The Triumph of Music, and Other Lyrics

Wail! wail! and smite your lyres' sonorous gold,
And beckon naked beauty from the sea
In arms and breasts and hips of godly mold,
Dark, strangling hair carousing to the knee.

In vain! in vain! and dull in unclosed ears
To one loved voice sweet calling o'er the foam,
Which in my heart like some strong hand appears
To gently, firmly draw my vessel home.

THE VINTAGER.

Among the fragrant grapes she bows;
Long, violet clusters heap her hands;
About her satyr throats and brows
Flush at her smiled commands.

And from her sun-burnt throat at times,
As bubbles burst on new-made wine,
A happy fit of merry rhymes
Rings down the hills of vine.

From out one heart, remorseless sweet,
She plucked the big-grape passion there;
Trod in the wine-press of her feet,
It grew into despair:

Until she drained its honeyed must,
Which, tingling inward part by part,
Fierce mounted thro' her glowing bust
And centered in her heart.

A STORMY SUNSET.

Soul of my body! what a death
For such a day of envious gloom,
Unbroken passion of the sky!
As if the pure, kind-hearted breath
Of some soft power, ever nigh,
Had, cleaving in the bitter sheath,
Burst from its grave a gorgeous bloom.

The majesty of clouds that swarm.
Expanding in a furious length
Of molten-metal petals, flows
Unutterable, and where the warm,
Full fire is centered, swims and glows
The evening star fresh-faced with strength,
A shimmering rain-drop of the storm.

ON A DIAL.

To-morrow and to-morrow
Is but to-day:
The world wags but to borrow
Time that grows gray:—
Grammercy! time's but sorrow
And—well away!

Since time hales but to sadness
And to decay,
Men needs wax fools for madness,
Laugh, curse, and pray;
Death grapples with their badness—
The Devil's to pay.

UNUTTERABLE.

There is a sorrow in the wind to-night
That haunteth me; she, like a penitent,
Heaps on rent hairs the snow's thin ashes white
And moans and moans, her swaying body bent.

And Superstition gliding softly shakes
With wasted hands, that vainly grope and seek,
The rustling curtains; of each cranny makes
Cold, ghostly lips that wailing fain would speak.

MIDSUMMER.

The red blood clings in her cheeks and stings
Through their tan with a fever that lightens,
And the clearness of heaven-born mountain springs
In her dark eyes dusks and brightens.
And her limbs are the limbs of an Atalanta who swings
With the youths in the sinewy games,
When the hot air sings thro' the hair it flings,
And the circus roars hoarse with their names,
As they fly to the goal that flames.

A voice as deep as wan waters that sweep
Thro' the musical reeds of a river;
A song of red reapers that bind and reap,
With the ring of curved scythes that quiver.
The note-like lisp of the pippins that leap,
Ripe-mellowed to gold, to the ground;
The murmurous sleep that the cool leaves keep
On close lips that trickle with sound.

And sweet is the beat of her glowing feet,
And her smiles as wide heavens are gracious;
And the creating might of her hands of heat
As a god's or a goddess's spacious.
The elastic veins thro' her heart that beat
Are rich with a perishless fire,
And her bosoms most sweet are the ardent seat
Of a mother that never will tire.

Wherever she fares her soft voice bears
High powers of being that thicken
In fruits, as the winds made Thessalian mares
Of old mysteriously quicken;
The apricots' juice and the juice of the pears,
The wine great grape-clusters hold,
These, these are her cares, and her wealth she declares
In her corn's vast billows of gold.

All hail to her lips, and her fruitful hips,
And her motherly thickness of tresses;
All hail to the sweetness that slips and drips
From her breasts which the light caresses.
A toiler, whose fair arm heaps and whips
Great chariots that heavily creak;
A worker, who sweats on the groaning ships.
And never grows weary or weak.

A FAIRY CAVALIER.

By a mushroom in the moon,
White as bud from budded berry,
Silver buckles on my shoon,—
Ho! the moon shines merry.

Here I sit and drink my grog,—
Stocks and tunic ouphen yellow,
Skinned from belly of a frog,—
Quite a fine, fierce fellow.

My good cloak a bat's wing gave,
And a beetle's wings my bonnet,
And a moth's head grew the brave,
Gallant feather on it.

Faith! I have rich jewels rare,
Rings and carcanets all studded
Thick with spiders' eyes, that glare
Like great rubies blooded.

And I swear, sirs, by my blade,
"Sirrah, a good stabbing hanger!"—
From a hornet's stinger made,—
When I am in anger.

