Chapter II

Not for our ears
The cosmic music of the rolling spheres,
That sweeps the skies!
Music we hear, but only with our eyes.
For all too weak
Our mortal frames to bear the words these speak,
Those detonations that we name the dawn
And sunset--hues Earth’s harmony puts on.

UNHEARD

All things are wrought of melody,
Unheard, yet full of speaking spells;
Within the rock, within the tree,
A soul of music dwells.

A mute symphonic sense that thrills
The silent frame of mortal things;
Its heart beats in the ancient hills,
And in each flow’r sings.

To harmony all growth is set--
Each seed is but a music mote,
From which each plant, each violet,
Evolves its purple note.

Compact of melody, the rose
Woos the soft wind with strain on strain
Of crimson; and the lily blows
Its white bars to the rain.

The trees are pæans; and the grass
One long green fugue beneath the sun--
Song is their life; and all shall pass,
Shall end, when song is done.

REINCARNATION

High in the place of outraged Liberty,
He ruled the world, an emperor and god:
His iron armies swept the land and sea,
And conquered nations trembled at his nod.

By him the love that fills man’s soul with light,
And makes a heaven of earth, was crucified;
Lust-crowned he lived, yea, lived in God’s despite,
And old in infamies, a king he died.

Justice begins now.--Many centuries
In some vile body must his soul atone
As slave, as beggar, loathsome with disease,
Less than the dog at which we fling a stone.

ON CHENOWETH’S RUN

I thought of the road through the glen,
With its hawk’s nest high in the pine;
With its rock, where the fox had his den,
’Mid tangles of sumach and vine,
Where she swore to be mine.

I thought of the creek and its banks,
Now glooming, now gleaming with sun;
The rustic bridge builded of planks,
The bridge over Chenoweth’s Run,
Where I wooed her and won.

I thought of the house in the lane,
With its pinks and its sweet mignonette;
Its fence, and the gate with its chain,
Its porch where the roses hung wet,
Where I kissed her and met.

Then I thought of the family graves,
Walled rudely with stone, in the West,
Where the sorrowful cedar-tree waves,
And the wind is a spirit distressed,
Where they laid her to rest.

And my soul, overwhelmed with despair,
Cried out on the city and mart!--
How I longed, how I longed to be there,
Away from the struggle and smart,
By her and my heart.

By her and my heart in the West,--
Laid sadly together as one;--
On her grave for a moment to rest,
Far away from the noise and the sun,
On Chenoweth’s Run.

REQUIESCAT

The roses mourn for her who sleeps
Within the tomb;
For her each lily-flower weeps
Dew and perfume.
In each neglected flower-bed
Each blossom droops its lovely head,--
They miss her touch, they miss her tread,
Her face of bloom,
Of happy bloom.

The very breezes grieve for her,
A lonely grief;
For her each tree is sorrower,
Each blade and leaf.
The foliage rocks itself and sighs,
And to its woe the wind replies,--
They miss her girlish laugh and cries,
Whose life was brief,
Was all too brief.

The sunlight, too, seems pale with care,
Or sick with woe;
The memory haunts it of her hair,
Its golden glow.
No more within the bramble-brake
The sleepy bloom is kissed awake--
The sun is sad for her dear sake,
Whose head lies low,
Lies dim and low.

The bird, that sang so sweet, is still
At dusk and dawn;
No more it makes the silence thrill
Of wood and lawn.
In vain the buds, when it is near,
Open each pink and perfumed ear,--
The song it sings she will not hear
Who now is gone,
Is dead and gone.

Ah, well she sleeps who loved them well,
The birds and bowers;
The fair, the young, the lovable,
Who once was ours.
Alas! that loveliness must pass!
Must come to lie beneath the grass!
That youth and joy must fade, alas!
And die like flowers,
Earth’s sweetest flowers!

THE QUEST

I

First I asked the honey-bee,
Busy in the balmy bowers;
Saying, “Sweetheart, tell it me:
Have you seen her, honey-bee?
She is cousin to the flowers--
All the sweetness of the south
In her wild-rose face and mouth.”--
But the bee passed silently.

II

Then I asked the forest-bird,
Warbling by the woodland waters;
Saying, “Dearest, have you heard,
Have you heard her, forest-bird?
She is one of Music’s daughters--
Never song so sweet by half
As the music of her laugh.”--
But the bird said not a word.

III

Next I asked the evening-sky,
Hanging out its lamps of fire;
Saying, “Loved one, passed she by?
Tell me, tell me, evening-sky!
She, the star of my desire--
Sister whom the Pleiads lost,
And my soul’s high pentecost.”--
But the sky made no reply.