ARGONAUTS
With argosies of dawn he sails,
And triremes of the dusk,
The Seas of Song, whereon the gales
Are myths that trail wild musk.
He hears the hail of Siren bands
From headlands sunset-kissed;
The Lotus-eaters wave pale hands
Within a land of mist.
For many a league he hears the roar
Of the Symplegades;
And through the far foam of its shore
The Isle of Sappho sees.
All day he looks, with hazy lids,
At gods who cleave the deep;
All night he hears the Nereïds
Sing their wild hearts asleep.
When heaven thunders overhead,
And hell upheaves the Vast,
Dim faces of the ocean's dead
Gaze at him from each mast.
He but repeats the oracle
That bade him first set sail;
And cheers his soul with, "All is well!
Go on! I will not fail."
Behold! he sails no earthly bark
And on no earthly sea,
Who down the years into the dark,—
Divine of destiny,—
Holds to his purpose,—ships of Greece,—
Ideal-steered afar,
For whom awaits the Golden Fleece,
The fame that is his star.
"THE MORN THAT BREAKS ITS HEART OF GOLD"
From an ode "In Commemoration of the Founding of the
Massachusetts Bay Colony."
The morn that breaks its heart of gold
Above the purple hills;
The eve, that spills
Its nautilus splendor where the sea is rolled;
The night, that leads the vast procession in
Of stars and dreams,—
The beauty that shall never die or pass:—
The winds, that spin
Of rain the misty mantles of the grass,
And thunder raiment of the mountain-streams;
The sunbeams, penciling with gold the dusk
Green cowls of ancient woods;
The shadows, thridding, veiled with musk,
The moon-pathed solitudes,
Call to my Fancy, saying, "Follow! follow!"
Till, following, I see,—
Fair as a cascade in a rainbowed hollow,—
A dream, a shape, take form,
Clad on with every charm,—
The vision of that Ideality,
Which lured the pioneer in wood and hill,
And beckoned him from earth and sky;
The dream that cannot die,
Their children's children did fulfill,
In stone and iron and wood,
Out of the solitude,
And by a stalwart act
Create a mighty fact—
A Nation, now that stands
Clad on with hope and beauty, strength and song,
Eternal, young and strong,
Planting her heel on wrong,
Her starry banner in triumphant hands….
Within her face the rose
Of Alleghany dawns;
Limbed with Alaskan snows,
Floridian starlight in her eyes,—
Eyes stern as steel yet tender as a fawn's,—
And in her hair
The rapture of her rivers; and the dare,
As perishless as truth,
That o'er the crags of her Sierras flies,
Urging the eagle ardor through her veins,
Behold her where,
Around her radiant youth,
The spirits of the cataracts and plains,
The genii of the floods and forests, meet,
In rainbow mists circling her brow and feet:
The forces vast that sit
In session round her; powers paraclete,
That guard her presence; awful forms and fair,
Making secure her place;
Guiding her surely as the worlds through space
Do laws sidereal; edicts, thunder-lit,
Of skyed eternity, in splendor borne
On planetary wings of night and morn.
* * * * *
From her high place she sees
Her long procession of accomplished acts,
Cloud-winged refulgences
Of thoughts in steel and stone, of marble dreams,
Lift up tremendous battlements,
Sun-blinding, built of facts;
While in her soul she seems,
Listening, to hear, as from innumerable tents,
Æonian thunder, wonder, and applause
Of all the heroic ages that are gone;
Feeling secure
That, as her Past, her Future shall endure,
As did her Cause
When redly broke the dawn
Of fierce rebellion, and, beneath its star,
The firmaments of war
Poured down infernal rain,
And North and South lay bleeding mid their slain.
And now, no less, shall her great Cause prevail,
More so in peace than war,
Through the thrilled wire and electric rail,
Carrying her message far:
Shaping her dream
Within the brain of steam,
That, with a myriad hands,
Labors unceasingly, and knits her lands
In firmer union; joining plain and stream
With steel; and binding shore to shore
With bands of iron;—nerves and arteries,
Along whose adamant forever pour
Her concrete thoughts, her tireless energies.
A VOICE ON THE WIND
I
She walks with the wind on the windy height
When the rocks are loud and the waves are white,
And all night long she calls through the night,
"O my children, come home!"
Her bleak gown, torn as a tattered cloud,
Tosses around her like a shroud,
While over the deep her voice rings loud,—
"O my children, come home, come home!
O my children, come home!"
II
Who is she who wanders alone,
When the wind drives sheer and the rain is blown?
Who walks all night and makes her moan,
"O my children, come home!"
Whose face is raised to the blinding gale;
Whose hair blows black and whose eyes are pale,
While over the world goes by her wail,—
"O my children, come home, come home!
O my children, come home!"
III
She walks with the wind in the windy wood;
The dark rain drips from her hair and hood,
And her cry sobs by, like a ghost pursued,
"O my children, come home!"
Where the trees loom gaunt and the rocks stretch drear,
The owl and the fox crouch back with fear,
As wild through the wood her voice they hear,—
"O my children, come home, come home!
O my children, come home!"
IV
Who is she who shudders by
When the boughs blow bare and the dead leaves fly?
Who walks all night with her wailing cry,
"O my children, come home!"
Who, strange of look, and wild of tongue,
With wan feet wounded and hands wild-wrung,
Sweeps on and on with her cry, far-flung,—
"O my children, come home, come home!
O my children, come home!"
V
'Tis the Spirit of Autumn, no man sees,
The mother of Death and of Mysteries,
Who cries on the wind all night to these,
"O my children, come home!"
The Spirit of Autumn, pierced with pain,
Calling her children home again,
Death and Dreams, through ruin and rain,—
"O my children, come home, come home!
O my children, come home!"