Fill the lichen pottles up!
Honey pressed from hearts of roses;
Cheek by jowl, up with each cup
Till we hide our noses.

Good, sirs!—marry!—'tis the cock!
Hey, away! the moon's lost fire!
Ho! the cock our dial and clock—
Hide we 'neath this brier.

THE FARMSTEAD.

Yes, a lovely homestead; there
In the Spring your lilacs blew
Plenteous perfume everywhere;
There your gladiolas grew,
Parallels of scarlet glare.

And the moon-hued primrose cool,
Satin-soft and redolent;
Honey-suckles beautiful,
Balming all the air with scent;
Roses red or white as wool.

Roses glorious and lush,
Rich in tender-tinted dyes,
Like a gay, tempestuous rush
Of unnumbered butterflies
Lighting on each bending bush.

Here the fire-bush and the box,
And the wayward violets;
Clumps of star-enameled phlox,
And the myriad flowery jets
Of the twilight four-o'clocks.

Ah, the beauty of the place
When the June made one great rose
Full of musk and mellow grace,
In the garden's humming close,
Of her comely mother face!

Bubble-like the hollyhocks
Budded, burst and flaunted wide
Gypsy beauty from their stocks.
Morning-glories, bubble-dyed,
Swung in honey-hearted flocks.

Tawny tiger-lilies flung
Doublets slashed with crimson on;
Graceful slave-girls fair and young,
Like Circassians, in the sun
Alabaster lilies swung.

Ah, the droning of the bee
In his dusty pantaloons
Tumbling in the fleurs-de-lis;
In the drowsy afternoons
Dreaming in the pink sweet-pea.

Ah, the moaning wild-wood dove
With its throat of amethyst
Ruffled like a shining cove,
Which a wind to pearl hath kissed,
Moaning, moaning of its love.

And the insects' gossip thin,
From the summer hotness hid,
In the leafy shadows green,
Then at eve the katydid
With its hard, unvaried din.

Often from the whispering hills
Lorn within the golden dusk,—
Gold with gold of daffodils,—
Thrilled into the garden's musk
The wild wail of whippoorwills.

From the purple tangled trees,
Like the white, full heart of night,
Solemn with majestic peace,
Swam the big moon veined with light,
Like some gorgeous golden fleece.

You were there with me, and you,
In the magic of the hour,
Almost swore that you could view
Beading on each blade and flower
Moony blisters of the dew.

And each Fairy of our home—
Fire-fly—its torch then lit
In the honey-scented gloam,
Dashing down the dusk with it,
Like an instant flaming foam.

And we heard the calling, calling,
Of the wild owl in the brake
Where the trumpet-vine hung crawling;
Down the ledge into the lake
Heard the sighing streamlet falling.

Then we wandered to the creek,
Where the water-lilies growing,
Like fair maidens white and weak,—
Naked in the brooklet's flowing,—
Stooped to bathe a bashful cheek.

And the moonbeams rippling golden
Fell in saint-sweet aureoles
On chaste bosoms half beholden,
Till, meseemed, the dainty souls
Of pale moon-fays, there enfolden

In such beauty, dimly fainted
Baby-cribbed within each bud,
Till a night wind piney-tainted,
Swooning over field and flood,
Rocked them to a slumber sainted.

Then a low, melodious bell
Of some sleeping heifer tinkled
In some berry-briered dell,
As her satin dewlap wrinkled
With the cud that made it swell.

And returning home we heard
In a beech tree at the gate
Some brown, dream-behaunted bird
Singing of its absent mate,
Of the mate that never heard.

And you see, now I am gray,
Why within the old, old place,
With such memories I stay,
Fancy out your absent face
Long since passed away.

You were mine—yes, still are mine:
And this frosty memory
Reels about you as with wine
Warmed into wild eyes which see
All of you that is divine.

Yes, I love it, and have grown
Melancholy in that love
And that memory alone
Of perfection such, whereof
You could sanctify a stone.

And where'er your poppies swing—
There we walk,—as if a bee
Fanned them with his puny wing,—
Down your garden shadowy
In the hush the evenings bring.

FIVE FANCIES.

I

THE GLADIOLAS.

As tall as the lily, as tall as the rose,
And almost as tall as the hollyhocks,
Ranked breast to breast in sentinel rows
Stand the gladiola stocks.

And some are red as the humming-bird's blood
And some are pied as the butterfly race,
And each is shaped like a velvet hood
Gold-lined with delicate lace.

