Chapter XI: Epilogue (2)

When summer ’s here and Margery
Goes walking in the fields with me,
She is so pure, she is so fair,
The wildflowers eye her and declare--
“Perdie!
So pure is she, so fair is she,
Just see,
Where our sweet cousin takes the air!”

III

Why is it that my Margery
Hears nothing that these say to me?
She is so good, she is so true,
My heart it maketh such ado,
Perdie!
So good is she, so true is she,
You see,
She can not hear the other two.

CONSTANCE

Beyond the orchard, in the lane,
The crested red-bird sings again--
O bird, whose song says, “Have no care,”
Should I not care when Constance there,--
My Constance with the bashful gaze,
Pink-gowned like some sweet hollyhock,--
If I declare my love, just says
Some careless thing as if in mock?
Like--“Past the orchard, in the lane,
Hark! how the red-bird sings again!”

There, while the red-bird sings his best,
His listening mate sits on the nest--
O bird, whose patience says, “All ’s well,”
How can it be with me, come, tell?
When Constance, with averted eyes,--
Soft-bonneted as some sweet-pea,--
If I talk marriage, just replies
With some such quaint irrelevancy,
As, “While the red-bird sings his best,
His loving mate sits on the nest.”

What shall I say? what can I do?
Would such replies mean aught to you,
O birds, whose music says, “Be glad”?
Have I not reason to be sad
When Constance, with demurest glance,
Her face all poppied with distress,
If I reproach her, pouts, perchance,
And answers thus in waywardness?--
“What shall I say? what can I do?
My meaning should be plain to you!”

LYDIA

When Autumn’s here and days are short,
Let Lydia laugh and, hey!
Straightway ’t is May-day in my heart,
And blossoms strew the way.

When Summer ’s here and days are long,
Let Lydia sigh and, ho!
December’s fields I walk among,
And shiver in the snow.

No matter what the seasons are,
My Lydia is so dear,
My heart admits no calendar
Of Earth when she is near.

HELEN

Heaped in raven loops and masses
Over temples smooth and fair,
Have you marked it, as she passes,
Night and starlight mingled there,--
Braided strands of midnight air,--
Helen’s hair?

Deep with dreams and moony mazes
Of the thought that in them lies,
Have you seen them, as she raises
Them in question or surprise,--
Two gray gleams of daybreak skies,--
Helen’s eyes?

Fresh as dew and honied wafters
Of a music sweet that slips,
Have you marked them, brimmed with laughter’s
Song and sunshine to their tips,--
Blossoms whence the perfume drips,--
Helen’s lips?

He who sees her needs must love her:
But, beware, whoe’er thou art!
Lest like me thou shouldst discover
Nature overlooked one part,
In this masterpiece of art--
Helen’s heart.

MIGNON

Oh, Mignon’s mouth is like a rose,
A red, red rose, that half uncurls
Sweet petals o’er a crimson bee:
Or like a shell, that, opening, shows
Within its rosy curve white pearls,
White rows of pearls,
Is Mignon’s mouth that smiles at me.

Oh, Mignon’s eyes are like blue gems,
Two azure gems that gleam and glow,
Soft sapphires set in ivory:
Or like twin violets, whose stems
Bloom blue beneath the covering snow,
The lidded snow,
Are Mignon’s eyes that laugh at me.

O mouth of Mignon, Mignon’s eyes!
O eyes of violet, mouth of fire!--
Within which lies all ecstasy
Of tears and kisses and of sighs:--
O mouth, O eyes, and O desire,
O love’s desire,
Have mercy on the soul of me!

TRANSUBSTANTIATION

I

A sunbeam and a drop of dew
Lay on a red rose in the South:
God took the three and made her mouth,
Her sweet, small mouth,
So red of hue,--
The burning baptism of His kiss
Still fills my heart with heavenly bliss.

II

A dream of truth and love come true
Slept on a star in daybreak skies:
God mingled these and made her eyes,
Her dear, clear eyes,
So gray of hue,--
The high communion of His gaze
Still fills my soul with deep amaze.

LOVE AND A DAY

I

In girandoles of gladioles
The day had kindled flame;
And Heaven a door of gold and pearl
Unclosed, whence Morning,--like a girl,
A red rose twisted in a curl,--
Down sapphire stairways came.

Said I to Love: “What must I do?
What shall I do? what can I do?”
Said I to Love: “What must I do,
All on a summer’s morning?”

Said Love to me: “Go woo, go woo.”
Said Love to me: “Go woo.
If she be milking, follow, O!
And in the clover hollow, O!
While through the dew the bells clang clear,
Just whisper it into her ear,
All on a summer’s morning.”

II

Of honey and heat and weed and wheat
The day had made perfume;
And Heaven a tower of turquoise raised,
Whence Noon, like some pale woman, gazed--
A sunflower withering at her waist--
Within a crystal room.

Said I to Love: “What must I do?
What shall I do? what can I do?”
Said I to Love: “What must I do,
All in the summer nooning?”

Said Love to me: “Go woo, go woo.”
Said Love to me: “Go woo.
If she be ’mid the rakers, O!
Among the harvest acres, O!
While every breeze brings scents of hay,
Just hold her hand and not take ‘nay,’
All in the summer nooning.”

III

With song and sigh and cricket cry
The day had mingled rest;
And Heaven a casement opened wide
Of opal, whence, like some young bride,
The Twilight leaned, all starry eyed,
A moonflower on her breast.

Said I to Love: “What must I do?
What shall I do? what can I do?”
Said I to Love: “What must I do,
All in the summer gloaming?”

Said Love to me: “Go woo, go woo.”
Said Love to me: “Go woo,
Go meet her at the trysting, O!
And ’spite of her resisting, O!
Beneath the stars and afterglow,
Just clasp her close and kiss her--so,
All in the summer gloaming.”

LOVE IN A GARDEN

I

Between the rose’s and the canna’s crimson,
Beneath thy window in the night I stand;
The jeweled dew hangs little stars, in rims, on
The white moonflowers; each a spirit hand
That points the path to mystic Shadowland.

Awaken, sweet and fair!
And add to night thy grace!
Suffer its loveliness to share
The white moon of thy face,
The dark cloud of thy hair.
Awaken, sweet and fair!

