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diff --git a/old/56326-0.txt b/old/56326-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 3294328..0000000 --- a/old/56326-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,10977 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Poems of Madison Cawein, Volume 4 (of 5), by -Madison Cawein - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: The Poems of Madison Cawein, Volume 4 (of 5) - -Author: Madison Cawein - -Illustrator: Eric Pape - -Release Date: January 7, 2018 [EBook #56326] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE POEMS OF MADISON CAWEIN *** - - - - -Produced by Larry B. Harrison, Jane Robins and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - - +----------------------------------------------------+ - | Note: | - | | - | _ around word indicated italics _Accolon of Gaul_ | - +----------------------------------------------------+ - - - - - - THE POEMS OF [Illustration] - MADISON CAWEIN - - VOLUME IV - - POEMS OF MYSTERY AND OF - MYTH AND ROMANCE - -[Illustration] - -[Illustration: - - Around him mermaids sing, foam-clad Page 168 - - _The Sea King_ -] - - - - - THE POEMS OF - MADISON CAWEIN - - _Volume IV_ - - POEMS OF MYSTERY - AND OF MYTH AND - ROMANCE - - - _Illustrated_ - WITH PHOTOGRAVURES AFTER PAINTINGS - BY ERIC PAPE - - - INDIANAPOLIS - THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY - PUBLISHERS - - - - - COPYRIGHT 1887, 1888, 1890, 1891, 1892, 1893, 1894, 1896, - 1898, 1899, 1901, 1902, 1905 AND 1907, BY - MADISON CAWEIN - - COPYRIGHT 1896, BY COPELAND AND DAY; 1898, BY - R. H. RUSSELL - - - PRESS OF - BRAUNWORTH & CO. - BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS - BROOKLYN, N. Y. - - - - -TO MY MOTHER - - - - -CONTENTS - - - POEMS OF MYSTERY PAGE - - ASHLY MERE 92 - - AT DAWN 84 - - AT MIDNIGHT 118 - - BEFORE THE TOMB 40 - - CHANGELING, THE 140 - - CHILDREN O' THE MOON 177 - - CITY OF DARKNESS, THE 110 - - DANCE OF THE FAIRIES, THE 136 - - ELF-QUEEN, THE 142 - - ELF SWASHBUCKLER, AN 147 - - ELIXIR OF LOVE, THE 9 - - EPILOGUE 218 - - FAERY MORRIS 163 - - FLAMENCINE 42 - - FOREST OF DREAMS, THE 108 - - GHOSTS 116 - - GLADIOLES, THE 158 - - GLAMOUR 161 - - GLORAMONE 14 - - GRAMARYE 122 - - HALL OF DARKNESS, THE 209 - - HAUNTED 1 - - HAUNTED ROOM, THE 202 - - HEADLESS HORSEMAN, THE 94 - - HILDEGARD 44 - - IMAGE IN THE GLASS, THE 22 - - IN AN OLD GARDEN 200 - - IN SHADOW 87 - - IN THE OWL-LIGHT 89 - - INTIMATIONS 187 - - KU KLUX 82 - - LEGEND OF THE STONE, THE 25 - - LITTLE PEOPLE, THE 165 - - MERMAID, THE 173 - - MIRROR, THE 206 - - MORNING-GLORIES, THE 156 - - MOTIVE IN GOLD AND GRAY, A 180 - - NEREID, THE 171 - - NIXIES, THE 152 - - OLD HOUSE, THE 106 - - OLD HOUSE BY THE MERE, THE 197 - - ON FLOYD'S FORK 33 - - ON MIDSUMMER NIGHT 132 - - ON THE EVE OF ST. JOHN 149 - - PRÆTERITA 85 - - REED SHAKEN WITH THE WIND, A 52 - - REMBRANDTS 114 - - REVISITED 104 - - ROMAUNT OF THE OAK 47 - - RUINED MILL, THE 29 - - SEA-KING, THE 168 - - SEA SPIRIT, THE 98 - - SELF AND SOUL 194 - - SONG OF THE ELF 145 - - STREET OF GHOSTS, A 37 - - THAT HOUR 216 - - THAT NIGHT 119 - - THE MOTH, THE ROSE, AND THE PINK 160 - - THERE ARE FAIRIES 129 - - TIGER-LILY, THE 159 - - UNDER DARK SKIES 112 - - VAMPIRE, THE 100 - - WATER-FAIRY, THE 154 - - WEREWOLF, THE 96 - - WHAT DREAMS MAY COME 214 - - WILL-O'-THE-WISP 102 - - WOMAN BY THE WATER, THE 35 - - WOMAN'S PORTION 78 - - WORLD OF FAERY, THE 125 - - -POEMS OF MYTH AND ROMANCE - - APHRODITE 248 - - APOLLO 269 - - ARTEMIS 244 - - BEFORE THE TEMPLE 240 - - BEAUTY AND ART 313 - - DEMETER 253 - - DIONYSIA 278 - - DIONYSOS 256 - - DITHYRAMBICS 289 - - DOLCE FAR NIENTE 334 - - DREAM OF RODERICK, THE 350 - - FAUN, THE 267 - - FIELD AND FOREST CALL 328 - - FOREST IDYLL, A 364 - - GARGAPHIE 264 - - GENIUS LOCI 286 - - GLOW-WORM, THE 360 - - HARVEST MOON, THE 326 - - HYMN TO DESIRE 295 - - JOTUNHEIM 273 - - LAND OF ILLUSION, THE 340 - - LAST SONG, THE 347 - - LETHE 233 - - LIMNAD, THE 237 - - MEMORY, A 332 - - MYTH AND ROMANCE 227 - - NAIAD, THE 235 - - NYMPH AND FAUN 299 - - OLD HOMES 33 - - OLD WATER-MILL, THE 315 - - PAGAN 311 - - PAPHIAN VENUS, THE 260 - - PARTING OF LEANDER AND HERO 301 - - PERSEPHONE 250 - - PROCESSIONAL 372 - - PROEM 225 - - PURPLE VALLEYS, THE 338 - - RAIN-CROW, THE 323 - - REVERIE 230 - - RUE-ANEMONE, THE 242 - - SPIRIT OF DREAMS 370 - - SPIRIT OF THE FOREST SPRING, THE 305 - - TO A PANSY-VIOLET 307 - - UNDER THE ROSE 367 - - VINE AND SYCAMORE 283 - - ZYPS OF ZIRL 355 - - -SONG AND STORY - - AT THE SIGN OF THE SKULL 416 - - AT VESPERS 438 - - CUP OF JOY, THE 423 - - DUM VIVIMUS 418 - - END OF ALL, THE 429 - - END OF THE CENTURY, THE 405 - - FAILURE 420 - - HIEROGLYPHS 391 - - INDIAN LEGEND, AN 383 - - ISLE OF VOICES, THE 410 - - JOHN DAVIS, BOUCANIER 385 - - LA JEUNESSE ET LA MORT 426 - - LEGEND OF A LILY, A 401 - - LOVE AND LOSS 428 - - ROSE O' THE HILLS, A 431 - - SONG AND STORY 379 - - STUDY IN GRAY, A 435 - - TO HARRISON S. MORRIS 377 - - VOYAGERS 389 - - WATCHER, THE 415 - - WHITE VIGIL, THE 433 - - - - -LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS - - - AROUND HIM MERMAIDS SING - FOAM-CLAD (See page 168) _Frontispiece_ - - PAGE - - STARED AND WHISPERED AND SMILED AND WEPT - (See page 49) 124 - - THAT REED-SLENDER GIRL WHOM PAN PURSUED 242 - - - - -PROEM - - - _Not while I live may I forget - That garden which my spirit trod! - Where dreams were flowers, wild and wet, - And beautiful as God._ - - _Not while I breathe, awake, adream, - Shall live again for me those hours, - When, in its mystery and gleam, - I met her 'mid the flowers._ - - _Eyes, talismanic heliotrope, - Beneath mesmeric lashes, where - The sorceries of love and hope - Had made a shining lair._ - - _And daydawn brows, whereover hung - The twilight of dark locks; wild birds, - Her lips, that spoke the rose's tongue - In fragrance-voweled words._ - - _I will not speak of cheeks and chin, - That held me as sweet language holds; - Nor of the eloquence within - Her breasts' twin-moonéd molds._ - - _Nor of her body's languorous - Wind-grace, that glanced like starlight through - Her clinging robe's diaphanous - Web of the mist and dew._ - - _There is no star so pure and high - As was her look; no fragrance such - As her soft presence; and no sigh - Of music like her touch._ - - _Not while I live may I forget - That garden of dim dreams, where I - And Song within the spirit met, - Sweet Song, who passed me by._ - - - - -POEMS OF MYSTERY - - - - -HAUNTED - - -I - - Without a moon when night comes on - There is a sighing in its trees - As of sad lips that no one sees; - And the far-dwindling forest, large - Beyond fenced fields, seems shadowy drawn - Into its shadows. Faint and wan, - By the wistariaed portico - Stealing, I go - Through gardens where the weeds are rank: - Where, here and there, in clump and bank, - Spiræas rise, whose dotted blooms - Seem clustered starlight; and the four - Syringas sweet heap, powdered o'er, - Thin flower-beakers of perfumes; - And the dead flowering-almond tree, - That once was pink as her young cheek, - Now withered leans within the glooms.-- - Why must I walk here? seek and seek - Her, long since gone?--Still bower on bower - The roses climb in blushing flower.-- - Ah, 'mid the roses could I see - Her eyes, her sad eyes, shine like flowers, - Or like the dew that lies for hours - Within their hearts, then it might be - I might find comfort here, although - Wistful, as if reproaching me, - Her sad eyes look, saying what none may know. - - -II - - When midnight comes it brings a moon: - A scent is strewn - Of honey and wild-thorns broadcast - Beneath the stars. When I have passed - Under dark cedars, solemn pines, - Through dodder-drowned petunias, - Corn-flower and the columbine, - To where azaleas, choked with grass, - And peonies, like great wisps, shine, - I reach banked honeysuckle vines, - Piled deep and trammeled with the gourd - And morning-glory--one wild hoard - Of rich aroma--where the seat, - The rustic bench, where oft we sat,-- - Now warped and old with rain and heat,-- - Still stands upon its mossy mat: - And here I rest; and then--a word - I seem to hear; - A soft word whispered in my ear; - Her voice it seems; no thing is near; - I look around:--I have but heard - The plaintive note of some lost bird - Trickle through night,--awakened where, - 'Neath its thick lair of twisted twigs, - The jarring and incessant grigs - Hum:--dream-drugged so, the haunted air - Makes all my soul as heavy as - Dew-poppied grass. - - -III - - Once when the moon rose, fair and full,-- - Like some sea-seen Hesperian pool, - A splash of gold through tangling trees,-- - Or like the Island beautiful - Of Avalon in haunted seas,-- - There came a sighing in the trees - As of sad lips; there was no breeze, - And yet sad sighings shook the trees. - And when, all in a mystic space, - Her orb swam, amiable white, - Right in that shattered casement, by - The broken porch the creepers lace, - Born of a moonbeam and a sigh, - I saw _her_ face, - Pale through a mist of tears; so slight, - So immaterial, ah me! - In pensiveness, and vanished grace, - 'Twas like an olden melody. - - -IV - - I know long-angled on its floors, - Where windows face the anxious east, - The moonshine pours - White squares of glitter and, at least, - Gives glimmer to its whispering halls: - Its corridors, - Sleep-tapestried, are guled with bars - Of moonlight: by its wasted walls - Crouch shadows: and,--where streaked dusts lay - Their undisturbed, deep gray - Upon its stairs,--dim, vision-footed, glide - Faint gossamer gleams, like visible sighs, - As to and fro, athwart the skies,-- - Wind-swung against the moon outside,-- - The twisted branches sway - Of one great tree; I stand below, - And listen now, - Hearing a murmur come and go - Through its gnarled boughs; remembering how - Shady this chestnut made her room, - And sweet, in June, with plumes of bloom; - And how the broad and gusty flues - Of the old house sang when the rain let loose - Its winds, and each flue seemed a hoarse, - Sonorous throat, filled with the storm's wild boom, - And growled carousal; goblin tunes - The hylas pipe to rainy moons - Of March; or, in the afternoons - Of summer, singing in their course,-- - Where blossoms drip,--all wet of back,-- - The crickets drone in avenues - Of locusts leading to the gate. - And in the dark here where I wait - Meseems I hear the silence creep - And crepitate - From hall to hall; as one in sleep - I hear, yet hear not; feel that there - Her soul walks, waking on each stair - Strange echoes; and the stealthy crack - Of old and warping floors: I seem - To follow her; and in a dream - To see, yet see not; in the black - That drapes each room, my mind informs - With shapes, that hide behind each door - And fling from closets phantom arms. - - -V - - I see her face, as once before, - Bewildered with its terror, pressed - To the dark, polished floor; distressed, - Clasped in her blind and covering hands; - So desolate with anguish, wrenched - With wild remorse, no man could see, - Could see and turn away like me, - No man that sees and understands - Love and its mortal agony. - Again, like some automaton, - Part of that ghostly tragedy, - Myself I see, the fool who fled, - Who sneered and fled. And then again - Came stealing back. Again, with blenched - And bending face I stand, and clenched - And icy hands, and staring eyes, - Looking upon her face, as wan - As water; eyes all wide with pain; - Cramped to dilation, packed with loss: - Again I seem to lean across - The years, and hear my heart's deep groan - Above the young gold of her head, - Above that huddled heap alone,-- - Her, white and dead. - - -VI - - Yes, there is moan - Of lamentation and hushed screams - In all its crannies; and sad shades - Haunt all its rooms, the moonlight braids, - With melancholy. Slow have flown - The weary years: and I have known - An anguish and remorse far worse - Than usual life's; and live, it seems, - Because to live is but a curse.... - - -VII - - There she lies buried; there! that ground - Gated with rusty iron, where - She and her stanch forefathers sleep; - So old, the turf scarce shows a mound; - So gray, you scarce distinguish there - A headstone where the ivies creep - And myrtles bloom. A wall of stone - Squares it around; a place for dreams; - A mossy spot of sorrow;--lone, - Nay, lonelier, wilder now it seems, - Though just the same: its roses waste - Their petals there as oft of yore; - Their placid petals, as before; - Pale, pensive petals: yonder some - Lie faint as puffs of foam - Within the moonlight, dimly traced - Beneath the boughs; some few are strown - On the usurping weeds, great grown - Around her tomb, on which two dead leaves lie.... - Here let my sick heart break and die - Amid their wiltings, on her grave, - Here in her dim, old burying-ground - The druid cedars guard around - And roses and wild thorns. Alone - She shall not lie! Ah, let me moan - My life out here where rose-leaves fall, - And rest by her who was my all! - - - - -THE ELIXIR OF LOVE - - - He held it possible that he - Who idolizes one that's dead, - With that strange liquid instantly - Might raise them, living red: - And so he thought, "'Tis mine at last - To live and love the love that's past; - The joy without the grief and pain. - The dead shall live and love again." - - For he had loved one till for him - Her face had grown his spirit-part: - Though dead, she seemed to him less dim - Than men in street and mart. - He labored on; for, truth to say, - In toil alone his pleasure lay, - His art, through which, sometime, he thought, - Back to his arms she would be brought. - - He kept such trysts as phantoms keep, - Pale distances about his soul; - And moved like one who walks asleep, - Attaining no sure goal: - Yet blither than a younger heart - At crucible and glass retort - He labored; for his love was prism - To irisate toil's egoism. - - He drained wan draughts from out a cup, - A globe of vague and flaming gold, - Held from the darkness, brimming up, - By something white and cold, - That wreathed faint fingers round its brim, - Slim flakes of foam; and, soft and dim, - Stooped out of fiery-bound abysses - To print his brow with icy kisses. - - At last within his trembling hand - An ancient flask burnt, starry rose; - A liquid flame of ruby fanned, - Heart-like, with crimson throes: - And in the liquid, like a flower, - A starlike face bloomed for an hour, - Then slowly faded to a skull - With eyes that mocked the beautiful. - - 'Though all his life had been so strange, - Yet stranger now it seemed to be;-- - What was it led him forth to range - 'Mid graves and mystery? - What led him to that one dim tomb, - Where he could read within the gloom - The name of one who lay within - With all of silence, naught of sin? - - Untainted, so it seemed, and made - By death's cold kisses still more fair, - He found her; raised her; softly laid - Her raven depths of hair - Upon his shoulder: and the pearls, - Around her neck and in her curls, - Less pale were than the kingly calm - Upon his face that showed no qualm. - - And through the night, beneath the moon, - Across the windy hill, the gloom - Of forests where the leaves lay strewn, - He brought her to his room: - And in the awfulness of death, - That filled her wide eyes with its breath, - He set her in a carven chair - Where the still moon could kiss her hair. - - One moment then he paused to think: - Then to her lips, all drawn and dead, - His strange elixir pressed and--"Drink! - Drink life and love!" he said. - And it--it drank; the dead drank slow: - And in its eyes there came a glow: - Yet still as stone its body sate, - With eyes of hell and lips of hate. - - Still as fall-frozen ice its face, - And thin its voice as drizzled rain, - When in its rotting silk and lace - It rose and lived again: - Its bosom moved not while it spake; - Nor moved its lips; and half awake - Its eyes seemed with enchanted sleep - A century long in night's old keep. - - And, stooping o'er, it whispered low-- - A sound like a vibrating wire, - Or like the hiss of falling snow - In flutterings faint of fire:-- - "In me, behold, you see your toil! - In me your love! A thing to coil - Around your life thus!--Make entire!-- - The demon of your dead desire!" - - And where, before, was quietness, - Was violence of hate and evil-- - Yet all its form seemed passionless, - A corpse that held a devil!... - But who shall say the hands were its - That made within his throat these pits?-- - They found him dead; and by him, one - Who clasped him close, a skeleton. - - - - -GLORAMONE - - - The moonbeams on the hollies glow - Pale where she left me; and the snow - Lies bleak in moonshine on the graves, - Ribbed with each gust that shakes and waves - Ancestral cedars by her tomb.... - - She lay so beautiful in death, - My Gloramone,--whose loveliness - Death had not dimmed with all its doom,-- - That, urged by my divine distress, - I sought her sepulchre: the gloom, - The iciness that takes the breath, - The sense of fear, were not too strong - To keep me from beholding long. - - I stole into its sorrow; burst, - With what I know was hand accursed, - Its seal, the gated silence of - Her old armorial tomb: but love - Had sighed sweet romance to my heart; - And here, I thought, another part - Our souls would play. I did not start - When indistinctness of pale lips - Breathed on my hair; faint finger-tips - Fluttered their starlight on my brow; - When on my eyes, I knew not whence, - Vague kisses fell: then, like a vow, - Within my heart, an aching sense - Of vampire winning. And I heard - Her name slow-syllabled--a word - Of haunting harmony--and then - Low-whispered, "Thou! at last, 'tis thou!" - And sighs of shadowy lips again. - - How madly strange that this should be! - For, had she loved me here on Earth, - It had not then been marvelous - That she should now remember me, - Returning love for love, though worth - Less, yes, far less to both of us. - And so I wondered, listening there: - How was it that her soul was brought - So near to mine now, whom in life - She hated so? And everywhere - About my life I thought and thought - And found no reason why her love - Should now be mine. We were at strife - Forever here; her hatred drove - Me to despair: I cast my glove - Into the frowning face of fate, - And lost her. Yea, it was her hate - That made her Appolonio's wife. - Her hate! her lovely hate!--for of - Her naught I found unlovely;--and - I felt she did not understand - My passion, and 'twere well to wait. - - And now I felt her presence near, - I, full of life; yet knew no fear - There in the sombre silence, mark. - And it was dark, yes, deadly dark: - But when I slowly drew away - The pall, death modeled with her face,-- - From her fair form it fell and lay - Rich in the dust,--the shrouded place - Was glittering daggered by the spark - Of one wild ruby at her throat, - Red-arrowed as a star with throbs - Of pulsing flame. And note on note - The night seemed filled with tenuous sobs - Of fire that flickered from that stone, - That, lustrous, lay against her throat, - Large as her eyes, and shadowy. - And standing by the dead alone - I marveled not that this should be. - The essence of an hundred stars, - Of fretful crimson, through and through - Its bezels beat, when, bending down - My hot lips pressed her mouth. And scars, - Aurora-scarlet, veiny blue, - Flame-hearted, blurred the midnight; and - The vault rang; and I felt a hand - Like fire in mine. And, lo, a frown - Broke up her face as gently as - The surface of a fountain's glass - A zephyr moves, that jolts the grass - Spilling its rain-drops. When this passed, - Through song-soft slumber, binding fast, - Slow smiles dreamed outward beautiful; - And with each smile I heard the dull - Deep music of her heart, and saw, - As by some necromantic law, - Faint tremblings of a lubric light - Flush her white temples and her throat: - And each long pulse was as a note, - That, gathering, like a strong surprise - With all of happiness, made sweet - With dim carnation in wild wise - The arch of her pale lips, and beat - Like moonlight from her head to feet. - I bent and kissed her once again: - And with that kiss it seemed that pain, - Which long had ached beneath her smile - And eyelids, vanished. In a while - I saw she breathed. Then, wondrous white, - Fair as she was before she died, - She rose upon the bier; a sight - To marvel at, whose truth belied - All fiction. Yet I saw her eyes - Grow wide unto my kiss,--like skies - Of starless dawn.--And all the fire - Of that dark ruby at her throat - Around her presence seemed to float, - A mist of rose, wherein like light - She moved, or music exquisite. - - What followed then I scarcely know: - All I remember is, I caught - Her hand; and from the tomb I brought - Her beautiful: and o'er the snow, - Where moonbeams on the hollies glow, - I led her. But her feet no print - Left of their nakedness, no dint, - No faintest trace in frost. I thought, - "The moonlight fills them with its glow, - So soft they fall; or 'tis the snow - Covers them o'er!--the tomb was black, - And--this strong light blinds!"--Turning back - My eyes met hers; and as I turned, - Flashing centupled facets, burned - That ruby at her throat; and I - Studied its beauty for a while: - How came it there, and when, and why? - Who set it at her throat? Again, - Was it a ruby?--Pondering, - I stood and gazed. A far, strange smile - Filled all her face, and as with pain - I seemed to hear her speak, or sing, - These words, that meant not anything, - Yet more than any words may mean: - "Thy blood it is," she said; then sighed: - "See where thy heart's blood beateth! here - Thy heart's blood, that my lips did drain - In life; I live by still, unseen, - Long as thy passion shall remain.-- - Canst thou behold and have no fear?-- - Yea, if I am not dead, 'tis thou!-- - Look how thy heart's blood flashes now!-- - Blood of my life and soul, beat on! - Beat on! and fill my veins with dawn; - And heat the heart of me, his bride!" - And then she leaned against me, eyed - Like some white serpent, strangely still, - That binds one with its glittering stare, - That at wild stars hath gazed until - Its eyes have learned their golden glare. - - And then I took her by the wrists - And drew her to me. Faintly felt - The shadow of her hair, whose mists - Were twilight-deep and dimly smelt - Of shroud and sepulchre. And she - Smiled on me with such sorcery - As well might win a soul from God - To Hell and torments. And I trod - On white enchantments and was long - A song and harp-string to a song, - Love's battle in my blood. And there, - Kissing her mouth, all unaware - The ruby loosened at her throat, - And, ere I wist, hung o'er my hand, - And on the brink I seemed to stand - Of something that cried out, "Admire - The beauty of this gem of fire, - Its witchcraft and its workmanship." - Then from her throat it seemed to slip, - And, in the hollow of my hand, - A rosy spasm, a bubble-boat - Of living flame, it seemed to float; - A fretful fire; a heart, fierce fanned - Of red convulsions. Like a brand, - A blaze, it touched me; seemed to run - Like fever through my pulses, swift, - Of torrid poison. One by one, - Now burning ice, now freezing sun, - I felt my veins swell. Then I felt - My palm brim up and overflow - With blood that, beads of oozing glow, - Dripped, drop by drop, upon the snow, - Like holly-berries on the snow. - - Then something darkly seemed to melt - Within me, and I heard a sigh - So like a moan, 'twas as if years - Of anguish bore it; and the sky - Swam near me as when seen through tears-- - And she was gone.... In ghostly gloom - Of dark, scarred pines a crumbling tomb - Loomed like a mist. Carved in its stone, - Above the grated portal deep, - Glimmered this legend:-- - - "Let her sleep, - Crowned with dim death, our lovely one, - Known here on Earth as Gloramone. - Our hearts bow down by her and weep, - And one sits weeping all alone." - - - - -THE IMAGE IN THE GLASS - - -I - - The slow reflection of a woman's face - Grew, as by witchcraft, in the oval space - Of that strange glass on which the moon looked in:-- - As cruel as death beneath the auburn hair - The dark eyes burned; and, o'er the faultless chin,-- - Evil as night, yet as the daybreak fair,-- - Rose-red and sensual smiled the mouth of sin. - - -II - - The glorious throat and shoulders and, twin crests - Of snow, the splendid beauty of the breasts, - Filled soul and body with the old desire.-- - Daughter of darkness! how could this thing be? - You, whom I loathed! for whom my heart's fierce fire - Had burnt to ashes of satiety! - You, who had sunk my soul in crime's red mire! - - -III - - How came your image there? and in that room! - Where she, the all-adored, my life's sweet bloom, - Died poisoned! She, my scarcely one week's bride-- - Yes, poisoned by a gift you sent to her, - Thinking her death would win me to your side. - It won me; yes! but.... Well, it made some stir-- - By your own hand, I think, they said you died. - - -IV - - Time passed. And then--was it the curse of crime, - That night of nights, which forced my feet to climb - To that locked bridal-room?--'Twas midnight when - A longing, like to madness, mastered me, - Compelled me to that chamber, which for ten - Long years was sealed: a dark necessity - To gaze upon--I knew not what again. - - -V - - Love's ghost, perhaps. Or, in the curvature - Of that orbed mirror, something that might cure - The ache in me--some message, said perchance - Of her dead loveliness,--which once it glassed,-- - That might repeat again my lost romance - In momentary pictures of the past, - While in its depths her image swam in trance. - - -VI - - I did not dream to see the soulless eyes - Of _you_ I hated; nor the lips where lies - And kisses curled: _your_ features,--that were tuned - To all demonic,--smiling up as might - Some deep damnation! while ... my God! I swooned!... - Oozed slowly out, between the breasts' dead white, - The ghastly red of that wide dagger-wound. - - - - -THE LEGEND OF THE STONE - - - The year was dying, and the day - Was almost dead; - The west, beneath a sombre gray, - Was sombre red: - The gravestones in the ghostly light, - That glimmered there, - Seemed phantoms, wandering wan and white, - 'Mid trees half bare. - - I stood beside the grave of one - Who, here in life, - Was false to me; who had undone - My child and wife: - I stood beside his grave until - The moon came up-- - It seemed the dark, unhallowed hill - Lifted a cup. - - No stone was there to mark his grave, - No flower to grace-- - 'Twas meet that weeds alone should wave - In such a place: - I stood beside his grave until - The stars swam high, - And all the night was iron-still - From sky to sky. - - What cared I though strange eyes glowed bright - Within the gloom! - Though, evil blue, a witch's-light - Burnt by each tomb! - Or that each crooked thorn-tree seemed - A hag, black-cloaked! - Or that the owl above me screamed, - The raven croaked! - - I cursed him: cursed him when the day - Burnt sullen red; - Had cursed him when the west was gray, - And day was dead: - And now when night made dark the pole, - Both soon and late - I cursed his body, yea, and soul, - With th' hate of hate. - - Once at my side I seemed to hear - A low voice say,-- - "'Twere better to forgive,--and fear - Thy God,--and pray." - I laughed; and from pale lips of stone - On sculptured tombs - Wild laughter leapt, and then a moan - Swept through the glooms. - - And then I felt a change--a force, - That seemed to seize - My body, like some fearful curse, - And, fastening, freeze - It downward, deeper than the knees, - Into the earth-- - While still among the twisted trees - Rang mocking mirth. - - And then I felt such fear, despair, - As lost ones feel, - When, knotted in their pitch-stiff hair, - They feel the steel - Of devils' forks lift up, through sleet - Of Hell's slant fire, - Then plunge,--as white from head to feet - I grew entire. - - A voice without me, yet within, - As still as frost, - Intoned: "Thy sin is more than sin, - O damned and lost! - Behold, how God would punish thee - For this thy crime-- - Thy crime of hate and blasphemy-- - Through endless time! - - "O'er him, whom thou wouldst not forgive, - Record what good - He did on Earth! and let him live - Loved, understood! - Be memory thine of all the worst - He did thine own!"... - There at the head of him I cursed - I stood--a stone. - - - - -THE RUINED MILL - - - On the wild South Fork of Harrod's Creek, - O'ergrown with creepers, if you should seek, - You will find an ancient water-mill - Of stone below a wooded hill. - Its weedy wheel is not less still - Than its image that sleeps in the grassy pool - Where the moccasin swims; and, slimly cool - Like streaks of light through blurs of sun, - The silver minnows and crawfish run. - So lone the place, in its sycamore - The blue crane builds; and from the shore - The shitepoke wanders about its door. - The burdock sprawls on its sill of pine; - And, in its pathway, eglantine - And blackberry tangle and intertwine; - Ox-daisies checker with pearl and gold - The bushy banks of its mill-race old; - The owl in its loft as safely lairs - As the fox in its cellar, that whelps and cares - Naught for the hunters who gallop by - With their baying hounds; the martins fly - Around its chimney and build therein; - And wasp and hornet, with murmurous din, - Plaster their nests, that none disturb, - On window-lintel and hopper-curb. - - Once I stood in this old, stone mill, - Once as the day died over the hill, - And night came on; and stark and still - I met with phantoms upon its stairs; - Shadows, that took me unawares, - Eyed with fire and cowled with gloom-- - Twilight phantoms, that crowded, dark, - Its dim interior, each eye a spark - Of sunset, creviced, within the room-- - While a moist, chill, moldering, dead perfume - Of crumbling timbers and rotting grain, - On floors all warped with the sun and rain, - Made of the stagnant air a cell, - Round the cobwebbed rafters hung like a spell; - Making my mind, despite me, run - On thoughts of a hidden skeleton, - There in the walls; or, dripping dank, - Under the floor, 'neath a certain plank; - Glowering, grim in the mossy wet, - In its hollow eyes a dark regret. - I had entered when the evening-star - In the saffron heaven was sparkling afar, - In all its glory of light divine, - Like a diamond drowned in kingly wine; - And I stayed till the heavens hung low and gray, - And the clouds of the storm drove down and away, - Like the tattered leaves of an Autumn day; - And the wild rain beat on the rotting roof - The goblin dance of the Fiend's own hoof, - Till the spider dropped from its dusty woof; - And the thunder throbbed like a mighty heart; - And the wild wind filled each crannied part - Of the mill with moanings, that seemed to be - The voice of an ancient agony-- - Till the beetle shrunk in its board of pine;-- - While the lightning lit with its instant shine - The tossing terror of tree and vine ... - Then, all on a sudden, the storm was still-- - And I saw _her_ there, near the shattered sill, - At the window, gazing from the mill - Into the darkness under the storm; - Around her flickering hair and form - Unearthly glimmer. She seemed to lean - To the rushing waters that roared unseen: - A moment only she seemed to sway - Before me there in the lightning gray, - Then vanished utterly away: - Like a blown-out light.... - - And was it she, - The miller's daughter who died, they say, - Who flung herself on the mill's great wheel, - Long years ago, in her heart's despair?-- - Or was it a dream, a fantasy, - That the place and the moment made me feel, - And imagination imaged there? - - - - -ON FLOYD'S FORK - - - When the hoot of the owl comes over the hill, - At twelve o'clock when the night is still, - And pale on the pool where the creek-frogs croon, - Glimmering gray is the light o' the moon; - And under the willows, where shadows lie, - The torch of the firefly wanders by;-- - They say that the miller walks here, walks here, - All covered with chaff, with his crooked staff, - And his horrible hobble and hideous laugh; - The old, lame miller hung many a year: - When the hoot of the owl comes over the hill, - He walks in the night by Harrod's mill. - - When the bark of the fox sounds lone on the hill, - At twelve o'clock when the night is chill - With the autumn wind, and the waters creep - Where the starlight fails and the shadows sleep; - And under the willows, that toss and moan, - The glow-worm kindles its lanthorn lone;-- - They say that a woman floats dead, floats dead, - In a weedy space that the lilies lace, - A curse in her eyes and a smile on her face; - The miller's young wife with a gash in her head: - When the bark of the fox sounds lone on the hill, - She floats in the night by Harrod's mill. - - When the howl of the hound comes over the hill, - At twelve o'clock when the night is ill, - And the thunder mutters and rain-winds sob, - And the foxfire glows like the lamp of a Lob; - And under the willows, that gloom and glance, - The will-o'-the-wisps hold a devil's-dance;-- - They say that that crime is reacted again. - And each cranny and chink of the mill doth wink - With the light o' hell, or the lightning's blink, - And a woman's shrieks are heard through the rain: - When the howl of the hound comes over the hill, - No man will walk by Harrod's mill. - - - - -THE WOMAN BY THE WATER - - - She stands within the stormy glow - Of sunset, with a face of snow, - The white embodiment of woe, - As night comes on: - - She stands within the sombre glare - Of dusk, with dark neglected hair, - An apparition of despair, - When day is gone. - - The haggard house within the vale - Looks spectral as a ragged sail - The Dutchman hoists against the gale - On haunted seas: - - And in the garden,--one vast brake - Of dock and thistle,--snail and snake - Crawl; and the death-watch taps, awake - In rotting trees. - - The stagnant stream along the night - Creeps, like a nightmare, where each white - Lily is an uneasy light, - A wisp up-tossed: - - And through the cypress-trees and vines - The gray fox skulks and laps and whines; - The owl hoots; and the foxfire shines - In darkness lost. - - She stands beside the stagnant stream; - Her garments drip at every seam; - She looks a shadow in a dream - Of dread and woe: - - No star stares half so steadily - At earth as at the water she; - And what she sees there--it may be - The owlets know. - - - - -A STREET OF GHOSTS - - - The drowsy day, with half-closed eyes, - Dreams in this quaint forgotten street, - That, like some old-world wreckage lies,-- - Left by the sea's receding beat,-- - Far from the city's restless feet. - - Abandoned pavements, that the trees' - Huge roots have wrecked; whose flagstones feel - No more the sweep of draperies; - And sunken curbs, whereon no wheel - Grinds, and no gallant's spur-bound heel. - - Old houses, walled with rotting brick, - Thick-creepered, dormered, weather-vaned,-- - Like withered faces, sad and sick,-- - Stare from each side, all broken paned, - With battered doors the rain has stained. - - And though the day be white with heat, - Their ancient yards are dim and cold; - Where now the toad makes its retreat, - 'Mid flower-pots green-caked with mold, - And naught but noisome weeds unfold. - - The slow gray slug and snail have trailed - Their slimy silver up and down - The beds where once the moss-rose veiled - Rich beauty; and the mushroom brown - Swells where the lily tossed its crown. - - The shadowy scents, that oft are wont - To flit among the walks and boughs, - Seem ghosts of sweethearts here who haunt - And wander round each empty house, - Wrapped in the fragrance of dead vows. - - And, haply, when the evening droops - Her amber eyelids in the west, - Here you may hear the swish of hoops, - Or catch the glint of hat and vest, - As two dim lovers past you pressed. - - And, instant as some star's slant flame, - That scores the swarthy cheek of night, - Perhaps behold Colonial dame - And gentleman in stately white - Go glimmering down the pale moonlight. - - In powder, patch, and furbelow, - Cocked hat and sword; and every one,-- - Tory and Whig of long-ago,-- - As real as in the days long done, - The courtly days of Washington. - - - - -BEFORE THE TOMB - - - The way led under cedared gloom - Where, o'er the entrance of her tomb, - The moon hung, like a cactus bloom. - - I had an hour of night and thin - Sad starlight; and I set my chin - Against the grating and looked in. - - A gleam, like moonlight, through a square - Of opening--I knew not where-- - Shone on her coffin resting there. - - And on its oval silver-plate - I read her name and age and date, - And smiled, soft-thinking on my hate. - - There was no insect sound to chirr; - No wind to make a little stir: - I stood and looked and thought on her. - - The gleam stole downward from her head, - Till at her feet it rested, red - On Gothic gold, whose letters said:-- - - "God to her love lent a weak reed - Of strength: and gave no light to lead: - Pray for her soul: for it hath need." - - There was no night-bird's twitter near; - No low, vague water I might hear - To make a small sound in the ear. - - The gleam, that made a burning mark - Of each dim word, died to a spark; - Then left the tomb and coffin dark. - - I had a little while to wait; - And prayed with hands against the grate, - And heart that yearned and knew too late. - - There was no light below, above, - To point my soul the way thereof,-- - The way of hate that led to love. - - - - -FLAMENCINE - - -I - - It was a gipsy maiden - Within the forest green; - It was a gipsy maiden - Who shook a tambourine: - The star of eve had not the face, - The cascade's foam had not the grace - Of Flamencine. - - -II - - Her bodice was of purple, - Her shoes of satin sheen; - Her bodice was of purple - With scarlet laid between: - The wind of eve was in the tread, - The black of night was on the head - Of Flamencine. - - -III - - Among the dreaming vistas, - The darkling dells between, - Among the dreaming vistas - I heard her tambourine: - And far within the ghostly glade - The moonbeams and the shadows played - Round Flamencine. - - -IV - - Among the beechen shadows - When fireflies are seen, - Among the beechen shadows - When glow-worms glimmer green, - Then down the darkness, like a light, - She dances; and the eyes are bright - Of Flamencine. - - -V - - There lies a gipsy maiden - Within the forest green; - There lies a gipsy maiden - Beside her tambourine: - These many years I am her slave-- - The violets grow upon the grave - Of Flamencine. - - - - -HILDEGARD - - -I - - Hildegard the dæmons name - Her, who meets me on the mountain: - Her, whose hair is like the flame - Of a sunset-fevered fountain: - I can tell her by her eyes, - Dreadful eyes of bitter beryl, - Where the anguish never dies, - And the suffering soul sits sterile - In such light as ever lies - On the unsailed seas of peril. - - -II - - How we met I never knew. - Once I turned--and there she trembled - Near me, glimmering like the dew - In the sessions of assembled - Flowers.