Chapter IV: Moonlight

Amid the chatter gay and mad Saint Mark to Lido wafts, a tune Like as a rocket riseth glad As fountain riseth to the moon.

But in that air with laughter stirred, That shakes its bells far out to sea, Regret, a little stifled bird, Mingles its frail sob audibly.

And in a mist of memory clad, Like dream well-nigh effaced, I view The sweet Beloved, fair and sad, Of dear, long-vanished days I knew.

Ah, pale she is! My soul in tears An April day remembers yet:-- We sought the violets by the meres, And in the grass our fingers met. . .

The vibrant note of violin Is the child voice that struck my heart, Exquisite, plaintive, argentine, With all the anguish of its dart.

So sweetly, falsely, doth it steal, So cruel, yet so tender, too, So cold, so burning, that I feel A deadly pleasure pierce me through;

Until my heart, an archway deep Whose waters feed the fountain's lip, Lets tears of blood in silence weep Into my bosom drip by drip.

O Carnival of Venice!--theme So chilling sad, yet ever warm! Where laughter toucheth tears supreme,-- How hast thou hurt me with thy charm!

SYMPHONY IN WHITE MAJOR

In the Northern tales of eld, From the Rhine's escarpments high Swan-women radiant were beheld, Singing and floating by,

Or, leaving their plumage bright On a bough that was bending low, Displaying skin more gleaming white Than the white of their down of snow.

At times one comes our way,-- Of all she is pallidest, White as the moonbeam's shivering ray On a glacier's icy crest.

Her boreal bloom doth win Our eyes to feasting rare On rich delight of nacreous skin, And a wealth of whiteness fair.

Her rounded breasts, pale globes Of snow, wage insolent war With her camellias and her robes Of whiteness nebular.

In such white wars supreme She wins, and weft and flower Leave their revenge's right, and seem Yellowed with envy's hour.

On the white of her shoulder bare, Whose marble Paros lends, As through the Polar twilight fair, Invisible frost descends.

What beaming virgin snow, What pith a reed within, What Host, what taper, did bestow The white of her matchless skin?

Was she made of a milky drop On the blue of a winter heaven? The lily-blow on the stem's green top? The foam of the sea at even?

Of the marble still and cold, Wherein the great gods dwell? Of creamy opal gems that hold Faint fires of mystic spell?

Or the organ's ivory keys? Her wingèd fingers oft Like butterflies flit over these, With kisses pending soft.

Of the ermine's stainless fold, Whose white, warm touches fall On shivering shoulders and on bold, Bright shields armorial?

Of the phantom flowers of frost Enscrolled on the window clear? Of the fountain drop in the chill air lost, An Undine's frozen tear?

Of May bent low with the sweets Of her bountiful white-thorn bloom? Of alabaster that repeats The pallor of grief and gloom?

Of the feathers of doves that slip And snow on the gable steep? Of slow stalactite's tear-white drip In cavernous places deep?

Came she from Greenland floes With Seraphita forth? Is she Madonna of the Snows? A sphinx of the icy North,

Sphinx buried by avalanche, The glacier's guardian ghost, Whose frozen secrets hide and blanch In her white heart innermost?

What magic of what far name Shall this pale soul ignite? Ah! who shall flush with rose's flame This cold, implacable white?

COQUETRY IN DEATH

I beg ye grant, when low I lie, Before ye close my coffin-bed, A little black beneath mine eye, And on my cheek a touch of red!

Ah, make me beautiful as now! For I would be upon my bier, As on the night of his avow Charming and bloomful, gay and dear.

For me no linen winding-sheet! But gown me very grand and bright. Bring forth my frock of muslin sweet, With many ruffles soft and white.

My favourite frock! I wore it well, Who wore it at love's flowering. And since his look upon it fell, I've kept it as a sacred thing.

For me no funeral coronet, No tear-embroidered cushion place; But o 'er my fair lace pillow let My hair droop free about my face.

Dear pillow! Often did it mark, In mad, sweet nights our brows unlit, And, all within the gondola dark, Did count our kisses infinite.

About my waxen hands supine, Folded in prayer at life's deep gloam, My rosary of opals twine, Blessed by His Holiness at Rome.

