Ah, not for us the Heavens that hold
God's message of Promethean fire!
The flame that fell on bards of old
To hallow and inspire.
Yet let the soul dream on and dare
No less Song's heights where these repose:
We can but fail; and may prepare
The way for one like those.
SONG AND STORY
I was destined, when a baby,
For that land which lieth hidden
In the moon; and whither, may be,
At their birth all souls are bidden.
She bewitched me then and bound me,
She a daughter of Apollo,
In a golden snare who wound me,
And compelled me thus to follow:—
Once she sent a stallion, sired
Of the Wind; a mare his mother,
Whom Thessalian madness fired,
And the Hurricane his brother.
And a voice said, "Do not tarry!
Mount him while the world is sleeping:
He, my beautiful, will carry
You, my Soul, into my keeping."
And I mounted: tempest whistled
In my ears, and, yawning o'er us,
Flamed the lightning; boomed the missiled
Thunder, crashing far before us.
On we hurled. The world was rubble
Underneath us; and the wonder
Of our passage seemed to double
Heaven's tempest and its thunder.
With us rode the air's wild races:
Wisps and witches; all the Brocken,
Stunted, gnarled, with fiendish faces,
Seemed around us, gibing, mocking:
Hate, that shook the heart with hooting:
Humpbacked Horror; gibbet-headed
Murder: and,—great ravens shooting
Over,—Fear, in bats embedded.
All were left; were passed like water
Hurling headlong from a mountain,—
Hag and elf and demon's daughter,—
Ere we reached that mystic fountain.
There we stopped. I drained a beaker
Old as Earth: the draught was fire:
On my soul the burning liquor
Acted like a new desire.
On again! The darkness lifted
Like an up-rolled banner. Scattered
Overhead, in points that shifted,
Shone the stars through tempest tattered.
Then the moon rose. Slowly, slowly,
Of a wild and copper color,
Rose the moon, in melancholy
Deeps; and all the stars grew duller.
And we passed,—an instant's scanning,—
Swift as thought, the spider-arches
Of the ray-built bridges spanning
Space between her lunar marches.
So I reached her kingdom, olden
As the God that was its maker,
Where the rocks and trees are golden,
And the sea and air are nacre.
Where, 'mid ingot-glowing flowers,
Over streams of diamond brightness,
Palaces of pearl and towers,
Wrought of topaz, loom in whiteness.
Here she met me with a chalice,
Like the Giamschid ruby burning;
And I entered in her palace,
From the world forever turning.
Centuries have passed, have vanished;
Still she holds me with her glory,
She, whom Earth long since hath banished?
She, the Soul of Song and Story.
AN INDIAN LEGEND
On a mountain by a fountain,
By a faintly falling stream,
Where upon the moss and flowers,
Sparkling, fell the spray in showers,
In the moonlight's mystic beam,
Once a maiden came to dream,
Came to sit and sigh and dream:
On a mountain by a fountain,
By a faintly falling stream.
To the fountain on the mountain
Rode a youth upon a steed;
In his hair an eagle's feather;
Round his waist a belt of leather,
Wampum-wrought with shell and bead;
In his hands a hollow reed,
In his hands a magic reed:
To the fountain on the mountain
Rode a youth upon a steed.
On the mountain by the fountain,
When the moon shone overhead,
While the maiden by him wavered,
Low upon his reed he quavered,
Piped and played and singing said,—
"Listen and be comforted!
Heart of mine, be comforted!"
On the mountain by the fountain
When the moon shone overhead.
By the fountain on the mountain,
So the Indian legend saith,
Paler, paler grew the maiden,
Paler as if sorrow laden,
Frailer, paler at each breath,
Saying, "Art thou Love or Death?"
And he answered, "I am Death."
By the fountain on the mountain
So the Indian legend saith.
Gone the mountain and the fountain
Where the maiden's soul was lost:
But in every stream you hear it
Whispering, sighing, like a spirit,
Hear the Indian maiden's ghost,
In the foam as white as frost,
Whiter than the winter's frost:
Gone the mountain and the fountain
Where the maiden's soul was lost.
