PROMENADES
NOCTURNE
The valleys that were known in sunlit hours
Are vast and vague as seas;
Wan as the blackthorn flowers
That quiver in the first spring-scented breeze:
Far as the frosted hollows of the moon.
The sighing woods are still--
Wrapp'd in their age-long boon
Of mystery and sleep. A naked hill,
Loud and discordant, looms against the sky,
And little lights like stars
Break the monotony
Of blue and silver, black and grey. Strange bars
Of light resemble silver masks, and leer
Across the forest lane.
Tall nettles, rank from rain,
Scent all the woods with some ancestral fear.
Trees rustle by the water. A voice sings
Faintly, to ward off fright.
The water breathes pale rings
Of sad, wan light;
Faintly they grow,
Then merge into the night:
The last poor twisted echo takes to flight.
_To_ W. H. DAVIES.
THE LAMENT OF THE MOLE-CATCHER
An old, sad man who catches moles
Went lonely down the lane--
All lily-green were the lanes and knolls,
But sorrow numbed his brain.
He paid no heed to flower or weed
As he went his lonely way.
No note he heard from any bird
That sang, that sad spring day.
"I trap'd the moles for forty years
Who could not see the sky,
I reckoned not blind blood or tears,
And the Lord has seen them die.
For forty years I've sought to slay
The small, the dumb, the blind,
But now the Lord has made me pay,
And I am like their kind.
I cannot see or lane or hill,
Or flower or bird or moon;
Lest life shall lay me lower still,
O Lord--come take it soon."
THE BEGINNING
Great spheres of fire, to which the sun is nought,
Pass thund'ring round our world. A golden mist--
The margin to the universe--falls round
The verges of our vision. Rocks ablaze
Leap upward to the sun, or fall beneath
The rush of our rapidity, that seems
Catastrophy, and not the joyous birth
Of yet another star. The air is full
Of clashing colour, full of sights and sounds
Too plain and loud for men to heed or hear,
The cosmic cries of pain that follow birth:
A multi-coloured world.
The scorching heat
Surpasses all the equatorial days:
Steam rises from the surface of the sea.
Gigantic rainbow mists resemble forms
That bring to mind strange elemental sprites
Exulting in the chaos of creation.
They glide above the tumult-ridden sea
Which now is shaken as are autumn leaves;
Great hollows open and reveal its depths--
Devoid of any form of life or death.
Till wave on wave it gathers strength again
And shakes a mountain, splits it to the base
(Still weak from struggle as a new-born babe).
Then night comes on, and shows the flaming path
Of all the rocks that vainly seek the sun.
Broad as the arch of space, a myriad moons
Sail slowly by the sea; the glowing world
Shows up the pallor of their ivory.
The din grows greater from the universe:
There rises up the smell of fire and iron,--
Not dreary like the smell of burnt-out things,
But like the smell of some gigantic forge--
Cheerful, of good intent, and full of life.
Now all the joyous cries of sea and earth,
The universal harmonies of birth,
Rise up to haunt the slumber of their God.
THE END
Round the great ruins crawl those things of slime
Green ruins lichenous and scarred by moss--
An evil lichen that proclaims world doom,
Like blood dried brown upon a dead man's face.
And nothing moves save those monstrosities,
Armoured and grey, and of a monster size.
But now, a thing passed through the cloying air
With flap and clatter of its scaly wings--
As if the whole world echoed from some storm.
One scarce could see it in the dim green light
Till suddenly it swooped and made a dart
And brushed away one of those things of slime,
Just as a hawk might sweep upon its prey.
It seems as if the light grows dimmer yet--
No radiance from the dreadful green above,
Only a lustrous light or iridescence
As if from off a carrion-fly,--surrounds
That vegetation which is never touched
By any breeze. The air is thick, and brings
The tainted subtle sweetness of decay.
Where, yonder, lies the noisome river-course,
There shows a faintly phosphorescent glow.
Long writhing bodies fall and twist and rise,
And one can hear them playing in the mud.
Upon the ruined walls there gleam and shine
The track of those grey vast monstrosities--
As some gigantic snail had crawled along.