--Hers some influence - Of soft, serpent magnetism, - Vanquishing my every sense - With essential mesmerism; - Holding me beneath the lens - Of her will's compelling prism. - - -III - - I can not escape. She treads - Noiseless as the forest flowers - Walked on by the wind; their heads - Pavements for the mottled hours: - She is whiter than the trees - When their blossoms are unsheathing; - She is lissome as the ease - Of the lilied water wreathing; - She is subtle as the breeze - Through the summer foliage breathing. - - -IV - - When she speaks, within my ears, - Like wild music heard in fever - Is her voice; and it appears - That my soul can never leave her: - Babylonian necromance, - Oldest witcheries,--that harrow - Yet compel,--are hers; her glance - Holds me; and my very marrow - Feels it; and I stand a-trance, - While her pupils slowly narrow. - - -V - - Thus she binds me with her gaze, - While her white hands weigh my shoulders; - And my weak will swings and sways - To her gaze that burns and smolders. - So she draws me far away, - Under boughs where summer dallies: - Over peaks of purple day: - Far away through Eden alleys: - All the way is one long May - Till we come to her dark valleys. - - -VI - - There black tempest treads the peaks; - Iron skies are gulfed asunder, - Whence the lightning's lava leaks, - Vomiting the hosts of thunder. - Here she kisses me till red - With my heart's blood are her kisses; - Then my soul is seized with dread, - For it knows no woman this is: - Yea, behold! it sees instead - But a milk-white snake that hisses. - - - - -ROMAUNT OF THE OAK - - - "I rode to death, for I fought for shame-- - The Lady Maurine of noble name, - - "The fair and faithless!--Though life be long - Is love the wiser?--Love made song - - "Of all my life; and the soul that crept - Before, arose like a star and leapt: - - "Still leaps with the love that it found untrue, - That it found unworthy.--Now run me through! - - "Yea, run me through! for meet and well, - And a jest for laughter of fiends in Hell, - - "It is that I, who have done no wrong, - Should die by the hand of Hugh the Strong, - - "Of Hugh her leman!--What else could be - When the devil was judge 'twixt thee and me? - - "He splintered my lance, and my blade he broke-- - Now finish me, thou, 'neath the trysting oak!" - - The shield of his foeman--a heart of white - In a bath of fire--shone in the night: - - The plume of his foeman, as midnight black, - Blew, as he leapt on his horse's back: - - Leapt and laughed as his sword he swung, - Then galloped away with a laugh on his tongue.... - - Who is she in the gray, wet dawn, - 'Mid the forest shades like a shadow wan? - - Who kneels, one hand on her straining breast, - One hand on the dead man's bosom pressed? - - Her face is dim as the dead's; and cold - As his tarnished harness of steel and gold. - - O Lady Maurine! O Lady Maurine! - What boots it now that regret is keen? - - That his hair you smooth? that you kiss his brow, - What boots it now? what boots it now?-- - - She has haled him under the trysting oak, - The huge old oak that the creepers cloak. - - She has stood him, gaunt in his battered arms, - In its haunted hollow.--"Be safe from storms," - - She laughed as his cloven casque she placed - On his brow, and his riven shield she braced. - - Then sat and talked to the forest flowers - Through the lonely term of the day's pale hours. - - And stared and whispered and smiled and wept, - As nearer and nearer the evening crept. - - And lo, when the moon, like a great gold bloom - Above the sorrowful trees did loom, - - She rose up sobbing, "O moon, come see - My bridegroom here in the old oak-tree! - - "I have talked to the flowers all day, all day, - For never a word had he to say. - - "He would not listen, he would not hear, - Though I wailed my longing into his ear. - - "O moon, steal in where he stands so grim, - And tell him I love him and plead with him. - - "Soften his face, that is cold and stern, - And brighten his eyes and make them burn, - - "O moon, white moon, so my soul can see, - Can say that they glow with love for me!"-- - - When the moon had set, and the woods were dark, - The wild deer came, and stood as stark - - As phantoms with eyes of flame; or fled - Like a ghostly herd of the hunted dead. - - And the strix-owl called; and the werewolf snarled; - And a voice, in the boughs of the oak-tree gnarled,-- - - Like the whining voice of the hags that ride - To the witches' Sabboth,--crooned and cried. - -[Illustration: - - Stared and whispered and smiled and wept Page 49 - _Romaunt of the Oak_ -] - - And wrapped in his mantle of wind and cloud, - The storm-fiend stalked through the forest loud. - - When she heard the dead man rattle and groan - As the oak was bent and its leaves were blown, - - And the lightning flickered his shimmering mail,-- - Through the swirl and sweep of the rain and hail, - - She seemed to hear him, who seemed to call,-- - "Come hither, Maurine! the wild leaves fall! - - "The wild leaves rustle, the wild leaves flee-- - Come hither, Maurine, to the hollow tree! - - "To the trysting tree, to the tree once green, - Come hither, Maurine! come hither, Maurine!"... - - They found her closed in his armored arms-- - Had he claimed his bride on that night of storms? - - - - -A REED SHAKEN WITH THE WIND - - -I - - Not for you and me the path - Winding through the shadowless - Fields of morning's dewiness! - Where the brook that hurries hath - Laughter lighter than a boy's; - Where recurrent odors poise, - Romp-like, with irreverent tresses, - In the sun; and leaves and boughs - Build a music-haunted house - For the winds to hang their dresses, - Whisper-silken, rustling in. - Ours a path that led unto - Twilight regions gray with dew; - Where moon-vapors gathered thin - Over acres sisterless - Of all healthy beauty; where - Fungus growths made sad the air - As a phantom-felt caress: - Under darkness and strange stars, - To the sorrow-silenced bars - Of a dubious forestland, - Where the wood-scents seemed to stand, - And the sounds on either hand, - Clad like Sleep's own servitors - In the shadowy livery - Of the ancient House of Dreams, - Which before us,--fitfully, - With white intermittent gleams - Of its pale-lamped windows,--shone, - Echoing with the dim unknown. - - -II - - To say to Hope,--Take all from me, - And grant me naught: - Take rose, and song, and melody, - And word and thought: - Then all my life make me her slave,-- - Is all I crave. - - To say to Time,--Be true to me, - Nor grant me less - Of loss, of grief, of memory, - Of heart's distress: - Then for her love set me a task, - Is all I ask. - - -III - - I came to you when eve was young: - And, where the park rolled downward to - The river, and among the dew, - One vesper moment, lit and sung - A bird, your eyes said something true, - Said something to my eyes, more dear - Than song the bird poured, silver-clear. - How sweet it was to be with you! - How, with our souls, we seemed to hear - The night approaching with its stars! - How calm the moon sloped up her sphere - Of fire-filled pearl through passive bars - Of clouds that berged the tender east! - While all the dark inanimate - Of Nature woke; initiate - With th' moon's arrival, something ceased - In Nature's soul: she stood again - Another self, that seemed t' have been - Dormant, suppressed and so unseen - All day: a life, unknown and strange - And dream-suggestive, that had lain,-- - Masked on with light,--within the range - Of thought, but unrevealed till now. - It was the hour of love. And you, - With downward eyes and pensive brow, - Among the moonlight and the dew,-- - Although no word of love was spoken,-- - Heard the sweet night's confession broken - Of something here more sweet in me: - A love, depth made inaudible, - Save to your soul, that answered well, - With eyes replying silently. - - -IV - - Fair you are as a rose is fair, - There where the shadows dew it; - And the deeps of your brown, brown hair, - Soft as the cloud that lingers there - With the sunset's auburn through it. - Eyes of azure and throat of snow, - Tell me what my heart would know! - - Every dream I dream of you - Has a love-thought in it, - And a hope, a kiss or two, - Something dear and something true, - Telling me each minute, - With three words it whispers clear - What my heart from you would hear. - - -V - - Junetime came: the days grew kind - With increasing beauty: deep - Were the nights with rest and sleep: - Fair, with poppies intertwined - On their blond locks, went the Hours, - Sunny-hearted as the rose, - Through the buds and banded flowers, - Teaching them, how no one knows, - Freshness, color, and perfume.-- - In the window of your room - Bloomed a late azalea. Pink - As an egret's rosy plumes - Shone its tender-tufted blooms. - From your care and love, I think, - Love's rose-color it did drink, - Growing rosier day by day - Through your 'tending hand's caress: - And your own dear naturalness - Had imbued it in some way. - Once you gave a blossom of it, - Smiling, to me when I left: - Need I tell you how I love it - Faded though it is now!--'Reft - Of its fragrance and its color, - Yet 'tis dearer now than then,--As - past happiness is when - Life regrets.--And dimmer, duller - Though its beauty be, when I - Look upon it, I recall - Every part of that old wall; - And the dingy window high, - Where you sat and read; and all - The fond love that made your face - A soft sunbeam in that place: - And the plant that grew this bloom - Withered here, itself long dead, - Makes a halo overhead - There again--and through my room, - Like faint whispers of perfume, - Steal the words of love then said. - - -VI - - All of my love I send to you, - I send to you, - On thoughts, like moths, that wend to you - Out of my heart's glad garden, - O'er which, its lovely warden, - Your face, a lily seeming, - Is dreaming. - - All of my life I bring to you, - I bring to you, - In deeds, like birds, that wing to you - Out of my soul's deep valley, - O'er which, most musically, - Your love, a fountain, glistens, - And listens. - - My love, my life, how blessed in you! - How blessed in you! - Whose thoughts, whose deeds find rest in you - Here on my life's dark ocean, - O'er which, in heavenly motion, - Your soul, a star, abideth, - And guideth. - - -VII - - Where the old Kentucky wound - Through the land,--its stream between - Hills of primitive forest green,-- - Like a goodly belt around - Giant breasts of grandeur; with - Many an unknown Indian myth, - On the boat we steamed. The land - Like an hospitable hand - Welcomed us. Alone we sat - On the under-deck, and saw - Farm-house and plantation draw - Near and vanish. 'Neath your hat - Your young eyes laughed; and your hair, - Blown about them by the air - Of our passage, clung and curled. - Music, and the summer moon; - And the hills' great shadows hewn - Out of silence; and the tune - Of the whistle, when we whirled - Round a moonlit bend in sight of - Some lone landing heaped with hay - Or tobacco; where the light of - One dim, solitary lamp - Signaled through the evening's damp: - Then a bell; and, dusky gray, - Shuffling figures on the shore - With the cable; rugged forms - On the gang-plank; backs and arms - With their cargo bending o'er; - And the burly mate before. - Then an iron bell, and puff - Of escaping steam; and out - Where the stream is wheel-whipped rough; - Music, and a parting shout - From the shore; the pilot's bell - Beating on the deck below; - Then the steady, quivering, slow, - Smooth advance again. Until - Twinkling lights beyond us tell - Of a lock or little town - Clasped between a hill and hill, - Where the bluegrass fields slope down.-- - So we went. That summer-time - Lingers with me like a rhyme - Learned for dreamy beauty of - Its old-fashioned faith and love, - In some musing moment; sith - Heart-associated with - Joy that moments quiet bore, - And forgotten nevermore. - - -VIII - - Three sweet things love lives upon: - Music, at whose fountain's brink - Low he stoops his face to drink; - Seeing, as the wave is drawn, - His near image rise and sink. - Three sweet things love lives upon. - - Three sweet things love lives upon: - Odor, whose red roses wreathe - His bright brow that shines beneath; - Hearing, as each bloom is blown, - His soul's essence breathe and breathe. - Three sweet things love lives upon. - - Three sweet things love lives upon: - Color, to whose rainbow he - Lifts his dark eyes burningly; - Feeling, as the wild hues dawn, - His high immortality. - Three sweet things love lives upon. - - -IX - - Memories of other days,-- - Sad with whilom happiness,-- - Rise before my musing gaze - In the twilight.... And your dress - Seems beside me, like a haze - Shimmering white; as when we went - 'Neath the star-strewn firmament, - Love-led, with impatient feet - Down the night that, summer-sweet, - Sparkled o'er the lamp-lit street. - Every look you gave me then - Comes before my eyes again, - Making music for my heart - On that path where once for us - Roses, red and amorous, - Grew, the roses red of love: - Roses, that are dead enough - On that path now! whence oft start - Out of recollected places, - With remembered forms and faces, - Dreams of love, like figures, woven - In my life's dark tapestry, - Beckoning, ever shadowy, - To my soul still.--O'er the cloven - Gulf of time I seem to hear - Words once whispered in my ear, - Calling--as might friends long dead, - With familiar voices deep, - Call to one who lies asleep, - Comforting.--So was I led - Backward to forgotten things, - Contiguities that spread - Sudden, unremembered wings: - And across my mind's still blue, - From the nest they fledged in, flew - Dazzling shapes that passion knew. - - -X - - Ah! over full my heart is - Of sadness and of pain: - As a rose-flower in the garden - The dull dusk fills with rain; - As a blown red rose that shivers - And bows to the wind and rain. - - So give me your hands and speak me - As once in the days of yore, - When love spoke sweetly to us, - The love that speaks no more: - The sound of your voice may help him - To speak in my heart once more. - - Ah! over grieved my soul is, - And tired and sick for sleep, - As a poppy-bloom that withers, - Forgotten, where reapers reap: - As a harvested poppy-flower - That dies where reapers reap. - - So bend to my face and kiss me - As once in the days of yore, - When the touch of your lips was magic - That restored to life once more: - The thought of your kiss, which awakens - To life that love once more. - - -XI - - Sitting often I have, oh! - Often have desired you so-- - Yearned to kiss you as I did - When your love to me you gave, - In the moonlight, by the wave, - And a long-remembered kiss - Pressed upon your mouth that chid, - Then upon each eye's sweet lid-- - That, all passion-shaken, I - With love-language will address - Each dear thing I know you by, - Picture, needle-work, or frame; - Each suggestive in the same - Perfume of past happiness: - Till, meseems, the ways we knew - Now again I tread with you - From the old-time tryst: and there - Feel the pressure of your hair - Cool and young upon my cheek, - And your breath's aroma: bare - On my arm your hand,--as weak - As a lily on a stream:-- - And once more you look at me - With the sometime witchery, - And again I hear you speak; - And remembered ecstasy - Sweeps my soul again.--I seem - Dreaming.... Would I thus might dream - Ever! and reality - Mix itself eternally - With such visions of the past, - Where my soul still holds you fast! - - -XII - - When day dies, lone, forsaken, - And joy is kissed asleep; - When doubt's gray eyes awaken, - And love, with music taken - From hearts with sighings shaken, - Sits in the dusk to weep: - - With ghostly-lifted finger - What memory then shall rise? - Of dark regret the bringer-- - To tell the sorrowing singer - Of days whose echoes linger, - Till dawn unstars the skies. - - When night is gone and, beaming, - Faith journeys forth to toil; - When hope's blue eyes wake gleaming, - And life is done with dreaming - The dreams that seem but seeming - Within the world's turmoil: - - Who may forget the presence - Of death that walks unseen? - Whose scythe casts shadowy crescents - Around life's glittering essence, - As lessens, slowly lessens, - The space that lies between. - - -XIII - - Bland was that October day, - Calm and balmy as the spring, - When we went a forest way, - Under beeches, lichen-gray, - To a valleyed opening; - Where the purple aster flowered, - And, like torches, savage-held, - Red the fiery sumac towered; - And, where gum-trees sentineled - Vistas, robed in gold and garnet, - Ripe the thorny chestnut shelled - Its brown plumpness. Bee and hornet - Droned around us; low the cricket, - Tireless in the wood-rose thicket, - Tremoloed; and, to the wind - All its moon-spun silver casting, - Swung the milkweed's pod, that thinned, - Where a butterfly seemed pinned: - And its clean flame on the sod - By the fading goldenrod, - Burned the white life-everlasting.-- - It was not so much the time, - Nor the place, nor way we went, - That made all our moods to rhyme, - Nor the season's sentiment, - As it was the innocent - Carefree childhood of our hearts, - Reading each expression of - Death and change as life and love: - That impression joy imparts - Unto others and retorts - On itself, which then made glad - All the sorrow of decay, - As the memory of that day - Makes this day of autumn sad. - - -XIV - - The pungent-breathed petunias - Hang riven of the rain; - And where the tiger-lily was - Now droops a tawny stain; - While in the twilight's purple pause - Earth dreams of heaven again. - - When love sits down to sigh, - Where one lies all alone - Beneath the sod's green sky-- - What boots it then to try, - Or to atone? - - With ragged petals round its pod - The rain-wrecked poppy dies; - And where the hectic rose did nod - A crumbled crimson lies; - While distant as the dreams of God - The stars slip in the skies. - - When love lies down to sleep, - When one is dead and gone-- - Within the darkness deep - What boots it then to weep? - All's said and done. - - -XV - - Holding both your hands in mine, - Often have we sat together, - While, outside, the boisterous weather - Hung the wild wind on the pine - Like a black marauder, and - With a sudden warning hand - At the casement rapped. The night - Wrote no line or glimmer of light, - Starbeam-syllabled, within - Her dark book of death and sin, - Cloudy-chaptered tragicly.-- - Looking in your eyes, ah me! - Though I knew, I did not heed - What the night wrote there for us, - Threatening and ominous: - For love helped my heart to read - Forward to unopened pages - Of a coming day, that held - More for us than all the ages - Past, that it epitomized - In one sentence; where was spelled - What our present realized - Only--all the love that was - Past and still to be for us. - - -XVI - - 'Though in the garden, gray with dew, - All life lies withering, - And there's no more to say or do, - No more to sigh or sing, - Come back with me the ways we knew - When buds were opening. - - Perhaps we shall not search in vain - Within its wreck and gloom; - 'Mid roses ruined of the rain - There still may live one bloom; - One flower, whose heart may still retain - The long-lost soul-perfume. - - And then, perhaps, will come to us - The dreams we dreamed of yore; - And song, who spoke so beauteous, - Will speak to us once more; - And love, with eyes all amorous, - Will gaze as once before. - - So 'though the yard is gray with dew, - And flowers are withering, - And there's no more to say or do, - No more to sigh or sing, - Come back with me the ways we knew - When buds were opening. - - -XVII - - Looking on the desolate street, - Where the first snow drifts and drives, - Trodden black of hurrying feet, - Where the athlete storm-wind strives - With each tree and dangling light,-- - Centres, sphered with glittering white,-- - Hissing in the dancing snow ... - Backward in my mind I go - To that tempest-haunted night - Of two autumns past, when we, - Hastening homeward, were o'ertaken - Of the storm; and 'neath a tree, - With its wild leaves tempest-shaken, - Sheltered us in that forsaken, - Sad and ancient cemetery,-- - Where folk came no more to bury.-- - Haggard gravestones, mossed and crumbled, - Tottered round us, or o'ertumbled - In their sunken graves; and some, - Urned and obelisked above - Iron-fenced-in tombs, stood dumb - Records of forgotten love. - And again I see the west - Yawning inward to its core - Of electric-spasmed ore, - Swiftly, without pause or rest: - And a great wind sweeps the dust - Up abandoned sidewalks; and, - In the rotting trees, the gust - Shouts again--a voice that would - Make its gaunt self understood - Moaning over Death's lean land.-- - And we sat there, hand in hand; - On the granite; where we read, - By the instant skies o'erhead, - Something of one young and dead. - Yet the words begot no fear - In our souls: you leaned your cheek - Smiling on mine: very near - Were our lips: we did not speak. - - -XVIII - - And suddenly alone I stood - With scared eyes gazing through the wood, - For some still sign of ill or good - To lead me from the solitude. - - The day was at its twilighting; - One cloud o'erhead spread a vast wing - Of rosy thunder; vanishing - Behind the far hills' sullen ring. - - Some stars shone timidly o'erhead; - And towards the west's cadaverous red-- - Like some wild dream that haunts the dead - In limbo--the lean moon was led. - - Upon the sad, debatable - Vague lands of twilight slowly fell - A silence that I knew too well, - A sorrow that I can not tell. - - What way to take, what path to go, - Whether into the east's gray glow, - Or where the west burnt red and low-- - What way to choose I did not know. - - So, hesitating, there I stood - Lost in my soul's uncertain wood; - One sign I craved of ill or good - To lead me from its solitude. - - -XIX - - It was autumn: and a night - Full of whispers and of mist, - With a gray moon, wanly whist, - Hanging like a phantom light - O'er the hills. We stood among - Windy fields of weed and flower, - Where the withered seed-pod hung, - And the chill leaf-cricket sung. - Melancholy was the hour - With the mystery and loneness - Of the year, that seemed to look - On its own departed face-- - As our love then, in its oneness, - All its dead past did retrace, - And from that sad moment took - Presage of approaching parting.-- - Sorrowful the hour and dark: - Low among the trees, now darting, - Now concealed, a lamp's pale spark-- - Like a fen-fire--winked and lured - Shut among the shadows, where - All was doubtful, unassured, - Immaterial; and bare - Facts of unideal day - Changed to substance such as dreams. - And meseemed then, far away-- - Farther than remotest gleams - Of the stars--lost, separated, - And estranged and out of reach, - Grew our lives away from each, - Far away as it was fated. - - -XX - - There is no gladness in the day - Now you're away; - Dull is the morn, the noon is dull, - Once beautiful; - And when the sunset fills the skies - With dusking dyes, - With tired eyes and tired heart - I sit alone, I sigh apart, - And wish for you, - For only you. - - Ah! darker now the night comes on - Since you are gone; - Sad are the stars, the moon is sad, - Once wholly glad; - And when the stars and moon are set, - And earth lies wet, - With heart's regret and soul's hard ache, - I dream alone, I lie awake, - And think of you, - Of only you. - - These, who once spake me, speak no more, - Now all is o'er; - Day hath forgot the language of - Its hopes of love; - Night, whose sweet lips were burdensome - With dreams, is dumb; - Far different from what used to be - With grief and loss they speak to me, - They speak of you, - Of only you. - - -XXI - - So it ends--the path that crept - Through a land all slumber-whist; - Where the faded moonlight slept - Like a pale antagonist. - Now the star that led me onward,-- - Reassuring with its light,-- - Fails and falters; dipping downward - Leaves me wandering in night, - With old doubts, like hounds unchained, - Baying at my back, in flight.... - So it ends. The woods attained-- - Where our hearts' Desire builded - A fair temple, fire-gilded, - With Hope's marble shrine within, - (Where the lineaments of our love - Shone, with lilies clad and crowned, - Under marble reared above - Sorrow and her sister, Sin, - Columned, wreathed and ribbon-wound,)-- - In the forest I have found - But a ruin! All around - Lie the shattered capitals, - And vast fragments of the walls ... - Like a climbing cloud,--that plies, - Wind-wrecked, o'er the moon that lies - 'Neath its blackness,--taking on - Gradual certainties of wan, - Soft assaults of easy white, - (Till its huge cocoon, that holds - Like a moth the moon, unfolds, - And it passes) and the skies' - Emptiness and hungry night - Claim its bulk again, while she - Rides in lonely purity:-- - So I found our temple broken; - And a musing moment's space - Love, whose latest word was spoken, - Seemed to meet me face to face, - Making bright that ruined place - With a white effulgence--then - Passed, and all was dark again. - - - - -WOMAN'S PORTION - - -I - - The leaves are shivering on the thorn, - Drearily; - And sighing wakes the sad-eyed morn, - Wearily. - - I press my thin face to the pane, - Drearily; - But never will he come again. - Wearily. - - The rain hath sicklied day with haze, - Drearily; - My tears run downward as I gaze, - Wearily. - - The mist and morn spake unto me, - Drearily:-- - "What is this thing God gives to thee, - Wearily?" - - I said unto the morn and mist, - Drearily:-- - "The babe unborn whom sin hath kissed, - Wearily." - - The morn and mist spake unto me, - Drearily:-- - "What is this thing which thou dost see, - Wearily?" - - I said unto the mist and morn, - Drearily:-- - "The shame of man and woman's scorn, - Wearily." - - "He loved thee not," they made reply, - Drearily.-- - I said, "Would God had let me die!" - Wearily. - - -II - - My hopes are as a closed-up book, - Drearily, - Upon whose clasp of love I look - Wearily. - - All night the rain raved overhead, - Drearily; - All night I wept, awake in bed, - Wearily. - - I heard the wind sweep wild and wide, - Drearily; - And turned upon my face and sighed - Wearily. - - The wind and rain spake unto me, - Drearily:-- - "What is this thing God takes from thee, - Wearily?" - - I said unto the rain and wind, - Drearily:-- - "The love, for which my body sinned, - Wearily." - - The rain and wind spake unto me, - Drearily:-- - "What are these things that burden thee, - Wearily?" - - I said unto the wind and rain, - Drearily:-- - "Past joys, and dreams whose ghosts remain, - Wearily." - - "Thou lov'st him still," they made reply, - Drearily.-- - I said, "Would God that I could die!" - Wearily. - - - - -KU KLUX - - - We have sent him seeds of the melon's core, - And nailed a warning upon his door: - By the Ku Klux laws we can do no more. - - Down in the hollow, 'mid crib and stack, - The roof of his low-porched house looms black; - Not a line of light at the door-sill's crack. - - Yet arm and mount! and mask and ride! - The hounds can sense though the fox may hide! - And for a word too much men oft have died. - - The clouds blow heavy toward the moon. - The edge of the storm will reach it soon. - The kildee cries and the lonesome loon. - - The clouds shall flush with a wilder glare - Than the lightning makes with its angled flare, - When the Ku Klux verdict is given there. - - In the pause of the thunder rolling low, - A rifle's signal--who shall know - From the wind's fierce hurl and the rain's black blow? - - Only the signature, written grim - At the end of the message brought to him-- - A hempen rope and a twisted limb. - - So arm and mount! and mask and ride! - The hounds can sense though the fox may hide! - And for a word too much men oft have died. - - - - -AT DAWN - - - Far off I heard dark waters rush: - The sky was cold: the dawn broke green: - And wrapped in twilight and strange hush - The gray wind moaned between. - - A voice rang through the House of Sleep, - And through its halls there went a tread; - Mysterious raiment seemed to sweep - Around one lying dead. - - And then I knew that I had died, - I, who had suffered so and sinned-- - And 'twas myself I stood beside - In the gray dawn and wind. - - - - -PRÆTERITA - - -I - - Low belts of rushes ragged with the blast; - Lagoons of marish reddening with the west; - And o'er the marsh the water-fowl's unrest - While daylight dwindles and the dusk falls fast. - Set in sad walls, all mossy with the past, - An old stone gateway with a crumbling crest; - A garden where death drowses manifest; - And in gaunt yews the shadowy house at last. - Here, like an unseen spirit, silence talks - With echo and the wind in each gray room - Where melancholy slumbers with the rain: - Or, like some gentle ghost, the moonlight walks - In the dim garden, which her smile makes bloom - With all the old-time loveliness again. - - -II - - When slow the twilight settles o'er its roof, - And from the haggard oaks unto its door - The rain comes, wild as one who rides before - His enemies that follow, hoof to hoof; - And in each window's gusty curtain-woof - The rain-wind sighs, like one who mutters o'er - Some tale of love and crime; and, on the floor, - The sunset spreads red stains as bloody proof:-- - From hall to hall and haunted stair to stair, - Through all the house, a dread, that drags me to'ard - The ancient dusk of that avoided room, - Wherein she sits with ghostly golden hair, - And eyes that gaze beyond her soul's sad doom, - Waking the ghost of that old harpsichord. - - - - -IN SHADOW - - -I - - A moth sucks at a flaming flower: - The moon beams on the old church-tower: - I watched the moth and rising moon, - One silver tip - Of glimmer, slip - Through ghostly tree-tops, deep with June, - To dream above the church an hour. - - -II - - The gray moth on the dewy pod - Dreams; and the sleepy poppies nod - Their drugged heads in the languid breeze, - That whispers low - Of some dim woe, - And spirit-like among the trees, - Strews snowy petals on the sod. - - -III - - My soul dreams at life's blood-red heart - Of that thou art: of thee, who art - All silence: saying something fair - As phantoms know - When moon-flowers blow - And spirits meet: the beauty rare - Of which thou, too, hast grown a part. - - -IV - - My heart, behold, is but a bloom - A pale thought clings to by a tomb, - A tomb that holds the one I love, - All wan of cheek, - Whom, wild and weak, - My heart bows down and breaks above, - Grief-haunted in the moonlit gloom. - - - - -IN THE OWL-LIGHT - - -I - - Uplifted darkness and the owl-light breaks, - Scuds the wild land, pursuing patch with patch, - As when deep daisy fields a swift wind shakes.-- - How clumsily I raised the crazy latch!... - So.--When yon black cloud, light-absorbing, rakes - Again the moon's bald disk-- - Out! and the storm will snatch - Again my hair, made lank with wind and rain - Two hours since.... There! from the ragged plain - A great cloud-besom sweeps the beams again!-- - Out! out!... No fear of risk?... - - -II - - First, past the fellside, where the bramble-hollow - Whines, wolf-like, with the wind; gaunt wind, that grieves - Through the one sickly ash, whose withered leaves - Worry and mutter, shriveled as the lips - Of bent hags kissing. Then--the slope that whips - The face with brush; and where a gnarled vine slips, - Snake-like, from off a rock, that seems to wallow,-- - One mass of briers,--a humpbacked hulk of hair, - A gorgon head of writhings, huge, that heaves, - When, heaped abruptly on it, _flare_! - Burst rain and tempest-glare.-- - This passed, I follow - A thorny slip of path until - I reach the storm-scarred summit of the hill. - - -III - - Let me not think of it!--as I go thence,-- - That thought I can not kill! - Ungovernable! that dogs my footsteps still, - Like something real and living; which my will - Is powerless against.--Ah! when that fence, - Dividing the dark ridges of the hill, - Is passed, shall I not then be breathless? ill - With sinking sense - Of ghastly things to come?--Some sterner strength - Sustain my soul!--Beyond the hill the dense - Dead wood's to pass, and then ... that livid length - Of mooning water, spectral and immense - With sullen storm and night.... - There, if the ghoulish wind,-- - That knows well as I know how I have sinned,-- - Will cease to curse me in its hag-like spite, - Alone with all the horror of my soul, - I shall behold, - Now this way, and now that way rolled, - Lifeless, among cramped reeds, the storm has thinned,-- - With wide, white eyes, metallic in the light - Of the impassive moon:--in gusty roll - Of washing ripples, webby, slippery locks - Dabbling and dark; and,--wedged between sharp rocks,-- - Two rocks, two iron fangs, - Whereon the lake's mad lip, pale-foaming clangs,-- - Wild-pinched and water-strangled white, - His murdered face! that mocks. - - - - -ASHLY MERE - - - Come! look in the shadowy water here, - The stagnant water of Ashly Mere: - Where the stirless depths are dark but clear, - What is the thing that lies there?-- - A lily-pod, half-sunk from sight? - Or spawn of the toad, all water-white? - Or ashen blur of the moon's wan light? - Or a woman's face and eyes there? - - Now lean to the water a listening ear, - The haunted water of Ashly Mere: - What is the sound that you seem to hear - In the ghostly hush of the deeps there?-- - A withered reed, that the ripple lips? - Or a night-bird's wing, that the surface whips? - Or the rain in a leaf that drips and drips? - Or a woman's voice that weeps there? - - Now look and listen! but not too near - The lonely water of Ashly Mere!