And crocus heavens had fed
Their wan fire soon to a thorn-thin moon,
The flocking stars that led,
A breeze set in from sea
Most odorous with spice,
And streamed among big stars that hung
Thin mists as white as ice.
And then her eyes waxed large
With one last hideous hope,
And her throat she bent toward the firmament,
Star-scattered scope on scope.
The haunted night, that felt
The rapture so accursed,
Shook, loosening one green star that spun
Wild down the dusk and burst.
Fair was her face as Sin's;
"Ah, wretch!" she wailed, "to know
A wormy seat at Death's lean feet
May not undo such woe!
"The devil-wrangling pit
Much dearer than God's deeps
Of serious skies, where thought ne'er dies
And memory never sleeps!
"And dearer far than both,
Than Heaven or Hell, the jest,
The godless lot to rot and rot,
And not be cursed or blessed!"
THE SPRING.
"_O Fons Bandusiae!_"
Push back the brambles, berry-blue,
The hollowed spring is full in view;
Deep tangled with luxuriant fern
Its rock-imbedded crystal urn.
Not for the loneliness that keeps
The coigne wherein its silence sleeps;
Not for wild butterflies that sway
Their pansy pinions all the day
Above its mirror; nor the bee,
Nor dragon-fly which passing see
Themselves reflected in its spar;
Not for the one white, liquid star
That twinkles in its firmament,
Nor moon-shot clouds so slowly sent
Athwart it when the kindly night
Beads all its grasses with the light,
Small jewels of the dimpled dew;
Not for the day's reflected blue,
Nor the quaint, dainty colored stones
That dance within it where it moans;
Not for all these I love to sit
In silence and to gaze in it.
But, know, a nymph with merry eyes
Meets mine within its laughing skies;
A graceful, naked nymph who plays
All the long fragrant summer days
With instant sight of bees and birds,
And speaks with them in water-words.
One for whose nakedness the air
Weaves moony mists, and on whose hair,
Unfilleted, the night will set
That lone star as a coronet.
LILLITA.
Can I forget how, when you stood
'Mid orchards whence spring bloom had fled,
Stars made the orchards seem a-bud,
And weighed the sighing boughs o'erhead
With shining ghosts of blossoms dead!
Or when you bowed, a lily tall,
Above your August lilies slim,
Transparent pale, that by the wall
Like softest moonlight seemed to swim,
Brimmed with faint fragrance to the brim.
And in the cloud that lingered low--
A silent pallor in the West--
There stirred and beat a golden glow
Of some great heart that could not rest,
A heart of gold within its breast.
Your heart, your life was in the wild,
Your joy to hear the whip-poor-will
Lament its love, when wafted mild
The harvest drifted from the hill:
The deep, deep wildwood where had trod
The red deer o'er the fallen hush
Of Fall's torn leaves, when the low tod
Was frosty 'neath each berried bush.
At dusk the whip-will still complains
Above your lolling lilies, where
Their faces white the moonlight stains,
The dreamy stream flows far and fair
Whisp'ring of rest an easeful air ...
O music of the falling rain,
At night unto her painless rest
Sound sweet and sad, then is she fain
To see the wild flowers on her breast
Lift moist, pure faces up again
To breathe to God their fragrance blest.
Thick-pleated beeches long have crossed
Old, mighty arms above her tomb
Where oft I watch at night her ghost
Bow to the wild-flower's full-blown bloom
A mist of curls, where Summer lost
Her tangled sunbeams and perfume.
ARTEMIS.
Oft of the hiding Oread wast thou seen
At earliest morn, a tall imperial shape,
High-buskined, dew-dripped, and on close, chaste curls,
Long blackness of thick hair, the tipsy drops
Caught from the dipping sprays of under bosks,
Kissed of thy cheek and of thy shoulder brushed,
Thy rosy cheek as haughty Hera's fair,
Thy snow-soft shoulder luminous as light.
