Chapter VII

And then for a minute, may be,--
A pearl--hollow worn--of the sea,--
A glimmer of moon will smile;
Cool stars rinsed clean on the dusk,
A freshness of gathering musk
O'er the showery lawns, as brusk
As spice from an Indian isle.

CARMEN.

La _Gitanilla!_ tall dragoons
In Andalusian afternoons,
With ogling eye and compliment
Smiled on you, as along you went
Some sleepy street of old Seville;
Twirled with a military skill
Moustaches; buttoned uniforms
Of Spanish yellow bowed your charms.

Proud, wicked head and hair blue-black!
Whence your mantilla, half thrown back,
Discovered shoulders and bold breast
Bohemian brown: and you were dressed--
In some short skirt of gipsy red
Of smuggled stuff; thence stockings dead
White silk exposed with many a hole
Thro' which your plump legs roguish stole
A fleshly look; and tiny toes
In red morocco shoes with bows
Of scarlet ribbons. Daintily
You walked by me and I did see
Your oblique eyes, your sensuous lip,
That gnawed the rose you once did flip
At bashful Jose's nose while loud
Laughed the guant guards among the crowd.
And, in your brazen chemise thrust,
Heaved with the swelling of your bust,
That bunch of white acacia blooms
Whiffed past my nostrils hot perfumes.

As in a cool _neveria_
I ate an ice with Merimee,
Dark Carmencita, you passed gay,
All holiday bedizened,
A new mantilla on your head;
A crimson dress bespangled fierce;
And crescent gold, hung in your ears,
Shone wrought Morisco; and each shoe
Cordovan leather, spangled blue,
Glanced merriment; and from large arms
To well-turned ancles all your charms
Blew flutterings and glitterings
Of satin bands and beaded strings;
And 'round each arm's fair thigh one fold,
And graceful wrists, a twisted gold
Coiled serpents, tails fixed in the head,
Convulsive-jeweled glossy red.
In flowers and trimmings to the jar
Of mandolin and low guitar
You in the grated _patio_
Danced; the curled coxcombs' flirting row
Rang pleased applause. I saw you dance,
With wily motion and glad glance
Voluptuous, the wild _romalis_,
Where every movement was a kiss
Of elegance delicious, wound
In your Basque tambourine's dull sound.
Or as the ebon castanets
Clucked out dry time in unctuous jets,
Saw angry Jose thro' the grate
Glare on us a pale face of hate,
When some indecent colonel there
Presumed too lewdly for his ear.

Some still night in Seville; the street,
_Candilejo_; two shadows meet--
Flash sabres; crossed within the moon,--
Clash rapidly--a dead dragoon.

DISENCHANTMENT OF DEATH.

Hush! She is dead! Tread gently as the light
Foots dim the weary room. Thou shalt behold.
Look:--In death's ermine pomp of awful white,
Pale passion of pulseless slumber virgin cold:
Bold, beautiful youth proud as heroic Might--
Death! and how death hath made it vastly old.

Old earth she is now: energy of birth
Glad wings hath fledged and tried them suddenly;
The eyes that held have freed their narrow mirth;
Their sparks of spirit, which made this to be,
Shine fixed in rarer jewels not of earth,
Far Fairylands beyond some silent sea.

A sod is this whence what were once those eyes
Will grow blue wild-flowers in what happy air;
Some weed with flossy blossoms will surprise,
Haply, what summer with her affluent hair;
Blush roses bask those cheeks; and the wise skies
Will know her dryad to what young oak fair.

The chastity of death hath touched her so,
No dreams of life can reach her in such rest;--
No dreams the mind exhausted here below,
Sleep built within the romance of her breast.
How she will sleep! like musick quickening slow
Dark the dead germs, to golden life caressed.

Low musick, thin as winds that lyre the grass,
Smiting thro' red roots harpings; and the sound
Of elfin revels when the wild dews glass
Globes of concentric beauty on the ground;
For showery clouds o'er tepid nights that pass
The prayer in harebells and faint foxgloves crowned.

So, if she's dead, thou know'st she is not dead.
Disturb her not; she lies so lost in sleep:
The too-contracted soul its shell hath fled:
Her presence drifts about us and the deep
Is yet unvoyaged and she smiles o'erhead:--
Weep not nor sigh--thou wouldst not have _her_ weep?

To principles of passion and of pride,
To trophied circumstance and specious law,
Stale saws of life, with scorn now flung aside,
From Mercy's throne and Justice would'st thou draw
Her, Hope in Hope, and Chastity's pale bride,
In holiest love of holy, without flaw?

The anguish of the living merciless,--
Mad, bitter cruelty unto the grave,--
Wrings the dear dead with tenfold heart's distress,
Earth chaining love, bound by the lips that rave.
If thou hast sorrow let thy sorrow bless
That power of death, of death our selfless slave.

"Unjust?"--He is not! for hast thou not all,
All that thou ever hadst when this dull clay
So heartless, blasted now, flushed spiritual,
A restless vassal of Earth's night and day?
This hath been thine and is; the cosmic call
Hath disenchanted that which might not stay.

_Thou_ unjust!--bar not from its high estate,--
Won with what toil thro' devastating cares:
What bootless battling with the violent Fate;
What mailed endeavor with resistless years;--
That soul:--whole-hearted granted once thy mate,
Heaven only loaned, return it not with tears!

THE THREE URGANDAS.

Cast on sleep there came to me
Three Urgandas; and the sea
In lost lands of Briogne
Sounded moaning, moaning:
Cloudy clad in awful white;
And each face a lucid light
Rayed and blossomed out of night,--
And a wind was groaning.

