Lift shields of sultry brass; the teasel tops,
Pink-thorned, advance with bristling spike on spike
Against the furious sunlight. Field and copse
Are sick with summer: now, with breathless stops,
The locusts cymbal; now grasshoppers beat
Their castanets: and rolled in dust, a team,--
Like some mean life wrapped in its sorry dream,--
An empty wagon rattles through the heat.
II
Where now the blue, blue flags? the flow’rs whose mouths
Are moist and musky? Where the sweet-breathed mint,
That made the brook-bank herby? Where the South’s
Wild morning-glories, rich in hues, that hint
At coming showers that the rainbows tint?
Where all the blossoms that the wildwood knows?
The frail oxalis hidden in its leaves;
The Indian-pipe, pale as a soul that grieves;
The freckled touch-me-not and forest rose.
III
Dead! dead! all dead beside the drouth-burnt brook,
Shrouded in moss or in the shriveled grass.
Where waved their bells,--from which the wild-bee shook
The dew-drop once,--gaunt, in a nightmare mass,
The rank weeds crowd; through which the cattle pass,
Thirsty and lean, seeking some meagre spring,
Closed in with thorns, on which stray bits of wool
The panting sheep have left, that sought the cool,
From morn till evening wearily wandering.
IV
No bird is heard; no throat to whistle awake
The sleepy hush; to let its music leak
Fresh, bubble-like, through bloom-roofs of the brake:
Only the green-blue heron, famine-weak,--
Searching the stale pools of the minnowless creek,--
Utters its call; and then the rain-crow, too,
False prophet now, croaks to the stagnant air;
While overhead,--still as if painted there,--
A buzzard hangs, black on the burning blue.
THE BROKEN DROUTH
It seemed the listening forest held its breath
Before some vague and unapparent form
Of fear, approaching with the wings of death,
On the impending storm.
Above the hills, big, bellying clouds loomed, black
And ominous; yet silent as the blue
That pools calm heights of heaven, deepening back
’Twixt clouds of snowdrift hue.
Then instantly, as when a multitude
Shout riot and war through some tumultous town,
Innumerable voices swept the wood
As wild the wind rushed down.
And fierce and few, as when a strong man weeps,
Great rain-drops dashed the dust; and, overhead,
Ponderous and vast down the prodigious deeps,
Went slow the thunder’s tread.
And swift and furious, as when giants fence,
The lightning foils of tempest went insane;
Then far and near sonorous Earth grew dense
With long sweet sweep of rain.
FEUD
A mile of lane,--hedged high with ironweeds
And dying daisies,--white with sun, that leads
Downward into a wood; through which a stream
Steals like a shadow; over which is laid
A bridge of logs, worn deep with many a team,
Sunk in the tangled shade.
Far off a wood-dove lifts its lonely cry;
And in the sleepy silver of the sky
A gray hawk wheels scarce larger than a hand.--
From point to point the road grows worse and worse,
Until that place is reached where all the land
Seems burdened with some curse.
A ragged fence of pickets, warped and sprung,--
On which the fragments of a gate are hung,--
Divides a hill, the fox and ground-hog haunt,
A wilderness of briers; o’er whose tops
A battered barn is seen, low-roofed and gaunt,
’Mid fields that know no crops.
Fields over which a path, o’erwhelmed with burrs
And ragweeds, noisy with the grasshoppers,
Leads,--lost, irresolute as paths the cows
Wear through the woods,--unto a woodshed; then,
With wrecks of windows, to a huddled house,
Where men have murdered men.
A house, whose tottering chimney, clay and rock,
Is seamed and crannied; whose lame door and lock
Are bullet-bored; around which, there and here,
Are sinister stains.--One dreads to look around.--
The place seems thinking of that time of fear
And dares not breathe a sound.
Within, is emptiness: the sunlight falls
On faded journals papering its walls;
On advertisement chromos, torn with time
Around a hearth where wasps and spiders build.--
The house is dead: meseems that night of crime
It, too, was shot and killed.
UNANOINTED
I
Upon the Siren-haunted seas, between Fate’s mythic shores,
Within a world of moon and mist, where dusk and daylight wed,
I see a phantom galley and its hull is banked with oars,
With ghostly oars that move to song, a song of dreams long dead:--
“Oh, we are sick of rowing here!
With toil our arms are numb;
With smiting year on weary year
Salt-furrows of the foam:
Our journey’s end is never near,
And will no nearer come--
Beyond our reach the shores appear
Of far Elysium.”
