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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42034 ***
+
+  POEMS
+
+  JOHN W. DRAPER
+
+
+  THE POET LORE COMPANY
+  BOSTON
+
+
+  Copyright, 1913, by John W. Draper
+
+  All Rights Reserved
+
+  THE GORHAM PRESS, BOSTON, U. S. A.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+Most of the poems collected in this volume have already seen the light
+of print in the _Colonnade_, the monthly publication of the Andiron Club
+of New York University. The effort of the author has not been to write
+verses especially adapted to the taste of the modern public, but rather
+to create "a thing of beauty" from the theme that filled his mind at the
+time. Often he has been led into somewhat bold innovations such as the
+invention of the miniature ode, and the associating of an idea with a
+rime-_motiv_ in the metrical short-stories. While he hopes that the new
+forms will justify themselves, he realizes that after all, the poems
+must stand or fall in proportion to the amount of pure artistic beauty
+contained within them.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+                                                PAGE
+
+  FROM A GRECIAN MYTH                              9
+
+  "CARPE DIEM"                                    10
+
+  THE SONG OF LORENZO                             12
+
+  THE SONG OF WO HOU                              14
+
+  THE AURORA                                      15
+
+  THE WILL O' THE WISP                            16
+
+  WHEN ON THE SHORE GRATES MY BARGE'S KEEL        18
+
+  TO SHELLEY                                      20
+
+  THOMAS DE QUINCEY                               21
+
+  THE VISION OF DANTE                             22
+
+  THE SPIRIT OF SCHOPENHAUER                      24
+
+  ARTHUR TO GUENEVER                              26
+
+  THE DEATH OF THOMAS CHATTERTON                  27
+
+  A SPRING SONG                                   28
+
+  AFTER THE NEO-PLATONISTS                        29
+
+  WHAT WOULDST THOU BE?                           30
+
+  THE PROPHECY OF DAVID                           31
+
+  THE PROPHECY OF SAINT MARK                      39
+
+  THE ÆOLIAN HARP                                 47
+
+  THE MAID THAT I WOOED                           48
+
+  IN A MINOR CHORD                                49
+
+  A GLASS OF ABSINTHE                             51
+
+  THE PALACE OF PAIN                              53
+
+
+
+
+POEMS
+
+
+
+
+FROM A GRECIAN MYTH
+
+
+  A palace he built him in the west,
+  A palace of vermeil fringed with gold;
+  And fain would he lie him down to rest
+  In the palace he built him in the west
+  Which every heavenly hue had dressed
+  With halcyon harmonies untold:
+  That palace, the sun built in the west,
+  A palace of vermeil fringed with gold.
+
+_January 3, 1911._
+
+
+
+
+"CARPE DIEM"
+
+
+  Wake, love; Aurora's breath has tinged the sky,
+  Mounting in faintly flushing shafts on high
+  To tell the world that Phoebus is at hand;
+  And all the hours in a glittering band
+  Cluster around in sweeping, circling flight
+  Like angels bathing in celestial light.
+  See, now with one great shaft of molten gold,
+  No longer vaporous haze around him rolled,
+  The King of Day mounts the ethereal height,
+  Scattering the last dim streamers of the night.
+  Bow down, ye Persians, on your altared hills;
+  Worship the Sun-god who gives life, and fills
+  Your horn with plenteous blessings from on high.
+  Wake! Wake! before the dawning sunbeams die!
+  Fling incense on your temple's dying flame;
+  Sing chants and chorals in his mighty name,
+  For as a weary traveler from afar,
+  Or as a sailor on the harbor bar
+  After long absence spies his native town,
+  So, with benignant brilliance smiles he down;
+  Or, like a good king ruling o'er his land,
+  He sprinkles blessings with a bounteous hand.
+  And thou, O my beloved, wake! arise!
+  Has not the sun illumined night's dull skies?
+  Come, Phoebus' breath has tinged the summer morn.
+  Come, see the light shafts waver 'mong the corn.
+  Come, see the early lily's opening bloom.
+  Come, see the wavering light expel the gloom
+  From yon dark vale still sunk in misty night.
+  Oh, watch the circling skylark's heavenward flight,
+  As, wrapped in hazy waves of shimmering light,
+  In one grand Jubilate to the sun,
+  He floods the sky with song of day begun.
+  But golden morn is never truly fair
+  Unless with day, thou com'st to weave my hair
+  With perfumed flowers gathered in the dell
+  Where sylphs sing sweetly 'bout the bubbling well.
+  Oh, fill my cup of pleasure with new wine
+  Which sparkles only where thy soft eyes shine!
+  O my beloved, haste thee to arise
+  Before the light has scorched the noonday skies!
+  The fleeting hours haste the falling sun;
+  And soon the hour-glass of life is run.
+
+_August 5 & 6, 1911._
+
+
+
+
+THE SONG OF LORENZO
+
+
+  Over thy balcony leaning,
+  Thy languorous glance floats below
+  Whence arise thousand odours a-streaming,
+  Thine incense, O goddess of woe!
+
+  A star from the infinite whirling,
+  Taking flight through the dimness of night,
+  In an ark through the ether is curling;
+  And touches thy hair with its light.
+
+  O lady of sadness and sorrow,
+  Mine anguish, my hope, my despair,
+  Will the bright-dawning day of to-morrow
+  Find thee still in that balcony there?
+
+  Near thy casement, an ancient vine groweth,
+  A ladder that leads thee below;
+  Were it not for that vine, ah, who knoweth
+  Thou wert not an _angel_ of woe?
+
+  Come down from thy cloud-bosomed chamber;
+  Not yet has the moon lit the sky;
+  On the vine-trellis, carefully, clamber--
+  (Is it thou or the wind that doth sigh?)
+
+  Among the copse hedges then darting
+  Like a ghost at the dawn of the day;
+  Then, far in the distance departing,
+  In triumph, I'll bear thee away.
+
+_October 7, 1911._
+
+
+
+
+THE SONG OF WO HOU
+
+_From the Second Act of Kwang Hsu_
+
+
+  List, O list to the song I sing
+  To the varying note of the sighing breeze
+  Blowing in cool, refreshing waves
+  From the endless realm of the seven seas:
+
+  Waste not life in pursuit of war,
+  Holding the nations for one short day,
+  For the death of the king destroys the realm
+  Which vanishes like the great Mongol's sway.
+
+  Nor hoard up silver in thy vaults,
+  For the silver once spent, the pleasure is passed,
+  Or before it is spent, we will mourn thy death:
+  In the world, neither conquest nor silver last.
+
+  Seek, O seek but an hour's joy;
+  Pleasure and love though they may not endure
+  Will soothe life's sorrow and bitterness--
+  The present alone of all time is sure!
+
+  Live in the circle of mine arms;
+  Live in the light of the love in mine eye;
+  Live in the music of my song;
+  And, as the music of my song--die!