II

A moth, like down, swings on th’ althea’s pistil,--
Ghost of a tone that haunts its bell’s deep dome;--
And in the August-lily’s cone of crystal
A firefly hangs the lantern of a gnome,
Green as a gem that gleams through hollow foam.

Approach! the moment flies!
O sweetheart of the South!
Come! mingle with night’s mysteries
The red rose of thy mouth,
The dark stars of thine eyes.--
Approach! the moment flies!

III

Dim through the dusk, like some unearthly presence,
The night-song silvers of a dreaming bird;
And with it borne, faint on a breeze-blown essence,
The rainy whisper of a fountain’s heard--
As if young lips had breathed a perfumed word.

How long, my love, my bliss!
How long must I await
With night--that all impatience is--
Thy greeting at the gate,
And at the gate thy kiss?
How long, my love, my bliss!

FLORIDIAN

I

The cactus and the aloe bloom
Beneath the window of your room;
That window where, at evenfall,
Beneath the twilight’s first pale star,
You linger, tall and spiritual,
And hearken my guitar.

It is the hour
When every flower
Is wooed of moth or bee--
Would, would you were the flower, dear,
And I the moth to draw you near,
To draw you near to me,
My dear,
To draw you near to me!

II

The jasmine and bignonia spill
Their balm about your windowsill;
That sill where, when magnolia-white,
In foliage mists, the moon hangs far,
You lean with bright deep eyes of night,
And hearken my guitar.

It is the hour
When from each flower
The wind woos essences--
Would, would you were the flower, love,
And I the wind to breathe above,
To breathe above and kiss,
My love,
To breathe above and kiss!

WHEN SHIPS PUT OUT TO SEA

I

It’s “Sweet, good-by,” when pennants fly
And ships put out to sea;
It ’s a loving kiss, and a tear or two
In an eye of brown or an eye of blue:--
And you’ll remember me,
Sweetheart,
And you’ll remember me.

II

It’s “Friend or foe?” when signals blow
And ships sight ships at sea;
It’s “Clear for action! and man the guns!”
As the battle nears and the battle runs;--
And you’ll remember me,
Sweetheart,
And you’ll remember me.

III

It’s deck to deck, and wrath and wreck,
When ships meet ships at sea;
It’s scream of shot and shriek of shell,
And hull and turret a roaring hell;--
And you’ll remember me,
Sweetheart,
And you’ll remember me.

IV

It’s doom and death, and pause a breath,
When ships go down at sea;
It’s hate is over and love begins,
And war is cruel whoever wins;--
And you’ll remember me,
Sweetheart,
And you’ll remember me.

A CHRISTMAS CATCH

When roads are mired with ice and snow,
And the air of morn is crisp with rime;
When the holly hangs by the mistletoe,
And bells ring in the Christmas-time:--
It’s--Saddle, my Heart! and ride away
To the sweet-faced girl with eyes of gray!
Who waits with a smile for the gifts you bring--
A man’s strong love and a wedding-ring--
It’s--Saddle, my Heart, and ride!

When vanes veer north and storm-winds blow,
And the sun at noon is a blur o’erhead;
When the holly hangs by the mistletoe,
And the Christmas service is sung and said:--
It’s--Come, O my Heart, and wait a while,
Where the organ peals, in the altar aisle,
For the gifts that the church now gives to you--
A woman’s hand and a heart that’s true.
It’s--Come, O my Heart, and wait!

When rooms gleam warm with the fire’s glow,
And the sleet raps sharp on the window-pane:
When the holly hangs by the mistletoe,
And Christmas revels begin again:--
It’s--Home, O my Heart, and love, at last!
And her happy breast to your own held fast:
A song to sing and a tale to tell,
A good-night kiss and all is well.
It’s--Home, O my Heart, and love!

A SONG FOR YULE

I

Sing, Hey, when the time rolls round this way,
And bells peal out, _’Tis Christmas Day_!
The world is better then by half,
For joy, for joy:
In a little while you will see it laugh--
For a song’s to sing and a glass to quaff,
My boy; my boy.
So here ’s to the man who never says nay!--
Sing, Hey, a song of Christmas Day!

II

Sing, Ho, when roofs are white with snow,
And homes are hung with mistletoe:
Old Earth is not half bad, I wis--
What cheer! what cheer!
How it ever seemed sad the wonder is--
With a gift to give and a girl to kiss,
My dear; my dear.
So here ’s to the girl who never says no!
Sing, Ho, a song of the mistletoe!

III

No thing in the world to the heart seems wrong
When the soul of a man walks out with song;
Wherever they go, glad hand in hand,
And glove in glove,
The round of the land is rainbow-spanned,
And the meaning of life they understand
Is love; is love.
Let the heart be open, the soul be strong,
And life will be glad as a Christmas song.

CHORDS

I

When love delays, when love delays and joy
Steals like a shadow o’er the happy hills;
When hope is gone; and no to-morrow fills
The promise of to-day; still I employ
My soul with thoughts of thee,
Who ’rt not for me, for me!

When love delays, when love delays and song
Aches at wild lips, unutterable, as the sound
Of ocean strives, within the shell’s mouth bound;
And hope is gone for ever, slain of wrong;
Still in my heart one word
Keeps calling like a bird.

When love delays, when love delays and sleep
Seals tired eyelids,--like the sound of foam,
Heard ’mid familiar flowers far from home,--
When hope lies dead; in dreams, in dreams I keep
Feeling thy lips’ sweet touch,--
And, oh! it is too much!

When love delays, when love delays and sorrow
Drinks her own tears that add but to her thirst;
When song and sleep and love itself seem curst,
And hope lies dead; still, still I dream to-morrow
Will bring some word of cheer
From thee who art not here.

Will love delay, will love delay till death
Hath sealed these lips and locked these eyes in night?
Till unto love and hate indifferent quite
This form shall lie? Then wilt thou, wild of breath,
Bend down and kiss me there
When I no more shall care?

II

If thou wouldst know the Beautiful that breathes
And beckons through the World, far must thou seek!...
She is no shadow wreathed with hemlock wreaths;
No drowsy sorrow whose wan eyes are weak
With melancholy vigils; and no shade
Of tragic sin of the sweet sun afraid:
No tearful anger torn of truthless love,
Who stabs her sick heart to the dagger’s hilt
For vengeance sweet; no miser mood, or maid,
In owlet towers!--Nay! she sings above
On morning meads ’mid flowers that never wilt.