II
Within a land of cataracts and mountains old, and sand,
Beneath whose heavens ruins rise, o’er which the stars burn red,
I see a spectral cavalcade with crucifix in hand
And shadowy armor march and sing, a song of dreams long dead:--
“Oh, we are weary marching on!
Our limbs are travel-worn;
With cross and sword from dawn to dawn
We wend with raiment torn:
The leagues to go, the leagues we’ve gone
Are sand and rock and thorn--
The way is long to Avalon
Beyond the deeps of morn.”
III
They are the curs’d! the souls who yearn and evermore pursue
The vision of a vain desire, a splendor far ahead;
To whom God gives the poet’s dream without the grasp to do,
The artist’s hope without the scope between the quick and dead:--
I, too, am weary toiling where
The winds and waters beat;
When shall I ease the oar I bear
And rest my tired feet?
When will the white moons cease to glare,
The red suns veil their heat?
And from the heights blow sweet the air
Of Love’s divine retreat?
SUNSET AND STORM
Deep with divine tautology,
The sunset’s mighty mystery
Again has traced the scroll-like west
With hieroglyphs of burning gold:
Forever new, forever old,
Its miracle is manifest.
Time lays the scroll away. And now
Above the hills a giant brow
Night lifts of cloud; and from her arm,
Barbaric black, upon the world,
With thunder, wind and fire, is hurled
Her awful argument of storm.
What part, O man, is yours in such?
Whose awe and wonder are in touch
With Nature,--speaking rapture to
Your soul,--yet leaving in your reach
No human word of thought or speech
Expressive of the thing you view.
BEECH BLOOMS
Among the valleys
The wild oxalis
Lifts up its chalice
Of pink and pearl;
And, balsam-breathing
From out their sheathing,
The myriad wreathing
Green leaves uncurl.
The whole world brightens
With spring, that lightens
The foot that frightens
The building thrush;
Where water tosses
On ferns and mosses
The squirrel crosses
The beechen hush.
And vision on vision,--
Like ships elysian
On some white mission,--
Sails cloud on cloud;
With scents of clover
The winds brim over,
And in the cover
The stream is loud.
’Twixt bloom that blanches
The orchard branches
Old farms and ranches
Gleam in the gloam:
Through fields for sowing,
’Mid blossoms blowing,
The cows come lowing,
The cows come home.
Where ways are narrow,
A vesper-sparrow
Flits like an arrow
Of living rhyme;
The red sun poises,
And farm-yard noises
Mix with glad voices
Of milking-time.
When dusk disposes
Of all its roses,
And darkness closes,
And work is done,
A moon’s white feather
In starry weather
And two together
Whose hearts are one.
WORSHIP
I
The mornings raise
Voices of gold in the Almighty’s praise;
The sunsets soar
In choral crimson from far shore to shore:
Each is a blast,
Reverberant, of color,--seen as vast
Concussions,--that the vocal firmament
In worship sounds o’er every continent.
II
Not for our ears
The cosmic music of the rolling spheres,
That sweeps the skies!
Music we hear, but only with our eyes.
For all too weak
Our mortal frames to bear the words these speak,
Those detonations that we name the dawn
And sunset--hues Earth’s harmony puts on.
UNHEARD
All things are wrought of melody,
Unheard, yet full of speaking spells;
Within the rock, within the tree,
A soul of music dwells.
A mute symphonic sense that thrills
The silent frame of mortal things;
Its heart beats in the ancient hills,
And in each flow’r sings.
To harmony all growth is set--
Each seed is but a music mote,
From which each plant, each violet,
Evolves its purple note.
Compact of melody, the rose
Woos the soft wind with strain on strain
Of crimson; and the lily blows
Its white bars to the rain.
The trees are pæans; and the grass
One long green fugue beneath the sun--
Song is their life; and all shall pass,
Shall end, when song is done.
REINCARNATION
High in the place of outraged Liberty,
He ruled the world, an emperor and god:
His iron armies swept the land and sea,
And conquered nations trembled at his nod.
By him the love that fills man’s soul with light,
And makes a heaven of earth, was crucified;
Lust-crowned he lived, yea, lived in God’s despite,
And old in infamies, a king he died.
Justice begins now.--Many centuries
In some vile body must his soul atone
As slave, as beggar, loathsome with disease,
Less than the dog at which we fling a stone.