+
+_October 22, 1911._
+
+
+
+
+THE AURORA
+
+
+  Night in purple fringed with the faintest crimson
+  Conquered the slowly paling glow of sunset;
+  Softly the western light expired; and yet
+  Came there no stars forth--
+
+  O'er the tow'ring cliffs and the vales and waters,
+  O'er the whisp'ring woodland of swaying hemlocks,
+  O'er the streamlets trickling down on the crag-rocks,
+  Came there no moon forth.
+
+  Rose in distance, a dim and fearful spectre;
+  Rose, accompanied by the forest's singing,
+  An omen of evil, certainty bringing
+  Of the divine wroth--
+
+  Far from northern forests descends some army;
+  Far in the heavens, their fires are reflected;
+  Waver the lights in an archway collected,
+  Sign of divine wroth--
+
+  Shines the arch in a flick'ring wavy brilliance;
+  Lighting earth from its quivering span of silver;
+  Shines the Aurora soft o'er lake and river,
+  Shines from the far north.
+
+_December 8, 1911._
+
+
+
+
+THE WILL O' THE WISP
+
+
+  Over the moorland, over the moor,
+  Sibilant sounds the rain-storm's sneer,
+  Sneeringly sounds, yet with a lure
+  Like the lure of the mermaids of the mere,
+  Calling the fishermen into their snare--
+  Through watery veils, my dim eyes peer,
+  Where can a light or a path be, where?
+  Lost on the moor, the moorland drear--
+  Lost, and the storm-lion's out of his lair,
+  Raging rampant with mighty roar;
+  And the glistening lightning flashes its glare;
+  And the torrents descend with a wind-driven pour.
+  Only the lightning to show by its fire
+  The tears of Heaven flooding Earth's floor;
+  And, above the sound of the storm-lion's ire,
+  Shriek the rain-sheets over the tor,
+  Shriek in a quavering, tuneless choir.
+  What's that in the distance shining afar?
+  See it flickering higher and higher,
+  Light in a broadening, lengthening bar--
+  Who is abroad at this lonely hour?
+  Or is it a cottage high on the scar?
+  Or does it shine in My Lady's tower
+  To guide her Lord from lands afar?
+  Nearer and nearer, I haste--Oh, for power
+  To reach that light--Oh, to be sure,
+  My Lady would welcome me in her bower--
+  I fall; I sink; it was the marsh's lure--
+
+_December 26, 1911._
+
+
+
+
+WHEN ON THE SHORE GRATES MY BARGE'S KEEL
+
+
+  Weariness, weariness, unending weariness, cease--
+    Break thou the heart thou canst not heal!
+  Bitterness, bitterness, undying bitterness, peace--
+    On shore bring to rest my barge's keel,
+  On that shadowy shore, we seek at life's release;
+    For thy soul, belovèd, bears Death's seal.
+  Restlessness, restlessness, wandering restlessness haunts me;
+    Lacking thy smile, all life's brooklets congeal
+  Into one image emotional, fearful which daunts me--
+    Life's frozen image without an ideal.
+  Ceaselessly, ceaselessly, ceaselessly, mocking, life taunts me;
+    Gone all my former purpose and zeal.
+  Thou wert the pattern that ordered my hopes, my existence;
+    All that life meant to me, thou didst reveal--
+  And now thou art gone, all my nature is lacking subsistence--
+    Oh, let this soul from the body steal!
+  Then to the spectres, Plutonian, silent, ethereal,
+    Will my sad spirit for thine appeal,
+  Wandering onward, and onward through realms immaterial
+    Till at thy feet shall it joyously kneel--
+  Then must my weariness, weariness, weariness, cease;
+    Mended the heart, life could not heal--
+  Bitterness, bitterness, ended all bitterness, peace--
+    When on the shore grates my barge's keel.
+
+_January 25, 1911._
+
+
+
+
+TO SHELLEY
+
+
+  Shelley, thy spirit is set among the stars;
+  Exalted from the earth, thy soul sprang high
+  From these drab pavements to the star-lit sky;
+  In one grand ecstasy, frail mortal bars
+  Gave 'way; thy soul purged pure of earthly scars--
+  No more to languish here with lingering sigh--
+  Rose from the foaming gulf where thou didst lie,
+  Rose from the ragged sail and splintered spars,
+  Rose to Elysium's fairest bowers serene;
+  There thine Ideal is ever at thy side;
+  And soft Apollo's hand doth strike the strings;
+  And Philomel, behind a bowery screen,
+  Pours forth Anacreon's blessings on thy bride
+  Who to thine ear unceasing rapture sings.
+
+_July 29, 1911._
+
+
+
+
+THOMAS DE QUINCEY
+
+
+  Through life he strove to reach his longed-for goal,
+  Living secluded in a forest dell;
+  It was his wish to learn himself so well
+  As to command the secrets of the soul;
+  He studied, wrote, and fashioned out life's scroll
+  Until the spirit's instincts could he spell;
+  And then at last diapason swell,
+  Burst forth his writings, 'round the world to roll!
+  As organ music sighs through cloistered aisle,
+  As mighty calms upon the waters steal,
+  As raging, shrieking tempest-blasts assail;
+  So doth his magic word our minds beguile
+  Until, swept onward by each peal on peal,
+  Our souls are lured beyond this mortal veil.
+
+_February 4, 1912._
+
+
+
+
+THE VISION OF DANTE
+
+
+    Upon my breast there weighed ten thousand waves
+  Of black, unthinkable despair; I floated
+  In atmosphere of leaden density,
+  In atmosphere that burned with heat, yet glowed not--
+  Then scintillating stars with vivid flashes,
+  Like sparks from steel struck in a mine's thick blackness,
+  Tortured my eyes with dazzling glare; and then
+  Arose a rumbling as of crashing tombs
+  When the dead waken. Gone my will, my power.
+  I could nor feel, nor move, nor cry. Creation
+  Seemed rending downward through eternal space.
+  The thundering ceased, there shot a wail of pain,
+  A wail more anguished than arose from Troy
+  When Hector fell. Fainter, it grew, receding
+  Through the spheres. The meteors flashed no more.
+    I floated upward on invisible wings;
+  The distance purpled in the glow of dawn;
+  Funereal clouds melted to shimmering gray;
+  And far away the notes of music sounded,
+  Echoing onward to Infinity--
+  Music celestial of that choir of Heaven
+  Which sings unendingly about His throne.
+  Distant, it floated, yet how pure, and clearer
+  Than clear, rebounding Alpine notes. A present
+  Foretaste of the sublime beatitudes;
+  And o'er my visual sky moved forms of beings,
+  Dark forms in solemn, slow-ascending flight
+  Toward that rich, purple glow. The vision changed:
+    So pure the light that darkness sealed my eyelids!
+  So grand the symphony, I could not hear!
