Chapter XXIX: Introduction (16)

No priest has kneeled since at the altar's foot, Whose crannies are searched by the nightshade's root, Nor sound of service is ever heard, Except from throat of the unclean bird, 30 Hooting to unassoiled shapes as they pass In midnights unholy his witches' mass, Or shouting 'Ho! ho!' from the belfry high As the Devil's sabbath-train whirls by.

But once a year, on the eve of All-Souls, Through these arches dishallowed the organ rolls, Fingers long fleshless the bell-ropes work, The chimes peal muffled with sea-mists mirk, The skeleton windows are traced anew On the baleful nicker of corpse-lights blue, 40 And the ghosts must come, so the legend saith, To a preaching of Reverend Doctor Death.

Abbots, monks, barons, and ladies fair Hear the dull summons and gather there: No rustle of silk now, no clink of mail, Nor ever a one greets his church-mate pale; No knight whispers love in the _châtelaine's_ ear, His next-door neighbor this five-hundred year; No monk has a sleek _benedicite_ For the great lord shadowy now as he; 50 Nor needeth any to hold his breath, Lest he lose the least word of Doctor Death.

He chooses his text in the Book Divine, Tenth verse of the Preacher in chapter nine: '"Whatsoever thy hand shall find thee to do, That do with thy whole might, or thou shalt rue; For no man is wealthy, or wise, or brave, In that quencher of might-be's and would-be's, the grave." Bid by the Bridegroom, "To-morrow," ye said, And To-morrow was digging a trench for your bed; 60 Ye said, "God can wait; let us finish our wine;" Ye had wearied Him, fools, and that last knock was mine!'

But I can't pretend to give you the sermon, Or say if the tongue were French, Latin, or German; Whatever he preached in, I give you my word The meaning was easy to all that heard; Famous preachers there have been and be, But never was one so convincing as he; So blunt was never a begging friar, No Jesuit's tongue so barbed with fire, 70 Cameronian never, nor Methodist, Wrung gall out of Scripture with such a twist.

And would you know who his hearers must be? I tell you just what my guide told me: Excellent teaching men have, day and night, From two earnest friars, a black and a white, The Dominican Death and the Carmelite Life; And between these two there is never strife, For each has his separate office and station, And each his own work in the congregation; 80 Whoso to the white brother deafens his ears, And cannot be wrought on by blessings or tears, Awake In his coffin must wait and wait, In that blackness of darkness that means _too late_, And come once a year, when the ghost-bell tolls, As till Doomsday it shall on the eve of All-Souls, To hear Doctor Death, whose words smart with the brine Of the Preacher, the tenth verse of chapter nine.

ARCADIA REDIVIVA

I, walking the familiar street,
While a crammed horse-car jingled through it,
Was lifted from my prosy feet
And in Arcadia ere I knew it.

Fresh sward for gravel soothed my tread,
And shepherd's pipes my ear delighted;
The riddle may be lightly read:
I met two lovers newly plighted.

They murmured by in happy care,
New plans for paradise devising, 10
Just as the moon, with pensive stare,
O'er Mistress Craigie's pines was rising.

Astarte, known nigh threescore years,
Me to no speechless rapture urges;
Them in Elysium she enspheres,
Queen, from of old, of thaumaturges.

The railings put forth bud and bloom,
The house-fronts all with myrtles twine them,
And light-winged Loves in every room
Make nests, and then with kisses line them. 20

O sweetness of untasted life!
O dream, its own supreme fulfillment!
O hours with all illusion rife,
As ere the heart divined what ill meant!

'_Et ego_', sighed I to myself,
And strove some vain regrets to bridle,
'Though now laid dusty on the shelf,
Was hero once of such an idyl!

'An idyl ever newly sweet,
Although since Adam's day recited, 30
Whose measures time them to Love's feet,
Whose sense is every ill requited.'

Maiden, if I may counsel, drain
Each drop of this enchanted season,
For even our honeymoons must wane,
Convicted of green cheese by Reason.

And none will seem so safe from change,
Nor in such skies benignant hover,
As this, beneath whose witchery strange
You tread on rose-leaves with your lover. 40

The glass unfilled all tastes can fit,
As round its brim Conjecture dances;
For not Mephisto's self hath wit
To draw such vintages as Fancy's.

When our pulse beats its minor key,
When play-time halves and school-time doubles,
Age fills the cup with serious tea,
Which once Dame Clicquot starred with bubbles.

'Fie, Mr. Graybeard! Is this wise?
Is this the moral of a poet, 50
Who, when the plant of Eden dies,
Is privileged once more to sow it!

'That herb of clay-disdaining root,
From stars secreting what it feeds on,
Is burnt-out passion's slag and soot
Fit soil to strew its dainty seeds on?

'Pray, why, if in Arcadia once,
Need one so soon forget the way there?
Or why, once there, be such a dunce
As not contentedly to stay there?' 60

Dear child, 'twas but a sorry jest,
And from my heart I hate the cynic
Who makes the Book of Life a nest
For comments staler than rabbinic.

If Love his simple spell but keep,
Life with ideal eyes to flatter,
The Grail itself were crockery cheap
To Every-day's communion-platter.

One Darby is to me well known,
Who, as the hearth between them blazes, 70
Sees the old moonlight shine on Joan,
And float her youthward in its hazes.

He rubs his spectacles, he stares,--
'Tis the same face that witched him early!
He gropes for his remaining hairs,--
Is this a fleece that feels so curly?

'Good heavens! but now 'twas winter gray,
And I of years had more than plenty;
The almanac's a fool! 'Tis May!
Hang family Bibles! I am twenty! 80

'Come, Joan, your arm; we'll walk the room--
The lane, I mean--do you remember?
How confident the roses bloom,
As if it ne'er could be December!

'Nor more it shall, while in your eyes
My heart its summer heat recovers,
And you, howe'er your mirror lies,
Find your old beauty in your lover's.'