ON CHENOWETH’S RUN
I thought of the road through the glen,
With its hawk’s nest high in the pine;
With its rock, where the fox had his den,
’Mid tangles of sumach and vine,
Where she swore to be mine.
I thought of the creek and its banks,
Now glooming, now gleaming with sun;
The rustic bridge builded of planks,
The bridge over Chenoweth’s Run,
Where I wooed her and won.
I thought of the house in the lane,
With its pinks and its sweet mignonette;
Its fence, and the gate with its chain,
Its porch where the roses hung wet,
Where I kissed her and met.
Then I thought of the family graves,
Walled rudely with stone, in the West,
Where the sorrowful cedar-tree waves,
And the wind is a spirit distressed,
Where they laid her to rest.
And my soul, overwhelmed with despair,
Cried out on the city and mart!--
How I longed, how I longed to be there,
Away from the struggle and smart,
By her and my heart.
By her and my heart in the West,--
Laid sadly together as one;--
On her grave for a moment to rest,
Far away from the noise and the sun,
On Chenoweth’s Run.
REQUIESCAT
The roses mourn for her who sleeps
Within the tomb;
For her each lily-flower weeps
Dew and perfume.
In each neglected flower-bed
Each blossom droops its lovely head,--
They miss her touch, they miss her tread,
Her face of bloom,
Of happy bloom.
The very breezes grieve for her,
A lonely grief;
For her each tree is sorrower,
Each blade and leaf.
The foliage rocks itself and sighs,
And to its woe the wind replies,--
They miss her girlish laugh and cries,
Whose life was brief,
Was all too brief.
The sunlight, too, seems pale with care,
Or sick with woe;
The memory haunts it of her hair,
Its golden glow.
No more within the bramble-brake
The sleepy bloom is kissed awake--
The sun is sad for her dear sake,
Whose head lies low,
Lies dim and low.
The bird, that sang so sweet, is still
At dusk and dawn;
No more it makes the silence thrill
Of wood and lawn.
In vain the buds, when it is near,
Open each pink and perfumed ear,--
The song it sings she will not hear
Who now is gone,
Is dead and gone.
Ah, well she sleeps who loved them well,
The birds and bowers;
The fair, the young, the lovable,
Who once was ours.
Alas! that loveliness must pass!
Must come to lie beneath the grass!
That youth and joy must fade, alas!
And die like flowers,
Earth’s sweetest flowers!
THE QUEST
I
First I asked the honey-bee,
Busy in the balmy bowers;
Saying, “Sweetheart, tell it me:
Have you seen her, honey-bee?
She is cousin to the flowers--
All the sweetness of the south
In her wild-rose face and mouth.”--
But the bee passed silently.
II
Then I asked the forest-bird,
Warbling by the woodland waters;
Saying, “Dearest, have you heard,
Have you heard her, forest-bird?
She is one of Music’s daughters--
Never song so sweet by half
As the music of her laugh.”--
But the bird said not a word.
III
Next I asked the evening-sky,
Hanging out its lamps of fire;
Saying, “Loved one, passed she by?
Tell me, tell me, evening-sky!
She, the star of my desire--
Sister whom the Pleiads lost,
And my soul’s high pentecost.”--
But the sky made no reply.
IV
Where is she? ah, where is she?
She to whom both love and duty
Bind me, yea, immortally.--
Where is she? ah, where is she?
Symbol of the Earth-soul’s beauty.
I have lost her. Help my heart
Find her! her, who is a part
Of the pagan soul of me!
BEFORE THE RAIN
Before the rain, low in the obscure east,
Weak and morose the moon hung, sickly gray;
Around its disc the storm mists, cracked and creased,
Wove an enormous web, wherein it lay
Like some white spider hungry for its prey.
Vindictive looked the scowling firmament,
In which each star, that flashed a dagger ray,
Seemed filled with malice of some dark intent.
The marsh-frog croaked; and underneath the stone
The peevish cricket raised a creaking cry.
Within the world these sounds were heard alone,
Save when the ruffian wind swept from the sky,
Making each tree like some sad spirit sigh;
Or shook the clumsy beetle from its weed,
That, in the drowsy darkness, bungling by,
Sharded the silence with its feverish speed.
Slowly the tempest gathered. Hours passed
Before was heard the thunder’s sullen drum
Rumbling night’s hollow; and the Earth at last,
Restless with waiting,--like a woman, dumb
With doubting of the love that should have clomb
Her casement hours ago,--avowed again,
’Mid protestations, joy that he had come.
