The South saluted her mouth
Till her breath was sweet with the South.
The North in her ear breathed low,
Till her veins ran crystal and snow.
The West 'neath her eyelids blew,
Till her heart beat honey and dew.
And the East with his magic old
Changed her body to pearl and gold.
And she stood like a beautiful thought
That a godhead of love had wrought....
How strange that the Power begot it
Only to kill it and rot it!
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,—once 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 mountain mists, and gloomed and gleamed.
Her presence breathed such scents as haunt
Deep mountain dells and solitudes,
Aromas wild,—like some wild plant
That fills with sweetness all the woods;—
And comradeship with stars and skies
Shone in the azure of her eyes.
Her grave be by a mossy rock
Upon the top of some high hill,
Removed, remote from men who mock
The myths, the dreams of life they kill;
Where all of love and naught of lust
May guard her solitary dust.
PAX VOBISCUM
I
I know that from thine eyes
The Spring her violets grew;
Those bits of April skies,
On which the green turf lies,
Whereon they blossom blue.
II
I know that Summer wrought
From thy sweet heart that rose,
With such faint fragrance fraught,—
Its pale, poetic thought
Of peace and deep repose.—
III
That Autumn, like some god,
From thy delicious hair,—
Lost sunlight 'neath the sod,—
Shot up this goldenrod
To toss it everywhere.
IV
AT REST
I heard the dead man, where he lay
Within the open coffin, say:—
"Why do they come to weep and cry
Around me now?—Because I lie
So silent, and my heart's at rest?
Because the pistons of my blood
No more in this machinery thud?
And on these eyes, that once were blessed
With magnetism and fire, are pressed
The soldered eyelids, like a sheath?
On which the icy hand of Death
Hath laid invisible coins of lead
Stamped with the image of his head?
"Why will they weep and not have done?
Why sorrow so? and all for one,
Who, they believe, hath found the best
God gives to us,—and that is rest.
Why grieve?—Yea, rather let them lift
The voice in thanks for such a gift,
That leaves the worn hands, long that wrought,
And weary feet, that sought and sought,
At peace; and makes what came to naught,
In life, more real now than all
The good men strive for here on Earth:
The love they seek; the things they call
Desirable and full of worth;
Yea, wisdom ev'n; and, like the South,
The dreams that dewed the soul's sick drouth,
And heart's sad barrenness.—God's rest,
With every sigh and every tear,
By them who weep above me here,
Despite their Faith and Hope, 's confessed
A doubt; a thing to dread and fear.
"Before them peacefully I lie.
But, haply, not for me they sigh,
But for themselves,—their loss. The round
Of daily labor still to do
For them, while for myself 'tis through;
And all the unknown, too, is found,
The bourn for which all hopes are bound,
Where dreams are all made manifest:
For this they grieve, perhaps. 'Tis well;
Since 'tis through grief the soul is blessed,
Not joy;—and yet, we can not tell,
We do not know, we can not prove,
We only feel that there is love,
And something we call Heaven and Hell.
"Howbeit, here, you see, I lie,
As all shall lie—for all must die—
A cast-off, useless, empty shell,
In which an essence once did dwell;
That once, like fruit, the spirit held,
And with its husk of flesh compelled:
The mask of mind, the world of will,
That laughed and wept and labored till
The thing within, that never slept,
The life essential, from it stept;
The ichor-veined inhabitant
Who made it all it was; in all
Its aims the thing original,
That held its course, like any star,
Among its fellows; or a plant,
Among its brother plants; 'mid whom,—
The same and yet dissimilar,—
Distinct and individual,
It grew to microcosmic bloom."
These were the words the dead man said
To me who stood beside the dead.
DISTANCE
I
I dreamed last night once more I stood
Knee-deep on purple clover leas;
Her old home glimmered through its wood
Of dark and melancholy trees:
And on my brow I felt the breeze
That blew from out the solitude,
With sounds of waters that pursued,
And sleepy hummings of the bees.