If thou dost seek the Beautiful, beware!
Lest thou discover her, nor know ’tis she;
And she enslave thee to thy heart’s despair,
And fill thy soul with yearning, utterly,
For that wild-rose which is her mouth, that brings
Dew-odors of the dawn; for those twin springs
Of light, her eyes; the bloom of her white brow,
O’er which the foliage of her dark hair lies:
The melody which is her heart, that sings
The poetry of love, to which all bow,
Both gods and men, the love that never dies.

Lost art thou then, lost as the first lone star
Set in the splendor of the sunset’s wave;
Lost in thy loneliness of searching far,
Striving to clasp her, evermore her slave:
Lost--gladly lost! a devotee to her
Who, in the end, perhaps may let thee share
A portion of her bliss, her heritage
Of happiness in the same way and wise
As woods and waters share it.--Then prepare
Thy soul,--made perfect,--for its final wage,
Her kiss, whose touch shall apotheosize.

III

Now that the orchard’s leaves are sere,
And drip with rain instead of dew,
No moon-bright fruit hangs moon-like here,
And dead your long white lilies too,--
And dead the heart that broke for you:

How comes the dim touch of your arm?
Your faint lips on my feverish cheek?
Your eyes near mine? deep as a charm,
And gray, so gray! till I am weak,
Weak with wild tears and can not speak.

I am as one who walks in dreams;
Sees, as in youth, his father’s home;
Hears from his native mountain streams
Far music of continual foam,
And one sweet voice that bids him come.

AT HER GRAVE

I

With your eyes of April blue,
And your mouth
Like a May-rose, fresh with dew,
Of the South,
With your hair as golden sweet
As the ripples of ripe wheat,
How you make my old heart beat!--
Who are you?

II

There is something that I knew,
Long ago,
In your voice that thrills me through
With the glow
Of remembered happiness;
And your look--I can not guess
What it is there, nor express.--
Who are you?

III

You are like her! even the hue
Of her eyes!--
It is strange you stop here, too,
Where she lies!--
Where she lies who was, you see,
All to me a girl could be--
But no wife.--You stare at me.--
Who are you?

IV

Well, I left her. That ’s not new--
God above!
Men, who live so, often do.
’T is n’t love.
So I broke her heart, they say,--
And been wretched since that day:
And our child--don’t turn away!--
Who are you?

A CONFESSION

These are the facts:--I was to blame.
I brought her here and wrought her shame.
She came with me all trustingly.
Lovely and innocent her face:
And in her perfect form, the grace
Of purity and modesty.

I think I loved her then: would dote
On her ambrosial breast and throat,
Young as a wildflower’s tenderness:
Her eyes, that were both glad and sad:
Her cheeks and chin, that dimples had:
Her mouth, red-ripe to kiss and kiss.

Three months passed by; three moons of fire;
When in me sickened all desire:
And in its place a devil,--who
Filled all my soul with deep disgust,
And on the victim of my lust
Turned eyes of loathing,--swiftly grew.

One night, when by my side she slept,
I rose: and leaning, while I kept
The dagger hid, I kissed her hair
And mouth: and, when she smiled asleep,
Into her heart I drove it deep--
And left her dead, still smiling there.

LAST DAYS

Ah! heartbreak of the tattered hills,
And heartache of the autumn sky!
Heartbreak and heartache, since God wills,
Are mine, and God knows why!

I held one dearer than each day
Of life God sets in sunny gold--
But Death hath ta’en that gem away,
And left me poor and old.

The heartbreak of the hills is mine,
Of trampled twig and rain-beat leaf,
Of wind that sobs through thorn and pine
An unavailing grief.

The sorrow of the loveless skies’
“Farewells” are wild as those I said
When last I kissed my child’s blue eyes
And lips, ice-dumb and dead.

AT TWILIGHT

Once more she holds me with her pensive eyes;
Once more I feel her voice’s witchery
Within my heart unfountain tears and sighs,
And fill the soul of me.

Once more she bends a silent face above;
Once more I feel her hands’ soft touches shake
My life, unbinding long-imprisoned love,
Bidding my lost dreams wake.

Once more I see her serious smile; and touch
Once more the lips of her whose kisses say--
“The night was long, and thou hast suffered much:
At last, dear heart, ’t is day!”

DAY AND NIGHT

They said to me, “The days are not so far off
When she will come, who gave her heart to thee;”
And still I wait, while twilight’s lonely star, off
Her long-loved hills, dips dewy to the sea.

And I recall that night, which gave its soul of
Calm beauty to the earth, when she did give
Her love’s white starlight to the rugged whole of
My barren life and bade me see and live.

The days go by, and my sick soul recalls but
The revelation of that evening sky:
The days! whose hours are as narrow walls,--but
Of whiter shadow,--where hearts break and die.

The day is error’s: it can but deceive us
With shows of Earth, blind with the primal curse.
The night is truth’s: its myriad fires weave us
The thoughts of God, the visible universe.

THREE BIRDS

A red bird sang upon the bough
When wind-flowers nodded in the dew:
My spring of bird and flower wast thou,
O tried and true!

A brown bird warbled on the wing
When poppy buds were hearts of heat:
I wooed thee with a golden ring,
O sad and sweet!

A black-bird twittered in the mist
When nightshade blooms were filled with frost:
The leaves upon thy grave are whist,
O loved and lost!

UNREQUITED

Passion? not hers! who held me with pure eyes:
One hand among the deep curls of her brow,
I drank the girlhood of her gaze with sighs:
She never sighed, nor gave me kiss or vow.

So have I seen a clear October pool,
Cold, liquid topaz, set within the sere
Gold of the woodland, tremorless and cool,
Reflecting all the heartbreak of the year.

Sweetheart? not she! whose voice was music-sweet;
Whose face was sweeter than melodious prayer.
Sweetheart I called her.--When did she repeat
Sweet to one hope, or heart to one despair!

So have I seen a wildflower’s fragrant head
Sung to and sung to by a longing bird,
And at the last, albeit the bird lay dead,
No blossom wilted, for it had not heard.

THE HEART’S DESIRE

God made her body out of foam and flowers,
And for her hair the dawn and darkness blent;
Then called two planets from their heavenly towers,
And in her face, divinely eloquent,
Gave them a firmament.