+  The whole cathedral-vault of Heaven rang
+  In awful majesty of perfect tone;
+  And 'past my mortal vision, in endless tide,
+  Flowing, and flowing upward toward the Light,
+  Angels innumerable, many-hued,
+  Winged on, majestic, to the music's time,
+  Winged on and sang a ceaseless Hallelujah--
+
+_February 16, 1912._
+
+
+
+
+THE SPIRIT OF SCHOPENHAUER
+
+
+    Rush on, rush on, humanity, and fill
+  Your hours with toil-wrought pain. Rush on, rush on
+  Upon your prizeless race. Where is your gain
+  In luxury, or seas of swimming gold,
+  Or starry ether chained to conquerdom?
+  You do but add new wheels, new chains to man's
+  Machine to govern man. You build a tower
+  More high than Babel's, hoping for earthly heaven
+  Upon this structure formed of luxuries,
+  And squander here stored-up celestial bliss
+  Which your poor Wills would mortgage before gained.
+    Your little lives were never made for racks
+  And fettered strainings of this new-wrought world
+  That quivers your nerves with life-intensity.
+  Death marks your race upon his hour-glass;
+  And Madness moves upon your city streets.
+  Your fevered minds reel downward to the gulf
+  Where knowledge fails, and luxuries lose charm,
+  Where passion flickers out, and haste seems slow.
+    Rush on, rush on, destruction marks your goal.
+  Rush on, rush on, till Death has breathless felled
+  The last of all your human progeny;
+  And leaves him lying there alone--alone,
+  Like him who first had shape of man--unburied,
+  Lost in a race with no competitor,
+  And nothing as the goal--unburied, staring
+  At the passing clouds, his only winding-sheet.
+  And then the Great Intelligence--if such
+  There be--will see his moment's pastime o'er,
+  And turn his arts to other constellations,
+  Until in rolling æons e'en his mind
+  May lose the memory of Man which _was_--
+    Rush on, rush on, humanity, and fill
+  Your hours with toil-wrought pain, rush on, rush on!
+  Death is your hope, your pilot, and your goal,
+  And Nothingness your only consolation--
+
+_April 26, 1911._
+
+
+
+
+ARTHUR TO GUENEVER
+
+
+  O Guenever, O Guenever once mine,
+  God may assoil thy failing, but can I
+  Whose quivering soul is blasted, and whose sky
+  Is tempest-rent in agony?--Ah, thine,
+  Thine might have been the fire that should refine
+  My table round to silver chastity,
+  Lofty ensample to mine Hall. Oh, why
+  Should thy soft light no longer purely shine
+  For my parched soul to bathe in? Guenever,
+  My Guenever, yet thou wert only mortal--
+  So too am I; and shall thy every tear
+  Of anguish well, and I not mark? O hear,
+  And help me, God, to open wide the portal
+  Of pardon in my heart for Guenever--
+
+_April 10, 1912._
+
+
+
+
+THE DEATH OF THOMAS CHATTERTON
+
+
+  A gutted wick, still flutteringly aflame
+  Upon a roughened bench--bare walls, bare floor,
+  And glimmering gray of sunrise--yes, and more--
+  Ah, brother, for I call thee by that name--
+  Mine eyes tear-blinded to thy figure came,
+  Thy figure fallen like a flower when hoar
+  Frosts blight. Thy soul wont like the lark to soar
+  The light-flushed dawn, now takes a loftier aim.
+  Thy funeral chant, the slow-entoning wind;
+  Thy churchèd tomb, the pillared vault of morn;
+  Thy requiem, the birds: Thus art thou dead,
+  Pale, spectred want, thy tribute from thy kind;
+  But God, himself, thy dirges shall adorn
+  With sighing psalms of every wind that's sped.
+
+_May 8, 1912._
+
+
+
+
+A SPRING SONG
+
+
+  The air is vibrant with a sensuous charm;
+  The grasses nod, and drowse beneath the sun;
+  Dim, swelling tones upon the breezes run.
+  In soft security from dread alarm,
+  The doves are cooing; and the wind with warm
+  Caress, bears the arbutus' missive, one
+  Love-wrought line of scented rapture, none
+  Subtler to woo the honey-hunting swarm.
+  Let me sigh out my soul in ecstasy,
+  And breathe forth all the fragrance of my being
+  Upon the slowly-stirring summer air;
+  Let me no longer merely scent, hear, see;
+  But _one_ with Nature, in that Law agreeing--
+  That God-willed Law that tincts the Beauty there--
+
+_May 18, 1912._
+
+
+
+
+AFTER THE NEO-PLATONISTS
+
+
+  Night wove her web across the sun that died
+  In crimson colors; velvet-falling gloom
+  Hung curtain-wise, and, like some rich perfume,
+  Formed the soft essence of each wind that sighed.
+  Out of my casement through the dark, I spied
+  The moon afloat in tide of golden spume
+  Like some fair flower opening into bloom;
+  The earth lay dim; the Heavens starry-eyed;
+  And breezes softer than a maiden's breath
+  Hushed all the air. O night, how sweet thy charm!
+  Yet not thy moon, nor stars, nor wind, each one
+  Of these shall pass when we are changed by death--
+  But rather sleep, thou death-in-life, more warm
+  Yet not so sweet as sweet oblivion.
+
+_September 18, 1912._
+
+
+
+
+WHAT WOULDST THOU BE?
+
+
+  What wouldst thou be? A cloud upon the air
+  Of summer skies afloat in sunlit charm,
+  And drinking azure bliss, all free from care,
+  And nestling near the sun's breast rich and warm?
+  What wouldst thou be? A comet, trailing eyes
+  Of thousand terrors through the throbbing night,
+  And filling earth with fear and vague surprise
+  To gaze upon thy bright, liquescent light?
+  What wouldst thou be? A sullen, stalwart cliff
+  Immovable upon a grassy plain,
+  Kissed by no clouds, and cold, and stark, and stiff,
+  Unmelted by the gentle tears of rain?
+  I ask nor to be gay, nor great nor strong--
+  Make me a thought incarnate in some song.
+
+_May 24, 1912._
+
+
+
+
+THE PROPHECY OF DAVID
+
+A METRICAL SHORT-STORY
+
+
+I
+
+  "The prophecy is overthrown at last!
+  Thy hopes, my fury-tempered steel shall blast.
+  Mine, mine, thou art; David, thou shalt not rule.
+  This curse upon my seed is overpassed;
+  And he who made it was some dream-crazed fool
+  Whose soul was such poor stuff as could not mast
+  Futurity's wide ocean. David shall be
+  All fetter-bound, my captive prisoned fast!"
+      Before his tent, King Saul in triumph strode;
+  About Prince David circled his array.
+  E'er the new sun had sipped the dew, would he
+  Close on the fugitive.--"Brain-crazing thirst
+  Of jealousy that drives me on my way
+  Of torment, drain this cup; and satiate be.
+  Thy hope, O line of David, fadeth fast
+  Like pallid starlight into morning cast."