REQUIEM
I
No more for him, where hills look down,
Shall Morning crown
Her rainy brow with blossom bands!—
The Morning Hours, whose rosy hands
Drop wildflowers of the breaking skies
Upon the sod 'neath which he lies.—
No more for him! No more! No more!
II
No more for him, where waters sleep,
Shall Evening heap
The long gold of the perfect days!
The Eventide, whose warm hand lays
Great poppies of the afterglow
Upon the turf he rests below.—
No more for him! No more! no more!
Ill
No more for him, where woodlands loom,
Shall Midnight bloom
The star-flowered acres of the blue!
The Midnight Hours, whose dim hands strew
Dead leaves of darkness, hushed and deep,
Upon the grave where he doth sleep.—
No more for him! No more! No more!
IV
The hills, that Morning's footsteps wake:
The waves that take
A brightness from the Eve; the woods
And solitudes, o'er which Night broods,
Their Spirits have, whose parts are one
With him, whose mortal part is done.
Whose part is done.
LYNCHERS
At the moon's down-going let it be
On the quarry hill with its one gnarled tree.
The red-rock road of the underbrush,
Where the woman came through the summer hush.
The sumac high and the elder thick,
Where we found the stone and the ragged stick.
The trampled road of the thicket, full
Of footprints down to the quarry pool.
The rocks that ooze with the hue of lead,
Where we found her lying stark and dead.
The scraggy wood; the negro hut,
With its doors and windows locked and shut.
A secret signal; a foot's rough tramp;
A knock at the door; a lifted lamp.
An oath; a scuffle; a ring of masks;
A voice that answers a voice that asks.
A group of shadows; the moon's red fleck;
A running noose and a man's bared neck.
A word, a curse, and a shape that swings;
The lonely night and a bat's black wings.
At the moon's down-going let it be
On the quarry hill with its one gnarled tree.
THE PARTING
She passed the thorn-trees, whose gaunt branches tossed
Their spider-shadows round her; and the breeze,
Beneath the ashen moon, was full of frost,
And mouthed and mumbled to the sickly trees,
Like some starved hag who sees her children freeze.
Dry-eyed she waited by the sycamore.
Some stars made misty blotches in the sky.
And all the wretched willows on the shore
Looked faded as a jaundiced cheek or eye.
She felt their pity and could only sigh.
And then his skiff ground on the river rocks.
Whistling he came into the shadow made
By that dead tree. He kissed her dark brown locks;
And round her form his eager arms were laid.
Passive she stood, her secret unbetrayed.
And then she spoke, while still his greeting kiss
Ached in her hair. She did not dare to lift
Her eyes to his—her anguished eyes to his,
While tears smote crystal in her throat. One rift
Of weakness humored might set all adrift.
Fields over which a path, overwhelmed with burrs
And ragweeds, noisy with the grasshoppers,
Leads,—lost, irresolute as paths the cows
Wear through the woods,—unto a woodshed; then,
With wrecks of windows, to a huddled house,
Where men have murdered men.
A house, whose tottering chimney, clay and rock,
Is seamed and crannied; whose lame door and lock
Are bullet-bored; around which, there and here,
Are sinister stains.—One dreads to look around.—
The place seems thinking of that time of fear
And dares not breathe a sound.
Within is emptiness: The sunlight falls
On faded journals papering the walls;
On advertisement chromos, torn with time,
Around a hearth where wasps and spiders build.—
The house is dead: meseems that night of crime
It, too, was shot and killed.
KU KLUX
We have sent him seeds of the melon's core,
And nailed a warning upon his door:
By the Ku Klux laws we can do no more.
Down in the hollow, 'mid crib and stack,
The roof of his low-porched house looms black;
Not a line of light at the door-sill's crack.
Yet arm and mount! and mask and ride!
The hounds can sense though the fox may hide!
And for a word too much men oft have died.
The clouds blow heavy toward the moon.
The edge of the storm will reach it soon.
The kildee cries and the lonesome loon.
The clouds shall flush with a wilder glare
Than the lightning makes with its angled flare,
When the Ku Klux verdict is given there.
In the pause of the thunder rolling low,
A rifle's answer—who shall know
From the wind's fierce hurl and the rain's black blow?
Only the signature, written grim
At the end of the message brought to him—
A hempen rope and a twisted limb.
So arm and mount! and mask and ride!
The hounds can sense though the fox may hide!—
For a word too much men oft have died.
EIDOLONS
The white moth-mullein brushed its slim
Cool, faery flowers against his knee;
In places where the way lay dim
The branches, arching suddenly,
Made tomblike 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 in desolation 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 bush; one bower
Looked like a dead man, capped and gloved,
The one who haunted him each hour.
Now at his side he heard it: thin
As echoes of a thought that speaks
To conscience. Listening with his chin
Upon his palm, against his cheeks
He felt the moon's white finger win.
And now the voice was still: and lo,
With eyes that stared on naught but night,
He saw?—what none on earth shall know!—
Was it the face that far from sight
Had lain here, buried long ago?
But men who found him,—thither led
By the wild fox,—within that place
Read in his stony eyes, 'tis said,
The thing he saw there, face to face,
The thing that left him staring dead.
THE MAN HUNT
The woods stretch deep to the mountain side,
And the brush is wild where a man may hide.
They have brought the bloodhounds up again
To the roadside rock where they found the slain.
They have brought the bloodhounds up, and they
Have taken the trail to the mountain way.
Three times they circled the trail and crossed;
And thrice they found it and thrice they lost.
Now straight through the trees and the underbrush
They follow the scent through the forest's hush.
And their deep-mouthed bay is a pulse of fear
In the heart of the wood that the man must hear.
The man who crouches among the trees
From the stern-faced men who follow these.
A huddle of rocks that the ooze has mossed,
And the trail of the hunted again is lost.
An upturned pebble; a bit of ground
A heel has trampled—the trail is found.