All round the shining bushes waver lines
Suggesting shadows, slight and grey, but full
Of that which makes one nigh to dead with fear.
Watch how those awful shadows culminate
And dance in one long wish to hurt the world.
A world that now is past all agony!
FOUNTAINS
"The graven fountain-masks suffer and weep.
Carved with a smile, the poor mouths clutch
At a half-remembered song,
Striving to forget the agony of ever laughing."
SACHEVERELL SITWELL.
Some fountains sing of love
In full and flute-like notes that charge the night
With all the red-mouthed essence of the rose;
Then turn to voices murmuring above,
Among the trees,
Of hidden sweet delight.
Another fountain flows
With the faint music of a first spring breeze;
Each falling drop is jewelled by the moon
To some fine luminous ecstasy of light.
It sings of noon,
Of sunlit blossoms on a first spring day
And all things sweet and pleasant to the sight.
Another fountain sings
Of the cool pleasures of those moonlit hours
When dappled sylvan things
Trample through thickets and through secret bowers
To prance and play,
Or, squatting round in rings,
To wreathe their horned heads with wan sweet flowers
Till dawn comes grey and sweeps them to the wood.
Another fountain sobs
Its song of passions that have passed away.
Then with a sound like threatening rolling drums, it throbs
And bursts into a flood
Of fierce wild music; and its savage spray
Becomes the blood
Renewed, of crimes long past.
Another fountain sings its song of fear,
Of rustics flying fast
Before some foe--
A deadly, unknown foe that comes so near
They feel his panting breath,
And run for many a lengthy, panic mile.
Those graven fountain-masks are white with woe!
Carved with a happy smile
They strive to weep...
End their eternal laughing--for awhile
To lose themselves in sleep
Or in the silver peacefulness of death.
SONG OF THE FAUNS
When the woods are white beneath the moon
And grass is wet with crystal dew,
When in the pool
So clear and cool
The moon reflects itself anew,
We raise ourselves from daylight's swoon,
We shake away
The sleep of day,
Out from our bosky homes we spring;
Horns wreathed with flowers,
Throughout the hours
Of moonlight, worshipping we sing.
Pale iv'ry goddess, whose wan light
Looks down upon us worshipping--
Each dappled faun
Who shuns the dawn,
Is here, and rarest gifts we bring--
The feathers of the birds of night
Wrought to a crown
Of softest down
We offer you, and crystal bright,
The dew within a lily cup
Reflecting stars
In shining bars;
All things most strange we offer up--
Rich gifts of fruit and honeyed flowers
To place within your secret bowers.
We shake down apples from the trees,
And pears, and plums with velvet skin;
Up to the sky
We cast these high
And pray you'll stoop to net them in.
We dance: then fall upon our knees
And pray and sing--all this to show
The love that all loyal fauns must owe
To you, white goddess of the night.
But no more play,
We must away,
The eastern sky is growing bright.
"A SCULPTOR'S CRUELTY"
The faun runs through the forest of the noon,
Then leaps into some lovely shrouded glade
Splashed with hot light. He dances in the shade
Of tower-like trees, whose branches sway and swoon
Beneath their weight of green. No breath of air
Ruffles the vivid blossom or the moss
On which he pirouettes, all is so fair!
He leaps about; then, tired and at a loss
For what to do, he roams the wood--espies
A figure like himself--but stiff and grey!
Lacking the hairy chest and dappled thighs
That are his pride. "But surely this can play
And scamper, dance and snuffle through the day
As well as me?" So he comes near and eyes
The lichened features of a faun of stone.
Oh! it is sad to be so young--alone!
PIERROT OLD
The harvest moon is at its height,
The evening primrose greets its light
With grace and joy: then opens up
The mimic moon within its cup.
Tall trees, as high as Babel tower,
Throw down their shadows to the flower--
Shadows that shiver--seem to see
An ending to infinity.
The Pagan Pan has now unbent
And stoops to sniff the night-stock scent
That brings a memory sad and old,
When he was young, and free, and bold,
To play his pipe in forests black,
Or follow in some goatherd's track
Who, fill'd with panic fear, then flees
Through all the terror-threatening trees.
