My heart’s a yellow butterfly
That flutters down the road;
A beggar, tricksy, dancing thing
That scorns a fixed abode.
The aigrette of the thistle bloom
Becomes the swinging sign
Of merry hostelries, where I
May pause awhile and dine.
SERAPHIS
He tasted dragon’s blood
From the dark dragon tree,
In those far islands where the mood
Is faery-like and free.
With cinnamon and nard
His strange gay clothes were sweet,
His lips were fanciful with fard,
Red flames played ’round his feet.
Sharp dancing pointed flames,
Detached as butterflies,
He called them all by secret names,
They were his ecstasies.
VENGEMENT
What was his offense to you,
You who sit thro’ dreamless days,
Sifting thro’ your fingers slim
Ashes in a porphyry vase?
Hatred makes your eyes grow hard,
As you conjure forth his name
From the dust that was his face,
From the heart that was his flame.
Then she, lifting heavy eyes,
Spoke: “When this man walked the world
Him I loved, he loved not me;
So his days to death I hurled.
AUTUMN LOVE
I
Once I could love this season of the year,
And watch the calm and delicate decline
Of Summer gladly; I could see the pine
Deep green on bluest sky, and laugh for cheer
Of very living. Yet I’d fain appear
Th’ unhurried gourmet, tasting of my wine,
Lingering o’er memories of the purpled vine,
Loath for each passing moment. Ah, my dear,
Now like a careless child, I toss the hours
Over my shoulder, I forget the sun,
The dewy dawn, the white moon and the flowers.
Like a tired pilgrim with his goal in view,
Looking not right nor left, I run, I run
To that bright day of days that brings me you.
II
I feel as murderers feel, who, having slain
Their love, laugh with red hands and do not care.
I took sweet Summer by her lovely hair,
Bent her white throat, and gladly saw the stain
Crimson her green leaf-gown of hill and plain.
I would not wait for her last kiss, nor spare
One splendid flying hour, for chill and fair
Autumn, my love, comes near me thro’ the rain.
THE WITCH
Whence came the fire in her eyes, eyes of a beast in the jungle,
Desperate, golden and green, wild as a river in spate?
Her long lithe limbs were brown, and she took the world as a leopard,
Grave, disdainful and strong, takes of his prey without hate.
THE MAN
The flame is spent, I can no more
Hold the tall candle by your door.
Too often have I watched to see
Your lagging steps come home to me.
The Tyrian traders taught me this.
They came, perfumed with ambergris,
With amethystine robes, and hair
Curled by the kisses of salt air.
They mocked me for my weary hands,
Holding your light as love demands,
They sang the lure of poppied sleep,
Their lips were warm, their eyes were deep.
DOWN IN MALDONADO TOWN
There’s a town called Maldonado,
That’s the place where I would be;
There’s a girl in Maldonado,
And she gave her heart to me.
Starved with sixty days of sailing,
How we swaggered to the shore,
Hands in pockets, eyes cocked sideways,
At the girl in every door.
Sweet they fluttered to our shoulders,
She, my girl, the fairest girl,
And I took her for a plaything,
Face of flower and heart of pearl.
Round my neck she clung and pleaded,
But I told her to be wise;
Said no sailor could be faithful,
And his love was ever lies.
Then she turned and left me silent,
Stepping weary, stepping slow;
Merry was I to have won her,
And I laughed to see her go.
Now ’tis done—I have lost her,
Seas between us thunder wide,
“Dear,” I said, “I shall forget you,”
And God knows that I have lied!
Many girls have smiled upon me,
Up and down the Northern coast,
But their kisses only taunt me
With the kiss that I have lost.
THE CHOICE
The long well rose above me, a slim shaft,
With wet, black walls, and high aloft the light
Round as a moon intensified my night.
I ate the air and bitterly I quaffed
The death damp; nor my pleading nor my craft
Availed to aid me in my desperate plight:
The vista of high heaven the only sight
To see, and at my woe high heaven had laughed.
THE BROOK
I have a little brook in the deeps of my heart.
What does it matter if the day be chill or clear,
Coloured like a tourmaline and wingèd like a dart,
Voiced like a nightingale, it sings all the year.
AT THE END OF THE WORLD
To the world’s end, to the world’s end,
Did I wander seeking you,
And wide was the water and dark was the fell,
With Time at my heels like a hound of hell,
And the worst still left to do.
To the world’s end, to the world’s end,
And the void to verify.
They told me of a tale of love supreme.