And the woods re-echo the bloodhounds' bay
As again they take to the mountain way.
A rock; a ribbon of road; a ledge,
With a pine tree clutching its crumbling edge.
A pine, that the lightning long since clave,
Whose huge roots hollow a ragged cave.
A shout; a curse; and a face aghast;
The human quarry is laired at last.
The human quarry with clay-clogged hair
And eyes of terror who waits them there.
That glares and crouches and rising then
Hurls clods and curses at dogs and men.
Until the blow of a gun-butt lays
Him stunned and bleeding upon his face.
A rope; a prayer; and an oak-tree near,
And a score of hands to swing him clear.
A grim, black thing for the setting sun
And the moon and the stars to gaze upon.
MY ROMANCE
If it so befalls that the midnight hovers
In mist no moonlight breaks,
The leagues of the years my spirit covers,
And my self myself forsakes.
And I live in a land of stars and flowers,
White cliffs by a silvery sea;
And the pearly points of her opal towers
From the mountains beckon me.
And I think that I know that I hear her calling
From a casement bathed with light—
Through music of waters in waters falling
Mid palms from a mountain height.
And I feel that I think my love's awaited
By the romance of her charms;
That her feet are early and mine belated
In a world that chains my arms.
But I break my chains and the rest is easy—
In the shadow of the rose,
Snow-white, that blooms in her garden breezy,
We meet and no one knows.
And we dream sweet dreams and kiss sweet kisses;
The world—it may live or die!
The world that forgets; that never misses
The life that has long gone by.
We speak old vows that have long been spoken;
And weep a long-gone woe:
For you must know our hearts were broken
Hundreds of years ago.
A MAID WHO DIED OLD
Frail, shrunken face, so pinched and worn,
That life has carved with care and doubt!
So weary waiting, night and morn,
For that which never came about!
Pale lamp, so utterly forlorn,
In which God's light at last is out.
Gray hair, that lies so thin and prim
On either side the sunken brows!
And soldered eyes, so deep and dim,
No word of man could now arouse!
And hollow hands, so virgin slim,
Forever clasped in silent vows!
Poor breasts! that God designed for love,
For baby lips to kiss and press;
That never felt, yet dreamed thereof,
The human touch, the child caress—
That lie like shriveled blooms above
The heart's long-perished happiness.
O withered body, Nature gave
For purposes of death and birth,
That never knew, and could but crave
Those things perhaps that make life worth,—
Rest now, alas! within the grave,
Sad shell that served no end of Earth.
BALLAD OF LOW-LIE-DOWN
John-A-Dreams and Harum-Scarum
Came a-riding into town:
At the Sign o' the Jug-and-Jorum
There they met with Low-lie-down.
Brave in shoes of Romany leather,
Bodice blue and gypsy gown,
And a cap of fur and feather,
In the inn sat Low-lie-down.
Harum-Scarum kissed her lightly;
Smiled into her eyes of brown:
Clasped her waist and held her tightly,
Laughing, "Love me, Low-lie-down!"
Then with many an oath and swagger,
As a man of great renown,
On the board he clapped his dagger,
Called for sack and sat him down.
So a while they laughed together;
Then he rose and with a frown
Sighed, "While still 'tis pleasant weather,
I must leave thee, Low-lie-down."
So away rode Harum-Scarum;
With a song rode out of town;
At the Sign o' the Jug-and-Jorum
Weeping tarried Low-lie-down.
Then this John-a-dreams, in tatters,
In his pocket ne'er a crown,
Touched her, saying, "Wench, what matters!
Dry your eyes and, come, sit down.
"Here's my hand: we'll roam together,
Far away from thorp and town.
Here's my heart,—for any weather,—
And my dreams, too, Low-lie-down.
"Some men call me dreamer, poet:
Some men call me fool and clown—
What I am but you shall know it,
Only you, sweet Low-lie-down."
For a little while she pondered:
Smiled: then said, "Let care go drown!"
Up and kissed him…. Forth they wandered,
John-a-dreams and Low-lie-down.
ROMANCE
Thus have I pictured her:—In Arden old
A white-browed maiden with a falcon eye,
Rose-flushed of face, with locks of wind-blown gold,
Teaching her hawks to fly.
Or, 'mid her boar-hounds, panting with the heat,
In huntsman green, sounding the hunt's wild prize,
Plumed, dagger-belted, while beneath her feet
The spear-pierced monster dies.
Or in Brécéliand, on some high tower,
Clad white in samite, last of her lost race,
My soul beholds her, lovelier than a flower,
Gazing with pensive face.
Or, robed in raiment of romantic lore,
Like Oriana, dark of eye and hair,
Riding through realms of legend evermore,
And ever young and fair.
Or now like Bradamant, as brave as just,
In complete steel, her pure face lit with scorn,
At giant castles, dens of demon lust,
Winding her bugle-horn.
Another Una; and in chastity
A second Britomart; in beauty far
O'er her who led King Charles's chivalry
And Paynim lands to war….
Now she, from Avalon's deep-dingled bowers,—
'Mid which white stars and never-waning moons
Make marriage; and dim lips of musk-mouthed flowers
Sigh faint and fragrant tunes,—
Implores me follow; and, in shadowy shapes
Of sunset, shows me,—mile on misty mile
Of purple precipice,—all the haunted capes
Of her enchanted isle.
Where, bowered in bosks and overgrown with vine,
Upon a headland breasting violet seas,
Her castle towers, like a dream divine,
With stairs and galleries.
And at her casement, Circe-beautiful,
Above the surgeless reaches of the deep,
She sits, while, in her gardens, fountains lull
The perfumed wind asleep.
Or, round her brow a diadem of spars,
She leans and hearkens, from her raven height,
The nightingales that, choiring to the stars,
Take with wild song the night.
