Weeds by the Wall: Verses

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;—and 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,
Skin-clad and 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, each led on his 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—
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—Platos, Solons—
From whose teachings she indentured
Forms of law and sophistry;
Seeking still 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 eldorado
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 "God or beast?"
And the Future, shadowy-sheeted,
Turning, pointed towards the East.

THE ISLE OF VOICES.

The wind blew free that morn that we,
High-hearted, sailed away;
Bound for Favonian islands blest,
Remote within the utmost 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 wan a 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 night 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,
A vast 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,
A land 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, with a flame,
Now gleamed, now vanished; went and came
Above the whining wave.

No mortal thing of foot or wing
Made glad its steep and 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 faith's 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?
Those Islands 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 years of toil and thirst!
Where we had looked for blesséd ground
The Islands of the Damned we found,
And in the end—were curst!

A. D. NINETEEN HUNDRED.

War and Disaster, Famine and Pestilence,
Vaunt-couriers of the Century that comes,
Behold them shaking their tremendous plumes
Above the world! where all the air grows dense
With rumors of destruction and a sense,
Cadaverous, of corpses and of tombs
Predestined; while,—like monsters in the glooms,—
Bristling with battle, shadowy and immense,
The Nations rise in wild apocalypse.—
Where now the boast Earth makes of civilization?
Its brag of Christianity?—In vain
We seek to see them in the dread eclipse
Of hell and horror, all the devastation
Of Death triumphant on his hills of slain.

CAVERNS.

Written of Colossal Cave, Kentucky.

Aisles and abysses; leagues no man explores,
Of rock that labyrinths and night that drips;
Where everlasting silence broods, with lips
Of adamant, o'er earthquake-builded floors.
Where forms, such as the Demon-World adores,
Laborious water carves; whence echo ships
Wild-tongued o'er pools where petrifaction strips
Her breasts of crystal from which crystal pours.—
Here where primordial fear, the Gorgon, sits
Staring all life to stone in ghastly mirth,
I seem to tread, with awe no tongue can tell,—
Beneath vast domes, by torrent-tortured pits,
'Mid wrecks terrific of the ruined Earth,—
An ancient causeway of forgotten Hell.

OF THE SLUMS.

Red-faced as old carousal, and with eyes
A hard, hot blue; her hair a frowsy flame,
Bold, dowdy-bosomed, from her widow-frame
She leans, her mouth all insult and all lies.
Or slattern-slippered and in sluttish gown,
With ribald mirth and words too vile to name,
A new Doll Tearsheet, glorying in her shame,
Armed with her Falstaff now she takes the town.
The flaring lights of alley-way saloons,
The reek of hideous gutters and black oaths
Of drunkenness from vice-infested dens,
Are to her senses what the silvery moon's
Chaste splendor is, and what the blossoming growths
Of earth and bird-song are to innocence.

THE WINDS.

Those hewers of the clouds, the winds,—that lair
At the four compass-points,—are out to-night;
I hear their sandals trample on the height,
I hear their voices trumpet through the air.
Builders of Storm, God's workmen, now they bear,
Up the steep stair of sky, on backs of might,
Huge tempest bulks, while,—sweat that blinds their sight,—
The rain is shaken from tumultuous hair:
Now, sweepers of the firmament, they broom,
Like gathered dust, the rolling mists along
Heaven's floors of sapphire; all the beautiful blue
Of skyey corridor and aëry room
Preparing, with large laughter and loud song,
For the white moon and stars to wander through.

PROTOTYPES.

Whether it be that we in letters trace
The pure exactness of a woodbird's strain,
And name it song; or with the brush attain
The high perfection of a wildflower's face;
Or mold in difficult marble all the grace
We know as man; or from the wind and rain
Catch elemental rapture of refrain
And mark in music to due time and place:
The aim of art is nature; to unfold
Her truth and beauty to the souls of men
In close suggestions; in whose forms is cast
Nothing so new but 'tis long eons old;
Nothing so old but 'tis as young as when
The mind conceived it in the ages past.

TOUCHES.

