Over temples smooth and fair,
Have you marked it, as she passes,
Gleam and shadow mingled there,--
Braided strands of midnight air,--
Helen's hair?
Deep with dreams and starry mazes
Of the thought that in them lies,
Have you seen them, as she raises
Them in gladness or surprise,--
Two gray gleams of daybreak skies,--
Helen's eyes?
Moist with dew and honied wafters
Of a music sweet that slips,
Have you marked them, brimmed with laughter's
Song and sunshine to their tips,
Rose-buds whence the fragrance drips,--
Helen's lips?
He who sees her needs must love her:
But, beware! avoid love's dart!
He who loves her must discover
Nature overlooked one part,
In this masterpiece of art--
Helen's heart.
A CAMEO.
Why speak of Giamschid rubies
Whence rosy starlight drips?
I know a richer crimson,--
The ruby of her lips.
Why speak of pearls of Oman
That shells of ocean sheathe?
I know a purer nacre,--
The white pearls of her teeth.
Why tell me of the sapphires
That Kings and Khalifs prize?
I know a lovelier azure,--
The sapphires of her eyes.
Go search the far Earth over,
Go search the farthest sea,
You will not find a cameo
Like her God carved for me.
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 over fain
To call her mine, but all in vain;
Since jealous Death, as each one knows,
Is guardian of La belle Helene;
Of her whose face is very fair--
To my despair,
Sweet belle Helene.
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 Helene;
The garden glad that she suggests,--
That Death invests.
Sweet belle Helene.
III.
God had been kinder to me,--when
He dipped His hands in fires and snows
And made you like a flow'r to ken,
A flow'r that in Earth's garden grows,--
Had He, for pleasure or for pain,
Instead of Death in that demesne,
Made Love the gardener to that rose,
Your loveliness, O belle Helene;
God had been kinder to me then--
And to all men,
Sweet belle Helene.
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.
SUNSET CLOUDS.
Low clouds, the lightning veins and cleaves,
Torn from the forest of the storm,
Sweep westward like enormous leaves
O'er field and farm.
And in the west, on burning skies,
Their wrath is quenched, their hate is hushed,
And deep their drifted thunder lies
With splendor flushed.
The black turns gray, the gray turns gold;
And, seaed in deeps of radiant rose,
Summits of fire, manifold
They now repose.
What dreams they bring! what thoughts reveal!
That have their source in loveliness,
Through which the doubts I often feel
Grow less and less.
Through which I see that other night,
That cloud called Death, transformed of Love
To flame, and pointing with its light
To life above.
MASKED.
Lying alone I dreamed a dream last night:
Methought that Joy had come to comfort me
For all the past, its suffering and slight,
Yet in my heart I felt this could not be.
All that he said unreal seemed and strange,
Too beautiful to last beyond to-morrow;
Then suddenly his features seemed to change,--
The mask of joy dropped from the face of Sorrow.
OUT OF THE DEPTHS.
I.
Let me forget her face!
So fresh, so lovely! the abiding place
Of tears and smiles that won my heart to her;
Of dreams and moods that moved my soul's dim deeps,
As strong winds stir
Dark waters where the starlight glimmering sleeps.--
In every lineament the mind can trace,
Let me forget her face!
II.
Let me forget her form!
Soft and seductive, that contained each charm,
Each grace the sweet word maidenhood implies;
And all the sensuous youth of line and curve,
That makes men's eyes
Bondsmen of beauty eager still to serve.--
In every part that memory can warm,
Let me forget her form!
III.
Let me forget her, God!
Her who made honeyed love a bitter rod
To scourge my heart with, barren with despair;
To tear my soul with, sick with vain desire!--
Oh, hear my prayer!
Out of the hell of love's unquenchable fire
I cry to thee, with face against the sod,
Let me forget her, God!
RICHES.
What mines the morning heavens unfold!
What far Alaskas of the skies!
That, veined with elemental gold,
Sierra on Sierra rise.
Heap up the gold of all the world,
The ore that makes men fools and slaves;
What is it to the gold, cloud-curled,
That rivers through the sunset's caves!
Search Earth for riches all who will,
The gold that soils, that turns to dust--
Be mine the wealth no thief can steal,
The gold of God that can not rust.
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 wild-flower flocks.
