Divine Adventures: A Book of Verse

TO A MOCKING BIRD

A Rhapsody

Hail! Sweetest rhapsodist
Of virgin song unfettered yet!
Sweet honey-bee of sound,
What flow'ry meads hast found,
Of wilding pain and rapture,
In spirit births, a moment's capture?
A part of all that thou hast met,
Sweet mocking bird!

How far above, how far beyond,
All dream or spirit fancy,
Each fountain burst of purest song!
To what fair region dost belong?
What roseate glory followeth after
Thy natures gladdest laughter,—
Thine infinite necromancy,
Sweet mocking bird?

Within thy song, as in thy night,
What matchless dearth of fact!
Old Art bent low in arabesque,
Transmuting life to things grotesque.
And his golden mist, a still low call,
From model-nature's all-in-all,
Bids thee all rapture reinact,
Sweet mocking bird.

And when is nature more complete,
Than in thy midnight hour?
When every angle meet and mingle,
Within thy misty laden dingle,
And spirit pauseth in the heart,
To rectify its ancient art,
By the shadow on the flower,
Sweet mocking bird.

And when has music kissed a string
Till such a lyric breath intone?
Of all the joy, of all the pain,
Sweet summer holds to earth again.
The far sweet pain of bursting Hours,
Whose sparkling eyes, in tears of flowers,
Yield thee a drink that's all thine own,
Sweet mocking bird.

Ah! Light of dreams! when spirit hears
Such music calls, can life forget?
Each night thou lightest up the gloom
Within my spirits stifled room,
And beckoneth on to hopes afar,
My singer and my star, my star!
The all of all that thou hast met,
Sweet mocking bird!

THE MYSTERY

The gos'mer web that mistifies,
Lies not on any whole or part,
Or stop or start, but in the art,
Men hang upon their eyes.

And haply in an age afar,
Two men may see the self-same mote—
The selfsame beam, with motes afloat,
And learn what souls and systems are.

FAME

Triumphant Day's grand pageantry
At song, and all the garlands won,
Far in the west the queenly Eve,
Blue misty mantled, takes her leave,
Tiaraed with a Sun.

And Lo! Sweet night, a nut-brown maid,
With silent wonder pursing lips,
Or humming soft a bird's low song,
Trips down the hall. Behold the throng
Bow to her finger tips.

GOOD NIGHT MY LOVE

Thy dewy dreams, thine Ariel dreams,
Then turn thee to thy dainty dreams,
Thine airy shell is now alight,
To bear thee down Æolean streams,
Good night, my love, good night, good night.

By misty strands of phantom lands,
By golden shores and phantom lands,
Across the sea of starry light
To drop thee on enchanted strands—
Good night, my love, good night, good night.

Afar from me and there with thee,
Ah! could I journey there with thee,
Across the sea of starry light;
But nay, 'tis thine own journey's sea—
Good night, my love, good night, good night.

But golden Morn must sound her horn,
And when the morning's triton horn
Is heralding thy homing flight,
I'll meet thee on the shores of morn,—
Good night, my love, good night, good night.

MY SOUTH

Of the languorous South with her wine-stained mouth,
And her easy ways, I sing.
Ah! see where she stands, my lady of lands,
With a rose in her hair and a gracious air,
Where her lovers cling.

Will she play me false for the promised waltz,
In that easiest way of hers?
Ah see! she is fair as the rose in her hair,
And the sweet love drips from her honied lips,
When her fancy stirs.

Will she lightly resist for the promised tryst
With a smile of her easy ways?
Ah see! she is smiling with a sweetness beguiling
All sorrow to laughter till it dances thereafter
In a golden maze.

Alas! alack-a-day! she dances away!
Haphazard her favor confers.
Ah! see where she dances, and her sunlit glances
All scattered apart! But I store in my heart
A smile of hers.

TO LLOYD MIFFLIN

A Poet

And thou hast oped the matrix of sweet thought,
And graven on the gem rare imagery.
Or piercing free thine arts reality,
Hast found uncarven gods, as richly wraught;
Such tints of soul, such matchless colors fraught
With all thy beings dearest phantasy;
Such fair illusive forms that luring flee,
Within the crystal web of fancy caught.
Till to thine eyes, a radiant cosmos spreads
In crystaline delight from pole to pole,
Of godly folk at play on flowry meads,
And one fair form of beauties finished whole!
Then through the golden mist one fancy threads:
It is the god of gods, thy pristine soul.

