And the Heaven's deep skies are blue;
My heart is high as the passionate year,
And smiles like a bud in dew.
My heart, my heart is high, my sweet,
For wild is the smell o' the wood,
That gusts in the breeze with a pulse o' heat,
Mad heat that beats like a blood.
My heart, my heart is high, my sweet,
And the sense of summer is full;
A sense of summer,--full fields of wheat,
Full forests and waters cool.
My heart is high, is high, my heart,
As the bee's that groans and swinks
In the dabbled flowers that dart and part
To his woolly bulk when he drinks.
My heart is high, is high, my heart,--
Oh, sing again, O good, gray bird,
That I may get that lilt by heart,
And fit each note with a word.
God's saints! I tread the air, my dear!
Flow one with the running wind;
And the stars that stare I swear, my dear,
Right soon in my hair I'll find.
To live high up a life of mist
With the white things in white skies,
With their limbs of pearl and of amethyst,
Who laugh blue humorous eyes!
Or to creep and to suck like an elfin thing
To the aching heart of a rose;
In the harebell's ear to cling and swing
And whisper what no one knows!
To live on wild honey as fresh as thin
As the rain that's left in a flower,
And roll forth golden from feet to chin
In the god-flower's Danae shower!
Or free, full-throated curve back the throat
With a vigorous look at the blue,
And sing right staunch with a lusty note
Like the hawk hurled where he flew!
God's life! the blood of the Earth is mine!
And the mood of the Earth I'll take,
And brim my soul with her wonderful wine,
And sing till my heart doth break!
A GRAY DAY.
I.
Long vollies of wind and of rain
And the rain on the drizzled pane,
And the eve falls chill and murk;
But on yesterday's eve I know
How a horned moon's thorn-like bow
Stabbed rosy thro' gold and thro' glow,
Like a rich barbaric dirk.
II.
Now thick throats of the snapdragons,--
Who hold in their hues cool dawns,
Which a healthy yellow paints,--
Are filled with a sweet rain fine
Of a jaunty, jubilant shine,
A faery vat of rare wine,
Which the honey thinly taints.
III.
Now dabble the poppies shrink,
And the coxcomb and the pink;
While the candytuft's damp crown
Droops dribbled, low bowed i' the wet;
And long spikes o' the mignonette
Little musk-sacks open set,
Which the dripping o' dew drags down.
IV.
Stretched taunt on the blades of grass,
Like a gossamer-fibered glass,
Which the garden-spider spun,
The web, where the round rain clings
In its middle sagging, swings;--
A hammock for Elfin things
When the stars succeed the sun.
V.
And mark, where the pale gourd grows
Up high as the clambering rose,
How that tiger-moth is pressed
To the wide leaf's underside.--
And I know where the red wasps hide,
And the wild bees,--who defied
The first strong gusts,--distressed.
VI.
Yet I feel that the gray will blow
Aside for an afterglow;
And a breeze on a sudden toss
Drenched boughs to a pattering show'r
Athwart the red dusk in a glow'r,
Big drops heard hard on each flow'r
On the grass and the flowering moss.
VII.
And then for a minute, may be,--
A pearl--hollow worn--of the sea,--
A glimmer of moon will smile;
Cool stars rinsed clean on the dusk,
A freshness of gathering musk
O'er the showery lawns, as brusk
As spice from an Indian isle.
CARMEN.
La _Gitanilla!_ tall dragoons
In Andalusian afternoons,
With ogling eye and compliment
Smiled on you, as along you went
Some sleepy street of old Seville;
Twirled with a military skill
Moustaches; buttoned uniforms
Of Spanish yellow bowed your charms.
Proud, wicked head and hair blue-black!
Whence your mantilla, half thrown back,
Discovered shoulders and bold breast
Bohemian brown: and you were dressed--
In some short skirt of gipsy red
Of smuggled stuff; thence stockings dead
White silk exposed with many a hole
Thro' which your plump legs roguish stole
A fleshly look; and tiny toes
In red morocco shoes with bows
Of scarlet ribbons. Daintily
You walked by me and I did see
Your oblique eyes, your sensuous lip,
That gnawed the rose you once did flip
At bashful Jose's nose while loud
Laughed the guant guards among the crowd.
