The dreams thy spirit cages,
Would that Romance--which on thee lays
The spell of bygone ages--
Held me! a memory of those days,
A portion of its pages!
STROLLERS.
I.
We have no castles,
We have no vassals,
We have no riches, no gems and no gold;
Nothing to ponder,
Nothing to squander--
Let us go wander
As minstrels of old.
II.
You with your lute, love,
I with my flute, love,
Let us make music by mountain and sea;
You with your glances,
I with my dances,
Singing romances
Of old chivalry.
III.
"Derry down derry!
Good folk, be merry!
Hither, and hearken where happiness is!--
Never go borrow
Care of to-morrow,
Never go sorrow
While life hath a kiss."
IV.
Let the day gladden
Or the night sadden,
We will be merry in sunshine or snow;
You with your rhyme, love,
I with my chime, love,
We will make time, love,
Dance as we go.
V.
Nothing is ours,
Only the flowers,
Meadows, and stars, and the heavens above;
Nothing to lie for,
Nothing to sigh for,
Nothing to die for
While still we have love.
VI.
"Derry down derry!
Good folk, be merry!
Hither, and hearken a word that is sooth:--
Care ye not any,
If ye have many
Or not a penny,
If still ye have youth!"
HAUNTED.
When grave the twilight settles o'er my roof,
And from the haggard oaks unto my 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 stealthy stair to stair,
Through all the house, a dread that drags me toward
The ancient dusk of that avoided room,
Wherein she sits with ghostly golden hair,
And eyes that gaze beyond her soul's sad doom,
Bending above an unreal harpsichord.
PRAETERITA.
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 some 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.
THE SWASHBUCKLER.
Squat-nosed and broad, of big and pompous port;
A tavern visage, apoplexy haunts,
All pimple-puffed; the Falstaff-like resort
Of fat debauchery, whose veined cheek flaunts
A flabby purple: rusty-spurred he stands
In rakehell boots and belt, and hanger that
Claps when, with greasy gauntlets on his hands,
He swaggers past in cloak and slouch-plumed hat.
Aggression marches armies in his words;
And in his oaths great deeds ride cap-a-pie;
His looks, his gestures breathe the breath of swords;
And in his carriage camp all wars to be:
With him of battles there shall be no lack
While buxom wenches are and stoops of sack.
THE WITCH.
She gropes and hobbies, where the dropsied rocks
Are hairy with the lichens and the twist
Of knotted wolf's-bane, mumbling in the mist,
Hawk-nosed and wrinkle-eyed with scrawny locks.
At her bent back the sick-faced moonlight mocks,
Like some lewd evil whom the Fiend hath kissed;
Thrice at her feet the slipping serpent hissed,
And thrice the owl called to the forest fox.--
What sabboth brew dost now intend? What root
Dost seek for, seal for what satanic spell
Of incantations and demoniac fire?
From thy rude hut, hill-huddled in the brier,
What dark familiar points thy sure pursuit,
With burning eyes, gaunt with the glow of Hell?
THE SOMNAMBULIST.
Oaks and a water. By the water--eyes,
Ice-green and steadfast as cold stars; and hair
Yellow as eyes deep in a she-wolf's lair;
And limbs, like darkness that the lightning dyes.
The humped oaks stand black under iron skies;
The dry wind whirls the dead leaves everywhere;
Wild on the water falls a vulture glare
Of moon, and wild the circling raven flies.
Again the power of this thing hath laid
Illusion on him: and he seems to hear
A sweet voice calling him beyond his gates
To longed-for love; he comes; each forest glade
Seems reaching out white arms to draw him near--
Nearer and nearer to the death that waits.
OPIUM.
_On reading De Quincey's "Confessions of an Opium Eater."_
I seemed to stand before a temple walled
From shadows and night's unrealities;
Filled with dark music of dead memories,
And voices, lost in darkness, aye that called.
I entered. And, beneath the dome's high-halled
Immensity, one forced me to my knees
Before a blackness--throned 'mid semblances
And spectres--crowned with flames of emerald.
Then, lo! two shapes that thundered at mine ears
The names of Horror and Oblivion,
Priests of this god,--and bade me die and dream.
Then, in the heart of hell, a thousand years
Meseemed I lay--dead; while the iron stream
Of Time beat out the seconds, one by one.
MUSIC AND SLEEP.
These have a life that hath no part in death;
These circumscribe the soul and make it strong;
Between the breathing of a dream and song,
Building a world of beauty in a breath.
Unto the heart the voice of this one saith
Ideals, its emotions live among;
Unto the mind the other speaks a tongue
Of visions, where the guess, we christen faith,
May face the fact of immortality--
As may a rose its unembodied scent,
Or star its own reflected radiance.
We do not know these save unconsciously.
To whose mysterious shadows God hath lent
No certain shape, no certain countenance.
AMBITION.
Now to my lips lift then some opiate
Of black forgetfulness! while in thy gaze
Still lures the loveless beauty that betrays,
And in thy mouth the music that is hate.
No promise more hast thou to make me wait;
No smile to cozen my sick heart with praise!
Far, far behind thee stretch laborious days,
And far before thee, labors soon and late.