KEATS

Thou golden fragment of the sweetest dream,
That ever smiled beside the gates of morn,
And left enraptured Beauty half forlorn
And half entranced. Still for thy vanished gleam
That spirit-maiden weeps. On her refulgent stream
No more the tinted bark is lightly borne,
But frail as thought by streaming phantoms torn,
She waits forever thy returning beam.
A golden dream of art's divinity
And held bright Beauty's jeweled anadem;
Of music breathing immortality
Till stonéd silence falls a carven gem.
And but a fragment! Ah! couldst thou have sated
A bursting heart, what worlds had been created!

A POET

As one, who gath'ring flowers in a dream,
Hath found a vanished passion all in bloom,
And wild sweet odors lifting in the gloom
Of olden time, but casts it on a stream,
To mar the silver moon's reflectant beam,
And laugh at circles sweeping on to doom,
In dusky marges, shining in her brume,
Hath England found thee. Thus her silly deem!
Ah! Shame that she, whose head is vaunted so,
Hath vision narrowed to a needle's eye.
And only far from home, doth England know
That she has doomed another son to die.
But fair Columbia brings her wreath of woe,
Sweet Rhine, a tear, and lyric France a sigh.

THE CRITICS

And when thy soul had made a simple song
And laughed for very glee to sing and sound it,
Outside the walls, the dim mysterious throng
Wrought keen and barbed darts wherewith to wound it:
There was a fault, a fearful deadly fault,
And loud they screamed a very bull's-eye named it;
As one they saw, as one they would assault—
Each kneeling archer drew his dart and aimed it.
And lo! How fared a myriad archetypes!
A myriad fancies, sounds, and colors riddled!
And harps! and horns! and flutes! and lutes! and pipes!
And O! the laugh as each some vict'ry twiddled!
But still the dainty spirit sang its song
And laughed its laugh unconscious of a wrong.

AVAILABILITY

And shall I join this scramble after fame,
Astonish so the free delightful spirit,
To bind his song, that fettered ears may hear it,
And win an encore, or a sounding name?
Or shall his broad imperial wings go lame,
To make a semblance of existing merit?
Or fly no more less favor disinherit,
And yield his lightness to an ordered game?
Not so! and never for the fickle throng,
One soaring rapture less in fancy free!
But sing thou bonden music's saddest wrong
My spirit-bird, 'til shackles melt for thee—
Still sing, for never yet thy spirit's song,
May bend to crass availability.

A PORTRAIT

She was a breath of forest-wild perfume
So sweet, one could but stand and drink it in,
Until the soul should burst; a dream so thin
And airy fine, it seemed a spirit's bloom,
And left a haunting fragrance in the room
When it had vanished. Garb'd in snowy lynn
So rare one knew not where it did begin—
A scented sunbeam in a human gloom.
And thou hast called her woman, woman only,
When thou hadst music yearning at thy tongue
To call her Heaven. Aching fancy lonely
Still breathes that fragrance in a song unsung,
Or wandering, lost deep in a golden dream,
Hears sweet white Lurley from a vanished stream.

ON THE DEATH OF A YOUNG LADY

Ah! Thou wert fairer than the early morn,
Thy dress all spangled with the dewy flowers—
A lynn soft woven in the wondrous hours
That hedged about thy dreams. But Lo! the horn
Of some far Triton from the sea up-borne
Across the bluey hills, and tinted showers
Faint limning scenes of Elfin grots and bowers,
Bound thee in thrall by misty strands forlorn.
Thou couldst not longer bide the sweet low calling
Of some sad sea-soul for his wand'ring nymph.
Thou couldst not yield to mortal love's enthralling
And Nerius calling in thy spirits coralled lymph.
O! if our hearts have sweeter balm than tears,
It is the call that kissed thy dreaming ears.