And, in your brazen chemise thrust,
Heaved with the swelling of your bust,
That bunch of white acacia blooms
Whiffed past my nostrils hot perfumes.
As in a cool _neveria_
I ate an ice with Merimee,
Dark Carmencita, you passed gay,
All holiday bedizened,
A new mantilla on your head;
A crimson dress bespangled fierce;
And crescent gold, hung in your ears,
Shone wrought Morisco; and each shoe
Cordovan leather, spangled blue,
Glanced merriment; and from large arms
To well-turned ancles all your charms
Blew flutterings and glitterings
Of satin bands and beaded strings;
And 'round each arm's fair thigh one fold,
And graceful wrists, a twisted gold
Coiled serpents, tails fixed in the head,
Convulsive-jeweled glossy red.
In flowers and trimmings to the jar
Of mandolin and low guitar
You in the grated _patio_
Danced; the curled coxcombs' flirting row
Rang pleased applause. I saw you dance,
With wily motion and glad glance
Voluptuous, the wild _romalis_,
Where every movement was a kiss
Of elegance delicious, wound
In your Basque tambourine's dull sound.
Or as the ebon castanets
Clucked out dry time in unctuous jets,
Saw angry Jose thro' the grate
Glare on us a pale face of hate,
When some indecent colonel there
Presumed too lewdly for his ear.
Some still night in Seville; the street,
_Candilejo_; two shadows meet--
Flash sabres; crossed within the moon,--
Clash rapidly--a dead dragoon.
DISENCHANTMENT OF DEATH.
Hush! She is dead! Tread gently as the light
Foots dim the weary room. Thou shalt behold.
Look:--In death's ermine pomp of awful white,
Pale passion of pulseless slumber virgin cold:
Bold, beautiful youth proud as heroic Might--
Death! and how death hath made it vastly old.
Old earth she is now: energy of birth
Glad wings hath fledged and tried them suddenly;
The eyes that held have freed their narrow mirth;
Their sparks of spirit, which made this to be,
Shine fixed in rarer jewels not of earth,
Far Fairylands beyond some silent sea.
A sod is this whence what were once those eyes
Will grow blue wild-flowers in what happy air;
Some weed with flossy blossoms will surprise,
Haply, what summer with her affluent hair;
Blush roses bask those cheeks; and the wise skies
Will know her dryad to what young oak fair.
The chastity of death hath touched her so,
No dreams of life can reach her in such rest;--
No dreams the mind exhausted here below,
Sleep built within the romance of her breast.
How she will sleep! like musick quickening slow
Dark the dead germs, to golden life caressed.
Low musick, thin as winds that lyre the grass,
Smiting thro' red roots harpings; and the sound
Of elfin revels when the wild dews glass
Globes of concentric beauty on the ground;
For showery clouds o'er tepid nights that pass
The prayer in harebells and faint foxgloves crowned.
So, if she's dead, thou know'st she is not dead.
Disturb her not; she lies so lost in sleep:
The too-contracted soul its shell hath fled:
Her presence drifts about us and the deep
Is yet unvoyaged and she smiles o'erhead:--
Weep not nor sigh--thou wouldst not have _her_ weep?
To principles of passion and of pride,
To trophied circumstance and specious law,
Stale saws of life, with scorn now flung aside,
From Mercy's throne and Justice would'st thou draw
Her, Hope in Hope, and Chastity's pale bride,
In holiest love of holy, without flaw?
The anguish of the living merciless,--
Mad, bitter cruelty unto the grave,--
Wrings the dear dead with tenfold heart's distress,
Earth chaining love, bound by the lips that rave.
If thou hast sorrow let thy sorrow bless
That power of death, of death our selfless slave.
"Unjust?"--He is not! for hast thou not all,
All that thou ever hadst when this dull clay
So heartless, blasted now, flushed spiritual,
A restless vassal of Earth's night and day?
This hath been thine and is; the cosmic call
Hath disenchanted that which might not stay.
