Chapter I: STILL remember how she moved

Among the rathe, wild blooms she loved,
(When Spring came tip-toe down the slopes,
Atremble 'twixt her doubts and hopes,
Half fearful and all virginal)--
How Silvia sought this dell to call
Her flowers into full festival,
And chid them with this madrigal:

_"The busy spider hangs the brush
With filmy gossamers,
The frogs are croaking in the creek,
The sluggish blacksnake stirs,
But still the ground is bare of bloom
Beneath the fragrant firs.

"Arise, arise, O briar rose,
And sleepy violet!
Awake, awake, anemone,
Your wintry dreams forget--_

_For shame, you tardy marigold,
Are you not budded yet?

"The Swallow's back, and claims the eaves
That last year were his home;
The Robin follows where the plow
Breaks up the crusted loam;
And Red-wings spies the Thrush and pipes:
'Look! Speckle-breast is come!'

"Up, blooms! and storm the wooded slopes,
The lowlands and the plain--
Blow, jonquil, blow your golden horn
Across the ranks of rain!
To arms! to arms! and put to flight
The Winter's broken train!"_

She paused beside this selfsame rill,
And as she ceased, a daffodil
Held up reproachfully his head
And fluttered into speech, and said:

_"Chide not the flowers! You little know
Of all their travail 'neath the snow,_

_Their struggling hours
Of choking sorrow underground.
Chide not the flowers!
You little guess of that profound
And blind, dumb agony of ours!
Yet, victor here beside the rill,
I greet the light that I have found,
A Daffodil!"_

And when the Daffodil was done
A boastful Marigold spake on:

_"Oh, chide the white frost, if you choose,
The heavy clod, so hard to loose,
The preying powers
Of worm and insect underground.
Chide not the flowers!
For spite of scathe and cruel wound,
Unconquered by the sunless hours,
I rise in regal pride, a bold
And golden-hearted, golden-crowned
Marsh Marigold!"_

And when she came no more, her creek
Would not believe, but bade us seek

Hither, yon, and to and fro--
Everywhere that children go
When the Spring
Is on the wing
And the winds of April blow--
"I will never think her dead;
"She will come again!" it said;
And then the birds that use the vale,
Broken-hearted, turned the tale
Into syllables of song
And chirped it half a summer long:

_"Silvia, Silvia,
Be our Song once more,
Our vale revisit, Silvia,
And be our Song once more:
For joy lies sleeping in the lute;
The merry pipe, the woodland flute,
And all the pleading reeds are mute
That breathed to thee of yore._

_"Silvia, Silvia,
Be our Moon again,_

_Shine on our valley, Silvia,
And be our Moon again:
The fluffy owl and nightingale
Flit silent through the darkling vale,
Or utter only words of wail
From throats all harsh with pain.

"Silvia, Silvia,
Be Springtime, as of old;
Come clad in laughter, Silvia,
Our Springtime, as of old:
The waiting lowlands and the hills
Are tremulous with daffodils
Unblown, until thy footstep thrills
Their promise into gold."_

And, musing on her here, I too
Must wonder if it can be true
She died, as other mortals do.
The thought would fit her more, to feign
That, full of life and unaware
That earth holds aught of grief or stain,
The fairies stole and hold her where
Death enters not, nor strife nor pain;--

That, drowsing on some bed of pansies,
By Titania's necromancies
Her senses were to slumber lulled,
Deeply sunken, steeped and dulled,
And by wafture of swift pinions
She was borne out through earth's portals
To the fairy queen's dominions,
To some land of the immortals.

THE EXPLORERS

AND some still cry: _"What is the use?
The service rendered? What the gain?
Heroic, yes!--but in what cause?
Have they made less one earth-borne pain?
Broadened the bounded spirit's scope?
Or died to make the dull world hope?"_

Must man still be the slave of Use?--
But these men, careless and elate,
Join battle with a burly world
Or come to wrestling grips with fate,
And not for any good nor gain
Nor any fame that may befall--
But, thrilling in the clutch of life,
Heed the loud challenge and the call;--
And grown to symbols at the last,
Stand in heroic silhouette
Against horizons ultimate,
As towers that front lost seas are set;--

The reckless gesture, the strong pose,
Sharp battle-cry flung back to Earth,
And buoyant humor, as a god
Might say: _"Lo, here my feet have trod!"_--
There lies the meaning and the worth!

They bring no golden treasure home,
They win no acres for their clan,
Nor dream nor deed of theirs shall mend
The ills of man's bedeviled span--
Nor are they skilled in sleights of speech,
(Nor overeager) to make plain
The use they serve, transcending use,--
The gain beyond apparent gain!

