Chapter II

'Mong heavy roses weighed with dew
The chirping crickets hid;
Down the honeysuckle avenue
Creaked the green katydid.
The scattered stars smiled thro' the pines;
Thro' stately windows draped with vines
The rising moonlight's silver blew.
He stared at lips proud, white, and dead,
A chiseled calm that wore;
Despair moaned on the lips that said
"To meet no more."

DESERTED.

A broken rainbow on the skies of May
Touching the sodden roses and low clouds,
And in wet clouds like scattered jewels lost:
Upon the heaven of a soul the ghost
Of a great love, perfect in its pure ray,
Touching the roses moist of memory
To die within the Present's grief of clouds--
A broken rainbow on the skies of May.

A flashing humming-bird amid strange flowers,
Or red or white; its darting length of tongue
Sucking and drinking all the cell-stored sweet,
And now the surfeit and the hurried fleet:
A love that put into expanding bowers
Of one's large heart a tongue's persuasive powers
To cream with joy, and riffled, so was gone--
A flashing humming-bird amid strange flowers.

A foamy moon which thro' a night of fleece
Moves amber girt into a bulk of dark,
And, lost to eye, rims all the black with froth:
A love of smiles, that, tinctured like a moth,
Moved thro' a soul's night-dun and made a peace--
More bland than Melancholy's white--to cease
In blanks of Time zoned with pale Memory's spark--
A foamy moon that brinks a storm with fleece.

A blaze of living thunder--not a leap--
Momental spouting balds the piled storm,
The ghastly mountains and the livid ocean,
The pine-roared crag, then blots the sight's commotion:
A love that swiftly pouring bared the deep,
Which cleaves white Life from Death, Death from white Sleep,
And, ceasing, gave a brain one blur of storm--
Blank blast of midnight, love for Death and Sleep.

THE DREAM OF CHRIST.

I saw her twins of eyelids listless swoon
Mesmeric eyes,
Like the mild lapsing of a lulling tune
On wide surprise,
While slow the graceful presence of a moon
Mellowed the purple skies.

And had she dreamed or had in fancy gone
As one who sought
To hail the influx of a godly dawn
Of heavenly thought,
Trod trembling o'er old sainted hill and lawn
With intense angels fraught?

Sailed thro' majestic domes of the deep night
By isles of stars,
Wand'ring like some pure blessing warm with light
From worldly jars
To the high halls of morning, pearly white,
And heaped with golden bars.

Past temples vast, deluged with sandy seas,
Whose ruins stand
Like bleaching bones of dead monstrosities
Crashed to the land,
Stupendous homes of cursed idolatries
Fallen to dust and sand.

Ugly and bestial gods caked thick with gold--
Their hideousness
Blaspheming Christ--'mid shattered altars rolled
To rottenness,
Their slaves abolished and their priests of old
Trodden to nothingness.

Thro' Syrian plains curtained with curling mist
The grass she trailed,
Where the shy floweret; by the dew-drop kissed,
Sweet blushing quailed;
And drowned in purple vales of amethyst
The moon-mad bulbuls wailed.

On glimmering wolds had seemed to hear the bleat
Of folded flocks;
Seen broad-browed sages pass with sandaled feet
And hoary locks,
While swimming in a bath of molten heat
A great star glorious rocks.

In fancy o'er a beaming baby bent--
Cradled amiss
In a rude manger--on its brow to print
One holy kiss,
While down the slant winds faint aromas went
And anthems deep of bliss....

And then she woke. The winter moon above
Burst on her sight;
And with strange sweetness all her dream was wove
In its far flight,
For jubilant bells rocked booming "peace and love"
Down all the aisles of night.

TO AUTUMN.

I oft have net thee, Autumn, wandering
Beside a misty stream, thy locks flung wild;
Thy cheeks a hectic flush more fair than Spring,
As if on thee the scarlet copse had smiled.
Or thee I've seen a twisted oak beneath,
Thy gentle eyes with foolish weeping dim,
Beneath a faded oak from whose tinged leaves
Thou woundedst drowsy wreaths, while the soft breath
Of Morn did kiss thy locks and make them swim
Far out behind, brown as the rustling sheaves.

Oft have I thee upon a hillock seen,
Dream-visaged, all agaze at glimpses faint
Of glimmering woods that glanced the hills between
With Indian faces from thy airy paint.
Or I have met thee 'twixt two dappled hills
Within a dingled valley nigh a fall,
Clasped in thy tinted hand a ruddy flower,
And lowly stooping where the leaf-dammed rills
Went babbling low thro' wildwood's arrased hall,
Where burned the beech and maples glared their power.

Oft have I seen thee in a ruined mill,
Where basked the crimson creeper serpentine;
Where fallen leaves did stir and rustle chill,
And saw thee rest beneath a wild grape-vine.
While Echo, sad amid his deep-voiced mountains--
More sad than erst--did raise a dreamy speech
And call thee to his youthful, amorous arms,
Where splashed the murmuring forest's limpid fountains;
And tho' his words thy pink-shell ears did reach,
Thou wouldst not heed or guile him with thy charms.

