Chapter II: The Gardens of Adonis

Belovèd, I would tell a ghostly thing
That hides beneath the simple name of Spring;
Wild beyond hope the news--the dead return,
The shapes that slept, their breath a frozen mist,
Ascend from out sarcophagus and urn,
Lips that were dust new redden to be kissed,
Fires that were quenched re-burn.

The gardens of Adonis bloom again,
Proserpina may hold the lad no more,
That in her arms the winter through hath lain;
Up flings he from the hollow-sounding door,
Where Love hath bruised her rosy breast in vain:
Ah! through their tears--the happy April rain--
They, like two stars aflame, together run,
Then lift immortal faces in the sun.

A faint far music steals from underground,
And to the spirit's ear there comes the sound,
The whisper vague, and rustle delicate,
Of myriad atoms stirring in their trance
That for the lifted hand of Order wait,
Taking their stations in the cosmic dance,
Mate linked to mystic mate.

And perished shapes rebuild themselves anew,
Nourished on essences of fire and dew,
And in earth's cheek, but now so wistful wan,
The colour floods, and from deep wells of power
Rises the sap of resurrection;
The dead branch buds, the dry staff breaks in flower,
The grass comes surging on.

These ghostly things that in November died,
How come they thus again adream with pride?
I saw the Red Rose lying in her tomb,
Yet comes she lovelier back, a redder rose;
What paints upon her cheek this vampire bloom?
Belovéd, when to the dark thy beauty goes,
Thee too will Spring re-lume?

Verily, nothing dies; a brief eclipse
Is all; and this blessed union of our lips
Shall bind us still though we have lips no more:
For as the Rose and as the gods are we,
Returning ever; but the shapes we wore
Shall have some look of immortality
More shining than before.

Make we our offerings at Adonis' shrine,
For this is Love's own resurrection day,
Bring we the honeyed cakes, the sacred wine,
And myrtle garlands on his altars lay:
_O Thou, beloved alike of Proserpine
And Aphrodite, to our prayers incline;
Be thou propitious to this love of ours,
And we, the summer long, shall bring thee flowers._

NATURE THE HEALER

When all the world has gone awry,
And I myself least favour find
With my own self, and but to die
And leave the whole sad coil behind,
Seems but the one and only way;
Should I but hear some water falling
Through woodland veils in early May,
And small bird unto small bird calling--
O then my heart is glad as they.

Lifted my load of cares, and fled
My ghosts of weakness and despair,
And, unafraid, I raise my head
And Life to do its utmost dare;
Then if in its accustomed place
One flower I should chance find blowing,
With lovely resurrected face
From Autumn's rust and Winter's snowing--
I laugh to think of my disgrace.

A simple brook, a simple flower,
A simple wood in green array,--
What, Nature, thy mysterious power
To bind and heal our mortal clay?
What mystic surgery is thine,
Whose eyes of us seem all unheeding,
That even so sad a heart as mine
Laughs at the wounds that late were bleeding?--
Yea! sadder hearts, O Power Divine.

I think we are not otherwise
Than all the children of thy knee;
For so each furred and winged one flies,
Wounded, to lay its heart on thee;
And, strangely nearer to thy breast,
Knows, and yet knows not, of thy healing,
Asking but there awhile to rest,
With wisdom beyond our revealing--
Knows and yet knows not, and is blest.

LOVE ETERNAL

The human heart will never change,
The human dream will still go on,
The enchanted earth be ever strange
With moonlight and the morning sun,
And still the seas shall shout for joy,
And swing the stars as in a glass,
The girl be angel for the boy,
The lad be hero for the lass.

The fashions of our mortal brains
New names for dead men's thoughts shall give,
But we find not for all our pains
Why 'tis so wonderful to live;
The beauty of a meadow-flower
Shall make a mock of all our skill,
And God, upon his lonely tower
Shall keep his secret--secret still.

The old magician of the skies,
With coloured and sweet-smelling things,
Shall charm the sense and trance the eyes,
Still onward through a million springs;
And nothing old and nothing new
Into the magic world be born,
Yea! nothing older than the dew,
And nothing younger than the morn.

Delight and Destiny and Death
Shall still the mortal story weave,
Man shall not lengthen out his breath,
Nor stay when it is time to leave;
And all in vain for him to ask
His little meaning in the Whole,
Done well or ill his tiny task,
The mystic making of his soul.