For you know the goblins that come like musk
To tumble and romp in the flowers' laps,
When you see big fire-fly eyes in the dusk,
Hang there their goblin caps.

II

THE MORNING-GLORIES.

They bloom up the fresh, green trellis
In airy, vigorous ease,
And their fragrant, sensuous honey
Is best beloved of the bees.

Oh! the rose knows the dainty secret
How the morning-glory blows,
For the rose told me the secret,
And the jessamine told the rose.

And the jessamine said at midnight,
Ere the red cock woke and crew,
That the fays of queen Titania
Came there to bathe in the dew.

And the merry moonlight glistened
On wet, long, yellow hair,
And their feet on the flowers drowsy
Trod softer than any air.

And their petticoats, gay as bubbles,
They hung up every one
On the morning-glories' tendrils
Till their moonlight bath were done.

But the red cock crew too early,
And the fays left hurriedly,
And this is why in the morning
Their petticoats there you see.

III

THE TIGER-LILY.

A sultan proud and tawny
At elegant ease he stands,
With his bare throat brown and scrawny,
And his indolent, leaf-like hands.

And the eunuch tulips that listen
In their gaudy turbans so,
With their scimetar leaves that glisten,
Are guards of his seraglio;

Where sultana roses musky,
Voluptuous in houri charms,
With their bold breasts deep and dusky,
Impatiently wait his arms.

Tall, beautiful, sad, and slender,
His Greek-girl dancing slaves,
For the white-limbed lilies tender
His royal hand he waves.

While he watches them, softly smiling,
His favorite rose that hour
With a butterfly gallant is wiling
In her attar-scented bower.

IV

VENGEANCE.

Let it sink, let it sink
On the pungent-petaled pink
By those poppy puffs;
Fairy-fashioned downiness,
Light, weak moth in furry dress
Of white fluffy stuffs.

Where the thin light slipping sweet
Dimples prints of Fairy feet
On the white-rose blooms,
One dim blossom delicate
Droops a face all pale with hate,
Dead with sick perfumes.

III

And I read the riddle wove
In this rose's course of love
For the fickle pink:—
Thou the rose's phantom art
Stealing to the pink's false heart
Vampire-like to drink.

V

A DEAD LILY.

The South had saluted her mouth
Till her mouth was sweet with the South.

And the North with his breathings low
Made the blood in her veins like his snow.

III

And the West with his smiles and his art
Poured his honey of life in her heart.

And the East had in whisperings told
His secrets more precious than gold.

So she grew to a beautiful thought
Which a godhead of love had wrought.

As strange how the power begot it
As why—but to kill it and rot it.

MY SUIT.

Faith! the Dandelion is
To my mind too lowly;
Then the winsome Violet
Is, forsooth, too holy.

There's the Touch-me-not—go to!
What! a face that's speckled
Like a buxom milking-maid's
Which the sun hath freckled!

And the Tiger-lily's wild,
Flirts, is fierce and haughty;
And the Sweet-Brier Rose, I swear,
Pricks you and is naughty.

Columbine a fool's cap hath,
Then she is too merry;
Gossip, I would sooner woo
Some plebeian Berry.

There's the shy Anemone,—
Well—her face shows sorrow;
Pale, goodsooth! alive to-day,
Dead and gone to-morrow.

And that big-eyed, fair-cheeked wench,
The untoward Daisy,
She's been wooed, aye! overmuch—
Then she is too lazy.

Pleasant persons are they all,
And their virtues many;
Faith, I know but good of all,
And naught ill of any.

Marry! 'tis a May-apple,
Fair-skinned as a Saxon,
Whom I woo, a fragrant thing
Delicate and waxen.

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 oblivious 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 as the myrtle grows,
Wild morning-glories pale as pain,
With holy urns, that hint at woes,
The night hath filled with rain.

Here are blackberries largest 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 dark, for its forgotten dead,
A requiem, of no known wind said,
Through ghostly cedars moans and throbs,
While to thin starlight overhead
The shivering screech-owl sobs.

THE WATER-MAID.

There she rose as white as death,
Stars above and stars beneath;
Where the ripples brake in splendor
To a million, million starlets
Twinkling on lake-lilies tender,
Rocking to the ripple barlets.
She, brow-belted with white lilies,
Rose and oared a shining shoulder
To a downward-purpling boulder:
With slim fingers soft and milky,
Haled her from the spray-sprent lilies
To a ledge, and sitting silky
Sang unto the list'ning lilies,
Sang and sang beneath the heaven,
Belted, wreathed with lilies seven;
Falsely sang a wild, wild ditty
To a wool-white moon;
Till a child both frail and pretty
Found her singing on the boulder,—
Dark locks on a milky shoulder,—
'Neath the wool-white moon.
And the creature singing there
Strangled him in her long hair.