-- - For so it happens this time each year - As you lean by the Mere and listen: - And the moaning voice I understand,-- - For oft I have watched it draw to land, - And lift from the water a ghastly hand - And a face whose dead eyes glisten. - - And this is the reason why every year - To the hideous water of Ashly Mere - I come when the woodland leaves are sear, - And the autumn moon hangs hoary: - For here by the Mere was wrought a wrong - But the old, old story is overlong-- - And woman is weak and man is strong, - And the Mere's and mine is the story. - - - - -THE HEADLESS HORSEMAN - - - On the black road through the wood, - As I rode, - There the Headless Horseman stood, - By the dark pool in the wood, - As I rode. - - From the shadow of an oak, - As I rode, - Demon steed and rider broke; - By the thunder-riven oak, - As I rode. - - On the wild way through the plain, - As I rode, - At my back he whirled like rain; - On the tempest-blackened plain, - As I rode. - - Four black hoofs shod red with fire, - As I rode, - Woke the wild rocks, dark and dire; - Eyes and nostrils streaming fire, - As I rode. - - On the deep path through the rocks, - As I rode, - I could touch his horse's locks; - Through the echo-hurling rocks, - As I rode. - - And again I looked behind, - As I rode-- - Dark as night and swift as wind, - Towering, he rode behind, - As I rode. - - On the steep road through the dell, - As I rode, - Far away I heard a bell, - In the church beyond the dell, - As I rode. - - And my soul cried out in prayer, - As I rode-- - Lo! the demon went in air, - When my soul called out in prayer, - As I rode. - - - - -THE WEREWOLF - - - _She_ - - Nay; still amort, my love?--Why dost thou lag? - - _He_ - - The strix-owl cried. - - _She_ - - Nay! 'twas yon stream that leaps - Hoarse from the black pines of the Hakel steeps; - Its moon-wild water glittering down the crag.-- - Why so aghast, sweetheart? Why dost thou stop? - - _He_ - - The Demon Huntsman passed with hooting horn! - - _She_ - - Nay! 'twas the blind wind sweeping through the thorn - Around the ruins of the Dumburg's top. - - _He_ - - My limbs are cold. - - _She_ - - Come! warm thee in my arms. - - _He_ - - My eyes are weary. - - _She_ - - Rest, them, love, on mine. - - _He_ - - I am athirst. - - _She_ - - Quench, on my lips, thy thirst.-- - O dear belovéd, how thy last kiss warms - My blood again! - - _He_ - - Off!... How thy eyeballs shine!-- - Thou beast!... thou--Ah!... thus do - I die, accursed! - - - - -THE SEA SPIRIT - - - Ah me! I shall not waken soon - From dreams of such divinity! - A spirit singing 'neath the moon - To me. - - Wild sea-spray driven of the storm - Is not so wildly white as she, - Who beckoned with a foam-white arm - To me. - - With eyes dark green, and golden-green - Long locks, that sparkled drippingly, - Out of the green wave she did lean - To me. - - And sang; till Earth and Heaven were - A far, forgotten memory; - Till more than Heaven seemed in her - To me:-- - - Sleep, sweeter than love's face or home, - And death's immutability, - And music of the plangent foam, - Ah me! - - Sweep over her with all thy ships, - With all thy stormy tides, O sea! - The memory of immortal lips, - And me! - - - - -THE VAMPIRE - - - A lily in a twilight place? - Or moonflower in the lonely night?-- - Strange beauty of a woman's face - Of wildflower-white! - - The rain that hangs a star's green ray - Slim on a leaf-point's restlessness, - Is not so glimmering green and gray - As was her dress. - - I drew her dark hair from her eyes, - And in their deeps beheld a while - Such shadowy moonlight as the skies - Of Hell may smile. - - She held her mouth up, redly wan - And burning cold:--I bent and kissed - Such rosy snow as some wild dawn - Makes of a mist. - - God shall not take from me that hour, - When round my neck her white arms clung! - When 'neath my lips, like some fierce flower, - Her white throat swung! - - Nor words she murmured while she leaned! - Witch-words, she holds me softly by,-- - The spell that binds me to a fiend - Until I die. - - - - -WILL-O'-THE-WISP - - -I - - There in the calamus he stands - With frog-webbed feet and bat-winged hands; - His glow-worm garb glints goblin-wise; - And elfishly, and impishly, - Above the gleam of owlet eyes, - A death's-head cap of downy dyes - Nods out at me, and beckons me. - - -II - - Now in the reeds his face looks white - As witch-down on a witches' night; - Now through the dark, old, haunted mill, - All eerily, all flickeringly - He flits; and with a whippoorwill - Mouth calls, and seems to syllable, - "Come follow me! oh, follow me!" - - -III - - Now o'er the sluggish stream he wends, - A slim light at his fingers' ends; - The spotted spawn, the toad hath clomb, - Slips oozily, sucks slimily; - His easy footsteps seem to come-- - Like bubble-gaspings of the scum-- - This side of me; that side of me. - - -IV - - There by the stagnant pool he stands, - A foxfire lamp in flickering hands; - The weeds are slimy to the tread, - And mockingly, and gloatingly, - With slanted eyes and pointed head, - He leans above a face long dead,-- - The face of me! of me! of me! - - - - -REVISITED - - - It was beneath a waning moon when all the woods were sear, - And winds made eddies of the leaves that whispered far and near, - I met her on the bramble bridge we parted at last year. - - At first I deemed her but a mist that faltered in that place, - An autumn mist beneath the trees the moon's thin beams did lace, - Until I neared and in the moon beheld her face to face. - - The crinkle of the summer heat above the drouth-burnt leas; - The shimmer of the thistle-drift adown the silences; - The gliding of the fairy-fire between the swamp and trees: - - All qualified her presence as a sorrow may a dream-- - The vague suggestion of a self; the glimmer of a gleam; - The actual and unreal of the things that are and seem. - - Where once she came with welcome and glad eyes, all loving-wise, - She passed, and gave no greeting that my heart could recognize, - With far, set face, unseeing, and sad, unremembering eyes. - - It was beneath a waning moon when woods were bleak and sear, - And winds made whispers of the leaves that eddied far and near, - I met her ghost upon the bridge we parted at last year. - - - - -THE OLD HOUSE - - - Quaint and forgotten, by an unused road, - An old house stands: around its doors the dense - Rank ironweeds grow high; - The chipmunks make a highway of its fence; - And on its sunken flagstones newt and toad - As still as lichens lie. - - The timid snake upon its hearth's cool sand - Sleeps undisturbed; the squirrel haunts its roof; - And in the clapboard sides - Of closets,--dim with many a spider woof,-- - Like the uncertain tapping of a hand, - The beetle-borer hides. - - Above its lintel, under mossy eaves, - The mud-wasps build their cells; and in the floor - Of its neglected porch - The black bees nest: through each deserted door, - Vague as faint, phantom footsteps, steal the leaves - And dropped cones of the larch. - - But come with me when sunset's magic old - Transforms this ruin--yea! transmutes this house: - When windows, one by one,-- - Like Age's eyes, that Youth's love-dreams arouse,-- - Grow lairs of fire; and a mouth of gold - Its wide door towards the sun. - - Or let us wait until each rain-stained room - Is carpeted with moonlight, patterned oft - With shadow'd boughs o'erhead; - And through the house the wind goes rustling soft, - As might the ghost--a whisper of perfume-- - Of some sweet girl long dead. - - - - -THE FOREST OF DREAMS - - -I - - Where was I last Friday night?-- - Within the Forest of dark Dreams - Following the blur of a goblin light, - That led me over dreadful streams, - Whereon the scum of the spawn was spread, - And the blistered slime, in stagnant seams; - Where the weed and the moss swam black and dead, - Like a drowned girl's hair, in the ropy ooze: - And the jack-o'-lantern light that led - Flickered the foxfire trees o'erhead, - And the owl-like things at airy cruise. - - -II - - Where was I last Friday night?-- - Within the Forest of dark Dreams - Following a form of shadowy white - With my own wild face it seems.-- - Did a raven's wing just fan my hair? - Or a web-winged bat brush by my face? - Or the hand of--something I did not dare - Look round to see in that obscene place! - Where the boughs, with their leaves a-devil's-dance, - And the thorn-tree bush, where the wind made moan, - Had more than a strange significance - Of life and of evil not their own. - - -III - - Where was I last Friday night?-- - Within the Forest of dark Dreams - Seeing the mists rise left and right, - Like the leathery fog that heaves and steams - From the rolling horror of Hell's red streams: - While the wind, that tossed in the tattered tree, - And danced alone with the last mad leaf-- - Or _was_ it the wind?... kept whispering me, - "Come! bury it here with its own black grief, - And its heart of fire that naught can save!"-- - And there in the darkness I seemed to see - My own self digging my soul a grave. - - - - -THE CITY OF DARKNESS - - - Wide-walled it stands in heathen lands - Beside a mystic sea, - Its streets strange-trod of many a god - And templed blasphemy. - - Far through the night, with light on light, - It flames beside the sea; - While overhead an unseen dread - Impends eternally. - - There is a sound above, around, - Of music by the sea; - And weird and wide the torches glide - Of pagan revelry. - - There is a noise as of a voice - That calls beneath the sea; - And all the deep heaves, as in sleep, - With vague expectancy. - - Then slowly up--as in a cup - Seethes poison--swells the sea; - As through black glass, wild mass on mass, - The town glows fiery. - - Red-lit it glowers, like Hell's dark towers, - Closed in the iron sea; - And monster forms in awful swarms - Wing round it cloudily. - - Still overhead the unseen dread, - Whose shadow dyes the sea, - At wrath-winged wait behind its gate - Till God shall set it free. - - An earthquake crash; a taloned flash-- - And, lo! from sky to sea - A sworded Doom that stalks the gloom, - Crowned with Death's agony. - - And where it burned, a flame inurned, - Blood-red within the sea, - The phantasm of the dread above - Sits in immensity. - - - - -UNDER DARK SKIES - - -I - - Hills rolled in woods, that lair the lynx and fox; - Harsh fields, that lean before the woods' advance - As wild-men fly from hunters, tossing locks - Through which their eyes of yellow fire glance; - Great blurs of briers and lugubrious rocks,-- - A bristling blackness,--with a pool beneath, - Whereo'er the wisps, like something evil, dance; - And then a house like the wrecked face of death. - - -II - - There where the moon hangs sinister, o'er parched - And haggard thorns,--a golden battle-bow, - Or shield of bronze, old wars have scarred and scorched,-- - What crime hath cursed it ... who shall ever know?-- - Night only! Night, with flickering flame, who torched - That moment when blood branded black its sod, - And in the pool a ghastly face sank slow - Beneath the storm and rushing fire of God. - - - - -REMBRANDTS - - -I - - I shall not soon forget her and her eyes, - The haunts of hate, where suffering seemed to write - Its stealthy name, whose syllables are sighs, - In strange and starless night. - - I shall not soon forget her and her face, - So quiet, yet uneasy as a dream - That stands on tip-toe in a haunted place - And listens for a scream. - - She made me feel as one, alone, may feel - In some grand, ghostly mansion of old time, - The presence of a treasure, walls conceal, - And secret of a crime. - - -II - - With lambent faces, mimicking the moon, - The water lilies lie; - Dotting the darkness of the long lagoon - As stars, the sky. - - A face, the whiteness of a water-flower, - With pollen-golden hair, - In shadow half, half in the moonlight's glower, - Lifts slowly there. - - A young girl's face, death makes mute marble of, - Turned to the moon and me, - Sad with the pathos of unspeakable love, - Floating to sea. - - -III - - One listening bent, in dread of something coming - He can not flee nor balk-- - A phantom footstep, in the ghostly gloaming, - That haunts a ruined walk. - - Long has he given his whole heart's hard endeavor - To labor, dark and dawn, - Dreaming that Love still watched his toil and ever - Turned kindly eyes thereon. - - Now in his life, he feels, there nears an hour, - Inevitable, alas! - When in the darkness he shall cringe and cower, - And see his dead self pass. - - - - -GHOSTS - - - Was it the strain of the waltz that, repeating - Love, so bewitched me? or only the gleam - There of the lustres, that set my heart beating, - Feeling your presence as one feels a dream? - - For, on a sudden, the woman of fashion, - Soft at my side in her diamonds and lace, - Vanished, and pale with reproach or with passion, - You, my dead sweetheart, looked up in my face. - - Music, the nebulous lights, and the sifting - Fragrance of women made amorous the air; - Born of these three and my thoughts you came drifting, - Clad in dim muslin, a rose in your hair. - - There in the waltz, that followed the lancers, - Hard to my breast did I crush you and hold; - Far through the stir and the throng of the dancers - Onward I bore you as often of old. - - Pale were your looks; and the rose in your tresses - Paler of hue than the dreams we have lost;-- - "Who," then I said, "is it sees or who guesses, - Here in the hall, that I dance with a ghost?" - - Gone!--And the dance and the music are ended. - Gone!--And the rapture is turned into sighs. - And, on my arm, in her elegance splendid, - The woman of fashion smiles up in my eyes. - - Had I forgotten? and did she remember?-- - She who is dead, whom I can not forget: - She, for whose sake all my heart is an ember - Covered with ashes of dreams and regret. - - - - -AT MIDNIGHT - - - At midnight in the trysting wood - I wandered by the waterside, - When, soft as mist, before me stood - My sweetheart who had died. - - But so unchanged was she, meseemed - That I had only dreamed her dead; - Glad in her eyes the lovelight gleamed; - Her lips were warm and red. - - What though the stars shone shadowy through - Her form as by my side she went, - And by her feet no drop of dew - Was stirred, no blade was bent! - - What though through her white loveliness - The wildflower dimmed, the moonlight paled, - Real to my touch she was; no less - Than when the earth prevailed. - - She took my hand. My heart beat wild. - She kissed my mouth. I bowed my head. - Then, gazing in my eyes, she smiled: - "When did'st thou die?" she said. - - - - -THAT NIGHT - - - That night I sat listening, as in a swoon, - With half-closed eyes, - To far-off bells, low-lulling as a tune - That drifts and dies - Beneath the flowery fingers of the June - Harping to summer skies. - - And then I dreamed the world I knew was gone, - And some one brought,-- - Leading me far o'er sainted hill and lawn, - In heavenly thought,-- - My soul where well the sources of the dawn - With dew and fire fraught. - - Above me the majestic dome of night, - With star on star, - Sparkled; in which one star shone blinding bright; - Radiant as spar - That walls the halls of morning, pearly white - Around her golden car. - - About me temples, vast in desert seas, - Columned a land - Of ruins--bones of old monstrosities - God's awful hand - Had smitten; homes of dead idolatries, - O'erwhelmed with dust and sand. - - Their bestial gods, caked thick with gems and gold, - Their blasphemies - Of beauty, rent; 'mid ruined altars rolled; - Their agonies - And rites abolished; and their priests of old-- - Dust on the desert breeze. - - Then Syrian valleys, purple with veiling mist, - Meseemed I trailed, - Where the frail floweret, by the dewdrop kissed, - Soft-blushing, quailed; - And drowned in dingled deeps of amethyst - The moon-mad bulbul wailed. - - On glimmering wolds I seemed to hear the bleat - Of folded flocks: - Then shepherds passed me, bare of head and feet; - And then an ox - Lowed; and, above me, swept the solemn beat - Of angel wings and locks. - - A manger then I seemed to see where bent, - In adoration, - Above a babe, Men of the Orient, - Where, low of station, - His mother lay, while round them swam sweet scent - And sounds of jubilation. - - And then I woke. The rose-white moon above - Bloomed on my sight;-- - And in her train the stars of winter drove, - Light upon light; - While Yuletide bells rocked, pealing "peace and love" - Down all the aisles of night. - - - - -GRAMARYE - - - There are some things that entertain me more - Than men or books; and to my knowledge seem - A key of Poetry, made of magic lore - Of childhood, opening many a fabled door - Of superstition, mystery, and dream - Enchantment locked of yore. - - For, when through dusking woods my pathway lies, - Often I feel old spells, as o'er me flits - The bat, like some black thought that, troubled, flies - Round some dark purpose; or before me cries - The owl that, like an evil conscience, sits, - A shadowy voice and eyes. - - Then, when down blue canals of cloudy snow - The white moon oars her boat, and woods vibrate - With crickets, lo, I hear the hautboys blow - Of Elfland; and, when gold the fireflies glow, - See where the goblins hold a Fairy Fête - With many a lanthorn-row. - - Strange growths, that ooze from long-dead logs and spread - A creamy fungus, where the snail, uncoiled, - And fat slug feed at morn, are Pixy bread - Made of the yeasted dew; the lichens red, - Beside these grown, are meat the Brownies broiled - Above a glow-worm bed. - - The smears of silver on the webs that line - The knuckled roots, or stretch, white-wov'n, within - The hollow stump, are stains of Faery wine - Spilled on the cloth where Elfland sat to dine, - When night beheld them drinking, chin to chin, - Of th' moon's fermented shine. - - What but their chairs the mushrooms on the lawn, - Or toadstools hidden under flower and fern, - Tagged with the dotting dew!--With knees updrawn - Far as his eyes, have I not come upon - Puck seated there? but scarcely round could turn - When, presto! he was gone. - - And so though Science from the woods hath tracked - The Elfin; and with prosy lights of day - Unhallowed all his haunts; and, dulling, blacked - Our vision, still hath Beauty never lacked - For seers yet; who, in some wizard way, - Prove fancy real as fact. - - - - -THE WORLD OF FAERY - - -I - - When in the pansy-purpled stain - Of sunset one far star is seen, - Like one bright drop of rain, - Out of the forest, deep and green, - O'er me a Spirit seems to lean, - The fairest of her train. - - -II - - The Spirit, dowered with fadeless youth - Of Lay and Legend, young as when, - Close to her side, in sooth, - She led me from the marts of men, - A child, into her world, which then - To me was true as truth. - - -III - - Her hair is like the silken husk - That holds the corn, the gloss that glows; - Her brow is white as tusk; - Her body is like some sweet rose, - And through her gossamer raiment shows - Like starlight closed in musk. - - -IV - - She smiles at me; she nods at me; - And by her looks I am beguiled - Into the mystery - Of ways I knew when, as a child, - She led me 'mid her blossoms wild - Of faery fantasy. - - -V - - The blossoms that, when night is here, - Become sweet mouths that sigh soft tales; - Or, each, a jeweled ear - Leaned to the elfin dance that trails - Down moonrayed cirques of haunted vales - To cricket song and cheer. - - -VI - - The blossoms that, closed up all day,-- - Primrose and poppy,--darkness opes, - Slowly, to free a fay, - Who, silken-soft, leaps forth and ropes - With rain each web that, starlit, slopes - Between each grassy spray. - - -VII - - The blossoms from which elves are born,-- - Sweet wombs of mingled scent and snow, - Whose deeps are cool as morn; - Wherein I oft have heard them blow - Their pixy trumpets, silvery low - As some bee's drowsy horn. - - -VIII - - So was it when my childhood roamed - The woodland's dim enchanted ground, - Where every mushroom domed - Its disc for them to revel round; - Each glow-worm forged its flame,--green-drowned - In hollow snow that foamed - - -IX - - Of lilies,--for their lantern light, - To lamp their dance beneath the moon; - Each insect of the night,-- - That rasped its thin, vibrating tune,-- - And owl that raised its sleepy croon, - Made music for their flight. - - -X - - So is it still when twilight fills - My soul with childhood's memories - That haunt the far-off hills, - And people with dim things the trees,-- - With faery forms that no man sees, - And dreams that no man kills. - - -XI - - Then all around me sway and swing - The Puck-lights of their firefly train, - Their elfin revelling; - And in the bursting pods, that rain - Their seeds around my steps, again - I hear their footsteps ring. - - -XII - - The faery feet that fall once more - Within my way;--and then I see,-- - As oft I saw before,-- - _Her_ Spirit rise, who shimmeringly - Fills all my world with poetry,-- - The Loveliness of Yore. - - - - -THERE ARE FAIRIES - - -I - - There are fairies, bright of eye, - Who the wildflowers' warders are: - Ouphes, that chase the firefly, - Elves, that ride the shooting-star: - Fays, who in a cobweb lie, - Swinging on a moonbeam bar; - Or who harness bumble-bees, - Grumbling on the clover leas, - To a blossom or a breeze, - That's their fairy car. - If you care, you too may see - There are fairies.--Verily, - There are fairies. - - -II - - There are fairies. I could swear - I have seen them busy, where - Roses loose their scented hair, - In the moonlight weaving, weaving, - Out of starlight and the dew, - Glinting gown and shimmering shoe; - Or, within a glow-worm lair, - From the dark earth slowly heaving - Mushrooms whiter than the moon, - On whose tops they sit and croon, - With their grig-like mandolins, - To fair fairy ladykins, - Leaning from the window-sill - Of a rose or daffodil, - Listening to their serenade - All of cricket music made. - Follow me, oh, follow me! - Ho! away to Faerie! - Where your eyes like mine may see - There are fairies.--Verily, - There are fairies. - - -III - - There are fairies. Elves that swing - In a wild and rainbow ring - Through the air; or mount the wing - Of a bat to courier news - To the fairy King and Queen: - Fays, who stretch the gossamers - On which twilight hangs the dews; - Who, within the moonlight sheen, - Whisper dimly in the ears - Of the flowers words so sweet - That their hearts are turned to musk - And to honey; things that beat - In their veins of gold and blue: - Ouphes, that shepherd moths of dusk-- - Soft of wing and gray of hue-- - Forth to pasture on the dew. - There are fairies; verily; - Verily; - For the old owl in the tree, - Hollow tree, - He who maketh melody - For them tripping merrily, - Told it me. - There are fairies.--Verily, - There are fairies. - - - - -ON MIDSUMMER NIGHT - - -I - - All the poppies, in their beds - Nodding crumpled, crimson heads; - And the larkspurs, in whose ears - Twilight hangs, like twinkling tears, - Sleepy jewels of the rain; - All the violets, that strain - Eyes of amaranthine gleam; - And the clover-blooms that dream - With pink baby-fists closed tight,-- - They can hear upon this night, - Noiseless as the moon's white light, - Footsteps and the glimmering flight, - Shimmering flight, - Of the Fairies. - - -II - - Every sturdy four-o'-clock, - In its variegated frock; - Every slender sweet-pea, too, - In its hood of pearly hue; - Every primrose pale that dozes - By the wall and slow uncloses - A sweet mouth of dewy dawn - In a little silken yawn,-- - On this night of silvery sheen, - They can see the Fairy Queen, - On her palfrey white, I ween, - Tread dim cirques of haunted green, - Moonlit green, - With her Fairies. - - -III - - Never a foxglove-bell, you see, - That's a cradle for a bee; - Never a lily, that's a house - Where the butterfly may drowse; - Never a rose-bud or a blossom, - That unfolds its honeyed bosom - To the moth, that nestles deep - And there sucks itself to sleep,-- - But can hear and also see, - On this night of witchery, - All that world of Faerie, - All that world where airily, - Merrily, - Trip the Fairies. - - -IV - - It was last Midsummer Night, - In the moon's uncertain light, - That I stood among the flowers, - And, in language unlike ours, - Heard them speaking of the Pixies, - Trolls and Gnomes and Water-Nixes; - How in _this_ flow'r's ear a Fay - Hung a gem of rainy ray; - And round _that_ flow'r's throat had set, - Dim, a dewdrop carcanet; - Then among the mignonette - Stretched a cobweb-hammock wet, - Dewy wet, - For the Fairies. - - -V - - Long I watched, but never a one, - Ariel, Puck, or Oberon, - Mab, or Queen Titania-- - Fairest of them all they say-- - Clad in morning-glory hues, - Did I glimpse among the dews. - Only once I thought the torch - Of that elfin-rogue and arch, - Robin Goodfellow, afar - Flashed along a woodland bar-- - Bright, a jack-o'-lantern star, - A green lamp of firefly spar, - Glow-worm spar, - Loved of Fairies. - - - - -THE DANCE OF THE FAIRIES - - - On the glimmering coppice, - From her shadowy hair, - Long, silvery poppies - Of moon-litten air - The Night hath flung there. - - In the fern-fronded hollow - The fireflies stream, - Uncertainly follow, - With lanterns of gleam, - Some spirit or dream. - - The forest is fragrant; - The night-hazes swirl - And trail,--through the vagrant - Deep ferns that unfurl,-- - Faint footsteps of pearl. - - From hill and from valley, - Where the moon is at home; - From rocks,--musically,-- - Where singing streams comb - Wild tresses of foam; - - With a ripple and twinkle - Of luminous arms, - And footfalls that tinkle - The darkness, in swarms - Of flower-like forms: - - We speed to the revel - From bloom and from brier, - With locks that dishevel, - And feet, like the fire, - Winged wild with desire. - - Like the wind on the mountain, - We circle and dance; - Like the foam of the fountain, - That sings of romance, - We glimmer and glance. - - Swift, swift we go swinging - Down the slanted moonbeam, - In spirals faint flinging - A rainbow-rayed gleam - On sward and on stream. - - You may hear, like a murmur, - The swirl of our hair; - Our footfall; no firmer - Than leaves on the air - When branches blow bare. - - To men who are favored - In spiritual wise, - Whose hearts have not quavered - To see us, we rise - And doff all disguise. - - Come away then, come hither, - In the moon-blossomed night! - Ere the star-flowers wither, - And Morning, the white, - Reaps, mows them with light. - - Come hither, where singing - Sounds softer than tears, - Or kisses, sweet clinging, - Or music one hears - With memory's ears. - - Come join us, whose kisses - Are waiting for you; - Come, catch at our tresses, - And dance through the dew! - Come away, and pursue! - - Come, come to the coppice, - The violet ridge; - The torrent, whose top is - A rainbow,--a bridge - We tread like the midge.-- - - Come, mortal, come hither! - Come dance with your dreams, - Ere the golden spark wither - Of the glow-worm that gleams - Like a star in still streams. - - - - -THE CHANGELING - - - In the night I heard the sea; - Saw the round moon, white as wool, - Or a bloom in Faerie, - Rise above the hawthorn-tree, - White and wonderful, - Weird and wonderful. - - Through the door there came to me - Breezy whispers, fragrant as - Wafts that rock the honey-bee, - Cradled sweet in Arcady, - In the bluebelled grass, - In the rose-strewn grass. - - Then I saw them; suddenly; - Three red caps against the moon;-- - And three voices whispered me, - "We have come to dance for thee, - Sing for thee a tune, - Sing an elfin tune." - - They were Fairies, Fairies three: - Nearer to my crib they drew, - Singing all the time to me, - Till mine eyes closed dreamily, - Closed, and naught I knew, - And no more I knew. - - While I slept I heard the three - Whispering round my baby there, - White as moonlit ivory, - In its crib of ebony, - All my joy and care, - All my love and care. - - Now I sit here, as you see, - And my heart is all bereft, - Sighing, singing wearily - To this strange thing on my knee, - This wild thing they left, - Changeling that they left. - - - - -THE ELF-QUEEN - - - You ask me why I wandered wide - When Summer sighed o'er dying June?-- - To see the Fairy People ride - Beneath the moon. - - Wild poppies hedged a hawthorne copse, - Where glow-worms hung dim lamps of gold; - A sudden whisper bowed their tops, - And then, behold! - - Between the poppies and the mead - I saw the Fairies riding down: - One fair-faced Fairy in the lead - Crowned with a crown. - - The night was ringing with their reins, - So loud the cricket hushed its song; - Bells up and down their horses' manes - Swung sweet along. - - And whistles, that took all the wind - With music when they shook their manes; - So that the fields, before, behind, - Rang with sweet strains. - - And as their bridles chiming swung, - The night seemed cured of every qualm; - And my sick heart, so wild of tongue, - Was almost calm. - - The steeds they rode were fairy steeds, - Of filmy form and gossamer green; - And every elf was clad in weeds - Of silken sheen. - - Above, a beam of silver light - Beat time to their wild fairy tune, - And danced and glanced,--an elfin white - Not of the moon. - - They were so small the harebell's blue - Had helmeted each tiny head, - Save that fair Fay, who, tall as two, - The Fairies led. - - Dark tresses floated from a tire - Of diamond sparks that snapped with light; - And all her white sark seemed of fire - Shimmering the night. - - I would have thrown me at her feet - And told her of my grief and pain; - And she, perhaps, had helped me meet - My love again. - - Alas! a cock crew far away, - A long-necked cry; and, swift as thought, - The Elf-Queen and her company - Passed into naught. - - - - -SONG OF THE ELF - - -I - - Where the poppies, with their shields, - Sentinel - Forest and the harvest fields, - In the bell - Of a blossom, fair to see, - There I stall the bumblebee, - My good stud; - There I stable him and hold, - Harness him with hairy gold; - There I ease his burly back - Of the honey and its sack - Filched from bloom and bud. - - -II - - Where the glow-worm lights its lamp, - There I lie; - Where, above the grasses damp, - Moths go by; - Now within the fussy brook, - Where the waters wind and crook - Round the rocks, - I go sailing down the gloom - Straddling light a wisp of broom; - Or, beneath the owlet moon, - Trip it to the cricket's tune - Tossing back my locks. - - -III - - Ere the crowfoot on the lawn - Lifts its head, - Or the glow-worm's light be gone, - Dim and dead, - In a cobweb-hammock I - Swing between two ferns and lie - Hid away; - Where the drowsy musk-rose blows - And a sleepy runnel flows, - In the land of Faery, - There I rock, where none can see, - All the summer day. - - - - -AN ELF SWASHBUCKLER - - - Ho, my bullies, lift a tune - To Queen Mab, and, come, make merry, - By a mushroom in the moon, - White as bud of berry! - - Gentlemen, come! take your grog! - Each one in his cap and mantlet: - Who refuses is a dog!-- - He must lift my gantlet! - - Look! my gaberdine how brave! - And my tunic, ouphen yellow! - One a bat's-wing lately gave, - And a frog its fellow. - - And a moth's-head grew this fine - Feather of my beetle-bonnet; - See, my gnat-sting dagger's shine - Hath its blood still on it. - - Faith! this ring I wear, I swear, - 'Twas Queen Mab who gave it: studded, - As you see, with rubies rare-- - Eyes of spiders blooded. - - Doubt me, sirs, and by my blade!-- - Sirrahs, a good stabbing hanger! - From a hornet's stinger made!-- - You may dread my anger! - - Fill the lichen pottles up, - Honey pressed from hearts of roses: - Cheek by jowl, up with each cup, - Till we hide our noses. - - Good, sirs!--Marry!--'Twas the cock!-- - Hey, away! the moon's lost fire!-- - Ho! the cock! our dial and clock-- - Hide beneath this brier! - - - - -ON THE EVE OF ST. JOHN - -(_Scandinavian_) - - - Dizzily round, - On the elf-hills, white in the mellow moonlight, - To a sweet, unholy, ravishing sound - Of wizard voices from underground, - Their mazy dance the Elle-maids wound - On St. John's Eve. - - Beautiful white, - Like a wreath of mist by the starbeams kissed, - Their frail, sweet faces bloomed out of the night, - With floating tresses of firefly light, - That puffed like foam to the left and the right, - On St. John's Eve. - - Fitfully there - They danced like the daughters of starlit waters,-- - But I saw what a mockery all of them were, - With their hollow bodies, when the moonlit air - Rayed out of their eyes with a glow-worm glare, - On St. John's Eve. - - I turned my feet - To the river's banks: in the rush-flowers' ranks - I heard the Necken their songs repeat: - A music all made of the water's beat, - Of moss and of whispering winds that meet, - On St. John's Eve. - - They called my name; - And I saw them there, in their beauty rare, - On the moonlit waves whence the music came, - With their harps of gold, and their locks of flame - Blown over pale brows, sans sin or blame, - On St. John's Eve. - - 'Twas nearing morn - When I turned me home; and a wizen'd gnome, - A Nis, all gray with flailing the corn, - And strong with the scent of byre and barn, - Scowled at me under the haunted thorn, - On St. John's Eve. - - To end it all, - As I passed the hill by the ruined mill, - The hill rose up on pillars tall, - Crimson pillars that ranked a hall, - Where the Dwarfs and the Trolls were holding a ball, - On St. John's Eve. - - One reached to me - A goblet of gold of a vintage old, - And I drank, and mixed with their mirth and glee, - And danced with them for an hour, may be.-- - But they tell me now 'tis a year, you see, - Since St. John's Eve. - - - - -THE NIXIES - - - Deep down, beneath the waves, - Great emerald-curving caves - Dark-domed above it, - Dim-walled with pearl and gold - Glimmers their city old-- - Hast thou heard of it?-- - Where, through the long green nights, the spangling spars - Twinkle like misty stars. - - Where the wind-ripple rays, - And the white water sprays - Over the rocks, - Sitting, they comb their hair; - Singing, with fingers fair - Braiding their locks; - While round their loveliness of naked limbs - The moon's gold glamour swims. - - Or, on some stormy night, - Seen through the glow-worm light - Haunting the sands, - Thou canst behold them drift - Wild thro' the foam, and lift - Pale arms and hands; - Or, in the lightning's leap, along the lake, - Dance in the tempest's wake. - - Singing: "Come join our dance! - Come, while the lightnings glance, - Or when the moon - Spills all her flowers of light - At the dark feet of night; - And soon, ah, soon, - Within our shadowy halls thou shalt forget - Earth's fever and its fret." - - - - -THE WATER-FAIRY - - - Stars above her, stars beneath, - White she rose, as white as death, - Where the waters glassed the splendor - Of a thousand thousand stars, - Twinkling where the lilies slender - Rocked above the ripple-bars. - Slow she oared a shining shoulder - To a blossom-crested boulder. - With slim fingers, long and milky, - From the wave and water-lilies, - Up the rock she drew her silky - Beauty, wild as any rill is - Flashing from a hilly height. - Sitting, dripping in the night, - Sweet she sang unto the lilies, - Sang unto the listening lilies, - Till arose the wool-white moon - In the silken hush of heaven; - Then she wreathed her brow with seven - Lily-buds, all sweet with June; - Belted, wreathed with lilies seven, - Then again upon the boulder, - Dark locks on a milk-white shoulder, - Wild she sang; a wilder ditty - To the wool-white moon; - To the lilies and the moon: - Beautiful and without pity, - Sang, and sang an elfin tune; - Till a youth, who wandered far, - Saw her sitting like a star; - Heard her singing to the moon; - Found her sitting, starry white, - On the flower-crested boulder, - Dark locks on a milky shoulder, - In the low moon's lilied light, - 'Neath the wool-white moon.... - And the creature wrapped her hair - Round his white throat, sitting there - Singing, smiled into his eyes, - While she wrapped her raven hair - Slowly round his throat; and then - Laughed and whispered to the skies, - Kissed him once and then again; - Smiled; and left him stark and strangled - In the water-lilies tangled, - Staring up, with open eyes, - At the moon with open eyes. - - - - -THE MORNING-GLORIES - - - They swing from the garden-trellis - In Ariel-airy ease; - And their aromatic honey - Is sought by the earliest bees. - - The rose, it knows their secret, - And the jessamine also knows: - And the rose told me the secret, - That the jessamine told the rose. - - And the jessamine said: At midnight, - Ere the red cock woke and crew, - The Fays of Queen Titania - Came here to bathe i' the dew. - - And the yellow moonlight glistened - On braids of elfin hair: - And fairy feet on the flowers - Fell lighter than any air. - - And their petticoats, gay as bubbles, - They hung up, every one, - On the morning-glory's tendrils, - Till their moonlight bath were done. - - But the barn-cock crew too early, - And the Fairies fled in fear, - Leaving their petticoats, one and all, - Like blossoms hanging here. - - - - -THE GLADIOLES - - - As tall as the lily, as rich as the rose, - And deep as the bloom of the hollyhock, - They lift their blossoms in furbelows - Of flame that the warm winds rock. - - And some are red as the humming-bird's throat, - And some are pied as the butterfly's wings, - And each is shaped like an elfin coat, - Or a goblin cap that swings. - - Freaked with fire or red as blood, - They nod at me in my garden old, - Each flower a pixy helm or hood, - Lace-lined with fairyland gold. - - For you know the goblins that come at dusk,-- - Whose firefly eyes you have seen,--each one, - (When is sprinkled the dew and scattered the musk,) - Hangs here his cap when done. - - - - -THE TIGER-LILY - - - Tall in his tawny turban, - A sultan 'mid his bands, - In my garden, old and urban, - The tiger-lily stands. - - The poppies there that glisten, - Whose gaudy garments glow, - Are eunuchs who guard and listen - Round his seraglio - - Of roses, myrrhed and musky; - Some whiter than a dove, - And others, deep and dusky, - His odalisks of love. - - Circassian-white and slender, - His dancing-girls and slaves, - To the August-lilies tender, - His haughty hand he waves. - - While he watches them, nothing missing, - In her bower of bloom on high, - His favorite rose is kissing - A Bedouin butterfly. - - - - -THE MOTH, THE ROSE, AND THE PINK - - - White as snow I saw it sink - On the pungent-petaled pink - Through the moonlit dusk; - Moth? or fairy? or, who knows?