Ah! love, and is it not enough
To have our part in this romance
Made of such planetary stuff,
Strange partners in the cosmic dance?
Though Life be all too swift a dream,
And its fair rose must fade and fall,
Life has no sorrow in its scheme
As never to have lived at all.

This fire that through our being runs,
When our two hearts together beat,
Is one with yonder burning sun's,
Two atoms that in glory meet;
What unimagined loss it were,
If that dread power in which we trust
Had left your eyes, your lips, your hair,
Nought but un-animated dust.

Unknown the thrilling touch divine
That sets our magic clay aflame,
That wrought your beauty to be mine,
And joy enough to speak your name;
Thanks be to Life that did this thing,
Unsought, beloved, for you and me,
Gave us the rose, and birds to sing,
The golden earth, the blue-robed sea.

THE LOVELIEST FACE AND THE WILD ROSE

The loveliest face! I turned to her
Shut in 'mid savage rocks and trees;--
'Twas in the May-time of the year,
And our two hearts were filled with ease--
And pointed where a wild-rose grew,
Suddenly fair in that grim place:
"We should know all, if we but knew
Whence came this flower, and whence--this face."

The loveliest face! My thoughts went around:
"Strange sister of this little rose,
So softly 'scaped from underground;
O tell me if your beauty knows,
Being itself so fair a thing,
How came this lovely thing so fair,
How came it to such blossoming,
Leaning so strangely from the air?

"The wonder of its being born,
So lone and lovely--even as you--
Half maiden-moon, half maiden-morn,
And delicately sad with dew;
How came it in this rocky place?
Or shall I ask the rose if she
Knows how this marvel of your face
On this harsh planet came to be?"

Earth's bluest eyes gazed into mine,
And on her head Earth's brightest gold
Made all the rocks with glory shine--
But still the secret went untold;
For rose nor girl, no more than I,
Their own mysterious meaning knew,
Save that alike from earth and sky
Each her enchanted being drew.

Both from deep wells of wonder sprang,
Both children of the cosmic dream,
Alike with yonder bird that sang,
And little lives that flit and gleam;
Sparks from the central rose of fire
That at the heart of being burns,
That draws the lily from the mire
And trodden dust to beauty turns.

Strange wand of Beauty--that transforms
Old dross to dreams, that softly glows
On the fierce rainbowed front of storms,
And smiles on unascended snows,
That from the travail of lone seas
Wrests sighing shell and moonlit pearl,
And gathers up all sorceries
In the white being of one girl.

AS IN THE WOODLAND I WALK

As in the woodland I walk, many a strange thing I learn--
How from the dross and the drift the beautiful things return,
And the fires quenched in October in April reburn;

How foulness grows fair with the stern lustration
of sleets and snows,
And rottenness changes back to the breath and the cheek
of the rose,
And how gentle the wind that seems wild to each blossom
that blows;

How the lost is ever found, and the darkness the door
of the light,
And how soft the caress of the hand that to shape
must not fear to smite,
And how the dim pearl of the moon is drawn from the gulf
of the night;

How, when the great tree falls, with its empire
of rustling leaves,
The earth with a thousand hands its sunlit ruin receives,
And out of the wreck of its glory each secret artist weaves

Splendours anew and arabesques and tints on his swaying loom,
Soft as the eyes of April, and black as the brows of doom,
And the fires give back in blue-eyed flowers the woodland
they consume;

How when the streams run dry, the thunder calls on the hills,
And the clouds spout silver showers in the laps
of the little rills,
And each spring brims with the morning star,
and each thirsty fountain fills;

And how, when the songs seemed ended, and all the music mute,
There is always somewhere a secret tune, some string
of a hidden lute,
Lonely and undismayed that has faith in the flower
and the fruit.

So I learn in the woods--that all things come again,
That sorrow turns to joy, and that laughter is born of pain,
That the burning gold of June is the gray of December's rain.

TO A MOUNTAIN SPRING

Strange little spring, by channels past our telling,
Gentle, resistless, welling, welling, welling;
Through what blind ways, we know not whence
You darkling come to dance and dimple--
Strange little spring!
Nature hath no such innocence,
And no more secret thing--
So mysterious and so simple;
Earth hath no such fairy daughter
Of all her witchcraft shapes of water.
When all the land with summer burns,
And brazen noon rides hot and high,
And tongues are parched and grasses dry,
Still are you green and hushed with ferns,
And cool as some old sanctuary;
Still are you brimming o'er with dew
And stars that dipped their feet in you.