Oft did the shaggy hills and solitudes
Of Arethusa shout and ring and reel,
Reverberate and echo merrily
With the mad chiding of thy merry hounds,
Big mouthed and musical, that on the stag,
Or bristling wild-boar furious grew in quest,
And thou, as keen, fleet-footed and clean-limbed,
Thou, thou, O goddess, with thy quivered crew,
Most loveliest maids and fit to wed with gods,
Rushed, swinging on the wind free limbs and lithe,
Long as thy radiant locks flung free to blow
And lighten in the wine-sharp air of morn.
Ai me! their throats, their lusty, dimpled throats,
That made the hills sing and the wood-ways dance
As if to Orphic strains, and gave them life!
Ai me! their bosoms' deepness and the soft,
Sweet, happy beauty of their delicate limbs,
That stormed the forest vacancies with light,
Swift daylight of their splendor and made blow,
Within the glad sonorous solitudes,
Old germs of flowerets a century cold.
The woodland Naiad whispered by her rock;
The Hamadryad, limpid-eyed and wild,
Expectant rustled by her usual oak,
And laughed in wonder; and mad Pan himself
Reeled piping fiercely down the dingled deeps
With rollicking eye that rolled a brutish lust.
And did the unwed maiden, musing where
Her father's well, beyond the god-graced hills
Bubbled and babbled, hear the full, high cry
Of the chaste huntress, while her dripping jar
Unheeded brimmed, vowed with her chastity,
And shorn gold hair to veil her virgin feet.
But, ah! not when the saucy daylight swims,
Filling the forests with a glamorous green,
Let me behold thee, goddess! but, when dim
The slow night settles on the haunted wild,
And walks in sober sark, and heatful stars
Shine out intensely and the echoy waste
Far off, far off, in shudders palpitates
Unto the Limnad's song unmerciful,
Unmerciful and mad and bitter sweet!
Then come in all thy godhead, beautiful!
Thou beautiful and gentle, as thou cam'st
To lorn Endymion, who, in Lemnos once,
Lone in the wizard magic of the wild,
Wandered a gentle boy, unfriended, sad.
It grew far off adown the stirring trees,
Thy silent beauty blossoming flowerlike,
Between the tree trunks and the lacing limbs,
Bright in the leaves that kissed for very joy
And drunkenness of glory thus revealed.
He saw it all, the naked brow and limbs,
The polished silver of thy glossy breast,
Alone, uncompanied of handmaidens;
Like some full, splendid fruit Hesperian
Not e'en for deities; thy sweet far voice
Came tinkling on his wistful ear and lisped
Like leaves that cling and slip to cling again.
And on such perilous beauty that must kill,
The poisonous favor of thy godliness,
Feasting his every sense through eyes and ears,
His soul exalted waxed and amorous,--
Like the high gods who quaff deep golden bowls
Of rosy nectar,--with immortal love,--
And what remained, ah, what remained but death!
IN NOVEMBER.
No windy white of wind-blown clouds is thine,
No windy white but low and sodden gray,
That holds the melancholy skies and kills
The wild song and the wild bird; yet, ai me!
Thy melancholy skies and mournful woods,
Brown, sighing forests dying that I love!
Thy long thick leaves deep, deep about my feet,
Slow, weary feet that halt or falter on;
Thy long, sweet, reddened leaves that burn and die
With silent fever of the sickened wold.
I love to hear in all thy windy coigns,
Rain-wet and choked with bleached and rotting weeds,
The baby-babble of the many leaves,
That, fallen on barren ways, like fallen hopes
Once held so high on all the Summer's heart
Of strong majestic trees, now come to such,
Would fainly gossip in hushed undertones,--
Sad weak yet sweet as natures that have known
True tears and hot in bleak remorseless days,--
Of all their whilom glory vanished so.
A CHARACTER.
He lived beyond us and we stood
As pygmies to his every mood,
Mere pupils at his beck and nod,
That spoke the influence of a god.
And oft we wondered, when his thought
Made our humanity seem naught,
If he, like Uther's mystic son,
Were not a birth for Avalon.