I'll finger it, when bedded cold Where never one shall rise. How oft His lips upon my lips have told A _Pater_ and an _Ave_ soft!

HEART'S DIAMOND

Every lover deep hath set In a sacred nook apart Some dear token for the heart In its hope or its regret.

One hath nested safe away Blackest ringlet ever seen, Over which an azure sheen Lieth, as on wing of jay.

One from shoulder pale as milk Took a tress more golden-fine Than the threads that softly shine In the silk-worm's wonder-silk.

In its hiding mystical, Memory's reliquary sweet, Glances of another greet Gloves with fingers white and small.

And another yet may list To inhale a faint perfume Of the violets from her room, Freshly given--faded, kissed.

Here a slipper's curving grace One with sighing treasureth. There another guards a breath In a mask's light edge of lace.

I've no slipper to revere, Neither glove nor tress nor flower; But I cherish for love's dower A divine, adorèd tear,--

Fallen from the blue above, Clearest dew, heaven's drop for me, Pearl dissolved secretly In the chalice of my love.

To mine eyes the dim-worn dew Beams, a gem of Orient worth, Standing from the parchment forth, Diamond of a sapphire blue,--

Steadfast, lustreful and deep! Tear that fell unhoped, unsought, On a song my soul once wrought, From an eye unused to weep.

SPRING'S FIRST SMILE

While up and down the earth men pant and plod, March, laughing at the showers and days unsteady, And whispering secret orders to the sod, For Spring makes ready.

And slyly when the world is sleeping yet, He smooths out collars for the Easter daisies, And fashions golden buttercups to set In woodland mazes.

Coif-maker fine, he worketh well his plan. Orchard and vineyard for his touch are prouder. From a white swan he hath a down to fan The trees with powder.

While Nature still upon her couch doth lean, Stealthily hies he to the garden closes, And laces in their bodices of green Pale buds of roses.

Composing his solfeggios in the shade, He whistles them to blackbirds as he treadeth, And violets in the wood, and in the glade Snowdrops, he spreadeth.

Where for the restless stag the fountain wells, His hidden hand glides soft amid the cresses, And scatters lily-of-the-valley bells, In silver dresses.

He sinks the sweet, vermilion strawberries Deep in the grasses for thy roving fingers, And garlands leaflets for thy forehead's ease, When sunshine lingers.

When, labour done, he must away, turns he On April's threshold from his fair creating, And calleth unto Spring: "Come, Spring--for see, The woods are waiting!"

CONTRALTO

There lies within a great museum's hall, Upon a snowy bed of carven stone, A statue ever strange and mystical, With some fair fascination all its own.

And is it youth or is it maiden sweet, A goddess or a god come down to sway? Love fearful, hesitating, turns his feet, Nor any word's avowal will betray.

Sideways it lieth, with averted face, Stretching its lovely limbs, half mischievous, Unto the curious crowd, an idle grace Lighting its marble form luxurious.

For fashioning of its evil beauty brought The sexes twain each one its magic dower. Man whispers "Aphrodite!" in his thought, And woman "Eros!" wondering at its power.

Uncertain sex and certain grace, that seem To melt forever in a fountain's kiss, Waters that whelm the body as they gleam And merge, and it is one with Salmacis.

Ardent chimera, effort venturesome Of Art and Pleasure--figure fanciful! Into thy presence with delight I come, Loving thy beauty strange and multiple.

Though I may never close to thee draw nigh, How often have my glances pierced the taut, Straight fold of thine austerest drapery, Fast at the end about thine ankle caught!

O dream of poet passing every bound! My thought hath built a fancy of thy form, Till it is molten into silver sound, And boy and girl are one in cadence warm.

O tone divine, O richest tone of earth, The beautiful, bright statue's counterpart! Contralto, thou fantastical of birth, The voice's own Hermaphrodite thou art!

Thou art the plaintive dove, the linnet rare, Perched on one rose tree, mellow in one note. Thou art fair Juliet and Romeo fair, Singing across the night with one warm throat.

Thou art the young wife of the castellan, Chaffing an amorous page below her bower,-- Upon her balcony the lady wan, The lover at the base of her high tower.