-- - Ghost, perhaps, of some dead rose - 'Mid the roses' musk. - - Then it seemed I heard a sweet - Tinkle as of elfin feet - Underneath the blooms, - Where one rose hung desolate, - Sick of heart and filled with hate, - Dead with its perfumes. - - "Thou, for whom I died to-day," - So I seemed to hear it say, - "Listen, lovely pink: - Vampire-like, unto thy heart - Now I send, through my white art, - My pale ghost to drink." - - - - -GLAMOUR - - - With fall on fall, from wood to wood, - The brook pours mossy music down-- - Or is it, in the solitude, - The murmur of a Faery town? - - A town of Elfland filled with bells - And holiday of hurrying feet: - Or traffic now, whose small sound swells, - Now sinks from busy street to street. - - Whose Folk I often recognize - In wingéd things that hover round, - Who to men's eyes assume disguise - When on some Faery errand bound.-- - - The bee, that haunts the touch-me-not, - Big-bodied, making braggart din, - Is elfin brother to that sot, - Jack Falstaff of the Boar's Head Inn. - - The dragon-fly, whose wings of black - Are mantle for his garb of green, - Is Ancient to this other Jack, - Another Pistol, long and lean. - - The butterfly, in royal tints, - Is Hal, mad Hal in cloth of gold, - Who passes these, as once that Prince - Passed his companions boon of old. - - - - -FAERY MORRIS - - -I - - The winds are whist; and, hid in mist, - The moon hangs o'er the wooded height: - The bushy bee, with unkempt head, - Hath made the sunflower's disk his bed, - And sleeps half-hid from sight. - The owlet makes us melody-- - Come dance with us in Faery, - Come dance with us to-night. - - -II - - The dew is damp; the glow-worm's lamp - Blurs in the moss its tawny light: - The great gray moth sinks, half-asleep, - Where, in an elfin-laundered heap, - The lily-gowns hang white. - The crickets make us minstrelsy-- - Come dance with us in Faery, - Come dance with us to-night. - - -III - - With scents of heat, dew-chilled and sweet, - The new-cut hay smells by the bight: - The ghost of some dead pansy bloom - The butterfly seems, in the gloom, - Its pied wings folded tight. - The world is drowned in fantasy-- - Come dance with us in Faery, - Come dance with us to-night. - - - - -THE LITTLE PEOPLE - - -I - - When the lily nods in slumber, - And the roses are all sleeping; - When the night hangs deep and umber, - And the stars their watch are keeping: - When the clematis uncloses - Like a hand of snowy fire; - And the golden-lipped primroses, - To the tiger-moths' desire, - Each a mouth of musk unpuckers-- - Silken pouts of scented sweetness, - Which they sip with honey-suckers:-- - Shod with hush and winged with fleetness, - You may see the Little People, - Round and round the drowsy steeple - Of a belfried hollyhock,-- - Clad in phlox and four-o'-clock, - Gay of gown and pantaloon,-- - Dancing by the glimmering moon, - Till the cock, the long-necked cock, - Crows them they must vanish soon. - - -II - - When the cobweb is a cradle - For the dreaming dew to sleep in; - And each blossom is a ladle - That the perfumed rain lies deep in: - When the flaming fireflies scribble - Darkness as with lines flame-tragic, - And the night seems some dim sibyl - Speaking gold, or wording magic - Silent-syllabled and golden: - Capped with snapdragon and hooded - With the sweet-pea, vague-beholden, - You may see the Little People - Underneath the sleepy steeple - Of a towering mullein stock, - Trip it over moss and rock - To the owlet's elvish tune, - And the tree-toad's gnome-bassoon; - Till the cock, the barnyard cock, - Crows them they must vanish soon. - - -III - - When the wind upon the water - Seems a boat of ray and ripple, - That some fairy moonbeam-daughter - Steers, with sails that drift and dripple; - When the sound of grig and cricket, - Ever singing, ever humming, - Seems a goblin in the thicket - On his elfin viol strumming; - When the toadstool, coned and milky, - Heaves a roof for snails to clamber, - Thistledown- and milkweed-silky, - With loose locks of jade and amber, - You may see the Little People, - Underneath the pixy steeple - Of a doméd mushroom, flock, - Quaint in wildflower vest and frock, - Whirling by the waning moon - To the whippoorwill's weird tune, - Till the cock, the far-off cock, - Crows them they must vanish soon. - - - - -THE SEA-KING - - - In green sea-caverns dim, - Deep down, - Foam-bearded,--gray and grim - Beneath his crown,-- - He sits where sea-things swim - And dead men frown. - In green sea-caverns dim - Deep down. - - Around him mermaids sing, - Foam-clad, - And comb long locks and cling, - And sing so sad - Their song's wild murmuring - Drives mortals mad. - Around him mermaids sing, - Foam-clad. - - There vast the sea-snakes lair - And yawn; - Great bulks cloud by; and there - Huge shells and spawn, - Weird weeds, fantastic fair, - Drift scarlet wan. - There vast the sea-snakes lair - And yawn. - - Of wrecks of ships and hulls - And bones, - Sunk gold the water dulls, - And precious stones, - Anchors, and deadmen's skulls, - He builds gaunt thrones. - Of wrecks of ships and hulls - And bones. - - Men's tears are dear to him, - Deep down. - Set in the foamy rim - Of his pale crown, - Their pearléd sorrows swim - Above his frown. - Men's tears are dear to him, - Deep down. - - For him no tempests sweep - And sever - The league-long waves that leap; - The sun shines never: - In caverns vast and deep - He sits forever. - For him no tempests sweep, - Never, ah, never. - - - - -THE NEREID - - -I - - I saw one night a Nereid white - Arise from her coral caves: - Her sea-green curls were pale with pearls, - And her limbs were veiled with the waves. - Through the moonlit foam I saw her come - Up the billow-haunted shore-- - And faint and sweet I heard her feet, - Foam-like, through the surf's long roar; - While ever the wind and the rolling waves - Kept time to her song of ocean caves, - That she sang to her harp of mist and moon, - Of moonbeam shell: this ocean tune:-- - - -II - - "Come follow, come follow, to caverns hollow, - That sound with the sighing sea! - Come follow me o'er the waters hoar!-- - Come away, come away with me! - Come follow, oh, follow, to grottoes hollow, - And caves that are ocean-whist, - Where the sea-weeds twine and the star-fish shine, - And the rosy corals twist. - - "Come follow me home on the wandering foam, - That rolls my world above! - My bosom shall bear thee safely where - The Sea-nymphs dream of love. - They will lie at thy feet and thy heart shall beat - To the music of their sighs; - They will lean to thy face and, like stars, thou shalt trace - Their radiant, love-lit eyes. - - "Come away, come away! where, under the spray, - The haliötis glows, - The nautilus gleams and the sponge-grove dreams, - And the crimson dulse like sunset streams, - And the coral-forest grows. - Come away to my caves, my emerald caves, - From the moon and the sun deep hid! - Forget the world, down under the waves,-- - The world of man that sighs and slaves,-- - Forget the world, there under the waves, - In the arms of a Nereid!" - - - - -THE MERMAID - - - The moon in the east was glowing - When I sought the moaning sea; - The winds from the sea were blowing, - And they brought strange dreams to me. - - The waves at my feet were breaking; - The stars in the sky were wan; - And I watched a white mist making - For the shore and glimmering on. - - And was it a sound of wailing - That the sea-wind bore to me? - Did I hear a footstep trailing? - Or was it a wave of the sea? - - The night hung pale above me - Upon her starry throne, - And a voice said, "Youth, come love me! - For my heart for thee makes moan." - - And out of the mist came slipping - A mermaid, tall and fair; - Her limbs with sea-dew dripping, - And moonlight in her hair. - - Her locks, with the salt sea dripping, - She wrung with a snowy hand; - Her gown hung, thinly clipping - Her breasts the sea-wind fanned. - - Amort from the sea came speeding - This creature samite-clad; - And my heart for her was bleeding, - But its beating I forbade. - - On the strand where the sand was rocking - She stood and sang an air; - And the winds in her hair kept locking - Their fingers cool and bare. - - Soft in her arms did she fold me, - And evermore she moaned, - While her love and her grief she told me, - And the ocean sighed and groaned. - - But I stilled my heart's wild beating, - For I knew her love was dim; - Oh, cold, oh, cold was my greeting, - Though my love burnt in each limb. - - To her bosom white she pressed me - With arms of foam and mist; - With her arms and her lips caressed me, - And smiled in my eyes and kissed. - - But ever I kept repeating, - "A mermaid false is she!" - And cold, oh, cold was my greeting, - Though the heart beat wild in me. - - To my ears she laid her sighing - Sweet mouth, like a rosy shell; - Her arms round my neck were lying, - And her bosom rose and fell. - - With her kisses soft did she woo me, - But I hushed my heart's wild beat; - With her lips and her eyes did she sue me, - But met in my own defeat. - - With the cloud of her sea-dipped tresses - She veiled her beautiful face-- - And, oh, how I longed for her kisses, - And sighed for her soft embrace! - - But out in the mist she went wailing - When dawn besilvered the night, - Her robes of samite trailing - The foam-flowers, sad and white. - - Like a spirit lost went sighing - In the twilight over the sea; - And it seemed the night was crying-- - Or was it the heart in me? - - Then she turned to me and, weeping, - Faded into the night; - And I saw the wild waves leaping - Under the haunted height. - - I heard a far-off sobbing, - A sound of agony-- - Oh, was it the ocean throbbing? - Or was it the heart in me? - - But I hushed my heart's wild beating, - With "a mermaid false is she!" - While ever I kept repeating, - "Would she'd return to me!" - - Oh, heart, so full of yearning - For a loveliness that's gone, - A beauty unreturning, - Be still! or break with dawn! - - - - -CHILDREN O' THE MOON - - -I - - To-night, perhaps, after the rain is done, - Led by a moonbeam or the flickering torch - The firefly flares, amid the loneliness, - The hereditary loneliness of the trees, - I, too, may see,--as sees the star that peeps - Through interlacing boughs, the toadstools heave - Their white roofs through the ferns, like goblin huts, - An elfin town; and, squatting on their tops, - Punch-bellied things, peak-kneed, their knees up-drawn - To perpendicular eyes of glow-worm flame, - And arms akimbo i' the light o' the moon, - Watching the dew-drops tag the toadstools' rims, - Or from the mushroom roll the orbéd rain: - Or, where the tall weed drips and spunkwood smells - Make musk the underwoods, slim woodland imps,-- - Snail-eyed, frog-footed,--oust the sleeping bees - From rocking cradles of the wild flowers' bells - Belfrying, with foxglove-purple, a moonbeam space. - - -II - - On the road in the April wood, - Under the oaks I stopped and stood, - Watching the mole that stealthily heaved - The soft loose clay of its barrow: - The oaks above were auburn-leaved; - And near me bloomed the yarrow; - When down from a leaf a gray snail fell, - Its long stilt-eyes thrust out of its shell: - And I thought, "This color is worn of the fays, - Whose fashion runs to dimmish grays: - A snail-brown tunic each elfin eunuch - Wears in the harem the Elf King keeps: - And a snail-gray gown each fairy clown - Dons when the elf dance whirls and leaps - In the light of the moon on the upland down. - A snail-shell house for his ouphen spouse - Each elfin builds by the snail-white moon, - Where his fairykin love he boards and beds, - Under the dandelion's wisp-white heads, - Where ever he pipes his cricket tune." - - -III - - The sphinx-moth, clothed in downy hues, - In woolly whites and fawns and blues, - Goes fluttering through the evening dews. - - Above the nicotiana's blooms' - Narcotic horns it waves its plumes, - Made drowsy with the drugged perfumes. - - It seems some Fairy Queen who goes - 'Mid trumpets lifted in long rows - Of white whereon the Elfworld blows. - - Attendant and triumphant strains - Of fragrance, greeting her who reigns, - Who takes the air in fairy lanes - Of flowers, that the moonlight stains. - - - - -A MOTIVE IN GOLD AND GRAY - - -I - - To-night he sees their star bead, dewy bright, - Deep in the pansy, eve hath made for it, - Low in the west--a placid purple lit - At its far edge with warm auroral light: - Love's planet hangs above a cedared height; - And there in shadow, like gold music writ - Of dusk's dark fingers, scale-like fireflies flit - Now up, now down the balmy bars of night. - How different from that eve a year ago! - Which was a stormy flower in the hair - Of dolorous day, whose sombre eyes looked blurred - Into night's sibyl face, and saw the woe - Of parting here, and imaged a despair, - As now a hope caught from a homing word. - - -II - - She came unto him--as the springtime does - Unto the land where all lies dead and cold, - Until her rosary of days is told - And beauty, prayer-like, blossoms where death was.-- - Nature divined her coming; yea, the dusk - Seemed thinking of that happiness: behold, - No cloud it had to blot its marigold - Moon--great and golden--o'er the slopes of musk; - Whereon earth's voice made music; tree and stream - Lilting the same low lullaby again, - To coax the wind, who romped among the hills - All day--a tired child--to sleep and dream: - When through the moonlight of the locust-lane - She came, as spring comes through her daffodils. - - -III - - White as a lily molded of Earth's milk - That eve the moon bloomed in a hyacinth sky; - Soft in the gleaming glens the wind went by, - Faint as a phantom clothed in unseen silk: - Bright as a Naiad's limbs, from shine to shade - The runnel twinkled through the shaken brier; - Above the hills one long cloud, pulsed with fire, - Flashed like a great enchantment-welded blade. - And when the western sky seemed some weird land, - And night a witch's spell, at whose command - One sloping star fell green from heav'n; and deep - The warm rose opened, for the moth to sleep; - Then she, consenting, laid her hands in his, - And lifted up her lips for their first kiss. - - -IV - - There where they part the porch's steps are strewn - With wind-dropped petals of the purple vine; - Athwart the porch the shadow of a pine - Cleaves the white moonlight; and, like some calm rune - Heaven says to Earth, shines the majestic moon; - And now a meteor draws a lilac line - Across the welkin, as if God would sign - The perfect poem of this night of June. - The wood-wind stirs the flowering chestnut-tree, - Whose curving blossoms strew the glimmering grass - Like crescents that wind-wrinkled waters glass; - And, like a moonstone in a frill of flame, - The dewdrop trembles in the peony, - As in a lover's heart his sweetheart's name. - - -V - - In after years shall she stand here again, - In heart regretful? and with lonely sighs - Think on that night of love, and realize - Whose was the fault whence grew the parting pain? - And, in her soul, persuading still in vain, - Shall doubt take shape, and all its old surmise - Bid darker phantoms of remorse arise - Trailing the raiment of a dead disdain? - Masks, unto whom shall her avowal yearn - With looks clairvoyant, seeing how each is - A different form with eyes and lips that burn - Into her heart with love's last look and kiss?-- - And, ere they pass, shall she behold them turn - To her a face which evermore is his? - - -VI - - In after years shall he remember how - Dawn had no breeze sweet as her murmured name? - And day no sunlight that availed the same - As her bright smile or beauty of her brow? - Nor had the conscious twilight's golds and grays - Her soul's allurement, that was free from blame,-- - Nor dusk's advances, soft with starry flame, - More young bewitchment than her own sweet ways.-- - Then as the night with moonlight and perfume, - And dew and darkness, qualifies the whole - Dim world with glamour, shall the past with dreams-- - That were the love-theme of their lives--illume - The present with remembered hours, with gleams, - Long lost to him, that bring them soul to soul? - - -VII - - No! not for her and him that part--the Might- - Have-Been's sad consolation! where had bent, - Haply, in prayer and patience penitent, - Both, though apart, before no blown-out light. - The otherwise of fate for them, when white - The lilacs bloom again, and, innocent, - Spring comes with beauty for her testament, - Singing the praises of the day and night. - When orchards blossom and the distant hill - Is pale with haw-trees as a ridge with mist, - The moon shall see him where a watch he keeps - By her young form that lieth white and still, - With lidded eyes and passive wrist on wrist, - While by her side he bows himself and weeps. - - -VIII - - What pain for him to see the blooms appear - Of haw and dogwood in the spring again; - The primrose dragging with its weight of rain, - And hill-sloped orchards swarming far and near. - To see the old fields, that her steps made dear, - Grow green with deepening plenty of the grain, - Yet feel how this excess of life is vain,-- - How vain to him!--since she no more is here. - What though the woodland bourgeon, water flow, - Like a rejoicing harp, beneath the boughs! - The cat-bird and the oriole arouse - Day with the impulsive music of their love! - Beneath the graveyard sod she will not know, - Nor what his heart is all too conscious of! - - -IX - - How bless'd is he who, gazing in the tomb, - Can yet behold beneath the investing mask - Of mockery,--whose horror seems to ask - Sphinx-riddles of the soul within the gloom,-- - Upon dead lips no dust of Love's dead bloom; - And in dead hands no shards of Faith's rent flask; - But Hope, who still stands at her starry task, - Weaving the web of promise on her loom! - Thrice bless'd! who, 'though he hear the tomb proclaim - How all is Death's and Life Death's other name, - Can yet reply: "O Grave, these things are yours! - But that is left which life indeed assures-- - Love, through whose touch I shall arise the same! - Love, of whose self was wrought the universe!" - - - - -INTIMATIONS - - -I - - Is it uneasy moonlight, - On the restless field, that stirs? - Or wild white meadow-blossoms - The night-wind bends and blurs? - - Is it the dolorous water, - That sobs in the wood and sighs? - Or heart of an ancient oak-tree, - That breaks and, sighing, dies? - - The wind is vague with the shadows - That wander in No-Man's-Land; - The water is dark with the voices - That weep on the Unknown's strand. - - O ghosts of the winds that call me! - O ghosts of the whispering waves! - Sad as forgotten flowers - That die upon nameless graves! - - What is this thing you tell me - In tongues of a twilight race, - Of death, with the vanished features, - Mantled, of my own face? - - -II - - The old enigmas of the deathless dawns, - And riddles of the all immortal eves,-- - That still o'er Delphic lawns - Speak as the gods spoke through oracular leaves-- - I read with new-born eyes, - Remembering how, a slave, - They buried me, a living sacrifice, - Once in a dead king's grave. - - Or, crowned with hyacinth and helichrys, - How, towards the altar in the marble gloom,-- - Hearing the magadis - Dirge through the pale amaracine perfume,-- - 'Mid chanting priests I trod, - With never a sigh or pause, - To give my life to pacify a god, - And save my country's cause. - - Again: Cyrenian roses on wild hair, - And oil and purple smeared on breasts and cheeks, - How, with mad torches there,-- - Reddening the cedars of Cithæron's peaks,-- - With gesture and fierce glance, - Lascivious Mænad bands - Once drew and slew me in the Pyrrhic dance - With Bacchanalian hands. - - -III - - The music now that lays - Dim lips against my ears, - Some far-off thing it says,-- - Unto my soul,--of years - Long passed into the haze - Of tears. - - Meseems before me are - The dark eyes of a queen, - A queen of Istakhar: - I seem to see her lean - More lovely than a star - Of mien. - - A slave, I stand before - Her jeweled throne; I kneel, - And, in a song, once more - My love for her reveal; - How once I did adore - I feel. - - Again her dark eyes gleam; - Again her red lips smile; - And in her face the beam - Of love that knows no guile; - And so she seems to dream - A while. - - Out of her deep hair then - A rose she takes--and I - Am made a god 'mid men! - Her rose, that here did lie - When I, in th' wild-beasts' den, - Did die. - - -IV - - Old paintings on its wainscots, - And, in its oaken hall, - Old arras; and the twilight - Of sorrow over all. - - Old grandeur on its stairways; - And in its haunted rooms - Old souvenirs of greatness, - And ghosts of dead perfumes. - - The winds are phantom voices - Around its carven doors; - The moonbeams, specter footsteps - Upon its polished floors. - - Old cedars build around it - A solitude of sighs; - And the old hours pass through it - With immemorial eyes. - - But more than this I know not; - Nor where the house may be; - Nor what its ancient secret - And ancient grief to me. - - It seems my soul remembers,-- - Of which this house is part,-- - Once, in a former lifetime, - 'Twas here I broke my heart. - - -V - - In eons of the senses, - My spirit knew of yore, - I found the Isle of Circe - And felt her magic lore; - And still the soul remembers - What I was once before. - - She gave me flowers to smell of - That wizard branches bore, - Of weird and wondrous beauty, - Whose stems dripped human gore-- - Their scent when I remember - I know that world once more. - - She gave me fruits to eat of - That grew beside the shore, - Of necromantic ripeness, - With human flesh at core-- - Their taste when I remember - I know that life once more. - - And then, behold! a serpent, - That glides my face before, - With eyes of tears and fire - That glare me o'er and o'er-- - I look into its eyeballs, - And know myself once more. - - -VI - - I have looked in the eyes of Poesy, - And sat in Song's high place; - And the beautiful Spirits of Music - Have spoken me face to face; - Yet here in my soul there is sorrow - They never can name or trace. - - I have walked with the glamour Gladness, - And dreamed with the shadow Sleep; - And the presences, Love and Knowledge, - Have smiled in my heart's red keep; - Yet here in my soul there is sorrow - For the depth of their gaze too deep. - - The love and the hope God grants me, - The beauty that lures me on, - And the dreams of folly and wisdom - That thoughts of the spirit don, - Are but masks of an ancient sorrow - Of a life long dead and gone. - - Was it sin? or a crime forgotten? - Of a love that loved too well? - That sat on a throne of fire - A thousand years in Hell? - That the soul with its nameless sorrow - Remembers but can not tell? - - - - -SELF AND SOUL - - - It came to me in my sleep, - And I rose in my sleep and went - Out in the night to weep, - Out where the trees were bent. - With my soul, it seemed, I stood - Alone in a wind-swept wood. - - And my soul said, gazing at me, - "I will show you another land - Different from that you see," - And took into hers my hand.-- - We passed from the wood to a heath - As starved as the ribs of Death. - - There, every leaf and the grass - Was a thorn or a thistle hoar, - The rocks rose mass on mass, - Black bones on an iron moor. - And my soul said, looking at me, - "The past of your life you see." - - And a swineherd passed with his swine, - Deformed, with the face of an owl; - Two eyes of a wolfish shine - Burned under his eyebrows foul. - And my soul said, "This is the Lust, - That soils my beauty with dust." - - Then a goose-wife hobbled by, - On a crutch, with the devil's geese, - A-mumbling that God is a lie, - And cursing the world without cease. - And my soul said, "This is Unfaith - Who maketh me that which she saith." - - Then we came to a garden, close - To a hollow of graves and tombs; - A garden as red as a rose, - Hung over of obscene glooms; - The heart of each rose was a spark - That smouldered or glared in the dark. - - And I was aware of a girl - With a wild-rose face, who came, - With a mouth like a shell's split pearl, - Rose-clad in a robe of flame; - And she plucked the roses and gave, - And I was her veriest slave. - - She vanished. My lips would have kissed - The flowers she gave me with sighs, - But they writhed from my hands and hissed, - In their hearts were a serpent's eyes. - And my soul said, "Pleasure is she. - The joys of the flesh you see." - - Then I bowed with a heart too weary, - That longed to rest, to sleep; - And it seemed in the darkness dreary - I heard my sad heart weep; - And my soul to the silence say,-- - "O God! for the break of day!" - - - - -THE OLD HOUSE BY THE MERE - - - Five rotting gables look upon - A garden rank with flowers and weeds; - Old iron gates on posts of stone, - From which the grass-grown roadway leads. - Five rotting gable-points appear - Above bleak yews and cedars sad, - Beneath which lies the sleepy mere - In lazy lilies clad. - - At morn the slender dragon-fly, - A living ray of light, darts past; - The burly bee comes charging by - Winding a surly blast. - At noon amid the fervid leaves - The insects quarrel, harsh and hot; - In bitter briers the spider weaves - A web with silver shot. - - At eve the hermit cricket rears - A plaintive prayer, and creaks and creaks; - The bat, like some wing'd elfin, veers - Beneath the sunset's streaks. - The caterpillar gnaws the leaf; - The mottled toad croaks drowsily; - And then the owl, like some dark grief, - Cries in the old beech-tree. - - At night the blistering dew comes down - And lies as white as autumn frost - Upon the green, upon the brown-- - You'd think each bush a ghost. - The crescent moon sheathes its white sword - Within a cloud; and, gray with fear, - One large blue star keeps stealthy guard - Above the house and mere. - - The livid lilies rotting lie - On oozy beds of weltering leaves; - The will-o'-wisps go flickering by,-- - And then the water heaves, - And, like some monstrous blossom there, - A maiden's corpse with staring eyes, - And naked breast and raven hair, - Slow in the mere doth rise. - - And when the clock of some far town - Knells midnight, in that house of sins, - In haunted chambers, up and down, - The dance of death begins; - And stiff, stiff silks sweep, rustling, - And stately satins none may see; - And then soft sounds of music ring - In wildest melody. - - And through the halls the demon dance - Whirls onward; and dark corridors - Resound with song and feet that glance - Along the falling floors. - Then suddenly, as if in fear, - The music ends, the dance is done; - And booming over house and mere - A far-off clock strikes one. - - - - -IN AN OLD GARDEN - - - The autumn glory fades - Upon the withered trees; - And over all the dead leaves fall - And whisper in the breeze. - - The violets are dead, - And dead the hollyhocks, - That hang like rags by the wind-crushed flags - And tiger-lily stocks. - - The wild gourd clambers free - Where the clematis was wont; - Where nenuphars bloomed thick as stars - Rank weeds fill up the fount. - - Yet, as in dreams, I hear - A tinkling mandolin - In the dark-blue light of a fragrant night - Float in and out and in. - - Till the dewy vine, that climbs - To a casement's lattice, sways; - And behind the vine, like stars that shine, - Two dark eyes gleam and gaze. - - And now a perfume comes, - A swift Favonian gust; - And the shrivelled grass, where it doth pass, - Bows worshiping to the dust. - - I seem to see her drift - From tree to moonlit tree, - In her jewelled shawl divinely tall, - A mist of drapery. - - And one awaits her there - By the broken Psyche old; - And there they stand, pale hand in hand, - Her thin wrists hooped with gold. - - But a wind sweeps overhead, - And the frosty leaves are strewn-- - And nothing is there but a bough, blown bare, - And the light of the ghostly moon. - - - - -THE HAUNTED ROOM - - - Its casements, diamond-disked with glass, - Look down upon a terrace old, - Where urns, unkempt with ragged grass, - Foam o'er with hoary cold. - The snow rounds out each stair of stone; - The frozen fount is hooped with pearl; - Down desolate walks, like phantoms blown, - Thin, powdery snow-wreaths whirl. - - And to each rose-tree's stem, that bends - With silvery snow-combs, glued with frost, - It seems each summer rosebud sends - Its airy, scentless ghost. - A stiff Elizabethan pile, - With bleakness chattering in its panes, - Where, rumbling down each chimney-file, - The mad wind shakes his reins. - - * * * * * - - Lone in the northern angle, dim - With immemorial dust, it lies; - Where each gaunt casement's stony rim - Stares eyelike at the skies. - Drear in the old pile's oldest wing, - Hung round with mouldering arras, where - Tall, shadowy Tristrams fight and sing - For shadowy Isolts fair. - - Beside a crumbling cabinet - A tarnished lute lies on the floor; - A talon-footed chair is set, - Grotesquely, near the door. - A carven, testered bedstead stands - With rusty silks draped all about; - And, like a moon in murky lands, - A mirror glimmers out. - - Neglected, locked that chamber, where - In dropping arras dimly clings - The drowsy moth; and, frightened there, - The lost wind sighs and sings - Adown the roomy flue, and takes - And swings the ghostly mirror till - It seems some unseen hand that shakes - Its frame then leaves it still. - - A starving mouse forever gnaws - Behind a panel; and the vines, - That on the casement tap like claws, - Lattice the floor with lines.-- - I have been there when blades of light - Stabbed each dull, stained, and dusty pane; - Once I was there at dead of night-- - I dream of it again.... - - She grew upon my vision as - Heat grows that haunts the summer day; - In taffetas, like glimmering glass, - She stood there dim and gray. - And will-o'-wisp-like jewels bound - Faint points of light round neck and wrist; - And round her slender waist was wound - A zone of silver mist. - - And icy as some winter land - Her pale, still face; o'er which the night - Hung of her raven hair; her hand - Was beautiful and white. - Before the mirror moaningly - She wrung her hands and palely pressed - Her brow.--And did I dream, or see, - That blood was on her breast? - - And then she vanished.--Like a breath, - That o'er the limpid glass had passed, - Her presence passed; and cold as death - She left me and aghast. - Yes, I've been there when spears of light - Pierced thro' each stained and sunlit pane; - Once I was there at dead of night-- - I dream of it again. - - - - -THE MIRROR - - - An ancient mirror hangs - Within an ancient Hall; - In a lonely room where th' arrased gloom - Scowls from the pictured wall. - - A mystic mirror, framed - In ebon, wildly carved, - That seems to stare on the shadows there, - Like something lean and starved. - - A mirror, where one sees - In the broad, good light of day, - Like crimson torches, at the window arches, - Red roses swing and sway. - - And a part o' the garth is seen, - With its quaint stone-dial plate, - That, gray and old, green-stained with mold, - Stands near the lioned gate. - - These it reflects all day, - And at night one star of blue, - That the nightingale, where the rose is pale, - Lifts its passionate love-song to. - - The nightbird sings below; - The stars hang bright above; - And the roses soon in the sultry moon - Shall palpitate with love. - - The nightbird sobs below; - The roses blow and bloom; - Through mullioned panes the moonlight rains - In the dim, unholy room. - - Grim ancestors that stare,-- - Stiff, starched and haughty,--down - From the oaken wall of the noble hall, - Put on a sterner frown. - - The old, hoarse castle-clock - Coughs midnight overhead-- - And the rose is wan and the bird is gone - When walk the shrouded dead. - - Then from their frames, it seems, - The portraits' shadows flit; - By the mirror there they stand and stare - And weep or sigh to it. - - In rare rich ermine, earls - And knights in gold and vair, - With a rapiered throng of courtiers long - Pass with a stately stare. - - With jewels and perfumes, - In powder, ruff, and lace, - Tall ladies pass by the looking-glass - Each sighing at her face. - - What secret does it hide, - This mirror, gaunt and tall, - In this lonely room, where th' arrased gloom - Scowls from the pictured wall? - - - - -THE HALL OF DARKNESS - - - Within her veins it beats - And burns within her brain, - As year by year more sad and sear - Grow barren hill and plain. - - Ah! over young is she - Who bears within her breast - More pain and woe than women know, - And all of love's unrest. - - Seven towers of shaggy rock - Rise black to ragged skies, - From out a fen where bones of men - Stare with their empty eyes. - - Eternal sunset pours, - Around its warlock towers,-- - From out its urn of beams that burn,-- - Long fire-cloudy flowers. - - On bat-like turrets high, - And owlet battlements, - Huge condors dream and vultures scream - As at the battle's scents. - - Within the banquet-hall, - A bride, rich-robed and pale, - She sits at board with men o' the sword - Cased all in silver mail. - - Their visors barred are drawn; - Their hands are gauntletéd; - And one, behold! in glittering gold - Sits at the table's head. - - Wild music echoes through - The hollow-sounding air-- - It seems, at least, a wedding feast - With richness everywhere. - - Wild music oozes from - The ceiling, groined with white - Pure pearl, and floors, like mythic shores, - Of limpid chrysolite. - - Silent they sit at feast, - And she, whom he sits near,-- - He in gold mail,--why is she pale, - As one with grief and fear? - - The heav'ns grow slaughter-red, - Grow blood-red west and east; - Seven casements high that frame the sky - Flare on the blood-red feast. - - Gaunt torches tall they seem, - Red revel-torches seven;-- - And then, behold! the hour is tolled; - A great bell strikes eleven. - - Silence.--The light, that makes - Each plate a splash of fire,-- - Gold-splintered,--dims; and softer swims - The music of each lyre. - - Grave Silence, like a king, - At that strange feast has place; - Grave Silence still as God's own will - Within the deeps of space. - - She leans to him in gold, - And to him seems to say-- - "The night grows late, my love! Why wait? - Ah God! would it were day! - - "Would it were day, ah God! - How long is it till dawn?-- - Why wear this mask?