Chapter I: Preface

Most of the poems collected in this volume have already seen the light of print in the _Colonnade_, the monthly publication of the Andiron Club of New York University. The effort of the author has not been to write verses especially adapted to the taste of the modern public, but rather to create "a thing of beauty" from the theme that filled his mind at the time. Often he has been led into somewhat bold innovations such as the invention of the miniature ode, and the associating of an idea with a rime-_motiv_ in the metrical short-stories. While he hopes that the new forms will justify themselves, he realizes that after all, the poems must stand or fall in proportion to the amount of pure artistic beauty contained within them.

CONTENTS

PAGE

FROM A GRECIAN MYTH 9

"CARPE DIEM" 10

THE SONG OF LORENZO 12

THE SONG OF WO HOU 14

THE AURORA 15

THE WILL O' THE WISP 16

WHEN ON THE SHORE GRATES MY BARGE'S KEEL 18

TO SHELLEY 20

THOMAS DE QUINCEY 21

THE VISION OF DANTE 22

THE SPIRIT OF SCHOPENHAUER 24

ARTHUR TO GUENEVER 26

THE DEATH OF THOMAS CHATTERTON 27

A SPRING SONG 28

AFTER THE NEO-PLATONISTS 29

WHAT WOULDST THOU BE? 30

THE PROPHECY OF DAVID 31

THE PROPHECY OF SAINT MARK 39

THE ÆOLIAN HARP 47

THE MAID THAT I WOOED 48

IN A MINOR CHORD 49

A GLASS OF ABSINTHE 51

THE PALACE OF PAIN 53

POEMS

FROM A GRECIAN MYTH

A palace he built him in the west,
A palace of vermeil fringed with gold;
And fain would he lie him down to rest
In the palace he built him in the west
Which every heavenly hue had dressed
With halcyon harmonies untold:
That palace, the sun built in the west,
A palace of vermeil fringed with gold.

_January 3, 1911._

"CARPE DIEM"

Wake, love; Aurora's breath has tinged the sky,
Mounting in faintly flushing shafts on high
To tell the world that Phoebus is at hand;
And all the hours in a glittering band
Cluster around in sweeping, circling flight
Like angels bathing in celestial light.
See, now with one great shaft of molten gold,
No longer vaporous haze around him rolled,
The King of Day mounts the ethereal height,
Scattering the last dim streamers of the night.
Bow down, ye Persians, on your altared hills;
Worship the Sun-god who gives life, and fills
Your horn with plenteous blessings from on high.
Wake! Wake! before the dawning sunbeams die!
Fling incense on your temple's dying flame;
Sing chants and chorals in his mighty name,
For as a weary traveler from afar,
Or as a sailor on the harbor bar
After long absence spies his native town,
So, with benignant brilliance smiles he down;
Or, like a good king ruling o'er his land,
He sprinkles blessings with a bounteous hand.
And thou, O my beloved, wake! arise!
Has not the sun illumined night's dull skies?
Come, Phoebus' breath has tinged the summer morn.
Come, see the light shafts waver 'mong the corn.
Come, see the early lily's opening bloom.
Come, see the wavering light expel the gloom
From yon dark vale still sunk in misty night.
Oh, watch the circling skylark's heavenward flight,
As, wrapped in hazy waves of shimmering light,
In one grand Jubilate to the sun,
He floods the sky with song of day begun.
But golden morn is never truly fair
Unless with day, thou com'st to weave my hair
With perfumed flowers gathered in the dell
Where sylphs sing sweetly 'bout the bubbling well.
Oh, fill my cup of pleasure with new wine
Which sparkles only where thy soft eyes shine!
O my beloved, haste thee to arise
Before the light has scorched the noonday skies!
The fleeting hours haste the falling sun;
And soon the hour-glass of life is run.

_August 5 & 6, 1911._

THE SONG OF LORENZO

Over thy balcony leaning,
Thy languorous glance floats below
Whence arise thousand odours a-streaming,
Thine incense, O goddess of woe!

A star from the infinite whirling,
Taking flight through the dimness of night,
In an ark through the ether is curling;
And touches thy hair with its light.

O lady of sadness and sorrow,
Mine anguish, my hope, my despair,
Will the bright-dawning day of to-morrow
Find thee still in that balcony there?