Thou art the yellow butterfly that swings, Pursuing soft a butterfly of snow, In spiral flights and subtle traversings, One winging high, the other winging low_;_

The angel flitting up and down the gold Of the bright stair's aerial extent, The bell in whose alloy of mighty mould Arc voice of bronze and voice of silver blent

Yea, melody and harmony art thou, Song with its true accompaniment, and grace Matched unto force,--the woman plighting vow To her Belovèd with a close embrace;

Or thou art Cinderella doomed to spend Her night before the embers of the fire, Deep in a conversation with her friend, The cricket, as the latter hours expire;

Or Arsaces, the great and valorous, Waging his righteous battle for a realm, Or Tancred with his breastplate luminous, Cuirassed and splendid with his sword and helm;

Or Desdemona with her willow song, Zerlina laughing at Mazetto, or Malcolm, his plaid upon his shoulder strong. Thee, O thou dear Contralto, I adore!

For these thou art, thou dearest charm of each, O fair Contralto, double-throated dove! The Kaled of a Lara, for thy speech, Thou mightest, like the lost Gulnare, prove,--

In whose heart-stirring, passionate caress In one wild, tremulous note there blend and mount A woman's sigh of plaintive tenderness, And virile accents from a firmer fount.

EYES OF BLUE

A woman, mystic, sweet, Whose beauty draws my soul, Stands silent where the fleet And singing waters roll.

Her eyes, the mirrored note Of heaven, merge heaven's blue Bestarred of lights remote, With the sea's glaucous hue.

Within their languor set, Smiles sadness infinite. Tears make the sparkles wet, And tender grows the light.

Like sea-gulls from aloft That graze the ocean free, Her lashes flutter soft Upon an azure sea.

As slumbering treasures drowned Send shimmers lightly up, Gleams through the tide profound The King of Thule's cup.

Athwart the weedy swirl Brilliant, the waves upon, Shine Cleopatra's pearl, And ring of Solomon.

The crown to ocean cast, That Schiller showed to us, Still under sea caught fast, Beams clear and luminous.

A magic in that gaze Draws me, mad venturer! Thus mermaid's magic ways Drew Harold Haarfager.

And all my soul unquelled Adown the gulf betrayed Dives, to the quest impelled Of some elusive shade.

The siren fitfully Displays her body's gleam, Her breast and arms that ply Through waves of amorous dream.

The water heaves and falls, Like breasts with passion's breath. The breeze insistent calls To me, and murmureth:

_"Come to my pearly bed! My ocean arms shall slip About thee: salt shall spread To honey on thy lip!_

_Oh, let the billows link Above us! Thou shalt, warm, From cup of kisses drink Oblivion of the storm!"_

Thus sighs the glance that sweeps From out those sea-blue gates, Till heart down treacherous deeps The hymen consummates.

THE TOREADOR'S SERENADE

RONDALLA

Child with airs imperial, Dove with falcon's eyes for me Whom thou hatest,--come I shall Underneath thy balcony!

There, my foot upon the stone, I shall twang my chords with grace, Till thy window-pane hath shone With thy lamplight and thy face.

Let no lad with his guitar Strum adown the bordering ways. Mine the road to watch and bar, Mine alone to sing thy praise.

Let the first my courage brave. He shall lose his ears, egad! Who shall howl his love and rave In a couplet good or bad.

Restless doth my dagger lie. Come! who'll venture its rebuff? Who would wear for every sigh Blood's red flower upon his ruff?

Blood grows weary of its veins; For it yearns to be displayed. Night is ominous with rains. Haste, ye cowards, back to shade!

On, thou braggart, else aroint! Well thy forearm cover thou. On! and with my dagger's point Let me write upon thy brow.

Let them come, alone, in mass: Firm of foot I bide my place. For thy glory, as they pass, Would I slit each paltry face.

O'er the gutter ere thy clear, Snowy feet shall be defiled, By the Rood! a bridge I'll rear With the bones of gallants wild.

I would slay, thy love to wear, Any foe, yea, even proud Satan's very self to dare, So thy sheets became my shroud.

Sightless window, deafened door! Wilt thou never heed my sounds? Like a wounded bull I roar, Maddening the baying hounds.

