Chapter VI

And I, who entered in, in dread
Felt silence like some awful hymn--
Or was ’t the effluvia of the dead
That round me seemed to swim?
Miasms, from which had oozed its walls,
Had rotted, breath on breath,
This house, within whose haunted halls
Death sat and dreamed of death.

EIDOLONS

The white moth-mullein brushed its slim
Cool, fairy flowers against his knee;
In places where the way lay dim
The branches, arching hollowly,
Made tomb-like mystery for him.

The wild-rose and the elder, drenched
With rain, made pale a misty place,--
From which, as from a ghost, he blenched;
He walking with averted face,
And lips white-closed and teeth tight-clenched.

For far within the forest,--where
Weird shadows stood like phantom men,
And where the ground-hog dug its lair,
The she-fox whelped and had her den,--
The thing kept calling, buried there.

One dead trunk, like a ruined tower,
Dark green with toppling trailers, shoved
Its wild wreck o’er the brush; one bower
Looked like a dead man, capped and gloved,
The thing that haunted him each hour.

Now at his side he heard it: thin
As echoes of a thought that speaks
In sleep: and, listening with his chin
Upon his palm, unto his cheeks
He felt the moon’s slow silver win.

And now the voice was still: and lo,
With eyes that stared on naught but night,
He looked and saw--what none shall know!
The form of one, who long from sight
Had lain, here murdered long ago?...

And men who found him,--thither led
By the she-fox,--within that place
Saw in his stony eyes, ’tis said,
The thing he met there face to face,
The thing that left him staring dead.

IDENTITIES

I sat alone in the arrased room
Of Sin, wrapped pale in her winding shroud;
The night was stricken with glare and gloom,
And the wailing wind was loud.

I heard the gallop of one who rode
Like a rushing leaf on the wind that lisps;
The night with the speed of her steed was sowed
With streaming will-o’-the-wisps.

And I said to myself, “’Tis a long-lost Shame,
Who rides to my house through the night and rain!
She will blaze in the blackness a face of flame
When she opens the door again!”

I thought of the blame on her lips and brow;
And stared at the door she must enter in--
To sear my soul with her eyes and bow
My heart by the corpse of Sin.

As hushed as the mansion of death was night,
When, dark as a sob of the storm, she came--
But her face, like beautiful Sin’s, was white,
And her face and Sin’s--the same!

HALLOWE’EN

It was down in the woodland on last Hallowe’en,
Where silence and darkness had built them a lair,
That I felt the dim presence of her, the unseen,
And heard her still step on the hush-haunted air.

It was last Hallowe’en in the glimmer and swoon
Of mist and of moonlight, where once we had sinned,
That I saw the gray gleam of her eyes in the moon,
And hair, like a raven, blown wild on the wind.

It was last Hallowe’en where starlight and dew
Made mystical marriage on flower and leaf,
That she led me with looks of a love, that I knew
Was dead, and the voice of a passion too brief.

It was last Hallowe’en in the forest of dreams,
Where trees are eidolons and flowers have eyes,
That I saw her pale face like the foam of far streams,
And heard, like the night-wind, her tears and her sighs.

It was last Hallowe’en, the haunted, the dread,
In the wind-tattered wood, by the storm-twisted pine,
That I, who am living, kept tryst with the dead,
And clasped her a moment who once had been mine.

ANSWERED

Do you remember how that night drew on?
That night of sorrow, when the stars looked wan
As eyes that gaze, reproachful, in a dream;
Loved eyes, long dead, and sadder than the grave?
How through the heaven stole the moon’s gray gleam,
Like a nun’s ghost down a cathedral’s nave?--
Do you remember how that night drew on?

Do you remember the hard words then said?
The words of hate above my bowed-down head,
That left me dead, long, long before I died:
Those words, whose bitterness had stabbed and slain
My heart before I knew your love had lied,
Or pierced me with the dagger of disdain.--
Do you remember the hard words then said?

Do you remember?--now the night draws down,--
As on that night,--the heavens, lightnings crown
With wrecks of thunder; and the moon doth give
The clouds wild witchery,--as in a room,
Behind the sorrowful arras, still may live
The pallid secret of the haunted gloom.--
Do you remember, now the night draws down?