In heavens of rivered blue, that sunset dyes
With glaucous flame, deep in the west the Day
Stands Midas-like; or, wading on his way,
Touches with splendor all the twilight skies.
Each cloud that, like a stepping-stone, he tries
With rosy foot, transforms its sober gray
To burning gold; while, ray on crystal ray,
Within his wake the stars like bubbles rise.
So should the artist in his work accord
All things with beauty, and communicate
His soul's high magic and divinity
To all he does; and, hoping no reward,
Toil onward, making darkness aureate
With light of worlds that are and worlds to be.

THE WOMAN SPEAKS.

Why have you come? to see me in my shame?
A thing to spit on, to despise and scorn?—
And then to ask me! You, by whom was torn
And then cast by, like some vile rag, my name!
What shelter could you give me, now, that blame
And loathing would not share? that wolves of vice
Would not besiege with eyes of glaring ice?
Wherein Sin sat not with her face of flame?
"You love me"?—God!—If yours be love, for lust
Hell must invent another synonym!
If yours be love, then hatred is the way
To Heaven and God! and not with soul but dust
Must burn the faces of the Cherubim,—
O lie of lies, if yours be love, I say!

LOVE, THE INTERPRETER.

Thou art the music that I hear in sleep,
The poetry that lures me on in dreams;
The magic, thou, that holds my thought with themes
Of young romance in revery's mystic keep.
The lily's aura, and the damask deep
That clothes the rose; the whispering soul that seems
To haunt the wind; the rainbow light that streams,
Like some wild spirit, 'thwart the cataract's leap—
Are glimmerings of thee and thy loveliness,
Pervading all my world; interpreting
The marvel and the wonder these disclose:
For, lacking thee, to me were meaningless
Life, love and hope, the joy of every thing,
And all the beauty that the wide world knows.

UNANSWERED.

How long ago it is since we went Maying!
Since she and I went Maying long ago!
The years have left my forehead lined, I know,
Have thinned my hair around the temples graying.
Ah, time will change us; yea, I hear it saying,—
"She, too, grows old: the face of rose and snow
Has lost its freshness: in the hair's brown glow
Some strands of silver sadly, too, are straying.
The form you knew, whose beauty so enspelled,
Has lost the litheness of its loveliness:
And all the gladness that her blue eyes held
Tears and the world have hardened with distress."—
"True! true!" I answer, "O ye years that part!
These things are changed, but is her heart, her heart?"

EARTH AND MOON.

I saw the day like some great monarch die,
Gold-couched, behind the clouds' rich tapestries.
Then, purple-sandaled, clad in silences
Of sleep, through halls of skyey lazuli.
The twilight, like a mourning queen, trailed by,
Dim-paged of dreams and shadowy mysteries;
And now the night, the star-robed child of these,
In meditative loveliness draws nigh.
Earth,—like to Romeo,—deep in dew and scent,
Beneath Heaven's window, watching till a light,
Like some white blossom, in its square be set,—
Lifts a faint face unto the firmament,
That, with the moon, grows gradually bright,
Bidding him climb and clasp his Juliet.

PEARLS.

Baroque, but beautiful, between the lanes,
The valves of nacre of a mussel-shell,
Behold, a pearl! shaped like the burnished bell
Of some strange blossom that long afternoons
Of summer coax to open: all the moon's
Chaste lustre in it; hues that only dwell
With purity.... It takes me, like a spell,
Back to a day when, whistling truant tunes,
A barefoot boy I waded 'mid the rocks,
Searching for shells deep in the creek's slow swirl,
Unconscious of the pearls that 'round me lay:
While, 'mid wild-roses,—all her tomboy locks
Blond-blowing,—stood, unnoticed then, a girl,
My sweetheart once, the pearl I flung away.

IN THE FOREST.

One well might deem, among these miles of woods,
Such were the Forests of the Holy Grail,—
Broceliand and Dean; where, clothed in mail,
The Knights of Arthur rode, and all the broods
Of legend laired.—And, where no sound intrudes
Upon the ear, except the glimmering wail
Of some far bird; or, in some flowery swale,
A brook that murmurs to the solitudes,
Might think he hears the laugh of Vivien
Blent with the moan of Merlin, muttering bound
By his own magic to one stony spot;
And in the cloud, that looms above the glen,—
In which the sun burns like the Table Round,—
Might dream he sees the towers of Camelot.

ENCHANTMENT.