_Thou_ unjust!--bar not from its high estate,--
Won with what toil thro' devastating cares:
What bootless battling with the violent Fate;
What mailed endeavor with resistless years;--
That soul:--whole-hearted granted once thy mate,
Heaven only loaned, return it not with tears!
THE THREE URGANDAS.
Cast on sleep there came to me
Three Urgandas; and the sea
In lost lands of Briogne
Sounded moaning, moaning:
Cloudy clad in awful white;
And each face a lucid light
Rayed and blossomed out of night,--
And a wind was groaning.
In my sleep I saw them rest,
Each a long hand at her breast,
A soft flame that lulls the West;--
And the sea was moaning, moaning;--
Hair like hoarded ingots rolled
Down white shoulders glossy gold,
Streaks of molten moonlight cold,--
And a wind was groaning.
Rosy 'round each high brow bent
Four-fold starry gold that sent
Barbs of fire redolent;--
And the sea was moaning, moaning;--
'Neath their burning crowns their eyes
Burned like southern stars the skies
Rock in shattered storm that flies,--
And a wind was groaning.
Wisdom's eyes of lurid dark;
And each red mouth like a spark
Flashed and laughed off care and cark,--
And the sea was moaning, moaning;--
Mouths for song and lips to kiss;
Lips for hate and mouths to hiss;
Lips that fashioned hell or bliss,--
And the wind was groaning.
Tall as stately virgins dead,
Tapers lit at feet and head,
'Round whom Latin prayers are said,--
And the sea was moaning, moaning;--
Or as vampire women, who,
Buried beauties, rise and woo
Youths whose blood they suck like dew,--
And a wind was groaning.
Then the west one said to me:
"Thou hast slept thus holily
While seven sands ran secretly."--
And the sea was moaning, moaning;--
"Earth hath served thee like a slave,
Serving us who found thee brave,
Fearless of or life or grave."--
And a wind was groaning.
"Know!"--she smote my brow; a pain,
Riddling arrows, rent my brain,
Ceased and earth fell, some vast strain;--
And the sea was moaning, moaning;--
Then I understood all thought;
What was life the spirit fraught;
Love and hate; how worlds were wrought:--
And a wind was groaning.
Then the east one said to me:
"Thou hast wandered wearily
By what mist-enveloped sea!"--
And the sea was moaning, moaning;--
"Know the things thou hast not seen;
Life and law, and love and teen;
Things that be and have not been."--
And the wind was groaning.
"See!" her voice sung like a lyre
Throbs of thunderous desire;
Then the iron sight like fire--
And the sea was moaning, moaning;--
Burst; the inner eyelids, which
Husked clairvoyance, with a twitch
Rose--and I with light was rich;--
And a wind was groaning.
Then I saw the eyes of Sleep;
Nerves of Life and veins that leap;
Laws of entity; the deep:--
And the sea was moaning, moaning;--
Orbs and eons; springs of Power;
Circumstance--blown like a flower;--
Time--the second of an hour:--
And the wind was groaning.
To the central third one's full
Balanced being beautiful
Heart, to hearken, made a lull,--
And the sea was moaning, moaning;--
As she sternly stooped to me:
"Thou dost know and thou canst see;
What thou art arise and be!"--
And the wind was groaning.
To my mouth hot lips she pressed;
And my famished soul, thrice blessed,
Quaffed her radiance and caressed:--
And vague seas were moaning, moaning:--
Mounted; star-vibrating fled;
Soared to love, with her who said:
"Thou dost live and thou art dead."--
Far off winds were groaning.
THE BRUSH SPARROW.
I.
Ere wild haws, looming in the glooms,
Build bolted drifts of breezy blooms;
And in the whistling hollow there
The red-bud bends as brown and bare
As buxom Roxy's up-stripped arm;
From some slick hickory or larch,
Sighed o'er the sodden meads of March,
The sad heart thrills and reddens warm
To hear thee braving the rough storm,
Frail courier of green-gathering powers,--
Rebelling sap in trunks and flowers;
Love's minister come heralding;
O sweet saint-voice among bleak bowers!--
Thou brown-red pursuivant of Spring!
II.