Huge silver moths, like ghosts of flowers,
Hover about the warm dark bowers,
And wait to breathe the lime-tree scent
That perfum'd many a compliment
Address'd to beauties young and gay,
Their faces powdered by the ray
Of that same moon that looks upon
Their dreary lichen-cover'd tomb.
The dryads throw their water wide
And strive to stem the surging tide
That dashes up the fountain base,
Hoping to catch the moon's pale face--
A game now played without a score
For three good centuries or more.
And all the earth smells warm and sweet
--A fitting place for fairy feet.
But now a figure white and frail
Leaps out into the moonlight pale.
From wakeful thoughts, old age and grief,
He finds in this strange world relief.
Yet all the shadow, scent and sound,
Poor Pierrot's mind do sad confound.
Watch how he dances to the moon
While singing some faint fragrant tune!
But Pierrot now is tired and sad
--Remembers all the evenings mad
He spent with that fantastic band
So gaily wand'ring o'er the land.
They all are dead--and at an end,
And he is left without a friend.
For tho' the hours can pass away,
Poor Pierrot still must grieve and stay.
Upon the dewy grass he lies:
The perfumes stir strange memories.
Once more he hears a laughing cry
That brings great tear-drops to his eye.
That step--that look--that voice--that smile.
Ah! they've been buried a long while!
And who's the man in pantaloons,
And he who sings such festive tunes?
Why, it's that laughing man of sin,
That roguish rascal Harlequin!
Forgiving Pierrot hides his head
Deep in the grass and mourns the dead;
Forgetting all the pranks they play'd,
And how he was himself betray'd.
The butterfly lives but one day,
But Pierrot still seems doom'd to stay.
He falls asleep there, tragic-white,
And wakes to find the bleak daylight.
NIGHT
All the dim terrors dwelling far below,
Interr'd by many thousand years of life,
Arise to revel in this evil dark:
The wail forlorn of dogs that mourn for men--
A shuffling footfall on a creaking board,
The handle of a door that shakes and turns--
A door that opens slightly, not enough:
The rustling sigh of silk along a floor,
The knowledge of being watched by one long dead,
By something that is outside Nature's pale.
The unheard sounds that haunt an ancient house:
The feel of one who listens in the dark,
Listens to that which happened long ago,
Or what will happen after we are dust.
The awful waiting for a near event,
Or for a crash to rend the silence deep
Enveloping a house that always waits--
A house that whispers to itself and weeps.
The murmur of the yew, or woodland cries,
A sombre note of music on the breeze;
A shudder from the ivy that entwines
The horror that is felt within its grip.
The sound of prowling things that walk abroad,
The nauseous flapping of Night's bat-like wings--
These are the signs the gods have given us
To know the limit of our days and powers.
_To_ MARGARET GREVILLE
FROM CARCASSONNE
I
Now night,
The sighing night,
Descends to hide and heal
The crimson wounds
Ripped in the sky,
Where the high helmet-towers
(With clouds as streaming feathers)
Have torn the Heavens
In their incessant sunset battle.
Below,
Upon the mound,
Small golden flowers
Release their daylight slowly
At the Night's behest,
Till they become pale discs
That quiver
When the evening wind
Draws his thin fingers
Down the dew-drenched grass
--As an old harper,
Who awakes
From drunken sunlit slumber,
Blindly plucks
His silver-sounding strings,
Making the sound
That, further, darker down
The trees make,
When they draw back
Their upturned leaves
In fountain-foaming hurry.
II
The curling, hump-backed dolphins,
Drunk with purple fumes
Of wine-stained sunset,
Plunge through the wider waters of the night--
Waters that well down every narrow street
In darkening billows,
Till they become quiet, full--
Canals that, mirror-like,
Reflect each sound
Of snarling song
In all the town.