II
And ankle-deep in violet blooms
Methought I saw her standing there,
A lawny light among the glooms,
A crown of sunlight on her hair;
The wood-birds, warbling everywhere,
Above her head flashed happy plumes;
About her clung the wild perfumes,
And woodland gleams of shimmering air.
III
DEFICIENCY
Ah, God! were I away, away
By woodland-belted hills!
There might be more in this bright day
Than my poor spirit thrills.
The elder coppice, banks of blooms;
The spicewood brush; the field
Of tumbled clover, and perfumes
Hot, weedy pastures yield.
The old rail-fence, whose angles hold
Bright briar and sassafras;
Sweet, priceless wildflowers, blue and gold,
Starred through the moss and grass.
The ragged path that winds unto
Lone, bird-melodious nooks,
Through brambles to the shade and dew
Of rocks and woody brooks.
To see the minnows flash and gleam
Like sparkling prisms; all
Shoot in gray schools adown the stream
Let but a dead leaf fall!
To feel the buoyance and delight
Of floating, feathered seeds!
Capricious wisps of wandering white
Born of silk-bearing weeds.
Ah, God! were I away, away
Among wild woods and birds,
There were more soul in this bright day
Than one could bless with words.
MIDSUMMER
The red blood stings through her cheeks and clings
In their tan with a fever that lightens;
And the clearness of heaven-born mountain springs
In her dark eyes dusks and brightens:
Her limbs are the limbs of an Atalanta who swings
With the youths in the sinewy games,
When the hot wind sings through the hair it flings,
And the circus roars hoarse with their names,
As they fly to the goal that flames.
Her voice is as deep as the waters that sweep
Through the musical reeds of a river;
A voice as of reapers who bind and reap,
With the ring of curved scythes that quiver:
A voice, singing ripe the orchards that heap
With crimson and gold the ground;
That whispers like sleep, till the briars weep
Their berries, all ruby round,
And vineyards are purple-crowned.
Right sweet is the beat of her glowing feet,
And her smile, as Heaven's, is gracious;
The creating might of her hands of heat
As a god's or a goddess's spacious:
The odorous blood in her heart a-beat
Is rich with a perishless fire;
And her bosom, most sweet, is the ardent seat
Of a mother who never will tire,
While the world has a breath to suspire.
Wherever she fares her soft voice bears
Fecundity; powers that thicken
The fruits,—as the wind made Thessalian mares
Of old mysteriously quicken:—
The apricots' honey, the milk of the pears,
The wine, great grape-clusters hold,
These, these are her cares, and her wealth she declares
In the corn's long billows of gold,
And flowers that jewel the wold.
So, hail to her lips, and her sun-girt hips,
And the glory she wears in her tresses!
All hail to the balsam that dreams and drips
From her breasts that the light caresses!
Midsummer! whose fair arm lovingly slips
Round the Earth's great waist of green,
From whose mouth's aroma his hot mouth sips
The life that is love unseen,
And the beauty that God may mean.
DIURNAL
I
With molten ruby, clear as wine,
The East's great cup of daybreak brims;
The morning-glories swing and shine;
The night-dews bead their satin rims;
The bees are busy in flower and vine,
And load with gold their limbs.
Sweet Morn, the South
A loyal lover,
Kisses thy mouth,
Thy rosy mouth,
And over and over
Wooes thee with scents of wild-honey and clover.
II
Beside the wall the roses blow
That Noon's hot breezes scarcely shake;
Beside the wall the poppies glow,
So full of fire their deep hearts ache;
The drowsy butterflies fly slow,
Half sleeping, half awake.
Sweet Noontide, Rest,—
A reaper sleeping,—
His head on thy breast,
Thy redolent breast,
Dreams of the reaping,
While sounds of the scythes all around him are sweeping.
III
Along lone paths the cricket cries,
Where Night distils dim scent and dew;
One mad star 'thwart the heaven flies,
A glittering curve of molten blue;
Now grows the big moon in the skies;
The stars are faint and few.
Sweet Night, the vows
Of love long taken,
Against thy brows
Lay their pale brows,
Till thy soul is shaken
Of amorous dreams that make it awaken.
