An old house stands: around its doors the dense
Rank ironweeds grow high;
The chipmunks make a highway of its fence;
And on its sunken flagstones newt and toad
As still as lichens lie.
The timid snake upon its hearth's cool sand
Sleeps undisturbed; the squirrel haunts its roof;
And in the clapboard sides
Of closets,--dim with many a spider woof,--
Like the uncertain tapping of a hand,
The beetle-borer hides.
Above its lintel, under mossy eaves,
The mud-wasps build their cells; and in the floor
Of its neglected porch
The black bees nest: through each deserted door,
Vague as faint, phantom footsteps, steal the leaves
And dropped cones of the larch.
But come with me when sunset's magic old
Transforms this ruin--yea! transmutes this house:
When windows, one by one,--
Like Age's eyes, that Youth's love-dreams arouse,--
Grow lairs of fire; and a mouth of gold
Its wide door towards the sun.
Or let us wait until each rain-stained room
Is carpeted with moonlight, patterned oft
With shadow'd boughs o'erhead;
And through the house the wind goes rustling soft,
As might the ghost--a whisper of perfume--
Of some sweet girl long dead.
THE FOREST OF DREAMS
I
Where was I last Friday night?--
Within the Forest of dark Dreams
Following the blur of a goblin light,
That led me over dreadful streams,
Whereon the scum of the spawn was spread,
And the blistered slime, in stagnant seams;
Where the weed and the moss swam black and dead,
Like a drowned girl's hair, in the ropy ooze:
And the jack-o'-lantern light that led
Flickered the foxfire trees o'erhead,
And the owl-like things at airy cruise.
II
Where was I last Friday night?--
Within the Forest of dark Dreams
Following a form of shadowy white
With my own wild face it seems.--
Did a raven's wing just fan my hair?
Or a web-winged bat brush by my face?
Or the hand of--something I did not dare
Look round to see in that obscene place!
Where the boughs, with their leaves a-devil's-dance,
And the thorn-tree bush, where the wind made moan,
Had more than a strange significance
Of life and of evil not their own.
III
Where was I last Friday night?--
Within the Forest of dark Dreams
Seeing the mists rise left and right,
Like the leathery fog that heaves and steams
From the rolling horror of Hell's red streams:
While the wind, that tossed in the tattered tree,
And danced alone with the last mad leaf--
Or _was_ it the wind?... kept whispering me,
"Come! bury it here with its own black grief,
And its heart of fire that naught can save!"--
And there in the darkness I seemed to see
My own self digging my soul a grave.
THE CITY OF DARKNESS
Wide-walled it stands in heathen lands
Beside a mystic sea,
Its streets strange-trod of many a god
And templed blasphemy.
Far through the night, with light on light,
It flames beside the sea;
While overhead an unseen dread
Impends eternally.
There is a sound above, around,
Of music by the sea;
And weird and wide the torches glide
Of pagan revelry.
There is a noise as of a voice
That calls beneath the sea;
And all the deep heaves, as in sleep,
With vague expectancy.
Then slowly up--as in a cup
Seethes poison--swells the sea;
As through black glass, wild mass on mass,
The town glows fiery.
Red-lit it glowers, like Hell's dark towers,
Closed in the iron sea;
And monster forms in awful swarms
Wing round it cloudily.
Still overhead the unseen dread,
Whose shadow dyes the sea,
At wrath-winged wait behind its gate
Till God shall set it free.
An earthquake crash; a taloned flash--
And, lo! from sky to sea
A sworded Doom that stalks the gloom,
Crowned with Death's agony.
And where it burned, a flame inurned,
Blood-red within the sea,
The phantasm of the dread above
Sits in immensity.
UNDER DARK SKIES
I
Hills rolled in woods, that lair the lynx and fox;
Harsh fields, that lean before the woods' advance
As wild-men fly from hunters, tossing locks
Through which their eyes of yellow fire glance;
Great blurs of briers and lugubrious rocks,--
A bristling blackness,--with a pool beneath,
Whereo'er the wisps, like something evil, dance;
And then a house like the wrecked face of death.
