Chapter IV

Away, away with the witch of spray
To her Aidenn islands far;
And the blue above, drunk-mad with love,
Dance down each singing star.
Leave, leave to the heaven its morning star
In a cloud of bolted snow,
To laugh at the world and herald far
Our wedlock and joy below.

III.--IN THE GARDENS OF FALERINA.

FALERINA.

The night is hung above us, love,
With heavy stars that love us, love,
With clouds that curl in purple and pearl,
And winds that whisper of us, love:
On burly hills and valleys, that lie dimmer,
The amber foot-falls of the moon-sylphs glimmer.

The moon is still a crescent, love;
And here with thee 'tis pleasant, love,
To sit and dream in its thin gleam,
And list thy sighs liquescent, love:
To see thy eyes and fondle thy dark tresses,
Set on warm lips imperishable kisses.

The sudden-glaring fire-flies
Swim o'er the hollow gyre-wise,
And spurt and shine like jostled wine
At lips on which desire lies:
Or like the out-flashed hair of elf or fairy
In rapid morrice whirling feat and airy.

Up,--all the blue West sundering,--
A creamy cloud comes blundering
O'er star and steep, and opening deep
Grows gold with silent thundering:
Gold flooding crystal crags immeasurable,
Lost Avalons of old Romance and Fable.

The bee dreams in the cherry bloom
That sways above the berry bloom;
The katydid grates where she's hid
In leafy deeps of dreary gloom:
The forming dew is globing on the grasses,
Like rich spilled gems of some dark queen that passes.

The mere brief gusts are wrinkling;
A thousand ripples twinkling
Have caught the stars on polished spars
Their rustling ridges sprinkling:
And all the shadow lurking in its bosom
Is touched and bursten into golden blossom.

Stoop! and my being flatter, love;
With sudden starlight scatter, love,
From the starry grace of thy rare face,
Whose might can make or shatter, love!
Come, raiment love in love's own radiant garments.
And kindle all my soul to rapturous torments!

Bow all thy beauty to me, love,
Lips, eyes, and hair to woo me, love,
As bows and blows some satin rose
Snow-soft and tame, that knew thee, love.
Unto the common grass, that worshiping cowers,
Dowering its love with all her musk of flowers.

THE DREAM.

My dream was such:
It seemed the afternoon
Of some deep tropic day, and yet a moon
Stood round and full with largeness of white gleams
High in a Heaven that knew not a sun's beams;
A vast, still Heaven of unremembered dreams.
Long, lawny lengths of perishable cloud
Hung in a West o'er rolling forests bowed;
Clouds raining colors, gold and violet
That, opening, seemed from hidden worlds to let
Down hints of mystic beauty and old charms
Wrought of frail creatures fair with silvery forms.
And all about me fruited orchards grew
Of quince and peach and dusty plums of blue;
Wan apricots and apples red with fire,
Kissed into ripeness by some sun's desire,
And big with juice; and on far, fading hills,
Down which it seemed a hundred torrent rills
Flashed leaping silver, vines and vines and vines
Of purple vintage swollen with cool wines;
Pale pleasant wines and fragrant as the June,
Their delicate life robbed from the foam-fair moon.
And from the clouds o'er this sweet world there dripp'd
An odorous music strange and feverish lipped,
That swung and swooned and panted in mad sighs,
Invoking at each wave sad rapturous eyes
Of limpid, willowy beings fair as night,
Decked spangly with crisp flower-like stars of white;
Dim honeyed booming of the boisterous bee
In purple myriads of faint fleurs-de-lis;
Of surf far-foaming on forgotten strands
Of immemorial seas in fairy lands
Of melting passion, who, with crimson lips
Of many shells laid to each swell that dips,
Sigh secret hope of unrequited love
In murmurous language to wan winds above.

HAWKING.

I.

I see them still, when poring o'er
Old volumes of romantic lore,
Ride forth to hawk in days of yore,
By woods and promontories;
Knights in gold lace, plumes and gems,
Maidens crowned with anadems,--
Whose falcons on round wrists of milk
Sit in jesses green of silk,--
From bannered Miraflores.

II.

The laughing earth is young with dew;
The deeps above are violet blue;
And in the East a cloud or two
Empearled with airy glories:
And with laughter, jest and singing,
Silver bells of falcons ringing,
Hawkers, rosy with the dawn,
Gayly ride o'er hill and lawn
From courtly Miraflores.

III.

The torrents silver down the crags;
Down dim-green vistas browse the stags;
And from wet beds of reeds and flags
The frightened lapwing hurries;
And the brawny wild-boar peereth
At the cavalcade that neareth;
Oft his shaggy-throated grunt
Brings the king and court to hunt
At royal Miraflores.

IV.

The May itself in soft sea-green
Is Oriana, Spring's high queen,
And Amadis beside her seen
Some prince of Fairy stones:
Where her castle's ivied towers
Drowse above her budded bowers,
Flaps the heron thro' the sky,
And the wild swan gives a cry
By woody Miraflores.

LA BEALE ISOUD.

I.

With bloodshot eyes the morning rose
Upon a world of gloom and tears;
A kindred glance queen Isoud shows--
Come night, come morn, cease not her fears.
The fog-clouds whiten all the vale,
The sunlight draws them to its love;
The diamond dews wash ev'ry dale,
Where bays the hunt within the grove.
Her lute--the one her touch he taught
To wake beneath the stars a song
Of swan-caught music--is as naught
And on yon damask lounge is flung.
Down o'er her cheeks her hair she draws
In golden rays 'twixt lily tips,
And gazes sad on gloomy shaws
'Neath which had often touched their lips.

II.

With irised eyes, from morn to noon.
And noon to middle night she stoops
From her high lattice 'neath the moon,
Hoping to see him 'mid the groups
Of mail-swathed braves come jingling by.
And once there came a dame in weft
All pearl besprent, as when the sky
A springtide day hath wept and left
A stormy eve one flash of gems.
"'Mid neatherds he's a naked waif
Unwitted," said she, lipping scorn:
And shook deep curls with a weak laugh
Tib clinked the gold thick in them worn.

III.

"How long to wait!" and far she bent
From her tall casement toward the lawn;
A prospect of a wide extent
Glassed in her eyes and hateful shown.
Along the white lake windy crags
Blue with coarse brakes and ragged pines;
A bandit keep with trembling flags;
And barren scars, and waste marsh lines,
And now a palfried dame and knight.
Deep deer-behaunted forests old,
Whose sinewy boughs dark blocked the cave
Of Heav'n o'er Earth; a blasted hold
'Mid livid fields; a torrent's wave.
And o'er the bridge whose marble arched
The torrent's foam, dim in the dew
Of morning, one all glimmering marched
In glittering steel from helm to shoe,
With lance whose fang smote back the dawn.

IV.

Selled on a barb whose trappings shone
Red brass,--a morning star of jousts
Upon the dawning beaming lone
Burst from the hills' empurpled crusts.
A lying star, whose double tongue
Was slave to gold: "I saw him die!--
'Tis ruth, for he was brave and young,--
I saw him in the close clay lie."
Then passed he rattling from the court....
So grief in furrows ploughed her front's
Smooth surface wan, and toward the eve,--
The bloodshot eve upon the mounts,
Who o'er day's flow'ry bier did grieve
And bow her melancholy star,--
O'er teenful eyes she bent the light
Of her crown-crescent's gem, and far
She lingered till the full-mooned night
Showered ripple-stars the gray mere o'er.