The deep seclusion of this forest path,—
O'er which the green boughs weave a canopy,
Along which bluet and anemone
Spread a dim carpet; where the twilight hath
Her dark abode; and, sweet as aftermath.
Wood-fragrance breathes,—has so enchanted me,
That yonder blossoming bramble seems to be
Some sylvan resting, rosy from her bath:
Has so enspelled me with tradition's dreams,
That every foam-white stream that twinkling flows,
And every bird that flutters wings of tan,
Or warbles hidden, to my fancy seems
A Naiad dancing to a Faun who blows
Wild woodland music on the pipes of Pan.

DUSK.

Corn-colored clouds upon a sky of gold,
And 'mid their sheaves,—where, like a daisy bloom
Left by the reapers to the gathering gloom,
The star of twilight flames,—as Ruth, 'tis told,
Dreamed homesick 'mid the harvest fields of old,
The Dusk goes gleaning color and perfume
From Bible slopes of heaven, that illume
Her pensive beauty deep in shadows stoled.
Hushed is the forest; and blue vale and hill
Are still, save for the brooklet, sleepily
Stumbling the stone, its foam like some white foot:
Save for the note of one far whippoorwill,
And in my heart her name,—like some sweet bee
Within a flow'r,—blowing a fairy flute.

THE BLUE BIRD.

From morn till noon upon the window-pane
The tempest tapped with rainy finger-nails,
And all the afternoon the blustering gales
Beat at the door with furious feet of rain.
The rose, near which the lily bloom lay slain,
Like some red wound dripped by the garden rails,
On which the sullen slug left slimy trails—
Meseemed the sun would never shine again.
Then in the drench, long, loud and full of cheer,—
A skyey herald tabarded in blue,—
A bluebird bugled ... and at once a bow
Was bent in heaven, and I seemed to hear
God's sapphire spaces crystallizing through
The strata'd clouds in azure tremolo.

CAN SUCH THINGS BE?

Meseemed that while she played, while lightly yet
Her fingers fell, as roses bloom by bloom,
I listened—dead within a mighty room
Of some old palace where great casements let
Gaunt moonlight in, that glimpsed a parapet
Of statued marble: in the arrased gloom
Majestic pictures towered, dim as doom,
The dreams of Titian and of Tintoret.
And then, it seemed, along a corridor,
A mile of oak, a stricken footstep came.
Hurrying, yet slow ... I thought long centuries
Passed ere she entered—she, I loved of yore,
For whom I died, who wildly wailed my name
And bent and kissed me on the mouth and eyes.

THE PASSING GLORY.

Slow sinks the sun,—a great carbuncle ball
Red in the cavern of a sombre cloud,—
And in her garden, where the dense weeds crowd.
Among her dying asters stands the Fall,
Like some lone woman in a ruined hall,
Dreaming of desolation and the shroud;
Or through decaying woodlands goes, down-bowed,
Hugging the tatters of her gipsy shawl.
The gaunt wind rises, like an angry hand,
And sweeps the sprawling spider from its web,
Smites frantic music in the twilight's ear;
And all around, like melancholy sand,
Rains dead leaves down—wild leaves, that mark the ebb,
In Earth's dark hour-glass, of another year.

SEPTEMBER.

The bubbled blue of morning-glory spires,
Balloon-blown foam of moonflowers, and sweet snows
Of clematis, through which September goes,
Song-hearted, rich in realized desires,
Are flanked by hotter hues: by tawny fires
Of acrid marigolds,—that light long rows
Of lamps,—and salvias, red as day's red close,—
That torches seem,—by which the Month attires
Barbaric beauty; like some Asian queen,
Towering imperial in her two-fold crown
Of harvest and of vintage; all her form
Majestic gold and purple: in her mien
The might of motherhood; her baby brown,
Abundance, high on one exultant arm.

HOODOO.

She mutters and stoops by the lone bayou—
The little green leaves are hushed on the trees—
An owl in an oak cries "Who-oh-who,"
And a fox barks back where the moon slants through
The moss that sways to a sudden breeze ...
Or That she sees.
Whose eyes are coals in the light o' the moon—
"Soon, oh, soon," hear her croon,
"Woe, oh, woe to the octoroon!"