THE SEA-KING.

In green sea-caverns dim,
Deep down,
A monarch pale and slim,
Whose soul's a frown,
He ruleth cold and grim
In foamy crown:
In green sea-caverns dim,
Deep down.

He hears the Mermaid sing
So sad!
Far off like some curs'd thing,
That ne'er is glad,
A vague, wild murmuring,
That drives men mad:
He hears the Mermaid sing
So sad!

Strange monster bulks are there,
That yawn
Or roll huge eyes that glare
And then are gone;
Weird foliage passing fair
Where clings the spawn:
Strange monster bulks are there,
That yawn.

What cares he for wrecked hulls
These years!
Red gold the water dulls!
Grim, dead-men jeers
On jaws of a thousand skulls
Of mariners!
What cares he for wrecked hulls
These years!

Man's tears are loved of him,
Deep down;
Set in the foamy rim
Of his frail crown
To pearls the tear-drops dim
Freeze at his frown:
Man's tears are loved of him,
Deep down.

Here be the halls of Sleep
Full mute,
Chill, shadowy, and deep,
Where hangs no lute
To make the still heart leap
Of man or brute:
Here be the halls of Sleep
Full mute.

WHERE AND WHAT?

Her ivied towers tall
Old forests belt and bar,
And oh! the West's dim mountain crests
That line the blue afar.

Her gardens face dark cliffs,
That seeth against a sea
As blue and deep as the eyes of Sleep
With saddening mystery.

Red sands roll leagues on leagues
Ribbed of the wind and wave;
The near warm sky bends from on high
The pale brow of a slave.

And when the morning's beams
Lie crushed on crag and bay,
A wail of flutes and soft-strung lutes
O'er the lone land swoons away.

The woods are 'roused from rest,
A scent of earth and brine,
By brake and lake the wild things wake,
And torrents leap and shine.

But she in one gray tower
White-faced knows how he died,
And a murderous scorn on her lips is born
To curse his heart that lied.

She smiles and sorrows not:
"Ah, death! to know," she moans,
"The gluttonous grave of the bitter wave
Laughs loud above his bones!"

She laughs and hating yearns
Out toward the surf's far reach,
Like one in sleep, who, wild to weep,
Hath only moans for speech.

And when the sun had set,
And crocus heavens had fed
Their wan fire soon to a thorn-thin moon,
The flocking stars that led,

A breeze set in from sea
Most odorous with spice,
And streamed among big stars that hung
Thin mists as white as ice.

And then her eyes waxed large
With one last hideous hope,
And her throat she bent toward the firmament,
Star-scattered scope on scope.

The haunted night, that felt
The rapture so accursed,
Shook, loosening one green star that spun
Wild down the dusk and burst.

Fair was her face as Sin's;
"Ah, wretch!" she wailed, "to know
A wormy seat at Death's lean feet
May not undo such woe!

"The devil-wrangling pit
Much dearer than God's deeps
Of serious skies, where thought ne'er dies
And memory never sleeps!

"And dearer far than both,
Than Heaven or Hell, the jest,
The godless lot to rot and rot,
And not be cursed or blessed!"

THE SPRING.

"O Fons Bandusiæ!"

Push back the brambles, berry-blue,
The hollowed spring is full in view;
Deep tangled with luxuriant fern
Its rock-imbedded crystal urn.

Not for the loneliness that keeps
The coigne wherein its silence sleeps;
Not for wild butterflies that sway
Their pansy pinions all the day
Above its mirror; nor the bee,
Nor dragon-fly which passing see
Themselves reflected in its spar;
Not for the one white, liquid star
That twinkles in its firmament,
Nor moon-shot clouds so slowly sent
Athwart it when the kindly night
Beads all its grasses with the light,
Small jewels of the dimpled dew;
Not for the day's reflected blue,
Nor the quaint, dainty colored stones
That dance within it where it moans;
Not for all these I love to sit
In silence and to gaze in it.
But, know, a nymph with merry eyes
Meets mine within its laughing skies;
A graceful, naked nymph who plays
All the long fragrant summer days
With instant sight of bees and birds,
And speaks with them in water-words.
One for whose nakedness the air
Weaves moony mists, and on whose hair,
Unfilleted, the night will set
That lone star as a coronet.