Or, where the moon is mirrored in the waves,
To mark, deep down, the Sea King's city rolled,
Wrought of huge shells and labyrinthine caves,
Ribbed pale with pearl and gold.
There doth she wait forever; and the kings
Of all the world have wooed her: but she cares
For none but him, the Love, that dreams and sings,
That sings and dreams and dares.
AMADIS AND ORIANA
From "Beltenebros at Miraflores"
O sunset, from the springs of stars
Draw down thy cataracts of gold;
And belt their streams with burning bars
Of ruby on which flame is rolled:
Drench dingles with laburnum light;
Drown every vale in violet blaze:
Rain rose-light down; and, poppy-bright,
Die downward o'er the hills of haze,
And bring at last the stars of night!
The stars and moon! that silver world,
Which, like a spirit, faces west,
Her foam-white feet with light empearled,
Bearing white flame within her breast:
Earth's sister sphere of fire and snow,
Who shows to Earth her heart's pale heat,
And bids her mark its pulses glow,
And hear their crystal currents beat
With beauty, lighting all below.
O cricket, with thy elfin pipe,
That tinkles in the grass and grain;
And dove-pale buds, that, dropping, stripe
The glen's blue night, and smell of rain;
O nightingale, that so dost wail
On yonder blossoming branch of snow,
Thrill, fill the wild deer-haunted dale,
Where Oriana, walking slow,
Comes, thro' the moonlight, dreamy pale.
She comes to meet me!—Earth and air
Grow radiant with another light.
In her dark eyes and her dark hair
Are all the stars and all the night:
She comes! I clasp her!—and it is
As if no grief had ever been.—
In all the world for us who kiss
There are no other women or men
But Oriana and Amadis.
THE ROSICRUCIAN
I
The tripod flared with a purple spark,
And the mist hung emerald in the dark:
Now he stooped to the lilac flame
Over the glare of the amber embers,
Thrice to utter no earthly name;
Thrice, like a mind that half remembers;
Bathing his face in the magic mist
Where the brilliance burned like an amethyst.
II
"Sylph, whose soul was born of mine,
Born of the love that made me thine,
Once more flash on my eyes! Again
Be the loved caresses taken!
Lip to lip let our forms remain!—
Here in the circle sense, awaken!
Ere spirit meet spirit, the flesh laid by,
Let me touch thee, and let me die."
III
Sunset heavens may burn, but never
Know such splendor! There bloomed an ever
Opaline orb, where the sylphid rose
A shape of luminous white; diviner
White than the essence of light that sows
The moons and suns through space; and finer
Than radiance born of a shooting-star,
Or the wild Aurora that streams afar.
IV
"Look on the face of the soul to whom
Thou givest thy soul like added perfume!
Thou, who heard'st me, who long had prayed,
Waiting alone at morning's portal!—
Thus on thy lips let my lips be laid,
Love, who hast made me all immortal!
Give me thine arms now! Come and rest
Weariness out on my beaming breast!"
V
Was it her soul? or the sapphire fire
That sang like the note of a seraph's lyre?
Out of her mouth there fell no word—
She spake with her soul, as a flower speaketh.
Fragrant messages none hath heard,
Which the sense divines when the spirit seeketh….
And he seemed alone in a place so dim
That the spirit's face, who was gazing at him,
For its burning eyes he could not see:
Then he knew he had died; that she and he
Were one; and he saw that this was she.
THE AGE OF GOLD
The clouds that tower in storm, that beat
Arterial thunder in their veins;
The wildflowers lifting, shyly sweet,
Their perfect faces from the plains,—
All high, all lowly things of Earth
For no vague end have had their birth.
Low strips of mist that mesh the moon
Above the foaming waterfall;
And mountains, that God's hand hath hewn,
And forests, where the great winds call,—
Within the grasp of such as see
Are parts of a conspiracy;
To seize the soul with beauty; hold
The heart with love: and thus fulfill
Within ourselves the Age of Gold,
That never died, and never will,—
As long as one true nature feels
The wonders that the world reveals.
BEAUTY AND ART
The gods are dead; but still for me
Lives on in wildwood brook and tree
Each myth, each old divinity.
For me still laughs among the rocks
The Naiad; and the Dryad's locks
Drop perfume on the wildflower flocks.
The Satyr's hoof still prints the loam;
And, whiter than the wind-blown foam,
The Oread haunts her mountain home.
To him, whose mind is fain to dwell
With loveliness no time can quell,
All things are real, imperishable.
To him—whatever facts may say—
Who sees the soul beneath the clay,
Is proof of a diviner day.
The very stars and flowers preach
A gospel old as God, and teach
Philosophy a child may reach;
That cannot die; that shall not cease;
That lives through idealities
Of Beauty, ev'n as Rome and Greece.
That lifts the soul above the clod,
And, working out some period
Of art, is part and proof of God.
THE SEA SPIRIT
Ah me! I shall not waken soon
From dreams of such divinity!
A spirit singing 'neath the moon
To me.
Wild sea-spray driven of the storm
Is not so wildly white as she,
Who beckoned with a foam-white arm
To me.
With eyes dark green, and golden-green
Long locks that rippled drippingly,
Out of the green wave she did lean
To me.
And sang; till Earth and Heaven seemed
A far, forgotten memory,
And more than Heaven in her who gleamed
On me.
Sleep, sweeter than love's face or home;
And death's immutability;
And music of the plangent foam,
For me!
Sweep over her! with all thy ships,
With all thy stormy tides, O sea!—
The memory of immortal lips
For me!
GARGAPHIE
"Succinctae sacra Dianae".—OVID
There the ragged sunlight lay
Tawny on thick ferns and gray
On dark waters: dimmer,
Lone and deep, the cypress grove
Bowered mystery and wove
Braided lights, like those that love
On the pearl plumes of a dove
Faint to gleam and glimmer.