JOHN DAVIS, BOUCANIER
High time, high time, good gentlemen, to sail the Spanish Main!
Three months we've watched for galleons and treasure bound for Spain;
Three months! and not a vessel, neither barque nor brigantine!
No Cartagena plate-ship, or De Dios, have we seen.
Our sails are idle as the wind, our ships as gulls or waves.—
And shall inaction rot us like a gang of shackled slaves?
Up, boucaniers! the land is wide, and wider far the sea—
Somewhere between the dusk and dawn and dusk some hope must be;
Some ship somewhere or city there beneath the Indian sky—
What matter whether east or west!—some ship with decks built high,
With treasure packed from stem to stern: some huge ship of the line,
Against whose ports we'll cram our ports, while all our cannon shine
And thunder; then, with blade to blade, and shouting horde on horde,
Swarm up her sides and sweep her decks with pistol and with sword;
And, sink or swim, our flag flies there, we boucaniers aboard.
Say, what availed your patron saints, Iago and Saint Marc,
Lanceros, Adelantados, against Ravenau's barque?
O butchers of good Jean Ribault, well might your cheeks turn pale
When Montebaro's brigantine shook to the wind her sail!
Around the coasts where New Spain boasts the haughtiness of Old,
Her tyranny, her bigotry, her sordid greed for gold,
From east to west, from north to south, among the Carib Isles,
Swift to revenge the Frenchman swept across the foaming miles.
The spirit of Pierre-le-Grand and of his gallant crew,
Who took a galleon with a boat, beneath the tropic blue,
Be with us now!—Up, gentlemen! and, Spain, oh, woe to you!
Prime arquebus and brighten blade, and let the culverin
Gleam, burnished as the morning-star, as through the foam we spin;
And now be glad as when we had Granada in our hold,
And stabbed the city's sentinels and took the city's gold:
New Spain's good homes and churches, aye, will not forget too soon
The boucanier, John Davis, sirs, who taught their Dons a tune—
Dutch serenades of belts and blades they danced to by the moon!
What helped the Latin of their monks to curse what Satan blessed!
Those pieces,—broad,—of eight and plate we counted in our chest.
And now that we may double or may treble every piece,
Pipe up the anchor, boatswain! and, before the hawser cease,
Let every sail salute the gale and every rope be taunt—
The Devil take all care and us, if jaundiced colors daunt!
The sea-gulls dip and dive and float, and swim and soar again;
Be like them, merry gentlemen, high-hearted!—May it rain
Rich galleons for us!—Mix a bowl and drink, "The ships of Spain!"
Be merry as the sea-gulls are; and, as the case may go,
Who cares a curse for wealth!—Now drink: "Here's to Spain's overthrow!"—
Doff caps and follow: though the prize be over-fat or lean,
Kneel down now; give her praise who leads, Dame Fortune, our good Queen!
Upon our prow she guides us now!—On to Saint Augustine!
VOYAGERS
Where are they, that song and tale
Tell of, lands our childhood knew?
Sea-locked Fairy-lands that trail
Morning summits, wet with dew,
Crimson, o'er a crimson sail?
Where, in dreams, we entered on
Wonders eyes have never seen:
Whither often we have gone,
Sailing a dream-brigantine
On from voyaging dawn to dawn.
Leons seeking lands of song;
Fabled fountains pouring spray;
Where our anchors dropped among
Corals of some blooming bay,
With its swarthy native throng.
Shoulder axe and arquebus!—
We may find it, past yon range
Of sierras, vaporous,
Rich with gold and wild and strange,
That dim region lost to us.
Yet, behold, although our zeal
Darien summits may subdue,
Our Balboa eyes reveal
But a vaster sea come to;
New endeavor for our keel.
Yet!—who sails with face set hard
Westward, while behind him lies
Unfaith; where his dreams keep guard
Round it, in the sunset skies,
He may reach it—afterward.
HIEROGLYPHS
I
All dreams are older than the seas,
Being but newer forms of change;
Some savage dreamed mine; and 'twas these
De Leon sought where seas were strange.
All thoughts are older than the Earth
Being of beauty ages wrought;
Old when creation gave them birth,
When Homer sang them, Shakespeare thought.