--Undo thy casque! - The midnight hour comes on!" - - Silent he sits, severe; - Then one sonorous tower, - Owl-swarmed, that looms in glaring glooms, - Tolls slow the midnight hour. - - Three strokes; the knights arise, - The silence from them flung, - Like waves that mock some hoarse sea-rock, - Wild laughter moves each tongue. - - Six strokes; and wailing out - The music hoots away; - The fiery glimmer of heaven grows dimmer, - The red turns ghostly gray. - - Nine strokes; and, dropping mold, - The crumbling Hall is lead; - The plate is rust; the feast is dust; - The banqueters are dead. - - Twelve strokes pound out and roll; - The vast Hall heaves and waves - With things that crawl from floor and wall-- - Spawn of a thousand graves. - - Then rattling in the night - _His_ golden visor slips-- - In rotting mail a death's-head pale - Kisses her loathing lips. - - Then over all a voice - Crying above the strife-- - "Death is the Groom: this Hall, the Tomb: - The Bride, behold, is Life!" - - - - -WHAT DREAMS MAY COME - - - I have lain for an hour or twain - Awake, and the tempest is beating - On the roof and the sleet on the pane, - And the winds are three enemies meeting; - And I listen and hear it again, - My name, in the silence, repeating. - - Then dumbness of death; and, moon-gray, - In the darkness a light like a bubble, - From which, like a single white ray, - Comes a woman in loveliness double; - Her face is the breaking of day, - Her eyes are the night and its trouble. - - I move not; she lies with her lips - At mine; and I feel she is drawing - My life from my heart to their tips, - My heart where the horror is gnawing; - My life in a hundred slow sips, - My soul with her gaze overawing. - - She binds me with merciless eyes; - She drinks of my blood; and I hear it - Drain up with a shudder and rise - To the lips, like a serpent's, that steer it; - And she lies, and she laughs as she lies, - Saying, "Lo! thy affinitized spirit." - - I pray--and a gate, as of swords,-- - 'Mid torments and tortures huge-grated, - Clangs iron deep under; and words - Are heard as of sins that awaited - A fiend who lashed into their hordes, - And a demon who lacerated. - - I pray--and lie clammy and stark, - As a something mounts higher and higher, - Up, out of damnation and dark, - With hobbling of hoofs that is dire; - A devil, whose breath is a spark, - Whose face is of filth and of fire. - - "To thy body's corruption! thy grave! - Thy hell! from which thou hast stolen!" - He snarls; and the night, like a wave, - Engulfs them with darkness wild swollen.-- - Can it be that in sleep I'm a slave - Of a thing neither flesh nor eidolon? - - - - -THAT HOUR - - - When she was dead, a voice--she knew not whose-- - Said to her: "Soul that fell, - To cheer thee there in Hell, - Of all thy life's lost happiness now choose. - - "Ask what thou wilt, thou, who hast walked 'mid flowers - And songs the easy way - Of pleasure day by day, - Ask what thou wilt of all thy lived-out hours." - - * * * * * - - And then she thought: "Oh, shall it be when there, - A blameless maiden, I, - Dreaming, watched love draw nigh, - And felt his kiss rose-sweet on mouth and hair? - - "Or shall it be when, that white night, his fingers - Smoothed from my brow the curls, - And fell, like unstrung pearls, - His words of passionate love whose memory lingers? - - "Or shall it be when over earth and sea - I heard the sweet unrest - Within his ardent breast, - His heart that beat alone for me, for me? - - "Or shall it be when, in his belting arms, - Soul gazed on kindred soul, - And love had won the goal - Of his desire, and his were all my charms? - - "No! no! not these! that hour he left me lost! - Stunned, fallen and despised - Before the world he prized, - When--God forgive me!--when I loved him most!" - - - - -EPILOGUE - - - Beyond the moon, within a land of mist, - Lies the dim Garden of all Dead Desires, - Walled round with morning's clouded amethyst, - And haunted of the sunset's shadowy fires; - There all lost things we loved hold ghostly tryst-- - Dead dreams, dead hopes, dead loves, and dead desires. - - Sad are the stars that day and night exist - Above the Garden of all Dead Desires; - And sad the roses that within it twist - Deep bow'rs; and sad the wind that through it quires; - But sadder far are they who there hold tryst-- - Dead dreams, dead hopes, dead loves, and dead desires. - - There, like a dove upon the twilight's wrist,-- - Soft in the Garden of all Dead Desires,-- - Sleep broods; and there, where never a serpent hissed, - On the wan willows music hangs her lyres, - Æolian dials by which phantoms tryst-- - Dead dreams, dead hopes, dead loves, and dead desires. - - There you shall hear low voices; kisses kissed, - Faint in the Garden of all Dead Desires, - By lips the anguish of vain song makes whist; - And meet with shapes that art's despair attires; - And gaze in eyes where all sweet sorrows tryst-- - Dead dreams, dead hopes, dead loves, and dead desires. - - Thither we go, dreamer and realist, - Bound for the Garden of all Dead Desires, - Where we shall find, perhaps, all Life hath missed, - All Life hath longed for when the soul aspires; - All Earth's elusive loveliness at tryst-- - Dead dreams, dead hopes, dead loves, and dead desires. - - - - -POEMS OF MYTH AND ROMANCE - - - - -TO MY FRIEND WILLIAM WARWICK THUM - - - - -_PROEM_ - - - _There is no rhyme that is half so sweet - As the song of the wind in the rippling wheat; - There is no metre that's half so fine - As the lilt of the brook under rock and vine; - And the loveliest lyric I ever heard - Was the wildwood strain of a forest bird.-- - If the wind and the brook and the bird would teach - My heart their beautiful parts of speech, - And the natural art that they say these with, - My soul would sing of beauty and myth - In a rhyme and a metre that none before - Have sung in their love, or dreamed in their lore, - And the world would be richer one poet the more._ - - - - -MYTH AND ROMANCE - - -I - - When I go forth to greet the glad-faced Spring, - Just at the time of opening apple-buds, - When brooks are laughing, winds are whispering, - On babbling hillsides, or in warbling woods, - There is an unseen presence that eludes:-- - Perhaps a Dryad, in whose tresses cling - The loamy odors of old solitudes, - Who from her beechen doorway calls, and leads - My soul to follow; now with dimpling words - Of leaves; and now with syllables of birds; - While here and there--is it her limbs that swing? - Or restless sunlight on the moss and weeds? - - -II - - Or, haply 'tis a Naiad now who slips, - Like some white lily, from her fountain's glass, - While from her dripping hair and breasts and hips - The moisture rains cool music on the grass. - Her have I heard and followed, yet, alas! - Have seen no more than the wet ray that dips - The shivered waters, wrinkling where I pass; - But in the liquid light, where she doth hide, - I have beheld the azure of her gaze - Smiling; and, where the orbing ripple plays, - Among her minnows I have heard her lips, - Bubbling, make merry by the waterside. - - -III - - Or now it is an Oread--whose eyes - Are constellated dusk--who stands confessed, - As naked as a flow'r; her heart's surprise, - Like morning's rose, mantling her brow and breast: - She, shrinking from my presence, all distressed - Stands for a startled moment ere she flies, - Her deep hair blowing, up the mountain crest, - Wild as a mist that trails along the dawn. - And is 't her footfalls lure me? or the sound - Of airs that stir the crisp leaf on the ground? - And is 't her body glimmers on yon rise? - Or dogwood blossoms snowing on the lawn? - - -IV - - Now 'tis a Satyr piping serenades - On a slim reed. Now Pan and Faun advance - Beneath green-hollowed roofs of forest glades, - Their feet gone mad with music: now, perchance, - Sylvanus sleeping, on whose leafy trance - The Nymphs stand gazing in dim ambuscades - Of sun-embodied perfume.--Myth, Romance, - Where'er I turn, reach out bewildering arms, - Compelling me to follow. Day and night - I hear their voices and behold the light - Of their divinity that still evades, - And still allures me in a thousand forms. - - - - -REVERIE - - - What ogive gates from gold of Ophir wrought, - What walls of Parian, whiter than a rose, - What towers of crystal, for the eyes of thought, - Hast builded on dim Islands of Repose? - Thy cloudy columns, vast, Corinthian, - Or huge, Ionic, colonnade the heights - Of Dreamland, looming o'er the soul's deep seas; - Piled melodies of marble, that no man - Has ever reached, except in fancy's flights, - Templing the presence of perpetual ease. - - Oft, where o'er plastic frieze and plinths of spar,-- - In glimmering solitudes of pillared stone,-- - The twilight blossoms with one violet star, - With thee, O Reverie, I have stood alone, - And there beheld, from out the Mythic Age, - The rosy breasts of Cytherea--fair, - Full-cestused, and suggestive of what loves - Immortal!--rise; and heard the lyric rage - Of sunburnt Poesy, whose throat breathes bare - O'er leopard skins, fluting among his groves. - - Oft, where thy castled peaks and templed vales - Cloud--like convulsive sunsets--shores that dream, - Myrrh-fragrant, over siren seas whose sails - Gleam white as lilies on a lilied stream, - My soul has stood. Or by thy sapphire sea, - In thy arcaded gardens, in the shade - Of breathing sculpture, oft has walked with thought, - And bent, in shadowy attitude, its knee - Before the shrine of Beauty that must fade - And leave no memory of the mind that wrought. - - Who hath beheld thy caverns where, in heaps, - The wine of Lethe and Love's witchery, - In sealéd amphoræ a sibyl keeps? - World-old, a grape filled with the soul of thee. - No wine of Xeres or of Syracuse! - No fine Falernian and no vile Sabine! - The stolen fire of a demigod, - Whose bubbled purple heavenly feet did bruise - In crusted vats of vintage, when the green - Flamed into autumn, on the Samian sod. - - Oh, for the deep enchantment of one draught! - The reckless ecstasy of classic earth!-- - To make me godlike as the gods that laughed - In eyes of mortal brown, a mighty mirth - Of deity delirious with desire! - To make me one with roses of the shrines, - The splashing wine-libation or the blood, - And all the young priest's dreaming! To inspire - My very soul with beauty till it shines - Star-like amid life's starry brotherhood! - - Would I might slumber in the old-world shades, - Where poesy could touch me, as some bold - Wild-bee a pulpy lily of the glades, - Barbaric-covered with the kerneled gold; - And feel the glory of the Golden Age - Less godly than my purpose, strong to dare - Death with the young immortal lips of Love: - Less lovely than my soul's ideal rage - To mate itself with Music and declare - Itself part meaning of the stars above. - - - - -LETHE - - -I - - There is a scent of roses and spilt wine - Between the moonlight and the laurel-coppice; - The marble idol glimmers on its shrine, - White as a star, among a heaven of poppies. - Here all my life lies like a spilth of wine. - There is a mouth of music like a lute, - A nightingale that singeth to one flower; - Between the falling flower and the fruit, - Where love hath died, the music of an hour. - - -II - - To sit alone with memory and a rose; - To dwell with shadows of whilom romances; - To make one hour of a year of woes - And walk on starlight, in ethereal trances, - With love's lost face fair as a moon-white rose. - To shape from music and the scent of buds - Love's spirit and its presence of sweet fire, - Between the heart's wild burning and the blood's, - Is part of life and of the soul's desire. - - -III - - There is a song to silence and the stars, - Between the forest and the temple's arches; - And down the stream of night, like nenuphars, - The tossing fires of the Mænads' torches.-- - Here all my life waits lonely as the stars.-- - Shall not one hour of all those hours suffice - For resignation God hath given as dower? - Between the summons and the sacrifice - One hour of love, th' eternity of an hour? - - -IV - - The shrine is shattered and the bird is gone; - Dark is the house of music and of bridal: - The stars are stricken and the storm comes on; - Beneath a wreck of roses lies the idol, - Sad as the memory of a joy that's gone.-- - To dream of perished gladness and a kiss, - Waking the last chord of Love's broken lyre, - Between remembering and forgetting, this - Is part of life and of the soul's desire. - - - - -THE NAIAD - - - She sits among the iris stalks - Of bubbling brooks; and leans for hours - Among the river's lily-flowers, - Or on their whiteness walks: - Above dark forest pools, gray rocks - Wall in, she leans with dripping locks, - And listening to the echo, talks - With her own face--Iothera. - - There is no forest of the hills, - No valley of the solitude, - Nor fern nor moss, that may elude - Her searching step that stills: - She dreams among the wild-rose brakes - Of fountains that the ripple shakes, - And, dreaming of herself, she fills - The silence with "Iothera." - - And every wind that haunts the ways - Of leaf and bough, once having kissed - Her virgin nudity, goes whist - With wonder and amaze. - There blows no breeze which hath not learned - Her name's sweet melody, and yearned - To kiss her mouth that laughs and says, - "Iothera, Iothera." - - No wild thing of the wood, no bird, - Or brown or blue, or gold or gray, - Beneath the sun's or moon's pale ray, - That hath not loved and heard; - They are her pupils; she can say - No new thing but, within a day, - They have its music, word for word, - Harmonious as Iothera. - - No man who lives and is not wise - With love for common flowers and trees, - Bee, bird, and beast, and brook, and breeze, - And rocks, and hills, and skies,-- - Search where he will,--shall ever see - One flutter of her drapery, - One glimpse of limbs, or hair, or eyes - Of beautiful Iothera. - - - - -THE LIMNAD - - -I - - The lake she haunts gleams mistily - Through sleepy boughs of melody,-- - Lost 'mid lone hills beside the sea, - In tangled bush and brier:-- - Where reflected sunsets write - Ghostly things in golden light; - Where, along the pine-crowned height, - Clouds of twilight, rosy white, - Build far towers of fire. - - -II - - 'Mid the rushes there that swing, - Flowering flags where voices sing - When night-winds are murmuring, - And the stars of midnight glitter; - Blossom-white, with purple locks, - Underneath the stars' still flocks, - In the dusky waves she rocks, - Rocks, and all the landscape mocks - With a song both sweet and bitter. - - -III - - Soft it sounds, at first, as dreams - Filled with tears that fall in streams; - Then it soars, until it seems - Beauty's very self hath spoken; - And the woods grow silent quite, - Stars wax faint and flowers wane white; - And the nightingales that light - Near, or hear her through the night, - Die, their hearts with longing broken. - - -IV - - Dark, dim, and sad o'er mournful lands, - White-throated stars heaped in her hands, - Like wildwood buds, the Twilight stands, - The Twilight, dreaming, lingers; - Listening where the Limnad sings - Witcheries, whose magic brings - A great moon from hidden springs, - Pale with amorous quiverings - Feet of fire and silvery fingers. - - -V - - In the vales Auloniads, - On the mountains Oreads, - On the leas Leimoniads, - Whiter than the stars that glisten, - Pan, the Satyrs, Dryades, - Fountain-lovely Naiades, - Foam-lipped Oceanides, - Breathless 'mid their seas and trees, - Stay and look and lean and listen. - - -VI - - Large-eyed, Siren-like she stands, - In the lake or on its sands, - And with rapture from the hands - Of the Night some stars are shaken; - To her song the rushes swing, - Lilies nod and ripples ring, - Lost in helpless listening-- - These will wake who hear her sing, - But one mortal will not waken. - - - - -BEFORE THE TEMPLE - - -I - - All desolate she sate her down - Upon the marble of the temple's stair. - You would have thought her, with her eyes of brown, - Flushed cheeks and hazel hair, - A Dryad dreaming there. - - -II - - A priest of Bacchus passed, nor stopped - To chide her; deeming her--whose chiton hid - But half her bosom, and whose girdle dropped-- - Some grief-drowned Bassarid, - The god of wine had chid. - - -III - - With wreaths of woodland cyclamen - For Dian's shrine, a shepherdess drew near, - All her young thoughts on vestal beauty, when-- - She dare not look for fear-- - Behold the goddess here! - -[Illustration: - - That reed-slender girl whom Pan pursued Page 242 - -_Anemone_] - - -IV - - Fierce lights on shields of bossy brass - And helms of bronze, next from the hills deploy - Tall youths of Argos. And she sees him pass, - Flushed with heroic joy, - On towards the siege of Troy. - - - - -THE RUE-ANEMONE - - - Under an oak-tree in a woodland, where - The dreaming Spring had dropped it from her hair, - I found a flower, through which I seemed to gaze - Beyond the world and see what no man dare - Behold and live--the myths of bygone days-- - Diana and Endymion; and the bare, - Slim beauty of the boy whom Echo wooed; - And Hyacinthus, whom Apollo dewed - With love and death; and Daphne, ever fair; - And that reed-slender girl whom Pan pursued. - - I stood and gazed and through it seemed to see - The Dryad dancing by the forest tree, - Her hair wild blown: the Faun, with listening ear, - Deep in the boscage, kneeling on one knee, - Watching the wandered Oread draw near, - Her wild heart beating like a honey-bee - Within a rose.--All, all the myths of old, - All, all the bright shapes of the Age of Gold, - Peopling the wonder-worlds of Poetry, - Through it I seemed in fancy to behold. - - What other flower, that, fashioned like a star, - Draws its frail life from earth and braves the war - Of all the heavens, can suggest the dreams - That this suggests? in which no trace of mar - Or soil exists: where stainless innocence seems - Enshrined; and where, beyond our vision far, - That inaccessible beauty, which the heart - Worships as truth and holiness and art, - Is symbolized; wherein embodied are - The things that make the soul's immortal part. - - - - -ARTEMIS - - - Oft of the hiding Oread wast thou seen - At earliest morn, a tall, imperial shape, - High-buskined, dew-dripped, and on close, young curls, - Bright blackness of thick hair, the tipsy drops - Caught from the dripping sprays of under-bosks,-- - Kissed of thy cheek and of thy shoulder brushed,-- - Thy rosy cheek as far Aurora's fair, - Thy snowy shoulder Hebe-beautiful. - - Oft did the shaggy hills and solitudes - Of Arethusa shout and ring and reel, - Reverberate and echo merrily, - Leap into sound with singing of thy hounds, - With the deep belling of thy noble hounds, - Big-mouthed and musical, that on the stag - Or bristling wild-boar furious grew in quest: - And thou, as keen, fleet-footed and clean-limbed, - Inviolable, with thy quivered crew, - Rushed, swinging on the wind free limbs and lithe, - And locks, all radiance, flung back to blow - And balm with spice the wine-sharp air of morn. - - Ai me! their throats! their clarion-crystal throats, - That made the hills sing and the wood-ways dance, - As if to orphic strains, and gave them life. - Ai me! their bosoms' deepness and the firm, - Pure, happy beauty of their naked limbs, - That stormed the forest vacancies with light, - Swift daylight of their splendor, and made blow, - Within the glad sonorous solitudes, - Old germs of flowerets a century cold. - - The woodland Naiad whispered by her rock; - The Hamadryad, limpid-eyed and wild, - Expectant rustled by her usual oak - And laughed in wonder; and mad Pan himself - Reeled piping fiercely down the dingled deeps, - With rollicking eye that rolled a brutish joy. - And did some unwed maiden, musing where - Her father's well, among the god-graced hills; - Bubbled and babbled, hear thy bugled cry, - O Huntress, she, while deep her dripping jar - Unheeded brimmed, vowed her virginity - To thee--her shorn hair at thy vestal feet. - - But, ah! not when the garish daylight fills - The forests with far-swimming gold and green - Let me behold thee, goddess! but when dim - The slow night settles on the haunted wood - And walks in mystery; and the myriad stars - Maze heaven with fire; and the echoy waste, - Far off, far off, in murmurs palpitates - Unto the Limnad's voice, unmerciful,-- - Or is 't some night-bird breaking with song its heart?-- - Unmerciful and sad and bitter-sweet?-- - Then come in all thy godhead, beautiful! - All beautiful and gentle, as thou cam'st - To lorn Endymion, who, in Lemnos once, - Lone in the wizard magic of the wood, - Wandered, a dreaming boy, unfriended, sad.-- - It grew far off among the easy trees, - Thy pensive beauty, blossoming flower-like - Between the tree-trunks and the lacing limbs; - Bright in the leaves that kissed for very joy - And drunkenness of glory thus revealed. - He saw it all, from glorious face to feet-- - The naked pearl of all thy loveliness, - Thy body's beauty, blended lily and rose, - Alone, uncompanied of handmaidens. - Like some rare, radiant fruit Hesperian, - Not to be plucked of gods or men, thou hung'st - Upon the boughs of heaven. Thy moonéd voice - Came silvering on his wistful ear, and sighed - With light like leaves that kiss and cling again. - And on such perilous beauty that must slay,-- - The poisonous favor of thy godliness,-- - Feasting his every sense through eyes and ears, - His soul exalted waxed and amorous,-- - Like some young god who, draining Olympian bowls, - Grows drunk with nectar,--with immortal love; - And what remained, ah, what remained but death! - - - - -APHRODITE - - - Apollo never smote as lovely a strain, - When swan-necked Hebe stayed her nectared bowl - Among the circled and reclining gods, - To lend a listening ear and smile on him, - As that the Tritons blew on wreathéd horns - When Aphrodite, the cold ocean-foam, - In lovely labor, from its singing snow - Upheaved her dazzling form, like some white pearl, - Naked and fresh within its ocean shell, - Borne shoreward from its bed of golden sponge - And crimson coral by the mad monsoon. - - Wind-rocked she swung, her white feet on the sea; - And music raved down the slant western winds: - With swollen jowls the Tritons puffed their conchs, - Where, breasting with white bosoms the green waves, - That laughed in ripples at Love's misty feet, - Oceanids with dimple-dented palms - Smote sidewise the pale bubbles of the foam, - Weaving a silver rainbow round her form. - Around her dolphins sparkled in the spray, - And Nereids sang, braiding their streaming locks, - Or flung them backward shimm'ring with bells of foam, - Till evening lit her loneliest, loveliest star,-- - That passion-flower of the fields of heaven,-- - Pale mirrored in the sheen of shadowy seas,-- - That, like arrested music, o'er the caves - The Sirens haunt, hung deep on silent deep,-- - When, in a hollow pearl, down moon-white waves, - The creatures of the ocean danced their queen - Unto an island, like a rosy mist - That glimmering dreamed upon the glimmering blue. - There on the silvery sands beside the sea, - Beneath the moon,--narcissus-white,--they met, - She naked as a star and crowned with stars, - Child of the airy foam and Queen of Love. - - - - -PERSEPHONE - - - O Hades! O false gods! false to yourselves! - O Hades, 'twas thy brother gave her thee - Without a mother's sanction or her knowledge! - Thou bor'st her to the dreadful gulfs below, - And made her queen, a shadowy queen of shades, - Queen of the fiery flood and iron realms, - Eternal torture and eternal pain. - - On blossomed plains in Far Trinacria - A maiden,--the dark cascade of whose hair - Was deep as midnight circled and crowned with stars,-- - Hair dark as rays that brighten with the moon,-- - Went gathering flowers with the Oceanids, - Lily and rose and pale Narcissus,--who - Was Echo's passion once, a flower now - That stares forever in the lake's still glass, - Whose ripple breaks its image, flickering seen,-- - As once with tears it broke beneath his eyes,-- - With the fast-falling dew that fills its heart: - When suddenly there rose with iron wain, - With iron wain and steeds, a shape like death, - 'Mid sallow smoke and sulphur and pale fires, - Its countenance ghastly, and its hair and eyes - Like the blue flame of sulphur: in its arms, - Its sooty arms, where like to supple steel - The mighty muscles lay, unto its breast, - Such as its arms, it drew her fragile form - As bosomed bulks of tempest in their joy - With arms of winds drag to their black embrace - A fairy mist that flecks with white the summer, - With wings of shadeless white, and 'tis no more - Heaved on the rapture of the thunder's heart. - - The snowy flowers shuddered and grew still; - With withered heads they bowed, and on the stream-- - Where all the day it was their wont to stand - In silence gazing at their loveliness-- - Laid their fair faces limp and shriveled white. - Flames whipped the air like fiery scorpions, - Blasting and burning all the fragrant myths - That haunt the dew and lair in bloom and breeze. - - O foam-fair daughters of Oceanus! - In vain you seek your mate and chide the flowers - For hiding her beneath their palms of snow: - Ask of that shell, that conch of twisted pearl, - Which, like a spirit of the singing sea, - Moans at your pallid feet made wet with spray: - Then, sitting by the tumbling blue of waves, - Mourn to the waters and the ribbéd sands, - The falseness of the god who grasps the storm. - - - - -DEMETER - - - Eternal pouring in her lonely path - The wells of sorrow lay. I see her now,-- - Methinks I see her now,--an awful shape - Guiding her dragon-team in frenzied search - From Argive lands unto the jeweled shores - Of the remotest Ind where Usha's hand - Soothed her grief-shadowed brow with kindly touch, - And Savitar breathed sympathy from the skies - O'er uttermost regions of the faneless Brahm. - - In melancholy search I see her roam - The Himalayas,--world-dividing,--pale - 'Mid ice and snow, through mists and night and storm; - Then back again with that wild mother woe - Fueling the anguished fire of her eyes,-- - Back where old Atlas groans beneath the world, - And the Cimmerian twilight weighs the soul. - Deep was her sleep in Persia's haunted vales, - Where many a languid Philomela moaned - Her heart to rest with heartbreak melody. - I see her near Ionia's swelling seas - Cull from the sands a labyrinthine shell, - Hollowing its spiral murmur to her ear,-- - A pearly mouth against an ear of pearl,-- - In hope some message of Persephone - It might impart; then finding all in vain, - In anguish and despair, cast it afar, - To watch the salt-spray flash, like some soft plume - Dropped from the wings of Eros, where it fell. - I see her take a flute of coral from - A listening Triton; and on Ithakan rocks - High seated at the starry close of day,-- - When sad the moon rose from her salty couch, - Gazing with sorrow on her face of sorrow,-- - Pipe pensive airs,--plaintive as Sirens sing - In streaming caves beneath the ocean wall,-- - Till hoar Poseidon cleared his wrinkled front - And stilled his surgy clamors to a sigh. - - This do I see, and more: Behold, with fear! - I see her 'mid the lonely groves of Crete, - Frighten the dun deer from th' o'ervaulted green - Of thickest boscage, searching every covert - With terror of her torches and her wail, - "Persephone! Persephone!" till the pines - Of mist-swathed Dicte shuddered through their miles, - The panther roared down in the stream-mad gorge, - And Echo shrieked from chasm to answering chasm, - "Persephone!" bewildered with her woe: - As wild as when she echoed the despair, - Dishevel-haired, of maidens, wailing borne,-- - Athenian tribute,--to that King of Crete, - Great Minos, when the Minotaur they saw - Grim, crouching in his labyrinth of stone. - - - - -DIONYSOS - - - "Io! Bacchus! Bacchus! Io! Io! - O Dionysos! Dionysos! ivy-crowned! - O let me sing thy triumph ere I die!" - - I slept; and dreamed a Mænad came to me: - A harp of hollow agate strung with gold - Wailed 'neath her waxen fingers, and her heart - Under its gauze, through which the moonlight shone, - Kept time with its wild throbbings to her song. - - "Ægeus sleeps, O Dionysos! sleeps - Beneath the restless waves that sigh his name - Eternally at my dew-glistening feet. - Here 'twas he died, O Dionysos! here - The great king died for whom is named this sea.-- - O let me sing thy triumph ere I die! - - "With the shrill syrinx and the kissing clang - Of silver cymbals, and the sound of flutes, - O pard-drawn youth, thou dist awake the world - To joy and pleasure with thy sunny wine! - Mad'st India bow and the dun, flooding Nile - Grow purple with the murex of the wine - Cast from the fullness of Silenus' cup, - While yet the heavens of heat saw sarabands - Whirl 'mid the redness of the Libyan sands, - That drank the spilth of Bacchus, sparkling-spun - From the Bacchante bowl, a beaded red - O'er the slant edge, that twinkled in the sun, - The tiger sun fierce-glaring overhead. - - "What made gold Horus smile with golden lips? - Anubis dire forget his ghosts to lead - To Hell's profoundness?--He, who stayed to sip - One winking bubble from the wine-god's cup, - And, captive ever after, joined thy train?-- - What made Osiris, 'mid the palms of Nile, - Leave Isis dreaming, and the frolic Pan's - Wild trebles follow as a roaring bull, - Far as the fanes of Indra; he who long - Was mourned in Memphis by his tawny priests?-- - Io! Bacchus! Bacchus! Io! Io! - The brimming purple of thy hollow gold - They tasted and, 'though gods, they worship'd too! - - "Sad Echo sat once in a spiral cave; - She, from its sea-dyed labyrinth of rock, - Saw the long pageant dancing on the strand, - Where Nereus slept upon an isle of crags, - And o'er the slope of his far-foaming head - The strangeness of the orgies wildly cried, - Till the gray god awoke, at first in rage; - Serened his face then; stretched a welcoming hand - With civil utterance for the Bacchus horn. - But Echo followed not; instead, she sits - Among her crags remembering that wild cry, - That nomad sound still haunting all her dreams, - Confusing all her speech, that naught can say - Save warring words bewildering her ears - Like waves reverberant in a deep sea-cave. - - "Io! Bacchus! Bacchus! Io! Io! - See, the white stars, O Dionysos! see, - Have spilled their glittering globules, one by one,-- - Like bubbles winking in the cup of night,-- - Down the dark west behind the mountain chain. - Ægeus sleeps, lulled by my murmuring harp; - And I have sung thy triumph. Let me die!" - - - - -THE PAPHIAN VENUS - - - With anxious eyes and dry, expectant lips, - Within the sculptured stoa by the sea, - All day she waited while, like ghostly ships, - Long clouds rolled over Paphos: the wild bee - Hung in the sultry poppy, half asleep, - Beside the shepherd and his drowsy sheep. - - White-robed she waited day by day; alone - With the white temple's shrined concupiscence, - The Paphian goddess on her obscene throne, - Binding all chastity to violence, - All innocent to lust that feels no shame-- - Venus Mylitta born of filth and flame. - - So must they haunt her marble portico, - The devotees of passion, passion-pale - As moonlight streaming through the stormy snow; - Dark eyes desirous of the stranger sail,-- - The gods shall bring across the Cyprian Sea, - And him elected to their mastery. - - A priestess of the temple came, when eve - Blazed, like a satrap's triumph, in the west; - And watched her listening to the ocean's heave, - Dusk's golden glory on her face and breast, - And in her hair the rosy wind's caress,-- - Pitying her dedicated tenderness. - - When out of darkness night persuades the stars, - A dream shall bend above her saying, "Soon - A barque shall come with purple sails and spars, - Sailing from Tarsus 'neath a low white moon; - And thou shalt see one in a robe of Tyre - Facing toward thee like the god Desire. - - "Rise then! as, clad in starlight, riseth night-- - Thy nakedness clad on with loveliness! - So shalt thou see him, like the god Delight, - Breast through the foam and climb the cliff to press - Hot lips to thine and lead thee in before - Love's awful presence where ye shall adore." - - Thus at her heart the vision entered in, - With lips of lust the lips of song had kissed, - And eyes of passion laughing with sweet sin, - A starry splendor robed in amethyst, - Seen like that star set in the glittering gloam-- - Venus Mylitta born of fire and foam. - - So shall she dream until, near middle night,-- - When on the blackness of the ocean's rim - The moon, like some war-galleon all alight - With blazing battle, from the sea shall swim,-- - A shadow, with inviolate lips and eyes, - Shall rise before her speaking in this wise: - - "So hast thou heard the promises of one,-- - Of her, with whom the God of gods is wroth,-- - For whom was prophesied at Babylon - The second death--Chaldæan Mylidoth! - Whose feet take hold on darkness and despair, - Hissing destruction in her heart and hair! - - "Wouldst thou behold the vessel she would bring?-- - A wreck! ten hundred years have smeared with slime: - A hulk! where all abominations cling, - The spawn and vermin of the seas of time: - Wild waves have rotted it, fierce suns have scorched, - Mad winds have tossed and stormy stars have torched. - - "Can lust give birth to love! The vile and foul - Be mother to beauty? Lo! can this thing be?-- - A monster like a man shall rise and howl - Upon the wreck across the crawling sea, - Then plunge; and swim unto thee; like an ape, - A beast all belly.--Thou canst not escape!" - - Gone was the shadow with the suffering brow; - And in the temple's porch she lay and wept, - Alone with night, the ocean, and her vow. - Then up the east the moon's full splendor swept, - And, dark between it--wreck or argosy?-- - A sudden vessel far away at sea. - - - - -GARGAPHIE - -"_Succinctæ sacra Dianæ._"--Ovid. - - -I - - There the ragged sunlight lay - Tawny on thick ferns and gray - On dark waters: dimmer, - Lone and deep, the cypress grove - Bowered mystery and wove - Braided lights, like those that love - On the pearl plumes of a dove - Faint to gleam and glimmer. - - -II - - There centennial pine and oak - Into stormy utterance broke: - Hollow rocks gloomed, slanting, - Echoing in dim arcade, - Looming with long moss, that made - Twilight streaks in tatters laid: - Where the wild hart, hunt-affrayed, - Plunged the water, panting. - - -III - - Poppies of a sleepy gold - Mooned the gray-green darkness rolled - Down its vistas, making - Wisp-like blurs of flame. And pale - Stole the dim deer down the vale: - And the haunting nightingale - Sang unseen--the olden tale - All its hurt heart breaking. - - -IV - - There the hazy serpolet, - Dewy cistus, blooming wet, - Blushed on bank and boulder: - There the cyclamen, as wan - As faint footsteps of the Dawn, - Carpeted the spotted lawn: - Where the nude nymph, dripping drawn, - Sloped a flower-white shoulder. - - -V - - In the citrine shadow there - What tall presences and fair, - Godlike, lingered!--gracious - As the rock-rose there that grew:-- - Delicate and dim as dew - Stepped from out the oaks, and drew - Faun-like forms to follow, who - Filled the forest spacious! - - -VI - - Guarded that Bœotian - Valley so no foot of man - Soiled its silence holy - With profaning tread--save one, - The Hyantian: Actæon, - Who beheld but was undone - By Diana's wrath, that none-- - 'Though with magic moly,-- - - -VII - - Might escape.