+      Saul triumphed to the stars; he gasped for air
+  As one might gasp upon a mountain's height.
+  Revenge and hate swept storm-like through the lair
+  Where lurked his soul shrinking before the blast;
+  "Mine, mine, by high-enthroned Jehovah's might!"
+  The words upon his lips were hot and fast.--
+  Thine, thine, thou say'st? Him shalt thou never gain!
+  Thou dream'st a dream, O King; it is in vain.
+  Once fixed, the star of forecast cannot wane.
+  Thine, thine, thou say'st? It is in vain, in vain.--
+  Was it the echo tortured into shape
+  Of his own words? Still stood the King aghast.
+  Did all this prisoning world leave no escape
+  From evil prophecy to his sworn vow?
+      He clapped his hands. (How the two sounds contrast!)
+  A servant came who cringed before his brow.
+  "Whence came that sighing voice? Let no one go
+  About my tent." The man was silent. "Now,
+  My Lord?" he quavered. "All has been quite still."
+  Saul's forehead frowned: "Return to rest--Or no,
+  Order my men to muster; 'tis my will
+  To seize the enemy at once, before
+  The light of morn. Soon shall I hold my foe;
+  And when he's bolted safe by gates thick-brassed,
+  Then may my fury gorge its dread repast."
+  Again he smiled. Footsteps approached in sore,
+  Short-tempered strides as one who comes from far.
+  Still paused the servant for Saul's nod to go--
+  And Saul was smiling to the moon's curved bar.
+      "My Lord, my Lord, these tidings brook no pause!"
+  As if unwillingly, the King turned slow.
+  "Philistines plunder thy rich-garnered grain,
+  And flood thy fencèd towns with waves of fire!
+  The land is overswept with bloody rain;
+  Thy towered throne is tottering to the mire!"
+      Saul's fingers clenched until the blood was near;
+  He turned away; the moon was hid from sight.
+  Only upon Prince David's men one gleam
+  Pierced through the gloomy, cypress-shaded night.
+  "Lost, lost--so near, and yet in vain, in vain--"
+  His enemy who should displace his son,
+  Would still live on while he must go and fight
+  To save the realm--save, for this hated one?
+  He spoke; his voice was tense: "Awake my men;
+  We must be marching far." A lightening beam
+  Of anguish flashed and re-flashed through his brain;
+  And back there floated in his oral ken:
+  "Once fixed, the star of forecast cannot wane;
+  Thine, thine, thou say'st? Him shalt thou never gain!"
+
+
+II
+
+      Encamped Philistines lay upon the plain
+  While Israel held the barren hillock's rise.
+  Like palm trees in the waste, their gay tents shone;
+  And many camp-fires vied with sunset skies,
+  Yet fewer on the hills than blazed below
+  Down in the darkening valley where had grown
+  As many flickering lights as flakes of snow
+  That fall on wintry Lebanus.
+                              Alone
+  Before his tent, strode Saul; his head was bowed
+  As bows a palm tree to the tempest blast.
+  Was this deep thought? Or was the spirit cowed
+  By some high-topping terror? Then at last
+  Tensely he spoke as to the blackening cloud
+  That hung above the sunset: "I, so strong,
+  Yet cannot banish thee, ill-omened shroud,
+  That round my writhing soul wraps as a pall
+  Of mute foreboding?--He and Philistine join
+  In lowering hate against me on the plain--
+  God, God, my soul has sought Thy soul; wherein
+  But Thine Omnipotence can triumph lie?
+  Yet Thou art wordless.--Shall the King still call
+  Unto the Silent?"
+                  The clouds were scudding fast
+  As if breathed through the Heavens by God's sigh.
+  There turned his eyes; then o'er the valley cast.
+  "Yet will I win," he cried. "Fate cannot last.
+  The days are all at odds; the powers conspire
+  To crush my mortal Will. Oh, I will cast,
+  And trample dim foreboding in the mire!
+  Let Fate come on; I'll meet him half the way;
+  And win----" Ceased in the air his words.
+          Sudden,
+  The sky grew dark; a frail gust stirred the fire,
+  Filling the air with monotone of woe:
+  "Thou dream'st a dream; it is in vain, in vain;
+  Him never shalt thou gain----" The sound was flown.
+  With features fury-tortured, hands clenched fast,
+  Up leaped he, straining arms stretched forth.
+          "My foe
+  I'll rend, rend, rend; hear me ye breeze's blast!
+  My royal root shall bloom; and David--lost.
+  Jehovah's evil Providence, I'll cast
+  Into a sea embalmed in endless frost!"
+
+
+III
+
+      A witch dwelt high upon stern Endor's cliff.
+  The place was dark: for night had drawn the veiling
+  Between the mountain peaks that stand still, stiff,
+  The frozen sentinels of Time; and sailing
+  Aloft upon the evening air, the smoke
+  Of hostile camp-fires blackened e'en the night.
+  Here dwelt this hag to horrid witchcraft given,
+  A withered, fangless thing whose mutterings spoke
+  Of all the secrets of Hell's shadow-light.
+  The wind was coldly wailing. Near her fire,
+  She crouched. Behind her, through a passage riven
+  By some swift thunderbolt of wrath divine,
+  Appeared a man in closely wrapped attire.
+      Like some lithe snake she turned and cringed
+  In fear and yet in anger: "By what sign,
+  And wherefore come you here?" her lips half snarled.
+  The man unwrapped his mantle deeply fringed;
+  He threw a purse before her. "For this cost,
+  Let thine unseen familiar call from rest
+  The one I name to thee"--She rose all gnarled;
+  And thus she spake: "Seek not to hide thy mien;
+  My spirit tells me that thou art--" Her lean
+  Hand grasped the splintered rock--"Thou art the King!
+  And whom wouldst thou, my Lord, seek in this fane
+  Of Chaldee calculations, law and ring?"
+  "Serve me but well to-night; and be thou wise--
+  Charm as I bid; and gratitude shall last
+  All time from me to thee--fulfill this quest--"
+  He paused his speech and glanced to either side--
+  "Summon me Samuel. Let his spirit rise
+  Upon the night in wreathèd, hazy guise."
+      The fire-embers faded red, and died;
+  King Saul sat staring into sable space;
+  The witch was mumbling by the fire-side
+  Whence curled up wisps of smoke. His heart beat fast.
+  Within the gray appeared a dim-lit face.
+  In silent terror gazed the King. At last,
+  Was audible a voice upon the wind:
+  "What would'st thou, Saul? What would'st thou learn from me?"
+  "Samuel, 'tis thou--" and then, as in a gust
+  The storm sweeps down upon the plain, words burst
+  In hot-lipped passion uncontrolled and fast--
+  "Aid me; O, aid me; for I yearn, I thirst
+  To drink this David's blood. The frenzied lust
+  Of unfulfilled ambition desert-dry
+  Burns in my throat. Is my seed barren cast
+  On earth? Am I condemned to plod, a beast
+  For any burden? Spectre, tell me why
+  Should I be King of men, and yet the least
+  Who cannot even hold or give mine own?"