THE NEST

MAY

When oaken woods with buds are pink, And new-come birds each morning sing, When fickle May on Summer's brink Pauses, and knows not which to fling, Whether fresh bud and bloom again, Or hoar-frost silvering hill and plain,

Then from the honeysuckle gray The oriole with experienced quest Twitches the fibrous bark away, The cordage of his hammock-nest. Cheering his labor with a note Rich as the orange of his throat.

High o'er the loud and dusty road The soft gray cup in safety swings, To brim ere August with its load Of downy breasts and throbbing wings, O'er which the friendly elm-tree heaves An emerald roof with sculptured eaves.

Below, the noisy World drags by In the old way, because it must, The bride with heartbreak in her eye, The mourner following hated dust: Thy duty, wingèd flame of Spring, Is but to love, and fly, and sing.

Oh, happy life, to soar and sway Above the life by mortals led, Singing the merry months away, Master, not slave of daily bread, And, when the Autumn comes, to flee Wherever sunshine beckons thee!

PALINODE--DECEMBER

Like some lorn abbey now, the wood Stands roofless in the bitter air; In ruins on its floor is strewed The carven foliage quaint and rare, And homeless winds complain along The columned choir once thrilled with song.

And thou, dear nest, whence joy and praise The thankful oriole used to pour, Swing'st empty while the north winds chase Their snowy swarms from Labrador: But, loyal to the happy past, I love thee still for what thou wast.

Ah, when the Summer graces flee From other nests more dear than thou, And, where June crowded once, I see Only bare trunk and disleaved bough; When springs of life that gleamed and gushed Run chilled, and slower, and are hushed;

When our own branches, naked long, The vacant nests of Spring betray, Nurseries of passion, love, and song That vanished as our year grew gray; When Life drones o'er a tale twice told O'er embers pleading with the cold,--

I'll trust, that, like the birds of Spring, Our good goes not without repair, But only flies to soar and sing Far off in some diviner air, Where we shall find it in the calms Of that fair garden 'neath the palms.

A YOUTHFUL EXPERIMENT IN ENGLISH HEXAMETERS

IMPRESSIONS OF HOMER

Sometimes come pauses of calm, when the rapt bard, holding his heart back, Over his deep mind muses, as when o'er awe-stricken ocean Poises a heapt cloud luridly, ripening the gale and the thunder; Slow rolls onward the verse with a long swell heaving and swinging, Seeming to wait till, gradually wid'ning from far-off horizons, Piling the deeps up, heaping the glad-hearted surges before it, Gathers the thought as a strong wind darkening and cresting the tumult. Then every pause, every heave, each trough in the waves, has its meaning; Full-sailed, forth like a tall ship steadies the theme, and around it, Leaping beside it in glad strength, running in wild glee beyond it, Harmonies billow exulting and floating the soul where it lists them, Swaying the listener's fantasy hither and thither like drift-weed.

BIRTHDAY VERSES

WRITTEN IN A CHILD'S ALBUM

'Twas sung of old in hut and hall How once a king in evil hour Hung musing o'er his castle wall, And, lost in idle dreams, let fall Into the sea his ring of power.

Then, let him sorrow as he might, And pledge his daughter and his throne To who restored the jewel bright, The broken spell would ne'er unite; The grim old ocean held its own.

Those awful powers on man that wait, On man, the beggar or the king, To hovel bare or hall of state A magic ring that masters fate With each succeeding birthday bring.

Therein are set four jewels rare: Pearl winter, summer's ruby blaze, Spring's emerald, and, than all more fair, Fall's pensive opal, doomed to bear A heart of fire bedreamed with haze.

To him the simple spell who knows The spirits of the ring to sway, Fresh power with every sunrise flows, And royal pursuivants are those That fly his mandates to obey.

But he that with a slackened will Dreams of things past or things to be, From him the charm is slipping still, And drops, ere he suspect the ill, Into the inexorable sea.

ESTRANGEMENT

The path from me to you that led, Untrodden long, with grass is grown, Mute carpet that his lieges spread Before the Prince Oblivion When he goes visiting the dead.

And who are they but who forget? You, who my coming could surmise Ere any hint of me as yet Warned other ears and other eyes, See the path blurred without regret.

But when I trace its windings sweet With saddened steps, at every spot That feels the memory in my feet, Each grass-blade turns forget-me-not, Where murmuring bees your name repeat.

PHŒBE

Ere pales in Heaven the morning star,
A bird, the loneliest of its kind,
Hears Dawn's faint footfall from afar
While all its mates are dumb and blind.

It is a wee sad-colored thing,
As shy and secret as a maid,
That, ere in choir the robins sing,
Pipes its own name like one afraid.

It seems pain-prompted to repeat
The story of some ancient ill,
But _Phoebe! Phoebe!_ sadly sweet
Is all it says, and then is still.

It calls and listens. Earth and sky,
Hushed by the pathos of its fate,
Listen: no whisper of reply
Comes from its doom-dissevered mate.

_Phoebe!_ it calls and calls again,
And Ovid, could he but have heard,
Had hung a legendary pain
About the memory of the bird;

A pain articulate so long,
In penance of some mouldered crime
Whose ghost still flies the Furies' thong
Down the waste solitudes of time.

Waif of the young World's wonder-hour,
When gods found mortal maidens fair,
And will malign was joined with power
Love's kindly laws to overbear,

Like Progne, did it feel the stress
And coil of the prevailing words
Close round its being, and compress
Man's ampler nature to a bird's?

One only memory left of all
The motley crowd of vanished scenes,
Hers, and vain impulse to recall
By repetition what it means.

_Phoebe!_ is all it has to say
In plaintive cadence o'er and o'er,
Like children that have lost their way,
And know their names, but nothing more.

Is it a type, since Nature's Lyre
Vibrates to every note in man,
Of that insatiable desire,
Meant to be so since life began?