Drive at least a poor nail then, Where my heart may hang inert. For I want it not again, With its madness and its hurt!

NOSTALGIA OF THE OBELISKS

THE OBELISK IN PARIS

Distant from my native land, Ever dull with ennui's pain, Lonely monolith I stand, In the snow and frost and rain.

And my shaft, once burnt to red In a flaming heaven's glare, Taketh on a pallor dead In this never azure air.

Oh, to stand again before Luxor's pylons, and the dear, Grim Colossi!--be once more My vermilion brother near!

Oh, to pierce the changeless blue, Where of old my peak upwon, With my shadow sharp and true Trace the footsteps of the sun!

Once, O Rameses! my tall mass Not the ages could destroy. But it fell cut down like grass. Paris took it for a toy.

Now my granite form behold: Sentinel the livelong day Twixt a spurious temple old, And the _Chambre des Députés!_

On the spot where _Louis Seize _ Died, they set me, meaningless, With my secret which outweighs Cycles of forgetfulness.

Sparrows lean defile my head, Where the ibis used to light, And the fierce gypaetus spread Talons gold and plumage white.

And the Seine, the drip of street, Unclean river, crime's abyss, Now befouls mine ancient feet, Which the Nile was wont to kiss:

Hoary Nile that, crowned and stern, To its lotus-laden shores From its ever bended urn Crocodiles for gudgeon pours!

Golden chariots gem-belit Of the Pharaohs' pageanting Grazed my side the cab-wheels hit, Bearing out the last poor king.

By my granite shape of yore Passed the priests, with stately pschent, And the mystic boat upbore, Emblemed and magnificent.

But to-day, profane and wan, Camped between two fountains wide, I behold the courtesan In her carriage lounge with pride.

From the first of year to last I must see the vulgar show-- Solons to the Council passed, Lovers to the woods that go!

Oh, what skeletons abhorred, Hence, an hundred years, this race! Couched, unbandaged, on a board, In a nailed coffin's place.

Never hypogeum kind, Safe from foul corruption's fear; Never hall where century-lined Generations disappear!

Sacred soil of hieroglyph, And of sacerdotal laws, Where the Sphinx is waiting stiff, Sharpening on the stone its claws,--

Soil of crypt where echoes part, Where the vulture swoopeth free, All my being,--all my heart, O mine Egypt, weeps for thee!

THE OBELISK IN LUXOR

Where the wasted columns brood, Lonely sentinel stand I, In eternal solitude Facing all infinity.

Dumb, with beauty unendowed, To the horizon limitless Spreads earth's desert like a shroud Stained by yellow suns that press.

While above it, blue and clean, Is another desert cast-- Sky where cloud is never seen, Pure, implacable, and vast.

And the Nile's great water-course Glazed with leaden pellicle Wrinkled by the river-horse Gleameth dead, unlustreful.

All about the flaming isles, By a turbid water spanned, Hot, rapacious crocodiles Swoon and sob upon the sand.

Perching motionless, alone, Ibis, bird of classic fame, From a carven slab of stone Reads the moon-god's sacred name.

Jackals howl, hyenas grin, Famished hawks descend and cry. Down the heavy air they spin, Commas black against the sky.

These the sounds of solitude, Where the sphinxes yawn and doze, Dull and passionless of mood, Weary of their endless pose.

Child of sand's reflected shine, And of sun-rays fiercely bent, Is there ennui like to thine, Spleen of luminous Orient?

Thou it was cried "Halt!" of yore To satiety of kings. Thou hast crushed me more and more With thine awful weight of wings.

Here no zephyr of the sea Wipes the tears from skies that fill. Time himself leans wearily On the palaces long still.

Naught shall touch the features terse Of this dull, eternal spot. In this changing universe, Only Egypt changeth not!

When the ennui never ends, And I yearn a friend to hold, I've the fellahs, mummies, friends, Of the dynasties of old.

I behold a pillar pale, Or a chipped Colossus note, Watch a distant, gleaming sail Up and down the Nile afloat.

Oh, to seek my brother's side, In a Paris wondrous, grand, With his stately form to bide, In the public place to stand!

For he looks on living men, And they scan his pictures wrought By an hieratic pen, To be read by vision-thought.