--That valley sleeps - Lost to us: enchantment keeps - Sacred still its banished - Bowers that no man may see, - Fountains that her deity - Haunts, and every rock and tree - Where her hunt goes swinging free - As in ages vanished. - - - - -THE FAUN - - - The joys that touched thee once, be mine! - The sympathies of sky and sea, - The friendship of each rock and pine, - That made thy lonely life, ah me! - In Tempe or in Gargaphie. - - Such joy as thou didst feel when first, - On some wild crag, thou stood'st alone - And watched the mountain tempest burst, - With streaming thunder, lightning sown, - On Latmos or on Pelion. - - Thy awe! when crowned with vastness, Night - And Silence ruled the deep's abyss; - And through dark leaves thou saw'st the white - Breasts of the starry maids who kiss - Pale feet of moony Artemis. - - Thy dreams! when, breasting matted weeds - Of Arethusa, thou didst hear - The music of the wind-swept reeds; - And down dim forest-ways drew near - Shy herds of slim Arcadian deer. - - Thy wisdom! that knew naught but love - And beauty, with which love is fraught; - The wisdom of the heart--whereof - All noblest passions spring--that thought - As Nature thinks, "All else is naught." - - Thy hope! wherein To-morrow set - No shadow; hope that, lacking care - And retrospect, held no regret, - But bloomed in rainbows everywhere - Filling with gladness all the air. - - These were thine all: in all life's moods - Embracing all of happiness: - And when within thy long-loved woods - Didst lay thee down to die, no less - Thy happiness stood by to bless. - - - - -APOLLO - - -I - - All the Lydian notes revealing, - Son of Leto, oh, come stealing - As the wind Thessalian rivers - Whisper of! the wind that shivers - Every ripple into stars, - In the sunlight's golden bars. - Touch thy harp, that haunts the oaks, - With the mastery that invokes - Naiad music of the fount, - Oread music of the mount; - And such satyr song as keeps - Revel on Lycæan steeps, - When night nods, a Mænad shape, - Purple with dusk's staining grape. - Wake such chords as dewy grounds - Echo when no mortal hounds - Bell the hunt, whose spear-point shines - Through Arcadia's tangled vines, - When the half-awakened Dawn, - Dreaming on a mountain lawn, - Lets her golden sandals lie - And walks barefooted through the sky; - And by Arethusa's bank, - Swift upon the red hart's flank, - Drives Diana's buskined band - Down the cistus-blossomed strand. - Then Love's minors, swooning o'er - The mountain hush, the ocean roar, - As Selene, stealing, sails - Over Lemnos' lakes to vales - Where Endymion dreams and feels - Love her stolen kiss reveals. - - -II - - Thou hast sung of Helicon: - How the sister Muses won - From the nine Pierides - Empire o'er the harmonies. - Thou hast sung of Tempe's maid, - And the sudden laurel's aid. - Thou hast sung of many loves - Of the gods that haunt the groves - Where the marble altar stands - Rose-heaped by the balmy hands - Of Romance and Beauty; where, - High upon the temple stair, - Priest-like, bay-crowned, white of hair, - Old Tradition, looking up, - Pours libation from his cup. - Thou hast sung, all sweet of tongue, - As once wild Amphion sung, - Songs,--Parnassian rocks,--that swung - Each in its lyric niche, and massed - Such mural heights of song and vast, - Melodious walls of poesy, - That Time himself shall not outlast, - Enduring as eternity. - - -III - - Ours shall be no island song, - Suited to a maiden throng, - Dancing with their wreaths of roses - To the double-flute's soft closes!-- - But a Nation's! whose large eyes - With life's liberty are wise, - And consenting sympathies - Of all arts and sciences. - She! who stands above the storms - With truth's thunder in her arms, - And the star-serenity - Of her hope bound burningly - Round her brow; and at her knee - The Spirit of Progress who is shod - With ethereal fire of God.... - Yea! thy last shall still be first-- - Some wild epopee to burst - With such organ notes as rang - When the stars of morning sang, - And the Sons of Heaven sent - Shoutings through the firmament; - As our years have justified - And the stars have prophesied. - -1886. - - - - -JOTUNHEIM - - -I - - Beyond the Northern Lights, in regions haunted - Of twilight, where the world is glacier planted, - And pale as Loké in his cavern when - The serpent's slaver burns him to the bones, - I saw the phantasms of gigantic men, - The prototypes of vastness, quarrying stones; - Great blocks of winter, glittering with the morn's - And evening's colors,--wild prismatic tones - Of boreal beauty.--Like the three gray Norns, - Silence and solitude and terror loomed - Around them where they labored. Walls arose, - Vast as the Andes when creation boomed - Insurgent fire; and through the rushing snows - Enormous battlements of tremendous ice, - Bastioned and turreted, I saw arise. - - -II - - But who can sing the workmanship gigantic - That reared within its coruscating dome - The roaring fountain, hurling an Atlantic - Of liquid ice that flashed with flame and foam? - An opal spirit, various and many formed,-- - In whose clear heart reverberant fire stormed,-- - Seemed its inhabitant; and through pale halls, - And deep diaphanous walls, - And corridors of whiteness, - Auroral colors swarmed, - As rosy-flickering stains, - Or lambent green, or gold, or crimson, warmed - The pulsing crystal of the spirit's veins - With ever-changing brightness. - And through the Arctic night there went a voice, - As if the ancient Earth cried out, "Rejoice!" - "My heart is full of lightness!" - - -III - - Here well might Thor, the god of war, - Harness the whirlwinds to his car, - While, mailed in storm, his iron arm - Heaves high his hammer's lava-form, - And red and black his beard streams back, - Like some fierce torrent scoriac, - Whose earthquake light glares through the night - Around some dark volcanic height; - And through the skies Valkyrian cries - Trumpet, as battleward he flies, - Death in his hair and havoc in his eyes. - - -IV - - Still in my dreams I hear that fountain flowing; - Beyond all seeing and beyond all knowing; - Still in my dreams I see those wild walls glowing - With hues, Aurora-kissed; - And through huge halls fantastic phantoms going, - Vast shapes of snow and mist,-- - Sonorous clarions of the tempest blowing,-- - That trail dark banners by, - Cloudlike, underneath the sky - Of the caverned dome on high, - Carbuncle and amethyst.-- - Still I hear the ululation - Of their stormy exultation, - Multitudinous, and blending - In hoarse echoes, far, unending; - And, through halls of fog and frost, - Howling back, like madness lost - In the moonless mansion of - Death and demon-haunted love. - - -V - - Still in my dreams I hear the mermaid singing; - The mermaid music at its portal ringing; - The mermaid song, that hinged with gold its door, - And, whispering evermore, - Hushed the ponderous hurl and roar - And vast æolian thunder - Of the chained tempests under - The frozen cataracts that were its floor.-- - And, blinding beautiful, I still behold - The mermaid there, combing her locks of gold, - While at her feet, green as the Northern Seas, - Gambol her flocks of seals and walruses; - While, like a drift, her dog,--a Polar bear,-- - Lies by her, glowering through his shaggy hair. - - -VI - - O wondrous house, built by supernal hands - In vague and ultimate lands! - Thy architects were behemoth wind and cloud, - That, laboring loud, - Mountained thy world foundations and uplifted - Thy skyey bastions drifted - Of piled eternities of ice and snow; - Where storms, like ploughmen, go, - Ploughing the deeps with awful hurricane; - Where, spouting icy rain, - The huge whale wallows; and through furious hail - Th' explorer's tattered sail - Drives like the wing of some terrific bird, - Where wreck and famine herd.-- - - -VII - - Home of the red Auroras and the gods! - He who profanes thy perilous threshold,--where - The ancient centuries lair, - And, glacier-throned, thy monarch, Winter, nods,-- - Let him beware! - Lest coming on that hoary presence there, - Whose pitiless hand, - Above that hungry land, - An iceberg wields as sceptre, and whose crown - The North Star is, set in a band of frost, - He, too, shall feel the bitterness of that frown, - And, turned to stone, forevermore be lost. - - - - -DIONYSIA - - - The day is dead; and in the west - The slender crescent of the moon-- - Diana's crystal-kindled crest-- - Sinks hillward in a silvery swoon. - What is the murmur in the dell? - The stealthy whisper and the drip? - A Dryad with her leaf-light trip? - A Naiad o'er her fountain well?-- - Who, with white fingers for her comb, - Sleeks her blue hair, and from its curls - Showers slim minnows and pale pearls, - And hollow music of the foam. - What is it in the vistaed ways - That leans and springs, and stoops and sways?-- - The naked limbs of one who flees? - An Oread who hesitates - Before the Satyr form that waits, - Crouching to leap, that there she sees? - Or under boughs, reclining cool, - A Hamadryad, like a pool - Of moonlight, palely beautiful? - Or Limnad, with her lilied face, - More lovely than the misty lace - That haunts a star in a firefly place? - Or is it some Leimoniad - In wildwood flowers dimly clad? - Oblong blossoms white as froth, - Or mottled like the tiger-moth; - Or brindled as the brows of death, - Wild of hue and wild of breath: - Here ethereal flame and milk - Blent with velvet and with silk; - Here an iridescent glow - Mixed with satin and with snow: - Pansy, poppy and the pale - Serpolet and galingale; - Mandrake and anemone, - Honey-reservoirs o' the bee; - Cistus and the cyclamen,-- - Cheeked like blushing Hebe this, - And the other white as is - Bubbled milk of Venus when - Cupid's baby mouth is pressed, - Rosy, to her rosy breast. - And, besides, all flowers that mate - With aroma, and in hue - Stars and rainbows duplicate - Here on earth for me and you. - Yea! at last mine eyes can see! - 'Tis no shadow of the tree - Swaying softly there, but she!-- - Mænad, Bassarid, Bacchant, - What you will, who doth enchant - Night with sensuous nudity. - Lo! again I hear her pant - Breasting through the dewy glooms-- - Through the glow-worm gleams and glowers - Of the starlight; wood-perfumes - Swoon around her and frail showers - Of the leaflet-tilted rain. - Lo! like love, she comes again - Through the pale voluptuous dusk, - Sweet of limb with breasts of musk. - With her lips, like blossoms, breathing - Honeyed pungence of her kiss, - And her auburn tresses wreathing - Like umbrageous helichrys, - There she stands, like flame and snow, - In the moon's ambrosial glow, - Both her shapely loins low-looped - With the balmy blossoms, drooped, - Of the deep amaracus. - Spiritual, yet sensual, - Lo, she ever greets me thus - In my vision; white and tall, - Her delicious body there,-- - Raimented with amorous air,-- - To my mind expresses all - The allurements of the world. - And once more I seem to feel - On my soul, like frenzy, hurled - All the passionate past.--I reel, - Greek again in ancient Greece, - In the Pyrrhic revelries; - In the mad and Mænad dance; - Onward dragged with violence: - Pan and old Silenus and - Faunus and a Bacchant band - Round me. Wild my wine-stained hand - O'er tumultuous hair is lifted; - While the flushed and Phallic orgies - Whirl around me; and the marges - Of the wood are torn and rifted - With lascivious laugh and shout. - And barbarian there again,-- - Shameless with the shameless rout, - Bacchus lusting in each vein,-- - With her pagan lips on mine, - Like a god made drunk with wine, - On I reel; and in the revels - Her loose hair, the dance dishevels, - Blows, and 'thwart my vision swims - All the splendor of her limbs.... - So it seems. Yet woods are lonely. - And when I again awake, - I shall find their faces only - Moonbeams in the boughs that shake; - And their revels--but the rush - Of night-winds through bough and brush. - But my dreaming?--is it more - Than mere dreaming? Is a door - Opened in my soul? a curtain - Raised? to let me see for certain - I have lived that life before? - - - - -VINE AND SYCAMORE - - -I - - Here where a tree and its wild liana, - Leaning over the streamlet, grow, - Once a nymph, like the moon'd Diana, - Sat in the ages long ago, - Sat with a mortal with whom she had mated, - Sat and smiled with a mortal youth, - Ere he of the forest, the god who hated, - Changed the two into forms uncouth.... - - -II - - Once in the woods she had heard a shepherd, - Heard a reed in a golden glade; - Followed, and clad in the skin of a leopard, - Found him fluting within the shade. - Found him sitting with bare brown shoulder, - Lithe and young as a sapling oak, - And leaning over a mossy boulder, - Love in her dryad heart awoke. - - -III - - White she was as a dogwood flower, - Rosy white as a wild-crab bloom, - Fragrant white as a haw-tree bower - Full of sap and the May's perfume. - He who saw her above him burning, - Beautiful, naked, in dawn arrayed, - Deemed her Diana, and from her turning, - Leapt to his feet and fled afraid. - - -IV - - Far she followed and called and pleaded, - Ever he fled with never a look; - Fled, till he came to this spot, deep-reeded, - Came to the bank of this forest brook. - Here for a moment he stopped and listened, - Heard in her voice her heart's despair, - Saw in her eyes the love that glistened, - Sank on her bosom and rested there. - - -V - - Close to her beauty she strained and pressed him, - Held and bound him with kiss on kiss; - Soft with her hands and her lips caressed him, - Sweeter of touch than a blossom is. - Spoke to his heart, and with sweet persuasion - Mastered his soul till its fear was flown; - Smiled on his soul till its mortal evasion - Vanished, and body and soul were her own. - - -VI - - Many a day had they met and mated, - Many a day by this wildwood brook, - When he of the forest, the god who hated, - Came on their love and changed with a look. - There on the shore, while they joyed and jested, - He in the shadows, unseen, espied - Her, like the goddess Diana breasted, - Him, like Endymion by her side. - - -VII - - Lo! at a word, at a sign, their folded - Limbs and bodies assumed new form, - Hers to the shape of a tree were molded, - His to a vine with surrounding arm.... - So they stand with their limbs enlacing, - Nymph and mortal, upon this shore, - He forever a vine embracing - Her, a silvery sycamore. - - - - -GENIUS LOCI - - -I - - What wood-god, on this water's mossy curb, - Lost in reflections of Earth's loveliness, - Did I, just now, unconsciously disturb? - I who haphazard, wandering at a guess, - Came on this spot, wherein with gold and flame - Of buds and blooms the Season writes its name.-- - Ah, me! could I have seen him ere alarm - Of my approach aroused him from his calm! - As he, part Hamadryad and, mayhap, - Part Faun, lay here; who left the shadow warm - As a wood-rose, and filled the air with balm - Of his wild breath as with ethereal sap. - - -II - - Does not the moss retain some slight impress, - Green-dented down, of where he lay or trod? - Do not the flowers, so reticent, confess - With conscious looks the contact of a god? - Does not the very water garrulously - Boast the indulgence of a deity? - And hark!--in burly beech and sycamore - How all the birds proclaim it! and the leaves - Rejoice with clappings of their myriad hands! - And shall not I believe, too, and adore, - With such wide proof?--Yea, though my soul perceives - No evident presence, still it understands. - - -III - - And for a while it moves me to lie down - Here on the spot his god-head sanctified: - Mayhap some dream he dreamed may linger, brown - And young as joy, around the forest side: - Some dream within whose heart lives no disdain - For such as I whose love is sweet and sane; - That may repeat, so none but I may hear-- - As one might tell a pearl-strung rosary-- - Some epic that the leaves have learned to croon, - Some lyric whispered in the wildflower's ear, - Whose murmurous lines are sung by bird and bee, - And all the insects of the night and noon. - - -IV - - For, all around me, upon field and hill, - Enchantment lies as of mysterious flutes; - As if the music of a god's good-will - Had taken on material attributes - In blooms, like chords; and in the water-gleam, - That runs its silvery scales on every stream; - In sunbeam bars, up which the butterfly, - A golden note, vibrates then flutters on-- - Inaudible tunes, blown on the pipes of Pan, - That have assumed a visible entity, - And drugged the air with beauty so, a Faun, - Behold, I seem, and am no more a man. - - - - -DITHYRAMBICS - - -I - -_Tempest_ - - Wrapped round of the night, as a monster is wrapped of the ocean, - Down, down through vast storeys of darkness, behold, in the tower - Of the heaven, the thunder! on stairways of cloudy commotion, - Colossal of tread, like a giant, from echoing hour to hour - Goes striding in rattling armor.... - The Nymph, at her billow-roofed dormer - Of foam; and the Sylvan--green-housed--at her window of leaves appears; - --As a listening woman, who hears - The approach of her lover, who comes to her arms in the night; - And, loosening the loops of her locks, - With eyes full of love and delight, - From the couch of her rest in ardor and haste arises.-- - The Nymph, as if born of the tempest, like fire surprises - The riotous bands of the rocks, - That face, with a roar, the shouting charge of the seas. - The Sylvan,--through troops of the trees, - Whose clamorous clans with gnarly bosoms keep hurling - Themselves on the guns of the wind,--goes wheeling and whirling. - The Nymph, of the waves' exultation upheld, her green tresses - Knotted with flowers of the hollow white foam, dives screaming; - Then bounds to the arms of the storm, who boisterously presses - Her hair and wild form to his breast that is panting and streaming. - The Sylvan,--hard-pressed by the wind, the Pan-footed air,-- - On the violent backs of the hills,-- - Like a flame that tosses and thrills - From crag to crag when the world of spirits is out,-- - Is borne, as her rapture wills, - With glittering gesture and shout. - Now here in the darkness, now there, - From the rain-wild sweep of her hair,-- - Bewilderingly volleyed o'er eyes and o'er lips,-- - To the lambent swell of her limbs, her breasts and her hips, - She flashes her beautiful nakedness out in the glare - Of the tempest that bears her away,-- - That bears _me_ away! - Away, over forest and foam, over tree and spray, - Far swifter than thought, far swifter than sound or than flame; - Over ocean and pine, - In arms of tumultuous shadow and shine.-- - - Though Sylvan and Nymph do not - Exist, and only what - Of terror and beauty I feel and I name - As parts of the storm, the awe and the rapture divine - That here in the tempest are mine,-- - The two are the same, the two are forever the same. - - -II - -_Calm_ - - Beautiful-bosomed, O night, in thy noon - Move with majesty onward! bearing, as lightly - As a singer may bear the notes of an exquisite tune, - The stars and the moon - Through the clerestories high of the heaven, the firmament's halls: - Under whose sapphirine walls, - June, hesperian June, - Robed in divinity wanders. Daily and nightly - The turquoise touch of her robe, that the violets star, - The silvery fall of her feet, that lilies are, - Fill the land with languorous light and perfume.-- - Is it the melody mute of bourgeoning leaf and of bloom? - The music of Nature, that silently shapes in the gloom - Immaterial hosts - Of spirits that have the flowers and leaves in their keep, - That I hear, that I hear? - With their sighs of silver and pearl? - Invisible ghosts,-- - Each one a beautiful girl,-- - Who whisper in leaves and glimmer in blossoms and hover - In color and fragrance and loveliness, breathed from the deep - World-soul of the mother, - Nature;--who, over and over, - Both sweetheart and lover, - Goes singing her songs from one sweet month to the other,-- - That appear, that appear? - In forest and field, on hill-land and lea, - As crystallized harmony, - Materialized melody, - An uttered essence peopling far and near - The hyaline atmosphere?... - - Behold how it sprouts from the grass and blooms from flower and tree! - In waves of diaphanous moonlight and mist, - In fugue upon fugue of gold and of amethyst, - Around me, above me it spirals; now slower, now faster, - Like symphonies born of the thought of a musical master.-- - O music of Earth! O God, who the music inspired! - Let me breathe of the life of thy breath! - And so be fulfilled and attired - In resurrection, triumphant o'er time and o'er death! - - - - -HYMN TO DESIRE - - -I - - Mother of visions, with lineaments dulcet as numbers - Breathed on the eyelids of love by music that slumbers, - Secretly, sweetly, O presence of fire and snow, - Thou comest mysterious, - In beauty imperious, - Clad on with dreams and the light of no world that we know, - Deep to my innermost soul am I shaken, - Helplessly shaken and tossed, - And of thy tyrannous yearnings so utterly taken, - My lips, unsatisfied, thirst; - Mine eyes are accurst - With longings for visions that far in the night are forsaken; - And mine ears, in listening lost, - Yearn, yearn for the note of a chord that will never awaken. - - -II - - Like palpable music thou comest, like moon-light; and far,-- - Resonant bar upon bar,-- - The vibrating lyre - Of the spirit responds with melodious fire, - As thy fluttering fingers now grasp it and ardently shake, - With flame and with flake, - The chords of existence, the instrument star-sprung, - Whose frame is of clay, so wonderfully molded from mire. - - -III - - Vested with vanquishment, come, O Desire, Desire! - Breathe in this harp of my soul the audible angel of love! - Make of my heart an Israfel burning above, - A lute for the music of God, that lips, which are mortal, but stammer! - Smite every rapturous wire - With golden delirium, rebellion and silvery clamor, - Crying--"Awake! awake! - Too long hast thou slumbered! too far from the regions of glamour, - With its mountains of magic, its fountains of faery, the spar-sprung, - Hast thou wandered away, O Heart! - Come, oh, come and partake - Of necromance banquets of beauty; and slake - Thy thirst in the waters of Art, - That are drawn from the streams - Of love and of dreams. - - -IV - - "Come, oh come! - No longer shall language be dumb! - Thy vision shall grasp-- - As one doth the glittering hasp - Of a dagger made splendid with gems and with gold-- - The wonder and richness of life, not anguish and hate of it merely. - And out of the stark - Eternity, awful and dark, - Immensity silent and cold,-- - Universe-shaking as trumpets, or thunderous metals - That cymbal; yet pensive and pearly - And soft as the rosy unfolding of petals, - Or crumbling aroma of blossoms that wither too early,-- - The majestic music of Death, where he plays - On the organ, eternal and vast, of eons and days." - - - - -NYMPH AND FAUN - - - With her soft face half turned to me - Like an arrested moonbeam, she - Stood in the cirque of that deep tree. - - I took her by the hands; she raised - Her face to mine; and, half amazed, - I kissed her; and we stood and gazed. - - How good to kiss her throat and hair, - And say no word!--Her throat was bare, - And, as the slim moon, young and fair.-- - - Had God not given us life for this? - The world-old, amorous happiness - Of arms that clasp, and lips that kiss. - - O eloquence of limbs and arms! - O rhetoric of breasts, whose charms - Say to the sluggish blood what warms! - - Had God not smiled upon this hour - That bloomed,--where love had all of power,-- - The senses' aphrodisiac flower? - - The dawn was far away: the night - Hung savage stars of sultry white, - Lamp-like, above to give us light. - - Night, night, who led us each to each, - Where heart with heart could hold sweet speech, - With life's best gift within our reach. - - And here it was--between the goals - Of flesh and spirit, sex controls-- - Took place the marriage of our souls. - - - - -PARTING OF LEANDER AND HERO - - -I - - Brows pale through blue-black tresses - Wet with the rain's cold kisses; - Hair that the sea-wind tosses, - Wild as wild wings in flight; - Pale brows, some sad thought crosses, - One kiss and then--good night. - - -II - - Nay, love! thou wilt undo me - When in the heavy waves!-- - Come, smile! and make unto me - The billows' backs as slaves - To bear me and indue me - With strength o'er ocean's graves. - - -III - - Weep not, as heavy-hearted - Before I go! lest thou - Shouldst follow as we parted.-- - Come, gaze at me glad-hearted! - Not with sweet lips distorted - With fear; and eyes tear-smarted!-- - Let me remember how - Thy face looks when thou smilest - And with soft words beguilest - My soul.--From feet to brow, - Come, strengthen thy strong lover - To breast the waves that cover - Deep caves where sea-nymphs hover, - Eager to seize him now. - - -IV - - Thy image, love, shall follow - With breast pressed close to mine: - With arms from out whose hollow - No death can tear me. Follow, - Come, light me through the brine, - Dark eyes, fixed bright on mine, - And mouth as red as wine!-- - Yea, give me wine of kisses, - Whose fire shall help me home, - Sweetheart, through foam that hisses, - The long wild miles of foam. - - -V - - Sweet! cease thy sighs and weeping! - 'Tis time for rest and sleeping, - And Venus-vestured dreams, - Where thy Leander, stooping, - Thou'lt see as now, undrooping, - With eyes all unaccusing: - Not as thou saw'st, it seems, - In sleep last night, in dreams, - His curls with ocean oozing, - And wan of cheek and brow: - But, Hero, even as now, - Fair-favored as can make him - Thy smile, which is a might, - A hope, a god, to take him - Safe through this hell of night. - - -VI - - Here in thy throat's white hollow - One last long kiss.--I go.-- - Ah, Sweet! a kiss to follow - Down from thy throat's white hollow - Unto thy breast that's whiter:-- - Thine arms, that clasp me tighter; - One kiss then on thy mouth, - Warmer than all the South; - And eyes, than waters brighter - Wherein the far stars glow. - Smile on me now I leave thee!-- - And kiss me on the brow!-- - Smile on me, love, nor grieve thee! - No thing can harm me now! - - - - -THE SPIRIT OF THE FOREST SPRING - - - Over the rocks she trails her locks, - Her mossy locks that drip, drip, drip: - Her sparkling eyes smile at the skies - In friendship-wise and fellowship: - While the gleam and glance of her countenance - Lull into trance the woodland places, - As over the rocks she trails her locks, - Her dripping locks that the long fern graces. - - She pours clear ooze from her heart's cool cruse, - Its crystal cruse that drips, drips, drips: - And all the day its crystal spray - Is heard to play from her finger-tips: - And the slight, soft sound makes haunted ground - Of the woods around that the sunlight laces, - As she pours clear ooze from her heart's cool cruse, - Its dripping cruse that no man traces. - - She swims and swims with glimmering limbs, - With lucid limbs that drip, drip, drip: - Where beechen boughs build a leafy house, - Where her form may drowse or her feet may trip; - And the liquid beat of her rippling feet - Makes three times sweet the forest mazes, - As she swims and swims with glimmering limbs, - With dripping limbs through the twilight's hazes. - - Then wrapped in deeps of the wild she sleeps, - She whispering sleeps and drips, drips, drips: - Where moon and mist wreathe neck and wrist, - And, starry-whist, through the night she slips: - While the heavenly dream of her soul makes gleam - The falls that stream and the foam that races, - As wrapped in deeps of the wild she sleeps, - She dripping sleeps or starward gazes. - - - - -TO A PANSY-VIOLET - -_Found Solitary Among the Hills_ - - -I - - O pansy-violet, - With early April wet, - How frail and lone you look - Lost in this sylvan nook - Of heaven-holding hills: - Down which the hurrying rills - Fling scrolls of melodies; - O'er which the birds and bees - Weave gossamers of song, - Invisible, but strong: - Sweet music-webs they spin - To snare the spirit in. - - -II - - O pansy-violet, - Unto your face I set - My lips, and--do you speak? - Or is it but some freak - Of fancy, love imparts - Through you unto the heart's - Desire? whispering low - A secret none may know - But me, who sit and dream - Here by this forest-stream. - - -III - - O pansy-violet, - O wilding floweret, - Hued like some dædal gem - Starring the diadem - Of fay or sylvan sprite, - Who, in the woods, all night - Is busy with the blooms, - Young leaves and wild perfumes, - Through you I seem t' have seen - All that our dreams may mean. - - -IV - - O pansy-violet, - Long, long ago we met-- - 'Twas in a Fairy tale: - Two children in a vale - Sat underneath the stars, - Far from the world of wars: - Each loved the other well: - _Her_ eyes were like the spell - Of dusk and dawning skies-- - The purple dark that dyes - The midnight: _his_ were blue - As heaven the day shines through. - - -V - - O pansy-violet, - What is this vague regret, - This yearning, so like tears, - That touches me through years - Long past, when myth and fable - In all strange things were able - To beautify the Earth, - Things of immortal worth?-- - This longing, that to me - Is like a memory, - Lived long ago, of two - Fair forest children who - Loved with no mortal love; - Whom heaven smiled above, - Fostering; and when they died - Laid side by loving side. - - -VI - - O pansy-violet, - Do you remember yet - That wood-god-guarded tomb, - Out of whose moss your bloom - Sprang, with three petals wan - As are the eyes of dawn; - And two as darkly deep - As are the eyes of sleep? - - -VII - - O flower,--that seems to hold - Some memory of old, - A hope, a happiness, - At which I can but guess,-- - You are a sign to me - Of immortality: - Through you my spirit sees - The deathless purposes - Of death, that still evolves - The beauty it resolves; - The change that still fulfils - Life's meaning as God wills. - - - - -PAGAN - - - The gods, who could loose and bind - In the long ago, - The gods, who were stern and kind - To men below, - Where shall we seek and find, - Or, finding, know? - - Where Greece, with king on king, - Dreamed in her halls; - Where Rome kneeled worshiping, - The owl now calls, - And clambering ivies cling, - And the moonbeam falls. - - They have served, and passed away - From the earth and sky, - And their creeds are a record gray, - Where the passer-by - Reads, "Live and be glad to-day, - For to-morrow ye die." - - And shall it be so, indeed, - When we are no more, - That nations to be shall read,-- - As we have before,-- - In the dust of a Christian Creed, - But pagan lore? - - - - -BEAUTY AND ART - - - The gods are dead; but still for me - Lives on in wildwood brook and tree - Each myth, each old divinity. - - For me still laughs among her rocks - The Naiad; and the Dryad's locks - Drop perfume on the wildflower flocks. - - The Satyr's hoof still prints the loam; - And, whiter than the wind-blown foam, - The Oread haunts her mountain home. - - To him, whose mind is fain to dwell - With loveliness no time can quell, - All things are real, imperishable. - - To him--whatever facts may say-- - Who sees the soul beneath the clay, - Is proof of a diviner day. - - The very stars and flowers preach - A gospel old as God, and teach - Philosophy a child may reach; - - That can not die; that shall not cease; - That lives through idealities - Of Beauty, ev'n as Rome and Greece: - - That lifts the soul above the clod, - And, working out some period - Of art, is part and proof of God. - - - - -THE OLD WATER-MILL - - - Wild ridge on ridge the wooded hills arise, - Between whose breezy vistas gulfs of skies - Pilot great clouds like towering argosies, - And hawk and buzzard breast the azure breeze. - With many a foaming fall and glimmering reach - Of placid murmur, under elm and beech, - The creek goes twinkling through long gleams and glooms - Of woodland quiet, summered with perfumes: - The creek, in whose clear shallows minnow-schools - Glitter or dart; and by whose deeper pools - The blue kingfishers and the herons haunt; - That, often startled from the freckled flaunt - Of blackberry-lilies--where they feed and hide-- - Trail a lank flight along the forestside - With eery clangor. Here a sycamore, - Smooth, wave-uprooted, builds from shore to shore - A headlong bridge; and there, a storm-hurled oak - Lays a long dam, where sand and gravel choke - The water's lazy way. Here mistflower blurs - Its bit of heaven; there the oxeye stirs - Its gloaming hues of pearl and gold; and here, - A gray, cool stain, like dawn's own atmosphere, - The dim wild-carrot lifts its crumpled crest: - And over all, at slender flight or rest, - The dragon-flies, like coruscating rays - Of lapis-lazuli and chrysoprase, - Drowsily sparkle through the summer days: - And, dewlap-deep, here from the noontide heat - The bell-hung cattle find a cool retreat; - And through the willows girdling the hill, - Now far, now near, borne as the soft winds will, - Comes the low rushing of the water-mill. - - Ah, lovely to me from a little child, - How changed the place! wherein once, undefiled, - The glad communion of the sky and stream - Went with me like a presence and a dream. - Where once the brambled meads and orchard-lands - Poured ripe abundance down with mellow hands - Of summer; and the birds of field and wood - Called to me in a tongue I understood; - And in the tangles of the old rail-fence - Even the insect tumult had some sense, - And every sound a happy eloquence: - And more to me than wisest books can teach - The wind and water said; whose words did reach - My soul, addressing their magnificent speech,-- - Raucous and rushing,--from the old mill-wheel, - That made the rolling mill-cogs snore and reel, - Like some old ogre in a fairy tale - Nodding above his meat and mug of ale. - - How memory takes me back the ways that lead-- - As when a boy--through woodland and through mead! - To orchards fruited; or to fields in bloom; - Or briery fallows, like a mighty room, - Through which the winds swing censers of perfume, - And where deep blackberries spread miles of fruit;-- - A splendid feast, that stayed the ploughboy's foot - When to the tasseling acres of the corn - He drove his team, fresh in the primrose morn; - And from the liberal banquet, nature lent, - Took dewy handfuls as he whistling went.-- - A boy once more, I stand with sunburnt feet - And watch the harvester sweep down the wheat; - Or laze with warm limbs in the unstacked straw - Nearby the thresher, whose insatiate maw - Devours the sheaves, hot drawling out its hum-- - Like some great sleepy bee, above a bloom, - Made drunk with honey--while, grown big with grain, - The bulging sacks receive the golden rain. - Again I tread the valley, sweet with hay, - And hear the bob-white calling far away, - Or wood-dove cooing in the elder-brake; - Or see the sassafras bushes madly shake - As swift, a rufous instant, in the glen - The red fox leaps and gallops to his den; - Or, standing in the violet-colored gloam, - Hear roadways sound with holiday riding home - From church, or fair, or county barbecue, - Which the whole country to some village drew. - - How spilled with berries were its summer hills, - And strewn with walnuts all its autumn rills-- - And chestnuts, burring from the spring's long flowers!-- - When from their tops the trees seemed streaming showers - Of slender silver, cool, crepuscular, - And like a nebulous radiance shone afar.-- - And maples! how their sappy hearts would gush - Rude troughs of syrup, when the winter bush - Steamed with the sugar-kettle, day and night, - And, red, the snow was streaked with fire-light. - Then was it glorious! the mill-dam's edge, - One slope of frosty crystal, laid a ledge - Of pearl across; above which, sleeted trees - Tossed arms of ice, that, clashing in the breeze, - Tinkled the ringing creek with icicles, - Thin as the peal of far-off Elfland bells: - A sound that in my city dreams I hear, - That brings before me, under skies that clear, - The old mill in its winter garb of snow, - Its frozen wheel like a hoar beard below, - And its west windows, two deep eyes aglow. - - Ah, ancient mill, still do I picture o'er - Thy cobwebbed stairs and loft and grain-strewn floor; - Thy door,--like some brown, honest hand of toil, - And honorable with labor of the soil,-- - Forever open; through which, on his back - The prosperous farmer bears his bursting sack, - And while the miller measures out his toll, - Again I hear, above the cogs' loud roll,-- - That makes stout joist and rafter groan and sway,-- - The harmless gossip of the passing day: - Good country talk, that tells how so-and-so - Has died or married; how curculio - And codling-moth have ruined half the fruit, - And blight plays mischief with the grapes to boot; - Or what the news from town; next county fair; - How well the crops are looking everywhere: - Now this, now that, on which their interests fix, - Prospects for rain or frost, and politics. - While all around, the sweet smell of the meal - Filters, warm-pouring from the grinding wheel - Into the bin; beside which, mealy white, - The miller looms, dim in the dusty light. - - Again I see the miller's home, between - The crinkling creek and hills of beechen green: - Again the miller greets me, gaunt and brown, - Who oft o'erawed my youth with gray-browed frown - And rugged mien: again he tries to reach - My youthful mind with fervid scriptural speech.