And I believe when none is by,
Only the young moon in the sky--
The Greeks of old were right about you--
A naiad, like a marble flower,
Lifts up her lovely shape from out you,
Swaying like a silver shower.

So in old years dead and gone
Brimmed the spring on Helicon,
Just a little spring like you--
Ferns and moss and stars and dew--
Nigh the sacred Muses' dwelling,
Dancing, dimpling, welling, welling.

NOON

Noon like a naked sword lies on the grass,
Heavy with gold, and Time itself doth drowse;
The little stream, too indolent to pass,
Loiters below the cloudy willow boughs,
That build amid the glare a shadowy house,
And with a Paradisal freshness brims
Amid cool-rooted reeds with glossy blade;
The antic water-fly above it skims,
And cows stand shadow-like in the green shade,
Or knee-deep in the grassy glimmer wade.

The earth in golden slumber dreaming lies,
Idly abloom, and nothing sings or moves,
Nor bird, nor bee; and even the butterflies,
Languid with noon, forget their painted loves,
Nor hath the woodland any talk of doves.
Only at times a little breeze will stir,
And send a ripple o'er the sleeping stream,
Or run its fingers through the willows' hair,
And sway the rushes momently agleam--
Then all fall back again into a dream.

A RAINY DAY

The beauty of this rainy day,
All silver-green and dripping gray,
Has stolen quite my heart away
From all the tasks I meant to do,
Made me forget the resolute blue
And energetic gold of things . . .
So soft a song the rain-bird sings.

Yet am I glad to miss awhile
The sun's huge domineering smile,
The busy spaces mile on mile,
Shut in behind this shimmering screen
Of falling pearls and phantom green;
As in a cloister walled with rain,
Safe from intrusions, voices vain,
And hurry of invading feet,
Inviolate in my retreat:
Myself, my books, my pipe, my fire--
So runs my rainy-day desire.

Or I old letters may con o'er,
And dream on faces seen no more,
The buried treasure of the years,
Too visionary now for tears;
Open old cupboards and explore
Sometimes, for an old sweetheart's sake,
A delicate romantic ache,
Sometimes a swifter pang of pain
To read old tenderness again,
As though the ink were scarce yet dry,
And She still She and I still I.
What if I were to write as though
Her letter came an hour ago!
An hour ago!--This post-mark says . . .
But out upon these rainy days!
Come tie the packet up again,
The sun is back--enough of rain.

IN THE CITY

Away from the silent hills and the talking
of upland waters,
The high still stars and the lonely moon
in her quarters,
I fly to the city, the streets, the faces, the towers;
And I leave behind me the hush and the dews
and the flowers,
The mink that steals by the stream a-shimmer
among the rocks,
The hawk o'er the barn-yard sailing, the little cub-bear
and the fox,
The woodchuck and his burrow, and the little snake at noon,
And the house of the yellow-jacket, and the cricket's
endless tune.

And what shall I find in the city that shall take
the place of these?
O I shall find my love there, and fall at her silken knees,
And for the moon her breast, and for the stars her eyes,
And under her shadowed hair the gardens of Paradise.

COUNTRY LARGESSE

I bring a message from the stream
To fan the burning cheeks of town,
From morning's tower
Of pearl and rose
I bring this cup of crystal down,
With brimming dews agleam,
And from my lady's garden close
I bring this flower.

O walk with me, ye jaded brows,
And I will sing the song I found
Making a lonely rippling sound
Under the boughs.
The tinkle of the brook is there,
And cow-bells wandering through the fern,
And silver calls
From waterfalls,
And echoes floating through the air
From happiness I know not where,
And hum and drone where'er I turn
Of little lives that buzz and die;
And sudden lucent melodies,
Like hidden strings among the trees
Roofing the summer sky.

The soft breath of the briar I bring,
And wafted scents of mint and clover,
Rain-distilled balms the hill-winds fling,
Sweet-thoughted as a lover;
Incense from lilied urns a-swaying,
And the green smell of grass
Where men are haying.

As through the streets I pass,
With their shrill clatter,
This largesse from the hills and streams,
This quietude of flowers and dreams,
Round me I scatter.

MORN

Morn hath a secret that she never tells:
'Tis on her lips and in her maiden eyes--
I think it is the way to Paradise,
Or of the Fount of Youth the crystal wells.
The bee hath no such honey in her cells
Sweet as the balm that in her bosom lies,
As in her garden of the budding skies
She walks among the silver asphodels.