II
There where the moon hangs sinister, o'er parched
And haggard thorns,--a golden battle-bow,
Or shield of bronze, old wars have scarred and scorched,--
What crime hath cursed it ... who shall ever know?--
Night only! Night, with flickering flame, who torched
That moment when blood branded black its sod,
And in the pool a ghastly face sank slow
Beneath the storm and rushing fire of God.
REMBRANDTS
I
I shall not soon forget her and her eyes,
The haunts of hate, where suffering seemed to write
Its stealthy name, whose syllables are sighs,
In strange and starless night.
I shall not soon forget her and her face,
So quiet, yet uneasy as a dream
That stands on tip-toe in a haunted place
And listens for a scream.
She made me feel as one, alone, may feel
In some grand, ghostly mansion of old time,
The presence of a treasure, walls conceal,
And secret of a crime.
II
With lambent faces, mimicking the moon,
The water lilies lie;
Dotting the darkness of the long lagoon
As stars, the sky.
A face, the whiteness of a water-flower,
With pollen-golden hair,
In shadow half, half in the moonlight's glower,
Lifts slowly there.
A young girl's face, death makes mute marble of,
Turned to the moon and me,
Sad with the pathos of unspeakable love,
Floating to sea.
III
One listening bent, in dread of something coming
He can not flee nor balk--
A phantom footstep, in the ghostly gloaming,
That haunts a ruined walk.
Long has he given his whole heart's hard endeavor
To labor, dark and dawn,
Dreaming that Love still watched his toil and ever
Turned kindly eyes thereon.
Now in his life, he feels, there nears an hour,
Inevitable, alas!
When in the darkness he shall cringe and cower,
And see his dead self pass.
GHOSTS
Was it the strain of the waltz that, repeating
Love, so bewitched me? or only the gleam
There of the lustres, that set my heart beating,
Feeling your presence as one feels a dream?
For, on a sudden, the woman of fashion,
Soft at my side in her diamonds and lace,
Vanished, and pale with reproach or with passion,
You, my dead sweetheart, looked up in my face.
Music, the nebulous lights, and the sifting
Fragrance of women made amorous the air;
Born of these three and my thoughts you came drifting,
Clad in dim muslin, a rose in your hair.
There in the waltz, that followed the lancers,
Hard to my breast did I crush you and hold;
Far through the stir and the throng of the dancers
Onward I bore you as often of old.
Pale were your looks; and the rose in your tresses
Paler of hue than the dreams we have lost;--
"Who," then I said, "is it sees or who guesses,
Here in the hall, that I dance with a ghost?"
Gone!--And the dance and the music are ended.
Gone!--And the rapture is turned into sighs.
And, on my arm, in her elegance splendid,
The woman of fashion smiles up in my eyes.
Had I forgotten? and did she remember?--
She who is dead, whom I can not forget:
She, for whose sake all my heart is an ember
Covered with ashes of dreams and regret.
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 lovelight 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.
THAT NIGHT
That night I sat listening, as in a swoon,
With half-closed eyes,
To far-off bells, low-lulling as a tune
That drifts and dies
Beneath the flowery fingers of the June
Harping to summer skies.
And then I dreamed the world I knew was gone,
And some one brought,--
Leading me far o'er sainted hill and lawn,
In heavenly thought,--
My soul where well the sources of the dawn
With dew and fire fraught.
Above me the majestic dome of night,
With star on star,
Sparkled; in which one star shone blinding bright;
Radiant as spar
That walls the halls of morning, pearly white
Around her golden car.
About me temples, vast in desert seas,
Columned a land
Of ruins--bones of old monstrosities
God's awful hand
Had smitten; homes of dead idolatries,
O'erwhelmed with dust and sand.
Their bestial gods, caked thick with gems and gold,
Their blasphemies
Of beauty, rent; 'mid ruined altars rolled;
Their agonies
And rites abolished; and their priests of old--
Dust on the desert breeze.
Then Syrian valleys, purple with veiling mist,
Meseemed I trailed,
Where the frail floweret, by the dewdrop kissed,
Soft-blushing, quailed;
And drowned in dingled deeps of amethyst
The moon-mad bulbul wailed.