EARLY AUTUMN

WITH half-hearted levies of frost that make foray,
retire, and refrain--
Ambiguous bugles that blow and that falter to
silence again--

With banners of mist that still waver above them,
advance and retreat,
The hosts of the Autumn still hide in the hills,
for a doubt stays their feet;--

But anon, with a barbaric splendor to dazzle the
eyes that behold,
And regal in raiment of purple and umber and
amber and gold,

And girt with the glamor of conquest and scarved
with red symbols of pride,
From the hills in their might and their mirth on
the steeds of the wind will they ride,

To make sport and make spoil of the Summer,
who dwells in a dream on the plain,
Still tented in opulent ease in the camps of her
indolent train.

"TIME STEALS FROM LOVE"

TIME steals from Love all but Love's wings;
And how should aught but evil things,
Or any good but death, befall
Him that is thrall unto Time's thrall,
Slave to the lesser of these Kings?

O heart of youth that wakes and sings!
O golden vows and golden rings!
Life mocks you with the tale of all
Time steals from Love!

O riven lute and writhen strings,
Dead bough whereto no blossom clings,
The glory was ephemeral!
Nor may our Autumn grief recall
The passion of the perished Springs
Time steals from Love!

THE RONDEAU

YOUR rondeau's tale must still be light--
No bugle-call to life's stern fight!
Rather a smiling interlude
Memorial to some transient mood
Of idle love and gala-night.

Its manner is the merest sleight
O' hand; yet therein dwells its might,
For if the heavier touch intrude
Your rondeau's stale.

Fragrant and fragile, fleet and bright,
And wing'd with whim, it gleams in flight
Like April blossoms wind-pursued
Down aisles of tangled underwood;--
Nor be too serious when you write
Your rondeau's tail!

VISITORS

THEY haunt me, they tease me with hinted
Withheld revelations,
The songs that I may not utter;
They lead me, they flatter, they woo me.
I follow, I follow, I snatch
At the veils of their secrets in vain--
For lo! they have left me and vanished,
The songs that I cannot sing.

There are visions elusive that come
With a quiver and shimmer of wings;--
Shapes shadows and shapes, and the murmur
Of voices;--
Shapes, that out of the twilight
Leap, and with gesture appealing
Seem to deliver a message,
And are gone 'twixt a breath and a breath;--
Shapes that race in with the waves
Moving silverly under the moon,

And are gone ere they break into foam on the rocks
And recede;--
Breathings of love from invisible
Flutes,
Blown somewhere out in the tender
Dusk,
That die on the bosom of Silence;--
Formless,
And fleeter than thought,
Vaguer than thought or emotion,
What are these visitors?

Out of the vast and uncharted
Realms that encircle the visible world,
With a glimmer of light on their pinions,
They rush ...
They waver, they vanish,
Leaving me stirred with a dream of the ultimate
beauty,
A sense of the ultimate music,
I never shall capture;--

They are Beauty,
Formless and tremulous Beauty,

Beauty unborn;
Beauty as yet unappareled
In thought;
Beauty that hesitates,
Falters,
Withdraws from the verge of birth,
Flutters,
Retreats from the portals of life;--
O Beauty for ever uncaptured!
O songs that I never shall sing!

THE PARTING

WE have come "the primrose way,"
Folly, thou and I!
Such a glamor and a grace
Ever glimmered on thy face,
Ever such a witchery
Lit the laughing eyes of thee,
Could a fool like me withstand
Folly's feast and beckoning hand?
Drinking, how thy lips' caress
Spiced the cup of waywardness!
So we came "the primrose way,"
Folly, thou and I!

But now, Folly, we must part,
Folly, thou and I!
Shall one look with mirth or tears
Back on all his wasted years,
Purposes dissolved in wine,
Pearls flung to the heedless swine?--

Idle days and nights of mirth,
Were they pleasures nothing worth?
Well, there's no gainsaying we
Squandered youth right merrily!
But now, Folly, we must part,
Folly, thou and I!

AN OPEN FIRE

THESE logs with drama and with dream are rife,
For all their golden Summers and green Springs
Through leaf and root they sucked the forest's life,
Drank in its secret, deep, essential things,
Its midwood moods, its mystic runes,
Its breathing hushes stirred of faery wings,
Its August nights and April noons;
The garnered fervors of forgotten Junes
Flare forth again and waste away;
And in the sap that leaps and sings
We hear again the chant the cricket flings
Across the hawthorn-scented dusks of May.

REALITIES

REALITIES

WE are deceived by the shadow, we see not the
substance of things.
For the hills are less solid than thought; and
deeds are but vapors; and flesh
Is a mist thrown off and resumed by the soul, as
a world by a god.
Back of the transient appearance dwells in
ineffable calm
The utter reality, ultimate truth; this seems and
that is.

THE STRUGGLE