“Sometimes,” I cried, “I have caught the gleam,
I shall seek it tho’ I die.”
THE GYPSY
O, she was most precious, as the wind’s self was fair.
What did I give her when I had her on my knee?
Red kisses for her coral lips, and a red comb for her hair.
She took my gifts, she took my heart, and fled away from me.
BOY O’ DREAMS
Must I leave you in the mountains,
Boy o’ dreams,
Must I leave you where the fountains
Toss the silver of their streams,
Where the trees are clothed in samite,
And the little broken moon
Is a symbol and an answer,
Like the reading of a rune?
BALLAD OF THE SLAVE
The helot got him a hempen cord,
A slave of love was he,
“She made me dance to her circumstance—
In the air one dances free!”
She sits on a throne of ivory
Serene in her silver gown,
“Ah, woe,” he cried, “but the world is wide,
But ’tis straight where I lie down.
“She mocked, she scorned, and she hated me,
She shall pity me not,” he said;
“Too late for the nether way of hate,
I may flout her when I’m dead.”
Out in the dark of the moonless sky,
The rope was round his neck,
“’Tis the torque of gold from her throat so cold,
Why should I rue or reck?”
Tighter tangled the hempen cord;
“’Tis her fingers hot with fire,
In a tempest of fear she draws me near,—
Now dying is not so dire!”
Black, more black grew the empty void,
“And I but a broken reed,
For there’s only her face in this grisly place”—
But his love stood there indeed!
FOAM
I have dallied with wantons, made mad by their passionate wine,
Time, like a golden ball, I have tossed to the wastes of the air.
I have whispered with Beauty, whose song has been sister to mine,
Laughed with the long late hours who lie with the stars in their hair.
THE SEAL
RELEASE
I asked to be released, I did not know
’Twas hate, not love, that would not let me go.
Vengeance had burned your image on my mind,
I gazed and gazed until my eyes were blind.
Now—neither pride nor love has set me free,
But happy chance—in wonderful degree.
SIN, THE SWORD
Sin was a terrible and ruddy sword,
My hands were only lilies, only made
To lay against his lips, and so I prayed
Another weapon. Willingly I poured
On his strong heart the gifts that could accord
With my life’s fact, but Ah! the gifts were weighed
And all found wanting—and I was afraid
Of love which was so dreadfully my lord.
He showed me the magnificence, the height
To be attained for those who dare to seek,
For those who dare the wonder and delight.
I might attain—I might—but if I should!—
I was afraid, my fainting heart was weak,
And so, Love help me, I was only—good!
FANTASTIC SPRING
Wear a lure fantastical,
Farthingales of Spring,
Till the out-worn city hearts
Dance for you and sing.
Lime us with grotesque desires,
Warm with green and gold;
Apathetic we have grown,
Tired and hard and old.
SONG
We only ask for sunshine,
We did not want the rain;
But see the flowers that spring from showers
All up and down the plain.
CONTRAST
Steady stand the ilex trees,
All the leaves are still,
Motionless the opal haze
Drowses on the hill.
There a marble statue waits
Patient of the hours,
Ringed about with silent sun
Over dreamy flowers.
THE PRICE
We are so tired of merely being human,
Loving or loved, the sweet imperfect woman.
Masters, you know not what your lips have missed,
On the rose mouths you keep but to be kissed.
We are Astarte, we are Lilith, we
Know the blue veils which you have named the sea
Cover the eyes of Isis; that the sky
Is the white body of Neith, arched so on high.
THE KING’S DAUGHTER
She was the fairest of the King’s fair daughters,
Gold and rubies glittered on her hands;
Her voice was the lilting of a rain of silver waters,
And her lovers were as endless as her lands.
Down thro’ the birch wood with her maidens all about her,
So virginal she came with dainty tread,
At my eyes she was silent,—could a gypsy turn and flout her:
Love I looked and love I spoke, till white grew red.
LAIS
You are white as the moths of Twilight,
You are secret as mist and dew,
And your down-dropped eyes
Are eternally wise,
Strange sins have wrought their hue.
Mother of men and women,
They are ghosts, not men you have bred;
In infinite scorn
Their bodies were born
While their souls were worse than dead.
THE HERITAGE
How shall the present verify the past?
Like flames we strove, still onward, upward rising,
Spurning the singing continents—at last,
Wrecked on this fatal day of our devising.
Nurtured by lunar rainbows, chill and sweet,
Our fancy was a gossamer of beauty;
Now like a web it drags about our feet,
Named with the symbols drear of fact and duty.