Fountains fair as amethyst On his granite lightly pour All their irisated mist. He is growing young once more.

Ah! yet he and I had birth From Syene's veins of red. But I keep my spot of earth. He is living. I am dead.

VETERANS OF THE OLD GUARD

(December 15)

Driven by ennui from my room, I walked along the Boulevard. 'Twas in December's mist and gloom. A bitter wind was blowing hard.

And there I saw--strange thing to see!-- In drizzle and in daylight drear, From out their dark abodes let free, Dim, spectral shadow-shapes appear.

Yet 't is by night's uncanny hours, By pallid German moonbeams cast On old dilapidated towers, That ghosts are wont to wander past.

It is by night's effulgent star In dripping robes that elves intrigue To bear beneath the nenuphar Their dancer dead of his fatigue.

At night's mysterious tide hath been The great review--of ballad writs-- Wherein the Emperor, dimly seen, Numbered the shades of Austerlitz.

But phantoms near the _Gymnase?--_yea, And wet and miry phantoms, too, And close to the _Variétés, _ And not a shroud to trick the view!

With yellow teeth and stained dress, And mossy skull and pierced shoon, Paris--Montmartre--behold it press,-- Death in the very light of noon!

Ah, 't is a picture to be seen! Three veteran ghosts in uniform Of the Old Guard, and, spare and lean, Two ghost-hussars in daylight's storm.

The lithograph, you would surmise, Wherein one ray shines down upon The dead, that Raffet deifies, That pass and shout "Napoleon!"

No dead are these, whom nightly drum May rouse to battle fires that burn, But stragglers of the Old Guard, come To celebrate the grand return!

Since fighting in the fight supreme, One has grown thin, another stout; The coats that fitted once now seem Too small, too loose, or draggled out.

O epic rags! O tatters light, Starred with a cross! Heroic things Of ridicule, ye gleam more bright, More beautiful than robes of kings!

Limp feathers fluttering adorn The tawny colbacks worn and grim. The bullet and the moth have torn And riddled well the dolmans dim.

Their leathern breeches loosely hang In furrows on their lank thigh-bones, Their rusty sabres drag and clang, As heavily they scrape the stones.

Or some round belly firm and fat, Squeezed tight in tether labour-donned, Makes mirth and jest to chuckle at-- Old hero quaint and cheveroned!

But do not mock and jeer, my lad. Salute him, rather, and, believe, Achilles he, of Iliad That Homer's self could not conceive.

Respect these men with battle signs That twenty skies have painted brown; Their scars that lengthen out the lines Of wrinkles age has written down;

Their skin whose colour deep and dun, Bared to the fronts of many foes, Tells us of Egypt's burning sun; Their locks that tell of Russia's snows.

And if they shake, no longer strong? Ah! Beresina's wind was cold. And if they limp? The way was long, From Cairo unto Vilna told.

If they be stiff? They'd but a flag For sheet to hold their bodies warm. And if a sleeve be loose, poor rag? 'T is that a bullet tore an arm.

Mock not these veteran shapes bizarre, At whom the urchin laughs and gapes. They were the day, of which we are The evening, and the night, perhaps,--

Remembering if we forget-- Red lancer, grenadier in blue, With faces to the Column set, As to their only altar true.

There, proud of pain each scar denotes, And of long miseries gone by, They feel beneath their shabby coats The heart of France beat mightily.

And so our smiles are steeped in tears, Seeing this holy carnival, This picture wan that reappears, Like morning after midnight's ball.

And, cleaving heaven its own to claim, Wide the Grand Army's eagle spreads Its golden wings, like glory's flame, Above their dear and hallowed heads.

SEA-GLOOM

The sea-gulls restless gleam and glance, The mad white coursers cleave the length Of ocean as they rear and prance And toss their manes in stormy strength.

The day is ending. Raindrops choke The sunset furnaces. The gloom Brings the great steamboat spitting smoke, And beating down its long black plume.

And I, more wan than heaven wide, For land of soot and fog am bound, For land of smoke and suicide-- And right good weather have I found!

How eagerly I now would pierce The gulf that groweth wild and hoar! The vessel rocks. The waves are fierce. The salt wind freshens more and more.