On glimmering wolds I seemed to hear the bleat
Of folded flocks:
Then shepherds passed me, bare of head and feet;
And then an ox
Lowed; and, above me, swept the solemn beat
Of angel wings and locks.
A manger then I seemed to see where bent,
In adoration,
Above a babe, Men of the Orient,
Where, low of station,
His mother lay, while round them swam sweet scent
And sounds of jubilation.
And then I woke. The rose-white moon above
Bloomed on my sight;--
And in her train the stars of winter drove,
Light upon light;
While Yuletide bells rocked, pealing "peace and love"
Down all the aisles of night.
GRAMARYE
There are some things that entertain me more
Than men or books; and to my knowledge seem
A key of Poetry, made of magic lore
Of childhood, opening many a fabled door
Of superstition, mystery, and dream
Enchantment locked of yore.
For, when through dusking woods my pathway lies,
Often I feel old spells, as o'er me flits
The bat, like some black thought that, troubled, flies
Round some dark purpose; or before me cries
The owl that, like an evil conscience, sits,
A shadowy voice and eyes.
Then, when down blue canals of cloudy snow
The white moon oars her boat, and woods vibrate
With crickets, lo, I hear the hautboys blow
Of Elfland; and, when gold the fireflies glow,
See where the goblins hold a Fairy Fête
With many a lanthorn-row.
Strange growths, that ooze from long-dead logs and spread
A creamy fungus, where the snail, uncoiled,
And fat slug feed at morn, are Pixy bread
Made of the yeasted dew; the lichens red,
Beside these grown, are meat the Brownies broiled
Above a glow-worm bed.
The smears of silver on the webs that line
The knuckled roots, or stretch, white-wov'n, within
The hollow stump, are stains of Faery wine
Spilled on the cloth where Elfland sat to dine,
When night beheld them drinking, chin to chin,
Of th' moon's fermented shine.
What but their chairs the mushrooms on the lawn,
Or toadstools hidden under flower and fern,
Tagged with the dotting dew!--With knees updrawn
Far as his eyes, have I not come upon
Puck seated there? but scarcely round could turn
When, presto! he was gone.
And so though Science from the woods hath tracked
The Elfin; and with prosy lights of day
Unhallowed all his haunts; and, dulling, blacked
Our vision, still hath Beauty never lacked
For seers yet; who, in some wizard way,
Prove fancy real as fact.
THE WORLD OF FAERY
I
When in the pansy-purpled stain
Of sunset one far star is seen,
Like one bright drop of rain,
Out of the forest, deep and green,
O'er me a Spirit seems to lean,
The fairest of her train.
II
The Spirit, dowered with fadeless youth
Of Lay and Legend, young as when,
Close to her side, in sooth,
She led me from the marts of men,
A child, into her world, which then
To me was true as truth.
III
Her hair is like the silken husk
That holds the corn, the gloss that glows;
Her brow is white as tusk;
Her body is like some sweet rose,
And through her gossamer raiment shows
Like starlight closed in musk.
IV
She smiles at me; she nods at me;
And by her looks I am beguiled
Into the mystery
Of ways I knew when, as a child,
She led me 'mid her blossoms wild
Of faery fantasy.
V
The blossoms that, when night is here,
Become sweet mouths that sigh soft tales;
Or, each, a jeweled ear
Leaned to the elfin dance that trails
Down moonrayed cirques of haunted vales
To cricket song and cheer.
VI
The blossoms that, closed up all day,--
Primrose and poppy,--darkness opes,
Slowly, to free a fay,
Who, silken-soft, leaps forth and ropes
With rain each web that, starlit, slopes
Between each grassy spray.
VII
The blossoms from which elves are born,--
Sweet wombs of mingled scent and snow,
Whose deeps are cool as morn;
Wherein I oft have heard them blow
Their pixy trumpets, silvery low
As some bee's drowsy horn.
VIII
So was it when my childhood roamed
The woodland's dim enchanted ground,
Where every mushroom domed
Its disc for them to revel round;
Each glow-worm forged its flame,--green-drowned
In hollow snow that foamed
IX
Of lilies,--for their lantern light,
To lamp their dance beneath the moon;
Each insect of the night,--
That rasped its thin, vibrating tune,--
And owl that raised its sleepy croon,
Made music for their flight.