Near thy casement, an ancient vine groweth,
A ladder that leads thee below;
Were it not for that vine, ah, who knoweth
Thou wert not an _angel_ of woe?

Come down from thy cloud-bosomed chamber;
Not yet has the moon lit the sky;
On the vine-trellis, carefully, clamber--
(Is it thou or the wind that doth sigh?)

Among the copse hedges then darting
Like a ghost at the dawn of the day;
Then, far in the distance departing,
In triumph, I'll bear thee away.

_October 7, 1911._

THE SONG OF WO HOU

_From the Second Act of Kwang Hsu_

List, O list to the song I sing
To the varying note of the sighing breeze
Blowing in cool, refreshing waves
From the endless realm of the seven seas:

Waste not life in pursuit of war,
Holding the nations for one short day,
For the death of the king destroys the realm
Which vanishes like the great Mongol's sway.

Nor hoard up silver in thy vaults,
For the silver once spent, the pleasure is passed,
Or before it is spent, we will mourn thy death:
In the world, neither conquest nor silver last.

Seek, O seek but an hour's joy;
Pleasure and love though they may not endure
Will soothe life's sorrow and bitterness--
The present alone of all time is sure!

Live in the circle of mine arms;
Live in the light of the love in mine eye;
Live in the music of my song;
And, as the music of my song--die!

_October 22, 1911._

THE AURORA

Night in purple fringed with the faintest crimson
Conquered the slowly paling glow of sunset;
Softly the western light expired; and yet
Came there no stars forth--

O'er the tow'ring cliffs and the vales and waters,
O'er the whisp'ring woodland of swaying hemlocks,
O'er the streamlets trickling down on the crag-rocks,
Came there no moon forth.

Rose in distance, a dim and fearful spectre;
Rose, accompanied by the forest's singing,
An omen of evil, certainty bringing
Of the divine wroth--

Far from northern forests descends some army;
Far in the heavens, their fires are reflected;
Waver the lights in an archway collected,
Sign of divine wroth--

Shines the arch in a flick'ring wavy brilliance;
Lighting earth from its quivering span of silver;
Shines the Aurora soft o'er lake and river,
Shines from the far north.

_December 8, 1911._

THE WILL O' THE WISP

Over the moorland, over the moor,
Sibilant sounds the rain-storm's sneer,
Sneeringly sounds, yet with a lure
Like the lure of the mermaids of the mere,
Calling the fishermen into their snare--
Through watery veils, my dim eyes peer,
Where can a light or a path be, where?
Lost on the moor, the moorland drear--
Lost, and the storm-lion's out of his lair,
Raging rampant with mighty roar;
And the glistening lightning flashes its glare;
And the torrents descend with a wind-driven pour.
Only the lightning to show by its fire
The tears of Heaven flooding Earth's floor;
And, above the sound of the storm-lion's ire,
Shriek the rain-sheets over the tor,
Shriek in a quavering, tuneless choir.
What's that in the distance shining afar?
See it flickering higher and higher,
Light in a broadening, lengthening bar--
Who is abroad at this lonely hour?
Or is it a cottage high on the scar?
Or does it shine in My Lady's tower
To guide her Lord from lands afar?
Nearer and nearer, I haste--Oh, for power
To reach that light--Oh, to be sure,
My Lady would welcome me in her bower--
I fall; I sink; it was the marsh's lure--

_December 26, 1911._

WHEN ON THE SHORE GRATES MY BARGE'S KEEL

Weariness, weariness, unending weariness, cease--
Break thou the heart thou canst not heal!
Bitterness, bitterness, undying bitterness, peace--
On shore bring to rest my barge's keel,
On that shadowy shore, we seek at life's release;
For thy soul, belovèd, bears Death's seal.
Restlessness, restlessness, wandering restlessness haunts me;
Lacking thy smile, all life's brooklets congeal
Into one image emotional, fearful which daunts me--
Life's frozen image without an ideal.
Ceaselessly, ceaselessly, ceaselessly, mocking, life taunts me;
Gone all my former purpose and zeal.
Thou wert the pattern that ordered my hopes, my existence;
All that life meant to me, thou didst reveal--
And now thou art gone, all my nature is lacking subsistence--
Oh, let this soul from the body steal!
Then to the spectres, Plutonian, silent, ethereal,
Will my sad spirit for thine appeal,
Wandering onward, and onward through realms immaterial
Till at thy feet shall it joyously kneel--
Then must my weariness, weariness, weariness, cease;
Mended the heart, life could not heal--
Bitterness, bitterness, ended all bitterness, peace--
When on the shore grates my barge's keel.