When wand'ring 'neath the sighing trees,
His soul waxed genial with the breeze,
That, voiceful, from the piney glades
Companioned seemed of Oreads;
A Dryad life lived in each oak,
And with its many leaf-tongues spoke,
Glorying the deity whose power
Gave it its life in sun and shower.
By every violet-hallowed brook,
Where every bramble-matted nook
Rippled and laughed with water-sounds,
He walked as one on sainted grounds,
Fearing intrusion on the spell
That kept some fountain-spirit's well,
Or woodland genius sitting where
Brown racy berries kissed his hair.
And when the wind far o'er the hill
Had fall'n and left the wildwood still
As moonlight jets on quiet moss,--
Beneath the pied boughs arched across
Long limpid vistas, brimmed with ripe
Green-swimming sunbeams, heard the pipe
Of some hid follower of Pan
And worshiper, half brute half man;
Who, hairy-haunched, a savage rhyme
Puffed in his reed to rudest time;
With swollen jowl and rolling eye
Danced boisterous where the silver sky
Smiled in the forest's broken roof;
The strident branch beneath his hoof
Snapped on the sod which, interfused
Between black roots, was crushed and bruised.
And often when he wandered through
Old forests at the fall of dew,--
A lone Endymion who sought
A higher beauty yet uncaught,--
Some night, we thought, most surely he
Were favored of her deity,
And in the holy solitude
Her sudden presence, long pursued,
Unto his eyes would be confessed;
The awful moonlight of her breast
Come high with majesty and hold
His heart's blood till his heart were cold,
Unpulsed, unsinewed, all undone,
And snatch his soul to Avalon.
A MOOD.
Bowed hearts that hold the saddest memories
Are the most beautiful; and such make sweet
Light happy moods of alien natures which
Their sadness contacts, and so sanctifies.
And such to me is an old, gabled house,
Deserted and neglected and unknown
Within the dreamy hollow of its hills,
Dark, cedared hills and fruitless orchards sear;
With but its host of shrouded memories
Haunting its low and desolate rooms and halls,
Its roomy hearths and cob-webbed crevices.
Here in dim rainy noons I love to sit,
And hear the running rain along the roof,
The creak and crack of noises that are born
Of unseen and mysterious agencies;
The dripping footfalls of the wind adown
Lone winding stairways massy-banistered;
A clapping door and then a sudden hush
That brings a pleasant terror stiffening through
The tingling veins and staring from the eyes.
Then comes the running rain along the roof's
Rain-rotten gables and on rain-stained walls
Invokes vague images and memories
Of all its sometime lords and mistresses,
Until the stale material will assume
All that's clairvoyant, and the fine-strung ear
In quaint far rooms or dusty corridors
Hear wrinkled ladies all beruffled trail
Long haughty silks "miraculously stiff."
A THOUGHT.
And I have thought of youth which strains
Nearer its God to rise,--
What were ambition and its pains
Were life a cowardice!
The grander souls that rose above
Thought's noblest heights to tread,
Found their endeavor in their love,
And truth behind the dead.
A secret glory in the tomb,
A night that dawns in light,
An intense presence veiled with gloom,
And not an endless night....
Nepenthe of this struggling world,
Thou who dost stay mad Care
When her fury's scourge above is curled
And we see her writhing hair!
SONG.
I
Far over the summer sea,
Ere the white-eyed stars wax pale,
From the groves where a nightingale
Wails a mystical melody,
I turn my ghostly sail
Away, away,
To follow a face I see
Far over the summer sea.
II
Far over the summer sea,
Ere the cliff which highest soars
From the foam re-echoing shores
Reddens all rosily,
Where the witch-white water roars,
Far on, far on,
Thro' the night I follow thee
Far over the summer sea.
III
Far over the summer sea,
When the great gold moon low lies
In the purple-deepened skies
I drift on tearfully
Till a spirit form doth rise
Low down, low down,
'Twixt the orbed moon and me
Far over the summer sea.
IV
Far over the summer sea
With thy foam-cold limbs wound sweet
'Round hair and throat and feet
To slay me utterly;
At each mad, hot heart beat
A kiss, a kiss,
To drain the soul with thee,
Deep, deep in the summer sea.