Ah! bitter is my soul's unrest. The very ocean sighing heaves In pity its unhopeful breast, Like some good friend that knows and grieves.

Let be--lost love's despair supreme! Let be--illusions fair that rose And fell from pedestals of dream! One leap! The dark wet ridges close.

Away! ye sufferings gone by, That evermore returning brood, And press the wounds that sleeping lie, To make them weep afresh their blood.

Away! regret, whose crimson heart Hath seven swords. Yea, One, maybe, Doth know the anguish and the smart-- Mother of Seven Sorrows, She!

Each ghostly grief sinks down the vast, And struggles with the waves that throb To close about it, and at last Drown it forever with a sob.

Soul's ballast, treasures of life's hand, Sink! and we'll wreck together down. Pale on the pillow of the sand I'll rest me well at evening brown.

But, now, a woman, as I gaze, Sits in the bridge's darker nook, A woman, who doth sweetly raise Her eyes to mine in one long look.

'T is Sympathy with outstretched arms, Who smileth to me through the gray Of dusk with all her thousand charms. Hail, azure eyes! Green sea, away!

The sea-gulls restless gleam and glance. The mad white coursers cleave the length Of Ocean as they rear and prance And toss their manes in stormy strength.

TO A ROSE-COLOURED GOWN

How I love you in the robes That disrobe so well your charms! Your dear breasts, twin ivory globes, And your bare sweet pagan arms.

Frail as frailest wing of bee, Fresher than the heart of rose, All the fabric delicate, free, Round your body gleams and glows,

Till from skin to silken thread, Silver shivers lightly win, And the rosy gown have shed Roses on the creamy skin.

Whence have you the mystic thing, Made of very flesh of you, Living mesh to mix and cling With your glorious body's hue?

Did you take it from the rud Of the dawn? From Venus' shell? From a breast-flower nigh to bud? From a rose about to swell?

Doth the texture have its dye From some blushing bashfulness? No--your portraits do not lie-- Beauty beauty's form shall guess!

Down you cast your garment fair, Art-dreamed, sweet Reality, Like Borghese's princess, rare For Canova's mastery!

Ah! the folds are lips of fire Sweeping round your lovely form In a folly of desire, With a weft of kisses warm!

THE WORLD'S MALICIOUS

Ah, little one, the world's malicious! With mocking smiles thy beauty greeting. It says that in thy breast capricious A watch, and not a heart, is beating.

Yet like the sea thy breast is swelling With all the wild, tumultuous power A tide of blood sends pulsing, welling, Beneath thy flesh in life's young hour.

Ah, little one, the world is spiteful! It says thy vivid eyes are fooling, And that they have their charm delightful From faithful, diplomatic schooling.

Yet on thy lashes' shifting curtain An iridescent tear-drop trembles, Like dew unbidden and uncertain, That no well-water's gleam resembles.

Ah, little one, the world reviles thee! It says thou hast no spirit's favour, That verse, which seemingly beguiles thee, Hath unto thee a Sanskrit savour.

Yet to thy crimson lips inviting, Intelligence's bee of laughter, At every flash of wit alighting, Allures and gleams, and lingers after.

Ah, little one, I know the trouble! Thou lovest me. The world, it guesses. Leave me, and hear its praises bubble:-- "_What heart, what spirit, she possesses!"_

INES DE LAS SIERRAS

TO PETRA CAMARA

In Spain, as Nodier's pen has told, Three officers in night's mid hours Came on a castle dark and old, With sunken eaves and mouldering towers,

A true Anne Radcliffe type it was, With ruined halls and crumbling rooms And windows graven by the claws Of Goya's bats that ranged the glooms.

Now while they feasted, gazed upon By ancient portraits standing guard In their ancestral frames, anon A sudden cry rang thitherward.

Forth from a distant corridor That many a moonbeam's pallid hue Fretted fantastically o'er, A wondrous phantom sped in view.

With bodice high and hair comb-tipped, A woman, running, dancing, hied. Adown the dappled gloom she dipped,-- An iridescent form descried.

A languid, dead, voluptuous mood Filled every act's abandon brief, Till at the door she stopped, and stood Sinister, lovely past belief.