_January 25, 1911._

TO SHELLEY

Shelley, thy spirit is set among the stars;
Exalted from the earth, thy soul sprang high
From these drab pavements to the star-lit sky;
In one grand ecstasy, frail mortal bars
Gave 'way; thy soul purged pure of earthly scars--
No more to languish here with lingering sigh--
Rose from the foaming gulf where thou didst lie,
Rose from the ragged sail and splintered spars,
Rose to Elysium's fairest bowers serene;
There thine Ideal is ever at thy side;
And soft Apollo's hand doth strike the strings;
And Philomel, behind a bowery screen,
Pours forth Anacreon's blessings on thy bride
Who to thine ear unceasing rapture sings.

_July 29, 1911._

THOMAS DE QUINCEY

Through life he strove to reach his longed-for goal,
Living secluded in a forest dell;
It was his wish to learn himself so well
As to command the secrets of the soul;
He studied, wrote, and fashioned out life's scroll
Until the spirit's instincts could he spell;
And then at last diapason swell,
Burst forth his writings, 'round the world to roll!
As organ music sighs through cloistered aisle,
As mighty calms upon the waters steal,
As raging, shrieking tempest-blasts assail;
So doth his magic word our minds beguile
Until, swept onward by each peal on peal,
Our souls are lured beyond this mortal veil.

_February 4, 1912._

THE VISION OF DANTE

Upon my breast there weighed ten thousand waves
Of black, unthinkable despair; I floated
In atmosphere of leaden density,
In atmosphere that burned with heat, yet glowed not--
Then scintillating stars with vivid flashes,
Like sparks from steel struck in a mine's thick blackness,
Tortured my eyes with dazzling glare; and then
Arose a rumbling as of crashing tombs
When the dead waken. Gone my will, my power.
I could nor feel, nor move, nor cry. Creation
Seemed rending downward through eternal space.
The thundering ceased, there shot a wail of pain,
A wail more anguished than arose from Troy
When Hector fell. Fainter, it grew, receding
Through the spheres. The meteors flashed no more.
I floated upward on invisible wings;
The distance purpled in the glow of dawn;
Funereal clouds melted to shimmering gray;
And far away the notes of music sounded,
Echoing onward to Infinity--
Music celestial of that choir of Heaven
Which sings unendingly about His throne.
Distant, it floated, yet how pure, and clearer
Than clear, rebounding Alpine notes. A present
Foretaste of the sublime beatitudes;
And o'er my visual sky moved forms of beings,
Dark forms in solemn, slow-ascending flight
Toward that rich, purple glow. The vision changed:
So pure the light that darkness sealed my eyelids!
So grand the symphony, I could not hear!
The whole cathedral-vault of Heaven rang
In awful majesty of perfect tone;
And 'past my mortal vision, in endless tide,
Flowing, and flowing upward toward the Light,
Angels innumerable, many-hued,
Winged on, majestic, to the music's time,
Winged on and sang a ceaseless Hallelujah--

_February 16, 1912._

THE SPIRIT OF SCHOPENHAUER

Rush on, rush on, humanity, and fill
Your hours with toil-wrought pain. Rush on, rush on
Upon your prizeless race. Where is your gain
In luxury, or seas of swimming gold,
Or starry ether chained to conquerdom?
You do but add new wheels, new chains to man's
Machine to govern man. You build a tower
More high than Babel's, hoping for earthly heaven
Upon this structure formed of luxuries,
And squander here stored-up celestial bliss
Which your poor Wills would mortgage before gained.
Your little lives were never made for racks
And fettered strainings of this new-wrought world
That quivers your nerves with life-intensity.
Death marks your race upon his hour-glass;
And Madness moves upon your city streets.
Your fevered minds reel downward to the gulf
Where knowledge fails, and luxuries lose charm,
Where passion flickers out, and haste seems slow.
Rush on, rush on, destruction marks your goal.
Rush on, rush on, till Death has breathless felled
The last of all your human progeny;
And leaves him lying there alone--alone,
Like him who first had shape of man--unburied,
Lost in a race with no competitor,
And nothing as the goal--unburied, staring
At the passing clouds, his only winding-sheet.
And then the Great Intelligence--if such
There be--will see his moment's pastime o'er,
And turn his arts to other constellations,
Until in rolling æons e'en his mind
May lose the memory of Man which _was_--
Rush on, rush on, humanity, and fill
Your hours with toil-wrought pain, rush on, rush on!
Death is your hope, your pilot, and your goal,
And Nothingness your only consolation--