+  "The princely David shalt thou never gain;
+  Thou dream'st a dream, O King, it is in vain--
+  Once fixed, the star of forecast cannot wane--
+  The star of forecast cannot wane--wane--wane--"
+  The spectre's voice swept on upon the wind;
+  The spectre faded into argent gloom.
+  Down shot a nacreous moonbeam dim-outlined.
+  The King's eyes fell upon the armied plain.
+  There rose a shout again, and yet again--
+  Below was movement, battling of armed men,
+  And shrieking clash of arms. How fiercely shines
+  That flaring light! His camp was sheathed in flame!
+  In flame that wrote upon his soul the lines:
+  "Once fixed the star of forecast cannot wane;
+  Thine all has been in vain, in vain, in vain--"
+
+_April and May, 1912._
+
+
+
+
+THE PROPHECY OF SAINT MARK
+
+A METRICAL SHORT-STORY
+
+
+      Pale night upon its swift, aërial loom
+  Wove the soft, vaporous substance of the gloom.
+  The story-sculptured Gothic porch lay dim
+  And silent in drab haze with which the spring
+  Covers its carpentry of summer bloom.
+      A maiden stood within the porch's pale.
+  "It is the night," she sighed, "Saint Marcus' night
+  When ghosts of all foredoomed to sickness wing
+  Into the church to pray; so runs the tale.
+  Those who make no return shall feel the grim,
+  Fell scythe of Death within the year. The light
+  Must flicker up each face as past they sail.
+  But Gascon, O my Gascon, shalt thou die?
+  Year after year, I wait--Thy strong-wrought mail
+  Surely is sword-proof--" And a hovering sigh
+  Passed through her lips more still than silence, frail.
+      The lowering mist grew darker. From the womb
+  Of day, young night was born. The paling light
+  Was flecked with haze-clouds flickering in the gloom;
+  And to and fro in stately pageantry,
+  Strange shadow-shapes like liquid-silver spume
+  Charmed into lightness, formed an imagery
+  Of things half-human.
+                        Still the maiden pale
+  Waited and hung upon each shadowy trail
+  Of lingering vapors fainting to and fro.
+  They took the shape of flitting forms in mail
+  Or monkish cowl. A Merlin-magic spell
+  Seemed laid upon her. "And art _thou_ to go?"
+  She whispered as some well-known face amid
+  The rest swept by her through that portal fell.
+  And some, not marked for Death, returned again;
+  And some returned not. O'er the porch's rail,
+  Leant her light body as she scanned each form,
+  And tensely looked with terror anxious-eyed.
+      Why does she shrink with all-consuming pain,
+  And seek to gaze again? A blinding storm
+  Of anguish breaks upon her. "O what doom
+  Is this for thee and me? Why doest thou glide
+  Into this silent, terror-freighted tomb?"
+  Pale Gascon's figure fled along the tide--
+  Some forms not marked for Death returned again;
+  But his returned not. Ever anguish-eyed,
+  She paused and waited--waited in the gloom.
+  At last the flying cloud flakes ceased to come;
+  And stilly night arose. "My God, to whom
+  May I turn now? My richest Self is rent!"
+      Down from the carven doorway stumbling slow,
+  The maiden passed, silent with languishment.
+  Forth from the darkness stepped a man. All dumb,
+  She gazed in careless stupor such as woe
+  Stamps on the soul.
+                      "My Lady, may I dare--"
+  He paused, and gazed, bowed sweepingly and low,
+  Then spoke again. She stood there sad and fair,
+  Quivering like a heat-cloud in the air.
+  "Lady, a traveler asks the way to where
+  He may find rest and lodgement." One brief while,
+  She stayed herself in stupor; 'tis but meet,
+  A soul come slowly from behind the veil.
+  "Come--come," she said, upon her face a smile
+  Of sorrow blent with some strange joyance pale.
+      They passed along the quaintly cobbled street,
+  And then turned through a lane where high up-reared,
+  The gloomy oaks and hawthorne hedges greet
+  The eye on either hand. A cottage stood
+  With banks of sleepy flowers at its feet;
+  And all around, the giant, hoary wood
+  Frowned down its shadows on the garden's bloom,
+  Frowned down, a fateful harbinger of gloom.
+      Within the cottage, all was warmth and cheer.
+  There stayed the mother waiting the return
+  Of her sweet child. They entered. She did greet
+  Both with an all-inclusive smile, and clear,
+  Unchanging peace and kindliness that burn
+  Before a pure soul's shrine. "Whom have we here,
+  Marie?--Some houseless stranger gone astray?"
+      He doffed his feathered cap and bowed full low.
+  "After long twilight wanderings in despair
+  Of any hermitage for night, not far
+  From here, I prayed your daughter's guidance ere
+  The dark should leave me but a chance faint star
+  By which to fare."
+                     Beside the oaken board,
+  They sat and ate the rustic dishes there,
+  While young Sir Guy poured forth a glittering hoard
+  Of warriored stories gathered far away:
+  How one brave knight pierced twenty paynim through;
+  And how another fled from the affray
+  To be enslaved by Sarazain corsair.
+      The maiden hungered for each word. How frail
+  Be warriors' lives! Upon the thought, she knew
+  A bitter memory of forecast's gloom.
+  Oh, she must fly. Oh, something must avail
+  To give her refuge from this festering sting.
+  She tried to turn her mind from sorrow's trail,
+  And gave her thoughts to the narrator's tale.
+      Now he was speaking of a lord who strove
+  To win his lady; but the Christian war
+  Called him to battle for his Faith. He clove
+  Damascus steel and clinking casques; but e'er
+  He could return--Sir Guy then ceased; for here
+  Arose a warning on the mother's brow.
+  She wished no bitter recollections. Fear
+  For Marie's plausance was her only care.
+  Soon all the cottage slept 'mid the garden's bloom;
+  And fatefully the forest frowned its gloom.
+      The summer blossomed, faded, and then died;
+  And still as if enchanted, stayed he there.
+  They took long walks o'er lonely hill and dale,
+  And went across the fields with flowers pied.
+  At times their voices rang upon the air;
+  But ever when they came upon that vale
+  Where, in its flowery charm, the cottage stood,
+  Their talk would fail within the vasty wood.
+  Thus bathed their souls in summer's sultry tide
+  Like flashing moths upon the wind that ride.
+      And hectic autumn came and brought its charm
+  Of leafy brilliance heralding its death.
+  Beside the evening blaze, full many a tale
+  He told of knights in chivalrous career;
+  But never raised the fluttering alarm
+  Of the maiden's mother by the faintest breath
+  Of the warrior lord and his loved one dear.
+  Then hoary, chilling winter shrouded pale,
+  Came, and passed by: thus wandered on, the year.