I, in strange lands at gray of dawn,
Wakeful, have heard that fruitless plaint
Through Memory's chambers deep withdrawn
Renew its iterations faint.

So nigh! yet from remotest years
It summons back its magic, rife
With longings unappeased, and tears
Drawn from the very source of life.

DAS EWIG-WEIBLICHE

How was I worthy so divine a loss,
Deepening my midnights, kindling all my morns?
Why waste such precious wood to make my cross,
Such far-sought roses for my crown of thorns?

And when she came, how earned I such a gift?
Why spend on me, a poor earth-delving mole,
The fireside sweetnesses, the heavenward lift,
The hourly mercy, of a woman's soul?

Ah, did we know to give her all her right,
What wonders even in our poor clay were done!
It is not Woman leaves us to our night,
But our brute earth that grovels from her sun.

Our nobler cultured fields and gracious domes
We whirl too oft from her who still shines on
To light in vain our caves and clefts, the homes
Of night-bird instincts pained till she be gone.

Still must this body starve our souls with shade;
But when Death makes us what we were before,
Then shall her sunshine all our depths invade,
And not a shadow stain heaven's crystal floor.

THE RECALL

Come back before the birds are flown, Before the leaves desert the tree, And, through the lonely alleys blown, Whisper their vain regrets to me Who drive before a blast more rude, The plaything of my gusty mood, In vain pursuing and pursued!

Nay, come although the boughs be bare, Though snowflakes fledge the summer's nest, And in some far Ausonian air The thrush, your minstrel, warm his breast. Come, sunshine's treasurer, and bring To doubting flowers their faith in spring, To birds and me the need to sing!

ABSENCE

Sleep is Death's image,--poets tell us so; But Absence is the bitter self of Death, And, you away, Life's lips their red forego, Parched in an air unfreshened by your breath.

Light of those eyes that made the light of mine, Where shine you? On what happier fields and flowers? Heaven's lamps renew their lustre less divine, But only serve to count my darkened hours.

If with your presence went your image too, That brain-born ghost my path would never cross Which meets me now where'er I once met you, Then vanishes, to multiply my loss.

MONNA LISA

She gave me all that woman can, Nor her soul's nunnery forego, A confidence that man to man Without remorse can never show.

Rare art, that can the sense refine Till not a pulse rebellious stirs, And, since she never can be mine, Makes it seem sweeter to be hers!

THE OPTIMIST

Turbid from London's noise and smoke, Here I find air and quiet too; Air filtered through the beech and oak, Quiet by nothing harsher broke Than wood-dove's meditative coo.

The Truce of God is here; the breeze Sighs as men sigh relieved from care, Or tilts as lightly in the trees As might a robin: all is ease, With pledge of ampler ease to spare.

Time, leaning on his scythe, forgets To turn the hour-glass in his hand, And all life's petty cares and frets, Its teasing hopes and weak regrets, Are still as that oblivious sand.

Repose fills all the generous space Of undulant plain; the rook and crow Hush; 'tis as if a silent grace, By Nature murmured, calmed the face Of Heaven above and Earth below.

From past and future toils I rest, One Sabbath pacifies my year; I am the halcyon, this my nest; And all is safely for the best While the World's there and I am here.

So I turn tory for the nonce, And think the radical a bore, Who cannot see, thick-witted dunce, That what was good for people once Must be as good forevermore.

Sun, sink no deeper down the sky; Earth, never change this summer mood; Breeze, loiter thus forever by, Stir the dead leaf or let it lie; Since I am happy, all is good.

ON BURNING SOME OLD LETTERS

With what odorous woods and spices Spared for royal sacrifices, With what costly gums seld-seen, Hoarded to embalm a queen, With what frankincense and myrrh, Burn these precious parts of her, Full of life and light and sweetness As a summer day's completeness, Joy of sun and song of bird Running wild in every word, Full of all the superhuman Grace and winsomeness of woman?

O'er these leaves her wrist has slid, Thrilled with veins where fire is hid 'Neath the skin's pellucid veil, Like the opal's passion pale; This her breath has sweetened; this Still seems trembling with the kiss She half-ventured on my name, Brow and cheek and throat aflame; Over all caressing lies Sunshine left there by her eyes; From them all an effluence rare With her nearness fills the air, Till the murmur I half-hear Of her light feet drawing near.

Rarest woods were coarse and rough, Sweetest spice not sweet enough, Too impure all earthly fire For this sacred funeral-pyre; These rich relics must suffice For their own dear sacrifice.

Seek we first an altar fit For such victims laid on it: It shall be this slab brought home In old happy days from Rome,-- Lazuli, once blest to line Dian's inmost cell and shrine. Gently now I lay them there. Pure as Dian's forehead bare, Yet suffused with warmer hue, Such as only Latmos knew.

Fire I gather from the sun In a virgin lens; 'tis done! Mount the flames, red, yellow, blue, As her moods were shining through, Of the moment's impulse born,-- Moods of sweetness, playful scorn, Half defiance, half surrender, More than cruel, more than tender, Flouts, caresses, sunshine, shade, Gracious doublings of a maid Infinite in guileless art, Playing hide-seek with her heart.

On the altar now, alas, There they lie a crinkling mass, Writhing still, as if with grief Went the life from every leaf; Then (heart-breaking palimpsest!) Vanishing ere wholly guessed, Suddenly some lines flash back, Traced in lightning on the black, And confess, till now denied, All the fire they strove to hide. What they told me, sacred trust, Stays to glorify my dust, There to burn through dust and damp Like a mage's deathless lamp, While an atom of this frame Lasts to feed the dainty flame.

All is ashes now, but they In my soul are laid away, And their radiance round me hovers Soft as moonlight over lovers, Shutting her and me alone In dream-Edens of our own; First of lovers to invent Love, and teach men what it meant.