Her raiment crumpled in the tomb Showed here and there a spangle's foil. At every start a faded bloom Dropped petals in her hair's black coil.

A dull scar crossed her bloodless throat, As of a knife. Like rattle chill Of teeth, her castanets she smote Full in their faces awed and still.

Ah, poor bacchante, sad of grace! So wild the sweetness of her spell, The curvèd lips in her white face Had lured a saint from heaven to hell!

Like darkling birds her eyelashes Upon her cheek lay fluttering light. Her kirtle's swinging cadences Displayed her limbs of lustrous white.

She bowed amid a mist of gyres, And with her hand, as dancers may, Like flowers she gathered up desires, And grouped them in a bright bouquet.

Was it a wraith or woman seen, A thing of dreams, or blood and flesh, The flame that burst from out the sheen Of beauty's undulating mesh?

It was a phantom of the past, It was the Spain of olden keep, Who, at the sound of cheer at last, Upbounded from her icy sleep,

In one bolero mad, supreme, Rough-resurrected, powerful, Showing beneath her kirtle's gleam The ribbon wrested from the bull.

About her throat the scar of red The deathblow was, dealt silently Unto a generation dead By every new-born century.

I saw this self-same phantom fleet, All Paris ringing with her praise, When soft, diaphanous, mystic, sweet, La Petra Camara held its gaze,--

Closing her eyes with languor rare, Impassive, passionate of art, And, like the murdered Ines fair, Dancing, a dagger in her heart.

ODELET

AFTER ANACREON

Poet of her face divine, Curb this over-zeal of thine! Doves wing frighted from the ground At a step's too sudden sound, And her passion is a dove, Frighted by too bold a love. Mute as marble Hermes wait By the blooming hawthorn-gate. Thou shalt see her wings expand, She shall flutter to thy hand. On thy forehead thou shalt know Something like a breath of snow, Or of pinions pure that beat In a whirl of whiteness sweet. And the dove, grown venturesome, Shall upon thy shoulder come, And its rosy beak shall sip From the nectar of thy lip.

SMOKE

Beneath yon tree sits humble A squalid, hunchbacked house, With roof precipitous, And mossy walls that crumble.

Bolted and barred the shanty. But from its must and mould, Like breath of lips in cold, Comes respiration scanty.

A vapour upward welling, A slender, silver streak, To God bears tidings meek Of the soul in the little dwelling.

APOLLONIA

Fair Apollonia, name august, Greek echo of the sacred vale, Great name whose harmonies robust Thee as Apollo's sister hail!

Struck with the plectrum on the lyre, And in melodious beauty sung, Brighter than love's and glory's fire, It resonant rings upon the tongue.

At such a classic sound as this, The elves plunge down their German lake. Alone the Delphian worthy is So lustreful a name to take,--

Pythia! when in her flowing dress She mounts her place with feet unshod, And, priestess white and prophetess, Wistful awaits the tardy god.

THE BLIND MAN

A blind man walks without the gate, Wild-staring as an owl by day, Fumbling his flute betimes and late, Along the way.

He pipeth, weary wretch and worn, A roundel shrill and obsolete. The spectre of a dog forlorn Attends his feet.

For him the days go lustreless. Invisible life with beat and roar He heareth like a torrent press Around, before.

What strange chimeras haunt his head_ _And on his mind's bedarkened space, What characters unheard, unread, Doth fancy trace?

Thus down Venetian leads of doom, Wan prisoners ensepulchred In palpable, undying gloom Have graven their word.

And yet perchance when life's last spark Death speeds unto eternal night, The tomb-bred soul, within the dark, Shall see the light.

SONG

In April earth is white and rose Like youth and love, now tendering Her smiles, now fearful to disclose Her virgin heart unto the Spring.

In June, a little pale and worn, And full at heart of vague desire, She hideth in the yellow corn, With sunburned Summer to respire.

In August, wild Bacchante, she Her bosom bares to Autumn shapes, And on the tiger-skin flung free, Draws forth the purple blood of grapes.

And in December, shrivelled, old, Bepowdered white from foot to head, In dream she wakens Winter cold, That sleeps beside her in her bed.

WINTER FANTASIES