And as the dolphins dive
There splashes back
Upon their goat-eared riders,
Dislodged in sudden fury,
The foaming froth of summer-cooling winds
--Issuing from where the northern trees
Bellow their resined breath
Across the seas
To ripple through far fields
Of twilight flowers--
Sweeping across
To where these old high towers
Of Carcassonne
Still stand to break their flow.
Neptune, from his high pedestal,
Can watch the waters of the night
Rise, further, further,
And the faun-riders sink below
The conquering, cool tide.
PROGRESS
The city's heat is like a leaden pall--
Its lowered lamps glow in the midnight air
Like mammoth orange-moths that flit and flare
Through the dark tapestry of night. The tall
Black houses crush the creeping beggars down,
Who walk beneath and think of breezes cool,
Of silver bodies bathing in a pool,
Or trees that whisper in some far, small town
Whose quiet nursed them, when they thought that gold
Was merely metal, not a grave of mould
In which men bury all that's fine and fair.
When they could chase the jewelled butterfly
Through the green bracken-scented lanes, or sigh
For all the future held so rich and rare;
When, though they knew it not, their baby cries
Were lovely as the jewelled butterflies.
THE RETURN OF THE PRODIGAL
I lay awake in that dim room of fear
Which seemed to hold the essence of the night,
Clutched in the grip of its tall sentient walls:
Dark walls and high, that stretch for ever up--
Up to the darkness, vague and menacing,
As if no light could ever penetrate
That mist of shadows, only cast a gloom
More cavernous upon the atmosphere
That seems to thicken into cloudy shapes,
Substantiate--then disappear and die.
And all the room is full of whisperings;
Of moving things that hope I do not heed;
And sudden gusts of wind blow cold upon
My head, lifting the heavy mantle of the air,
Revealing for an instant some vague thought
Snatched from the haunting lumberland of dreams.
Far in the distance, from the open night,
Sounds an insistent hooting from the wood;
The owl is calling to its kindred things.
The bat emits its sinful piercing note--
So high one cannot hear it, only feel
The rhythm beat within the shrinking ear.
A faint breeze blows in from the countryside,
Rustling the curtains with the forest's breath,
Stirring the grass of many an unknown tomb,
Some new--some immemorably old,
Whose dwellers never heard an owl at night,
Only the reptile sounds and beating wings
Of some forefather of that bird of night--
Some flapping scaly monster with huge wings.
Then, sudden, through the rustling of the room
Silence shrills out its startling trumpet call
Of terror, and the house is frozen still.
Despair dropp'd down like rain upon my heart,
Catching my breath and clutching at my throat.
Fear magnified my senses, and my brain
Could hear beyond the threshold of this world.
Then through the threatening silence of the house,
The silent waiting for the coming play--
There came that halting well-remembered tread,
The dreadful limp, and dragging of the feet,
That cruel sin-white face looked through the door!
And in my scream--that rent the trembling air,
Reaching the woods and tainting them with death,
Filling the fountain with strange ripplings
That make the moon's reflection but a mask
Like to that face of shame--my soul passed out--
Out of my ashen lips, to find its end.
LONDON SQUARES
To-night this city seems delirious. The air
Is fever'd, hot and heavy--yet each street,
Each tortuous lane and slumb'ring stone-bound square
Smells of the open woods, so wild and sweet.
Through the dim spaces, where each town-bred tree
Sweeps out, mysterious and tall and still,
The country's passionate spirit--old and free--
Flings off the fetters of the calm and chill.
There in the garden, fauns leap out and sing--
Chant those strange sun-born songs from far away!
With joyous ecstasy in this new spring,
They cast the coats and top-hats of the day.
There by the railings, where the women pace
With painted faces, passionless and dead,
Out of the dark, Pan shows his leering face,
Mocks their large hats and faces painted red.
Then as they walk away, he mocks their lives,
Racking each wearied soul with lost desires,
And--cruelty more subtle--he contrives
With aching memories of love's first fires
To tune their hearts up to a different key.
So, when they sleep, the withered years unfold
--Again, as children round a mother's knee
They listen to their future as foretold
--A future rich and innocent and gay.
Then wake up to the agony of day!