II
If souls could travel as can thought,
Beyond the farthest arcs that span
Imagination, what would man
Not know and see at last?
One would explore the stars; and one
Would search the moon and one the sun
And tell us of their past.
And one would seek out Hell; and, wise
In tortures of the damned, return
To tell us if they freeze or burn,
And where God's red Hell lies:
And one would look on Heaven; and, mute
With memories of harp and lute,
Sit silent as the skies.
But I—on condor wings would sweep
To some new world, and, soaring, sit
'Mid firmaments volcano-lit,
And see creation heap
Its awful Andes, vague and vast,
About its Inca-peopled past,
While deep roared out to deep.
III
Out of it all but this remains:—
I dreamed that I had crossed wide chains
Of Cordilleras, whose huge peaks
Lock in the wilds of Yucatan,
Chiapas and Honduras. Weeks—
And then a city that no man
Had even seen; so dim and old
No chronicle has ever told
The history of men who piled
Its temples and huge teocallis
Among mimosa-blooming valleys;
Or how its altars were defiled
With human blood; whose idols there
With eyes of stone still stand and stare.
So old, the moon can only know
How old, since ancient forests grow
On mighty wall and pyramid.
Huge ceïbas, whose trunks were scarred
With ages, and dense yuccas, hid
Fanes 'mid great cacti, scarlet-starred.
I looked upon its paven ways
And saw it in its kingliest days;
When, from its lordliest palace, one
A victim, walked with prince and priest,
Who turned brown faces toward the east
In worship of the rising sun:
At night a thousand temple spires,
Of gold, burnt everlasting fires.
Uxmal? Palenque? or Copan?
I know not. Only how no man
Had ever seen; and still my soul
Believes it vaster than the three.
Volcanic rock walled in the whole,
Lost in the woods as in some sea.
I only read its hieroglyphs,
Perused its monster monoliths
Of death, gigantic heads; and read
The pictured codex of its fate,
The perished Toltec; while in hate
Mad monkeys cursed me, as if dead
Priests of its past had taken form
To guard their ruined fanes from harm.
IV
And then it was as if I talked
Of gods and beauty, like a god;
'Mid Montezuma's priests who walked
Obedient to my nod.
From Mexic levels breezes blew
O'er green magueys; cacaö fields;
I stood among caciques, a crew
With plumes and golden shields.
In raiment made of humming-birds
Brown slave-girls danced. All Anahuac
Stood, grim with strange obsidian swords,
Around the idol's rock.
And up the temple's winding stair
Of pyramid we wound and went:
The bloomed vanilla drenched the air
With all its tropic scent.
Volcanoes walled us in: and I
Walked, crowned with flaming cactus-flowers,
Beneath the golden, Aztec sky,
Lord of the living hours.
When, lo! five priests, who led me to
A jasper stone of sacrifice!—
Then deep within my soul I knew
That prideful moment's price.
A sixth priest, robed in cochineal,
Received me at the altar's stone:
I saw the flint-blade, sharp as steel,
That in his high hand shone.
O God! to dream that they would bind—
With pomp and pageant of their love—
Me to the rock, and never blind
Mine eyes to that above!
I felt the flint hack through my breast,
And in my agony did raise
Wild eyes, a little while to rest
Upon their idol's face.
Just God! the priest tore out my heart,
And held it, beating, to the sun—
Chanting—and from one burning part
Great drops dripped, one by one.
Torn out, I felt my heart still beat,
I felt it beat with pain divine;
For, bleeding at the idol's feet,
My heart was pressed to thine.
V
You were a maiden like a dream
Who led me where volcanic dust
Rained in a scoriac mountain stream,
Where, from Andean snows, was thrust
One crater belching stones and steam.
You were an Inca princess when
I was a cavalier of Spain,
Who frowned among Pizarro's men,
And saw the New World rent with pain.—
No grace of God could save me then.
And it was you who led me far
To gaze on caves of Inca gold:
But when we came, lo! warrior
On warrior, an army rolled
Around us panoplied for war.
Fierce faces chiseled out of stone
Are not more stern.—Down, underneath,
I heard the sullen earthquake groan;
Above me, red eruptions seeth.