FACE TO FACE.
Dead! and all the haughty fate
Fair on throat and face of wax,
White, calm hands crossed still and lax,
Cold, impassionate!
Dead! and no word whispered low
At the dull ear now could wake
One responsive chord or make
One wan temple glow.
Dead! and no hot tear would stir
All that woman sweet and fair,
Woman soul from feet to hair
Which was once of her.
God! and thus to die! and I--
I must live though life be but
One long, hard, monotonous rut,
There to plod and--die!
Creeds are well in such a case;
But no sermon could have wrought
More of faith than you have taught
With your pale, dead face.
And I see it as you see--
One mistake, so very small!
Yet so great it mangled all,
Left you this and me!
Oft I pondered saying, "Sure
She could never live such life!"
And the truth stabbed like a knife
When I found you pure.
Pure, so pure! and me bemoiled,
Loathly as loathed vermin, just
As weak souls are left of lust--
Loveless, low, and soiled.
Nay! I loved you then and love!--
Grand, great eyes, I see them yet,
Set like luminous gems of jet
In wax lids above.
Lips--O poor, dumb, chideless lips!
Once as red as life could make,
Moist as wan wild roses wake
When the wild dew drips.
Hair--imperial, full, and warm
As a Grace's, where one stone
Precious lay ensnared and shone
Like a star in storm.
Eyes--at parting big with pain;
God! I see them and the tear
In them--big as eyes of deer
Led by lights and slain!
Life so true! I falsely cursed--
Lips that, curled with scorn and pride,
Hurt me though I said _they lied_,
While the true heart burst.
Rest! my heart has suffered too:
And this life had woe enough
For the little dole of love
Given to me and you.
Can you hear me? can you know
What I am and how it came,
You, beyond me like a flame,
You, before me like the snow!
Dead! and all my heart a cup
Hollowed for sad, bitter tears,
Bitter in the bitter years
Slowly brimming up.
Sleep! 'tis well! but might have been
Better!--yes, God knows it might!
Better for me in His sight
And my soul more clean.
Sleep in very peace! but I
With Earth's other fools will stay,
Live 'mid laughter, day by day
Mocking laugh and--die.
You will know me now, I know,
But in life had _never_ known
How, indeed, I was alone--
But, 'tis better so.
And I know you what you were,
Faithful and--it were no use,
Only to yourself abuse,--
I shall tell you there.
There beyond the lightning and
The long clouds and utter skies,
Moons and suns and stars that rise,
Where we'll understand.
THE CHANGELING.
I
There were Faeries two or three,
And a high moon white as wool,
Or a bloom in Faery,
Where the star-thick blossoms be
Star-like beautiful.
II
There were Faeries two or three,
And a wind as fragrant as
Spicy wafts from Arcady
Rocked the sleeping honey bee
In the clover grass.
III
There were Faeries two or three,
Wee white caps and red wee shoon,
Buckles at each dainty knee,
"We are come to comfort thee,
With the silver moon."
IV
There were Faeries two or three,
Buttercups brimmed up with dew,
Winning faces sweet to see,
Then mine eyes closed heavily:
"Faeries, what would you?"
V
There were Faeries two or three,
And my babe was dreaming deep,
White as whitest ivory,
In its crib of ebony
Rocked and crooned on sleep.
VI
There were Faeries two or three
Standing in the mocking moon,
And mine eyes closed drowsily,
Drowsily and suddenly
There my babe was gone.
VII
Now no Faeries two or three
Loitered in the moon alone;
Jesu, Marie, comfort me!
What is this instead I see--
Ugly skin and bone.
VIII
There were Faeries two or three
Stood with buckles on red shoon,
But with evil sorcery
My sweet babe to Faery
They did steal right soon.
ST. JOHN'S EVE.
I
Dizzily round
On the elf-hills white in the yellow moonlight
To a sweet, unholy, ravishing sound
Of wizard voices from underground,
Their mazy dance the Elle-maids wound
On St. John's Eve.
