Chapter III

The twilight and midnight are lovers, you know,
And each to the other is true, is true!
And there on the moon through the heavens they ride,
With the little brown owls all huddled a-row,
Through meadows of heaven where, every side,
Blossom the stars and the dew.

Rest, rest, little one, rest:
Rockaby Town is in Lullaby Isle.
Rockaby, lullaby, set like a nest
Deep in the heart of a song and a smile.
Rest, rest, little one, rest;
The cradle you lie in is warm as my breast,
The white bird that bears you to Lullaby Isle.
Out of the East, sweet, into the West,
Rockaby, lullaby, into the West.

PESTILENCE

High on a throne of noisome ooze and heat,
’Mid rotting trees of bayou and lagoon,
Ghastly she sits beneath the skeleton moon,
A tawny horror coiling at her feet--
Fever, whose eyes keep watching, serpent-like,
Until her eyes shall bid him rise and strike.

MUSINGS

I

_Inspiration_

All who have toiled for Art, who’ve won or lost,
Sat equal priests at her high Pentecost;
Only the chrism and sacrament of flame,
Anointing all, inspired not all the same.

II

_Apportionment_

How often in our search for joy below
Hoping for happiness we chance on woe.

III

_Victory_

They who take courage from their own defeat
Are victors too, no matter how much beat.

IV

_Preparation_

How often hope’s fair flower blooms richest where
The soul was fertilized with black despair.

V

_Disillusion_

Those unrequited in their love who die
Have never drained life’s chief illusion dry.

VI

_Success_

Success allures us in the earth and skies:
We seek to win her, but, too amorous,
Mocking, she flees us.--Haply, were we wise,
We should not strive and she would come to us.

VII

_Science_

Miranda-like, above the world she waves
The wand of Prospero; and, beautiful,
Ariel the airy, Caliban the dull,--
Lightning and Steam,--are her unwilling slaves.

VIII

_The Universal Wind_

Wild son of Heav’n, with laughter and alarm,
Now east, now west, now north, now south he goes,
Bearing in one harsh hand dark death and storm,
And in the other, sunshine and a rose.

IX

_Compensation_

Yea, whom He loves the Lord God chasteneth
With disappointments, so that this side death,
Through suffering and failure, they know Hell
To make them worthy in that Heaven to dwell
Of Love’s attainment, where they come to be
Parts of its beauty and divinity.

X

_Poppies_

Summer met Sleep at sunset,
Dreaming within the south,--
Drugged with his soul’s deep slumber,
Red with her heart’s hot drouth,
These are the drowsy kisses
She pressed upon his mouth.