Behold my soul? She sits so far above you

Your wildest dream has never glanced so high;

Yet in the old-time when you said, "I love you,"

How fairly we were mated, eye to eye

How long we dallied on in flowery meadows,

By languid lakes of purely sensuous dreams,

Steeped in enchanted mists, beguiled by shadows,

Casting sweet flowers upon loitering streams,

My memory owns, and yours; mine with deep shame,

Yours with a sigh that life is not the same.

What parted us, to leave you in the valley

And send me struggling to the mountain-top?

Too weak for duty, even love failed to rally

The manhood that should float your pinions up.

On my spent feet are many half-healed bruises,

My limbs are wasted with their heavy toil,

But I have learned adversity's "sweet uses,"

And brought my soul up pure through every soil;

Have I no right to scorn the man's dead power

That leaves you far below me at this hour?

Scorn you I do, while pitying even more

The ignoble weakness of a strength debased.

Do I yet mourn the faith that died of yore—

The trust by timorous treachery effaced?

Through all, and over all, my soul mounts free

To heights of peace you cannot hope to gain,

Sings to the stars its mountain minstrelsy,

And smiles down proudly on your murky plain;

'Tis vain to invite you—yet come up, come up,

Conquer your way toward the mountain-top!

I cannot find the meaning out

That lies in wrong and pain and strife;

I know not why we grope through grief,

Tear-blind, to touch the higher life.

I see the world so subtly fair,

My heart with beauty often aches;

But ere I quiet this sweet pain,

Some cross so presses, the heart breaks.

To-day, this lovely golden day,

When heaven and earth are steeped in calm;

When every lightest air that blows,

Sheds its delicious freight of balm.

If I but ope my lips, I sob;

If but an eyelid lift, I weep;

I deprecate all good or ill,

And only wish for endless sleep.

For who, I ask, has set my feet

In all these dark and troubled ways?

And who denies my soul's desire,

When with its might it cries and prays?

In my unconscious veins there runs

Perchance, some old ancestral taint;

In Eve I sinned: poor Eve and I!

We each may utter one complaint:—

One and the same—for knowledge came

Too late to save her paradise;

And I my paradise have lost;

Forsooth because I am not wise.

O vain traditions! small the aid

We women gather from your lore:

Why, when the world was lost, did death

Not come our children's birth before?

It had been better to have died,

Sole prey of death, and ended so;

Than to have dragged through endless time,

One long, unbroken trail of woe.

To suffer, yet not expiate;

To die at last, yet not atone;

To mourn our heirship to a guilt,

Erased by innocent blood alone!

You lift your hands in shocked surprise;

You say enough I have not prayed:

Can prayer go back through centuries,

And change the web of fate one braid?

Nay, own the truth, and say that we

Are but the bonded slaves of doom;

Unconscious to the cradle came,

Unwilling must go to the tomb.

Your woman's hands are void of help,

Though my soul should be stung to death;

Could I avert one pang from you,

Imploring with my latest breath?

And men!—we suffer any wrong

That men, or mad, or blind, may do;—

Let me alone in my despair!

There is no help for me or you.

I wait to find the meaning out

That lies beyond the bitter end;

Comfort yourself with 'wearying heaven,

I ask no comfort, oh my friend!

Do thy chamber windows open east,

Beloved, as did ours of old?

And do you stand when day has ceased,

Withdrawn thro' evening's porch of gold,

And watch the pink flush fade above

The hills on which the wan moon leans,

Remembering the sweet girlish love

That blest this hour in other scenes!

I see your hand upon your heart—

I see you dash away the tears—

It is the same undying smart,

That touched us in the long-gone years;

And cannot pass away. You stand

Your forehead to the window crest,

And stifle sobs that no command

Can keep from rising in your breast.

Dear, balm is not for griefs like ours,

Nor resurrection for dead hope:

In vain we cover wounds with flowers,

That grow upon life's western slope.

Their leaves tho' bright, are hard, and dry,

They have no soft and healing dew;

The pansies of past spring-times lie

Dead in the shadow of the yew.

