Loosened the lids of the sight the night that encumbers;
Secretly, sweetly with fingers of fog that were slow,
Slow as a song that mysterious
Passions the soul, till delirious,
Wrapped in mad melody mastering the uttermost woe,
Deep to the innermost deep it is shaken
Ruffled and rippled and tossed,
Tantalized, terrorized, cursed with a thirst that, unslaken,
Debauches with eyes that burn stolid, yet only shall waken
With infinite scorn of the cost
If no note of the rhapsody's lost.
2.
Oh, for the music of moonbeams that master and sweep
Chords of the resonant deep!
Smiting loud lyres of Night, sonorous as fire,
Leap fluttering fingers of vanquishing flash and of flake
Fain at each firmament-universe-instrument star-strung.
Vibrating-vestured in garments of woven desire,
Stoop to me, breathe on me, smile on me, waver, "_Awake!
From waking to sleeping, to silence from manifold clamor,
To revelous regions of multiform glamour!_"
Murmur and whisper "_Awake!_"
Oh, necromance banquets by fountains of fairy, the spar-sprung!
Oh, sorcerous beauties and wonders of wizards! oh take
The millions of morning-spun gleams,
All glitters of galloping streams,
The glimmer the gasp the clutch and the grasp,
That colorless crystals and virtuous jewels
As spasmodic fuels
Cuddle and huddle and clasp:
The wrinkle and crinkle of scintillant heat in white metals;
The quiver of terrible gold and the pearly
Lithe brilliance of soft, holy petals,
Of slender, sad blossoms, tumultuous tossed crispy and curly
In shadowy reaches of violet dark;
The burn of the stars and the spark
Fragile of foams that are fluted, to make
One cordial of dreams
To drink and to sink
Deep, deep into dreams nor awake.
IX
1
As to a Nymph in the ripple-ribbed body of ocean,
Down, down thro' vast stories of water, a hiss and devour
Electrify altitudes orbed,--pulses violent motion
Of Thunder, who treads the brute neck of the seas in his power,
Till their spine writhes lumped into waves,--the Nymph in her bower,
Rubbing moist sleep from her eyes, arises,--
Loosens the loops of her locks,
Loosens, and suddenly darts on the storm and surprises
The boisterous bands of the rocks,
That hoot to the riddling arrows of rain and of seas,
Mountainous these;--
Swirling and whirling,
She of the huge exultation beheld, with long tresses,
Dotted with bells of the hollow, hard foam, flung streaming,
Dives, bounds to the whirlwind embracing; then mockingly presses
Hair to wild face and wild throat, drifts desolate dreaming;
With scorn then laughing and screaming,
Discovers full beauty of nakedness leaping and gleaming;
And showering the rain from her hair,
Pouts blown, curdled foam from her lips,
And eddying slips,
From the ravenous eyes of the Thunder that glare,
Away, away,
To the arms of her lover the Spray.
So I,--
At swift thoughts that were spoken, that came
As if winds had fashioned a speech--was a flame
That dwindled, was kindled, then mounted and,
Marvelling why,--
Stemming all thought, a gleam out of gleams
Was born into dreams.
2.
Beautiful-bosomed, O Night! with thy moon,
Move in majesty slowly to majesty lightly!
Silent as sleep, who is lulled by a delicate tune,
O'er-stroke thou the air with a languor of moonlight brightly!
Thin ice, in sockets of turquoise fastened, the stars
Gash golden the bosom of heaven with fiery scars.
Swoon down, O shadowy hosts,
O multitude ghosts,
Of the moonlight and starlight begotten!--Then swept
Whispers that sighed to me, sorrows that stealthily hovered,
Laughters with lips that were mist. And murmurings crept
On toward me feet that were glow; and faces uncovered,
Radiant and crystalline clear,
In tortuous, sinuous swirl of vapory pearl,
Waned near and more near.
Flashed faster a spiral of shapes and of shadows still faster,
On in a whirl of unutterable beauties by music expired,
That lived and desired,--
Born births of the brain of a rhapsody-reveling master;
And mine eyes, with their beauties infired,
Smiled scorn on dark Death and Disaster.
X.
"Ah! now the orchard's leaves are sear,
Drip not with starlight-litten dew;
Green-drowned no moon-bright fruit hangs here;
Dead, dead your long, white lilies too--
And you, Allita, where are you!"
Then comes her dim touch, faintly warm;
Cool hair sense on my feverish cheek;
Dim eyes at mine deep with some charm,--
So gray! so gray! and I am weak
Weak with wild tears and can not speak.
I am as one who walks with dreams:
Sees as in youth his father's home;
Hears from his native mountain-streams
Far music of continual foam.
DEAD AND GONE.
I
I wot well o' his going
To think in flowers fair;--
His a right kind heart, my dear,
To give the grass such hair.
II.
I wot well o' his lying
Such nights out in the cold,--
To list the cricket's crick, my sweet,
To see the glow-worm's gold.
III.
