Chapter XVII

Something ... my senses will scarce recall ... The horror they came in the night to tell ... The mare had galloped riderless home, Blown and bleeding and flecked with foam, And they found him there by the sunken wall, Hurt to the death by the desperate fall. How it had chanced, he could only tell, Ere the merciful numbness stole his brain; How the chestnut rose to the leap and fell.... Then his senses closed on the shocks of pain. He spoke, they told me, but once again-- To whisper my name with his struggling breath-- (Thank God, he suffered so brief a while) Then peacefully sank on the breast of Death, Dead, with his lips asmile.

How can I wish him alive again, Lying so peacefully, placidly still, With that carven smile on his marble face. How can I pray that his heart should thrill To waking and waking's pain? Lying so peacefully, placidly still. With the old, sweet smile on his quiet face, Dead to the sting of a heart's disgrace.... How should I wish him a lesser grace, How should I strive with a wiser Will? Yet how can the heart that is reft divine Death's mystical, measureless charity? The cry of the stricken king is mine: "Would I had died for thee!"

Severance

Not severed by long leagues of lonely land,
Nor sundered by wide wastes of sounding sea;
But ever side by side and hand in hand,
And yet--apart are we.

Spartacus

He stands storm-browed, imperial, chief
Of all Rome's gladiators; brave
Beyond all others; fearless in belief,
A captive--but no slave.
His brow is like a god's--a brow of power,
Lips soft with human sweetness--ere the day
He entered the arena, and the hour
He first beheld man's life-blood mixed with clay.

Felt rise within him bestial strange desires
And savage instincts in a brutal heart
That battened on men's blood; burned with unhallowed fires
Of slaughter--till--a thing apart,
A hired butcher of his fellow men, he stands
Daring the fasting lion in his den,
Or some fierce gladiator on the blood-stained sands,--
A savage chief of yet more savage men!

He stands, with massive throat and thews of steel,
While loud acclaims the listening heavens fill,
And Roman women smile. He does not know; or feel
A moment's joy or one triumphant thrill.
He heeds them not. He sees as in a dream
His home and Cyrasella's citron groves;
A youth again, beside some purling stream,
With gladsome heart and joyous pipe he roves.

He sees anon that gentle shepherd boy,
Who knew no harsher sound than plaining flute,
In the arena stand--Rome's sport and toy--
A bestial, blood-stained hireling brute....
Then swift thro' every throbbing, pulsing vein
The fierce unconquered spirit of old Sparta ran.
Rome's fiercest gladiator is to-day again
A Thracian--and a man!

The Dead Leader

After the waiting and the anguished weeping
He lies at rest at last.
How should we mourn him tranced in peaceful sleeping,
His pain all past!

The Right's Excalibur his strong arm wielded
A little space lies low;
The victor in life's sometime strife has yielded
To man's last Foe.

Late--all too late--our loyal tribute giving
A loyal, fearless soul!
He whom we honored late--so late--while living,
Lies dead beside the goal.

Yet this the solace of these long sad hours
While we who loved him weep,
We breathe an answering message in our flowers
To him who lies asleep.

To him whom soon the deep, cold earth must cover,
To him whose dying breath
Left to our hearts a message bridging over
The dark abyss of Death.

Hagar

To have known Heaven and then to walk in Hell! Is it not hell to know his face no more, Supplanted, spurned and thrust without his door. Seeing another with my loved lord dwell Sheltered within the tents of wedded love While I must roam the desert of Despair? Ah, God above me harken to my prayer! Send down thy mercy on me as a dove Folding its white wings on my tortured breast. Let me not see the anguish of my child With hunger torn, with thirst's consuming wild, Strike us, oh God, into Thy deep dark Rest! Lo! I have sinned. I kneel and kiss the rod, But she, the wife, who cast us forth to die ... I curse her not! Judge Thou between us, God, Which in Thy sight is guiltier, she or I?

Water-Lilies

They float ethereal, unearthly white
Upon the bosom of the darkling mere,
Raying the dusk with slumbrous silver light--
Eidolons of lost moons erst mirrored there.

Salvias

Wooing the wind's wild caresses,
Courting the sun's fierce flame--
Wantons in cardinal dresses
Flaunting their scarlet shame.

Yellow Jessamine

Like little yellow stars that, fallen down,
Hang pendulous, enmeshed among the boughs,
Mild golden radiances they gem the crown
Fair Summer sets upon her beauteous brows.

Sunflowers

They bloom in lowly places--
Unmeet for fairer beds--
Like swarthy Ethiop faces
With yellow-turbaned heads.

The Rose

All Orient odors, spikenard, balm and myrrh,
Perfumes of Araby and farthest Ind--
Sweet incense from the chaliced heart of her
She pours upon the feet of every wind.

Circe