Do you remember, now it comes to pass
Your form is bowed as is the wind-swept grass?
And death hath won from you that confidence
Denied to life? now your sick soul rebels
Against your pride with tragic eloquence,
That self-crowned demon of the heart’s fierce hells.--
Do you remember, now it comes to pass?

Yea, you remember! Bid your soul be still!
Here passion hath surrendered unto will,
And flesh to spirit. Quiet your wild tongue
And wilder heart. Your kiss wakes naught in me.
The instrument love gave you lies unstrung,
Silent, forsaken of all melody.--
Yea, you remember! Bid your soul be still!

UNFULFILLED

In my dream last night it seemed I stood
With a boy’s glad heart in my boyhood’s wood.

The beryl green and the cairngorm brown
Of the day through the deep leaves sifted down.

The rippling drip of a passing shower
Rinsed wild aroma from herb and flower.

The splash and urge of a waterfall
Spread stairwayed rocks with a crystal caul.

And I waded the strip of the creek’s dry bed
For the colored keel and the arrow-head.

And I found the cohosh coigne the same
Tossing with torches of pearly flame.

The owlet dingle of vine and brier,
That the butterfly-weed flecked fierce with fire.

The elder bosk with its warm perfume,
And the yellow stars of the daisy bloom;

The moss, the fern, and the touch-me-not
I breathed, and the mint-smell keen and hot.

And I saw the bird, that sang its best,
In the tufted sumac building its nest.

And I saw the chipmunk’s stealthy face,
And the rabbit crouched in a grassy place.

And I watched the crows, that cawed and cried,
Harrying the hawk at the forest-side;

The bees that sucked in the blossoms slim,
And the wasps that built on the lichened limb.

And felt the silence, the dusk, the dread
Of the spot where they buried the unknown dead:

The water-murmur, the insect hum,
And a far bird calling, “Come, oh, come!"--

No sweeter music can mortals make
To ease the heart of its human ache!--

And it seemed in my dream,--that was all too true,--
That I met in the woods again with you.

A sun-tanned face and brown bare knees,
And hands stained red with dewberries.

And we stopped a moment some word to tell,
And then in the woods we kissed farewell.

But once I met you; yet, lo! it seems
Again and again we meet in dreams.

And I ask my soul what it all may mean:
If this is the love that should have been.

And oft and often I wonder, _Can
What Fate intends be changed by man_?

DIRGE

What shall her dreaming keep
Under the sun?
Here where the willows weep
And waters run;
Here where she lies asleep
And all is done.

Lights, when the tree-top swings;
Scents that are blown;
Sounds of the wood-bird’s wings;
And the bee’s drone;
These be her comfortings
Round her headstone.

What shall watch o’er her here
When day is fled?
Here when the night is near
And skies are red;
Here where she lieth dear
And young and dead.

Shadows, and winds that spill
Dew; and the rune
Of the wild whippoorwill;
And the white moon;
These be the watchers still
Round her headstone.

REST

Under the brindled beech,
Deep in the mottled shade,
Where the rocks hang in reach
Flower and ferny blade,
Let him be laid.

Here will the brooks that rove
Under the mossy trees,--
Grave with the music of
Underworld melodies,--
Lap him in peace.

Here will the winds, that blow
Out of the haunted west,--
Gold with the dreams that glow
There on the heaven’s breast,--
Lull him to rest.

Here will the stars and moon,
Silent and far and deep,--
Old with the mystic rune
Of the slow years that creep,--
Charm him with sleep.

Under the ancient beech,
Deep in the quiet shade,--
Where the wood’s peace may reach
Him, as each bough is swayed,--
Let him be laid.

CLAIRVOYANCE

The sunlight, that makes of the heaven
A pathway for sylphids to throng;
The wind, that makes harps of the forests
For spirits to smite into song,
Are the image and voice of a vision
That comforts the heart and makes strong.

I look in one’s face, and the shadows
Are lifted; and, lo, I can see,
Through windows of evident being,--
Filled full of eternity,--
The form of the essence of Beauty
God garments with mystery.

I hearken one’s voice, and the wrangle
Of living hath pause: and I hear,
Through doors of invisible spirit,--
Filled full of God’s light that is clear,--
The radiant raiment of Music,
In the hush of the heavens, sweep near.