The Satyr 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 lift the soul above the clod,
And, working out some period
Of art, are part and proof of God.
THE AGE OF GOLD.
The clouds, that tower in storm, that beat
Arterial thunder in their veins;
The wildflowers lifting, shyly sweet,
Their perfect faces from the plains,--
All high, all lowly things of Earth
For no vague end have had their birth.
Low strips of mist, that mesh the moon
Above the foaming waterfall;
And mountains that God's hand hath hewn,
And forests where the great winds call,--
Within the grasp of such as see
Are parts of a conspiracy;
To seize the soul with beauty; hold
The heart with love, and so fulfill
Within ourselves the Age of Gold,
That never died, and never will,--
So long as one true nature feels
The wonders that the world reveals.
THE LOVE OF LOVES.
I have not seen her face, and yet
She is more sweet than any thing
Of Earth--than rose or violet
That Mayday winds and sunbeams bring.
Of all we know, past or to come,
That beauty holds within its net,
She is the high compendium:
And yet--
I have not touched her robe, and still
She is more dear than lyric words
And music; or than strains that fill
The throbbing throats of forest birds.
Of all we mean by poetry,
That rules the soul and charms the will,
She is the deep epitome:
And still--
She is my world; ah, pity me!
A dream that flies whom I pursue;
Whom all pursue, whoe'er they be,
Who toil for art and dare and do.
The shadow-love for whom they sigh,
The far ideal affinity,
For whom they live and gladly die--
Ah, me!
THREE THINGS.
There are three things of Earth
That help us more
Than those of heavenly birth
That all implore--
Than Love or Faith or Hope,
For which we strive and grope.
The first one is Desire,--
Who takes our hand
And fills our hearts with fire
None may withstand;--
Through whom we're lifted far
Above both moon and star.
The second one is Dream,--
Who leads our feet
By an immortal gleam
To visions sweet;--
Through whom our forms put on
Dim attributes of dawn.
The last of these is Toil,--
Who maketh true,
Within the world's turmoil
The other two;--
Through whom we may behold
Ourselves with kings enrolled.
IMMORTELLES.
I.
As some warm moment of repose
In one rich rose
Sums all the summer's lovely bloom
And pure perfume--
So did her soul epitomize
All hopes that make life wise,
Who lies before us now with lidded eyes,
Faith's amaranth of truth
Crowning her youth.
II.
As some melodious note or strain
May so contain
All of sweet music in one chord,
Or lyric word--
So did her loving heart suggest
All dreams that make life blest,
Who lies before us now with pulseless breast,
Love's asphodel of duty
Crowning her beauty.
A LULLABY.
I.
In her wimple of wind and her slippers of sleep
The twilight comes like a little goose-girl,
Herding her owls with many "tu-whoos,"
Her little brown owls in the woodland deep,
Where dimly she walks in her whispering shoes,
And gown of glimmering pearl.
Sleep, sleep, little one, sleep;
This is the road to Rockaby Town.
Rockaby, lullaby, where dreams are cheap;
Here you can buy any dream for a crown.
Sleep, sleep, little one, sleep;
The cradle you lie in is soft and is deep,
The wagon that takes you to Rockaby Town.
Now you go up, sweet, now you go down,
Rockaby, lullaby, now you go down.
II.
And after the twilight comes midnight, who wears
A mantle of purple so old, so old!
Who stables the lily-white moon, it is said,
In a wonderful chamber with violet stairs,
Up which you can see her come, silent of tread,
On hoofs of pale silver and gold.
Dream, dream, little one, dream;
This is the way to Lullaby Land.
Lullaby, rockaby, where, white as cream,
Sugar-plum bowers drop sweets in your hand.
Dream, dream, little one, dream;
The cradle you lie in is tight at each seam,
The boat that goes sailing to Lullaby Land.
Over the sea, sweet, over the sand,
Lullaby, rockaby, over the sand.
III.
The twilight and midnight are lovers, you know,
And each to the other is true, is true!
And there on the moon through the heavens they ride,
With the little brown owls all huddled arow,
Through meadows of heaven where, every side,
Blossom the stars and the dew.
Rest, rest, little one, rest;
Rockaby Town is in Lullaby Isle.
Rockaby, lullaby, set like a nest
Deep in the heart of a song and a smile.