THE PROTEST

I could not bear to see those eyes On all with wasteful largess shine, And that delight of welcome rise Like sunshine strained through amber wine, But that a glow from deeper skies, From conscious fountains more divine, Is (is it?) mine.

Be beautiful to all mankind, As Nature fashioned thee to be; 'Twould anger me did all not find The sweet perfection that's in thee: Yet keep one charm of charms behind,-- Nay, thou'rt so rich, keep two or three For (is it?) me!

THE PETITION

Oh, tell me less or tell me more, Soft eyes with mystery at the core, That always seem to melt my own Frankly as pansies fully grown, Yet waver still 'tween no and yes!

So swift to cavil and deny, Then parley with concessions shy, Dear eyes, that make their youth be mine And through my inmost shadows shine, Oh, tell me more or tell me less!

FACT OR FANCY?

In town I hear, scarce wakened yet,
My neighbor's clock behind the wall
Record the day's increasing debt,
And _Cuckoo! Cuckoo!_ faintly call.

Our senses run in deepening grooves,
Thrown out of which they lose their tact,
And consciousness with effort moves
From habit past to present fact.

So, in the country waked to-day,
I hear, unwitting of the change,
A cuckoo's throb from far away
Begin to strike, nor think it strange.

The sound creates its wonted frame:
My bed at home, the songster hid
Behind the wainscoting,--all came
As long association bid.

Then, half aroused, ere yet Sleep's mist
From the mind's uplands furl away,
To the familiar sound I list,
Disputed for by Night and Day.

I count to learn how late it is,
Until, arrived at thirty-four,
I question, 'What strange world is this
Whose lavish hours would make me poor?'

_Cuckoo! Cuckoo!_ Still on it went,
With hints of mockery in its tone;
How could such hoards of time be spent
By one poor mortal's wit alone?

I have it! Grant, ye kindly Powers,
I from this spot may never stir,
If only these uncounted hours
May pass, and seem too short, with Her!

But who She is, her form and face,
These to the world of dream belong;
She moves through fancy's visioned space,
Unbodied, like the cuckoo's song.

AGRO-DOLCE

One kiss from all others prevents me,
And sets all my pulses astir,
And burns on my lips and torments me:
'Tis the kiss that I fain would give her.

One kiss for all others requites me,
Although it is never to be,
And sweetens my dreams and invites me:
'Tis the kiss that she dare not give me.

Ah, could it he mine, it were sweeter
Than honey bees garner in dream,
Though its bliss on my lips were fleeter
Than a swallow's dip to the stream.

And yet, thus denied, it can never
In the prose of life vanish away;
O'er my lips it must hover forever,
The sunshine and shade of my day.

THE BROKEN TRYST

Walking alone where we walked together,
When June was breezy and blue,
I watch in the gray autumnal weather
The leaves fall inconstant as you.

If a dead leaf startle behind me,
I think 'tis your garment's hem,
And, oh, where no memory could find me,
Might I whirl away with them!

CASA SIN ALMA

RECUERDO DE MADRID

Silencioso por la puerta Voy de su casa desierta Do siempre feliz entré, Y la encuentro en vano abierta Cual la boca de una muerta Despues que el alma se fué.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL

FOR THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH OF THE DISCIPLES

'What means this glory round our feet,'
The Magi mused, 'more bright than morn?'
And voices chanted clear and sweet,
'To-day the Prince of Peace is born!'

'What means that star,' the Shepherds said,
'That brightens through the rocky glen?'
And angels, answering overhead,
Sang, 'Peace on earth, good-will to men!'

'Tis eighteen hundred years and more
Since those sweet oracles were dumb;
We wait for Him, like them of yore;
Alas, He seems so slow to come!

But it was said, in words of gold
No time or sorrow e'er shall dim,
That little children might be bold
In perfect trust to come to Him.

All round about our feet shall shine
A light like that the wise men saw,
If we our loving wills incline
To that sweet Life which is the Law.

So shall we learn to understand
The simple faith of shepherds then,
And, clasping kindly hand in hand,
Sing, 'Peace on earth, good-will to men!'

And they who do their souls no wrong,
But keep at eve the faith of morn,
Shall daily hear the angel-song,
'To-day the Prince of Peace is born!'

MY PORTRAIT GALLERY

Oft round my hall of portraiture I gaze, By Memory reared, the artist wise and holy, From stainless quarries of deep-buried days. There, as I muse in soothing melancholy, Your faces glow in more than mortal youth, Companions of my prime, now vanished wholly, The loud, impetuous boy, the low-voiced maiden, Now for the first time seen in flawless truth. Ah, never master that drew mortal breath Can match thy portraits, just and generous Death, Whose brush with sweet regretful tints is laden! Thou paintest that which struggled here below Half understood, or understood for woe, And with a sweet forewarning Mak'st round the sacred front an aureole glow Woven of that light that rose on Easter morning.

PAOLO TO FRANCESCA

I was with thee in Heaven: I cannot tell If years or moments, so the sudden bliss, When first we found, then lost, us in a kiss. Abolished Time, abolished Earth and Hell, Left only Heaven. Then from our blue there fell The dagger's flash, and did not fall amiss, For nothing now can rob my life of this,-- That once with thee in Heaven, all else is well. Us, undivided when man's vengeance came, God's half-forgives that doth not here divide; And, were this bitter whirl-blast fanged with flame, To me 'twere summer, we being side by side: This granted, I God's mercy will not blame, For, given thy nearness, nothing is denied.

SONNET

SCOTTISH BORDER

As sinks the sun behind yon alien hills Whose heather-purple slopes, in glory rolled, Flush all my thought with momentary gold, What pang of vague regret my fancy thrills? Here 'tis enchanted ground the peasant tills, Where the shy ballad dared its blooms unfold, And memory's glamour makes new sights seem old, As when our life some vanished dream fulfils. Yet not to thee belong these painless tears, Land loved ere seen: before my darkened eyes, From far beyond the waters and the years, Horizons mute that wait their poet rise; The stream before me fades and disappears, And in the Charles the western splendor dies.