THE IDEAL

Nor time nor all his minions
Of sorrow and of pain,
Shall dash with vulture pinions
The cup she fills again
Within the dream-dominions
Of life where she doth reign.

Clothed on with bright desire
And hope that makes her strong,
With limbs of frost and fire,
She sits above all wrong,
Her heart a living lyre,
And love its only song.

And in the waking pauses
Of weariness and care,
And when the dark hour draws his
Black dagger of despair,
Above effects and causes
I hear her music there.

The longing’s life hath near it
Of beauty we would see;
The dreams it doth inherit
Of immortality;
Are callings of her spirit
To something yet to be.

TO ONE READING THE MORTE D’ARTHURE

O daughter of our Southern sun,
Sweet sister of each flower,
Dost dream in terraced Avalon
A shadow-haunted hour?
Or stand with Guinevere upon
Some ivied Camelot tower?

Or, in the wind, dost breathe the musk
That blows Tintagel’s sea on?
Or ’mid the lists by castled Usk
Hear some wild tourney’s glee on?
Or ’neath the Merlin moons of dusk
Dost muse in old Caerleon?

Or now of Launcelot, and then
Of Arthur, ’mid the roses,
Dost speak with wily Vivien?
Or, where the shade reposes,
Dost walk with stately, armored men
In marble-fountained closes?

So speak the dreams within thy gaze,
The dreams thy spirit cages,
Would that Romance--which on thee lays
The spell of bygone ages--
Held me! a memory of those days,
A portion of those pages.

THE CROSS

The cross I bear no man shall know--
No man shall see the cross I bear!--
Alas! the thorny path of woe
Up the steep hill of care!

There is no word to comfort me;
No sign to ease my cross-bowed head:
Deep night is in the heart of me,
And in my soul is dread.

To strive, it seems, that I was born,
For that which others shall obtain;
The disappointment and the scorn
Alone for me remain.

One half my life is overpast;
The other half I contemplate--
Meseems the past doth but forecast
A darker future state.

Sick to the heart of that which makes
Me hope and struggle and desire,
The aspiration here that aches
With ineffectual fire:

While inwardly I know the lack
Of thought, the paucity of power,
Each past day’s retrospect makes black
Each onward-coming hour.

Now in my youth would I could die!
Would God that I could lay me down
And pass away without a sigh,
Oblivious of renown!

NIGHTFALL

O day, so sicklied o’er with night!
O dreadful fruit of fallen dusk!--
A Circe orange, golden-bright,
With horror ’neath its husk.--

And I, who gave the promise heed
That made life’s tempting surface fair,
Have I not eaten to the seed
Its ashes of despair!

O silence of the drifted grass!
And immemorial eloquence
Of stars and winds and waves that pass!
And God’s indifference!

Leave me alone with sleep that knows
Not anything that life may keep--
Not e’en the pulse that comes and goes
In germs that climb and creep.

Or if an aspiration pale
Must quicken there--oh, let the spot
Grow weeds! that dust may so prevail
Where spirit once could not!

PAUSE

Thou too art sick of dreams, that stain
The aisle, along which life must pass,
With hues of mystic-colored glass,
That fills the windows of the brain.

Thou too art sick of thoughts, that carve
The house of days with arabesques
And gargoyles, where the mind grotesques
In masks of hope and faith who starve.

Come, lay thy over-weary head
Upon my bosom! Do not weep!--
“He giveth His beloved sleep."--
Heart of my heart, be comforted.

ABOVE THE VALES

We went by ways of bygone days,
Up mountain heights of story,
Where, lost in vague, historic haze,
Tradition, crowned with battle-bays,
Sat ’mid her ruins hoary.

Where, wing to wing, the eagles cling
And torrents have their sources,
War rose with bugle voice to sing
Of woods of spears and swords a-swing,
And rush of men and horses.

Then deep below, where orchards show
A home here, there a steeple,
We heard a simple shepherd go,
Singing,--within the afterglow,--
A love-song of the people.

As ’mid the trees his song did cease,
With voice most sweet and holy,
Peace,--’mid the cornlands of increase
And rose-beds of love’s victories,--
Took up his music lowly.

INSOMNIA

It seems that dawn will never climb
The eastern hills;
And, clad in mist and flame and rime,
Make flashing highways of the rills.