God made her heart of rosy ice and fire,
Of snow and flame, that freezes while it burns;
And of a starbeam and a moth’s desire
He made her soul, to’ards which my longing turns,
And all my being yearns.

So is my life a prisoner unto passion,
Enslaved of her who gives nor sign nor word;
So in the cage her loveliness doth fashion
Is love endungeoned, like a golden bird
That sings but is not heard.

Could it but once convince her with beseeching!
But once compel her as the sun the south!
Could it but once, fond arms around her reaching,
Upon the red carnation of her mouth
Dew its eternal drouth!

Then might I rise victorious over sadness,
O’er fate and change, and, with but little care,
Torched by the glory of that moment’s gladness,
Breast the black mountain of my life’s despair,
And die, or do and dare.

OUT OF THE DEPTHS

I

Let me forget her face!
So fresh, so lovely! the abiding place
Of tears and smiles that won my heart to her;
Of dreams and moods that moved my soul’s dim deeps,
As strong winds stir
Dark waters where the starlight glimmering sleeps.--
In every lineament the mind can trace,
Let me forget her face!

II

Let me forget her form!
Soft and seductive, that contained each charm,
Each grace the sweet word maidenhood implies;
And all the sensuous youth of line and curve,
That makes men’s eyes
Bondsmen of beauty, eager still to serve.--
In every part that memory can warm,
Let me forget her form!

III

Let me forget her, God!
Her who made honeyed love a bitter rod
To scourge my heart with, barren with despair;
To tear my soul with, sick with vain desire!--
Oh, hear my prayer!
Out of the hell of love’s unquenchable fire
I cry to thee, with face against the sod,
Let me forget her, God!

“THIS IS THE FACE OF HER”

This is the face of her
I’ve dreamed of long
That in my heart I bear:
This is the face of her
Pictured in song.

Look on the lily lids,
The eyes of dawn,--
Deep as a Nereid’s,
Swimming with dewy lids
In waters wan.

Look on the brows of snow,
The locks of night:
Only the gods can show
Such brows of placid snow,
Such locks of light.

The cheeks, like rosy moons;
The lips of fire:
Love sighs no sweeter tunes
Under romantic moons
Than these suspire.

Loved lips and eyes and hair!
Look, this is she!
She, who sits smiling there,
Throned in my heart’s despair,
Never for me!

INDIFFERENCE

She is so dear the wildflowers near
Each path she passes by,
Are over fain to kiss again
Her feet and then to die.

She is so fair the wild birds there
That sing upon the bough,
Have learned the staff of her sweet laugh,
And sing no other now.

Alas! that she should never see,
Should never care to know,
The wildflower’s love, the bird’s above,
And his, who loves her so.

GHOST WEATHER

Wild gusts of drizzle hoot and hiss
Through writhing lindens torn in two--
The dead’s own days are days like this!
Yea; let me sit and be with you.

Here in your willow chair, whose seat
Spreads purple plush.--Hark! how the gusts
Seem moaning voices that repeat
Some grief here; in this room, where dusts

Make dim each ornament and chair;
This locked-in memory where you died:
Since angels stood here, saintly fear
Guards each dark corner, mournful-eyed.

Through this dim light bend your dim face;
Or, like a rain-mist, gray of gleam,
A soft, dim cloudiness of lace,
Stand near me while I dream, I dream.

THE FOREST POOL

One memory persuades me when
Dusk’s lonely star burns overhead,
To take the gray path through the glen--
That finds the forest pool, made red
With sunset--and forget again,
Forget that she is dead.

Once more I look into the spring,
That on one rock a finger white
Of foam that beckons still doth bring--
Some moon-wan spirit of the night,
Who dwells within its murmuring,
Her life the sad moonlight.

I see the red dusk touch it here
With fire like a blade of blood;
One star reflected, white and clear,
Like a wood-blossom’s drowning bud;
While all my grief stands very near,
Pale in the solitude.

And then, behold, while yet the moon
Hangs--silver as a twisted horn
Blown out of Elfland--sweet with June,
White in white clusters of the thorn,
Slow, in the water as a tune,
An image pale is born:

That has her throat of frost; her lips--
Her mouth where God’s anointment lies;
Her eyes, wherefrom love’s arrow-tips
Break, like the starlight from dark skies;
Her hair, a hazel heap that slips;
Her throat and hair and eyes.

And then I stoop; the water kissed,
The face fades from me into air;
And in the pool’s dark amethyst
My own pale face returns my stare:
Then night and mist--and in the mist
One dead leaf drifting there.

AT SUNSET

Into the sunset’s turquoise marge
The moon dips, like a pearly barge
Enchantment sails through magic seas,
To fairyland Hesperides,
Over the hills and away.

Into the fields, in ghost-gray gown,
The young-eyed dusk comes slowly down;
Her apron filled with stars she stands.
And one or two slip from her hands
Over the hills and away.

Above the wood’s black caldron bends
The witch-faced Night and, muttering, blends
The dew and heat, whose bubbles make
The mist and musk that haunt the brake
Over the hills and away.

Oh, come with me, and let us go
Beyond the sunset lying low,
Beyond the twilight and the night,
Into Love’s kingdom of long light,
Over the hills and away.

DEAD AND GONE

Can you tell me how he rests,
Flowers, growing o’er him there?
His a right warm heart, my sweets,--
So, cover it with care.

Can you tell me how he lies
Such nights out in the cold,
O cricket, with your plaintive call,
O glow-worm, with your gold?

If my eyes are sorrowful,
Well may they weep, I trow,--
Since his dead eyes gazed into them,
They have been sad enow.

If my heart make moan and ache,
Well may it break, I’m sure--
For his dead love is more, ah me!
More than it can endure.

ONE NIGHT

I

A night of rain. The wind is out.
And I had wished it otherwise:
A calm, still night; no scudding skies;
Or, in the scud, above the rout,
The moon; by whose pale light my eyes
Might meet her eyes; the smile that tries
To come but will not; lips, that pout
With seeming anger, all surmise,
When I have said “I love your lies”--
Lips I shall kiss before she dies.

II

What force this wind has! As it runs
Around each unprotecting tree
It seems some beast; and now I see
Its form, its eyes; a woman’s once:--
Dark eyes! that blaze as lionly
As some bayed beast’s, that will not flee
The pine-knots and derides the guns.--
Or is it but the thought in me!
The thought of that which is to be,
The deed, that rises shadowy?

