Chapter III

There was a poet of the East named Hafiz,
Who sang of wine and beauty. Let us go
Praising them too. And where good wine to quaff is
And maids to kiss, doff life's gray garb of woe;
For soon that tavern's reached, that inn, you know,
Where wine and love are not, where, sans disguise,
Each one must lie in his strait bed apart,
The thorn of sleep deep-driven in his heart,
And dust and darkness in his mouth and eyes.

FAILURE.

There are some souls
Whose lot it is to set their hearts on goals
That adverse Fate controls.

While others win
With little labor through life's dust and din,
And lord-like enter in

Immortal gates;
And, of Success the high-born intimates,
Inherit Fame's estates....

Why is 't the lot
Of merit oft to struggle and yet not
Attain? to toil--for what?

Simply to know
The disappointment, the despair and woe
Of effort here below?

Ambitious still to reach
Those lofty peaks, which men aspiring preach,
For which their souls beseech:

Those heights that swell
Remote, removed, and unattainable,
Pinnacle on pinnacle:

Still yearning to attain
Their far repose, above life's stress and strain,
But all in vain, in vain!...

Why hath God put
Great longings in some souls and straightway shut
All doors of their clay hut?

The clay accurst
That holds achievement back; from which, immersed,
The spirit may not burst.

Were it, at least,
Not better to have sat at Circe's feast,
If afterwards a beast?

Than aye to bleed,
To strain and strive, to toil in thought and deed,
And nevermore succeed?

THE CUP OF JOY.

Let us mix a cup of Joy
That the wretched may employ,
Whom the Fates have made their toy.

Who have given brain and heart
To the thankless world of Art,
And from Fame have won no part.

Who have labored long at thought;
Starved and toiled and all for naught;
Sought and found not what they sought....

Let our goblet be the skull
Of a fool; made beautiful
With a gold nor base nor dull:

Gold of madcap fancies, once
It contained, that,--sage or dunce,--
Each can read whoever runs.

First we pour the liquid light
Of our dreams in; then the bright
Beauty that makes day of night.

Let this be the must wherefrom,
In due time, the mettlesome
Care-destroying drink shall come.

Folly next: with which mix in
Laughter of a child of sin,
And the red of mouth and chin.

These shall give the tang thereto,
Effervescence and rich hue
Which to all good wine are due.

Then into our cup we press
One wild kiss of wantonness,
And a glance that says not less.

Sparkles both that give a fine
Lustre to the drink divine,
Necessary to good wine.

Lastly in the goblet goes
Sweet a love-song, then a rose
Warmed upon _her_ breast's repose.

These bouquet our drink.--Now measure
With your arm the waist you treasure--
Lift the cup and, "Here's to Pleasure!"

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.

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.

APPORTIONMENT.

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

VICTORY.

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

PREPARATION.

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

DISILLUSION.

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

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 would not strive and she would come to us.

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.

ECHO.

Dweller in hollow places, hills and rocks,
Daughter of Silence and old Solitude,
Tip-toe she stands within her cave or wood,
Her only life the noises that she mocks.

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.

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.

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.

HER EYES AND MOUTH.

There is no Paradise like that which lies
Deep in the heavens of her azure eyes:
There is no Eden here on Earth that glows
Like that which smiles rich in her mouth's red rose.

HER SOUL.

To me not only does her soul suggest
Palms and the peace of tropic shore and wood,
But, oceaned far beyond the golden West,
The Fortunate Islands of true Womanhood.

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.

AT THE SIGN OF THE SKULL.

_It's "Gallop and go!" and "Slow, now, slow!"
With every man in this life below--
But the things of this world are a fleeting show._

The postchaise Time that all must take
Is old with clay and dust;
Two horses strain its rusty brake
Named Pleasure and Disgust.

Our baggage totters on its roof,
Of Vanity and Care,
As Hope, the postboy, spurs each hoof,
Or heavy-eyed Despair.

And now a comrade with us rides,
Love, haply, or Remorse;
And that dim traveler besides,
Gaunt Memory on a horse.

And be we king or be we kern
Who ride the roads of Sin,
No matter how the roads may turn
They lead us to that Inn.

Unto that Inn within that land
Of silence and of gloom,
Whose ghastly landlord takes our hand
And leads us to our room.

_It's "Gallop and go!" and "Slow, now, slow!"
With every man in this life below--
But the things of this world are a fleeting show._

A CAVALIER'S TOAST.

I.

Some drink to Friendship, some to Love,--
Through whom the world is fair, perdie!--
But I to one these others prove,
Who leaps 'mid lions for a glove,
Or dies to set another free--
I drink to Loyalty.