Chapter VIII

Reveling flew
From beakers of gold the wassail old;
And she reached me a goblet brimmed bright with dew--
But her wily witcheries well I knew,
And the philtre over my shoulder threw
On St. John's Eve.

LALAGE.

What were sweet life without her
Who maketh all things sweet
With smiles that dream about her,
With dreams that come and fleet!
Soft moods that end in languor;
Soft words that end in sighs;
Curved frownings as of anger;
Cold silence of her eyes.

Sweet eyes born but for slaying,
Deep violet-dark and lost
In dreams of whilom Maying
In climes unstung of frost.
Wild eyes shot through with fire
God's light in godless years,
Brimmed wine-dark with desire,
A birth for dreams and tears.

Dear tears as sweet as laughter,
Low laughter sweet as love
Unwound in ripples after
Sad tears we knew not of.
What if the day be lawless,
What if the heart be dead,
Such tears would make it flawless,
Such laughter make it red.

Lips that were curled for kisses,
For loves and hates and scorns,
Brows under gold of tresses,
Brows beauteous as the Morn's.
Imperial locks and tangled
Down to the graceful hips;
Hair where one might be strangled
Carousing on thy lips.

Rose-lovely lips that hover
About the honeyed words,
That slip wild bees from clover
Whose sweets their sweet affords.
Though days be robbed of sunlight,
White teeth make light thereof;
Though nights unknown of onelight,
Thine eyes were stars enough.

Ah, lily-lovely features,
Round temples, throat, and chin,
Sweet gods of godless natures,
Sweet love of loveless men!
Still moods and slumberous fanned on
To dreams that rock to sleep,
Unmerciful abandon,
That haunts or makes one weep.

She walks as if with sorrows
And all unknown of joy;
Eyes fixed on dim to-morrows
That all sad feet decoy.
Yet she, a peer of pleasures,
Tears from Time's taloned hand
The hour-glass he treasures,
And wastes its sullen sand.

Makes of all hours a beaker
Brimmed full of lordly wine,
Cold gold of Life's mad liquor,
And quaffs to me and mine.
The love on lips grows fairer,
Keen lights in eyes make wars,
And throat and breast grow rarer
Than the white-throated stars.

Fleet smiles come fleet and faster
And web the willing soul;
Warm breasts of alabaster
Have snared it as a whole.
What then were hell or heaven,
The fear of heaven or hell!
Lost in the life thus given
We well might bid farewell.

To leap against thy bosoms!
Live at thy ardent throat!
Kiss clinging to its blossoms,
Die kissing and not know't!
Wound in tumultuous tresses
Pulse like a naked hair,
Held in long hands for kisses,
And killed and never care.

Clasped limb and marble member,
Long raven hair with gold,
To dream, forget, remember,
Grow slowly still and cold.
Feel earth and hell forever
Remote from thee and me,
Nor strong enough to sever
Through all eternity.

Feel godlike power for evil
High throned within the heart,
Should God and hell's arch devil
Cast dice our souls to part:
Part eyes hot as a jewel,
Part covering deeps of curl,
Sweet lips as sweet as cruel,
And limbs of living pearl.

What if in the hereafter
Our love must weep farewell
'Mid the hoarse, strident laughter
Of devils deep in hell;
We'll know that all infernal,
All cactus-growth of time,
Slays not that hour eternal
That sinned with love to crime.

Love, we could live all tearless,
Remember and have breath,
Of hell and heaven fearless
In love more strong than death.
When hope shall be forgotten
And death be one with both,
Flesh, soul, and spirit rotten
And wrapped with clay in sloth.

Take comfort, love, remember
Love chastened with his rod,
And member torn from member
Would leave him still a god.
Though soul from soul be riven,
God knows we shall regret!
In hell or highest heaven
We never can forget!

MIRIAM.

White clouds and buds and birds and bees,
Low wind-notes piped from southern seas,
Brought thee a rose-white offering,
A flower-like baby with the Spring.

She, as her April, gave to thee
A soul of winsome vagary;
Large, heavenly eyes, and tender, whence
Shone the sweet mind's soft influence;
Where all the winning woman, that
Welled up in tears, high sparkling sat.

She, with the dower of her May,
Gave thee a nature that could sway
Wild men with kindness, and a pride
Which all their littleness denied.

Limbs wrought of lilies and a face
Bright as a rose flower's, and a grace,
God-taught, that clings like happiness
In each chaste billow of thy dress.