He that is loveless and of heart forlorn,
Let him but leave behind his haunted bed,
And set his feet toward yonder singing star,
Shall have for sweetheart this same secret morn;
She shall come running to him from afar,
And on her cool breast lay his lonely head.

THE SOURCE

Water in hidden glens
From the secret heart of the mountains,
Where the red fox hath its dens
And the gods their crystal fountains;
Up runnel and leaping cataract,
Boulder and ledge, I climbed and tracked,
Till I came to the top of the world and the fen
That drinks up the clouds and cisterns the rain,
And down through the floors of the deep morass
The procreant woodland essences drain--
The thunder's home, where the eagles scream
And the centaurs pass;
But, where it was born, I lost my stream.

'Twas in vain I said: "'Tis here it springs,
Though no more it leaps and no more it sings;"
And I thought of a poet whose songs I knew
Of morning made and shining dew--
I remembered the mire of the marshes too.

AUTUMN

The sad nights are here and the sad mornings,
The air is filled with portents and with warnings,
Clouds that vastly loom and winds that cry,
A mournful prescience
Of bright things going hence;
Red leaves are blown about the widowed sky,
And late disconsolate blooms
Dankly bestrew
The garden walks, as in deserted rooms
The parted guest, in haste to bid adieu,
Trinklets and shreds forgotten left behind,
Torn letters and a ribbon once so brave--
Wreckage none cares to save,
And hearts grow sad to find;
And phantom echoes, as of old foot-falls,
Wander and weary out in the thin air,
And the last cricket calls--
A tiny sorrow, shrilling "Where? ah! where?"

THE ROSE IN WINTER

When last I saw this opening rose
That holds the summer in its hand,
And with its beauty overflows
And sweetens half a shire of land,
It was a black and cindered thing,
Drearily rocking in the cold,
The relic of a vanished spring,
A rose abominably old.

Amid the stainless snows it grinned,
A foul and withered shape, that cast
Ribbed shadows, and the gleaming wind
Went rattling through it as it passed;
It filled the heart with a strange dread,
Hag-like, it made a whimpering sound,
And gibbered like the wandering dead
In some unhallowed burial-ground.

Whoso on that December day
Had seen it so deject and lorn,
So lone a symbol of decay,
Had dreamed of it this summer morn?
Divined the power that should relume
A flame so spent, and once more bring
That blackened being back to bloom,--
Who could have dreamed so strange a thing?

THE FROZEN STREAM

Stream that leapt and danced
Down the rocky ledges,
All the summer long,
Past the flowered sedges,
Under the green rafters,
With their leafy laughters,
Murmuring your song:
Strangely still and tranced,
All your singing ended,
Wizardly suspended,
Icily adream;
When the new buds thicken,
Can this crystal quicken,
Now so strangely sleeping,
Once more go a-leaping
Down the rocky ledges,
All the summer long,
Murmuring its song?

WINTER MAGIC

Winter that hath few friends yet numbers those
Of spirit erect and delicate of eye;
All may applaud sweet Summer, with her rose,
And Autumn, with her banners in the sky;
But when from the earth's cheek the colour goes,
Her old adorers from her presence fly.

So cold her bosom seems, such icy glare
Is in her eyes, while on the frozen mere
The shrill ice creaks in the congealing air;
Where is the lover that shall call her dear,
Or the devotion that shall find her fair?
The white-robed widow of the vanished year.

Yet hath she loveliness and many flowers,
Dreams hath she too and tender reveries,
Tranced mid the rainbows of her gleaming bowers,
Or the hushed temples of her pillared trees;
Summer has scarce such soft and silent hours,
Autumn has no such antic wizardries.

Yea! he that takes her to his bosom knows,
Lost in the magic crystal of her eyes,
Upon her vestal cheek a fairer rose,
What rapture and what passionate surprise
Awaits his kiss beneath her mask of snows,
And what strange fire beneath her pallor lies.

Beauty is hers all unconfused of sense,
Lustral, austere, and of the spirit fine;
No cloudy fumes of myrrh and frankincense
Drug in her arms the ecstasy divine;
But stellar awe that kneels in high suspense,
And hallowed glories of the inner shrine.

And, for the idle summer, in our blood
Pleasures hath she of rapid tingling joy,
With ruddy laughter 'neath her frozen hood,
Purging our mortal metal of alloy,
Stern benefactress of beatitude,
Turning our leaden age to girl and boy.