Rest, rest, little one, rest;
The cradle you lie in is warm as my breast,
The white bird that bears you to Lullaby Isle.
Out of the East, sweet, into the West,
Rockaby, lullaby, into the West.
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, be drowned! 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 Hafiz,
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, "Here's to Pleasure!"
PESTILENCE.
High on a throne of noisome ooze and heat,
'Mid rotting trees of bayou and lagoon,
Ghastly she sits beneath the skeleton moon,
A tawny horror coiling at her feet--
Fever, whose eyes keep watching, serpent-like,
Until _her_ eyes shall bid him rise and strike.
MUSINGS.
INSPIRATION.
All who have toiled for Art, who've won or lost,
Sat equal priests at her high Pentecost;
Only the chrism and sacrament of flame,
Anointing all, inspired not all the same.
APPORTIONMENT.
How often in our search for joy below
Hoping for happiness we chance on woe.
VICTORY.
They who take courage from their own defeat
Are victors too, no matter how much beat.
PREPARATION.
How often hope's fair flower blooms richest where
The soul was fertilized with black despair.
DISILLUSION.
Those unrequited in their love who die
Have never drained life's chief illusion dry.
SUCCESS.
Success allures us in the earth and skies:
We seek to win her, but, too amorous,
Mocking, she flees us.--Haply, were we wise,
We would not strive and she would come to us.
SCIENCE.
Miranda-like, above the world she waves
The wand of Prospero; and, beautiful,
Ariel the airy, Caliban the dull,--
Lightning and steam,--are her unwilling slaves.
ECHO.
Dweller in hollow places, hills and rocks,
Daughter of Silence and old Solitude,
Tip-toe she stands within her cave or wood,
Her only life the noises that she mocks.
THE UNIVERSAL WIND.
Wild son of Heav'n, with laughter and alarm,
Now East, now West, now North, now South he goes,
Bearing in one harsh hand dark death and storm,
And in the other, sunshine and a rose.
COMPENSATION.
Yea, whom He loves the Lord God chasteneth
With disappointments, so that this side death,
Through suffering and failure, they know Hell
To make them worthy in that Heaven to dwell
Of Love's attainment, where they come to be
Parts of its beauty and divinity.
POPPIES.
Summer met Sleep at sunset,
Dreaming within the south,--
Drugged with his soul's deep slumber,
Red with her heart's hot drouth,
These are the drowsy kisses
She pressed upon his mouth.
HER EYES AND MOUTH.
There is no Paradise like that which lies
Deep in the heavens of her azure eyes:
There is no Eden here on Earth that glows
Like that which smiles rich in her mouth's red rose.
HER SOUL.
To me not only does her soul suggest
Palms and the peace of tropic shore and wood,
But, oceaned far beyond the golden West,
The Fortunate Islands of true Womanhood.
HER FACE.
The gladness of our Southern spring; the grace
Of summer; and the dreaminess of fall
Are parts of her sweet nature.--Such a face
Was Ruth's, methinks, divinely spiritual.
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 this world are a fleeting show._
The postchaise 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 postboy, 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 this world are a fleeting show._
A CAVALIER'S TOAST.
I.
Some drink to Friendship, some to Love,--
Through whom the world is fair, perdie!--
But I to one these others prove,
Who leaps 'mid lions for a glove,
Or dies to set another free--
I drink to Loyalty.
II.
No dagger his, no cloak and mask,
Free-faced he stands so all may see;
Let Friendship set him any task,
Or Love--reward he does not ask,
The deed is done whate'er it be--
So here's to Loyalty.
SLEEP IS A SPIRIT.
Sleep is a spirit, who beside us sits,
Or through our frames like some dim glamour flits;
From out her form a pearly light is shed,
As from a lily, in a lily-bed,
A firefly's gleam. Her face is pale as stone,
And languid as a cloud that drifts alone
In starry heav'n. And her diaphanous feet
Are easy as the dew or opaline heat
Of summer.
Lo! with ears--aurora pink
As Dawn's--she leans and listens on the brink
Of being, dark with dreadfulness and doubt,
Wherein vague lights and shadows move about,
And palpitations beat--like some huge heart
Of Earth--the surging pulse of which we're part.