III

And now the trees and whipping rain
Confuse them.... I must drive it hence,
The memory of her eyes! the tense
Wild look within them of hard pain!...
Yet she must die--with every sense
Strung to beholding knowledge, whence
My heart shall be made whole again.--
Here I will wait where night is dense.
Soon she will come, like Innocence,
Thinking her youth is her defense.

IV

And when she leaves,--and none perceives,--
The old gray manor, where the eight
Old locusts, (twisted shadows), freight
With mossy murmurings its eaves,
One moment at the iron gate
She ’ll tarry. Then, with breath abate,
Come rustling through the autumn leaves.
And I will take both hands and sate
My mouth on hers and say, “You ’re late”;
She ’ll laugh to hear I had to wait....

V

O passion of past vows, revive
Imagination, and renew
The ardor of love’s language you
For love’s rose-altar kept alive!
Repeat the oaths that rang with dew
And starlight!--Tell her she is true
As beautiful.--I will contrive
To make her think I have no clue
To all her falseness. I will woo
As once I wooed before I knew.

VI

And we will walk against the wind;
The shuffling leaves about our feet;
Our ruin, as the wood’s, complete,
Because one woman so hath sinned
And never suffered. She shall meet
No murder in my eyes; no heat
Of fate in holding hand that ’s pinned
To hers. To make her trust to beat,
I ’ll kiss her hand, her hair,--like wheat
Of affluent summer,--saying “Sweet.”

VII

And should I bungle in this thing,
This purpose that must see her dead
To cure this fever in my head?--
What other thing is there to bring
Soul satisfaction? when is shed
No real blood, save what makes red
The baulked intention?--I will fling
The mask aside!--But hate hath led
Desire too far now to be fed
With failure. I have naught to dread.

VIII

When we have reached the precipice
That thwarts the battling of the sea,
And wallows out great rocks, that knee
The giant foam with roar and hiss,
I will not cease to coax and be
The anxious lover. Trusting she
Will not suspect my farewell kiss
Until it turns a curse, and we
Sway for an instant totteringly,
And she has shrieked some prayer at me.

IX

O let me see wild terror there
Upon her face! the wilder frown
Of crime’s apprisal, and renown
Of my life’s injury, that bare
This horror with its bloody crown!--
No pity, God! For, if her gown,
Suspending looseness of her hair,
Delay the plunge ... the night is brown ...
My heel must crush her white face down,
And Hell and Heaven see her drown.

THE PARTING

She passed the thorn-trees, whose gaunt branches tossed
Their spider-shadows round her; and the breeze,
Beneath the ashen moon, was full of frost,
And mouthed and mumbled in the sickly trees,
Like some starved hag who sees her children freeze.

Dry-eyed she waited by the sycamore.
Some stars made misty blotches in the sky.
And all the wretched willows on the shore
Looked faded as a jaundiced cheek or eye.
She felt deep sorrow yet could only sigh.

She heard his skiff grind on the river rocks
Whistling he came into the shadow made
By the great tree. He kissed her on her locks;
And round her form his eager arms were laid.
Passive she stood her purpose unbetrayed.

And then she spoke, while still his greeting kiss
Stung in her hair. She did not dare to lift
Her face to his; her anguished eyes to his
While tears smote crystal in her throat. One rift
Of weakness humored might set all adrift.

Anger and shame were his. She meekly heard.
And then the oar-locks sounded, and her brain
Remembered he had said no farewell word;
And swift emotion swept her; and again
Left her as silent as a carven pain....

She, in the old sad farm-house, wearily
Resumed the drudgery of her common lot,
Regret remembering.--’Midst old vices, he,
Who would have trod on, and somehow did not,
The wildflower, that had brushed his feet, forgot.

THE DAUGHTER OF THE SNOW

Though the panther’s footprints show,
And the wild-cat’s, in the snow,
You will never find a trace
Of the footsteps of a certain
Maiden with a paler face
Than the drifts that fill and curtain
Hillside, valley, and the wood,
Where the hunter’s wigwam stood
In the winter solitude.

What white beast hath grown the fur
For the whiter limbs of her?--
Raiment of the frost and ice
To her supple beauty fitting;
Wampum strouds, as white as rice,
Of the frost’s fantastic knitting,
Wrap her form and face complete;
Glove her hands with ice; her feet
Moccasin with beaded sleet.

’Though he knew she made a haunt
Of the dell, it did not daunt:
Where the hoar-frost mailed each tree
In soft, phantom alabaster,
And hung ghosts of bud and bee
On each autumn-withered aster;
By the frozen waterfall,
There she stood, beneath its wall,
In the ice-sheathed chaparral.

Where the beech-tree and the larch
Built a white triumphal arch
For the Winter, marching down
With his icy-armored leaders;
Where each hemlock had a crown,
And pale diadems the cedars;
Where the long icicle shone,
There he saw her, standing lone,
Like a mist-wraith turned to stone.

And she led him many a mile
With her hand-wave and her smile,
And the printless swiftness of
Feet of frost, and snowy flutter
Of her raiment; now above,
Now below, the boughs of utter
Winter whiteness. Led him on
Till the dawn and day were gone,
And the evening star hung wan....

Hunters found him dead, they tell,
In the winter-wasted dell,
With his quiver and his bow,
Where the cascade ran a rafter,
White, of crystal and of snow;
Where he listened to her laughter,
Promises, that were as far
As the secrets of a star,
And her love that naught could mar.

And her countenance is this
Stamped on his: and this her kiss,
Haunting still his mouth and eyes,
Colder than the cold December:
This her passion, that defies
All control, the stars remember
Filled him, killed him: this is she
Clinging to him, neck and knee,
Where his limbs sank wearily.

THE SPIRIT OF THE STAR

(_Love Spiritual_)

“_This union of the human soul with the divine æthereal substance of the
universe, is the ancient doctrine of Pythagoras and Plato._”--Divine
Legation.

There is love for love: the heaven
Teems with possibilities:
And, when love is purely given,
Love returns from where none sees:
And such love becomes a ladder
Reaching heavenward, from the sadder
Night of Earth; from out the driven
Darkness of its miseries.

There is love for love: and Beauty,
From her star above the Earth,
Smiles, and straight each cloud of sooty
Night takes on celestial worth:
And, like some white flower unfolding,
Love is born; and softly holding
Up its face, as if in duty,
Grows to that which gave it birth.