"_Moan_" sob the woodland cascades still
Down bloomless ledges of the hill;
And gray, gaunt clouds like harpies hang
In harpy heavens, and swoop and clang
Sharp beaks and talons of the wind:
Black scowl the forests, and unkind
The far fields as the near; while song
Seems murdered and all passion, wrong.
One wild frog only in the thaw
Of spawny pools wakes cold and raw,
Expires a melancholy bass
And stops as if bewildered; then
Along the frowning wood again,
Flung in the thin wind's fangy face,
Thou, in red, woolly tassels proud
Of bannered maples, flutest loud:
"_Her Grace! her Grace! her Grace!_"
III.
"Her Grace! her Grace! her Grace!"
Climbs beautiful and sunny-browed
Up, up the kindling hills and wakes
Blue berries in the berry brakes;
With fragrant flakes, that blow and bleach,
Deep powders smothered quince and peach;
Eyes dogwoods with a thousand eyes;
Teaches each sod how to be wise
With twenty wild-flowers for one weed;
And kisses germs that they may seed.
In purest purple and sweet white
Treads up the happier hills of light;
Bloom, cloudy-borne, song in her hair,
Long dew-drops her pale fingers fair:
Big wind-retainers, and the rains
Her yeomen strong that flash the plains;
While scarlet mists at dawn,--and gold
At eve,--her panoply enfold.--
Her herald tabarded behold!--
Awake to greet! prepare to sing!
She comes, the darling Duchess, Spring!"
CHORDS.
I.
Sleep while I sing to thee, Dulcinea,--
How like a shower of moonlight-crusted beams
Of textile form compact, whose veins run stars,--
Discovered goddess of what naked loves!--
Maiden of dreams and aromatic sleep,
Thou liest. Thy long instrument against
Thy god-voluptuous sensuousness of hip
Pure iridescent pearl of ocean slopes:
Tempestuous silent color-melodies
Pulse glimmering from it beaten by the moon,--
Soft songs the white hands of white shadows touch.--
Magnetic star set slumberous over night,
Watch with me this superior star of Earth
Good Heaven was kind to grant me: Trembler,
Like some soft bird, dream, while I sing to thee--
Dream, languid ardor, my Dulcinea, dream.
II.
Floats a wild chant of morning from the hills;
Bursts a broad song of sunlight on the sea;
High Heaven throbs strung with rays of chords and thrills,
Life's resonant paeans to Earth's minstrelsy.
Bind thou swift sandals on of youth,
My love, and harp to me of truth
In lands of joy or ruth.
Now sheer o'er solitudes of noon the strife
Of chariot fierce by chariot scintillant
Flames, and the blade-bare charioteers for life,
O'er-bent, close-curled, goad their hot yokes that pant.
Haste not, my love, but from the beam
Beside this olive-frosty stream
Sing while I rest and dream.
What swart Penthesilea, Amazon,
Hath, smitten, hurled her shield, that crescent there;
To wrench the barbed arrow leaned,--voiced one
Defiant shout, breathed her red life in air.--
Tho' life be close to sunset, lo,
Into the sunset let us go
Still lyring joy not woe.
How swims the Night thro' the deep-oceaned sky!
How at pale lips blown stars like bubbles break,
Burn, streamed from showery locks she tosses high!--
A stronger swimmer, Death, glares in her wake.--
Cast, love, ah cast thy harp away!
Aweary am I of thy lay--
Kneel down by me and pray.
III.
When love delays, when love delays and Joy
Steals a strange shadow o'er the happy hills,
And Hope smiles from To-morrow, nor fulfills
One promise of To-day, thy sight would cloy
This soul with loved despair
By seeing thee so fair.
When love delays, when love delays and song
Aches at wild lips regretful, as the sound
Of a whole sea strives in the shell-mouth bound,
Tho' Hope smiles still to-morrowed, all this wrong
Would, at one little word,
Leap forth for thee a sword.
When love delays, when love delays and sleep
Nests in dark eyeballs, like a song of home
Heard 'mid familiar flowers o'er the foam,
Tho' Hope smiles still to-morrowed, thou wouldst steep
This hurt heart overmuch
In balm with one true touch.