TEARS
Silence o'erwhelms the melody of Night,
Then slowly drips on to the woods that sigh
For their past vivid vernal ecstasy.
The branches and the leaves let in the light
In patterns, woven 'gainst the paler sky
--Create mysterious Gothic tracery
Between those high dark pillars, that affright
Poor weary mortals who are wand'ring by.
Silence drips on the woods like sad faint rain
Making each frail tired sigh a sob of pain;
Each drop that falls, a hollow painted tear
Such as are shed by Pierrots when they fear
Black clouds may crush their silver lord to death.
The world is waxen; and the wind's least breath
Would make a hurricane of sound. The earth
Smells of the hoarded sunlight that gave birth
To the gold-glowing radiance of that leaf
Which falls to bury from our sight its grief.
_To_ VIOLET GORDON-WOODHOUSE
CLAVICHORDS
Its pure and dulcet tone
So clear and cool
Rings out--tho' muffled by the centuries
Passed by;
Each note
A distant sigh
From some dead lovely throat.
A sad cascade of sound
Floods the dim room with faded memories
Of beauty that has gone
Like the reflected rhythm in some dusk blue pool,
Of dancing figures (long laid in the ground)--
Like moonlit skies
Or some far song harmonious and sublime--
Breaking the leaden slumber of the night.
A perfume, faint yet fair
As of an old press'd blossom that's reborn
Seeming to flower alone
Within the arid wilderness of Time.
The music fills the air
Soft as the outspread fluttering wings
Of flower-bright butterflies
That dive and float
Through the sweet rose-flushed hours of summer dawn.
The rippling sound of silver strings
Break o'er our senses as small foaming waves
Break over rocks,
And into hidden caves
Of silent waters--never to be found--
Waters as clear and glistening as gems.
And in this ancient pool of melodies,
So soothing, deep,
We search for strange lost images and diadems
And old drowned pleasures,
--Each one shining bright
And rescued from the crystal depths of sleep.
As the far sun-kissed sails of some full-rigged boat,
Blown by a salt cool breeze,
--Laden with age-old treasures
And rich merchandise--
Fade into evening on the foam-flecked seas--
So this last glowing note
Hovers awhile--then dies.
PROMENADES
Long promenades against the sea
Kaleidoscopic, chattering!
Pavilions rising from the sea,
On which a fawning, flattering,
Hot crush of orientals move,
And sell their cheap and tawdry wares,
To other Jews, and aldermen,
And rich, retired, provincial mayors.
Oh! many colours in the sun;
Copper and gold predominate!
Parasols, held 'gainst the sun
Throw down their shadows incohate
On leering faces looking sly--
All shining with the heat of June.
The shifting masses move and talk
And whistle tunes all out of tune.
Long promenades against the sea,
And oranges and mandolines!
Pavilions rising from the sea
And penny-in-the-slot machines!
CLOWN PONDI
When youth and strength had changed my blood to fire
And every day passed long and glorious,
Another link in the eternal chain
Of life, I turned my love of luring and my sense
For all the unfathomable ways of God,
My burning sense for laughter and my joy
In crowds, in tumult, and in blazing lights,
To make my fellows see these qualities.
Thus I became "Clown Pondi," and my fame
Grew high in every theatre in the land.
I seem'd to draw fresh vigour from the crowds--
Loving the sea of faces, eyes with tears,
And gaping mouths wide open--loosely hung;
The acrid, opalescent haze of smoke,
Hanging above the auditorium.
And over it the crowded galleries
That float far up, like painted prows of ships--
All overweighted and alive with men.
I loved the limelight, hard and white and strong,
The throbbing music and the theatre's scent,
That artificial, paper, printed scent
That sweeps across the footlights to the stalls.
Then was I pleased to strut about the stage,
With face dead white, and strangely purple nose--
Flamboyant in the garb of foolery--
To run about too quickly--and fall down;
To make queer noises--inarticulate
Strange sounds and oaths, the signal for my share
Of cackling laughter.
Thus the years pass'd by
And--all unheeding--swept away my youth,
Till, one sad night, I heard a voice near-by:
"Ah! Poor old man! It's shocking they should laugh;
Mock his bent legs, and poor old toothless jaws!"