TO MY LOVE

I can not say how much I love thee, words,
Like wearied petrels, fall on shoreless seas.
But O! I love thee! Simple words of these
Float on the stormy soul, like halcyon birds,
With speechless calm. A golden zone engirds
The thee and me in worlds of nameless ease,
And promise fairer far than Æetes'.
No clouds there tempest tost, but phantom herds
Of golden fleece feed in the fields of blue,
And sunny harbors lull the freighted ships
Of tender song, the while thine hero woo,
For aye sweet message from thine honeyed lips;
Or catch some music from thy spheres above thee,—
A song of songs to tell how dear I love thee.

THE STORM KING

The storm-king playeth his organ tonight—
O! weep for the mortals that heareth at sea!
The King of the storm! What god in his might,
May still the dread music, or silence the key?

The lightning, the thunder, the rain, and the blast—
How he driveth each note to its ultimate goal!
And the roll of dead worlds in the infinite vast,
How they roll in his soul, in his madness of soul!

The lightning, the thunder, the blast, and the rain—
How he playeth each note for its ultimate soul!
'Til his caverns great center grows blacker again,
With the deep where his musics great nebulas roll!

And grandeur, mad grandeur, the sweep of his song,
The raging and lurid storm grandeur of night,
Till the Souls of the Ages, to him but a throng,
Of beetling black nebula, crash in their flight.

How he laugheth, and laugheth, this maddest of Kings!
How he rageth, and rendeth his organ assunder!
Now soaring, now crashing to nethermost springs—
The maddest of music but never a blunder.

For he smiteth the sea, and he teareth the land,
And never a prayer but he laugheth to scorn!
A King and a God—should he render less grand
For sake of the ghoul haunted beeches of morn?

THE BIRTH OF FANCY

I dreamed, and ah! the dream was sweeter far,
Than any dream of cloud-born poet ever;
Or love-lorn maiden praying to a star
On Agne's Eve. I thought a glorious quiver,
Of ecstasy was trembling, full with tears,
Deep in the eyes of a maternal thought,
And Time, beyond the outposts of the years,
Was hushed expectant, all of wonder fraught.
For Fancy cradled in a golden cloud
Had risen in a dream of boundless glory,—
While on his brow his soul had overflowed,
And swiftly scaled a purple promontory.
Then back again, in speed as dreamy fleet,
And laid a snow-white feather at my feet.

DESPAIR

Alas! so sick at heart! My lips are dumb.
Dull inquisition racks the aching brain.
I work no more, but fight the growing pain
Of losing hours. Night of heart! No moonbeams come
To bring thee twilight. Still, ah! still the hum
Of artless industry—the spirit's chain
That binds for life sake. Still the fight for gain
That binds it to th' arena, pale and numb.
And I that hoped to do so much indeed,
To clear a path in spite of time and room,
To sing a song, ah! now I faint, I bleed,
A conquered victim. See the conqueror loom,
A careless frown and sword his only creed,—
And watching close the turning thumb of doom.

THE MAGAZINES

If Orpheus came to Maga with a song
As sad as tongueless sorrow dying,
So sweet the weeping world should throng
To hear the strain, but come not flying
The Maga pennant, unassailable,
Then faith! the song were not available.

If Orpheus, singing in the lonely hills,
Should charm the world to raptured wonder,
And Maga came in wraps and frills,
And dainty tears, to cry his blunder.
Then faith! the world might wait laconical,
If Maga readjust his monicle.

But if perchance the godly singer,
Should pass, like bitter grief with time.
What Ho! The dandy crooks his finger,
And menials bring each Orphean rhime.
And Maga's bards, and Maga's sages,
Write epitaphs on tombs of pages.

THE SPHINX

Beside the falls of ancient walls,
And golden Halls,
Entomb'd forever,
On lonely sands, with phantom bands,
A figure stands,
Called never, never.

Her eyes are green, as em'rald sheen,
With glories seen,
In distant ages;
As dongon keep, her eyes are deep,
And there asleep,
Enchanted Mages.

A thousand years of hopes and fears,
With dying cheers,
Her cohort only.
A thousand miles of vanished piles,
Of olden whiles
Her Empire lonely.

From night to morn of glory shorn,
She stands forlorn,
Her only glory.
From sun to frost, a night uncrossed,
Forever lost,
An endless story.