+      The spring was coldly wrapped in sullen haze;
+  Even the mounting sun seemed scarce as warm
+  As during winter. Slowly passed the days
+  Until the Eve of blest Saint Marcus came.
+  Among the misty-shadowed forest ways,
+  Sir Guy did bring the maiden arm in arm.
+  How oft the times that they had done the same--
+      "I've lived a life, careless and debonair,
+  And know nor fettering bonds nor fear;
+  Yet would I leave it all without a care--"
+  She upward glanced and then glanced down as pale
+  As any flowing haze-wreath in the gloom.
+  "Oh, what is that?" she cried. The misty veil
+  Parted and showed a glimpse of rock-built wall.
+  "'Tis but the village kirk," he said. A pall
+  Of haze enwrapped them like the Will of Doom.
+  She stood and faced him, quivering as a sail
+  That blows uncertain in a varying wind.
+  "Marie, Marie," he faltered. Then a flare
+  Of passion burnt his soul out in his eyes.
+      Downward she glances seeming unaware;
+  But in her heart beneath the outward guise,
+  Warring emotions make her spirit quail.
+  Gascon's loved image into vision flies;
+  And yet her rising love, she cannot quell
+  For brave Sir Guy; and then, as when the flail
+  Lashes the chaff, dim mist before her flies
+  Into the church in Gascon's image pale.
+  The year is out. What then, should _he_ avail?
+      "Marie--" Sir Guy is breathing on the air;
+  She reads the rest within his flaming eyes.
+      "Yes--yes," she murmurs.
+                          "O despair, despair!
+  I have no hope; you fell into the snare!"
+  His eyes dilated with mad light, he cries.
+  "I, I am Gascon whose memory you dare
+  To flout for any knight who stays a year
+  Within your sight! I am undone. My doom
+  Is set. These fateful forests be my bier!
+  Your lover is a wreath of shadowy air--
+  Go, search him in the western tempest's lair!
+  For me, I hasten from this mortal gloom,
+  Sound mine own knell, and say mine own last doom!"
+      She shrinks away, with inward tumult pale.
+  His voice is still. She hears a something fall.
+  With anguish in her eyes, she turns. There, all
+  Stretched out upon the ground, he lies. A well
+  Of ruby richness pulses with his frail,
+  Departing breath. In Merlin-magic spell
+  Of agony, she stares into the gloom.
+      Pale figures, children of the mist-waves' womb
+  In through the church's doorway seem to sail;
+  Spectral, they vanish in their destined tomb.
+  She moves; she starts; she cries, as one to whom
+  Has come the horrid messenger of doom:
+  "Is that _my_ figure floating in the gloom?
+  Shall my life fail; is this its funeral knell?"
+  Pale night upon his swift, aërial loom,
+  Wove the soft, vaporous substance of her doom.
+
+_September and October, 1912._
+
+
+
+
+THE ÆOLIAN HARP
+
+
+  Into my wildly whispering heart,
+  His song the warm sirocco sings,
+    Whirring, whirring--
+  And all the artifice of mine art
+  Comes on the wind by the wind to part,
+  Part from my whirring strings--
+
+  Sometimes I sing a wild, weird tale
+  That like a wandering phantom wings
+    Whirring, whirring--
+  And sometimes only a lonely wail
+  Wells as an echo all wildly frail,
+  Frail as my whirring sings--
+
+  My notes are like the willow-wands
+  That lightly wave before, behind.--
+    Whirring, whirring--
+  Each whispering harp-string ever responds,
+  Slave of the breeze in his servile bonds,
+  Slave of the whirring wind--
+
+  Soft the sirocco sighs his tune,
+  And a waning, funeral chant it wings--
+    Whirring, whirring--
+  The song shall die as joys die--soon,
+  Whelming its melody into a swoon,
+  Swoon of the whirring strings--
+
+_October 24 & 25, 1912._
+
+
+
+
+THE MAID THAT I WOOED
+
+AN ODE IN MINIATURE
+
+
+  I lie upon my couch by night,
+    And dream, and dream--
+  Until the quavering shadow-light
+  Her portraiture doth seem--
+  Until the breeze's moaning saith
+  In limpid-lapping stream,
+  The same denial she answereth.
+
+  I lie upon my couch by night,
+    And yearn, and yearn--
+  Until the flickering breeze's flight
+  Bring kisses that would burn--
+  Until my soul could moan with pain--
+  Oh, wherefore should she spurn
+  My love again, and yet again?
+
+  I toss upon my couch by night;
+    I yearn; I yearn--
+  Until I see the glimmering light
+  Upon the east return--
+  Until with passion-pulsing breath,
+  I pray my lady stern:
+  "Oh, let me win thee, sweetest Death--"
+
+_December 27, 1912._
+
+
+
+
+IN A MINOR CHORD
+
+AN ODE IN MINIATURE
+
+
+  I gave my soul to dreams sense-glorified;
+  I bathed in bliss-exhaling balm.
+  I sailed through boundless ether Tyrian-dyed,
+  And breathed the luscious calm.
+  Tense were my heart-strings tuned;
+  And, madly quavering as I sighed,
+  Their music sadly waxed and wailed--then swooned,
+  And floated feebly down in ebbing tide.
+
+  I gave my soul to battle. I defied
+  All the unlovable in life;
+  I could have bartered Heavenly bliss and died
+  Willingly in the strife!
+  To elevate mankind,
+  Mine inward power, I strove to guide;
+  I harnessed the puissance of the mind,
+  And toward that end all be magnified!
+
+  I gave my soul to dreams sense-glorified
+  Till sated pleasure sank to pain.
+  I gave my soul to battle. I defied
+  The sordid; but in vain--
+  Still, still, my spirit wept;
+  Its goal was hopeless, deified.
+  Oh, would this saddened soul had ever slept
+  Unborn; for slumber is a painless guide.
+
+_December 3, 1912._
+
+
+
+
+A GLASS OF ABSINTHE
+
+AN ODE IN MINIATURE
+
+
+  It lay within a glass of green,
+  A sinuous glass of subtle green.
+  It sparkled with a slimy sheen.
+  A languorous fascination gleamed
+  With glint of lapis lazuli;
+  And from its silken surface streamed
+  The scent of musk from Araby.
+  Ah--was that music only dreamed
+  That tinct the drowsy scene?
+  And was my fancy false, or seemed
+  The glass to lure me with its limpid green?
+
+  My fingers fluttered to the stem,
+  To kiss the fluted, serpent stem,
+  As pious Persians kiss the hem,
+  Enwove with many a wanton trick,
+  Of Persia's deified Sofi.
+  I could not see; the light seemed thick
+  As perfume from the balsam-tree,
+  Or incense in a basalic
+  When sounds a requiem.
+  I drank the draught; my sense was sick;
+  My quivering fingers crushed the curling stem.
+
+  I dropped the cup of crystal-green;
+  I scattered fragments emerald-green--
+  False emeralds with a glassy sheen.