We who were heirs to Egypt, India’s child,
Suckled by Greece, and cradled by Cathay,
How tacitly we waive this breeding wild,
Deny our parents in our deeds to-day.
THE MONK IN HIS GARDEN
The air is heavy with a mist of spice,
Vervain and agrimony, clove and rue,
Have I not paid, have I not paid the price?
How shall these tempters torture me anew?
I close my eyes and dream the incense drifts
Over the monstrance, and the acolyte
Swings the gold censer. Then the vision lifts:
I know the poisonous joys I have to fight.
Day with its flowers and yellow butterflies,
Holds for my heart no pain, the wind is free
That blows upon my garden from far skies,
Yet may I hold it in white chastity.
BIANCA
The orchard apples hung above,
Golden and red and green.
Her face beneath was ripe for love,
Cat-eyed with sparks between.
Simples she came to gather there
With hands of ivory;
Gold fillets bound her golden hair;
Her gown was cramosie.
She plucked the herbs with subtle grace,
Derisive in her deed.
Was there no Prince to read her face,
No Prince with Beauty’s need?
Her hands with cassia buds were sweet:
“Come, love,” her young heart cried,
The Prince with delicate swift feet,
Was even at her side!
FREE
Beyond the hill the hearth fires burn,
A hundred flags in air,
But one which tossed but yesterday
Is dead, one hearth is bare.
The wife whose fingers fed the fire
Grew weary of the play,
A lad laughed thro’ the open door
And stole my dear away.
BLACK AND GOLD
Round her knees her lovers yearned,
She who sat in black and gold,
What recked she who begged or burned,
Sister to the gods of old.
Darkness was her pedigree,
Light her ever living flame,
Lovers die for such as she,
Paying for her smiles with shame.
Round her head the music floats,
Black by night and gold by day;
These are Time’s inchoate notes,
Calling, “Sister, come away.”
THE ANSWER
The themes of women! Mounting up the sky,
Beating the air with tremulous weak wings,
How shall so small a matter win so high,
The vain sweet goal of their imaginings?
Striving for Beauty, dark philosophy,
Or the obscure and purple deeps of truth,
How shall they know their one great verity,
The answer to their queries and their youth?
PEACE
Night thundered down the valley
From off the rocky steeps,
Like wind it broke the silences
That light divinely keeps.
As low dark clouds concealing
The things one dare not see,
So grimly dark and ominous
Hung low each shadowy tree.
BARNABAS
They all are dead but Barnabas; he’ll wait,
With his old groping hands and haggard eyes,
Which nothing in the world can now surprise,
Till the last leaf whirls thro’ the clanging gate
Of the last sunrise. Did he learn too late?
Maybe, that one may hear the moans and cries
That ring by night, and yet be calm and wise.
And teach the women how a man can hate!
LOST DREAMS
Coming thro’ the porch of dreams
To the portal of the day,
Vacant all the ether seems
With a grief that leaves her grey.
In a threnody of sighs,
With the cloud wreaths ’round her face,
Morning veils her heavy eyes,
Weeping for her vanished grace.
LADY OF LIGHT
Light of the World, what are violets but eyes of you,
Perfume, your hair blowing back on the breeze,
Ah, but the fugitive dainty surprise of you,
Pricking in green on the blossomy trees.
SONG
You are the dawning of dreams.
You are the end of desire.
You are the gladness and glory that seems
Dauntless, to urge and aspire.
THE GYPSY BLOOD
Because the lover cares for daffodils
Must we be stranger to the passion flower,
Or slight the iris, dewy from a shower?
The gypsy heather bloom upon the hill
Strikes fiercely on a gypsy heart, and thrills
New argosies of dreams to sail the hours.
No rosy perfume blown from garden bowers
May bear the subtle perfume this distills.
AND YET
Inadequate and void, the days
Are not more tired than tears;
And yet, how long, how long the ways,
Down the bare lane of years.
The bird that flutters from the nest
Is fused of fire and spring,
And yet how soon the throbbing breast
Will lose the life to sing.
THRO’ THE PLEACHED ALLEYS
Thro’ the pleached alley in my garden of the Spring
Merry leaves tossed over me with elfish whispering.
I was not alone, alone, for Love with blowing hair
Touched my hands and touched my heart, dancing everywhere.
Darting round about my steps, as a swallow slips,
How she laughed and laughed at me, with little rosy lips,
Ghostly wise she kissed my eyes, her mouth was chill as snow,
For she had died, my Love had died, so very long ago.