THE FAMILY BURYING GROUND
A wall of crumbling stones doth keep
Watch o'er long barrows where they sleep,
Old, chronicled grave-stones of its dead,
On which oblivion's mosses creep
And lichens gray as lead.
Warm days, the lost cows, as they pass,
Rest here and browse the juicy grass
That springs about its sun-scorched stones;
Afar one hears their bells' deep brass
Waft melancholy tones.
Here the wild morning-glory goes
A-rambling, and the myrtle grows;
Wild morning-glories, pale as pain,
With holy urns, that hint at woes,
The night hath filled with rain.
Here are the largest berries seen,
Rich, winey-dark, whereon the lean
Black hornet sucks; noons, sick with heat,
That bend not to the shadowed green
The heavy, bearded wheat.
At night, for its forgotten dead,
A requiem, of no known wind said,
Through ghostly cedars moans and throbs,
While to the starlight overhead
The shivering screech-owl sobs.
CLOUDS
All through the tepid summer night
The starless sky had poured a cool
Monotony of pleasant rain
In music beautiful.
And for an hour I sat to watch
Clouds moving on majestic feet;
And heard down avenues of night
Their hearts of thunder beat.
Prodigious limbs, far-veined with gold,
Pulsed fiery life o'er wood and plain,
While, scattered, fell from giant hands
The largess of the rain.
Beholding at each lightning flash
Their generous silver on the sod,
In meek devotion bowed, I thanked
These almoners of God.
THE HERON
I
EVENING
A vein of flame, the long creek crawls
Beneath dark brows of woodland walls,
Red where the sunset's crimson falls.
One wiry leg drawn to his breast,
Neck-shrunk, at solitary rest,
The heron stands among the bars.
II
NIGHT
The whimpering creek breaks on the stone,
Where for a while the new moon shone
With one white star and one alone.
Lank haunter of lone marshy lands
The melancholy heron stands,
Then, clamoring, dives into the stars.
AVATARS
I
When the moon hangs low
Over an afterglow,
Lilac and lily;
When the stars are high,
Wisps in a windless sky,
Silverly stilly:—
He, who will lean, his inner ear compelling,
May hear the spirit of the forest stream
Its story to a wildwood flower telling,
That is no flower but some ascended dream.
II
When the dawn's first lines
Show dimly through the pines
Along the mountain;
When the stars are few,
And starry lies the dew
Around the fountain:—
LILLITA
Can I forget how, when you stood
'Mid orchards whence the bloom had fled,
Stars made the orchards seem a-bud,
And weighed the sighing boughs o'erhead
With shining ghosts of blossoms dead?
Or when you bowed, a lily tall,
Above your drowsy lilies, slim,
Transparent pale, that by the wall
Like cups of moonlight seemed to swim,
Brimmed with faint fragrance to the brim?
And in the cloud that lingered low—
A silent pallor in the west—
There stirred and beat a golden glow,
Like some great heart that could not rest,
A heart of gold within its breast.
Your heart, your soul were in the wild:
You loved to hear the whippoorwill
Lament its love, when, dewy mild,
The harvest scent made musk the hill.
You loved to walk, where oft had trod
The red deer, o'er the fallen hush
Of Fall's torn leaves, when th' ivy-tod
Hung frosty by each berried bush.
Still do the whippoorwills complain
Above your listless lilies, where
The moonlight their white faces stain;
Still flows the dreaming streamlet there,
Whispering of rest an easeful air....
O music of the falling rain,
At night unto her painless rest
Sound sweet not sad! and make her fain
To feel the wildflowers on her breast
Lift moist, pure faces up again
To breathe a prayer in fragrance blessed.
Thick-pleated beeches long have crossed
Old, gnarly arms above her tomb,
Where oft I sit and dream her ghost
Smiles, like a blossom, through the gloom;
Dim as a mist,—that summer lost,—
Of tangled starbeam and perfume.
MIRIAM
White clouds and buds and birds and bees,
Low wind-notes, piped down southern seas,
Brought thee, a rose-white offering,
A flower-like baby with the spring.