X
So is it still when twilight fills
My soul with childhood's memories
That haunt the far-off hills,
And people with dim things the trees,--
With faery forms that no man sees,
And dreams that no man kills.
XI
Then all around me sway and swing
The Puck-lights of their firefly train,
Their elfin revelling;
And in the bursting pods, that rain
Their seeds around my steps, again
I hear their footsteps ring.
XII
The faery feet that fall once more
Within my way;--and then I see,--
As oft I saw before,--
_Her_ Spirit rise, who shimmeringly
Fills all my world with poetry,--
The Loveliness of Yore.
THERE ARE FAIRIES
I
There are fairies, bright of eye,
Who the wildflowers' warders are:
Ouphes, that chase the firefly,
Elves, that ride the shooting-star:
Fays, who in a cobweb lie,
Swinging on a moonbeam bar;
Or who harness bumble-bees,
Grumbling on the clover leas,
To a blossom or a breeze,
That's their fairy car.
If you care, you too may see
There are fairies.--Verily,
There are fairies.
II
There are fairies. I could swear
I have seen them busy, where
Roses loose their scented hair,
In the moonlight weaving, weaving,
Out of starlight and the dew,
Glinting gown and shimmering shoe;
Or, within a glow-worm lair,
From the dark earth slowly heaving
Mushrooms whiter than the moon,
On whose tops they sit and croon,
With their grig-like mandolins,
To fair fairy ladykins,
Leaning from the window-sill
Of a rose or daffodil,
Listening to their serenade
All of cricket music made.
Follow me, oh, follow me!
Ho! away to Faerie!
Where your eyes like mine may see
There are fairies.--Verily,
There are fairies.
III
There are fairies. Elves that swing
In a wild and rainbow ring
Through the air; or mount the wing
Of a bat to courier news
To the fairy King and Queen:
Fays, who stretch the gossamers
On which twilight hangs the dews;
Who, within the moonlight sheen,
Whisper dimly in the ears
Of the flowers words so sweet
That their hearts are turned to musk
And to honey; things that beat
In their veins of gold and blue:
Ouphes, that shepherd moths of dusk--
Soft of wing and gray of hue--
Forth to pasture on the dew.
There are fairies; verily;
Verily;
For the old owl in the tree,
Hollow tree,
He who maketh melody
For them tripping merrily,
Told it me.
There are fairies.--Verily,
There are fairies.
ON MIDSUMMER NIGHT
I
All the poppies, in their beds
Nodding crumpled, crimson heads;
And the larkspurs, in whose ears
Twilight hangs, like twinkling tears,
Sleepy jewels of the rain;
All the violets, that strain
Eyes of amaranthine gleam;
And the clover-blooms that dream
With pink baby-fists closed tight,--
They can hear upon this night,
Noiseless as the moon's white light,
Footsteps and the glimmering flight,
Shimmering flight,
Of the Fairies.
II
Every sturdy four-o'-clock,
In its variegated frock;
Every slender sweet-pea, too,
In its hood of pearly hue;
Every primrose pale that dozes
By the wall and slow uncloses
A sweet mouth of dewy dawn
In a little silken yawn,--
On this night of silvery sheen,
They can see the Fairy Queen,
On her palfrey white, I ween,
Tread dim cirques of haunted green,
Moonlit green,
With her Fairies.
III
Never a foxglove-bell, you see,
That's a cradle for a bee;
Never a lily, that's a house
Where the butterfly may drowse;
Never a rose-bud or a blossom,
That unfolds its honeyed bosom
To the moth, that nestles deep
And there sucks itself to sleep,--
But can hear and also see,
On this night of witchery,
All that world of Faerie,
All that world where airily,
Merrily,
Trip the Fairies.