The night is as an ancient way
Through some dead land,
Whereon the ghosts of Memory
And Sorrow wander, hand in hand.

By which man’s works ignoble seem,
Unbeautiful;
And grandeur, but the ruined dream
Of some dead queen, crowned with a skull.

A way, Past-peopled, dark and old,
That stretches far--
Its only real thing, the cold
Vague light of Sleep’s one fitful star.

ENCOURAGEMENT

To help our tired hope to toil,
Lo! have we not the council here
Of trees, that to my heart appear
As sermons of the soil?

To help our flagging faith to rise,
Lo! have we not the high advice
Of stars, that for my soul suffice
As gospels of the skies?

Sustain us, Lord! and help us climb,
With hope and faith made strong and great,
The rock-rough pathway of our fate,
The care-dark way of time.

WHICH?

The wind was on the forest,
And silence on the wold;
And darkness on the waters,
And heaven was starry cold;
When Sleep, with all her magic,
Made me this thing behold:

This side, an iron woodland;
That side, an iron waste;
Between which rose a tower,
Wherein a wan light paced,
A light, or phantom woman
Ice-eyed and icy-faced.

And through the iron tower
Of silence and of night,
My Soul and I went only,
My Soul, whose face was white,
Whose one hand signed me listen,
One bore a taper-light.

For, lo! a voice behind me
Kept sighing in my ear
The dreams my mind accepted,
My heart refused to hear--
Of one I loved and loved not,
Whose spirit now was near,

And, lo! a voice before me
Kept calling constantly
The hopes my heart accepted,
My mind refused to see--
Of one I loved and loved not,
Whose spirit spake to me.

This way the one would bid me;
This way the other saith:--
Sweet is the voice behind me
Of Life that followeth;
And sweet the voice before me
Of Life whose name is Death.

STORM

I looked into the night and saw
God writing with tumultuous flame
Upon the thunder’s front of awe,--
As on sonorous brass,--the Law,
Terrific, of His judgment name.

Weary of all life’s best and worst,
With hands of hate, I--who had pled,
I, who had prayed for death at first
And had not died--now stood and cursed
God, yet He would not strike me dead.

TIME AND DEATH AND LOVE

Last night I watched for Death--
So sick of life was I!--
When, in the street beneath,
I heard his watchman cry
The hour, while passing by.

I called. And in the night
I heard him stop below,
His owlish lanthorn’s light
Blurring the windy snow--
How long the time and slow!

I said, “Why dost thou cower
There at my door and knock?
Come in! It is the hour!
Cease fumbling at the lock!
Naught’s well! ’Tis no o’clock!”

Black through the door with him
Swept in the Winter’s breath;
His cloak was great and grim--
But he who smiled beneath
Had the face of Love not Death.

A PHANTASY

I know not where I found you
With your wild hair a-blow,
Nor why the world around you
Would never let me know:
Perhaps ’twas Heaven relented;
Perhaps ’twas Hell resented
My hope, and grimly vented
Its hate upon me so.

In Shadowland I met you
Where all life’s shadows meet;
Within my heart I set you,
A woman bitter-sweet:
No hope for me to win you,
Though I with soul and sinew
Strove on and on, when in you
There was no heart or heat.

Still always, aye, and ever,
Although I knew you lied,
I followed on, but never
Would your fair form abide:
With loving arms stretched meward,
As Sirens beckon seaward
To some frail vessel leeward,
Before me you would glide.

But like an evil fairy,
That mocks one with a light,
Now near, you led your airy,
Now far, your fitful flight:
With red-gold tresses blowing,
And eyes of sapphire glowing,
With raiment white and flowing,
You lured me through the night.

To some unearthly revel
Of mimes, a motley crew,
’Twixt Angel-land and Devil-,
You lured me on, I knew,
And lure me still! soft whiling
The way with hopes beguiling,
While dark Despair sits smiling
Behind the eyes of you.

WHEREFORE

I would not see, yet must behold
The lie they preach in church and hall;
And question thus,--Is death then all,
And life an idle tale that’s told?

The myriad wonders art hath wrought
Men deem eternal as God’s love:
No more than shadows these shall prove,
And insubstantial, too, as thought.