LILLITA.

Can I forget how, when you stood
'Mid orchards whence spring 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 August lilies slim,
Transparent pale, that by the wall
Like softest 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
Of some great heart that could not rest,
A heart of gold within its breast.

Your heart, your life was in the wild,
Your joy to hear the whip-poor-will
Lament its love, when wafted mild
The harvest drifted from the hill:
The deep, deep wildwood where had trod
The red deer o'er the fallen hush
Of Fall's torn leaves, when the low tod
Was frosty 'neath each berried bush.

At dusk the whip-will still complains
Above your lolling lilies, where
Their faces white the moonlight stains,
The dreamy stream flows far and fair
Whisp'ring of rest an easeful air ...

O music of the falling rain,
At night unto her painless rest
Sound sweet and sad, then is she fain
To see the wild flowers on her breast
Lift moist, pure faces up again
To breathe to God their fragrance blest.
Thick-pleated beeches long have crossed
Old, mighty arms above her tomb
Where oft I watch at night her ghost
Bow to the wild-flower's full-blown bloom
A mist of curls, where Summer lost
Her tangled sunbeams and perfume.

ARTEMIS.

Oft of the hiding Oread wast thou seen
At earliest morn, a tall imperial shape,
High-buskined, dew-dripped, and on close, chaste curls,
Long blackness of thick hair, the tipsy drops
Caught from the dipping sprays of under bosks,
Kissed of thy cheek and of thy shoulder brushed,
Thy rosy cheek as haughty Hera's fair,
Thy snow-soft shoulder luminous as light.

Oft did the shaggy hills and solitudes
Of Arethusa shout and ring and reel,
Reverberate and echo merrily
With the mad chiding of thy merry hounds,
Big mouthed and musical, that on the stag,
Or bristling wild-boar furious grew in quest,
And thou, as keen, fleet-footed and clean-limbed,
Thou, thou, O goddess, with thy quivered crew,
Most loveliest maids and fit to wed with gods,
Rushed, swinging on the wind free limbs and lithe,
Long as thy radiant locks flung free to blow
And lighten in the wine-sharp air of morn.

Ai me! their throats, their lusty, dimpled throats,
That made the hills sing and the wood-ways dance
As if to Orphic strains, and gave them life!
Ai me! their bosoms' deepness and the soft,
Sweet, happy beauty of their delicate limbs,
That stormed the forest vacancies with light,
Swift daylight of their splendor and made blow,
Within the glad sonorous solitudes,
Old germs of flowerets a century cold.

The woodland Naiad whispered by her rock;
The Hamadryad, limpid-eyed and wild,
Expectant rustled by her usual oak,
And laughed in wonder; and mad Pan himself
Reeled piping fiercely down the dingled deeps
With rollicking eye that rolled a brutish lust.
And did the unwed maiden, musing where
Her father's well, beyond the god-graced hills
Bubbled and babbled, hear the full, high cry
Of the chaste huntress, while her dripping jar
Unheeded brimmed, vowed with her chastity,
And shorn gold hair to veil her virgin feet.

But, ah! not when the saucy daylight swims,
Filling the forests with a glamorous green,
Let me behold thee, goddess! but, when dim
The slow night settles on the haunted wild,
And walks in sober sark, and heatful stars
Shine out intensely and the echoy waste
Far off, far off, in shudders palpitates
Unto the Limnad's song unmerciful,
Unmerciful and mad and bitter sweet!
Then come in all thy godhead, beautiful!
Thou beautiful and gentle, as thou cam'st
To lorn Endymion, who, in Lemnos once,
Lone in the wizard magic of the wild,
Wandered a gentle boy, unfriended, sad.
It grew far off adown the stirring trees,
Thy silent beauty blossoming flowerlike,
Between the tree trunks and the lacing limbs,
Bright in the leaves that kissed for very joy
And drunkenness of glory thus revealed.
He saw it all, the naked brow and limbs,
The polished silver of thy glossy breast,
Alone, uncompanied of handmaidens;
Like some full, splendid fruit Hesperian
Not e'en for deities; thy sweet far voice
Came tinkling on his wistful ear and lisped
Like leaves that cling and slip to cling again.
And on such perilous beauty that must kill,
The poisonous favor of thy godliness,
Feasting his every sense through eyes and ears,
His soul exalted waxed and amorous,—
Like the high gods who quaff deep golden bowls
Of rosy nectar,—with immortal love,—
And what remained, ah, what remained but death!