And clenched my teeth and stood alone.
And then you pled and was denied.—
They laid me where the lava crawled,
Red-rivered, down the mountain side.
I felt the slow, slow hell-heat scald:
And as it closed, you leapt and died.
VI
In farther planets there are men who talk,
Not with their lips, but with their eyes alone,
With beaming eyes and brows that burn with thought:
Pure souls whose sentiments need but be born
To be expressed. Where speech of mouth and tongue
Were barbarous discord. Where no voice imparts
Thought, but divulging eye and sensitive brow.
Superior planets, far beyond our sphere,
And nearer God than ages shall combine
To lift our world up with its wrangling woes.
Worlds that are strange to sickness and disease
Of mind and body; perfect mentally,—
Past what we name perfection here on Earth,—
And physically. Morally divine
As creeds have taught us God's high Heaven is.
Worlds where Love makes no playmate of vile Lust;
Where Hope makes no companion of Despair;
Where Power can not trample with fierce feet;
And, impotent, the iron hand of Might
Surrenders its red weapon unto Mind;
Where Truth and Thought are wedded, in one rule
Of far progression, whose white child is Love.
So have I dreamed, and longed to leave sad Earth,
And live anew on some diviner sphere;
A world so higher, lovelier than this,
So spiritually perfected and refined,
That, should an Earth-born mortal,—suddenly
Translated thither,—unprepared behold,
Dazed with divinity, before the feet
Of its inhabitants he would fall prone
In worship and astonishment; and, all
The exaltation of celestial peace
Singing within, cry out: "Yea, this is Heaven!
How long, O sinner, hast thou dwelt in Hell!"
VII
An iron despotism the day's:
A brutal anarchy the night's:
What hope for hope when day betrays,
And night in death delights?
For, once I prayed for gulfs of gold,
And morn pooled heav'n with sombre blood:
For skies of stars, and skies behold—
Malignant with the scud.
And so I marvel not that he,
Gray-haired and toothless, hugs his stove,
While I my youth, which once was she,
Have buried with my love.
VIII
All thoughts of nature are but forms
Of life and death, with which began
Love: love, that swept the heavens with storms,
Evolving worlds to perfect man.
Thoughts are the forms of mind; and come
And go, assuming every shape:
Science and art: through which we clomb,
And climb, to angel from the ape.
A LEGEND OF THE LILY
Pale as a star that shines through rain
Her face was seen at the window-pane,
Her sad, frail face that watched in vain.
The face of a girl whose brow was wan;
To whom the kind sun spoke at dawn,
And a star and the moon when the day was gone.
And oft and often the sun had said—
"O fair, white face, O sweet, fair head,
Come talk to me of the love that's dead."
And she would sit in the sun a while,
Down in the garth by the old stone-dial,
Where never again would he make her smile.
And often the first bright star o'erhead
Had whispered, "Sweet, where the rose blooms red,
Come look with me for the love that's dead."
And she would wait with the star she knew,
Where the fountain splashed and the roses blew,
Where never again would he come to woo.
And oft the moon, when she lay in bed,
Had sighed, "Dear heart, in the orchardstead
Come dream with me of the love that's dead."
And she would stand in the moon, the dim,
Where the fruit made heavy the apple limb,
Where never again would she dream with him.
So summer passed and the autumn came;
And the wind-torn boughs were touched with flame;
But her life and her sorrow remained the same.
Or, if she changed, as it comes about
A life may change through trouble and doubt,—
As a candle flickers and then goes out,—
'Twas only to grow more quiet and wan,
Sadly waiting at dusk and at dawn
For the coming of love forever gone.
And so, one night, when the star looked in,
It kissed her face that was white and thin,
And murmured, "Come! thou free of sin!"
And when the moon, on another night,
Beheld her lying still and white,
It sighed, "'Tis well! now all is right."
And when one morning the sun arose,
And they bore her bier down the garden-close,
It touched her, saying, "At last, repose."
And they laid her down, so young and fair,
Where the grass was withered, the bough was bare,
All wrapped in the light of her golden hair.
So autumn passed and the winter went;
And spring, like a blue-eyed penitent,
Came, telling her beads of blossom and scent.