A SHELL

Full wondrous wrought, and passing strange,
Of many a sea-born tint—
Some old and deathless work of change,
For fairy wonderment.

But what of that strange elfin sprite,
That in this rainbow hall
Once moved? What woe, or what delight,
Did make its all in all?

How roamed it through the scenery?
Of ocean's old expanse?
Or dreamed, in fragrant greenery,
O'er some sweet sea romance?

Was't haughty King, or was it slave,
In its unknown kingdom there?
Or loved, in elfin grot or cave,
Some sweet shell-maiden fair?

Alas! like some old haunted palace,
The silence, how profound!
Where mem'ry's drunk from death's deep chalice,
And turned the chalice down.

TO THE TRAVELLER

Because thy winged spirit ever craves
Then must thou range wide seas and distant lands—
To see, to know, thy burning thirst demands
No sweeter drink. To kneel in sainted naves
For art sake; marvel by Egyptian graves;
Seek paynim shrines with strange fantastic bands
Or pause to weep where sad Pompeii stands,
So richly jewelled in her granite waves.
Ah! 'Tis to know, till every cup is drained,
And passion wane in pale satiety.
Then but to dare the boundless unattained,—
Thy self a world, thy thirst its history.
Ah! such a world! such wash of human waves
On human shores, where still the thirst enslaves.

SONG TO DEATH

Ah Death! what a weakling art makes thee—
The art of the frighten'd to death;
Gay curtains where glory forsakes thee—
A straw for the clutching last breath.

Where finds in religion a balm
So soothing, so cool and so far?
What solemn great hush and what calm?
Degraded to Portals ajar!

O where is the lyric of rest—?
O where is the song of the soul—?
Unfettered, unmastered, undrest
A nude and a beautiful whole.

O where is thy lyric of room,—
Unclouded immeasurable night?
O where is the song of the doom
Still flawless of hope or afright—?

Ah! cool as the night is the song
The dewy fresh song of my soul,
Sung always far over the throng
To a dewy unblemishing goal;

Some music still wand'ring, unstrung
Ungarnished, unmastered with art,
That haply some feverish young
May garner for treasure of heart.

But never the song that is sung—
The sweet measured tongue laps of art,
That silvers old age for the young,
Or maketh a ball room of heart.

Too great is the prestige O! Death,
Where Day ever bendeth at noon
For false chanting, or clutching for breath
At sight of the guerdon so soon.

Too great is thy prestige O! Death!
To flatter with scorn or with fright.
No promise so vain as that breath,
So great so great is thy night!

THE MAGICAL RING

'Tis an ash circled bower,
Of berries and musk,
And the fairies' first hour,
Neither daylight nor dusk;

And fancy is thridding
In vistas of green,
Where the moth is out bidding
The cock for his sheen;

And the bee with his treasure,
Is at rest on a stone—
The measure of pleasure,
The depth of his own;

The blue-bells are tinkling,
The mocking birds woo,—
In a beautiful sprinkling
Of scintilant dew,

Far down in the grasses,
In a magical ring,
A clinking their glasses,
Sits Puck and the King.

* * * *

"Methinks, saith the King,
If the dome of our palace,
Were as happy a thing,
As the dome in this chalice,

"Of glittering dew,
And half so resplendent,
As fancy is too,
In this liquor impendent;

"Methinks, saith the King,
Then life were as jolly,
In this magical ring,
As its spirit of folly;

"Methinks, saith the King,
Titania were sweeter,
And this magical ring
Were magic completer.

"For the vixen is wild,
With this Squire from the highlands—
Like a sailor beguiled,
To magical islands,

"At sound of a voice,
To plunge in the sea foam,
And, dying, rejoice,
That the island should be foam.

"Methinks, saith the King
This rascal were better,
Far out of the ring,
In handcuff and fetter.

"For he talketh of love,
And faith, hope, and charity,
And a spirit above,
As the spirit of parity.

"And thou, saith the King,
Hath certain the gumption,
To see thus the spring
Of pleasure's consumption.

"Of late thou hast wandered,
To see and be seen,
And much thou hast squandered
My riches, I ween.

"Relate thine indentures,
Important of state,
And all thine adventures,
Of worth to relate."