When love delays, when love delays and Sorrow
Drinks her own tears that fever her soul's thirst,
And song, and sleep, and memory seem accurst,
For Hope smiles still to-morrowed, I would borrow
One smile from thee to cheer
The weary, weary year.
When love delays, when love delays and Death
Hath sealed dim lips and mocked young eyes with night,
To love or hate locked calm, indifferent quite,--
Hope's star-eyed acolyte,--what kisses' breath,
What joys can slay regret
Or teach thee to forget!
IV.
Thou hast not loved her, hast not as thou shouldst,
O narrow heart, that could not grasp so wide!
And tho' thy oaths seemed oaths yet they have lied,
And thy caresses, kisses were--denied--
Thou hast not loved her, hast not as thou couldst.
Thou hast not loved her, hast not as thou shouldst;
O shallow eyes, that could not image deep!--
Enough! what boots it tho' ye weep and weep?
Her sleep is deep, too deep! so let her sleep--
Thou hast not loved her, hast not as thou couldst.
Thou hast not loved her, hast not as thou shouldst;
For hadst thou, that confluent night and day
Had in oblivion currents borne away
Not one alone--but coward! thou didst stay--
Thou hast not loved her, hast not as thou couldst!
V.
O Life, thou hast no power left to strive,
Life, who, upon wild mountains of Surprise,
Behold'st Love's citadelled, tall towers rise,--
Shafts of clear, Paphian waters poured that live.
O Hope, who sought'st fulfillment of deep dreams
Beyond those Caucasus of Faith and Truth,--
Twixt silver realms of eld and golden youth
Rolled,--cloudward clustered; whose sonorous streams,
Urned in the palms of Death, gush to his feet:
Unlovely beauty of sad, stirless sight
Mixed in them with eternity of night;--
O Hope, how sad the journey once so sweet!
Dreams crowned with thorns have passed thee on the way;
And Beauties with bare limbs red-bruised and torn;
Tall, holy Hours their eyes dull, wan and worn,
Slaves manacled whom lashed the brutal Day.
And Sorrow sat beside a sea so wide,
That shoreless Heaven unto one little star
Upon the brink of night seems not so far,
And on her feet the frail foams tossing sighed.
She, her rent hair, dressed like a siren's, full
Of weedy waifs and strays of moaning shells,
Streaked with the glimmering sands and foamy bells,
Loomed a pale utterance most beautiful.
"And thou shall love me, Sorrow!" I; but she
Turned her vast eyes upon me and no more;
Their melancholy language clove the core
Of my fast heart; and in mine ears the sea
Along gaunt crags yearned iron-husky grief;
Groaned the hard headlands with the wings of Storm,
Huge thunder shook the foot-hills and Alarm
Gnashed her thin fangs from hissing reef to reef.
So to the hills aweary I did turn.--
Beyond, a reach of sunlight and slim flowers;
Where Hope, an amaranth, and tearless Hours,
Long lilies, lived, whose hearts stiff gold did burn.
And there curled Joy clinked their chaste chalices;
Distilled at dusk, poured bubbling dewy wine,
Divine elixir! off his lips divine
Tossed the fleet rapture to the golden lees,
And so lolled dazed with pleasure. And I said,
"Yield me the lily thou hast drained that I
This hollow thirst may kill and so not die?"
To me he laughed, "I yield it!"--but 'twas dead.
And each blown reach and eminence of blooms
Flushed long, low, gurgling murmurs like a sea,
And laughed bright lips that flashed white teeth of glee
In pearly flower on flower; pure perfumes
Gasped the rolled fields; and o'er the eminence
I journeyed joyless thro' a blossom-fire
That, budding kisses curled with blown desire,
Clasped me and claimed me tho' I spurned it hence.
Then came unto a land of thorns and weeds,
And dust and thirst o'er which a songless sky,
Hoarse with lean vultures, scowled a scoffing lie,
Where cold snakes hissed among dead, rattling reeds.
And there I saw the bony brow of Hate;
Vile, vicious sneers, the eyes of shriveled Scorn
Among the writhing briers; each a thorn
Of cavernous hunger barbed with burning fate.