II
Beautiful white,
Like a wreath of mist by the starbeams kissed;
And frail, sweet faces bloomed out on the night
From floating tresses of glow-worm light,
That puffed like foam to the left and the right
On St. John's Eve.
III
Warily there
They flashed like a rill which the moonbeams fill,
But I saw what a mockery all of them were
With their hollow bodies, when the moonlit air
Rayed out through their eyes with a sudden glare
On St. John's Eve.
IV
Solemnly sweet,
By the river's banks in the rushes' ranks,
The Necks their sorrowful songs repeat:
A music of winds over dipping wheat,
Of moss-dulled cascades seemed to meet
On St. John's Eve.
V
Drowsily swam
The fire-flies fleet in eddies of heat;
Through the willows a glimmer of gold harps came,
And I saw their hair like a misty flame
Bunched over white brows, too white to name,
On St. John's Eve.
VI
Beggarly torn,
A wizen chap in a red-peaked cap,
All gray with the chaff and dust of the corn,
And strong with the pungent scent of the barn,
The Nis scowled under the flowering thorn
On St. John's Eve.
VII
Merrily call
The singing crickets in the twinkling thickets,
And the Troll hill rose on pillars tall,
Crimson pillars that ranked a hall
Where the beak-nosed Trolls were holding a ball
On St. John's Eve.
VIII
Reveling flew
From beakers of gold the wassail old;
And she reached me a goblet brimmed bright with dew--
But her wily witcheries well I knew,
And the philtre over my shoulder threw
On St. John's Eve.
LALAGE.
What were sweet life without her
Who maketh all things sweet
With smiles that dream about her,
With dreams that come and fleet!
Soft moods that end in languor;
Soft words that end in sighs;
Curved frownings as of anger;
Cold silence of her eyes.
Sweet eyes born but for slaying,
Deep violet-dark and lost
In dreams of whilom Maying
In climes unstung of frost.
Wild eyes shot through with fire
God's light in godless years,
Brimmed wine-dark with desire,
A birth for dreams and tears.
Dear tears as sweet as laughter,
Low laughter sweet as love
Unwound in ripples after
Sad tears we knew not of.
What if the day be lawless,
What if the heart be dead,
Such tears would make it flawless,
Such laughter make it red.
Lips that were curled for kisses,
For loves and hates and scorns,
Brows under gold of tresses,
Brows beauteous as the Morn's.
Imperial locks and tangled
Down to the graceful hips;
Hair where one might be strangled
Carousing on thy lips.
Rose-lovely lips that hover
About the honeyed words,
That slip wild bees from clover
Whose sweets their sweet affords.
Though days be robbed of sunlight,
White teeth make light thereof;
Though nights unknown of onelight,
Thine eyes were stars enough.
Ah, lily-lovely features,
Round temples, throat, and chin,
Sweet gods of godless natures,
Sweet love of loveless men!
Still moods and slumberous fanned on
To dreams that rock to sleep,
Unmerciful abandon,
That haunts or makes one weep.
She walks as if with sorrows
And all unknown of joy;
Eyes fixed on dim to-morrows
That all sad feet decoy.
Yet she, a peer of pleasures,
Tears from Time's taloned hand
The hour-glass he treasures,
And wastes its sullen sand.
Makes of all hours a beaker
Brimmed full of lordly wine,
Cold gold of Life's mad liquor,
And quaffs to me and mine.
The love on lips grows fairer,
Keen lights in eyes make wars,
And throat and breast grow rarer
Than the white-throated stars.
Fleet smiles come fleet and faster
And web the willing soul;
Warm breasts of alabaster
Have snared it as a whole.
What then were hell or heaven,
The fear of heaven or hell!
Lost in the life thus given
We well might bid farewell.
To leap against thy bosoms!
Live at thy ardent throat!
Kiss clinging to its blossoms,
Die kissing and not know't!
Wound in tumultuous tresses
Pulse like a naked hair,
Held in long hands for kisses,
And killed and never care.
Clasped limb and marble member,
Long raven hair with gold,
To dream, forget, remember,
Grow slowly still and cold.