IV
It was last Midsummer Night,
In the moon's uncertain light,
That I stood among the flowers,
And, in language unlike ours,
Heard them speaking of the Pixies,
Trolls and Gnomes and Water-Nixes;
How in _this_ flow'r's ear a Fay
Hung a gem of rainy ray;
And round _that_ flow'r's throat had set,
Dim, a dewdrop carcanet;
Then among the mignonette
Stretched a cobweb-hammock wet,
Dewy wet,
For the Fairies.
V
Long I watched, but never a one,
Ariel, Puck, or Oberon,
Mab, or Queen Titania--
Fairest of them all they say--
Clad in morning-glory hues,
Did I glimpse among the dews.
Only once I thought the torch
Of that elfin-rogue and arch,
Robin Goodfellow, afar
Flashed along a woodland bar--
Bright, a jack-o'-lantern star,
A green lamp of firefly spar,
Glow-worm spar,
Loved of Fairies.
THE DANCE OF THE FAIRIES
On the glimmering coppice,
From her shadowy hair,
Long, silvery poppies
Of moon-litten air
The Night hath flung there.
In the fern-fronded hollow
The fireflies stream,
Uncertainly follow,
With lanterns of gleam,
Some spirit or dream.
The forest is fragrant;
The night-hazes swirl
And trail,--through the vagrant
Deep ferns that unfurl,--
Faint footsteps of pearl.
From hill and from valley,
Where the moon is at home;
From rocks,--musically,--
Where singing streams comb
Wild tresses of foam;
With a ripple and twinkle
Of luminous arms,
And footfalls that tinkle
The darkness, in swarms
Of flower-like forms:
We speed to the revel
From bloom and from brier,
With locks that dishevel,
And feet, like the fire,
Winged wild with desire.
Like the wind on the mountain,
We circle and dance;
Like the foam of the fountain,
That sings of romance,
We glimmer and glance.
Swift, swift we go swinging
Down the slanted moonbeam,
In spirals faint flinging
A rainbow-rayed gleam
On sward and on stream.
You may hear, like a murmur,
The swirl of our hair;
Our footfall; no firmer
Than leaves on the air
When branches blow bare.
To men who are favored
In spiritual wise,
Whose hearts have not quavered
To see us, we rise
And doff all disguise.
Come away then, come hither,
In the moon-blossomed night!
Ere the star-flowers wither,
And Morning, the white,
Reaps, mows them with light.
Come hither, where singing
Sounds softer than tears,
Or kisses, sweet clinging,
Or music one hears
With memory's ears.
Come join us, whose kisses
Are waiting for you;
Come, catch at our tresses,
And dance through the dew!
Come away, and pursue!
Come, come to the coppice,
The violet ridge;
The torrent, whose top is
A rainbow,--a bridge
We tread like the midge.--
Come, mortal, come hither!
Come dance with your dreams,
Ere the golden spark wither
Of the glow-worm that gleams
Like a star in still streams.
THE CHANGELING
In the night I heard the sea;
Saw the round moon, white as wool,
Or a bloom in Faerie,
Rise above the hawthorn-tree,
White and wonderful,
Weird and wonderful.
Through the door there came to me
Breezy whispers, fragrant as
Wafts that rock the honey-bee,
Cradled sweet in Arcady,
In the bluebelled grass,
In the rose-strewn grass.
Then I saw them; suddenly;
Three red caps against the moon;--
And three voices whispered me,
"We have come to dance for thee,
Sing for thee a tune,
Sing an elfin tune."
They were Fairies, Fairies three:
Nearer to my crib they drew,
Singing all the time to me,
Till mine eyes closed dreamily,
Closed, and naught I knew,
And no more I knew.
While I slept I heard the three
Whispering round my baby there,
White as moonlit ivory,
In its crib of ebony,
All my joy and care,
All my love and care.
Now I sit here, as you see,
And my heart is all bereft,
Sighing, singing wearily
To this strange thing on my knee,
This wild thing they left,
Changeling that they left.
THE ELF-QUEEN
You ask me why I wandered wide
When Summer sighed o'er dying June?--
To see the Fairy People ride
Beneath the moon.
Wild poppies hedged a hawthorne copse,
Where glow-worms hung dim lamps of gold;
A sudden whisper bowed their tops,
And then, behold!