They, thro' her face-drawn locks of raveled dark,
Stung a stark horror; and I felt my heart
Freeze, wedged with ice, to dullness part by part,
And knew Hate coiled toward me yet stood stark--
Fell; seeing on the happy, happy hills,
Above that den of dust and thorny thirst,
The bastioned walls of Love in glory burst,
Built by sweet glades of Poesy and rills.
O Life, I had not life enough to strive!
O Hope, I had not hope enough to dream!
Death drew me to him and to sigh did seem,
"Love? Love?--thou canst not reach her and yet live!
"For sorrow, joy, and hate, and scorn are bound
About thee, girdling so, thy lips are dumb;
And Fame, ah Fame! her towers are but a tomb--
Star-set on dwindling heights of starry ground.
"And thou art done and being done must die,
Endeavor being dead and energy
Slain, a wild bird that beat bars to be free,
Despairing perished, finding life a lie."
VI.
If thou wouldst know the Beautiful that breathes
Consanguined with young Earth, go seek!--but seek
No sighing Shadows with dead hemlock-wreaths,
No sleepy Sorrows whose wan eyes are weak
With vanished vigils, Melancholy made,
Forlorn, in lands of sin and saddening shade;
No tearful Angers torn of truthless Love,
Who stab their own hearts to dull daggers' hilts
For vengeance sweet; no miser Moods that fade
In owlet towers. Such it springs above,
And buds on morning meads no flower that wilts.
If thou dost seek the Beautiful, beware!
Lest thou discover her, nor know 'tis she;
And she enslave thee evermore, and there
Reward thee with but kingliest beggary:
Make thine the robust red her cheek that stings;
The kiss-sweet odor, thine, her wild breath brings;
Make thine the broad bloom of her crowned brow;
The hearts of light that ardor her proud eyes;
That melody,--which is herself,--that sings
The poem of her presence and the vow,
That stars exalts and mortals deifies.
Lone art thou then, lone as the lone first star
Kindling pale beauty o'er the mournful wave;
Lost to all happiness save searching far
Thro' lands of Life where Death hath delved no grave:
Lost,--even as I,--a devotee to her,
Poor in world-blessedness her bliss to share,
But rich in passion.--For her hermitage
Hope no Hydaspes' splendor, for it lies
Mossy by woody waters hidden, where
She, priestess pure, wise o'er all Wisdom sage,
Shrines artists' hearts for godliest sacrifice.
VII.
1
Then up the orient heights to the zenith that balanced a crescent,--
Up and far up and over,--a warm erubescence liquescent
Rioted roses and rubies; eruptions of opaline gems,
Flung and wide sown, blushed crushed, and crumbled from diadems
Wealth of the kings of the Sylphs; whence, old alchemist, Earth--
Dewed down--by chemistry occult fashions petrified waters of
worth.--
Then out of the stain and rash furor, the passionate pulver of
stone,
The trembling suffusion that dazzled and awfully shone,
Chamelion-convulsion of color, hilarious ranges of glare--
Like a god who for vengeance ires, nodding battle from every hair,
Fares forth with majesty girdled and clangs with hot heroes for
life,
Till the brazen gates boom bursten hells and the walls roar
bristling strife,--
Athwart with a stab of glittering fire, in-plunged like a knife,
Cut billowing gold, in bullion rolled, and an army driven,
Routed, the stars fled shriveled; and the white moon riven,
Puffed,--like a foam-feather forth of a Triton's conch when
sounded,--
Clung, vague as a web, on heaven; then weak as a face that is
wounded
Died on the withering clouds and sorrowed with them and mingled.
While up and up with a steadiness and triumph of sparkle that
tingled,
Wrestled the tempest of Dawn, that hurricaned heaven with spangle,
And halcyon bloom like mercy,--a shatter, a scatter, a tangle
Of labyrinthed glory.--O God! with manifold mirth
The hallelujah of Heaven, hosanna of Earth.
2.
And I in my vision imprisoned was restless and wan
With a yearning for vigor to gird and be gone
Out of false dreams to the true--realities noble of dawn.
VIII.
1