One hand, that hollows her divining eyes,
Glows like the curved moon over twilight skies;
And with her gaze she fathoms life and death--
Gulfs, where man's conscience, like a restless breath
Of wind, goes wand'ring; whispering low of things,
The irremediable, where sorrow clings.
Around her limbs a veil of woven mist
Wavers, and turns from fibered amethyst
To textured crystal; through which symboled bars
Of silver burn, and cabalistic stars
Of nebulous gold.
Shrouding her feet and hair,
Within this woof, fantastic, everywhere,
Dreams come and go; the instant images
Of things she sees and thinks; realities,
Shadows, with which her heart and fancy swarm
That in the veil take momentary form:
Now picturing heaven in celestial fire,
And now the hell of every soul's desire;
Hinting at worlds, God wraps in mystery,
Beyond the world we know and touch and see.
KENNST DU DAS LAND.
FROM THE GERMAN OF GOETHE.
Know'st thou the land where the lemon-tree flowers;
The orange glows gold in the darkness of bowers,
Out of blue heaven a softer zephyr blows,
And still the myrtle, tall the laurel grows?
Know'st it indeed?
Thither, ah, me! ah, me!
Would I with thee, O my beloved, flee.
Know'st thou the house? Columns support its beams,
Its long hall glitters and its gallery gleams;
And sculpture glows and asks, in marble mild,
"What have they done to thee, thou poor, poor child?"
Know'st it indeed?
Thither, ah, me! ah, me!
Would I with thee, O my protector, flee.
Know'st thou the mountain and its cloud-built bridge?
In mist the mule treads cautiously its ridge;
The dragon's ancient brood still haunts its caves;
Down the loud crag the plunging torrent raves.
Know'st it indeed?
Thither, ah, me! ah, me!
Our pathway leads! O father, let us flee!
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 love-light 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.
THE MAN IN GRAY.
_Written for the Reunion of the Confederate Veterans at
Louisville, Ky., May and June, 1900._
I.
Again, in dreams, the veteran hears
The bugle and the drum;
Again the boom of battle nears,
Again the bullets hum:
Again he mounts, again he cheers,
Again his charge speeds home--
O memories of those long gone years!
O years that are to come!
We live in dreams as well as deeds, in thoughts as well as acts;
And life through things we feel, not know, is realized the most;
The conquered are the conquerors, despite the face of facts,
If they still feel their cause was just who fought for it and lost.
II.
Again, in thought, he hears at dawn
The far reveille die;
Again he marches stern and wan
Beneath a burning sky:
He bivouacs; the night comes on;
His comrades 'round him lie--
O memories of the years long gone!
O years that now go by!
The vintager of Earth is War, is War whose grapes are men;
Into his wine-vats armies go, his wine-vats steaming red:
The crimson vats of battle where he stalks, as in a den,
Drunk with the must of Hell that spurts beneath his iron tread.
III.
Again, in mind, he's lying where
The trenches slay with heat;
Again his flag floats o'er him, fair
In charge or fierce retreat:
Again all's lost; again despair
Makes death seem three times sweet--
O years of tears that crowned his hair
With laurels of defeat!
There is reward for those who dare, for those who dare and do:
Who face the dark inevitable, who fall and know no shame;
Upon their banner triumph sits and in the horn they blew,--
Naught's lost if honor be not lost, defeat is but a name.
HALLOWE'EN.
It was down in the woodland on last Hallowe'en,
Where silence and darkness had built them a lair,
That I felt the dim presence of her, the unseen,
And heard her still step on the ghost-haunted air.
It was last Hallowe'en in the glimmer and swoon
Of mist and of moonlight that thickened and thinned,
That I saw the gray gleam of her eyes in the moon,
And hair, like a raven, blown wild in the wind.
It was last Hallowe'en where starlight and dew
Made mystical marriage on flower and leaf,
That she led me with looks of a love that I knew,
And lured with the voice of a heart-buried grief.
It was last Hallowe'en in the forest of dreams,
Where trees are eidolons and shadows have eyes,
That I saw her pale face like the foam of far streams,
And heard, like the leaf-lisp, her tears and her sighs.
It was last Hallowe'en, the haunted, the dread,
In the wind-tattered wood by the storm-twisted pine,
That I, who am living, kept tryst with the dead,
And clasped her a moment and dreamed she was mine.
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 all that's dire!
III.