She, as her heavy June, brought down
Night deeps of hair thy brow to crown;
A voice so mild and musical
It is as water-notes that fall
O'er bars of pearl, and in thy heart
Stamped like a jewel, that should start
From thy pure face in smiles, and break
Like radiance when it laughed or spake,
Affection that is born of truth
And goodness which make very youth.

THE WIND.

The ways of the wind are eerie
And I love them all,
The blithe, the mad, and the dreary,
Spring, Winter, and Fall.

When it tells to the waiting crocus
Its beak to show,
And hangs on the wayside locust
Bloom-bunches of snow.

When it comes like a balmy blessing
From the musky wood,
The half-grown roses caressing
Till their cheeks show blood.

When it roars in the Autumn season,
And whines with rain
Or sleet like a mind without reason,
Or a soul in pain.

When the wood-ways once so spicy
With bud and bloom
Are desolate, sear, and icy
As the icy tomb.

When the wild owl crouched and frowsy
In the rotten tree
Wails dolorous, cold, and drowsy,
His shuddering melody.

Then I love to sit in December
Where the big hearth sings,
And dreaming forget and remember
A host of things.

And the wind--I hear how it strangles
And gasps and sighs
On the roof's sharp, shivering angles
That front the skies.

How it groans and romps and tumbles
In attics o'erhead,
In the great-throated chimney rumbles,
Then all at once falls dead;

Till it comes like footsteps slipping
Of a child on the stair,
Or a quaint old gentleman tripping
With heavily powdered hair.

And my soul grows anxious hearted
For those once dear--
The long-lost loves departed
In the wind draw near.

And I seem to see their faces,
Not one estranged,
In their old accustomed places
'Round the wide hearth ranged.

And the wind that waits and poises
Where the shadows sway
Makes their visionary voices
Seem calling me far away.

And I wake in tears to listen
Again to the sobbing wind,
Far out on the lands that glisten,
Like the voice of one who sinned.

MUSIC.

[A NOCTURNE.]

The soul of love is harmony; as such
All melodies, that with wide pinions beat
Elastic bars, which mew it in the flesh,
Till 'twould away to kiss their throats and cling,
Are kindred to the soul, and while they sway,
Lords of its action molding all at will.

Ah! neither was I I, nor knew the clay,
For all my soul lay on full waves of song
Reverberating 'twixt the earth and moon.

O soft complaints, that haunted all the heart
With dreams of love long cherished, love dreams found
On sunset mountains gorgeous toward the West:
Kisses--soft kisses bartered 'mid pale buds
Of bursting Springs; and vows of fondest faith
Kept evermore; and eyes whose witchery
Might lure old saints down to the lowest hell
For one swift glance,--sweet, melancholy eyes
Yet full of hope and dimming o'er with tears,
Stooping and gloating in a silver mist
At Care's thin brow, and growing at his eyes.
Voices of expectation rolling on
To diapason of a mighty choir,
'Mid ever-swooning throbbings beating low,
Wove in hoarse fabric thunders--and O soul!
Wafted to caverns lost by hideous seas,
One with the tumult 'neath o'ercircling tiers
White with strange diamond spars and feathery gems.
O holy music, wailing down long aisles
To lose thyself 'neath arched welkins dashed
With moons of crystal;--dying, dying down
To passionate sobs, and then a silence vast,
Vast as thy caves, or as the human soul,
Oppressing all this being bulked in flesh
Until it strained to burst its bounds and soar.

Harp-tones! that shaped before the poised mind
The home of Sleep far on a moonlit isle.

White Sleep, who from heaped myriad poppies weighed
With baby slumbers, and from violet beds,
Culled whiter dreams to fold against her heart
In dewy clusters sparkling wet with tears;
And on her shadowy pinions soaring high
Winged 'neath the vault into oblivion,
With all the echoes panting at pale feet
To kiss the dreams, and o'er deep, wine-dark waves,
Far, far away, lost--and a sound of stars
Streaming from burning sockets into night
About my soul, about my soul like fire.

Oh, then what agony and bitter woe,
Regret and noise of desolation vast
As when all that one loves is torn away
Forever with "farewell forevermore!"
Oh, strife and panic and the rush of winds,
Moist ashen brows with raven tresses torn
That plunged against the bursting bolts of God,
That ploughed the tempest curst with deepest night;
Ruin and heartache, moans and demon eyes,
Fierce, bestial eyes that cursed at very God;
Then blinding tears that wept for such and prayed,
Tears blistering all the soul in haunting eyes,
Eyes such as Death would fear to ponder on!
Then dolorous bell-beats, battle as for light,
Folds of oblivion, gaspings, silence, death.

TO ----.

_"Lydia, dic, per omnes
Te deos oro!"_