She mutters and kneels and her bosom is bare—
The little green leaves are stirred on the trees—
A black bat brushes her unkempt hair,
And the hiss of a snake glides 'round her there ...
Or is it the voice of the ghostly breeze,
Or That she sees,
Whose mouth is flame in the light o' the moon?—
"Soon, oh, soon," hear her croon,
"Woe, oh, woe to the octoroon!"

She mutters and digs and buries it deep—
The little green leaves are wild on the trees—
And nearer and nearer the noises creep,
That gibber and maunder and whine and weep ...
Or is it the wave and the weariless breeze,
Or That she sees,
Which hobbles away in the light o' the moon?—
"Soon, oh, soon," hear her croon,
"Woe, oh, woe to the octoroon!"

In the hut where the other girl sits with him—
The little green leaves hang limp on the trees—
All on a sudden the moon grows dim ...
Is it the shadow of cloud or of limb,
Cast in the door by the moaning breeze?
Or That she sees,
Which limps and leers in the light o' the moon?—
"Soon, oh, soon," hear it croon,
"Woe, oh, woe to the octoroon!"

It has entered in at the open door—
The little green leaves fall dead from the trees—
And she in the cabin lies stark on the floor,
And she in the woods has her lover once more ...
And—is it the hoot of the dying breeze?
Or him who sees,
Who mocks and laughs in the light o' the moon:—
"Soon, oh, soon," hear him croon,
"Woe, oh, woe to the octoroon!"

THE OTHER WOMAN.

You have shut me out from your tears and grief
Over the man laid low and hoary.
Listen to me now: I am no thief!—
You have shut me out from your tears and grief,—
Listen to me, I will tell my story.

The love of a man is transitory.—
What do you know of his past? the years
He gave to another his manhood's glory?—
The love of a man is transitory.
Listen to me now: open your ears.

Over the dead have done with tears!
Over the man who loved to madness
Me the woman you met with sneers,—
Over the dead have done with tears!
Me the woman so sunk in badness.

He loved me ever, and that is gladness!—
There by the dead now tell her so;
There by the dead where she bows in sadness.—
He loved me ever, and that is gladness!—
Mine the gladness and hers the woe.

The best of his life was mine. Now go,
Tell her this that her pride may perish,
Her with his name, his wife, you know!
The best of his life was mine. Now go,
Tell her this so she cease to cherish.

Bury him then with pomp and flourish!
Bury him now without my kiss!
Here is a thing for your hearts to nourish,—
Bury him then with pomp and flourish!
Bury him now I have told you this.

A SONG FOR LABOR.

I.

Oh, the morning meads, the dewy meads,
Where he ploughs and harrows and sows the seeds,
Singing a song of manly deeds,
In the blossoming springtime weather;
The heart in his bosom as high as the word
Said to the sky by the mating bird,
While the beat of an answering heart is heard,
His heart and love's together.

II.

Oh, the noonday heights, the sunny heights,
Where he stoops to the harvest his keen scythe smites,
Singing a song of the work that requites,
In the ripening summer weather;
The soul in his body as light as the sigh
Of the little cloud-breeze that cools the sky,
While he bears an answering soul reply,
His soul and love's together.

III.

Oh, the evening vales, the twilight vales,
Where he labors and sweats to the thud of flails,
Singing a song of the toil that avails,
In the fruitful autumn weather;
In heart and in soul as free from fears
As the first white star in the sky that clears,
While the music of life and of love he hears,
Of life and of love together.

AFTERWORD.

What vague traditions do the golden eves.
What legends do the dawns
Inscribe in fire on Heaven's azure leaves,
The red sun colophons?

What ancient Stories do the waters verse?
What tales of war and love
Do winds within the Earth's vast house rehearse,
God's stars stand guard above?—

Would I could know them as they are expressed
In hue and melody!
And say, in words, the beauties they suggest.
Language their mystery!

And in one song magnificently rise,
The music of the spheres,
That more than marble should immortalize
My name in after years.

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES

1. The original text incorrectly listed "The Path by the Creek" as beginning on page 3 in the Contents. The poem actually starts on page 2 and this printer error has been corrected in the Contents section.

2. The listing "Sunset and Song" in Contents has been changed to "Sunset and Storm" in accordance with the title above the poem.

3. The original indentation for "Poppies" stanza has been ignored for consistency with other stanzas' indentation in the "Musings" section.

4. Other than the corrections listed above, printer's inconsistencies in spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been retained.