+  Upon the pavement, how they gleamed!
+  I flung the bits of serpent-stem
+  Upon the table beryl-seamed.
+  I swept them with my garment's hem--
+  Some say I laughed--That night, I dreamed
+  Of Araby--a scene
+  Of sleepy charm whence fragrance streamed;
+  And in mirage, the desert blossomed green.
+
+_January 16, 1913._
+
+
+
+
+THE PALACE OF PAIN
+
+A CYCLE
+
+
+I
+
+  A soul was once incarnate in a man;
+  And this unseen, incarnate thing was mine;
+  And, as my body grew, the soul began
+  To sip more fondly of the scented wine
+  And sugared blisses life can give at call.
+  It languished amid luxuries divine
+  Showering richly like the leaves that fall
+  Upon the sensuous-silent autumn air.
+  Pale, fleeting Pleasure took my thoughtless all;
+  For love, unselfish, passion-fervid, rare,
+  Vibrated through the discords of dull time,
+  Blending them into harmony; for where
+  Life jangled harsh, a mother's care would chime
+  More blissful chords than can be told in rime.
+
+
+II
+
+  The gentle harmonies of love declined,
+  And swooned into a dull, funereal moan,
+  And faintly floated onward with the wind.
+  The symphony was gone; I stayed alone
+  In all-enshrouding, opiate sadness bound.
+  I did not scream; I did not weep nor groan.
+  My soul was locked in stupor whence it found
+  Only barred gates across dim vaults; and jangling,
+  Discordant chaos stung me like a wound.
+  I could not think; I could not hope; the wrangling
+  Of jarring sounds oppressed me till my brain
+  Was lost within a labyrinth, all-entangling--
+  But this I learned although my powers did wane;
+  That Love through Death transmutes itself to pain.
+
+
+III
+
+  I sank my soul upon a sea of dreams;
+  I floated through aërial heights divine
+  Where saffron clouds a-glint with amber beams
+  Shimmering strangely, stretched in shining line.
+  I winged my way to Heaven's very dome,
+  And on Hell's portal read the horrid sign;
+  I danced upon the wavelet's crested foam,
+  And swept tempestuous on the stormy wind.
+  On earth like some vague terror, did I roam
+  While moaning misery pursued behind.
+  Whene'er I sang, my song had one refrain
+  With anxious care and artifice refined,
+  Until my soul's accompaniment would wane
+  And wax to one _motiv_: unending pain.
+
+
+IV
+
+  I broke my dungeon-sepulchre of dreams;
+  I climbed the winding stair to palace halls
+  Where all the air was soothed by incense-streams;
+  And every sight within those magic walls
+  Was bright with radiant, opalescent sheen
+  While lulling on the ear, light music falls
+  Of such a melody as ne'er has been
+  Unless by fays on fairy lyres played.
+  There Pleasure gowned in iridescent green,
+  Reclines upon her couch with gems inlaid,
+  And gently beckons with a sinuous arm--
+  But all the sumptuous excesses fade;
+  The walls seem dim; the music has no charm,
+  For Pleasure's Palace is a place of harm.
+
+
+V
+
+  I plunged through rooms of deepest Tyrian dye;
+  I tore the veils from mysteries aside;
+  But grinning pleasure ever met mine eye.
+  In anguished ecstasy of bliss, I cried;
+  And through the halls, I heard the echo wane
+  Until the last, most distant answer sighed:
+  "The spirit of the world is pain, pain, pain--"
+  Then from the drowsy distance, there did well
+  A voice as of a witch before her fane,
+  Soft-muttering, some Heaven-blasting spell:
+  "The world is all in vain, the merest tool
+  Of accident, an anteroom to Hell,
+  A counterfeit but fairly glinting pool--
+  Snatch all the joy thou canst, thou human fool!"
+
+
+VI
+
+  And then I searched within myself to find
+  The _how_ and _why_ of all I heard and saw.
+  I found but silent Nothing. Wearied, blind,
+  I strove to learn the omnipresent Law
+  On whose foundation all these chambers lean.
+  I found within the artifice no flaw;
+  And not the slightest secret could I glean.
+  I searched the winding, labyrinthine halls,
+  And scanned colossal colonnades between
+  Whose rows unending space is seen that palls
+  The straining sight, yet thither lures the eye
+  With fairy sheen. Through all the outer walls,
+  No doorway pierced to water, earth or sky:
+  Is there an answer to the _how_ and _why_?
+
+
+VII
+
+  And yet I am condemned to live, to be.
+  What horrid Fate decreed it? Life is blind,
+  And cannot see the Truth. Oh, but for me
+  To know, to solve this riddle of the mind!
+  And yet no whisper through the age's gloom
+  Has taught the latent answer that I pined;
+  And finally in a sombre-tinted room,
+  I sank in languor on the marble floor,
+  And faintly wondered at my destined doom.
+  Upon my weary spirit, came once more
+  A faint remembrance of a former time,
+  A faint remembrance, I had known before,
+  That clung about me like an ancient rime:
+  Death is to the soul but a change of clime.
+
+
+VIII
+
+  Then from the body tear this soul away!
+  Let me seek death; I'll force the hand of Fate!
+  I will not suffer more. The game I play
+  Is held against Creation, and the weight
+  Of all the ages hangs with Fate. Serene,
+  Stands Death in sable gossamer bedight,
+  And with maternal arms would intervene,
+  And seeks to press me silent to her breast.
+  Quick, let me free my soul from pain! The scene
+  Is fair--Oh, let this weariness be blest!
+  But hold--I still may keep this bitter strain
+  Of self-tormenting torment e'en in rest--
+  Death summons up the things of life again;
+  And pain of life transmutes all death to pain.
+
+
+IX
+
+  Oh, but to float away upon the night,
+  To lose my soul upon her silent dark,
+  To feel myself a Nothing, a frail, light,
+  Aërial Emptiness, a fleeing spark
+  Of sunshine seeking on the endless void,
+  Some rest, some painless silence as its mark.
+  Like an oblivion-destined asteroid,
+  So would I that my soul should haste away
+  From all the ordinary, earthly, cloyed,
+  From all the tawdriness of living day;
+  But still I know I cannot cease to be,
+  Though I condemn my body back to clay--
+  O thrice accursèd immortality
+  That dooms me life through all Eternity!
+
+
+X
+
+  O maddening horror in a smiling guise!
+  Alive or dead, I am a slave to life.
+  The later torment with the former vies
+  To wring my still-undying soul with strife.
+  I have a debt; the creditor is Time:
+  "My bond, my bond," he cries, and holds the knife
+  To wound yet never kill. But what my crime?
+  I fled those pleasure-haunted halls where vile,
+  Sweet-scented blisses soothed to pain. A clime
+  More active came within my ken. The dial
+  Of hours hurried round. The rich, new wine
+  Of busy life, I found. A steady file
+  Swept past of mortal things with souls like mine--
+  Yet what the purpose of their streaming line?