Earth and Heaven are prolific
Of love’s wonders: and the sky
Teems with spirits, fair, terrific,
Who, if loved, shall never die:
Dæmons, haggard as their mountains;
Naiads, sparkling as their fountains;
Sylphids of the winds, pacific
As the stars they tremble by....

Such was I; who long had waited
For the everlasting sleep:
Where, around me, worlds dilated,
Waned or waxed within the deep:
Where, beneath my star, a planet
Whirled and shone, like glowing granite,
While around it ne’er abated
One white satellite its sweep.

I was sad: my beauty wearied,
Useless as a scentless bud
Fading ere it blooms. The serried
Mists of worlds, as red as blood,
Streamed beneath me. And the starry
Firmament above bent, barry
With the wild auroras, ferried
Of the meteors’ sisterhood.

Something drew me, unreturning,
Filled me with a finer flame

Page 418
_The Spirit of the Star_]

I was loveless with a yearning
After love that never came;
All my astral being burning
Towards that world without a name,
World I knew not: till, with splendor
Of compulsion that was tender,
Something drew me, unreturning,
Filled me with a finer flame.

So I left my star, whose lances
Pierced with arrowy gold the heat
Of heaven’s hyacinth; its glances
Saddened me. No more to meet,
Then I left my star; and, beating
Downward, heard it still repeating
Far farewells; and through the trances
Of dark space its face looked sweet.

Passed your moon: a melancholy
Disc at first; then, vast and sharp,
Lo, a world, all white and holy!
Where, upon the crystal scarp
Of a mountain,--like a story
Of high Heaven revealed in glory,--
Gradual, as if music slowly
Built it, rolling from a harp,--

Rose a city: cloudy nacre
Were its walls, that towered round
Acre upon arch-piled acre
Of a marble-terraced ground:
Caryatids alternated
With Atlantes, sculpture-weighted:
And its gates--some god the maker--
Rhombs of symboled diamond.

In the white light glittered swimming
Domes of dazzle: swirl on swirl,
Temples lifted columns, brimming
Crystal flame, that seemed to whirl:
Battlemented moonstone darkled;
Palaces, pale-pillared, sparkled,
Cloudy opal: and, far dimming,
Aqueducts of ghostly pearl.

Streaming steeples shone, of dædal
Emblem; each an obelisk:
Minarets, each one a needle,
Balancing a bubble-disc;
Some of diamond, like a blister
Frozen; some of topaz-glister,
Vinous; in whose blinding middle
Blazed an orb of burning bisque.

And I saw where, silvery slanted,
A vast pyramidic heap
Rose of spar; whereon was planted
The acropolis of Sleep,--
God of these:--that, looming higher,
Wrought of seeming ice and fire,
Where pale rainbow-colors panted,
Gleamed above the lunar deep.

Robed in white simarre and chiton,
Visions filled its every square,
Moving like a finer light on
Light: and in the glory there
Music rang and golden laughter;
And before each shape, and after,
Radiance went, that shadowed white, on
Temple and on palace stair.

Though they called me, I descended
Earthward. For great longing drew
Me and, drawing me, was blended
With your world. I never knew
It was Earth, until,--forsaking
Heaven,--I beheld it taking,--
A great azure sphere,--its splendid
Way along the singing blue.

And when night came, here, above you,--
Sleeping by your folded sheep
On the hills,--I stooped: whereof you
Dreamed: I kissed you in your sleep:
I, your destiny, who wrought it
So you knew me: you, who thought it
Not so strange that I should love you,
I a spirit of the deep.

’Twas your love that sought and found me,
Drew me from that star-life sad;
Won my soul to yours and bound me
With such love as none hath had:
I am she, you may remember,
That fair star that seemed an ember
O’er you, that you loved.--Around me
Wrap your arms now and be glad.

Look above: what seems a petal,
Burning, of a rose; that far
Point of radiance, bright as metal,
Fiery silver, is your star!
Look above you: rise unto it.
Let it lead you now who drew it
Down to Earth, where shadows settle!--
On that star no shadows are!

THE SPIRIT OF THE VAN

(_Love Ideal_)

“_Among the mountains of Carmarthen, lies a beautiful and romantic piece
of water, named The Van Pools. Tradition relates, that after midnight,
on New Year’s Eve, there appears on this lake a being named The Spirit
of the Van. She is dressed in a white robe, bound by a golden girdle;
her hair is long and golden; her face is pale and
melancholy_.”--Keightley’s “Fairy Mythology.”

Midsummer-night; the Van. Through night’s wan noon,
Wading the storm-scud of an eve of storm,
Pale o’er Carmarthen’s peaks the mounting moon.--
Wilds of Carmarthen! sombre heights, that swarm
Girdling this water, as old giants might
Crouch, guarding some enchanted gem of charm,--
Wilds of Carmarthen, that for me each night
Reëcho prayers and pleadings,--all the year
Unanswered,--made to listening waters white!
Mountains, behold me yet again! Bend near!
Behold her lover! hers, that shape of snow,
Who dwells amid these pools; who will not hear
My heart’s wild pleading, calling loud, now low,
Unhappy, to her, ’mid the lonely hills.

Whene’er a ripple trembles into glow,
Where yeasty moonshine scuds the foam, straight thrills
Heart’s expectation through my veins, and high
With “she!” each pulse the exultation fills.
But she ’tis never. Once ... and then! would I,
Would I had perished, so beholding!--World,
’Twas you, O world, who would not let me die!
Once I beheld her!--If some fiend had curled
Stiff talons in my hair, and, twisting tight,
Had raised me high, then into Hell had hurled;
Fresh from that vision of her beauty white,
With Heaven in my soul, I, unamerced,
Shackled with tortures, yet might mock Hell’s spite.

Immortal memory, quench in me this thirst!--
O starlike vision, that a moment clove
My sight, and then for ever left me curst!
Oh, make me mad with love, with all thy love!
Me, me, who seek thee ’mid these wilds when gloom
Storms or drip gold the sibylline stars above!--
Let thy high coming in a flash consume
The light of all the stars! and make me mad,
Mad with love’s madness! fill me with sweet doom!