-- - For he, of all the country-side confessed, - The most religious was and goodliest; - A Methodist, and one whom faith still led, - No books except the Bible had he read-- - At least so seemed it to my younger head.-- - All things in Earth and Heav'n he'd prove by this, - Be it a fact or mere hypothesis; - For to his simple wisdom, reverent, - "_The Bible says_" was all of argument.-- - God keep his soul! his bones were long since laid - Among the sunken gravestones in the shade - Of those black-lichened rocks, that wall around - The family burying-ground with cedars crowned; - Where bristling teasel and the brier combine - With clambering wood-rose and the wild-grape vine - To hide the stone whereon his name and dates - Neglect, with mossy hand, obliterates. - - - - -THE RAIN-CROW - - -I - - Can freckled August,--drowsing warm and blond - Beside a wheat-shock in the white-topped mead, - In her hot hair the oxeyed daisies wound,-- - O bird of rain, lend aught but sleepy heed - To thee? when no plumed weed, no feather'd seed - Blows by her; and no ripple breaks the pond, - That gleams like flint within its rim of grasses, - Through which the dragon-fly forever passes - Like splintered diamond. - - -II - - Drouth weights the trees, and from the farm-house eaves - The locust, pulse-beat of the summer day, - Throbs; and the lane, that shambles under leaves - Limp with the heat--a league of rutty way-- - Is lost in dust; and sultry scents of hay - Breathe from the panting meadows heaped with sheaves-- - Now, now, O bird, what hint is there of rain, - In thirsty heaven or on burning plain, - That thy keen eye perceives? - - -III - - But thou art right. Thou prophesiest true. - For hardly hast thou ceased thy forecasting, - When, up the western fierceness of scorched blue, - Great water-carrier winds their buckets bring - Brimming with freshness. How their dippers ring - And flash and rumble! lavishing large dew - On corn and forestland, that, streaming wet, - Their hilly backs against the downpour set, - Like giants, loom in view. - - -IV - - The butterfly, safe under leaf and flower, - Has found a roof, knowing how true thou art; - The bumblebee, within the last half-hour, - Has ceased to hug the honey to its heart; - While in the barnyard, under shed and cart, - Brood-hens have housed.--But I, who scorned thy power, - Barometer of the birds,--like August there,-- - Beneath a beech, dripping from foot to hair, - Like some drenched truant, cower. - - - - -THE HARVEST MOON - - -I - - Globed in Heav'n's tree of azure, golden mellow - As some round apple hung - High on Hesperian boughs, thou hangest yellow - The branch-like clouds among: - Within thy light a sunburnt youth, named Health, - Rests 'mid the tasseled shocks, the tawny stubble; - And by his side, clad on with rustic wealth - Of field and farm, beneath thy amber bubble, - A nut-brown maid, Content, sits smiling still: - While through the quiet trees, - The mossy rocks, the grassy hill, - Thy silvery spirit glides to yonder mill, - Around whose wheel the breeze - And shimmering ripples of the water play, - As, by their mother, little children may. - - -II - - Sweet Spirit of the Moon, who walkest,--lifting, - Exhaustless on thy arm, - A vase of pearly fire,--through the shifting - Cloud-halls of calm and storm, - Pour down thy blossoms! let me hear them come, - Pelting with noiseless light the twinkling thickets, - Making the darkness audible with the hum - Of many insect creatures, grigs and crickets: - Until it seems the elves hold revelries - By haunted stream and grove; - Or, in the night's deep peace, - The young-old presence of Earth's full increase - Seems telling thee her love, - Ere, lying down, she turns to rest, and smiles, - Hearing thy heart beat through the myriad miles. - - - - -FIELD AND FOREST CALL - - - There is a field, that leans upon two hills, - Foamed o'er of flowers and twinkling with clear rills; - That in its girdle of wild acres bears; - The anodyne of rest that cures all cares; - Wherein soft wind and sun and sound are blent - And fragrance--as in some old instrument - Sweet chords--calm things, that nature's magic spell - Distils from heaven's azure crucible, - And pours on Earth to make the sick mind well. - There lies the path, they say-- - Come, away! come, away! - - There is a forest, lying 'twixt two streams, - Sung through of birds and haunted of dim dreams; - That in its league-long hand of trunk and leaf - Lifts a green wand that charms away all grief; - Wrought of quaint silence and the stealth of things, - Vague, whispering touches, gleams and twitterings, - Dews and cool shadows--that the mystic soul - Of nature permeates with suave control, - And waves o'er Earth to make the sad heart whole. - There lies the road, they say-- - Come, away! come, away! - - - - -OLD HOMES - - - Old homes among the hills! I love their gardens, - Their old rock-fences, that our day inherits; - Their doors, round which the great trees stand like wardens; - Their paths, down which the shadows march like spirits; - Broad doors and paths that reach bird-haunted gardens. - - I see them gray among their ancient acres, - Severe of front, their gables lichen-sprinkled,-- - Like gentle-hearted, solitary Quakers, - Grave and religious, with kind faces wrinkled,-- - Serene among their memory-hallowed acres. - - Their gardens, banked with roses and with lilies-- - Those sweet aristocrats of all the flowers-- - Where Springtime mints her gold in daffodillies, - And Autumn coins her marigolds in showers, - And all the hours are toilless as the lilies. - - I love their orchards where the gay woodpecker - Flits, flashing o'er you, like a wingéd jewel; - Their woods, whose floors of moss the squirrels checker - With half-hulled nuts; and where, in cool renewal, - The wild brooks laugh, and raps the red woodpecker. - - Old homes! old hearts! Upon my soul forever - Their peace and gladness lie like tears and laughter; - Like love they touch me, through the years that sever, - With simple faith; like friendship, draw me after - The dreamy patience that is theirs forever. - - - - -A MEMORY - - - Above her, pearl and rose the heavens lay: - Around her, flowers scattered earth with gold, - Or down the path in insolence held sway-- - Like cavaliers who ride the king's highway-- - Scarlet and buff, within a garden old. - - Beyond the hills, faint-heard through belts of wood, - Bells, Sabbath-sweet, swooned from some far-off town: - Gamboge and gold, broad sunset colors strewed - The purple west as if, with God imbued, - Her mighty pallet Nature there laid down. - - Amid such flowers, underneath such skies, - Embodying all life knows of sweet and fair, - She stood; love's dreams in girlhood's face and eyes, - Fair as a star that comes to emphasize - The mingled beauty of the earth and air. - - Behind her, seen through vines and orchard trees, - Gray with its twinkling windows--like the face - Of calm old-age that sits and smiles at ease-- - Porched with old roses, haunts of honey-bees, - The homestead loomed dim in a glimmering space. - - For whom she waited in the afterglow, - Soft-eyed and dreamy 'mid the poppy and rose, - I do not know, I do not care to know:-- - It is enough I keep her picture so, - Hung up, like poetry, in my life's dull prose. - - A fragrant picture, where I still may find - Her face untouched of sorrow or regret, - Unspoiled of contact, ever young and kind, - The spiritual sweetheart of my soul and mind, - She had not been, perhaps, if we had met. - - - - -DOLCE FAR NIENTE - - -I - - Over the bay as our boat went sailing - Under the skies of Augustine, - Far to the east lay the ocean paling - Under the skies of Augustine.-- - There, in the boat as we sat together, - Soft in the glow of the turquoise weather, - Light as the foam or a seagull's feather, - Fair of form and of face serene, - Sweet at my side I felt you lean, - As over the bay our boat went sailing - Under the skies of Augustine. - - -II - - Over the bay as our boat went sailing - Under the skies of Augustine, - Pine and palm, in the west, hung, trailing - Under the skies of Augustine.-- - Was it the wind that sighed above you? - Was it the wave that whispered of you? - Was it my soul that said, "I love you"? - Was it your heart that murmured between, - Answering, shy as a bird unseen? - As over the bay our boat went sailing - Under the skies of Augustine. - - -III - - Over the bay as our boat went sailing - Under the skies of Augustine, - Gray and low flew the heron, wailing - Under the skies of Augustine.-- - Naught was spoken. We watched the simple - Gulls wing past. Your hat's white wimple - Shadowed your eyes. And your lips, a-dimple, - Smiled and seemed from your soul to wean - An inner beauty, an added sheen, - As over the bay our boat went sailing - Under the skies of Augustine. - - -IV - - Over the bay as our boat went sailing - Under the skies of Augustine, - Red on the marshes the day flamed, failing - Under the skies of Augustine.-- - Was it your thought, or the transitory - Gold of the west, like a written story, - Bright on your brow, that I read? the glory - And grace of love, like a rose-crowned queen - Pictured pensive in mind and mien? - As over the bay our boat went sailing - Under the skies of Augustine. - - -V - - Over the bay as our boat went sailing - Under the skies of Augustine, - Wan on the waters the mist lay, veiling - Under the skies of Augustine.-- - Was it the joy that begot the sorrow?-- - Joy that was filled with the dreams that borrow - Prescience sad of a far To-morrow,-- - There in the Now that was all too keen, - That shadowed the fate that might intervene? - As over the bay our boat went sailing - Under the skies of Augustine. - - -VI - - Over the bay as our boat went sailing - Under the skies of Augustine, - The marsh-hen cried and the tide was ailing - Under the skies of Augustine.-- - And so we parted. No vows were spoken. - No faith was plighted that might be broken. - But deep in our hearts each bore a token - Of life and of love and all they mean, - Beautiful, thornless, and ever green, - From over the bay where our boat went sailing - Under the skies of Augustine. - -_St. Augustine, Fla., February, 1899._ - - - - -THE PURPLE VALLEYS - - - Far in the purple valleys of illusion - I see her waiting, like the soul of music, - With deep eyes, lovelier than cerulean pansies, - Shadow and fire, yet merciless as poison; - With red lips sweeter than Arabian storax, - Yet bitterer than myrrh. O tears and kisses! - O eyes and lips, that haunt my soul forever! - - Again Spring walks transcendent on the mountains: - The woods are hushed: the vales are full of shadows: - Above the heights, steeped in a thousand splendors, - Like some vast canvas of the gods, hangs burning - The sunset's wild sciography: and slowly - The moon treads heaven's proscenium,--night's stately - White queen of love and tragedy and madness. - - Again I know forgotten dreams and longings; - Ideals lost; desires dead and buried - Beside the altar sacrifice erected - Within the heart's high sanctuary. Strangely - Again I know the horror and the rapture, - The utterless awe, the joy akin to anguish, - The terror and the worship of the spirit. - - Again I feel her eyes pierce through and through me; - Her deep eyes, lovelier than imperial pansies, - Velvet and flame, through which her strong will holds me, - Powerless and tame, and draws me on and onward - To sad, unsatisfied and animal yearnings, - Wild, unrestrained--the brute within the human-- - To fling me panting on her mouth and bosom. - - Again I feel her lips like ice and fire, - Her red lips, odorous as Arabian storax, - Fragrance and fire, within whose kiss destruction - Lies serpent-like. Intoxicating languors - Resistlessly embrace me, soul and body; - And we go drifting, drifting--she is laughing-- - Outcasts of God, into the deep's abysm. - - - - -THE LAND OF ILLUSION - - -I - - So we had come at last, my soul and I, - Into that land of shadowy plain and peak, - On which the dawn seemed ever about to break, - On which the day seemed ever about to die. - - -II - - Long had we sought fulfillment of our dreams, - The everlasting wells of Joy and Youth; - Long had we sought the snow-white flow'r of Truth, - That blooms eternal by eternal streams. - - -III - - And, fonder still, we hoped to find the sweet - Immortal presence, Love; the bird Delight - Beside her; and, eyed with sideral night, - Faith, like a lion, fawning at her feet. - - -IV - - But, scorched and barren, in its arid well, - We found our dreams' forgotten fountain-head; - And by black, bitter waters, crushed and dead, - Among wild weeds, Truth's trampled asphodel. - - -V - - And side by side with pallid Doubt and Pain, - Not Love, but Grief did meet us there: afar - We saw her, like a melancholy star, - A pensive moon, move towards us o'er the plain. - - -VI - - Sweet was her face as song that tells of home; - And filled our hearts with vague, suggestive spells - Of pathos, as sad ocean fills its shells - With sympathetic moanings of the foam. - - -VII - - She raised one hand and pointed silently, - And passed; her eyes, gaunt with a thirst unslaked, - Were worlds of woe, where tears in torrents ached, - Yet never fell. And like a winter sea,-- - - -VIII - - Whose caverned crags are haunts of wreck and wrath, - That house the condor pinions of the storm,-- - My soul replied; and, weeping, arm in arm, - To'ards those dim hills, by that appointed path, - - -IX - - We turned and went. Arrived, we did discern - How Beauty beckoned, white 'mid miles of flowers, - Through which, behold, the amaranthine - Hours - Like maidens went, each holding high an urn; - - -X - - Wherein, it seemed--drained from long chalices - Of those slim flowers--they bore mysterious wine; - A poppied vintage, full of sleep divine, - And pale forgetting of all miseries. - - -XI - - Then to my soul I said, "No longer weep. - Come, let us drink; for hateful is the sky, - And earth is full of care, and life's a lie. - So let us drink; yea, let us drink and sleep." - - -XII - - Then from their brimming urns we drank sweet must, - While all around us rose-crowned faces laughed - Into our own: but hardly had we quaffed - When, one by one, these crumbled into dust. - - -XIII - - And league on league the eminence of blooms, - That flashed and billowed like a summer sea, - Rolled out a waste of thorns and tombs; where bee - And butterfly and bird hung dead in looms - - -XIV - - Of worm and spider. And through tomb and brier, - A thin wind, parched with bitter salt and sand, - Went wailing as if mourning some lost land - Of perished empire, Babylon or Tyre. - - -XV - - Long, long with blistered feet we wandered in - That land of ruins, through whose sky of brass - Hate's harpy shrieked; and in whose iron grass - The hydra hissed of undestroyable Sin. - - -XVI - - And there at last, behold, the House of Doom,-- - Red, as if Hell had glared it into life, - Blood-red, and howling with incessant strife,-- - With burning battlements, towered through the gloom. - - -XVII - - And throned within sat Darkness.--Who might gaze - Upon that form, that threatening presence there, - Crowned with the flickering corpse-lights of Despair, - And yet escape sans madness and amaze? - - -XVIII - - And we had hoped to find among these hills - The House of Beauty!--Curst, yea thrice accurst, - The hope that lures one on from last to first - With vain illusions that no time fulfills! - - -XIX - - Why will we struggle to attain, and strive, - When all we gain is but an empty dream?-- - Better, unto my thinking, doth it seem - To end it all and let who will survive: - - -XX - - To find at last all beauty is but dust: - That love and sorrow are the very same: - That joy is only suffering's sweeter name: - And sense is but the synonym of lust. - - -XXI - - Far better, yea, to me it seems, to die! - To set glad lips against the lips of Death-- - The only thing God gives that comforteth, - The only thing we do not find a lie. - - - - -THE LAST SONG - - - She sleeps: he sings to her: the day was long, - And, tired out with too much happiness, - She fain would have him sing of old Provence; - Old songs, that spoke of love in such soft tones, - Her restless soul was straight besieged of dreams, - And her wild heart beleaguered of deep peace, - And heart and soul surrendered unto sleep.-- - Like perfect sculpture in the moon she lies, - Its pallor on her through heraldic panes - Of one tall casement's guléd quarterings.-- - Beside her couch, an antique table, weighed - With gold and crystal; here, a carven chair, - Whereon her raiment,--that suggests sweet curves - Of shapely beauty,--bearing her limbs' impress, - Is richly laid: and, near the chair, a glass, - An oval mirror framed in ebony: - And, dim and deep,--investing all the room - With ghostly life of woven women and men, - And strange, fantastic gloom, where shadows move,-- - Dark tapestry,--which in the gusts--that twinge - A dropping cresset's slender star of light-- - Seems swayed of cautious hands, assassin-like, - That bide their hour. - - She alone, deep-haired - As golden dawn, and whiter than a rose, - Divinely breasted as the Queen of Love, - Lies robeless in the glimmer of the moon, - Like Danaë within the golden shower. - Seated beside her aromatic rest, - In silence musing on her loveliness, - Her knight and troubadour. A lute, aslope - The curious baldric of his tunic, glints - Pearl-caught reflections of the moon, that seem - The voiceless ghosts of long-dead melodies. - In purple and sable, slashed with solemn gold, - Like stately twilight over slopes of snow, - He leans above her.-- - - Have his hands forgot - Their craft, that now they pause upon the strings? - His lips, their art, that they cease, speechless there?-- - His eyes are set ... What is it stills to stone - His hands? his lips? and mails him, head and heel, - In terrible marble, motionless and cold?-- - Behind the arras, can it be he feels, - Black-browed and grim, with eyes of sombre fire, - Death towers above him with uplifted sword? - - - - -THE DREAM OF RODERICK - - - Below, the tawny Tagus swept - Past royal gardens, breathing balm: - Upon his couch the monarch slept; - The world was still; the night was calm. - - Gray, Gothic-gated, in the ray - Of moonrise, tower and castle-crowned, - The city of Toledo lay - Beneath the terraced palace-ground. - - Again, he dreamed, in kingly sport - He sought the tree-sequestered path, - And watched the ladies of his Court - Within the marble-basined bath. - - Its porphyry stairs and fountained base - Shone, houried with voluptuous forms, - Where Andalusia vied in grace - With old Castile, in female charms. - - And laughter, song, and water-splash - Rang round the place, with rock arcaded, - As here a breast or limb would flash - Where beauty swam or beauty waded. - - And then, like Venus, from the wave - A maiden came, and stood below; - And by her side a woman slave - Bent down to dry her limbs of snow. - - Then on the tesselated bank, - Robed on with fragrance and with fire,-- - Like some exotic flower--she sank, - The type of all divine desire. - - Then her dark curls, that sparkled wet, - She parted from her perfect brows, - And, lo, her eyes, like lamps of jet - Lit in an alabaster house. - - And in his sleep the monarch sighed, - "Florinda!"--Dreaming still he moaned, - "Ah, would that I had died, had died! - I have atoned! I have atoned!"... - - And then the vision changed: O'erhead - Tempest and darkness were unrolled, - Full of wild voices of the dead, - And lamentations manifold. - - And wandering shapes of gaunt despair - Swept by; and faces pale with pain, - Whose eyes wept blood and seemed to glare - Fierce curses on him through the rain. - - And then, it seemed, 'gainst blazing skies - A necromantic tower sate, - Crag-like on crags, of giant size; - With adamatine wall and gate. - - And from the storm a hand of might, - Red-rolled in thunder, reached among - The gate's huge bolts, that burst--and night - Clanged ruin as its hinges swung. - - Then far away a murmur trailed,-- - As of sad seas on cavern'd shores,-- - That grew into a voice that wailed, - "They come! they come! the Moors! the Moors!" - - And with deep boom of atabals - And crash of cymbals and wild peal - Of battle-bugles, from its walls - An army rushed in glimmering steel. - - And where it trod he saw the torch - Of conflagration stalk the skies, - And in the vanward of its march - The monster form of Havoc rise. - - And Paynim war-cries rent the storm, - Athwart whose firmament of flame - Destruction reared an earthquake form - On wreck and death without a name.... - - And then again the vision changed: - Where flows the Guadelete, see, - The champions of the Cross are ranged - Against the Crescent's chivalry. - - With roar of trumpets and of drums - They meet; and in the battle's van - He fights; and, towering towards him, comes - Florinda's father, Julian; - - And one-eyed Taric, great in war: - And where these couch their burning spears, - The Christian phalanx, near and far, - Goes down like corn before the shears. - - The Moslem wins: the Christian flies: - "Allah il Allah," hill and plain - Reverberate: the rocking skies, - "Allah il Allah," shout again. - - And then he dreamed the swing of swords - And hurl of arrows were no more; - And stranger than the howling hordes - Deep silence fell on field and shore. - - And through the night, it seemed, he fled, - Upon a white steed like a star, - Across a field of endless dead, - Beneath a blood-red scimitar - - Of sunset: And he heard a moan, - Beneath, around, on every hand-- - "Accurséd! Yea, what hast thou done - To bring this curse upon thy land?" - - And then an awful sense of wings: - And, lo! the answer--"'Twas his lust - That was his crime. Behold! e'en kings - Must reckon with Me. God is just." - - - - -ZYPS OF ZIRL - - - The Alps of the Tyrol are dark with pines, - Where, foaming under the mountain spines, - The Inn's long water sounds and shines. - - Beyond, are peaks where the morning weaves - An icy rose; and the evening leaves - The golden ghosts of a thousand sheaves. - - Deep vines and torrents and glimmering haze, - And sheep-bells tinkling on mountain ways, - And fluting shepherds make sweet the days. - - The rolling mist, like a wandering fleece, - The great, round moon in a mountain crease, - And a song of love make the nights all peace. - - Beneath the blue Tyrolean skies - On the banks of the Inn, that foams and flies, - The storied city of Innsbruck lies. - - With its mediæval streets, that crook, - And its gabled houses, it has the look - Of a belfried town in a fairy book. - - So wild the Tyrol that oft, 'tis said, - When the storm is out and the town in bed, - The howling of wolves sweeps overhead. - - And oft the burgher, sitting here - In his walled rose-garden, hears the clear - Shrill scream of the eagle circling near. - - And this is the tale that the burghers tell:-- - The Abbot of Wiltau stood at his cell - Where the Solstein lifts its pinnacle. - - A mighty summit of bluffs and crags - That frowns on the Inn; where the forest stags - Have worn a path to the water-flags. - - The Abbot of Wiltau stood below; - And he was aware of a plume and bow - On the precipice there in the morning's glow, - - A chamois, he saw, from span to span - Had leapt; and after it leapt a man; - And he knew 'twas the Kaiser Maximilian. - - But, see! though rash as the chamois he, - His foot less sure. And verily - If the King should miss ... "Jesu! Marie! - - "The King hath missed!"--And, look, he falls! - Rolls headlong out to the headlong walls. - What Saint shall save him on whom he calls? - - What Saint shall save him, who struggles there - On the narrow ledge by the eagle's lair, - With hook'd hands clinging 'twixt earth and air? - - The Abbot crosses himself in dread-- - "Let prayers go up for the nearly dead, - And the passing-bell be tolled," he said. - - "For the House of Hapsburg totters! See, - How raveled the thread of its destiny, - Sheer hung between cloud and rock!" quoth he. - - But hark! where the steeps of the peak reply, - Is it an eagle's echoing cry? - And the flitting shadow, its plumes on high? - - No voice of the eagle is that which rings! - And the shadow, a wiry man who swings - Down, down where the desperate Kaiser clings. - - The _crampons_ bound to his feet, he leaps - Like a chamois now; and again he creeps - Or twists, like a snake, o'er the fearful deeps. - - "By his cross-bow, baldric, and cap's black curl," - Quoth the Abbot below, "I know the churl! - 'Tis the hunted outlaw Zyps of Zirl. - - "Upon whose head, or dead or alive, - The Kaiser hath posted a price.--Saints shrive - The King!" quoth Wiltau. "Who may contrive - - "To save him now that his foe is there?"-- - But, hark! again through the breathless air - What words are those that the echoes bear? - - "Courage, my King!--To the rescue, ho!" - The wild voice rings like a twanging bow, - And the staring Abbot stands mute below. - - And, lo! the hand of the outlaw grasps - The arm of the King--and death unclasps - Its fleshless fingers from him who gasps. - - And how he guides! where the clean cliffs wedge - Them flat to their brows; by chasm and ledge - He helps the King from the merciless edge. - - Then up and up, past bluffs that shun - The rashest chamois; where eagles sun - Great wings and brood; where the mists are spun. - - And safe at last stand Kaiser and churl - On the mountain path where the mosses curl-- - And this the revenge of Zyps of Zirl. - - - - -THE GLOW-WORM - - - How long had I sat there and had not beheld - The gleam of the glow-worm till something compelled!... - - The heaven was starless, the forest was deep, - And the vistas of darkness stretched silent in sleep. - - And late 'mid the trees had I lingered until - No thing was awake but the lone whippoorwill. - - And haunted of thoughts for an hour I sat - On a lichen-gray rock where the moss was a mat. - - And thinking of one whom my heart had held dear, - Like terrible waters, a gathering fear - - Came stealing upon me with all the distress - Of loss and of yearning and powerlessness: - - Till the hopes and the doubts and the sleepless unrest - That, swallow-like, built in the home of my breast, - - Now hither, now thither, now heavenward flew, - Wild-winged as the winds are: now suddenly drew - - My soul to abysses of nothingness where - All light was a shadow, all hope, a despair: - - Where truth, that religion had set upon high, - The darkness distorted and changed to a lie: - - And dreams of the beauty ambition had fed - Like leaves of the autumn fell withered and dead. - - And I rose with my burden of anguish and doom, - And cried, "O my God, had I died in the womb! - - "Than born into night, with no hope of the morn, - An heir unto shadows, to live so forlorn! - - "All effort is vain; and the planet called Faith - Sinks down; and no power is real but death. - - "O light me a torch in the deepening dark - So my sick soul may follow, my sad heart may mark!"-- - - And then in the darkness the answer!--It came - From Earth, not from Heaven--a glimmering flame, - - Behold; at my feet! In the shadow it shone - Mysteriously lovely and dimly alone: - - An ember; a sparkle of dew and of glower; - Like the lamp that a spirit hangs under a flower: - - As goldenly green as the phosphorous star - A fairy may wear in her diadem's bar: - - An element essence of moonlight and dawn - That, trodden and trampled, burns on and burns on. - - And hushed was my soul with the lesson of light - That God had revealed to me there in the night: - - Though mortal its structure, material its form, - The spiritual message of worm unto worm. - - - - -A FOREST IDYLL - - -I - - Beneath an old beech-tree - They sat together, - Fair as a flower was she - Of summer weather. - They spoke of life and love, - While, through the boughs above, - The sunlight, like a dove, - Dropped many a feather. - - -II - - And there the violet, - The bluet near it, - Made blurs of azure wet-- - As if some spirit, - Or woodland dream, had gone - Sprinkling the earth with dawn, - When only Fay and Faun - Could see or hear it. - - -III - - She with her young, sweet face - And eyes gray-beaming, - Made of that forest place - A spot for dreaming: - A spot for Oreads - To smooth their nut-brown braids, - For Dryads of the glades - To dance in, gleaming. - - -IV - - So dim the place, so blest, - One had not wondered - Had Dian's moonéd breast - The deep leaves sundered, - And there on them a while - The goddess deigned to smile, - While down some forest aisle - The far hunt thundered. - - -V - - I deem that hour, perchance, - Was but a mirror - To show them Earth's romance - And draw them nearer: - A mirror where, meseems, - All that this Earth-life dreams, - All loveliness that gleams, - Their souls saw clearer. - - -VI - - Beneath an old beech-tree - They dreamed of blisses; - Fair as a flower was she - That summer kisses: - They spoke of dreams and days, - Of love that goes and stays, - Of all for which life prays, - Ah me! and misses. - - - - -UNDER THE ROSE - - - He told a story to her, - A story old yet new-- - And was it of the Faery Folk - That dance along the dew? - - The night was hung with silence - As a room is hung with cloth, - And soundless, through the rose-sweet hush, - Swooned dim the down-white moth. - - Along the east a shimmer, - A tenuous breath of flame, - From which, as from a bath of light, - Nymph-like, the girl-moon came. - - And pendent in the purple - Of heaven, like fireflies, - Bubbles of gold the great stars blew - From windows of the skies. - - He told a story to her, - A story full of dreams-- - And was it of the elfin things - That haunt the thin moonbeams? - - Upon the hill a thorn-tree, - Crookéd and gnarled and gray, - Against the moon seemed some crutched hag - Dragging a child away. - - And in the vale a runnel, - That dripped from shelf to shelf, - Seemed in the night, a woodland witch - Who muttered to herself. - - Along the land a zephyr, - Whose breath was wild perfume, - That seemed a sorceress who wove - Sweet spells of beam and bloom. - - He told a story to her, - A story young yet old-- - And was it of the mystic things - Men's eyes shall ne'er behold? - - They heard the dew drip faintly - From out the green-cupped leaf; - They heard the petals of the rose - Unfolding from their sheaf. - - They saw the wind light-footing - The waters into sheen; - They saw the starlight kiss to sleep - The blossoms on the green. - - They heard and saw these wonders; - These things they saw and heard; - And other things within the heart - For which there is no word. - - He told a story to her, - The story men call Love, - Whose echoes fill the ages past-- - And the world ne'er tires of. - - - - -SPIRIT OF DREAMS - - -I - - Where hast thou folded thy pinions, - Spirit of Dreams? - Hidden elusive garments - Woven of gleams? - In what divine dominions, - Brighter than day, - Far from the world's dark torments, - Dost thou stay, dost thou stay?-- - When shall my yearnings reach thee - Again? - Not in vain let my soul beseech thee! - Not in vain! not in vain! - - -II - - I have longed for thee as a lover - For her, the one; - As a brother for a sister - Long dead and gone. - I have called thee over and over - Names sweet to hear; - With words than music trister, - And thrice as dear. - How long must my sad heart woo thee, - Yet fail? - How long must my soul pursue thee, - Nor avail, nor avail? - - -III - - All night hath thy loving mother, - Beautiful Sleep, - Lying beside me, listened - And heard me weep. - But ever thou soughtest another - Who sought thee not; - For him thy soft smile glistened-- - I was forgot. - When shall my soul behold thee - As before? - When shall my heart enfold thee?-- - Nevermore? nevermore? - - - - -PROCESSIONAL - - - Universes are the pages - Of that book whose words are ages; - Of that book which destiny - Opens in eternity. - - There each syllable expresses - Silence; there each thought a guess is; - In whose rhetoric's cosmic runes - Roll the worlds and swarming moons. - - There the systems, we call solar, - Equatorial and polar, - Write their lines of rushing light - On the awful leaves of night. - - There the comets, vast and streaming, - Punctuate the heavens' gleaming - Scroll; and suns, gigantic, shine, - Periods to each starry line. - - There, initials huge, the Lion - Looms and measureless Orion; - And, as 'neath a chapter done, - Burns the Great-Bear's colophon. - - Constellated, hieroglyphic, - Numbering each page terrific, - Fiery on the nebular black, - Flames the hurling zodiac. - - In that book, o'er which Chaldean - Wisdom poured and many an eon - Of philosophy long dead, - This is all that man has read:-- - - He has read how good and evil,-- - In creation's wild upheaval,-- - Warred; while God wrought terrible - At foundations red of Hell. - - He has read of man and woman; - Laws and gods, both beast and human; - Thrones of hate and creeds of lust, - Vanished now and turned to dust. - - Arts and manners that have crumbled; - Cities buried; empires tumbled: - Time but breathed on them its breath; - Earth is builded of their death. - - These but lived their little hour, - Filled with pride and pomp and power; - What availed it all at last? - We shall pass as they have passed. - - Still the human heart will dream on - Love, part angel and part demon; - Yet, I question, what secures - Our belief that aught endures? - - In that book, o'er which Chaldean - Wisdom poured and many an eon - Of philosophy long dead, - This is all that man has read. - - - - -SONG AND STORY - - - - -TO HARRISON S. MORRIS - - - _Ah, not for us the Heavens that hold - God's message of Promethean fire! - The flame that fell on bards of old - To hallow and inspire._ - - _Yet let the soul dream on and dare - No less Song's heights where these repose: - We can but fail; and may prepare - The way for one like those._ - - - - -SONG AND STORY - - - I was destined, when a baby, - For that land which lieth hidden - In the moon; and whither, may be, - At their birth all souls are bidden. - - She bewitched me then and bound me, - She a daughter of Apollo, - In a golden snare who wound me, - And compelled me thus to follow:-- - - Once she sent a stallion, sired - Of the Wind; a mare his mother, - Whom Thessalian madness fired, - And the Hurricane his brother. - - And a voice said, "Do not tarry! - Mount him while the world is sleeping: - He, my beautiful, will carry - You, my Soul, into my keeping." - - And I mounted: tempest whistled - In my ears, and, yawning o'er us, - Flamed the lightning; boomed the missiled - Thunder, crashing far before us. - - On we hurled. The world was rubble - Underneath us; and the wonder - Of our passage seemed to double - Heaven's tempest and its thunder. - - With us rode the air's wild races: - Wisps and witches; all the Brocken, - Stunted, gnarled, with fiendish faces, - Seemed around us, gibing, mocking: - - Hate, that shook the heart with hooting: - Humpbacked Horror; gibbet-headed - Murder: and,--great ravens shooting - Over,--Fear, in bats embedded. - - All were left; were passed like water - Hurling headlong from a mountain,-- - Hag and elf and demon's daughter,-- - Ere we reached that mystic fountain. - - There we stopped. I drained a beaker - Old as Earth: the draught was fire: - On my soul the burning liquor - Acted like a new desire. - - On again! The darkness lifted - Like an up-rolled banner. Scattered - Overhead, in points that shifted, - Shone the stars through tempest tattered. - - Then the moon rose. Slowly, slowly, - Of a wild and copper color, - Rose the moon, in melancholy - Deeps; and all the stars grew duller. - - And we passed,--an instant's scanning,-- - Swift as thought, the spider-arches - Of the ray-built bridges spanning - Space between her lunar marches. - - So I reached her kingdom, olden - As the God that was its maker, - Where the rocks and trees are golden, - And the sea and air are nacre. - - Where, 'mid ingot-glowing flowers, - Over streams of diamond brightness, - Palaces of pearl and towers, - Wrought of topaz, loom in whiteness. - - Here she met me with a chalice, - Like the Giamschid ruby burning; - And I entered in her palace, - From the world forever turning. - - Centuries have passed, have vanished; - Still she holds me with her glory, - She, whom Earth long since hath banished? - She, the Soul of Song and Story. - - - - -AN INDIAN LEGEND - - - On a mountain by a fountain, - By a faintly falling stream, - Where upon the moss and flowers, - Sparkling, fell the spray in showers, - In the moonlight's mystic beam, - Once a maiden came to dream, - Came to sit and sigh and dream: - On a mountain by a fountain, - By a faintly falling stream. - - To the fountain on the mountain - Rode a youth upon a steed; - In his hair an eagle's feather; - Round his waist a belt of leather, - Wampum-wrought with shell and bead; - In his hands a hollow reed, - In his hands a magic reed: - To the fountain on the mountain - Rode a youth upon a steed. - - On the mountain by the fountain, - When the moon shone overhead, - While the maiden by him wavered, - Low upon his reed he quavered, - Piped and played and singing said,-- - "Listen and be comforted! - Heart of mine, be comforted!" - On the mountain by the fountain - When the moon shone overhead. - - By the fountain on the mountain, - So the Indian legend saith, - Paler, paler grew the maiden, - Paler as if sorrow laden, - Frailer, paler at each breath, - Saying, "Art thou Love or Death?" - And he answered, "I am Death." - By the fountain on the mountain - So the Indian legend saith. - - Gone the mountain and the fountain - Where the maiden's soul was lost: - But in every stream you hear it - Whispering, sighing, like a spirit, - Hear the Indian maiden's ghost, - In the foam as white as frost, - Whiter than the winter's frost: - Gone the mountain and the fountain - Where the maiden's soul was lost. - - - - -JOHN DAVIS, BOUCANIER - - - High time, high time, good gentlemen, to sail the Spanish Main! - Three months we've watched for galleons and treasure bound for Spain; - Three months! and not a vessel, neither barque nor brigantine! - No Cartagena plate-ship, or De Dios, have we seen. - Our sails are idle as the wind, our ships as gulls or waves.