An mine eyes be laughterful,
Well may they laugh, I trow,--
Since two dead eyes a yesternight
Gazed in them sad enow.
IV.
An my heart make moan and ache,
Well may it dree, I'm sure;--
He is dead and gone, my love,
And it is beggar poor.
A MABINOGI.
In samite sark yclad was she;
And that fair glimmerish band of gold
Which crowned long, savage locks of hair
In the moon brent cold.
She with big eyeballs gloomed and glowered,
And lightly hummed some Elfin's song,
And one could naught save on her stare
And fare along.
Yea; sad and lute-like was that song
And softly said its mystery;
Which quaintly sang in elden verse
"Thy love I'll be."
And oft it said: "I love thee true,
Sir Ewain, champion of the fair."
And never wist he what a witch
Was that one there.
And never wist he that a witch
Had bound him with her wily hair,
Eke with dark art had ta'en his heart
To slay him there.
And all his soul did wax amort
To stars, to hills, to slades, to streams,
And it but held that sorceress fair
As one of dreams.
And now he kens some castle gray
Wild turrets ivied, in the moon,
Old, where through woodlands foaming on
A torrent shone....
In its high hall full twenty knights
With visors barred all sternly stand;
The following of some gracious brave,
Lord of the land.
And lo! when that dim damosel
Moved down the hall, they louted low;
And she was queen of all that band,
That dame of snow.
Now on that knight she stared eftsoons,
And cried on high unto her crew,
"Behold! Sir Knights, the dastard brave
Your king that slew."
And all those heathen knights wox wild
Attonce; and all against him drave;
Long battle blades and daggers bright
Aloft did wave.
The press on him puissant bare
And smote him to the rush-strown earth;--
Tall, tall o'er all that Fairy rose
Aloud with mirth.
GENIUS LOCI.
I.
What deity for dozing laziness
Devised the lounging coziness of this
Enchanted nook?--and how!--did I distress
His musing ease that fled but now, or his
Laughed frolic with some forest-sister, fair
As those wild hill-carnations are and rare?
Too true, alas!--Feel! the wild moss is warm
And moist with late reclining, as the palm
Of what hot Hamadryad, who, a-nap,
Props her hale cheek upon it, while her arm
Weak wind-flowers bury; in her hair the balm
Of a whole Spring of blossoms and of sap?
II.
See, how the dented moss, that pads the hump
Of these distorted roots, elastic springs
From that god's late departure; lump by lump,
Pale tufts impressed twitch loose in nervous rings,
As crowding stars qualm thro' gray evening skies.
Indulgence grant thou my profane surprise,
Pray!--then to dream where thou didst dream before,
Benevolent! ... here where the veiny leaves
Bask broad the fuzzy bosoms of their hands
O'er wistful waters: 'neath this sycamore,
Smooth, giraffe-brindled, where each ripple weaves
A twinkling quiver as of marching bands
III.
Of Elfin chivalry, that, helmed with gold,
Split spilled the scaley sunbeams wrinkled off.
What brought thee here?--This wind that steals the old
Weird legends from the forests, with a scoff
To laugh them thro' their beards? Or, in those weeds,
The hermit brook so busy with his beads?--
How many _Aves_, _Paters_ doth he say
In one droned minute on his rosary
Of bubbles--wot'st thou?--Pucker-eyed didst mark
Yon lank hag-tapers, yellow by yon way,
A haggard company of seven?--See
How dry swim by such curled brown bits of bark?
IV.
Didst mark the ghostly gold of this grave, still,
Conceited minnow thro' these twisted roots,
Thrust o'er the smoky topaz of this rill,
Dull-slumbering here? Or did those insect flutes--
Sleepy with sunshine--buzz thee that forlorn
Tale of Tithonus and the bashful Morn?
Until two tears gleamed in the stealing stream
Trembling its polish o'er the winking grail?--
Nay! didst perplex thee with some poet plan
To drug this air with beauty to make dream,--
Ah, discreet Cunning, watching in yon vale!--
Me, wildwood-wandered from the marts of Man!
* * * * *
Transcriber's Note:
There are some strange words, which have been retained, as the author
may have been using 'poetic licence':
e.g. 'aventured spears', which may have been quartz-tipped (aventurine);
'beryle', possibly referring to the color of beryl (light green, etc.);
'bowldered', alternative spelling for 'bouldered'; 'guant', which may be
'gaunt misspelled, or it may refer to a bird (guan)... "Laughed the
guant guards among the crowd"; etc. And 'accompaning' still needs to
elide the second 'a' to fit the metre.
Some words are obviously ancient, or dialectic, and some are akin to
some of the words in the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins.
The transcriber prefers not to change anything the author wrote, as a
slightly different spelling may also imply a slightly different
inflexion.
There are, however, two probable printer's errors, which have been
amended:
Page 129: 'passsion' corrected to 'passion': "To principles of passion
and of pride,"
Page 154: Removed extraneous 'the':
"That hoot to the (the) riddling arrows of rain and of seas,"