Sleep will I not now, for my soul is sad:
For, should I sleep, there might come other dreams,--
Sadder than thou art,--in thy beauty clad
And all thy tyranny. To me it seems
Better to wake here, underneath this pine,
Until thy face upon my vision gleams.--
Thou, who art wrought of elements divine,
And I of crasser clay, clay that will think,
“Since I am hers, why should she not be mine?”
Again, its usual phantom, on the brink
Of thy lone lake, I ask thee: “Must I yearn
Forever, haunted of that vision’s wink?”--
When, glassing out great circles, which did urn
Some intense essence of interior light,
(As clouds, that clothe the moon, unbinding, burn,
Riven, erupt her orb, triumphant white,)
I saw, midmost the Van, a feathering fire
Dilating ivory-wan.--Expectant night
Tiptoed attentive, fearful to suspire.--
Wherefrom arose--what white divinity?
What godhead sensed with glory and desire?
Born for the moment for the eyes of me!
Then re-absorbed into the brassy gloom
Of whispering waves that sighed their ecstasy.
Thou! in whose path harmonious colors bloom,
Pale pearl and lilac, asphodel and rose,--
Like many flow’rs auroral of perfume,--
Thou leftst me thus, to marvel as who knows
He is not dead and yet it seems he is,
Since all his soul with spirit-rapture glows.--
O sylph-like brow! lips like an angel’s kiss!
High immortality! whose face was such
As starlight in a lily’s loveliness!...
The gold that bound thee seemed too base to clutch
Thy chastity, though clear as golden gum
That almugs sweat, and fragrance to the touch!
Thy hair--not hair!--seemed rays, like those that come
Strained through the bubble of a chrysolite.--
No word I said: thy beauty struck me dumb.
Thy face, that is upon my soul’s quick sight
Eternal seared, hath made of me a shade,
A wandering shadow of the day and night:
A seeker ’mid the hoary hills for aid,
The sole society of my sick heart, who
Shuns all companionship of man and maid:
Who, comrade of the mountain blossoms blue,
And intimate of old trees, goes dreaming they,--
As in that legendary world that drew
Oracles from lips in oaks--, may sometime say
Prophetic precepts to it: how were won
A spirit loved to love a mortal;--yea,
In vain.--
But one day, frog-like in the sun,
Beside a cave,--the nightshade vines made rank
And hairy henbane, where huge spiders spun,--
Wrinkled as Magic, I a grizzled, lank,
Squat something startled, naught save skin and hair;
With eyes wherein dwelt demons; flames, that shrank
And grew;--familiars, who fixed me with glare
As, raising claw-like hands when I drew near,
Frog-like he croaked, “Thou fool! go seek her there!
Woo her with thy heart’s actions! making clear
Thy soul’s white passage for her coming feet!--
In! in! thou fool! plunge in! Fear naught but fear!”

Yet I have waited many weeks. Repeat.
Acts of the heart with passionate offering
Of love whose anguish makes it seven times sweet.
Still all in vain, in vain. To-night I bring
My self alone; my soul unfearing, see!
My soul unto thee!--Shall the clay still cling
Clogging fulfillment? and achievement be
Balked still by flesh?--no! let me in--to die,
Haply; or, for a moment’s mystery,
Gaze in thine eyes: one splendid instant lie
In thy white arms and bosom; and thy kiss,
My elemental immortality!--
Part of thy breathing waves, to laugh or hiss
In foam; or winds, that rock the awful deeps,
Or build with song vast temples for thy bliss.
Wherein, responsive as thy white hand sweeps
The chords of some sad shell, I’ll dream and roam
Through glaucous chambers where the green day sleeps.
Dead not with death, what secrets hath thy home
Not mine then, epoched in exultant foam?...
Deeper, down deeper! yea, at last I come!

THE CAVERNS OF KAF

(_Love Sensual_)

“_‘Where am I?’ cried he; ‘what are these dreadful rocks? these
valleys of darkness? are we arrived at the horrible
Kaf?’_”--Vathek.

One, Benreddin, I have heard,
Near the town of Mosul sleeping,
In a dream beheld a bird,
Wonderful, with plumes of sweeping
Whiteness, crowned pomegranate-red:
And, it seemed, his soul it led,
Brilliant as a blossom, keeping
Near the Tigris as it fled.

Following, at last he came
To a haggard valley, shouldered
Under peaks that had no name:
Where it vanished. ’Mid the bouldered
Savageness a woman, fair,
In a white simarre, stood there,
Auburn-haired; around whom smoldered
Pensive lights of purple air.

And she led him down to vast
Caves of sardonyx, whose ceiling
Domed one chrysoberyl. Blast
On blast of music,--stealing
Out of aural atmospheres,--
Beat like surf upon his ears;
Then receded, faintly pealing
Psalteries and dulcimers.

Living figures seemed to heave
High the walls, where, wild, embattled,
Warred Amshaspand and the Deev:
Over all two splendors rattled
Arms of Heaven, arms of Hell;
Forms of flame that seemed to swell
Godlike: Aherman who battled
With Ormuzd he could not quell.

There she left him wond’ring; till
The reverberant music, drifting,
Strong beyond his utmost will,
Drew him onward where, high lifting
Pillar and entablature,
Vast with emblem, yawned a door--
Valves of liquid lightning, shifting
In and out and up and o’er.

Through the door he swept: deep-domed,
Green with serpentine and beryl,
Loomed a cavern, crusted, foamed,
Tortuous with gems of peril:
Difficult, a colonnade
Seemed, of satin-spar, to braid
Deeps of labyrinthed and sterile
Tiger-spar that, twisting, rayed.

Dizzy stones of magic price
Crammed volute and loaded corbel:
Irridescent shafts of ice
Leapt: with long reëchoed warble
Waters unto waters sang:
Crystal arc and column sprang
Into fire as each marble
Fountain flung its foam that rang.

And around him, filled with sound,
Streams of resonant colors jetted:
Rainbow surf that interwound
Crypts and arcades, crescent-fretted:
Mists of citron and of roon;
Lemon lights that mocked the moon;
Shot with scarlet, veined and netted,
Beating golden hearts of tune.

Suns arose, of blinding blue;
Moons of green-dilating splendor:
In whose centers slowly grew
Spots like serpents’ eyes that, slender,
Glared; at first, prismatic beams;
Then, intolerable gleams;
Hissing trails of fire, tender
As an houri’s breath that dreams.