_April 26, 1911._

ARTHUR TO GUENEVER

O Guenever, O Guenever once mine,
God may assoil thy failing, but can I
Whose quivering soul is blasted, and whose sky
Is tempest-rent in agony?--Ah, thine,
Thine might have been the fire that should refine
My table round to silver chastity,
Lofty ensample to mine Hall. Oh, why
Should thy soft light no longer purely shine
For my parched soul to bathe in? Guenever,
My Guenever, yet thou wert only mortal--
So too am I; and shall thy every tear
Of anguish well, and I not mark? O hear,
And help me, God, to open wide the portal
Of pardon in my heart for Guenever--

_April 10, 1912._

THE DEATH OF THOMAS CHATTERTON

A gutted wick, still flutteringly aflame
Upon a roughened bench--bare walls, bare floor,
And glimmering gray of sunrise--yes, and more--
Ah, brother, for I call thee by that name--
Mine eyes tear-blinded to thy figure came,
Thy figure fallen like a flower when hoar
Frosts blight. Thy soul wont like the lark to soar
The light-flushed dawn, now takes a loftier aim.
Thy funeral chant, the slow-entoning wind;
Thy churchèd tomb, the pillared vault of morn;
Thy requiem, the birds: Thus art thou dead,
Pale, spectred want, thy tribute from thy kind;
But God, himself, thy dirges shall adorn
With sighing psalms of every wind that's sped.

_May 8, 1912._

A SPRING SONG

The air is vibrant with a sensuous charm;
The grasses nod, and drowse beneath the sun;
Dim, swelling tones upon the breezes run.
In soft security from dread alarm,
The doves are cooing; and the wind with warm
Caress, bears the arbutus' missive, one
Love-wrought line of scented rapture, none
Subtler to woo the honey-hunting swarm.
Let me sigh out my soul in ecstasy,
And breathe forth all the fragrance of my being
Upon the slowly-stirring summer air;
Let me no longer merely scent, hear, see;
But _one_ with Nature, in that Law agreeing--
That God-willed Law that tincts the Beauty there--

_May 18, 1912._

AFTER THE NEO-PLATONISTS

Night wove her web across the sun that died
In crimson colors; velvet-falling gloom
Hung curtain-wise, and, like some rich perfume,
Formed the soft essence of each wind that sighed.
Out of my casement through the dark, I spied
The moon afloat in tide of golden spume
Like some fair flower opening into bloom;
The earth lay dim; the Heavens starry-eyed;
And breezes softer than a maiden's breath
Hushed all the air. O night, how sweet thy charm!
Yet not thy moon, nor stars, nor wind, each one
Of these shall pass when we are changed by death--
But rather sleep, thou death-in-life, more warm
Yet not so sweet as sweet oblivion.

_September 18, 1912._

WHAT WOULDST THOU BE?

What wouldst thou be? A cloud upon the air
Of summer skies afloat in sunlit charm,
And drinking azure bliss, all free from care,
And nestling near the sun's breast rich and warm?
What wouldst thou be? A comet, trailing eyes
Of thousand terrors through the throbbing night,
And filling earth with fear and vague surprise
To gaze upon thy bright, liquescent light?
What wouldst thou be? A sullen, stalwart cliff
Immovable upon a grassy plain,
Kissed by no clouds, and cold, and stark, and stiff,
Unmelted by the gentle tears of rain?
I ask nor to be gay, nor great nor strong--
Make me a thought incarnate in some song.

_May 24, 1912._

THE PROPHECY OF DAVID

A METRICAL SHORT-STORY