SONNET

ON BEING ASKED FOR AN AUTOGRAPH IN VENICE

Amid these fragments of heroic days When thought met deed with mutual passion's leap, There sits a Fame whose silent trump makes cheap What short-lived rumor of ourselves we raise. They had far other estimate of praise Who stamped the signet of their souls so deep In art and action, and whose memories keep Their height like stars above our misty ways: In this grave presence to record my name Something within me hangs the head and shrinks. Dull were the soul without some joy in fame; Yet here to claim remembrance were, methinks, Like him who, in the desert's awful frame, Notches his cockney initials on the Sphinx.

THE DANCING BEAR

Far over Elf-land poets stretch their sway, And win their dearest crowns beyond the goal Of their own conscious purpose; they control With gossamer threads wide-flown our fancy's play, And so our action. On my walk to-day, A wallowing bear begged clumsily his toll, When straight a vision rose of Atta Troll, And scenes ideal witched mine eyes away. '_Merci, Mossieu!_' the astonished bear-ward cried, Grateful for thrice his hope to me, the slave Of partial memory, seeing at his side A bear immortal. The glad dole I gave Was none of mine; poor Heine o'er the wide Atlantic welter stretched it from his grave.

THE MAPLE

The Maple puts her corals on in May, While loitering frosts about the lowlands cling, To be in tune with what the robins sing, Plastering new log-huts 'mid her branches gray; But when the Autumn southward turns away, Then in her veins burns most the blood of Spring. And every leaf, intensely blossoming, Makes the year's sunset pale the set of day. O Youth unprescient, were it only so With trees you plant, and in whose shade reclined, Thinking their drifting blooms Fate's coldest snow, You carve dear names upon the faithful rind, Nor in that vernal stem the cross foreknow That Age shall bear, silent, yet unresigned!

NIGHTWATCHES

While the slow clock, as they were miser's gold, Counts and recounts the mornward steps of Time, The darkness thrills with conscience of each crime By Death committed, daily grown more bold. Once more the list of all my wrongs is told, And ghostly hands stretch to me from my prime Helpless farewells, as from an alien clime; For each new loss redoubles all the old. This morn 'twas May; the blossoms were astir With southern wind; but now the boughs are bent With snow instead of birds, and all things freeze. How much of all my past is dumb with her, And of my future, too, for with her went Half of that world I ever cared to please!

DEATH OF QUEEN MERCEDES

Hers all that Earth could promise or bestow,-- Youth, Beauty, Love, a crown, the beckoning years, Lids never wet, unless with joyous tears, A life remote from every sordid woe, And by a nation's swelled to lordlier flow. What lurking-place, thought we, for doubts or fears, When, the day's swan, she swam along the cheers Of the Alcalá, five happy months ago? The guns were shouting Io Hymen then That, on her birthday, now denounce her doom; The same white steeds that tossed their scorn of men To-day as proudly drag her to the tomb. Grim jest of fate! Yet who dare call it blind, Knowing what life is, what our human-kind?

PRISON OF CERVANTES

Seat of all woes? Though Nature's firm decree The narrowing soul with narrowing dungeon bind, Yet was his free of motion as the wind, And held both worlds, of spirit and sense, in fee. In charmed communion with his dual mind He wandered Spain, himself both knight and hind, Redressing wrongs he knew must ever be. His humor wise could see life's long deceit, Man's baffled aims, nor therefore both despise; His knightly nature could ill fortune greet Like an old friend. Whose ever such kind eyes That pierced so deep, such scope, save his whose feet By Avon ceased 'neath the same April's skies?

TO A LADY PLAYING ON THE CITHERN

So dreamy-soft the notes, so far away They seem to fall, the horns of Oberon Blow their faint Hunt's-up from the good-time gone; Or, on a morning of long-withered May, Larks tinkle unseen o'er Claudian arches gray, That Romeward crawl from Dreamland; and anon My fancy flings her cloak of Darkness on, To vanish from the dungeon of To-day. In happier times and scenes I seem to be, And, as her fingers flutter o'er the strings, The days return when I was young as she, And my fledged thoughts began to feel their wings With all Heaven's blue before them: Memory Or Music is it such enchantment sings?

THE EYE'S TREASURY

Gold of the reddening sunset, backward thrown In largess on my tall paternal trees, Thou with false hope or fear didst never tease His heart that hoards thee; nor is childhood flown From him whose life no fairer boon hath known Than that what pleased him earliest still should please: And who hath incomes safe from chance as these, Gone in a moment, yet for life his own? All other gold is slave of earthward laws; This to the deeps of ether takes its flight, And on the topmost leaves makes glorious pause Of parting pathos ere it yield to night: So linger, as from me earth's light withdraws, Dear touch of Nature, tremulously bright!

PESSIMOPTIMISM

Ye little think what toil it was to build A world of men imperfect even as this, Where we conceive of Good by what we miss, Of ill by that wherewith best days are filled; A world whose every atom is self-willed, Whose corner-stone is propt on artifice, Whose joy is shorter-lived than woman's kiss, Whose wisdom hoarded is but to be spilled. Yet this is better than a life of caves, Whose highest art was scratching on a bone, Or chipping toilsome arrowheads of flint; Better, though doomed to hear while Cleon raves, To see wit's want eterned in paint or stone, And wade the drain-drenched shoals of daily print.

THE BRAKES

What countless years and wealth of brain were spent To bring us hither from our caves and huts, And trace through pathless wilds the deep-worn ruts Of faith and habit, by whose deep indent Prudence may guide if genius be not lent, Genius, not always happy when it shuts Its ears against the plodder's ifs and buts, Hoping in one rash leap to snatch the event. The coursers of the sun, whose hoofs of flame Consume morn's misty threshold, are exact As bankers' clerks, and all this star-poised frame, One swerve allowed, were with convulsion rackt; This world were doomed, should Dulness fail, to tame Wit's feathered heels in the stern stocks of fact.