Saith Puck

"A trace of wine's on the breath of summer,
And the spirit of June is a pure delight,
And the brimmer of light is sparkling and bright
With a cheer for the gladdest comer.

"Aloft in the oak a dove was cooing,
And a little gray bird on sycamore twig,
Was a pause abreath with a feathery sprig,
And flittered away to his wooing.

"I peep'd in a bloom and a bee was in it,
I peered on a leaf and a moth slept there.
Ah! was ever a dream so deliciously rare,
And all for a tip-toed minute!"

Then Oberon winketh,
Reward to his Puck,
And solemnly drinketh,
The nation much luck.

"Good! Then let us be merry,
And call up the court—
Each knight and his deary,
For song and for sport.

"But none that are gloomy,
What ever the cost—
Though the palace be roomy,
Their space is all lost."

Puck boweth full low,
And a blue-bell he tinkleth,
And the courtiers inflow,
As thick as stars twinkleth.

And the King, from his wand,
Hath showered his graces,
On the rich and the grand,
And the favored of places.

Saluteth this grandee,
And passeth that by;
This sport, or that dandy,
To the tail of each eye.

"God een! my brave hearties,
Thou Fat and thou Thin,
How barren our parties
If thou art not in!

"Thou Nut and thou Cherry,
Thou Leaf and Thou Bloom,
Thou Bud and thou Berry,
All welcome to room.

"Thou Red, and thou Yellow,
Thou Purple, thou Green,
And—who is that fellow,
With blood in his een?

"Thou Lobster, come kneel here,
Behold thou the King!
What folly to steal here
To this magical ring!"

Saith Puck, "'tis a ranger
In the light of the queen."
Saith the ranger "And stranger
To thy pleasure, I ween.

"I come from the people,
With the people I dwell.
I favor the steeple,
I favor the bell.

"Ten thousand are weary,
That furnish thee sport,
Their homes are adreary,
To furnish thy court."

(A faint low rumble of thunder cometh from over the hills,) and Oberon saith,

"'Tis an orator, Hollo!
We've something here new!
Whatever may follow,
We'll hear the thing through.

"Continue, thou swine herd,
Right gladly we'll hear,
Of the grunts of thy fine herd,
And the stys that are drear."

The orator boweth,
And unrolleth a scroll.
And such sentences floweth,
To the cheek by jowl:

To the greatest of Kings,
Whom Time in his fleetings
Hath gifted with wings,
From his people, with greetings:

"We are weary of wine and of laughter,
We are weary of women and song!
Come back dear Brother October,
And bear us sober along!"

Then the palace, to dome,
With merriment ringeth,
And, dashing the foam,
The revellers singeth:

(A Song)

Ah! the clink of our glasses
How they clink as we drink!
And memory passes,
Too pleasant to think.

(The Orator)

"Too much there is singing and dancing,
Sweet sorrow is scorned for her weeds.
Come back dear Brother October
And chant us thine anthem of deeds!"

(The Revellers)

Here's one to each other,
Another as deep,
And life is a brother,
Too pleasant to weep.

(The Orator)

(While a dark cloud appeareth on the horizon.)

"Sweet thought is outclassed and outbidden,
Gay summer too high on her wings!
Come back dear Brother October
And chant us thy requiem of Kings!"

(Consternation among revellers. The King starteth up, but Puck singeth:)

(While the lightning flasheth.)

Here's one to our lasses,
How nimbly they dance!
And the bright of our glasses
Is the light of their glance.

(And the revellers.)

Here's one to the vintry,
How brightly he shines!
May never the wintry,
Drink deep of his wines.

(The Orator)

(He rolleth his parchment and speaketh.)

"'Tis young blood counts and moneyless brains!
And the heart and soul of devil-may-care
Is abroad in the land, with a fig for the pains,
To do and to dare! to do and to dare!"

(The Revellers.)

(While the storm rageth.)

Ah! the clink of our glasses,
How they clink as we drink!
And memory passes.
Too pleasant to think.

(And the court adjourneth.)

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:

A page number error in the Table of Contents has been corrected.

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected without note.

Inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation have been retained from the original.

Divine Adventures: A Book of Verse

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