And love and labor, who have gone,
Hand in close hand, and civilized
The wilderness, these shall be prized
No more than if they had not done.

Then wherefore strive? Why strain and bend
Beneath a burden so unjust--
Our works are builded of the dust,
And dust our universal end.

TRISTRAM AND ISOLT

Night, and vast caverns of rock and of iron:
Voices like water, and voices like wind:
Horror, and tempests of hail that environ
Shapes and the shadows of two who have sinned.

Wan on the whirlwind, in loathing uplifting
Faces that loved once, forever they go,
Tristram and Isolt, the lovers, go drifting,
The simmer and laughter of Hell below.

NIGHT

Lo! where the champion, Day, down slopes of flame,
In golden armor, quits the evening skies!
And as his glowing steeds, with manes of fire,
Rush from the world, a dust of glimmering gold
From their fierce hoofs o’er heaven’s azure meads
Rolls to one star that blossoms near the moon.
With solemn tread and holy-stoled, star-bound,
Night, like a votaress, a shadowy nun,
Paces the lonely corridors of heaven,
The vasty-arched and ebon halls of sky.
How still! how beautiful! her raven locks
Pale-filleted with stars that dance their sheen
On her deep, vestal eyes, and woo the soul
To wonder, and to dream of far-off things.
How calm o’er this great river, in its flow
Silent and dark, smoothes Earth’s cold sister sphere
Her lunar chasteness, whiter than blown foam!
As o’er a troubled brow a hand of love:
As on a restless heart the balm of sleep,
Caressing softening all care away.

See, where the roses, at the wood’s dark edge,
In many a languid bloom, bow to the moon
And the dim river’s lisp; sleep weighs their eyes
With damask lashes of deep petals fringed,
That the rude, frolic bee,--rough paramour,--
So often kissed beneath the noonday sun.
How cool the breezes touch the tired head!
As if with unseen fingers, soft and slow,
Smoothing away the weariness of day.
And on the breeze, hark! to that melody,
Borne from that thorn-tree, white with fragrant bloom,
The dreaming nocturne of a mocking-bird,--
_Ave Maria_, nun-like, slumbering sung,--
There on its couch of clustered snow and scent.

See, where the violet mound nods many a flower!
Dreamily sad as Sorrow’s own sad eyes,
And lost in thought, and great with dewy grief,
As are her eyes when haltingly she bends
O’er Lethe’s waves, and, stooping down to drink,
Delays to drink, and faltering remains.
The Night with feet of moon-tinged mist and wind
Swept o’er them now, but as she passed she bent,
Meseemed, and kissed each modest bloom and left
A brilliant on its brow, that bashful hung,
Freighted with love: then, groping up her train
Of star-stained crape, that billowed breeze-like by,
I seemed to hear her whisper as she passed:
“Sleep, sleep, my children! Lo, I bring to you
God’s best gift, sleep! the soft, the misty eyed;
The strange, the wonderful! the cure for care!”

And all things slept, the trees, the rocks, the soil,
Sleep’s soft ablution in them washing out
The fever and the frenzy of the day:
But I, I slept not with them, though the world
And all its peoples slept, I could not sleep,
My heart being brimmed with love, with joy and love,
With thoughts and dreams of love’s first happiness;
Until the Night turned from the slumbering world,
From her dim vigil turned,--as, from her child,
A loving mother turns, who, all night long,
Hath bent above its cradle, and with songs
And kisses soothed to rest:--and in the east
The first faint streaks of dawn made gray the heaven,
And the rathe cock, like some clear clarion, crew.

DAWN

I

Mist on the mountain height
Silverly creeping:
Incarnate beads of light
Bloom-cradled sleeping,
Dripped from the brow of Night.

II

Shadows and winds that rise
Over the mountain:
Stars in the spar that lies
Lost in the fountain,
Cold as the waking skies.

III

Sheep in the fenced-in folds
Dreamily bleating,
Dim on the thistled wolds,
Where, glad with meeting,
Twilight the Night enfolds.

IV

Sleep on the restless sea
Hushing its trouble:
Rest on the dreams that be
Hued in Life’s bubble:
Calm on the heart of me.

V

Mist from the mountain height
Hurriedly fleeting:
Star in the locks of Night
Throbbing and beating,
Thrilled with the coming light.