A FOREBODING

What were the whole void world, if thou wert dead, Whose briefest absence can eclipse my day, And make the hours that danced with Time away Drag their funereal steps with muffled head? Through thee, meseems, the very rose is red, From thee the violet steals its breath in May, From thee draw life all things that grow not gray, And by thy force the happy stars are sped. Thou near, the hope of thee to overflow Fills all my earth and heaven, as when in Spring, Ere April come, the birds and blossoms know, And grasses brighten round her feet to cling; Nay, and this hope delights all nature so That the dumb turf I tread on seems to sing.

III. FANCY

UNDER THE OCTOBER MAPLES

What mean these banners spread, These paths with royal red So gaily carpeted? Comes there a prince to-day? Such footing were too fine For feet less argentine Than Dian's own or thine, Queen whom my tides obey.

Surely for thee are meant These hues so orient That with a sultan's tent Each tree invites the sun; Our Earth such homage pays, So decks her dusty ways, And keeps such holidays, For one and only one.

My brain shapes form and face, Throbs with the rhythmic grace And cadence of her pace To all fine instincts true; Her footsteps, as they pass, Than moonbeams over grass Fall lighter,--but, alas, More insubstantial too!

LOVE'S CLOCK

A PASTORAL

DAPHNIS _waiting_

'O Dryad feet, Be doubly fleet, Timed to my heart's expectant beat While I await her! "At four," vowed she; 'Tis scarcely three, Yet by _my_ time it seems to be A good hour later!'

CHLOE

'Bid me not stay! Hear reason, pray! 'Tis striking six! Sure never day Was short as this is!'

DAPHNIS

'Reason nor rhyme Is in the chime! It can't be five; I've scarce had time To beg two kisses!'

BOTH

'Early or late, When lovers wait, And Love's watch gains, if Time a gait So snail-like chooses, Why should his feet Become more fleet Than cowards' are, when lovers meet And Love's watch loses?'

ELEANOR MAKES MACAROONS

Light of triumph in her eyes, Eleanor her apron ties; As she pushes back her sleeves, High resolve her bosom heaves. Hasten, cook! impel the fire To the pace of her desire; As you hope to save your soul, Bring a virgin casserole, Brightest bring of silver spoons,-- Eleanor makes macaroons!

Almond-blossoms, now adance In the smile of Southern France, Leave your sport with sun and breeze, Think of duty, not of ease; Fashion, 'neath their jerkins brown, Kernels white as thistle-down, Tiny cheeses made with cream From the Galaxy's mid-stream, Blanched in light of honeymoons,-- Eleanor makes macaroons!

Now for sugar,--nay, our plan Tolerates no work of man. Hurry, then, ye golden bees; Fetch your clearest honey, please, Garnered on a Yorkshire moor, While the last larks sing and soar, From the heather-blossoms sweet Where sea-breeze and sunshine meet, And the Augusts mask as Junes,-- Eleanor makes macaroons!

Next the pestle and mortar find. Pure rock-crystal,--these to grind Into paste more smooth than silk, Whiter than the milkweed's milk: Spread it on a rose-leaf, thus, Cate to please Theocritus; Then the fire with spices swell, While, for her completer spell, Mystic canticles she croons,-- Eleanor makes macaroons!

Perfect! and all this to waste On a graybeard's palsied taste! Poets so their verses write, Heap them full of life and light, And then fling them to the rude Mumbling of the multitude. Not so dire her fate as theirs, Since her friend this gift declares Choicest of his birthday boons,-- Eleanor's dear macaroons!

_February_ 22, 1884.

TELEPATHY

'And how could you dream of meeting?'
Nay, how can you ask me, sweet?
All day my pulse had been beating
The tune of your coming feet.

And as nearer and ever nearer
I felt the throb of your tread,
To be in the world grew clearer,
And my blood ran rosier red.

Love called, and I could not linger,
But sought the forbidden tryst,
As music follows the finger
Of the dreaming lutanist

And though you had said it and said it,
'We must not be happy to-day,'
Was I not wiser to credit
The fire in my feet than your Nay?

SCHERZO

When the down is on the chin And the gold-gleam in the hair, When the birds their sweethearts win And champagne is in the air, Love is here, and Love is there, Love is welcome everywhere.

Summer's cheek too soon turns thin, Days grow briefer, sunshine rare; Autumn from his cannekin Blows the froth to chase Despair: Love is met with frosty stare, Cannot house 'neath branches bare.

When new life is in the leaf And new red is in the rose, Though Love's Maytlme be as brief As a dragon-fly's repose, Never moments come like those, Be they Heaven or Hell: who knows?

All too soon comes Winter's grief, Spendthrift Love's false friends turn foes; Softly comes Old Age, the thief, Steals the rapture, leaves the throes: Love his mantle round him throws,-- 'Time to say Good-by; it snows.'

'FRANCISCUS DE VERULAMIO SIC COGITAVIT'

That's a rather bold speech, my Lord Bacon,
For, indeed, is't so easy to know
Just how much we from others have taken,
And how much our own natural flow?

Since your mind bubbled up at its fountain,
How many streams made it elate,
While it calmed to the plain from the mountain,
As every mind must that grows great?

While you thought 'twas You thinking as newly
As Adam still wet with God's dew,
You forgot in your self-pride that truly
The whole Past was thinking through you.

Greece, Rome, nay, your namesake, old Roger,
With Truth's nameless delvers who wrought
In the dark mines of Truth, helped to prod your
Fine brain with the goad of their thought.

As mummy was prized for a rich hue
The painter no elsewhere could find,
So 'twas buried men's thinking with which you
Gave the ripe mellow tone to your mind.

I heard the proud strawberry saying,
'Only look what a ruby I've made!'
It forgot how the bees in their maying
Had brought it the stuff for its trade.