II
There centennial pine and oak
Into stormy cadence broke:
Hollow rocks gloomed, slanting,
Echoing in dim arcade,
Looming with long moss, that made
Twilight streaks in tatters laid:
Where the wild hart, hunt-affrayed,
Plunged the water, panting.
III
Poppies of a sleepy gold
Mooned the gray-green darkness rolled
Down its vistas, making
Wisp-like blurs of flame. And pale
Stole the dim deer down the vale:
And the haunting nightingale
Throbbed unseen—the olden tale
All its wild heart breaking.
IV
There the hazy serpolet,
Dewy cistus, blooming wet,
Blushed on bank and bowlder;
There the cyclamen, as wan
As first footsteps of the dawn,
Carpeted the spotted lawn:
Where the nude nymph, dripping drawn,
Basked a wildflower shoulder.
V
In the citrine shadows there
What tall presences and fair,
Godlike, stood!—or, gracious
As the rock-rose there that grew,
Delicate and dim as dew,
Stepped from boles of oaks, and drew
Faunlike forms to follow, who
Filled the forest spacious!—
VI
Guarding that Boeotian
Valley so no foot of man
Soiled its silence holy
With profaning tread—save one,
The Hyantian: Actæon,
Who beheld, and might not shun
Pale Diana's wrath; undone
By his own mad folly.
VII
Lost it lies—that valley: sleeps
In serene enchantment; keeps
Beautiful its banished
Bowers that no man may see;
Fountains that her deity
Haunts, and every rock and tree
Where her hunt goes swinging free
As in ages vanished.
THE DEAD OREAD
Her heart is still and leaps no more
With holy passion when the breeze,
Her whilom playmate, as before,
Comes with the language of the bees,
Sad songs her mountain cedars sing,
And water-music murmuring.
Her calm white feet,—erst fleet and fast
As Daphne's when a god pursued,—
No more will dance like sunlight past
The gold-green vistas of the wood,
Where every quailing floweret
Smiled into life where they were set.
Hers were the limbs of living light,
And breasts of snow; as virginal
As mountain drifts; and throat as white
As foam of mountain waterfall;
And hyacinthine curls, that streamed
Like crag-born mists, and gloomed and gleamed.
Her presence breathed such scents as haunt
Moist, mountain dells and solitudes;
Aromas wild as some wild plant
That fills with sweetness all the woods:
And comradeships of stars and skies
Shone in the azure of her eyes.
Her grave be by a mossy rock
Upon the top of some wild hill,
Removed, remote from men who mock
The myths and dreams of life they kill:
Where all of beauty, naught of lust
May guard her solitary dust.
THE FAUN
The joys that touched thee once, be mine!
The sympathies of sky and sea,
The friendships of each rock and pine,
That made thy lonely life, ah me!
In Tempe or in Gargaphie.
Such joy as thou didst feel when first,
On some wild crag, thou stood'st alone
To watch the mountain tempest burst,
With streaming thunder, lightning-sown,
On Latmos or on Pelion.
Thy awe! when, crowned with vastness, Night
And Silence ruled the deep's abyss;
And through dark leaves thou saw'st the white
Breasts of the starry maids who kiss
Pale feet of moony Artemis.
Thy dreams! when, breasting matted weeds
Of Arethusa, thou didst hear
The music of the wind-swept reeds;
And down dim forest-ways drew near
Shy herds of slim Arcadian deer.
Thy wisdom! that knew naught but love
And beauty, with which love is fraught;
The wisdom of the heart—whereof
All noblest passions spring—that thought
As Nature thinks, "All else is naught."
Thy hope! wherein To-morrow set
No shadow; hope, that, lacking care
And retrospect, held no regret,
But bloomed in rainbows everywhere,
Filling with gladness all the air.
These were thine all: in all life's moods
Embracing all of happiness:
And when within thy long-loved woods
Didst lay thee down to die—no less
Thy happiness stood by to bless.
THE PAPHIAN VENUS
With anxious eyes and dry, expectant lips,
Within the sculptured stoa by the sea,
All day she waited while, like ghostly ships,
Long clouds rolled over Paphos: the wild bee
Hung in the sultry poppy, half asleep,
Beside the shepherd and his drowsy sheep.
White-robed she waited day by day; alone
With the white temple's shrined concupiscence,
The Paphian goddess on her obscene throne,
Binding all chastity to violence,
All innocence to lust that feels no shame—
Venus Mylitta born of filth and flame.
So must they haunt her marble portico,
The devotees of Paphos, passion-pale
As moonlight streaming through the stormy snow;
Dark eyes desirous of the stranger sail,
The gods shall bring across the Cyprian Sea,
With him elected to their mastery.
A priestess of the temple came, when eve
Blazed, like a satrap's triumph, in the west;
And watched her listening to the ocean's heave,
Dusk's golden glory on her face and breast,
And in her hair the rosy wind's caress,—
Pitying her dedicated tenderness.
When out of darkness night persuades the stars,
A dream shall bend above her saying, "Soon
A barque shall come with purple sails and spars,
Sailing from Tarsus 'neath a low white moon;
And thou shalt see one in a robe of Tyre
Facing toward thee like the god Desire.
"Rise then! as, clad in starlight, riseth Night—
Thy nakedness clad on with loveliness!
So shalt thou see him, like the god Delight,
Breast through the foam and climb the cliff to press
Hot lips to thine and lead thee in before
Love's awful presence where ye shall adore."
Thus at her heart the vision entered in,
With lips of lust the lips of song had kissed,
And eyes of passion laughing with sweet sin,
A shimmering splendor robed in amethyst,—
Seen like that star set in the glittering gloam,—
Venus Mylitta born of fire and foam.