In my sleep I saw them rest,
Each a long hand at her breast,
A soft flame that lulls the West;--
And the sea was moaning, moaning;--
Hair like hoarded ingots rolled
Down white shoulders glossy gold,
Streaks of molten moonlight cold,--
And a wind was groaning.

Rosy 'round each high brow bent
Four-fold starry gold that sent
Barbs of fire redolent;--
And the sea was moaning, moaning;--
'Neath their burning crowns their eyes
Burned like southern stars the skies
Rock in shattered storm that flies,--
And a wind was groaning.

Wisdom's eyes of lurid dark;
And each red mouth like a spark
Flashed and laughed off care and cark,--
And the sea was moaning, moaning;--
Mouths for song and lips to kiss;
Lips for hate and mouths to hiss;
Lips that fashioned hell or bliss,--
And the wind was groaning.

Tall as stately virgins dead,
Tapers lit at feet and head,
'Round whom Latin prayers are said,--
And the sea was moaning, moaning;--
Or as vampire women, who,
Buried beauties, rise and woo
Youths whose blood they suck like dew,--
And a wind was groaning.

Then the west one said to me:
"Thou hast slept thus holily
While seven sands ran secretly."--
And the sea was moaning, moaning;--
"Earth hath served thee like a slave,
Serving us who found thee brave,
Fearless of or life or grave."--
And a wind was groaning.

"Know!"--she smote my brow; a pain,
Riddling arrows, rent my brain,
Ceased and earth fell, some vast strain;--
And the sea was moaning, moaning;--
Then I understood all thought;
What was life the spirit fraught;
Love and hate; how worlds were wrought:--
And a wind was groaning.

Then the east one said to me:
"Thou hast wandered wearily
By what mist-enveloped sea!"--
And the sea was moaning, moaning;--
"Know the things thou hast not seen;
Life and law, and love and teen;
Things that be and have not been."--
And the wind was groaning.

"See!" her voice sung like a lyre
Throbs of thunderous desire;
Then the iron sight like fire--
And the sea was moaning, moaning;--
Burst; the inner eyelids, which
Husked clairvoyance, with a twitch
Rose--and I with light was rich;--
And a wind was groaning.

Then I saw the eyes of Sleep;
Nerves of Life and veins that leap;
Laws of entity; the deep:--
And the sea was moaning, moaning;--
Orbs and eons; springs of Power;
Circumstance--blown like a flower;--
Time--the second of an hour:--
And the wind was groaning.

To the central third one's full
Balanced being beautiful
Heart, to hearken, made a lull,--
And the sea was moaning, moaning;--
As she sternly stooped to me:
"Thou dost know and thou canst see;
What thou art arise and be!"--
And the wind was groaning.

To my mouth hot lips she pressed;
And my famished soul, thrice blessed,
Quaffed her radiance and caressed:--
And vague seas were moaning, moaning:--
Mounted; star-vibrating fled;
Soared to love, with her who said:
"Thou dost live and thou art dead."--
Far off winds were groaning.

THE BRUSH SPARROW.

I.

Ere wild haws, looming in the glooms,
Build bolted drifts of breezy blooms;
And in the whistling hollow there
The red-bud bends as brown and bare
As buxom Roxy's up-stripped arm;
From some slick hickory or larch,
Sighed o'er the sodden meads of March,
The sad heart thrills and reddens warm
To hear thee braving the rough storm,
Frail courier of green-gathering powers,--
Rebelling sap in trunks and flowers;
Love's minister come heralding;
O sweet saint-voice among bleak bowers!--
Thou brown-red pursuivant of Spring!

II.

"_Moan_" sob the woodland cascades still
Down bloomless ledges of the hill;
And gray, gaunt clouds like harpies hang
In harpy heavens, and swoop and clang
Sharp beaks and talons of the wind:
Black scowl the forests, and unkind
The far fields as the near; while song
Seems murdered and all passion, wrong.
One wild frog only in the thaw
Of spawny pools wakes cold and raw,
Expires a melancholy bass
And stops as if bewildered; then
Along the frowning wood again,
Flung in the thin wind's fangy face,
Thou, in red, woolly tassels proud
Of bannered maples, flutest loud:
"_Her Grace! her Grace! her Grace!_"

III.

"Her Grace! her Grace! her Grace!"
Climbs beautiful and sunny-browed
Up, up the kindling hills and wakes
Blue berries in the berry brakes;
With fragrant flakes, that blow and bleach,
Deep powders smothered quince and peach;
Eyes dogwoods with a thousand eyes;
Teaches each sod how to be wise
With twenty wild-flowers for one weed;
And kisses germs that they may seed.
In purest purple and sweet white
Treads up the happier hills of light;
Bloom, cloudy-borne, song in her hair,
Long dew-drops her pale fingers fair:
Big wind-retainers, and the rains
Her yeomen strong that flash the plains;
While scarlet mists at dawn,--and gold
At eve,--her panoply enfold.--
Her herald tabarded behold!--
Awake to greet! prepare to sing!
She comes, the darling Duchess, Spring!"

CHORDS.

I.

Sleep while I sing to thee, Dulcinea,--
How like a shower of moonlight-crusted beams
Of textile form compact, whose veins run stars,--
Discovered goddess of what naked loves!--
Maiden of dreams and aromatic sleep,
Thou liest. Thy long instrument against
Thy god-voluptuous sensuousness of hip
Pure iridescent pearl of ocean slopes:
Tempestuous silent color-melodies
Pulse glimmering from it beaten by the moon,--
Soft songs the white hands of white shadows touch.--
Magnetic star set slumberous over night,
Watch with me this superior star of Earth
Good Heaven was kind to grant me: Trembler,
Like some soft bird, dream, while I sing to thee--
Dream, languid ardor, my Dulcinea, dream.