And all night long I heard the Heavens explain.
AFTER RAIN
Behold the blossom-bosomed Day again,
With all the star-white Hours in her train,
Laughs out of pearl-lights through a golden ray,
That, leaning on the woodland wildness, blends
A sprinkled amber with the showers that lay
Their oblong emeralds on the leafy ends.
Behold her bend with maiden-braided brows
Above the wildflower, sidewise with its strain
Of dewy happiness, to kiss again
Each drop to death; or, under rainy boughs,
With fingers, fragrant as the woodland rain,
Gather the sparkles from the sycamore,
To set within the core
Of crimson roses girdling her hips,
Where each bud dreams and drips.
Smoothing her blue-black hair,--where many a tusk
Of iris flashes,--like the falchions keen
Of Faery round blue banners of their Queen,--
Is it a Naiad singing in the dusk,
That haunts the spring, where all the moss is musk
With footsteps of the flowers on the banks?
Or but a wild-bird voluble with thanks?
Balm for each blade of grass: the Hours prepare
A festival each weed’s invited to.
Each bee is drunken with the honied air:
And all the heaven is eloquent with blue.
The wet hay glitters, and the harvester
Tinkles his scythe,--as twinkling as the dew,--
That shall not spare
Blossom or brier in its sweeping path;
And, ere it cut one swath,
Rings them they die, and tells them to prepare.
What is the spice that haunts each glen and glade?
A Dryad’s lips, who slumbers in the shade?
A Faun, who lets the heavy ivy-wreath
Slip to his thigh as, reaching up, he pulls
The chestnut blossoms in whole bosomfuls?
A sylvan Spirit, whose sweet mouth doth breathe
Her viewless presence near us, unafraid?
Or troops of ghosts of blooms, that whitely wade
The brook? whose wisdom knows no other song
But that the bird sings where it builds beneath
The wild-rose and sits singing all day long.
Oh, let me sit with silence for a space,
A little while forgetting that fierce part
Of man that struggles in the toiling mart;
Where God can look into my heart’s own heart
From unsoiled heights made amiable with grace;
And where the sermons that the old oaks keep
Can steal into me.--And what better then
Than, turning to the moss a quiet face,
To fall asleep? a little while to sleep
And dream of wiser worlds and wiser men.
SUNSET CLOUDS
Low clouds, the lightning veins and cleaves,
Torn from the wilderness of 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 sea’d 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.
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--
Mine be the wealth no thief can steal,
The gold of Beauty naught can rust.
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 thus fulfill
Within ourselves the Age of Gold,
That never died, and never will,--
As long as one true nature feels
The wonders that the world reveals.
A SONG FOR LABOR
I
Oh, the morning meads, the dewy meads,
Where he ploughs and harrows and sows the seeds,
Singing a song of manly deeds,
In the blossoming springtime weather:
The heart in his bosom as high as the word
Said to the sky by the mating bird,
While the beat of an answering heart is heard,
His heart and hers together.
II
Oh, the noonday heights, the sunlit heights,
Where he stoops to the harvest his keen scythe smites,
Singing a song of the work that requites,
In the ripening summer weather:
The soul in his body as light as the sigh
Of the little cloud-breeze that cools the sky,
While he hears an answering soul reply,
His soul and hers together.
III
Oh, the evening vales, the twilight vales,
Where he labors and sweats to the thud of flails,
Singing a song of the toil that he hails,
In the fruitful autumn weather:
In heart and in soul as free from fears
As the first white star in the sky that appears,
While the music of life and of love he hears,
Her life and his together.
THE LOVE OF LOVES
I have not seen her face, and yet
She is more sweet than anything
Of earth--than rose or violet
That winds of May 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 blessed,
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 forest 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 a-row,
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.
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
I
_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.
II
_Apportionment_
How often in our search for joy below
Hoping for happiness we chance on woe.
III
_Victory_
They who take courage from their own defeat
Are victors too, no matter how much beat.
IV
_Preparation_
How often hope’s fair flower blooms richest where
The soul was fertilized with black despair.
V
_Disillusion_
Those unrequited in their love who die
Have never drained life’s chief illusion dry.
VI
_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 should not strive and she would come to us.
VII
_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.
VIII
_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.
IX
_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.
X
_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.
XI
_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.
XII
_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.
XIII
_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.