So shall she dream until, near middle night,—
When on the blackness of the ocean's rim
The moon, like some war-galleon all alight
With blazing battle, from the sea shall swim,—
A shadow, with inviolate lips and eyes,
Shall rise before her speaking in this wise:
"So hast thou heard the promises of one,—
Of her, with whom the God of gods is wroth,—
For whom was prophesied at Babylon
The second death—Chaldaean Mylidoth!
Whose feet take hold on darkness and despair,
Hissing destruction in her heart and hair.
"Wouldst thou behold the vessel she would bring?—
A wreck! ten hundred years have smeared with slime:
A hulk! where all abominations cling,
The spawn and vermin of the seas of time:
Wild waves have rotted it; fierce suns have scorched;
Mad winds have tossed and stormy stars have torched.
"Can lust give birth to love? The vile and foul
Be mother to beauty? Lo! can this thing be?—
A monster like a man shall rise and howl
Upon the wreck across the crawling sea,
Then plunge; and swim unto thee; like an ape,
A beast all belly.—Thou canst not escape!"
Gone was the shadow with the suffering brow;
And in the temple's porch she lay and wept,
Alone with night, the ocean, and her vow.—
Then up the east the moon's full splendor swept,
And dark between it—wreck or argosy?—
A sudden vessel far away at sea.
ORIENTAL ROMANCE
I
Beyond lost seas of summer she
Dwelt on an island of the sea,
Last scion of that dynasty,
Queen of a race forgotten long.—
With eyes of light and lips of song,
From seaward groves of blowing lemon,
She called me in her native tongue,
Low-leaned on some rich robe of Yemen.
II
I was a king. Three moons we drove
Across green gulfs, the crimson clove
And cassia spiced, to claim her love.
Packed was my barque with gums and gold;
Rich fabrics; sandalwood, grown old
With odor; gems; and pearls of Oman,—
Than her white breasts less white and cold;—
And myrrh, less fragrant than this woman.
III
From Bassora I came. We saw
Her eagle castle on a claw
Of soaring precipice, o'erawe
The surge and thunder of the spray.
Like some great opal, far away
It shone, with battlement and spire,
Wherefrom, with wild aroma, day
Blew splintered lights of sapphirine fire.
IV
Lamenting caverns dark, that keep
Sonorous echoes of the deep,
Led upward to her castle steep….
Fair as the moon, whose light is shed
In Ramadan, was she, who led
My love unto her island bowers,
To find her…. lying young and dead
Among her maidens and her flowers.
THE MAMELUKE
I
She was a queen. 'Midst mutes and slaves,
A mameluke, he loved her.——Waves
Dashed not more hopelessly the paves
Of her high marble palace-stair
Than lashed his love his heart's despair.—
As souls in Hell dream Paradise,
He suffered yet forgot it there
Beneath Rommaneh's houri eyes.
II
With passion eating at his heart
He served her beauty, but dared dart
No amorous glance, nor word impart.—
Taïfi leather's perfumed tan
Beneath her, on a low divan
She lay 'mid cushions stuffed with down:
A slave-girl with an ostrich fan
Sat by her in a golden gown.
III
She bade him sing. Fair lutanist,
She loved his voice. With one white wrist,
Hooped with a blaze of amethyst,
She raised her ruby-crusted lute:
Gold-welted stuff, like some rich fruit,
Her raiment, diamond-showered, rolled
Folds pigeon-purple, whence one foot
Drooped in an anklet-twist of gold.
IV
He stood and sang with all the fire
That boiled within his blood's desire,
That made him all her slave yet higher:
And at the end his passion durst
Quench with one burning kiss its thirst.—
O eunuchs, did her face show scorn
When through his heart your daggers burst?
And dare ye say he died forlorn?
THE SLAVE
He waited till within her tower
Her taper signalled him the hour.
He was a prince both fair and brave.—
What hope that he would love her slave!
He of the Persian dynasty;
And she a Queen of Araby!—
No Peri singing to a star
Upon the sea were lovelier….
I helped her drop the silken rope.
He clomb, aflame with love and hope.
I drew the dagger from my gown
And cut the ladder, leaning down.
Oh, wild his face, and wild the fall:
Her cry was wilder than them all.
I heard her cry; I heard him moan;
And stood as merciless as stone.
The eunuchs came: fierce scimitars
Stirred in the torch-lit corridors.
She spoke like one who speaks in sleep,
And bade me strike or she would leap.
I bade her leap: the time was short:
And kept the dagger for my heart.
She leapt…. I put their blades aside,
And smiling in their faces—died.
THE PORTRAIT
In some quaint Nurnberg maler-atelier
Uprummaged. When and where was never clear
Nor yet how he obtained it. When, by whom
'Twas painted—who shall say? itself a gloom
Resisting inquisition. I opine
It is a Dürer. Mark that touch, this line;
Are they deniable?—Distinguished grace
Of the pure oval of the noble face
Tarnished in color badly. Half in light
Extend it so. Incline. The exquisite
Expression leaps abruptly: piercing scorn;
Imperial beauty; each, an icy thorn
Of light, disdainful eyes and … well! no use!
Effaced and but beheld! a sad abuse
Of patience.—Often, vaguely visible,
The portrait fills each feature, making swell
The heart with hope: avoiding face and hair
Start out in living hues; astonished, "There!—
The picture lives!" your soul exults, when, lo!
You hold a blur; an undetermined glow
Dislimns a daub.—"Restore?"—Ah, I have tried
Our best restorers, and it has defied.
Storied, mysterious, say, perhaps a ghost
Lives in the canvas; hers, some artist lost;
A duchess', haply. Her he worshiped; dared
Not tell he worshiped. From his window stared
Of Nuremberg one sunny morn when she
Passed paged to court. Her cold nobility
Loved, lived for like a purpose. Seized and plied
A feverish brush—her face!—Despaired and died.