And yet there's the half of a truth in it,
And my Lord might his copyright sue;
For a thought's his who kindles new youth in it,
Or so puts it as makes it more true.

The birds but repeat without ending
The same old traditional notes,
Which some, by more happily blending,
Seem to make over new in their throats;

And we men through our old bit of song run,
Until one just improves on the rest,
And we call a thing his, in the long run,
Who utters it clearest and best.

AUSPEX

My heart, I cannot still it, Nest that had song-birds in it; And when the last shall go, The dreary days, to fill it, Instead of lark or linnet, Shall whirl dead leaves and snow.

Had they been swallows only, Without the passion stronger That skyward longs and sings,-- Woe's me, I shall be lonely When I can feel no longer The impatience of their wings!

A moment, sweet delusion, Like birds the brown leaves hover; But it will not be long Before their wild confusion Fall wavering down to cover The poet and his song.

THE PREGNANT COMMENT

Opening one day a book of mine, I absent, Hester found a line Praised with a pencil-mark, and this She left transfigured with a kiss.

When next upon the page I chance, Like Poussin's nymphs my pulses dance, And whirl my fancy where it sees Pan piping 'neath Arcadian trees, Whose leaves no winter-scenes rehearse, Still young and glad as Homer's verse. 'What mean,' I ask, 'these sudden joys? This feeling fresher than a boy's? What makes this line, familiar long, New as the first bird's April song? I could, with sense illumined thus, Clear doubtful texts in Æeschylus!'

Laughing, one day she gave the key, My riddle's open-sesame; Then added, with a smile demure, Whose downcast lids veiled triumph sure, 'If what I left there give you pain, You--you--can take it off again; 'Twas for _my_ poet, not for him, Your Doctor Donne there!'

Earth grew dim And wavered in a golden mist, As rose, not paper, leaves I kissed. Donne, you forgive? I let you keep Her precious comment, poet deep.

THE LESSON

I sat and watched the walls of night
With cracks of sudden lightning glow,
And listened while with clumsy might
The thunder wallowed to and fro.

The rain fell softly now; the squall,
That to a torrent drove the trees,
Had whirled beyond us to let fall
Its tumult on the whitening seas.

But still the lightning crinkled keen,
Or fluttered fitful from behind
The leaden drifts, then only seen,
That rumbled eastward on the wind.

Still as gloom followed after glare,
While bated breath the pine-trees drew,
Tiny Salmoneus of the air,
His mimic bolts the firefly threw.

He thought, no doubt, 'Those flashes grand,
That light for leagues the shuddering sky,
Are made, a fool could understand,
By some superior kind of fly.

'He's of our race's elder branch,
His family-arms the same as ours.
Both born the twy-forked flame to launch,
Of kindred, if unequal, powers.'

And is man wiser? Man who takes
His consciousness the law to be
Of all beyond his ken, and makes
God but a bigger kind of Me?

SCIENCE AND POETRY

He who first stretched his nerves of subtile wire Over the land and through the sea-depths still, Thought only of the flame-winged messenger As a dull drudge that should encircle earth With sordid messages of Trade, and tame Blithe Ariel to a bagman. But the Muse Not long will be defrauded. From her foe Her misused wand she snatches; at a touch, The Age of Wonder is renewed again, And to our disenchanted day restores The Shoes of Swiftness that give odds to Thought, The Cloak that makes invisible; and with these I glide, an airy fire, from shore to shore, Or from my Cambridge whisper to Cathay.

A NEW YEAR'S GREETING

The century numbers fourscore years; You, fortressed in your teens, To Time's alarums close your ears, And, while he devastates your peers, Conceive not what he means.

If e'er life's winter fleck with snow Your hair's deep shadowed bowers, That winsome head an art would know To make it charm, and wear it so As 'twere a wreath of flowers.

If to such fairies years must come, May yours fall soft and slow As, shaken by a bee's low hum, The rose-leaves waver, sweetly dumb, Down to their mates below!

THE DISCOVERY

I watched a moorland torrent run
Down through the rift itself had made,
Golden as honey in the sun,
Of darkest amber in the shade.

In this wild glen at last, methought,
The magic's secret I surprise;
Here Celia's guardian fairy caught
The changeful splendors of her eyes.

All else grows tame, the sky's one blue,
The one long languish of the rose,
But these, beyond prevision new,
Shall charm and startle to the close.

WITH A SEASHELL

Shell, whose lips, than mine more cold, Might with Dian's ear make bold, Seek my Lady's; if thou win To that portal, shut from sin, Where commissioned angels' swords Startle back unholy words, Thou a miracle shalt see Wrought by it and wrought in thee; Thou, the dumb one, shalt recover Speech of poet, speech of lover. If she deign to lift you there, Murmur what I may not dare; In that archway, pearly-pink As the Dawn's untrodden brink, Murmur, 'Excellent and good, Beauty's best in every mood, Never common, never tame, Changeful fair as windwaved flame'-- Nay, I maunder; this she hears Every day with mocking ears, With a brow not sudden-stained With the flush of bliss restrained, With no tremor of the pulse More than feels the dreaming dulse In the midmost ocean's caves, When a tempest heaps the waves. Thou must woo her in a phrase Mystic as the opal's blaze, Which pure maids alone can see When their lovers constant be. I with thee a secret share, Half a hope, and half a prayer, Though no reach of mortal skill Ever told it all, or will; Say, 'He bids me--nothing more-- Tell you what you guessed before!'

THE SECRET

I have a fancy: how shall I bring it Home to all mortals wherever they be? Say it or sing it? Shoe it or wing it, So it may outrun or outfly ME, Merest cocoon-web whence it broke free?

Only one secret can save from disaster, Only one magic is that of the Master: Set it to music; give it a tune,-- Tune the brook sings you, tune the breeze brings you, Tune the wild columbines nod to in June!