And, lo! to the grave of the beautiful
The strong sun cried, "Why art thou dull?
Awake! awake! Forget thy skull!"
And the evening-star and the moon above
Called out, "O dust, now speak thereof!
Proclaim thyself! Arise, O love!"
And the skull and the dust in the darkness heard.
Each icy germ in its cerements stirred,
As Lazarus moved at the Lord's loud word.
And a flower arose on the mound of green,
White as the robe of the Nazarene;
To testify of the life unseen.
And I paused by the grave; then went my way:
And it seemed that I heard the lily say—
"Here was a miracle wrought to-day."
THE END OF THE CENTURY
There are moments when, as missions,
God reveals to us strange visions;
When, within their separate stations,
We may see the Centuries,
Like revolving constellations
Shaping out Earth's destinies.
I have gazed in Time's abysses,
Where no smallest thing Earth misses
That was hers once. 'Mid her chattels,
There the Past's gigantic ghost
Sits and dreams of thrones and battles
In the night of ages lost.
Far before her eyes, unholy
Mist was spread; that darkly, slowly
Rolled aside,—like some huge curtain
Hung above the land and sea;—
And beneath it, wild, uncertain,
Rose the wraiths of memory.
First I saw colossal spectres
Of dead cities: Troy—once Hector's
Pride; then Babylon and Tyre;
Karnac, Carthage, and the gray
Walls of Thebes,—Apollo's lyre
Built;—then Rome and Nineveh.
Empires followed: first, in seeming,
Old Chaldea lost in dreaming;
Egypt next, a bulk Memnonian
Staring from her pyramids;
Then Assyria, Babylonian
Night beneath her hell-lit lids.
Greece, in classic white, sidereal
Armored; Rome, in dark, imperial
Purple, crowned with blood and fire,
Down the deeps barbaric strode;
Gaul and Britain stalking by her,
Clad in skins, tattooed with woad.
All around them, rent and scattered,
Lay their gods with features battered,
Brute and human, stone and iron,
Caked with gems and gnarled with gold;
Temples, that did once environ
These, in wreck around them rolled.
While I stood and gazed and waited,
Slowly night obliterated
All; and other phantoms drifted
Out of darkness pale as stars;
Shapes that tyrant faces lifted,
Sultans, kings, and emperors.
Man and steed in ponderous metal
Panoplied, they seemed to settle,
Condors gaunt of devastation,
On the world: behind their march—
Desolation: Conflagration
Loomed before them with her torch.
Helmets flamed like fearful flowers:
Chariots rose and moving towers:
Captains passed: each fierce commander
With his gauntlet on his sword:
Agamemnon, Alexander,
Cæsar, Alaric, horde on horde.
Huns and Vandals: wild invaders:
Goths and Arabs: stern Crusaders:
Each, like some terrific torrent,
Rolled above a ruined world;
Till a cataract abhorrent
Seemed the swarming spears uphurled.
Banners and escutcheons, kindled
By the light of slaughter, dwindled—
Died in darkness:—the chimera
Of the Past was laid at last.
But, behold, another era
From her corpse rose, vague and vast.
Demogorgon of the Present!
Who in one hand raised a Crescent,
In the other, with submissive
Fingers, lifted up a Cross;
Reverent and yet derisive
Seemed she, robed in gold and dross.
In her skeptic eyes professions
Of great faith I saw; expressions,
Christian and humanitarian,
Played around her cynic lip;
Still I knew her a barbarian
By the sword upon her hip.
And she cherished strange eidolons,
Pagan shadows—Plato's, Solon's—
From whose teachings she indentured
Forms of law and sophistry;
Seeking aye for truth she ventured
Just so far as these could see.
When she vanished, I—uplifting
Eyes to where the dawn was rifting
Darkness,—lo! beheld a shadow
Towering on Earth's utmost peaks;
Round whom morning's El Dorado
Rivered gold in blinding streaks.
On her brow I saw the stigma
Still of death; and life's enigma
Filled her eyes: around her shimmered
Folds of silence; and afar,
Faint above her forehead, glimmered
Lone the light of one pale star.