The narrow Judengasse: gables frown
Around a humpbacked usurer's, where brown,
Neglected in a corner, long it lay,
Heaped in a pile of riff-raff, such as—say,
Retables done in tempera and old
Panels by Wohlgemuth; stiff paintings cold
Of martyrs and apostles,—names forgot,—
Holbeins and Dürers, say; a haloed lot
Of praying saints, madonnas: these, perchance,
'Mid wine-stained purples, mothed; an old romance;
A crucifix and rosary; inlaid
Arms, Saracen-elaborate; a strayed
Niello of Byzantium; rich work,
In bronze, of Florence: here a murderous dirk,
There holy patens.
So.—My ancestor,
The first De Herancour, esteemed by far
This piece most precious, most desirable;
Purchased and brought to Paris. It looked well
In the dark paneling above the old
Hearth of the room. The head's religious gold,
The soft severity of the nun face,
Made of the room an apostolic place
Revered and feared.—
Like some lived scene I see
That Gothic room: its Flemish tapestry;
Embossed within the marble hearth a shield,
Carved 'round with thistles; in its argent field
Three sable mallets—arms of Herancour—
Topped with the crest, a helm and hands that bore,
Outstretched, two mallets. On a lectern laid,—
Between two casements, lozenge-paned, embayed,—
A vellum volume of black-lettered text.
Near by a taper, winking as if vexed
With silken gusts a nervous curtain sends,
Behind which, haply, daggered Murder bends.
And then I seem to see again the hall;
The stairway leading to that room.—Then all
The terror of that night of blood and crime
Passes before me.—
It is Catherine's time:
The house De Herancour's. On floors, splashed red,
Torchlight of Medicean wrath is shed.
Down carven corridors and rooms,—where couch
And chairs lie shattered and black shadows crouch
Torch-pierced with fear,—a sound of swords draws near—
The stir of searching steel.
What find they here,
Torch-bearer, swordsman, and fierce halberdier,
On St. Bartholomew's?—A Huguenot!
Dead in his chair! Eyes, violently shot
With horror, glaring at the portrait there:
Coiling his neck a blood line, like a hair
Of finest fire. The portrait, like a fiend,—
Looking exalted visitation,—leaned
From its black panel; in its eyes a hate
Satanic; hair—a glowing auburn; late
A dull, enduring golden.
"Just one thread
Of the fierce hair around his throat," they said,
"Twisting a burning ray; he—staring dead."
THE BLACK KNIGHT
I had not found the road too short,
As once I had in days of youth,
In that old forest of long ruth,
Where my young knighthood broke its heart,
Ere love and it had come to part,
And lies made mockery of truth.
I had not found the road too short.
A blind man, by the nightmare way,
Had set me right when I was wrong.—
I had been blind my whole life long—
What wonder then that on this day
The blind should show me how astray
My strength had gone, my heart once strong.
A blind man pointed me the way.
The road had been a heartbreak one,
Of roots and rocks and tortured trees,
And pools, above my horse's knees,
And wandering paths, where spiders spun
'Twixt boughs that never saw the sun,
And silence of lost centuries.
The road had been a heartbreak one.
It seemed long years since that black hour
When she had fled, and I took horse
To follow, and without remorse
To slay her and her paramour
In that old keep, that ruined tower,
From whence was borne her father's corse.
It seemed long years since that black hour.
And now my horse was starved and spent,
My gallant destrier, old and spare;
The vile road's mire in mane and hair,
I felt him totter as he went:—
Such hungry woods were never meant
For pasture: hate had reaped them bare.
Aye, my poor beast was old and spent.
I too had naught to stay me with;
And like my horse was starved and lean;
My armor gone; my raiment mean;
Bare-haired I rode; uneasy sith
The way I'd lost, and some dark myth
Far in the woods had laughed obscene.
I had had naught to stay me with.
Then I dismounted. Better so.
And found that blind man at my rein.
And there the path stretched straight and plain.
I saw at once the way to go.
The forest road I used to know
In days when life had less of pain.
Then I dismounted. Better so.
I had but little time to spare,
Since evening now was drawing near;
And then I thought I saw a sneer
Enter into that blind man's stare:
And suddenly a thought leapt bare,—
What if the Fiend had set him here!—
I still might smite him or might spare.
I braced my sword: then turned to look:
For I had heard an evil laugh:
The blind man, leaning on his staff,
Still stood there where my leave I took:
What! did he mock me? Would I brook
A blind fool's scorn?—My sword was half
Out of its sheath. I turned to look:
And he was gone. And to my side
My horse came nickering as afraid.
Did he too fear to be betrayed?—
What use for him? I might not ride.
So to a great bough there I tied,
And left him in the forest glade:
My spear and shield I left beside.
My sword was all I needed there.
It would suffice to right my wrongs;
To cut the knot of all those thongs
With which she'd bound me to despair,
That woman with her midnight hair,
Her Circe snares and Siren songs.
My sword was all I needed there.
And then that laugh again I heard,
Evil as Hell and darkness are.
It shook my heart behind its bar
Of purpose, like some ghastly word.
But then it may have been a bird,
An owlet in the forest far,
A raven, croaking, that I heard.
I loosed my sword within its sheath;
My sword, disuse and dews of night
Had fouled with rust and iron-blight.
I seemed to hear the forest breathe
A menace at me through its teeth
Of thorns 'mid which the way lay white.
I loosed my sword within its sheath.
I had not noticed until now
The sun was gone, and gray the moon
Hung staring; pale as marble hewn;—
Like some old malice, bleak of brow,
It glared at me through leaf and bough,
With which the tattered way was strewn.
I had not noticed until now.
And then, all unexpected, vast
Above the tops of ragged pines
I saw a ruin, dark with vines,
Against the blood-red sunset massed:
My perilous tower of the past,
Round which the woods thrust giant spines.
I never knew it was so vast.
Long while I stood considering.—
This was the place and this the night.