This is the secret: so simple, you see! Easy as loving, easy as kissing, Easy as--well, let me ponder--as missing, Known, since the world was, by scarce two or three.

IV. HUMOR AND SATIRE

FITZ ADAM'S STORY

The next whose fortune 'twas a tale to tell Was one whom men, before they thought, loved well, And after thinking wondered why they did, For half he seemed to let them, half forbid, And wrapped him so in humors, sheath on sheath, 'Twas hard to guess the mellow soul beneath: But, once divined, you took him to your heart, While he appeared to bear with you as part Of life's impertinence, and once a year Betrayed his true self by a smile or tear, 10 Or rather something sweetly shy and loath, Withdrawn ere fully shown, and mixed of both. A cynic? Not precisely: one who thrust Against a heart too prone to love and trust, Who so despised false sentiment he knew Scarce in himself to part the false and true, And strove to hide, by roughening-o'er the skin, Those cobweb nerves he could not dull within. Gentle by birth, but of a stem decayed, He shunned life's rivalries and hated trade; 20 On a small patrimony and larger pride, He lived uneaseful on the Other Side (So he called Europe), only coming West To give his Old-World appetite new zest; Yet still the New World spooked it in his veins, A ghost he could not lay with all his pains; For never Pilgrims' offshoot scapes control Of those old instincts that have shaped his soul. A radical in thought, he puffed away With shrewd contempt the dust of usage gray, 30 Yet loathed democracy as one who saw, In what he longed to love, some vulgar flaw, And, shocked through all his delicate reserves, Remained a Tory by his taste and nerves, His fancy's thrall, he drew all ergoes thence, And thought himself the type of common sense; Misliking women, not from cross or whim, But that his mother shared too much in him, And he half felt that what in them was grace Made the unlucky weakness of his race. 40 What powers he had he hardly cared to know, But sauntered through the world as through a show; A critic fine in his haphazard way, A sort of mild La Bruyère on half-pay. For comic weaknesses he had an eye Keen as an acid for an alkali, Yet you could feel, through his sardonic tone, He loved them all, unless they were his own. You might have called him, with his humorous twist, A kind of human entomologist; 50 As these bring home, from every walk they take, Their hat-crowns stuck with bugs of curious make, So he filled all the lining of his head With characters impaled and ticketed, And had a cabinet behind his eyes For all they caught of mortal oddities. He might have been a poet--many worse-- But that he had, or feigned, contempt of verse; Called it tattooing language, and held rhymes The young world's lullaby of ruder times. 60 Bitter in words, too indolent for gall, He satirized himself the first of all, In men and their affairs could find no law, And was the ill logic that he thought he saw.

Scratching a match to light his pipe anew, With eyes half shut some musing whiffs he drew And thus began: 'I give you all my word, I think this mock-Decameron absurd; Boccaccio's garden! how bring that to pass In our bleak clime save under double glass? 70 The moral east-wind of New England life Would snip its gay luxuriance like a knife; Mile-deep the glaciers brooded here, they say, Through æons numb; we feel their chill to-day. These foreign plants are but half-hardy still, Die on a south, and on a north wall chill. Had we stayed Puritans! _They_ had some heat, (Though whence derived I have my own conceit,) But you have long ago raked up their fires; Where they had faith, you've ten sham-Gothic spires. 80 Why more exotics? Try your native vines, And in some thousand years you _may_ have wines; Your present grapes are harsh, all pulps and skins, And want traditions of ancestral bins That saved for evenings round the polished board Old lava fires, the sun-steeped hillside's hoard. Without a Past, you lack that southern wall O'er which the vines of Poesy should crawl; Still they're your only hope: no midnight oil Makes up for virtue wanting in the soil; 90 Manure them well and prune them; 'twon't be France, Nor Spain, nor Italy, but there's your chance. You have one story-teller worth a score Of dead Boccaccios,--nay, add twenty more,-- A hawthorn asking spring's most dainty breath, And him you're freezing pretty well to death. However, since you say so, I will tease My memory to a story by degrees, Though you will cry, "Enough!" I'm wellnigh sure, Ere I have dreamed through half my overture. 100 Stories were good for men who had no books, (Fortunate race!) and built their nests like rooks In lonely towers, to which the Jongleur brought His pedler's-box of cheap and tawdry thought, With here and there a fancy fit to see Wrought in quaint grace in golden filigree,-- Some ring that with the Muse's finger yet Is warm, like Aucassin and Nicolete; The morning newspaper has spoilt his trade, (For better or for worse, I leave unsaid,) 110 And stories now, to suit a public nice, Must be half epigram, half pleasant vice.

'All tourists know Shebagog County: there The summer idlers take their yearly stare, Dress to see Nature in a well-bred way, As 'twere Italian opera, or play, Encore the sunrise (if they're out of bed). And pat the Mighty Mother on the head: These have I seen,--all things are good to see.-- And wondered much at their complacency. 120 This world's great show, that took in getting-up Millions of years, they finish ere they sup; Sights that God gleams through with soul-tingling force They glance approvingly as things of course. Say, "That's a grand rock," "This a pretty fall." Not thinking, "Are we worthy?" What if all The scornful landscape should turn round and say, "This is a fool, and that a popinjay"? I often wonder what the Mountain thinks Of French boots creaking o'er his breathless brinks, 130 Or how the Sun would scare the chattering crowd, If some fine day he chanced to think aloud. I, who love Nature much as sinners can, Love her where she most grandeur shows,--in man: Here find I mountain, forest, cloud, and sun, River and sea, and glows when day is done; Nay, where she makes grotesques, and moulds in jest The clown's cheap clay, I find unfading zest. The natural instincts year by year retire, As deer shrink northward from the settler's fire, 140 And he who loves the wild game-flavor more Than city-feasts, where every man's a bore To every other man, must seek it where The steamer's throb and railway's iron blare Have not yet startled with their punctual stir The shy, wood-wandering brood of Character.