And then old-age rush'd down upon my head,
Each sombre year roll'd past in solemn time;
In true perspective--to the jingling tune
That was my exit; and so near came death,
Holding a mirror to my ridicule,
That show'd each line beneath the smearing paint,
Each wrinkle underneath the dab of rouge,
That in my sudden hopelessness I wept.
But as I left the stage with dragging feet,
With body bent with age, and crouching low,
I heard the applauding people pause and say,
"Who but Clown Pondi could amuse us so?"
LAUSIAC THEME
SERAPION-THE-SINDONITE
Wore a cloth about his loins.
This Christian Recondite
Never carried coins.
Never did he ask for bread;
Revelled in his own distress.
High of spirit, low of head,
With no other dress
Than a loin-cloth, Serapion
Was free from greed and gluttony
Progressed in the direction
Of impassivity.
Serapion, though ascetic,
Could not keep within his cell--
Spiritual athletic,
Who wrestled with Hell--
This Sindonitic holy man
Converted, overcome by pity,
Thais, the famous courtesan,
To Christianity.
Thais was not thin or frail
But full of figure. Flesh and blood
Rose up in riot--made her rail
At a selfless God.
From Theban windows, far above,
She plays and sings to a guitar
With low voice: the light of love
Beckons like a star.
Eagerly she welcomed in
The unexpected Sindonite;
But he spoke to her of sin--
Set her soul alight.
So they went together out
To the crowded, garish street,
Where he taught her how to flout
Fumes of wine and meat.
To the Thebaid they go--
Where she stands each Christian test,
Plaiting palm-leaves to and fro,
Sure of heaven's rest.
In the desert they both died,
Thais and the holy man.
They were buried side by side,
Ascetic and courtesan.
METAMORPHOSIS
The woods that ever love the moon, rest calm and white
Beneath a mist-wrapp'd hill:
An owl, horned wizard of the night,
Flaps through the air so soft and still;
Moaning, it wings its flight
Far from the forest cool,
To find the star-entangled surface of a pool,
Where it may drink its fill
Of stars; a blossom-laden breeze
Scatters its treasures--each a fallen moon
Among the waiting trees--
Bears back the faded shadow-scents of noon.
The whispering wood is full of dim, vague fears.
The rustling branches sway
And listen for some sound from far away--
A silver piping down the Pagan years
Since Time's first joyous birth--
The listening trees all sigh,
The moment of their hornèd king is nigh.
Then, peal on peal, there sounds the fierce wild mirth
Of Pan their master, lord and king,
And round him in a moonlit ring
His court, so wan and sly!
But then the trees closed round and hid from sight
Their deeds--the voices seemed to die.
An owl, horned wizard of the night,
Flaps through the air so soft and still.
Moans, as it wings its flight
Toward the mist-wrapp'd hill.
THE GIPSY QUEEN
A ragged Gipsy walked the road,
Her eyes blazed fierce and strong,
But she gazed at me as on she strode,
She fiercely gazed, and long.
"Give me a penny, sir," she said,
"To buy me drink and buy me bread,
For I've nothing had to eat or drink,
And at night I never sleep a wink.
Cold is the snow and wet the rain,
But my soul died when my love was slain!"
"Fair Gipsy, in some southern clime,
I've seen your face before
In some far other distant time,
But whom are you weeping for?"
"'Twas Antony I loved," she said,
"For him, in vain, I shed these tears,
But my loved Antony is dead--
Is dead these long two thousand years;
Then I was mighty Egypt's pride,
Fear'd both by friend and foe--
Yet they believe Cleopatra died
Two thousand years ago!"
BLACK MASS
The atmosphere is charged with hidden things
--Thoughts that are waiting--wanting to revive
Primeval terrors from their present graves
--Those half-thoughts hidden from the mind of man.