The blind man then had set me right.
Here she had come for sheltering.
That ruin held her: that dark wing
Which flashed a momentary light.
Some time I stood considering.
Deep darkness fell. The somber glare
Of sunset, that made cavernous eyes
Of those gaunt casements 'gainst the skies,
Had burnt to ashes everywhere.
Before my feet there rose a stair
Of oozy stone, of giant size,
On which the gray moon flung its glare.
Then I went forward, sword in hand,
Until the slimy causeway loomed,
And huge beyond it yawned and gloomed
The gateway where one seemed to stand,
In armor, like a burning brand,
Sword-drawn; his visor barred and plumed.
And I went toward him, sword in hand.
He should not stay revenge from me.
Whatever lord or knight he were,
He should not keep me long from her,
That woman dyed in infamy.
No matter. God or devil he,
His sword should prove no barrier.—
Fool! who would keep revenge from me!
And then I heard, harsh over all,
That demon laughter, filled with scorn:
It woke the echoes, wild, forlorn,
Dark in the ivy of that wall,
As when, within a mighty hall,
One blows a giant battle-horn.
Loud, loud that laugh rang over all.
And then I struck him where he towered:
I struck him, struck with all my hate:
Black-plumed he loomed before the gate:
I struck, and found his sword that showered
Fierce flame on mine while black he glowered
Behind his visor's wolfish grate.
I struck; and taller still he towered.
A year meseemed we battled there:
A year; ten years; a century:
My blade was snapped; his lay in three:
His mail was hewn; and everywhere
Was blood; it streaked my face and hair;
And still he towered over me.
A year meseemed we battled there.
"Unmask!" I cried. "Yea, doff thy casque!
Put up thy visor! fight me fair!
I have no mail; my head is bare!
Take off thy helm, is all I ask!
Why dost thou hide thy face?—Unmask!"—
My eyes were blind with blood and hair,
And still I cried, "Take off thy casque!"
And then once more that laugh rang out
Like madness in the caves of Hell:
It hooted like some monster well,
The haunt of owls, or some mad rout
Of witches. And with battle shout
Once more upon that knight I fell,
While wild again that laugh rang out.
Like Death's own eyes his glared in mine,
As with the fragment of my blade
I smote him helmwise; huge he swayed,
Then crashed, like some cadaverous pine,
Uncasqued, his face in full moonshine:
And I—I saw; and shrank afraid.
For, lo! behold! the face was mine.
What devil's work was here!—What jest
For fiends to laugh at, demons hiss!—
To slay myself? and so to miss
My hate's reward?—revenge confessed!—
Was this knight I?—My brain I pressed.—
Then who was he who gazed on this?—
What devil's work was here!——What jest!
It was myself on whom I gazed—
My darker self!—With fear I rose.—
I was right weak from those great blows.—
I stood bewildered, stunned and dazed,
And looked around with eyes amazed.—
I could not slay her now, God knows!—
Around me there a while I gazed.
Then turned and fled into the night,
While overhead once more I heard
That laughter, like some demon bird
Wailing in darkness.—Then a light
Made clear a woman by that knight.
I saw 'twas she, but said no word,
And silent fled into the night.
IN ARCADY
I remember, when a child,
How within the April wild
Once I walked with Mystery
In the groves of Arcady….
Through the boughs, before, behind,
Swept the mantle of the wind,
Thunderous and unconfined.
Overhead the curving moon
Pierced the twilight: a cocoon,
Golden, big with unborn wings—
Beauty, shaping spiritual things,
Vague, impatient of the night,
Eager for its heavenward flight
Out of darkness into light.
Here and there the oaks assumed
Satyr aspects; shadows gloomed,
Hiding, of a dryad look;
And the naiad-frantic brook,
Crying, fled the solitude,
Filled with terror of the wood,
Or some faun-thing that pursued.
In the dead leaves on the ground
Crept a movement; rose a sound:
Everywhere the silence ticked
As with hands of things that picked
At the loam, or in the dew,—
Elvish sounds that crept or flew,—
Beak-like, pushing surely through.
Down the forest, overhead,
Stammering a dead leaf fled,
Filled with elemental fear
Of some dark destruction near—
One, whose glowworm eyes I saw
Hag with flame the crooked haw,
Which the moon clutched like a claw.
Gradually beneath the tree
Grew a shape; a nudity:
Lithe and slender; silent as
Growth of tree or blade of grass;
Brown and silken as the bloom
Of the trillium in the gloom,
Visible as strange perfume.
For an instant there it stood,
Smiling on me in the wood:
And I saw its hair was green
As the leaf-sheath, gold of sheen:
And its eyes an azure wet,
From within which seemed to jet
Sapphire lights and violet.
Swiftly by I saw it glide;
And the dark was deified:
Wild before it everywhere
Gleamed the greenness of its hair;
And around it danced a light,
Soft, the sapphire of its sight,
Making witchcraft of the night.
On the branch above, the bird
Trilled to it a dreamy word:
In its bud the wild bee droned
Honeyed greeting, drowsy-toned:
And the brook forgot the gloom,
Hushed its heart, and, wrapped in bloom,
Breathed a welcome of perfume.
To its beauty bush and tree
Stretched sweet arms of ecstasy;
And the soul within the rock
Lichen-treasures did unlock
As upon it fell its eye;
And the earth, that felt it nigh,
Into wildflowers seemed to sigh….
Was it dryad? was it faun?
Wandered from the times long gone.
Was it sylvan? was it fay?—
Dim survivor of the day
When Religion peopled streams,
Woods and rocks with shapes like gleams,—
That invaded then my dreams?
Was it shadow? was it shape?
Or but fancy's wild escape?—
Of my own child's world the charm
That assumed material form?—
Of my soul the mystery,
That the spring revealed to me,
There in long-lost Arcady?