-- - And shall inaction rot us like a gang of shackled slaves? - Up, boucaniers! the land is wide, and wider far the sea-- - Somewhere between the dusk and dawn and dusk some hope must be; - Some ship somewhere or city there beneath the Indian sky-- - What matter whether east or west!--some ship with decks built high, - With treasure packed from stem to stern: some huge ship of the line, - Against whose ports we'll cram our ports, while all our cannon shine - And thunder; then, with blade to blade, and shouting horde on horde, - Swarm up her sides and sweep her decks with pistol and with sword; - And, sink or swim, our flag flies there, we boucaniers aboard. - - Say, what availed your patron saints, Iago and Saint Marc, - Lanceros, Adelantados, against Ravenau's barque? - O butchers of good Jean Ribault, well might your cheeks turn pale - When Montebaro's brigantine shook to the wind her sail! - Around the coasts where New Spain boasts the haughtiness of Old, - Her tyranny, her bigotry, her sordid greed for gold, - From east to west, from north to south, among the Carib Isles, - Swift to revenge the Frenchman swept across the foaming miles. - The spirit of Pierre-le-Grand and of his gallant crew, - Who took a galleon with a boat, beneath the tropic blue, - Be with us now!--Up, gentlemen! and, Spain, oh, woe to you! - - Prime arquebus and brighten blade, and let the culverin - Gleam, burnished as the morning-star, as through the foam we spin; - And now be glad as when we had Granada in our hold, - And stabbed the city's sentinels and took the city's gold: - New Spain's good homes and churches, aye, will not forget too soon - The boucanier, John Davis, sirs, who taught their Dons a tune-- - Dutch serenades of belts and blades they danced to by the moon! - - What helped the Latin of their monks to curse what Satan blessed! - Those pieces,--broad,--of eight and plate we counted in our chest. - And now that we may double or may treble every piece, - Pipe up the anchor, boatswain! and, before the hawser cease, - Let every sail salute the gale and every rope be taunt-- - The Devil take all care and us, if jaundiced colors daunt! - - The sea-gulls dip and dive and float, and swim and soar again; - Be like them, merry gentlemen, high-hearted!--May it rain - Rich galleons for us!--Mix a bowl and drink, "The ships of Spain!" - Be merry as the sea-gulls are; and, as the case may go, - Who cares a curse for wealth!--Now drink: "Here's to Spain's - overthrow!"-- - Doff caps and follow: though the prize be over-fat or lean, - Kneel down now; give her praise who leads, Dame Fortune, our good - Queen! - Upon our prow she guides us now!--On to Saint Augustine! - - - - -VOYAGERS - - - Where are they, that song and tale - Tell of, lands our childhood knew? - Sea-locked Fairy-lands that trail - Morning summits, wet with dew, - Crimson, o'er a crimson sail? - - Where, in dreams, we entered on - Wonders eyes have never seen: - Whither often we have gone, - Sailing a dream-brigantine - On from voyaging dawn to dawn. - - Leons seeking lands of song; - Fabled fountains pouring spray; - Where our anchors dropped among - Corals of some blooming bay, - With its swarthy native throng. - - Shoulder axe and arquebus!-- - We may find it, past yon range - Of sierras, vaporous, - Rich with gold and wild and strange, - That dim region lost to us. - - Yet, behold, although our zeal - Darien summits may subdue, - Our Balboa eyes reveal - But a vaster sea come to; - New endeavor for our keel. - - Yet!--who sails with face set hard - Westward, while behind him lies - Unfaith; where his dreams keep guard - Round it, in the sunset skies, - He may reach it--afterward. - - - - -HIEROGLYPHS - - -I - - All dreams are older than the seas, - Being but newer forms of change; - Some savage dreamed mine; and 'twas these - De Leon sought where seas were strange. - - All thoughts are older than the Earth - Being of beauty ages wrought; - Old when creation gave them birth, - When Homer sang them, Shakespeare thought. - - -II - - If souls could travel as can thought, - Beyond the farthest arcs that span - Imagination, what would man - Not know and see at last? - One would explore the stars; and one - Would search the moon and one the sun - And tell us of their past. - - And one would seek out Hell; and, wise - In tortures of the damned, return - To tell us if they freeze or burn, - And where God's red Hell lies: - And one would look on Heaven; and, mute - With memories of harp and lute, - Sit silent as the skies. - - But I--on condor wings would sweep - To some new world, and, soaring, sit - 'Mid firmaments volcano-lit, - And see creation heap - Its awful Andes, vague and vast, - About its Inca-peopled past, - While deep roared out to deep. - - -III - - Out of it all but this remains:-- - I dreamed that I had crossed wide chains - Of Cordilleras, whose huge peaks - Lock in the wilds of Yucatan, - Chiapas and Honduras. Weeks-- - And then a city that no man - Had even seen; so dim and old - No chronicle has ever told - The history of men who piled - Its temples and huge teocallis - Among mimosa-blooming valleys; - Or how its altars were defiled - With human blood; whose idols there - With eyes of stone still stand and stare. - - So old, the moon can only know - How old, since ancient forests grow - On mighty wall and pyramid. - Huge ceïbas, whose trunks were scarred - With ages, and dense yuccas, hid - Fanes 'mid great cacti, scarlet-starred. - I looked upon its paven ways - And saw it in its kingliest days; - When, from its lordliest palace, one - A victim, walked with prince and priest, - Who turned brown faces toward the east - In worship of the rising sun: - At night a thousand temple spires, - Of gold, burnt everlasting fires. - - Uxmal? Palenque? or Copan? - I know not. Only how no man - Had ever seen; and still my soul - Believes it vaster than the three. - Volcanic rock walled in the whole, - Lost in the woods as in some sea. - _I only_ read its hieroglyphs, - Perused its monster monoliths - Of death, gigantic heads; and read - The pictured codex of its fate, - The perished Toltec; while in hate - Mad monkeys cursed me, as if dead - Priests of its past had taken form - To guard their ruined fanes from harm. - - -IV - - And then it was as if I talked - Of gods and beauty, like a god; - 'Mid Montezuma's priests who walked - Obedient to my nod. - - From Mexic levels breezes blew - O'er green magueys; cacaö fields; - I stood among caciques, a crew - With plumes and golden shields. - - In raiment made of humming-birds - Brown slave-girls danced. All Anahuac - Stood, grim with strange obsidian swords, - Around the idol's rock. - - And up the temple's winding stair - Of pyramid we wound and went: - The bloomed vanilla drenched the air - With all its tropic scent. - - Volcanoes walled us in: and I - Walked, crowned with flaming cactus-flowers, - Beneath the golden, Aztec sky, - Lord of the living hours. - - When, lo! five priests, who led me to - A jasper stone of sacrifice!-- - Then deep within my soul I knew - That prideful moment's price. - - A sixth priest, robed in cochineal, - Received me at the altar's stone: - I saw the flint-blade, sharp as steel, - That in his high hand shone. - - O God! to dream that they would bind-- - With pomp and pageant of their love-- - Me to the rock, and never blind - Mine eyes to that above! - - I felt the flint hack through my breast, - And in my agony did raise - Wild eyes, a little while to rest - Upon their idol's face. - - Just God! the priest tore out my heart, - And held it, beating, to the sun-- - Chanting--and from one burning part - Great drops dripped, one by one. - - Torn out, I felt my heart still beat, - I felt it beat with pain divine; - For, bleeding at the idol's feet, - My heart was pressed to thine. - - -V - - You were a maiden like a dream - Who led me where volcanic dust - Rained in a scoriac mountain stream, - Where, from Andean snows, was thrust - One crater belching stones and steam. - - You were an Inca princess when - I was a cavalier of Spain, - Who frowned among Pizarro's men, - And saw the New World rent with pain.-- - No grace of God could save me then. - - And it was you who led me far - To gaze on caves of Inca gold: - But when we came, lo! warrior - On warrior, an army rolled - Around us panoplied for war. - - Fierce faces chiseled out of stone - Are not more stern.--Down, underneath, - I heard the sullen earthquake groan; - Above me, red eruptions seeth. - And clenched my teeth and stood alone. - - And then you pled and was denied.-- - They laid me where the lava crawled, - Red-rivered, down the mountain side. - I felt the slow, slow hell-heat scald: - And as it closed, you leapt and died. - - -VI - - In farther planets there are men who talk, - Not with their lips, but with their eyes alone, - With beaming eyes and brows that burn with thought: - Pure souls whose sentiments need but be born - To be expressed. Where speech of mouth and tongue - Were barbarous discord. Where no voice imparts - Thought, but divulging eye and sensitive brow. - Superior planets, far beyond our sphere, - And nearer God than ages shall combine - To lift our world up with its wrangling woes. - Worlds that are strange to sickness and disease - Of mind and body; perfect mentally,-- - Past what we name perfection here on Earth,-- - And physically. Morally divine - As creeds have taught us God's high Heaven is. - Worlds where Love makes no playmate of vile Lust; - Where Hope makes no companion of Despair; - Where Power can not trample with fierce feet; - And, impotent, the iron hand of Might - Surrenders its red weapon unto Mind; - Where Truth and Thought are wedded, in one rule - Of far progression, whose white child is Love. - - So have I dreamed, and longed to leave sad Earth, - And live anew on some diviner sphere; - A world so higher, lovelier than this, - So spiritually perfected and refined, - That, should an Earth-born mortal,--suddenly - Translated thither,--unprepared behold, - Dazed with divinity, before the feet - Of its inhabitants he would fall prone - In worship and astonishment; and, all - The exaltation of celestial peace - Singing within, cry out: "Yea, this is Heaven! - How long, O sinner, hast thou dwelt in Hell!" - - -VII - - An iron despotism the day's: - A brutal anarchy the night's: - What hope for hope when day betrays, - And night in death delights? - - For, once I prayed for gulfs of gold, - And morn pooled heav'n with sombre blood: - For skies of stars, and skies behold-- - Malignant with the scud. - - And so I marvel not that he, - Gray-haired and toothless, hugs his stove, - While I my youth, which once was she, - Have buried with my love. - - -VIII - - All thoughts of nature are but forms - Of life and death, with which began - Love: love, that swept the heavens with storms, - Evolving worlds to perfect man. - - Thoughts are the forms of mind; and come - And go, assuming every shape: - Science and art: through which we clomb, - And climb, to angel from the ape. - - - - -A LEGEND OF THE LILY - - - Pale as a star that shines through rain - Her face was seen at the window-pane, - Her sad, frail face that watched in vain. - - The face of a girl whose brow was wan; - To whom the kind sun spoke at dawn, - And a star and the moon when the day was gone. - - And oft and often the sun had said-- - "O fair, white face, O sweet, fair head, - Come talk to me of the love that's dead." - - And she would sit in the sun a while, - Down in the garth by the old stone-dial, - Where never again would he make her smile. - - And often the first bright star o'erhead - Had whispered, "Sweet, where the rose blooms red, - Come look with me for the love that's dead." - - And she would wait with the star she knew, - Where the fountain splashed and the roses blew, - Where never again would he come to woo. - - And oft the moon, when she lay in bed, - Had sighed, "Dear heart, in the orchardstead - Come dream with me of the love that's dead." - - And she would stand in the moon, the dim, - Where the fruit made heavy the apple limb, - Where never again would she dream with him. - - So summer passed and the autumn came; - And the wind-torn boughs were touched with flame; - But her life and her sorrow remained the same. - - Or, if she changed, as it comes about - A life may change through trouble and doubt,-- - As a candle flickers and then goes out,-- - - 'Twas only to grow more quiet and wan, - Sadly waiting at dusk and at dawn - For the coming of love forever gone. - - And so, one night, when the star looked in, - It kissed her face that was white and thin, - And murmured, "Come! thou free of sin!" - - And when the moon, on another night, - Beheld her lying still and white, - It sighed, "'Tis well! now all is right." - - And when one morning the sun arose, - And they bore her bier down the garden-close, - It touched her, saying, "At last, repose." - - And they laid her down, so young and fair, - Where the grass was withered, the bough was bare, - All wrapped in the light of her golden hair. - - So autumn passed and the winter went; - And spring, like a blue-eyed penitent, - Came, telling her beads of blossom and scent. - - And, lo! to the grave of the beautiful - The strong sun cried, "Why art thou dull? - Awake! awake! Forget thy skull!" - - And the evening-star and the moon above - Called out, "O dust, now speak thereof! - Proclaim thyself! Arise, O love!" - - And the skull and the dust in the darkness heard. - Each icy germ in its cerements stirred, - As Lazarus moved at the Lord's loud word. - - And a flower arose on the mound of green, - White as the robe of the Nazarene; - To testify of the life unseen. - - And I paused by the grave; then went my way: - And it seemed that I heard the lily say-- - "Here was a miracle wrought to-day." - - - - -THE END OF THE CENTURY - - - There are moments when, as missions, - God reveals to us strange visions; - When, within their separate stations, - We may see the Centuries, - Like revolving constellations - Shaping out Earth's destinies. - - I have gazed in Time's abysses, - Where no smallest thing Earth misses - That was hers once. 'Mid her chattels, - There the Past's gigantic ghost - Sits and dreams of thrones and battles - In the night of ages lost. - - Far before her eyes, unholy - Mist was spread; that darkly, slowly - Rolled aside,--like some huge curtain - Hung above the land and sea;-- - And beneath it, wild, uncertain, - Rose the wraiths of memory. - - First I saw colossal spectres - Of dead cities: Troy--once Hector's - Pride; then Babylon and Tyre; - Karnac, Carthage, and the gray - Walls of Thebes,--Apollo's lyre - Built;--then Rome and Nineveh. - - Empires followed: first, in seeming, - Old Chaldea lost in dreaming; - Egypt next, a bulk Memnonian - Staring from her pyramids; - Then Assyria, Babylonian - Night beneath her hell-lit lids. - - Greece, in classic white, sidereal - Armored; Rome, in dark, imperial - Purple, crowned with blood and fire, - Down the deeps barbaric strode; - Gaul and Britain stalking by her, - Clad in skins, tattooed with woad. - - All around them, rent and scattered, - Lay their gods with features battered, - Brute and human, stone and iron, - Caked with gems and gnarled with gold; - Temples, that did once environ - These, in wreck around them rolled. - - While I stood and gazed and waited, - Slowly night obliterated - All; and other phantoms drifted - Out of darkness pale as stars; - Shapes that tyrant faces lifted, - Sultans, kings, and emperors. - - Man and steed in ponderous metal - Panoplied, they seemed to settle, - Condors gaunt of devastation, - On the world: behind their march-- - Desolation: Conflagration - Loomed before them with her torch. - - Helmets flamed like fearful flowers: - Chariots rose and moving towers: - Captains passed: each fierce commander - With his gauntlet on his sword: - Agamemnon, Alexander, - Cæsar, Alaric, horde on horde. - - Huns and Vandals: wild invaders: - Goths and Arabs: stern Crusaders: - Each, like some terrific torrent, - Rolled above a ruined world; - Till a cataract abhorrent - Seemed the swarming spears uphurled. - - Banners and escutcheons, kindled - By the light of slaughter, dwindled-- - Died in darkness:--the chimera - Of the Past was laid at last. - But, behold, another era - From her corpse rose, vague and vast. - - Demogorgon of the Present! - Who in one hand raised a Crescent, - In the other, with submissive - Fingers, lifted up a Cross; - Reverent and yet derisive - Seemed she, robed in gold and dross. - - In her skeptic eyes professions - Of great faith I saw; expressions, - Christian and humanitarian, - Played around her cynic lip; - Still I knew her a barbarian - By the sword upon her hip. - - And she cherished strange eidolons, - Pagan shadows--Plato's, Solon's-- - From whose teachings she indentured - Forms of law and sophistry; - Seeking aye for truth she ventured - Just so far as these could see. - - When she vanished, I--uplifting - Eyes to where the dawn was rifting - Darkness,--lo! beheld a shadow - Towering on Earth's utmost peaks; - Round whom morning's El Dorado - Rivered gold in blinding streaks. - - On her brow I saw the stigma - Still of death; and life's enigma - Filled her eyes: around her shimmered - Folds of silence; and afar, - Faint above her forehead, glimmered - Lone the light of one pale star. - - Then a voice,--above or under - Earth,--against her seemed to thunder - Questions, wherein was repeated, - "Christ or Cain?" and "Man or beast?" - And the Future, shadowy-sheeted, - Turned and pointed towards the East. - - - - -THE ISLE OF VOICES - - - The wind blew free that morn that we, - High-hearted, sailed away; - Bound for that Island named the Blest, - Remote within the unknown West, - Beyond the golden day. - - There, we were told, each dream of old, - Each deed and dream of youth, - Each myth of life's divinest prime, - And every romance, dear to time, - Put on immortal truth. - - The love undone; the aim unwon; - The hope that turned despair; - The thought unborn; the dream that died; - The unattained, unsatisfied, - Should be accomplished there. - - So we believed. And, undeceived, - A little crew set sail; - A little crew with hearts as stout - As any yet that faced a doubt - And tore away its veil. - - And time went by; and sea and sky - Had worn our masts and decks; - When, lo! one morn with canvas torn, - A phantom ship, we came forlorn - Into the Sea of Wrecks. - - There, day and night, the mist lay white, - And pale stars shone at noon; - The sea around was foam and fire, - And overhead hung, thin as wire, - A will-o'-wisp of moon. - - And through the mist, all white and whist, - Gaunt ships, with sea-weed wound, - With rotting masts, upon whose spars - The corposants lit spectre stars, - Sailed by without a sound. - - And all about,--now in, now out,-- - Their ancient hulls, was shed - The worm-like glow of green decay, - That writhed and glimmered in the gray - Of canvas overhead. - - And each that passed, in hull and mast, - Seemed that wild ship that flees - Before the tempest--seamen tell-- - Deep-cargoed with the curse of Hell, - Through roaring rain and seas. - - Ay! many a craft we left abaft - Upon that haunted sea; - But never a hulk that clewed a sail, - Or waved a hand, or answered hail, - And never a man saw we. - - At last we came where--pouring flame-- - In darkness and in storm, - Vast a volcano westward reared - An awful summit, lava-seared, - Like some terrific arm. - - And we could feel beneath our keel - The ocean throb and swell, - As if the Earthquake there uncoiled - Its monster bulk, or Titans toiled - At the red heart of Hell. - - Like madmen now we turned our prow - North, towards an ocean weird - Of Northern Lights and icy blasts; - And for ten moons with reeling masts - And leaking hold we steered. - - Then black as blood through streaming scud - Land loomed above our boom, - An isle of iron gulfs and crags - And cataracts, like wind-tossed rags, - And caverns lost in gloom. - - And burning white on every height, - And white in every cave, - A naked spirit, like a flame, - Now gleamed, now vanished; went and came - Above the windy wave. - - No mortal thing of foot or wing - Made glad its steep or strand; - But voices, voices seemingly-- - Vague voices of the sky and sea-- - Peopled the demon land. - - Yea, everywhere, in earth and air, - A lamentation wept; - That, gathering strength above, below, - Now like a mighty wind of woe, - Around the island swept. - - And in that sound, it seemed, was bound - All life's despair of art; - The bitterness of joy that died; - The anguish of faiths crucified; - And love that broke its heart. - - The ghost it seemed of all we'd dreamed, - Of all we had desired; - That--turned a curse, an empty cry-- - With wailing words went trailing by - In hope's dead robes attired. - - And could this be the land that we - Had sought for soon and late? - That Island of the Blest, the fair, - Where we had hoped to ease our care - And end the fight with fate. - - O lie that lured! O pain endured! - O toil and tears and thirst! - Where we had looked for blesséd ground - The Island of the Damned we found, - And in the end--were curst! - - - - -THE WATCHER - - - Young was the dream that held her when - The world was moon-white with the May: - She watched the singing fishermen - Sail out to sea at break of day: - Soft, as the morning heavens then, - The eyes that watched him sail away. - - Old was her grief when summer filled - The world with warm maturity: - Far off she watched the nets that spilled - Their twinkling foison by the sea: - Where on the rocks she sat and stilled - With song his infant on her knee. - - Who to her love would make them lies-- - Those vows his sea-slain manhood swore? - Beneath the raining autumn skies - The fishing vessels put to shore: - She watches with remembering eyes - For the brown face that comes no more. - - - - -AT THE SIGN OF THE SKULL - - - _It's "Gallop and go!" and "Slow, now, slow!" - With every man in this life below-- - But the things of the world are a fleeting show._ - - The post-chaise Time that all must take - Is old with clay and dust; - Two horses strain its rusty brake - Named Pleasure and Disgust. - - Our baggage totters on its roof, - Of Vanity and Care, - As Hope, the post-boy, spurs each hoof, - Or heavy-eyed Despair. - - And now a comrade with us rides, - Love, haply, or Remorse; - And that dim traveler besides, - Gaunt Memory on a horse. - - And be we king or be we kern - Who ride the roads of Sin, - No matter how the roads may turn - They lead us to that Inn: - - Unto that Inn within that land - Of silence and of gloom, - Whose ghastly Landlord takes our hand - And leads us to our room. - - _It's "Gallop and go!" and "Slow, now, slow!" - With every man in this life below-- - But the things of the world are a fleeting show._ - - - - -DUM VIVIMUS - - -I - - Now with the marriage of the lip and beaker - Let Joy be born! and in the rosy shine, - The slanting starlight of the lifted liquor, - Let Care, the hag, go drown! No more repine - At all life's ills! Come, bury them in wine! - Room for great guests! Yea, let us usher in - Philosophies of old Anacreon - And Omar, that, from dawn to glorious dawn, - Shall lesson us in love and song and sin. - - -II - - Some lives need less than others.--Who can ever - Say truly "Thou art mine," of Happiness? - Death comes to all. And one, to-day, is never - Sure of to-morrow, that may ban or bless; - And what's beyond is but a shadowy guess. - "All, all is vanity," the preacher sighs; - And in this world what has more right than - Wrong? - Come! let us hush remembrance with a song, - And learn with folly to be glad and wise. - - -III - - There was a poet of the East named Hâfiz, - Who sang of wine and beauty. Let us go - Praising them, too. And where good wine to quaff is - And maids to kiss, doff life's gray garb of woe; - For soon that tavern's reached, that inn, you know, - Where wine and love are not; where, sans disguise, - Each one must lie in his strait bed apart, - The thorn of sleep deep-driven in his heart, - And dust and darkness in his mouth and eyes. - - - - -FAILURE - - - There are some souls - Whose lot it is to set their hearts on goals - That adverse Fate controls. - - While others win - With little labor through life's dust and din, - And lord-like enter in - - Immortal gates; - And, of Success the high-born intimates, - Inherit Fame's estates.... - - Why is 't the lot - Of merit oft to struggle and yet not - Attain? to toil--for what? - - Simply to know - The disappointment, the despair, and woe - Of effort here below? - - Ambitious still to reach - Those lofty peaks, which men, aspiring, preach, - For which their souls beseech: - - Those heights that swell - Remote, removed, and unattainable, - Pinnacle on pinnacle: - - Still yearning to attain - Their far repose, above life's stress and strain, - But all in vain, in vain!... - - Why hath God put - Great longings in some souls and straightway shut - All doors of their clay hut? - - The clay accurst - That holds achievement back; from which, immersed, - The spirit may not burst. - - Were it, at least; - Not better to have sat at Circe's feast, - If afterwards a beast? - - Than aye to bleed, - To strain and strive, to toil in thought and deed, - And nevermore succeed? - - - - -THE CUP OF JOY - - - Let us mix a cup of Joy - That the wretched may employ, - Whom the Fates have made their toy. - - Who have given brain and heart - To the thankless world of Art, - And from Fame have won no part. - - Who have labored long at thought; - Starved and toiled and all for naught; - Sought and found not what they sought. - - Let our goblet be the skull - Of a fool; made beautiful - With a gold nor base nor dull: - - Gold of madcap fancies, once - It contained, that,--sage or dunce,-- - Each can read whoever runs. - - First we pour the liquid light - Of our dreams in; then the bright - Beauty that makes day of night. - - Let this be the must wherefrom, - In due time, the mettlesome - Care-destroying drink shall come. - - Folly next: with which mix in - Laughter of a child of sin, - And the red of mouth and chin. - - These shall give the tang thereto, - Effervescence and rich hue - Which to all good wine are due. - - Then into our cup we press - One wild kiss of wantonness, - And a glance that says not less. - - Sparkles both that give a fine - Lustre to the drink divine, - Necessary to good wine. - - Lastly in the goblet goes - Sweet a love-song, then a rose - Warmed upon _her_ breast's repose. - - These bouquet our drink.--Now measure - With your arm the waist you treasure-- - Lift the cup and drink to Pleasure. - - - - -LA JEUNESSE ET LA MORT - - -I - - Unto her fragrant face and hair,-- - As some wild-bee unto a rose, - That blooms in splendid beauty there - Within the South,--my longing goes: - My longing, that is overfain - To call her mine, but all in vain; - Since jealous Death, as each one knows, - Is guardian of La belle Heléne; - Of her whose face is very fair-- - To my despair, - Ah, belle Heléne. - - -II - - The sweetness of her face suggests - The sensuous scented Jacqueminots; - Magnolia blooms her throat and breasts; - Her hands, long lilies in repose: - Fair flowers all without a stain, - That grow for Death to pluck again, - Within that garden's radiant close. - The body of La belle Heléne; - The garden glad that she suggests,-- - That Death invests, - Ah, belle Heléne. - - -III - - God had been kinder to me,--when - He dipped His hands in fires and snows - And made you like a flower to ken, - A flower that in Earth's garden grows,-- - Had He, for pleasure or for pain, - Instead of Death in that domain, - Made Love the gardener to that rose, - Your loveliness, O belle Heléne! - God had been kinder to me then-- - Me of all men, - Ah, belle Heléne. - - - - -LOVE AND LOSS - - - Loss molds our lives in many ways, - And fills our souls with guesses; - Upon our hearts sad hands it lays - Like some grave priest that blesses. - - Far better than the love we win, - That earthly passions leaven, - Is love we lose, that knows no sin, - That points the path to Heaven. - - Love, whose soft shadow brightens Earth, - Through whom our dreams are nearest; - And loss, through whom we see the worth - Of all that we held dearest. - - Not joy it is, but misery - That chastens us, and sorrow;-- - Perhaps to make us all that we - Expect beyond To-morrow. - - Within that life where time and fate - Are not; that knows no seeming: - That world to which Death keeps the gate - Where Love and Loss sit dreaming. - - - - -THE END OF ALL - - -I - - I do not love you now, - O narrow heart, that had no heights but pride! - You, whom mine fed; to whom yours still denied - Food when mine hungered; and of which love died-- - I do not love you now. - - -II - - I do not love you now, - O shallow soul, with depths but to deceive! - You, whom mine watered; to whom yours did give - No drop to drink to help my love to live-- - I do not love you now. - - -III - - I do not love you now! - But did I love you in the old, old way, - And knew you loved me--'though the words should slay - Me and your love forever, I would say, - "I do not love you now! - I do not love you now!" - - - - -A ROSE O' THE HILLS - - - The hills look down on wood and stream - On orchard-land and farm; - And o'er the hills the azure-gray - Of heaven bends the livelong day, - And all the winds blow warm. - - On wood and stream the hills look down, - On farm and orchard-land; - And o'er the hills she came to me - Through wildrose-brake and blackberry, - The hill-winds hand in hand. - - The hills look down on home and field, - On wood and winding stream; - And o'er the hills she came along, - Upon her lips a wildwood song, - And in her eyes a dream. - - On home and field the hills look down, - On stream and hill-locked wood; - And breast-deep, with disordered hair, - Fair in the wildrose tangle there, - A sudden while she stood. - - O hills, that look on rock and road, - On grove and harvest-field, - To whom God giveth rest and peace, - And slumber, that is kin to these, - And visions unrevealed! - - O hills, that look on road and rock, - On field and fruited grove, - No more shall I find peace and rest - In you, since entered in my breast - God's sweet unrest of love! - - - - -THE WHITE VIGIL - - -I - - Last night I dreamed I saw you lying dead, - And by your sheeted form stood all alone: - Frail as a flower you lay upon your bed, - And on your face, through the wide casement, shone - The moonlight, pale as I, who kissed you there, - So young and fair, white violets in your hair. - - Oh, sick with suffering was my soul; and sad - To breaking was my heart that would not break; - And for my soul's great grief no tear I had, - No lamentation for my heart's deep ache; - Yet what I bore seemed more than I could bear, - Beside you there, white violets in your hair. - - A white rose, blooming at the window-bar, - And, glimmering in it, like a firefly caught - Upon the thorns, the light of one white star, - Looked in on you, as if they felt and thought, - As did my heart,--"How beautiful and fair - And young she lies, white violets in her hair!" - - And so we looked upon you, white and still, - The star, the rose, and I. The moon had past, - Like a pale traveler, behind the hill - With all her sorrowful silver. And at last - Darkness and tears and you, who did not care, - Lying so still, white violets in your hair. - - - - -A STUDY IN GRAY - - - A woman, fair to look upon, - Where waters whiten with the moon; - Around whom, glimmering o'er the lawn, - The white moths swoon. - - A mouth of music; eyes of love; - And hands of blended snow and scent, - That touch the pearly shadow of - An instrument. - - And low and sweet that song of sleep - After the song of love is hushed; - While all the longing, here, to weep, - Is held and crushed. - - Then leafy silence, that is musk - With breath of the magnolia tree, - While dwindles, moth-white, through the dusk - Her drapery. - - Let me remember how a heart - Wrote its romance upon that night!-- - God help my soul to read each part - Of it aright! - - And like a dead leaf shut between - A book's dull chapters, stained and dark, - That page, with immemorial green, - Of life I mark. - - -II - - It is not well for me to hear - That song's appealing melody: - The pain of loss comes all too near, - Through it, to me. - - The loss of her whose love looks through - The mist death's hand hath hung between-- - Within the shadow of the yew - Her grave is green. - - Ah, dream that vanished long ago! - Oh, anguish of remembered tears! - And shadow of unlifted woe - Athwart the years! - - That haunt the sad rooms of my days, - As keepsakes of unperished love, - Where pale the memory of her face - Hangs, framed above. - - This olden song of love and sleep, - She used to sing, is now a spell - That opens doors within the deep - Of my heart's hell, - - In music making visible - One soul-assertive memory, - That steals unto my side to tell - My loss to me. - - - - -AT VESPERS - - - High up in the organ-story - A girl stands, slim and fair; - And touched with the casement's glory - Gleams out her radiant hair. - - The young priest kneels at the altar, - Then lifts the Host above; - And the psalm intoned from the psalter - Is pure with patient love. - - A sweet bell chimes; and a censer - Swings, gleaming, in the gloom; - The candles glimmer and denser - Rolls up the pale perfume. - - Then high in the organ choir - A voice of crystal soars, - Of patience and soul's desire, - That suffers and adores. - - And out of the altar's dimness - An answering voice doth swell, - Of passion that cries from the grimness - And anguish of its own hell. - - High up in the organ-story - One kneels with a girlish grace; - And, touched with the vesper glory, - Lifts her madonna face. - - One stands at the cloudy altar, - A form bowed down and thin; - The text of the psalm in the psalter - He chants is sorrow and sin. - - * * * * * - - +------------------------------------------------------------------+ - | Transcriber notes: | - | | - | P. 61. Stanza 'X' should be 'IX', changed to 'IX'. | - | P. 178. Added end quotation and the end of the stanza. | - | P. 274. Added opening quote to "My heart is full of lightness!". | - | Fixed various punctuation. | - +------------------------------------------------------------------+ - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Poems of Madison Cawein, Volume 4 -(of 5), by Madison Cawein - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE POEMS OF MADISON CAWEIN *** - -***** This file should be named 56326-0.txt or 56326-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/6/3/2/56326/ - -Produced by Larry B. 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