Thine is the fen-fire that we deem a star,
Flying before us, ever fugitive,
Thy mocking policy still holds afar:
And thine the voice, to which our longings give
Hope's siren face, that speaks us sweet and fair,
Only to lead us captives to Despair.
DESPONDENCY.
Not all the bravery that day puts on
Of gold and azure, ardent or austere,
Shall ease my soul of sorrow; grown more dear
Than all the joy that heavenly hope may don.
Far up the skies the rumor of the dawn
May run, and eve like some wild torch appear;
These shall not change the darkness, gathered here,
Of thought, that rusts like an old sword undrawn.
Oh, for a place deep-sunken from the sun!
A wildwood cave of primitive rocks and moss!
Where Sleep and Silence--breast to married breast--
Lie with their child, night-eyed Oblivion;
Where, freed from all the trouble of my cross,
I might forget, I might forget, and rest!
DESPAIR.
Shut in with phantoms of life's hollow hopes,
And shadows of old sins satiety slew,
And the young ghosts of the dead dreams love knew,
Out of the day into the night she gropes.
Behind her, high the silvered summit slopes
Of strength and faith, she will not turn to view;
But towards the cave of weakness, harsh of hue,
She goes, where all the dropsied horror ropes.
There is a voice of waters in her ears,
And on her brow a wind that never dies:
One is the anguish of desired tears;
One is the sorrow of unuttered sighs;
And, burdened with the immemorial years,
Downward she goes with never lifted eyes.
SIN.
There is a legend of an old Hartz tower
That tells of one, a noble, who had sold
His soul unto the Fiend; who grew not old
On this condition: That the demon's power
Cease every midnight for a single hour,
And in that hour his body should be cold,
His limbs grow shriveled, and his face, behold!
Become a death's-head in the taper's glower.--
So unto Sin Life gives his best. Her arts
Make all his outward seeming beautiful
Before the world; but in his heart of hearts
Abides an hour when her strength is null;
When he shall feel the death through all his parts
Strike, and his countenance become a skull.
INSOMNIA.
It seems that dawn will never climb
The eastern hills;
And, clad in mist and flame and rime,
Make flashing highways of the rills.
The night is as an ancient way
Through some dead land,
Whereon the ghosts of Memory
And Sorrow wander hand in hand.
By which man's works ignoble seem,
Unbeautiful;
And grandeur, but the ruined dream
Of some proud queen, crowned with a skull.
A way past-peopled, dark and old,
That stretches far--
Its only real thing, the cold
Vague light of sleep's one fitful star.
ENCOURAGEMENT.
To help our tired hope to toil,
Lo! have we not the council here
Of trees, that to all hope appear
As sermons of the soil?
To help our flagging faith to rise,
Lo! have we not the high advice
Of stars, that for all faith suffice
As gospels of the skies?
Sustain us, Lord! and help us climb,
With hope and faith made strong and great,
The rock-rough pathway of our fate,
The care-dark way of time!
QUATRAINS.
PENURY.
Above his misered embers, gnarled and gray,
With toil-twitched limbs he bends; around his hut,
Want, like a hobbling hag, goes night and day,
Scolding at windows and at doors tight-shut.
STRATEGY.
Craft's silent sister and the daughter deep
Of Contemplation, she, who spreads below
A hostile tent soft comfort for her foe,
With eyes of Jael watching till he sleep.
TEMPEST.
With helms of lightning, glittering in the skies,
On steeds of thunder, cloudy form on form,
Terrific beauty in their hair and eyes,
Behold the wild Valkyries of the storm.
THE LOCUST BLOSSOM.
The spirit Spring, in rainy raiment, met
The spirit Summer for a moonlit hour:
Sweet from their greeting kisses, warm and wet,
Earth shaped the fragrant purity of this flower.
MELANCHOLY.
With shadowy immortelles of memory
About her brow, she sits with eyes that look
Upon the stream of Lethe wearily,
In hesitant hands Death's partly-opened book.
CONTENT.
Among the meadows of Life's sad unease--
In labor still renewing her soul's youth--
With trust, for patience, and with love, for peace,
Singing she goes with the calm face of Ruth.
LIFE AND DEATH.
Of our own selves God makes a glass, wherein
Two shadows image them as might a breath:
And one is Life, whose other name is Sin;
And one is Love, whose other name is Death.
SORROW.
Death takes her hand and leads her through the waste
Of her own soul, wherein she hears the voice
Of lost Love's tears, and, famishing, can but taste
The dead-sea fruit of Life's remembered joys.
A LAST WORD.
Not for thyself, but for the sake of Song,
Strive to succeed as others have, who gave
Their lives unto her; shaping sure and strong
Her lovely limbs that made them god and slave.
Not for thyself, but for the sake of Art,
Strive to advance beyond the others' best;
Winning a deeper secret from her heart
To hang it moonlike 'mid the starry rest.
_For permission to reprint a number of the poems included in this
volume, thanks are due to The Chap-Book, Cosmopolitan, Lippincott's,
Century, New England, Atlantic, and Harper's._
End of Project Gutenberg's The Garden of Dreams, by Madison J. Cawein