+
+
+XI
+
+  With nervous yearning, haste they on their way:
+  A few direct and rule the work of all;
+  But most are bringing mortar, stone and clay--
+  (And some there are that rise, and others fall;
+  And they are seen no more--we know not why.)
+  But all are working on the palace wall;
+  And some invent designs to please the eye;
+  And some would fain extend the rooms to win
+  New-fashioned blisses. A soft-moaning cry
+  Is vibrant in the air. High-pitched and thin,
+  It quavers dimly, then descends again,
+  And echoes aimless through the busy din:
+  Mankind would add to pleasure, but in vain--
+  For Pleasure's Palace is a house of pain.
+
+
+XII
+
+  They strive; they strive, heap luxury on bliss,
+  And worship Pleasure as their goddess-queen.
+  Ah, take who will the subtle harlot's kiss!
+  Yes, seize thy moment's sweetness--then, I ween,
+  A pageantry of pain, such throbbing throes
+  As rive the soul, and cut the quick with keen,
+  Imprisoned edges till the life-blood flows.
+  Man little knows it; but two aims has he:
+  By present anguish, store up future woes,
+  By present anguish, pain posterity.
+  The quest for pleasure is a quest in vain;
+  Pleasure is Nothing in Eternity.
+  Men rather act than think, for thought is pain,
+  And action is the opiate of the brain.
+
+
+XIII
+
+  Shall I play Roman, face and fight these ills,
+  Pretend that I _can_ fight and still may win?
+  A child his dozen mimic soldiers drills,
+  And six with six, the battle they begin.
+  Some victors, and some vanquished; some he slays--
+  But then the soldiers are mere toys of tin--
+  And carelessly upon the ground, he lays
+  Vanquished and victors on one common plane;
+  And takes some other toy and laughs and plays--
+  Yes, like that soldier, may I fight, and gain
+  Great victories. Oh, I may stare my Fate
+  Between the eyes, and drink whole draughts of pain;
+  With Stoic-strength, may struggle, and may hate;
+  But where's the payment that I vainly wait?
+
+
+XIV
+
+  I dare not ponder on humanity;
+  Myself, I dare not ponder, nor my goal.
+  Oh, would that I were lost upon that sea
+  Into whose silence, Lethe's currents roll.
+  Upon its bosom, would that I pressed mine,
+  Then might some kindly power transform this soul
+  Into forgetfulness. Or would some wine
+  Were brewed with musk or attar of the rose
+  And colored with a tint incarnadine,
+  And so compounded that a dreamless doze
+  Would come from one red, richly-scented draught.
+  Or would that some unmoving glacier froze
+  My soul within its crystal mine.--No craft
+  Can save me from this cup of pain unquaffed.
+
+
+XV
+
+  Oh, every soul is only pain embalmed;
+  And every torment is but bliss's sting.
+  Humanity lies gasping and becalmed
+  Upon a torrid ocean; and no wing
+  Of albatross is seen--nor e'er was seen--
+  Our worldly hope is dead--yet rules as king.
+  Dust, ashes, ashes, dust, upon these lean
+  All of the upward struggle of mankind;
+  And pain, unending pain, is all they glean.
+  Goddess of pain, O mistress of the mind,
+  Art thou the Soul of life? Or hast thou palmed
+  Thyself on men once happy? Have we pined
+  Forever? Can our spirits e'er be calmed;
+  Or _is_ the spirit only pain embalmed?
+
+
+XVI
+
+  But what of art? Can art no solace hold,
+  No soothing spikenard, soporose drug or wine
+  To woo the wounded soul? Must men grow old
+  In agony? Or has some thought divine
+  Slipped down upon us, cool, compassionate?
+  But what of art? Can art's frail power refine
+  Our souls into that Oversoul, and mate
+  The each with All in one, sublime design?
+  Art is the vision of that Truth innate
+  In man. A soul, prismatic, crystalline,
+  May show each glow of being with each strife
+  At once reflected and becalmed, and twine
+  Then into some new, inward world all rife
+  With spirit blisses of a spirit life.
+
+
+XVII
+
+  Eternal art can triumph over pain;
+  And once we breathe the lotus-fragrance deep,
+  The world may scream with iron tongue in vain,
+  For all the argosy is soothed to sleep.
+  The ships may rot forever on the sand;
+  And far off Greece may wait and faintly weep.
+  More rare than spice from silken Samarkand,
+  More sorrow-sweet than young Francesca's tears,
+  More fair than yearning night upon the strand,
+  And more majestic than Anchises' years:
+  Beauty's the image, not the thing. 'Tis shod
+  With rainbow lightnings of the hopes and fears,
+  And knows each step humanity may plod.
+  Art is the Beauty of the face of God.
+
+
+XVIII
+
+  But still I live within this place of pain;
+  And still I seek for an eternal aim,
+  For, after death, mere Beauty is in vain.
+  What is there deeper flowing from this same
+  Unceasing spring? Quick, let me tear the veil!
+  There sat a statue on an ebon frame--
+  A statue in that house of pain. So pale
+  The brow and still the nostrils, Death it seemed;
+  But in the face, I read that holy tale
+  That lay on the Madonna's face where gleamed
+  The Heavenly light from the young Christ's aureole.
+  Through all the halls of pain, the brilliance beamed;
+  And every discord out of chaos stole
+  To swell the throbbing organ's thunderous roll.
+
+
+XIX
+
+  Faith is the master-spirit of the mind.
+  All else is vanity, the preacher saith;
+  And worldly knowledge painful is and blind.
+  Oh, be thyself, and trust thyself. The breath
+  Of God is breathed on thee. Believe, and will;
+  And all that thou wouldst have in life, in death,
+  Is thine. I heard a rustling like a rill
+  Upon its leafy bed--just such a sound
+  As tincts the shadow of a song with skill
+  More intricate than arabesques, and bound
+  With tender, faintly-flowing melodies--
+  But whence the choir sang, I never found.
+  Mayhap at last, myself may learn the ties
+  Wherewith are bound those lingering harmonies.
+
+
+XX
+
+  And when the soul has torn the fleshly veil,
+  And moves majestic to that monotone,
+  When echo-like upon the air I sail
+  Whither the wingèd skylark, Faith, has flown,
+  And borne me fainting upward; then my soul
+  May seek the God of art which silent, lone,
+  Broods on a crystal-argent sea, the goal
+  Of all humanity. Incarnate pain
+  Is calmed to everlasting peace. There roll
+  No waves upon the sea. Charmed has it lain
+  Through incommensurate time; charmed will it lie
+  Through all eternity; and there again
+  Upon my soul in silence wrapped, shall sigh,
+  Most beautiful--a mother's lullaby.
+
+_December, 1912._
+
+_January, 1913._
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Poems, by John William Draper
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42034 ***