She, with her April, gave to thee
A soul of winsome witchery;
Large, heavenly eyes and sparkling whence
Shines the young mind's soft influence;
Where love's eternal innocence,
And smiles and tears of maidenhood,
Gleam with the dreams of hope and good.
She, with the dower of her May
Gave thee a nature strong to sway
Man's higher feelings; and a pride
Where all pride's smallness is denied.
Limbs wrought of lilies; and a face
Made of a rose-bloom; and the grace
Of water, that thy limbs express
In each chaste billow of thy dress.
She, with her dreamy June, brought down
Night-deeps of hair that are thy crown;
A voice like low winds musical,
Or streams that in the moonlight fall
O'er bars of pearl; and in thy heart,—
True gold,—she set Joy's counterpart,
A gem, that in thy fair face gleams,
All radiance, when it speaks or dreams;
And in thy soul the jewel Truth
Whose beauty is perpetual youth.
TWO DAYS
I
The slanted storm tossed at their feet
The frost-nipped autumn leaves;
The park's high pines were caked with sleet,
And ice-spears armed the eaves.
They strolled adown the pillared pines,
To part where wet and twisted vines
About the gate-posts blew and beat.
She watched him riding through the rain
Along the river's misty shore,
And turned with lips that laughed disdain:
"To meet no more!"
II
'Mid heavy roses weighed with dew
The chirping crickets hid;
I' the honeysuckle avenue
Sang the green katydid.
Soft southern stars smiled through the pines.
Through stately windows, draped with vines,
The drifting moonlight's silver blew.
She stared upon a face, now dead,
A soldier calm that wore;
Despair sobbed on the lips that said,
"To meet no more."
MOONRISE AT SEA
I
With lips that had hushed all their fury
Of foam and of winds that were strewn,
Of storm and of turbulent hurry,
The ocean sighed; heralding soon
A ship of miraculous glory,
Of pearl and of fire—the moon.
II
And up from the East, with a slipping
And shudder and clinging of light,
With a loos'ning of clouds and a dipping,
Outbound for the Havens of Night,
With a silence of sails and a dripping,
The vessel came, wonderful white.
III
IN NOVEMBER
No windy white of wind-blown clouds is thine!
No windy white, but low and sodden gray,
That holds the melancholy skies and kills
The wild song and the wild-bird. Yet, ah me!
Thy melancholy skies and mournful woods,
Brown, sighing forests dying that I love!
Thy long, dead leaves, deep, deep about my feet,
Slow, dragging feet that halt or wander on;
Thy deep, sweet, crimson leaves that burn and die
With silent fever of the sickened wood.
I love to hear in all thy wind-swept coignes,
Rain-wet and choked with bleached and ruined weeds,
The withered whisper of the many leaves,
That, fallen on barren ways—like fallen hopes—
Once held so high upon the Summer's heart
Of stalwart trees, now seem the desolate voice
Of Earth lamenting in hushed undertones
Her green departed glory vanished so.
IN LATE FALL
O days, that break the wild-bird's heart,
That slay the wild-bird and its songs!
Why should death play so sad a part
With you to whom such sweet belongs?
Why are your eyes so filled with tears,
As with the rain the frozen flowers?
Why are your hearts so swept with fears,
Like winds among the ruined bowers?
Farewell! farewell! for she is dead,
The old gray month; I saw her die:
Go, light your torches round her head,
The last red leaves, and let her lie.
WITH THE SEASONS
I
You will not love me, sweet,
When this brief year is past;
Or love, now at my feet,
At other feet you'll cast,
At fairer feet you'll cast.
You will not love me, sweet,
When this brief year is past.
II
Now 'tis the Springtime, dear,
And crocus-cups hold flame,
Brimmed to the pregnant year,
All bashful as with shame,
Who blushes as with shame.
Now 'tis the Springtime, dear,
And crocus-cups hold flame.
III
Soon Summer will be queen,
At her brown throat one rose,
And poppy-pod, and bean,
Will rustle as she goes,
As down the garth she goes.