Once saw thee in a hollow girt with trees,
A-dream amid the harvest's tawny grain;
Thy plushy cheek faint flushing in the breeze,
In thy deep eyes a drowsy sky's blue stain.
And where within the woodland's twilight path
The cloud-winged skies did peep all speechless down,
And stirred the gaudy leaves with fragrant breath,
I've seen thee walk, nor fear the Winter's wrath;
There drop asleep clad in thy gipsy gown,
While Echo bending o'er dropp'd tears upon thy wreath.

AN ADDRESS TO NIGHT.

Like some sad spirit from an unknown shore
Thou comest with two children in thine arms:
Flushed, poppied Sleep, whom mortals aye adore,
Her flowing raiment sculptured to her charms.
Soft on thy bosom in pure baby rest
Clasped as a fair white rose in musky nest;
But on thy other, like a thought of woe,
Her brother, lean, cold Death doth thin recline,
To thee as dear as she, thy maid divine,
Whose frowsy hair his hectic breathings blow
In poppied ringlets billowing all her marble brow.

Oft have I taken Sleep from thy vague arms
And fondled her faint head, with poppies wreath'd,
Within my bosom's depths, until its storms
With her were hushed and I but mildly breath'd.
And then this child, O Night! with frolic art
Arose from rest, and on my panting heart
Blew bubbles of dreams where elfin worlds were lost,
Until my airy soul smiled light on me
From some far land too dim for day to see,
And wandered in a shape of limpid frost
Within a dusky dale where soundless streams did flee.

Welcome to Earth, O Night the saintly garbed!
Slip meek as love into the Day's flushed heart!
Drop in a dream from where the meteors orbed
Wander past systems scorning map or chart;
Or sit aloft, thy hands brimmed full of stars,
Or come in garb of storms 'mid thunder jars,
When lightning-frilled gleams wide thy cloud-frounced dress,
Then art thou grand! but, oh, when thy pure feet
Along the star-strewn floors of Heaven beat,
And thy cool breath the heated world doth bless,
Thou art God's angel of true love and gentleness!

THE HERON.

EVENING.

As slaughter red the long creek crawls
From solitary forest walls,
Out where the eve's wild glory falls.
One wiry leg drowned in his breast,
Neck-shrunk, flame-gilded with the West,
Stark-stately he the evening wears.

NIGHT.

The whimp'ring creek breaks on the stone;
The new moon came, but now is gone;
White, tingling stars wink out alone.
Lank specter of wet, windy lands,
The melancholy heron stands;
Then, clamoring, dives into the stars.

A DIRGE.

I.

Life has fled; she is dead,
Sleeping in the flow'ry vale
Where the fleeting shades are shed
Ghost-like o'er her features pale.
Lay her 'neath the violets wild,
Lay her like a dreaming child
'Neath the waving grass
Where the shadows pass.

II.

Gone she has to happy rest
With white flowers for her pillow;
Moons look sadly on her breast
Thro' an ever-weeping willow.
Fold her hands, frail flakes of snow,
Waxen as white roses blow
Like herself so fair,
Free from world and care.

III.

Twine this wreath of lilies wan
'Round her sculptured brow so white;
Let her rest here, white as dawn,
Like a lily quenched in night.
Wreath this rosebud wild and pale,
Wreath it 'mid her fingers frail;
On her dreamless breast
Let it dreaming rest.

IV.

Gently, gently lay her down,
Gently lay her form to sleep;
Gently let her soul be blown
Far away, while low we weep.
Hush! the earth no more can harm her
Now that choirs of angels charm her!
Dreams of life are brief;
Naught amendeth grief.

V.

Speed away! speed away!
Angels called her here to sleep;
Let us leave her here to stay:
Speed away! and, speeding, weep.
Where the roses blow and die,
'Neath them she a rose doth lie
Wilted in the grass
Where the shadows pass.

THE HAUNTED HOUSE.

I.

The shadows sit and stand within its door
Like uninvited guests and poor,
And all the long, hot summer day
A dry green locust whirs its roundelay,
And the shadows halt at the door.
The sheeted iron upon the roof
Stretches its weary hide and cracks;
The spider weaves his windy woof
In dingy closet cracks,
And all a something lacks.
The freckled snake crawls o'er the floor,
Tongues at the shadows in the door,
And where the musty mosses run
Basks in the sun.

II.

The children of the fathers sleep
Beneath the melancholy pines;
Earth-worms within grim skulls forever creep
And the glow-worm shines;
The orchards in the meadow deep
Lift up their stained, gnarled arms,
Mossed, lichened where limp lizards peep.
No youth swells up to make them leap
And cry against the storms;
No blossom lulls their age asleep,
Each wind brings sad alarms.
Big-bellied apples gold or bell-round pears
No maiden gathers now;
The moistures drip great reeking tears
From each old, crippled bough.

III.

The orchards are yellow and solitary,
The winds beat down their hands;
The sunlight is sad and the moonlight is dreary,
The hum of the country is lonesome and weary,
And the bees go by in bands
To other happier lands.
The grasses are rotting in walk and in bower;
The orchards smell dank and rank
As a chamber where lay for a lonely hour
A corpse unclad in the taper's glower,
Chill, white, and lank.
So the bees go by in murmurous bands,
Drowsily wand'ring to happier lands
Where the lilies draggle the bank.

IV.

In the desolate halls are lying,
Gold, blood-red, and browned,
Shriveled leaves of Autumn dying,
And the shadows o'er them flying
Turn them 'round and 'round,
Make a dreary sound
Thro' the echoing chambers crying
In the haunted house.