A LOVER'S UNIVERSE

When winter comes and takes away the rose,
And all the singing of sweet birds is done,
The warm and honeyed world lost deep in snows,
Still, independent of the summer sun,
In vain, with sullen roar,
December shakes my door,
And sleet upon the pane
Threatens my peace in vain,
While, seated by the fire upon my knee,
My love abides with me.

For he who, wise in time, his harvest yields
Reaped into barns, sweet-smelling and secure,
Smiles as the rain beats sternly on his fields,
For wealth is his no winter can make poor;
Safe all his waving gold
Shut in against the cold,
Treasure of summer grass--
So sit I with my lass,
My harvest sheaves of all her garnered charms
Safe in my happy arms.

Still fragrant in the garden of her breast,
The flowers that fled with summer softly bloom,
The birds that shook with song each empty nest
Still, when she speaks, fill all the listening room,
Deep-sheltered from the storm
Within her blossoming form.
Flower-breathed and singing sweet
Is she from head to feet;
All summer in my sweetheart doth abide,
Though winter be outside.

So all the various wonder of the world,
The wizard moon and stars, the haunted sea,
In her small being mystically furled,
She brings as in a golden cup to me;
Within no other book
My eyes for wisdom look,
That have her eyes for lore;
And when the flaming door
Opens into the dark, what shall I fear
Adventuring with my dear?

TO THE GOLDEN WIFE

With laughter always on the darkest day,
She danced before the very face of dread,
Starry companion of my mortal way,
Pre-destined merrily to be my mate,
With eyes as calm, she met the eyes of Fate:
"For this it was that you and I were wed--
What else?" she smiled and said.

Fair-weather wives are any man's to find,
The pretty sisters of the butterfly,
Gay when the sun is out, and skies are kind;
The daughters of the rainbow all may win--
Pity their lovers when the sun goes in!
_Her_ smiles are brightest 'neath the stormiest sky--
Thrice blest and all unworthy I!

BURIED TREASURE

When the musicians hide away their faces,
And all the petals of the rose are shed,
And snow is drifting through the happy places,
And the last cricket's heart is cold and dead;
O Joy, where shall we find thee?
O Love, where shall we seek?
For summer is behind thee,
And cold is winter's cheek.

Where shall I find me violets in December?
O tell me where the wood-thrush sings to-day!
Ah! heart, our summer-love dost thou remember
Where it lies hidden safe and warm away?
When woods once more are ringing
With sweet birds on the bough,
And brooks once more are singing,
Will it be there--thinkst thou?

When Autumn came through bannered woodlands sighing,
We found a place of moonlight and of tears,
And there, with yellow leaves for it to lie in,
Left it to dream, watched over by the spheres.
It lies like buried treasure
Beneath the winter's cold,
The love beyond all measure,
In heaps of living gold.

When April's here, with all her sweet adorning,
And all the joys steal back December hid,
Shall we not laughing run, some happy morning,
And of our treasure lift the leafy lid?
Again to find it dreaming,
Just as we left it still,
Our treasure far out-gleaming
Crocus and daffodil.

THE NEW HUSBANDMAN

Brother that ploughs the furrow I late ploughed,
God give thee grace, and fruitful harvesting,
Tis fair sweet earth, be it under sun or cloud,
And all about it ever the birds sing.

Yet do I pray your seed fares not as mine
That sowed there stars along with good white grain,
But reaped thereof--be better fortune thine--
Nettles and bitter herbs, for all my gain.

Inclement seasons and black winds, perchance,
Poisoned and soured the fragrant fecund soil,
Till I sowed poppies 'gainst remembrance,
And took to other furrows my laughing toil.

And other men as I that ploughed before
Shall watch thy harvest, trusting thou mayst reap
Where we have sown, and on your threshing floor
Have honest grain within thy barns to keep.

PATHS THAT WIND . . .

Paths that wind
O'er the hills and by the streams
I must leave behind--
Dawns and dews and dreams.
Trails that go
Through the woods and down the slopes
To the vale below;
Done with fears and hopes,
I must wander on
Till the purple twilight ends,
Where the sun has gone--
Faces, flowers and friends.

THE IMMORTAL GODS

The gods are there, they hide their lordly faces
From you that will not kneel--
Worship, and they reveal,
Call--and 'tis they!
They have not changed, nor moved from their high places,
The stars stream past their eyes like drifted spray;
Lovely to look on are they as bright gold,
They are wise with beauty, as a pool is wise.
Lonely with lilies; very sweet their eyes--
Bathed deep in sunshine are they, and very cold.