Chapter XIII: Her Face

The gladness of our Southern spring; the grace
Of summer; and the dreaminess of fall
Are parts of her sweet nature.--Such a face
Was Ruth’s, methinks, divinely spiritual.

THE MESSAGE OF THE LILIES

My soul and I went walking
Beneath the moon of spring;
The lilies pale were talking,
We heard them murmuring.

From dimly moonlit places
They thrust long throats of white,
And lifted fairy faces
Of fragrant snow and light.

Their language was an essence,
Yet clear as any bird’s;
And from it grew a presence,
As music grows from words.

A spirit born of silence
And chastity and dew
Among Elysian islands
Were not more white to view.

A spirit born of fire
And holiness and snow,
Within the Heaven’s desire,
Were not more pure to know.

He smiled among them, lifting
Pale hands of prayer and peace--
And through the moonlight, drifting,
Came words to me like these:--

“We are His lilies, lilies,
Whose praises here we sing!
We are the lilies, lilies
Of Christ our Lord and King!”

ANTHEM OF DAWN

I

Then up the orient heights to the zenith that balanced the crescent,--
Up and far up and over,--the heaven grew erubescent,
Vibrant with rose and with ruby from hands of the harpist Dawn,
Smiting symphonic fire on the firmament’s barbiton;
And the East was a priest who adored with offerings of gold and of gems,
And a wonderful carpet unrolled for the inaccessible hems
Of the glittering robes of her limbs; that, lily and amethyst,
Swept glorying on and on through temples of cloud and mist.

II

Then out of the splendor and richness, that burned like a magic stone,
The torrent suffusion that deepened and dazzled and broadened and shone,
The pomp and the pageant of color, triumphal procession of glare,
The sun, like a king in armor, breathing splendor from feet to hair,
Stood forth with majesty girdled, as a hero who towers afar
Where the bannered gates are bristling hells and the walls
are roaring war:
And broad on the back of the world, like a Cherubin’s fiery blade,
The effulgent gaze of his aspect fell in glittering accolade.

III

Then billowing blue, like an ocean, rolled from the shores of dawn
to even:
And the stars like rafts went down; and the moon, like a
ghost-ship driven,
A feather of foam, from port to port of the cloud-built isles
that dotted,
With pearl and cameo, bays of the day,--her canvas webbed and rotted,--
Lay lost in the gulf of heaven; while over her mixed and melted
The beautiful children of Morn, whose bodies are opal-belted;
The beautiful daughters of Dawn, who, over and under and after
The rivered radiance wrestled; and rainbowed heaven with laughter
Of halcyon sapphire.--O Dawn! thou visible mirth,
Thou hallelujah of heaven! hosanna of Earth!

AT THE LANE’S END

I

No more to strip the roses from
The rose-sprays of her porch’s place!--
I dreamed last night that I was home
Kissing a rose--her face.

I must have smiled in sleep--who knows?--
The rose-aroma filled the lane;
I saw her white hand’s lifted rose
That welcomed home again.

And yet when I awoke--so wan,
My old face wet with icy tears--
Somehow, it seems, she was not gone,
Though dead now thirty years.