Feel earth and hell forever
Remote from thee and me,
Nor strong enough to sever
Through all eternity.
Feel godlike power for evil
High throned within the heart,
Should God and hell's arch devil
Cast dice our souls to part:
Part eyes hot as a jewel,
Part covering deeps of curl,
Sweet lips as sweet as cruel,
And limbs of living pearl.
What if in the hereafter
Our love must weep farewell
'Mid the hoarse, strident laughter
Of devils deep in hell;
We'll know that all infernal,
All cactus-growth of time,
Slays not that hour eternal
That sinned with love to crime.
Love, we could live all tearless,
Remember and have breath,
Of hell and heaven fearless
In love more strong than death.
When hope shall be forgotten
And death be one with both,
Flesh, soul, and spirit rotten
And wrapped with clay in sloth.
Take comfort, love, remember
Love chastened with his rod,
And member torn from member
Would leave him still a god.
Though soul from soul be riven,
God knows we shall regret!
In hell or highest heaven
We never can forget!
MIRIAM.
White clouds and buds and birds and bees,
Low wind-notes piped from southern seas,
Brought thee a rose-white offering,
A flower-like baby with the Spring.
She, as her April, gave to thee
A soul of winsome vagary;
Large, heavenly eyes, and tender, whence
Shone the sweet mind's soft influence;
Where all the winning woman, that
Welled up in tears, high sparkling sat.
She, with the dower of her May,
Gave thee a nature that could sway
Wild men with kindness, and a pride
Which all their littleness denied.
Limbs wrought of lilies and a face
Bright as a rose flower's, and a grace,
God-taught, that clings like happiness
In each chaste billow of thy dress.
She, as her heavy June, brought down
Night deeps of hair thy brow to crown;
A voice so mild and musical
It is as water-notes that fall
O'er bars of pearl, and in thy heart
Stamped like a jewel, that should start
From thy pure face in smiles, and break
Like radiance when it laughed or spake,
Affection that is born of truth
And goodness which make very youth.
THE WIND.
The ways of the wind are eerie
And I love them all,
The blithe, the mad, and the dreary,
Spring, Winter, and Fall.
When it tells to the waiting crocus
Its beak to show,
And hangs on the wayside locust
Bloom-bunches of snow.
When it comes like a balmy blessing
From the musky wood,
The half-grown roses caressing
Till their cheeks show blood.
When it roars in the Autumn season,
And whines with rain
Or sleet like a mind without reason,
Or a soul in pain.
When the wood-ways once so spicy
With bud and bloom
Are desolate, sear, and icy
As the icy tomb.
When the wild owl crouched and frowsy
In the rotten tree
Wails dolorous, cold, and drowsy,
His shuddering melody.
Then I love to sit in December
Where the big hearth sings,
And dreaming forget and remember
A host of things.
And the wind--I hear how it strangles
And gasps and sighs
On the roof's sharp, shivering angles
That front the skies.
How it groans and romps and tumbles
In attics o'erhead,
In the great-throated chimney rumbles,
Then all at once falls dead;
Till it comes like footsteps slipping
Of a child on the stair,
Or a quaint old gentleman tripping
With heavily powdered hair.
And my soul grows anxious hearted
For those once dear--
The long-lost loves departed
In the wind draw near.
And I seem to see their faces,
Not one estranged,
In their old accustomed places
'Round the wide hearth ranged.
And the wind that waits and poises
Where the shadows sway
Makes their visionary voices
Seem calling me far away.
And I wake in tears to listen
Again to the sobbing wind,
Far out on the lands that glisten,
Like the voice of one who sinned.
MUSIC.
[A NOCTURNE.]
The soul of love is harmony; as such
All melodies, that with wide pinions beat
Elastic bars, which mew it in the flesh,
Till 'twould away to kiss their throats and cling,
Are kindred to the soul, and while they sway,
Lords of its action molding all at will.
Ah! neither was I I, nor knew the clay,
For all my soul lay on full waves of song
Reverberating 'twixt the earth and moon.