Soon Summer will be queen,
At her brown throat one rose.
IV
Then Autumn come, a prince,
A gipsy crowned with gold;
Gold weight the fruited quince,
Gold strew the leafy wold,
The wild and wind-swept wold.
Then Autumn come, a prince,
A gipsy crowned with gold.
V
Then Winter will be king,
Snow-driven from feet to head;
No song-birds then will sing,
The winds will wail instead,
The wild winds weep instead.
Then Winter will be king,
Snow-driven from feet to head.
VI
TYRANNY
What is there now more merciless
Than such fast lips that will not speak;
That stir not if one curse or bless
A God who made them weak?
More maddening to one there is naught
Than such white eyelids sealed on eyes,
Eyes vacant of the thing named thought,
An exile in the skies.
Ah, silent tongue! ah, dull, closed ear!
What angel utterances low
Have wooed you? so you may not hear
Our mortal words of woe!
WHAT YOU WILL
I
When the season was dry and the sun was hot,
And the hornet sucked, gaunt on the apricot,
And the ripe peach dropped, to its seed a-rot,
With a lean, red wasp that stung and clung:
When the hollyhocks, ranked in the garden plot,
More seed-pods had than blossoms, I wot,
Then all had been said and been sung,
And meseemed that my heart had forgot.
II
When the black grape bulged with the juice that burst
Through its thick blue skin that was cracked with thirst,
And the round, ripe pippins, that summer had nursed,
In the yellowing leaves o' the orchard hung:
When the farmer, his lips with whistling pursed,
To his sun-tanned brow in the corn was immersed,
Then something was said or was sung,
And I remembered as much as I durst.
III
Now the sky of December gray drips and drips,
And eaves of the barn the icicle tips,
And the cackling hen on the snow-path slips,
And the cattle shiver the fields among:
Now the ears of the milkmaid the north-wind nips,
And the red-chapped cheeks of the farm-boy whips,
What, what shall be said or be sung,
With my lips pressed warm to your lips!
MIDWINTER
The dewdrop from the rose that drips
Hath not the sparkle of her lips,
My lady's lips.
Than her long braids of yellow hold
The dandelion hath not more gold,
Her braids of gold.
The blue-bell hints not more of skies
Than do the flowers of her eyes,
My lady's eyes.
The sweet-pea bloom shows not more grace
Of delicate pink than doth her face,
My lady's face.
So, heigh-ho! then, though skies be gray,
Spring blossoms in my heart to-day,
This winter day!
IN THE GARDENS OF FALERINA
TO GERTRUDE
These are the flowers I bring to thee,
Heart's-ease, euphrasy and rue,
Grown in my Garden of Poetry;
Wear them, sweet, on thy breast for me:
The first for thoughts; and the other two
For spiritual vision, that's always true,
So thou with thy soul mayst ever see
The love in my heart I keep for thee.
THE GARDENS OF FALERINA
Her hills and vales are dimmer
Than sunset's shadowy shimmer;
Thin mists, that curl, of poppy and pearl,
Above her bowers glimmer;
And, silvered o'er with sails of faery galleys,
Far off the sea gleams, glimpsed through fountained valleys.
The moon floats never higher
Than one white peak of fire;
And in its beams pale Beauty dreams,
And Music tunes her lyre;
And, Siren-like, beside the moonlit waters,
Fair Fancy sits singing with Memory's daughters.
A cloud, above and under
The ocean, white with wonder,
Looms, starry steep; and, opening deep,
Grows gold with silent thunder;
Revealing far within, immeasurable,
Lost Avalons of old Romance and Fable.
Ah! could my spirit shatter
These bonds of flesh and matter,
And, at a word, mount like a bird
To her through mists that scatter;
And, raimented in love and inspiration,
Look down on Earth from that exalted station:
No mortal might inveigle
My soul, that, like an eagle,
Would soar and soar from shore to shore
Of her, the rare and regal;
And by her love made all a lyric rapture,
A wild desire, wing far beyond all capture.