that is God.--
+    The all-confusing fragments, that are night,
+            Lift up thy rod
+    Of knowledge and from Truth's eyeballs strip
+    The darkness, and in armor of the Right,
+    Bear high the standard of imperishable light!
+    Cry out, "Awake!--I slept awhile!--Awake!
+            Again I take
+    My burden up of Truth for Jesus' sake,
+    And stand for what he stood for, Peace and Thought,
+    And all that's Beauty-wrought
+            Through doubt and dread and ache,
+    By which the world to good at last is brought!"
+
+
+    V
+
+    No more with silence burdened, when the Land
+            Was stricken by the hand
+    Of war, she rises, and assumes her stand
+    For the Enduring; setting firm her feet
+            On what is blind and brute:
+            Still holding fast
+            With honor to the past,
+    Speaking a trumpet word,
+    Which shall be heard
+    As an authority, no longer mute.
+
+
+    VI
+
+            Again, yea, she shall stand
+            For what Truth means to Man
+    For science and for Art and all that can
+    Make life superior to the things that weight
+            The soul down, things of hate
+    Instead of love, for which the world was planned;
+            May she demand
+    Faith and inspire it; Song to lead her way
+            Above the crags of Wrong
+            Into the broader day;
+            And may she stand
+    For poets still; poets that now the Land
+    Needs as it never needed; such an one
+            As he, large Nature's Son
+            Lanier, who with firm hand
+            Held up her magic wand
+    Directing deep in music such as none
+            Has ever heard
+            Such music as a bird
+    Gives of its soul, when dying,
+    And unconscious if it's heard.
+
+
+    VII
+
+    So let her rise, mother of greatness still,
+            Above all temporal ill;
+    Invested with all old nobility,
+    Teaching the South decision, self control
+            And strength of mind and soul;
+    Achieving ends that shall embrace the whole
+            Through deeds of heart and mind;
+            And thereby bind
+            Its effort to an end
+            And reach its goal.
+
+
+    VIII
+
+            So shall she win
+            A wrestler with sin,
+    Supremely to a place above the years,
+            And help men rise
+            To what is wise
+    And true beyond their mortal finite scan--
+            The purblind gaze of man;
+    Aiding with introspective eyes
+            His soul to see a higher plan
+    Of life beyond this life; above the gyves
+    Of circumstance that bind him in his place
+            Of doubt and keep away his face
+            From what alone survives;
+            And what assures
+    Immortal life to that within, that gives
+            Of its own self,
+    And through its giving, lives,
+            And evermore endures.
+
+
+
+
+_A POET'S EPITAPH_
+
+
+    Life was unkind to him;
+      All things went wrong:
+    Fortune assigned to him
+      Merely a song.
+
+    Ever a mystery
+      Here to his heart;
+    In his life's history
+      Love played no part.
+
+    Carve on the granite,
+      There at the end,
+    Where all may scan it,
+      _Death was his friend_.
+
+    _Giving him all he missed
+      Here upon Earth--
+    Love and the call he missed
+      All that was worth._
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Cup of Comus, by Madison J. Cawein
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