Characters of Arabic,
Cabalistic, red as coral,
Flashed through violet veils, so quick
None might read: as if, in quarrel,
Iran wrote of Turan there
Hate and scorn, or, everywhere,
Wrought some talisman of moral
Strength no Afrit’s heart would dare.

Sounding splendors drew him on
To another cavern; hollow;
Hewn of alabastar wan;
Lucid; where his gaze could follow
Caves in caves; transparent flights
Rolling, lost in moving lights,
Glaucous gold: he like a swallow
O’er a lake the morning smites.

Down the dome flashed out and in
Instant faces of the Peris:
Restless eyes of Deevs and Jinn
In the walls watched: unseen Faeries
Out of rainbows rained and tossed
Flowers of fire full of frost;
Blossoms where the fire varies,
Gold and green and crimson-mossed.

Then there met him, face to face,
Seven odalisques of Heaven,
Swinging in a silver space
Flaming censers: and the seven,
Crowned with stars of burning green,
Seemed to turn to incense; seen,
As it rose, to be a driven
Hippogrif, or rosmarine.

Aloes, Nard, and Ambergris,
Sandal, Frankincense, and Civet,--
Genii of the fragrances,--
Rein each winged aroma; give it
Spurs and race it down the lull
Of the caverns, clouded dull
With wild manes of musk; now vivid,
Vaporous white and wonderful.

And Benreddin’s aching soul,
In each sense intoxicated,
Reached, at last, what seemed the goal
Of all passion: golden-gated,
Vast, a fountain: where he saw
Limbs of light without a flaw;
Breasts and arms of bloom; that waited
For his soul to nearer draw.

Houri faces shimmered there;
Fluid forms.--It, with a thunder
Of wild music, like the hair
Of a genie, flamed from under
Caverns of the demon-world:
Filled with voices, high it hurled,
Calling him, with beckoning wonder
Of cœrulean forms that swirled.

And with burning lips and eyes
In he plunged: hoarse laughter greeted,
Demon laughter: then sad sighs,
Dying downward: passion-heated
Hands seemed drawing him away,
Downward: where a rocking ray
Flamed and swung, and Eblis-sheeted
Shadows wandered ghostly gray.

* * * * *

And, ’tis said, that he was young,
Young that morning. When the darting,
Anguish-throated bulbuls sung,
In the silent starlight starting,
One, a Baghdad merchant, led
By the hoarness of its head,
Found what seemed a mummy: parting
Hair from brow, Benreddin--dead.

THE SALAMANDER

(_Love Dæmonic_)

“_The Fire-Philosophers, and the Rosicrucians, or Illuminati, taught that all knowable things (both of the soul and of the body) were evolved out of fire, and finally resolvable into it: and that fire was the last and the only-to-be known God: as that all things were capable of being searched down into it, and all things were capable of being thought up into it._”--The Rosicrucians.

Once she breathed upon my eyes,
Touched the soul that dreamed within me;
All the magic that might win me
Whispered to my heart with sighs--
Darkness can not make them lies!...

Bring me moly, hellebore!
Mix them for my soul’s nepenthe,
For my spirit’s dread Amenti,
For the curse that comes once more
With unutterable lore!

Sunlight, starlight or the moon,
Stormlight, firelight or the sheening
Witchlight intimate no meaning
Of her glory’s plenilune;
Of her soul’s unriddled rune,

And most awful beauty! nor
Actual, nor yet ideal!--
Insubstantial and yet real;
Partly flame and partly star,
Yet no part of what these are.

I am hers and--woe is mine!...
Has she drugged me with the sadness
Of some elemental madness?--
Like a demigod I pine
’Twixt the mortal and divine....

When I see her, lo, she stands
In the luminous electre
Of a star: a smiling spectre
With white scintillating hands
Luring to unhallowed lands.

Then, behold, in fearful file,
A mirage of tower and terrace,
Lawn and mountain range,--that buries
Flame in frost,--looms! mile on mile
Of her crescent-glowing Isle:

Where the lurid waters lull
Shores that roll the rainbow fire;
Where, with living lute and lyre,
Rose-red, swiftly as a gull,
Glides her star-like galley’s hull.

And, behold, before I know,
I am where her walls of amber,
Towers of limpid ruby, clamber
Over terraces below
Summits of refulgent snow.

Lambent lazuli and shell
Colonnade her courts of marble;
Where, of lightning, fountains warble
Out of basined pearl, or well
Into hollowed carbuncle.

Rosy silver seems her skin,
And a flame her arm commanding,
With its gleaming hand, me, standing
At her gates, to enter in,
Burning as a Seraphin.

Lucid darkness are her eyes,
Where the frozen fire smolders;
And upon her shining shoulders,
Like a tangible glitter, lies
Auburn hair like sunset skies.

Mouth of sibilant soft flame;
Lilith lips, whose roses lighten
With illusive love; and brighten
With wild passion and the name
Of desire no man may tame.

Passion, and the thoughts that wed
Love and loathing; such caresses
Of sweet touch as naught expresses
Here on Earth, yet full of dread,
Madness, whereof death is bred.

She hath drawn me to her lips;
Borne me through her palace portal;
And the fire, which is immortal,
From me like a garment slips--
Ah, the spirit-part’s eclipse!

As when moon and planet swoon
Unto each, my body kindles,
Strangely, while my spirit dwindles,
Like the Earth-o’ershadowed moon,
Darkening from lune to lune.

Then she laughs; and leads me where
Cloudy, wild, chameleon color
Marbles halls with hues, the duller
For her astral presence there,
Beaming white with beaming hair:

Where, in roses purple pale,--
Dropping like a ruby bubble
Through the moon dust,--“double double,”
Throbs the crimson nightingale,
There she lures me with some tale.

Or to where the scarlet snake
Coils beneath great flaming flowers;
Where the musk mimosa bowers
Roll their rosy clouds, and make
Sunset heavens of each lake.

Where the bees and moths go by,
Fiery diamond; opal-burning
Butterflies, and iris-turning
Peacock-painted birds, that vie
With the flow’rs, like fragments fly
Of wild rainbow: Where, in rills,
Down the rocks, that lichens redden,
Constellated moss and leaden
Fungus glow; and all the hills,
As with flames, the orchid fills.

Where, in coruscating light,
Glare the golden-checkered zinnias;
And the bugle-bloomed gloxinias,
Making morning of each height,
Float like mists of ruby white.