Then a voice,—above or under
Earth,—against her seemed to thunder
Questions, wherein was repeated,
"Christ or Cain?" and "Man or beast?"
And the Future, shadowy-sheeted,
Turned and pointed towards the East.
THE ISLE OF VOICES
The wind blew free that morn that we,
High-hearted, sailed away;
Bound for that Island named the Blest,
Remote within the unknown West,
Beyond the golden day.
There, we were told, each dream of old,
Each deed and dream of youth,
Each myth of life's divinest prime,
And every romance, dear to time,
Put on immortal truth.
The love undone; the aim unwon;
The hope that turned despair;
The thought unborn; the dream that died;
The unattained, unsatisfied,
Should be accomplished there.
So we believed. And, undeceived,
A little crew set sail;
A little crew with hearts as stout
As any yet that faced a doubt
And tore away its veil.
And time went by; and sea and sky
Had worn our masts and decks;
When, lo! one morn with canvas torn,
A phantom ship, we came forlorn
Into the Sea of Wrecks.
There, day and night, the mist lay white,
And pale stars shone at noon;
The sea around was foam and fire,
And overhead hung, thin as wire,
A will-o'-wisp of moon.
And through the mist, all white and whist,
Gaunt ships, with sea-weed wound,
With rotting masts, upon whose spars
The corposants lit spectre stars,
Sailed by without a sound.
And all about,—now in, now out,—
Their ancient hulls, was shed
The worm-like glow of green decay,
That writhed and glimmered in the gray
Of canvas overhead.
And each that passed, in hull and mast,
Seemed that wild ship that flees
Before the tempest—seamen tell—
Deep-cargoed with the curse of Hell,
Through roaring rain and seas.
Ay! many a craft we left abaft
Upon that haunted sea;
But never a hulk that clewed a sail,
Or waved a hand, or answered hail,
And never a man saw we.
At last we came where—pouring flame—
In darkness and in storm,
Vast a volcano westward reared
An awful summit, lava-seared,
Like some terrific arm.
And we could feel beneath our keel
The ocean throb and swell,
As if the Earthquake there uncoiled
Its monster bulk, or Titans toiled
At the red heart of Hell.
Like madmen now we turned our prow
North, towards an ocean weird
Of Northern Lights and icy blasts;
And for ten moons with reeling masts
And leaking hold we steered.
Then black as blood through streaming scud
Land loomed above our boom,
An isle of iron gulfs and crags
And cataracts, like wind-tossed rags,
And caverns lost in gloom.
And burning white on every height,
And white in every cave,
A naked spirit, like a flame,
Now gleamed, now vanished; went and came
Above the windy wave.
No mortal thing of foot or wing
Made glad its steep or strand;
But voices, voices seemingly—
Vague voices of the sky and sea—
Peopled the demon land.
Yea, everywhere, in earth and air,
A lamentation wept;
That, gathering strength above, below,
Now like a mighty wind of woe,
Around the island swept.
And in that sound, it seemed, was bound
All life's despair of art;
The bitterness of joy that died;
The anguish of faiths crucified;
And love that broke its heart.
The ghost it seemed of all we'd dreamed,
Of all we had desired;
That—turned a curse, an empty cry—
With wailing words went trailing by
In hope's dead robes attired.
And could this be the land that we
Had sought for soon and late?
That Island of the Blest, the fair,
Where we had hoped to ease our care
And end the fight with fate.
O lie that lured! O pain endured!
O toil and tears and thirst!
Where we had looked for blesséd ground
The Island of the Damned we found,
And in the end—were curst!
THE WATCHER
Young was the dream that held her when
The world was moon-white with the May:
She watched the singing fishermen
Sail out to sea at break of day:
Soft, as the morning heavens then,
The eyes that watched him sail away.
Old was her grief when summer filled
The world with warm maturity:
Far off she watched the nets that spilled
Their twinkling foison by the sea:
Where on the rocks she sat and stilled
With song his infant on her knee.
Who to her love would make them lies—
Those vows his sea-slain manhood swore?
Beneath the raining autumn skies
The fishing vessels put to shore:
She watches with remembering eyes
For the brown face that comes no more.