Between the poppies and the mead
I saw the Fairies riding down:
One fair-faced Fairy in the lead
Crowned with a crown.
The night was ringing with their reins,
So loud the cricket hushed its song;
Bells up and down their horses' manes
Swung sweet along.
And whistles, that took all the wind
With music when they shook their manes;
So that the fields, before, behind,
Rang with sweet strains.
And as their bridles chiming swung,
The night seemed cured of every qualm;
And my sick heart, so wild of tongue,
Was almost calm.
The steeds they rode were fairy steeds,
Of filmy form and gossamer green;
And every elf was clad in weeds
Of silken sheen.
Above, a beam of silver light
Beat time to their wild fairy tune,
And danced and glanced,--an elfin white
Not of the moon.
They were so small the harebell's blue
Had helmeted each tiny head,
Save that fair Fay, who, tall as two,
The Fairies led.
Dark tresses floated from a tire
Of diamond sparks that snapped with light;
And all her white sark seemed of fire
Shimmering the night.
I would have thrown me at her feet
And told her of my grief and pain;
And she, perhaps, had helped me meet
My love again.
Alas! a cock crew far away,
A long-necked cry; and, swift as thought,
The Elf-Queen and her company
Passed into naught.
SONG OF THE ELF
I
Where the poppies, with their shields,
Sentinel
Forest and the harvest fields,
In the bell
Of a blossom, fair to see,
There I stall the bumblebee,
My good stud;
There I stable him and hold,
Harness him with hairy gold;
There I ease his burly back
Of the honey and its sack
Filched from bloom and bud.
II
Where the glow-worm lights its lamp,
There I lie;
Where, above the grasses damp,
Moths go by;
Now within the fussy brook,
Where the waters wind and crook
Round the rocks,
I go sailing down the gloom
Straddling light a wisp of broom;
Or, beneath the owlet moon,
Trip it to the cricket's tune
Tossing back my locks.
III
Ere the crowfoot on the lawn
Lifts its head,
Or the glow-worm's light be gone,
Dim and dead,
In a cobweb-hammock I
Swing between two ferns and lie
Hid away;
Where the drowsy musk-rose blows
And a sleepy runnel flows,
In the land of Faery,
There I rock, where none can see,
All the summer day.
AN ELF SWASHBUCKLER
Ho, my bullies, lift a tune
To Queen Mab, and, come, make merry,
By a mushroom in the moon,
White as bud of berry!
Gentlemen, come! take your grog!
Each one in his cap and mantlet:
Who refuses is a dog!--
He must lift my gantlet!
Look! my gaberdine how brave!
And my tunic, ouphen yellow!
One a bat's-wing lately gave,
And a frog its fellow.
And a moth's-head grew this fine
Feather of my beetle-bonnet;
See, my gnat-sting dagger's shine
Hath its blood still on it.
Faith! this ring I wear, I swear,
'Twas Queen Mab who gave it: studded,
As you see, with rubies rare--
Eyes of spiders blooded.
Doubt me, sirs, and by my blade!--
Sirrahs, a good stabbing hanger!
From a hornet's stinger made!--
You may dread my anger!
Fill the lichen pottles up,
Honey pressed from hearts of roses:
Cheek by jowl, up with each cup,
Till we hide our noses.
Good, sirs!--Marry!--'Twas the cock!--
Hey, away! the moon's lost fire!--
Ho! the cock! our dial and clock--
Hide beneath this brier!
ON THE EVE OF ST. JOHN
(_Scandinavian_)
Dizzily round,
On the elf-hills, white in the mellow moonlight,
To a sweet, unholy, ravishing sound
Of wizard voices from underground,
Their mazy dance the Elle-maids wound
On St. John's Eve.
Beautiful white,
Like a wreath of mist by the starbeams kissed,
Their frail, sweet faces bloomed out of the night,
With floating tresses of firefly light,
That puffed like foam to the left and the right,
On St. John's Eve.
Fitfully there
They danced like the daughters of starlit waters,--
But I saw what a mockery all of them were,
With their hollow bodies, when the moonlit air
Rayed out of their eyes with a glow-worm glare,
On St. John's Eve.