The fear of those bright, countless stars that shine
Celestially serene on summer nights,
--And those, too far for human eye to see--
That make men feel as small and ill at ease
As do the thoughts of immortality;
The fear of seas that stretch beyond our sight
Unspoilt by any memory of a ship--
Strange, silent seas that lap the unknown shores
Of some far-distant, undiscovered land;
The curious fear of caves and horrid depths
Where lurk those monsters that we hide away
And bury in our self-complacency.
The dread of all that waits unseen, yet heard;
The fear of moonlight falling on a face;
The sound of sobs at night, the fear of laughter;
The misty terror lurking in a wood
Which night has wrapped in her soft robe of sighs.
The horror that is felt where man is not,
In lonely lands all dotted with squat trees
That seem to move in the grey twilight breeze
--Or sit and watch you like malicious cripples,
Intent on every movement, every thought--
Where stones, like evil fungi, raise their bulk
Cover'd with lichen older than the hills--
A warning for the ages yet to come;
Stones that have seen the sun, and moon, and stars,
Deflect their course for very weariness.
These fears are gathered, press'd into a room
Vibrating with the wish to damage man;
To put a seal upon his mind and soul--
These fears are fused into a living flame.
The room is filled with men of evil thoughts,
And some poor timid ones, on evil bent.
They stand in anxious, ghastly expectation.
The guttering light is low, and follows them
With subtle shadows tall beyond belief:
Vast elemental shapes that make men feel
Like dusty atoms blown by wayward winds
About the world: shadows that sway and swing.
And sigh and talk, as if themselves alive.
Small shadows cringe about the room incredibly,
Grotesque and dwarf-like in their attitudes;
Malignant, mocking things that caper round--
Triumphant heralds of an evil reign.
Secret and swift they flit about the wall;
Noiseless, they drag their feet about the floor,
And murmur subtle infamies of love,
Sweet-sounding threats, and bribes, and baleful thoughts.
Yet all are waiting, evilly alert...
Yet all are waiting--watching for events.
Silence has ceased to be a negative,
Becomes a thing of substance--fills the room
And clings like ivy to the listening walls.
The flickering light flares up--then gutters out.
The shadows seem to shiver and expand
To active, evil things that breathe and live.
But now they whirl and dance in ecstasy.
The highest moment of their mass is near.
We only feel the swaying of the shades,
--Rhythm of wicked music that escapes
Our consciousness, tho' we have known it long--
The music of the evil things of Night
Scarcely remembered from some dim, vast world--
The things that haunted us when we were young
And nearer to our past realities.
Like scaly snakes, the hymn to evil writhes
Through the sub-conscious basis of our mind.
Eddies of icy breath, or hot as flame,
Twist into all the corners of the room,
Filling our veins with fire like red-hot iron,
And wicked as the Prince of Evil Things.
Faintly his glowing presence is revealed to us
Amid the chorus of his satellites.
The consummation of our awful hopes.
PIERROT AT THE WAR
The leaden years have dragged themselves away;
The blossoms of the world lie all dash'd down
And flattened by the hurricane of death:
The roses fallen, and their fragrant breath
Has passed beyond our senses--and we drown
Our tragic thoughts: confine them to the day.
Pierrot was happy here two years ago,
Singing through all the summer-scented hours,
Dancing throughout the warm moon-haunted night.
Swan-like his floating sleeves, so long and white,
Sailed the blue waters of the dusk. Wan flowers,
Like moons, perfumed the crystal valley far below.
But now these moonlit sleeves lie on the ground,
Trampled and torn from many a deadly fight.
With fingers clenched, and face a mask of stone,
He gazes at the sky--left all alone--
Grimacing under every rising light:
His body waits the peace his soul has found.
_April_, 1917.
SPRING HOURS
The air is silken--soft and dark--
Calm as the waters of some blue, far sea;
Sweet as a youthful dream,
The trees stand cold and stark,
Yet full of the new life which makes each tree
To tremble with delight; sets free
The summer rapture of the stream.
But now the clouds disperse and drift away,
Splashing the woods with patches of pale light,
Sail off like silver ships, and then display
The dazzling myriad blossoms of the night.
Ah! It is worth full many a sun-gilt hour
To see the heavens bursting into flower.