You feel this in your heart, and turn

To pace the dimness of your room;

But lo, like fire within an urn,

The moonlight glows through all the gloom.

It sooths you like a living touch,

And spite of the slow-falling tears,

Sweet memories crowd with oh, so much,

Of all that girlhood's time endears.

On nights like this, with such a moon,

Full shining in a wintry sky;

Or on the softer nights of June,

When fleecy clouds fled thought-like by,

Within our chamber opening east,

With curtains from the window parted,

With hands and cheeks together prest,

We dreamed youth's glowing dreams, light-hearted.

Or talked of that mysterious love

That comes like fate to every soul:

And vowed to hold our lives above,

Perchance its sorrowful control.

Alas, the very vow we made,

To keep our lives from passion free,

To wiser hearts well had betrayed

Some future love's intensity.

How well that youthful vow was kept,

Is written on a deathless page—

Vain all regrets, vain tears we've wept,

The record lives from age to age.

But one who "doeth all things well,"

Who made us differ from the throng,

Has it within his heart to quell

This torturing pain of thirst, ere long.

And you, whose soul is all aglow

With fire Prometheus brought from heaven,

Shall in some future surely know

Joys for which high desires are given.

Not always in a restless pain

Shall beat your heart, or throb your brow;

Not always shall you sigh in vain

For hope's fruition, hidden now.

Beloved, are your tear-drops dried?

The moon is riding high above:—

Though each from other's parted wide,

We have not parted early love.

And tho' you never are forgot,

The moonrise in the east shall be

The token that my evening thought

Returns to home, and love and thee!

The river on the east

Ripples its azure flood within my sight;

And, darting from the west,

Are "sunset arrows," feathered with red light.

The northern breeze has hung

His wintry harp upon some giant pine;

And the pale stars among,

I see the star I love to name as mine:

But toward the south I turn my eager eyes—

Beyond its flushed horizon my heart lies.

The snow-clad isles of ice,

Launched by wild Boreas from a northern shore,

Journey the way my eyes

Turn with an envious longing evermore—

Smiling back to the sky

Its own pink blush, and, floating out of sight,

Bear south the softest dye

Of northern heavens, to fade in southern night:—

My eyes but look the way my joys are gone,

And the ice-islands travel not alone.

The untrod fields of snow,

Glow with the rosy blush of parting day;

And fancy asks if so

The snow is stained with sunset far away;

And if some face, like mine,

Its forehead pressed against the window-pane,

Peers northward, with the shine

Of the pole-star reflected in eyes' rain:

"Ah yes," my heart says, "it is surely so;"

And, like a bound bird, flutters hard to go.

Sad eyes, that, blurred with tears,

Gaze into darkness, gaze no more in vain

Whence no loved face appears,

And no voice comes to lull the heart's fond pain!

Sad heart! restrain thy throbs,

For beauty, like a presence out of heaven,

Rests over all, and robs

Sorrow of pain, and makes earth seem forgiven:—

Twilight the fair eve ushers in with grace,

And rose clouds melt for stars to take their place.

The crimson color lays

As bright as beauty's blush along the West;

And a warm golden haze,

Promising sheafs of ripe Autumnal days

To crown the old year's crest.

Hangs in mid air, a half-pellucid maze,

Through which the sun at set,

Grown round and rosy, looks with Bacchian blush,

For an old wine-god meet—

Whose brows are dripping with the grape-blood sweet,

As if his southern flush

Rejoiced him, in his northern-zone retreat.

The amber-colored air

Musical is with hum of tiny things

Held idly, struggling there,

As if the golden mist entangled were

About the viewless wings,

That beat out music on their gilded snare.

If but a leaf, all gay

With Autumn's gorgeous coloring, doth fall,

Along its fluttering way

A shrill alarum wakes a sharp dismay,

And, answering to the call,

The insect chorus swells and dies away

With a fine piping noise.

As if some younger singing notes cried out,

As do mischievous boys—

Startling their playmates with a pained voice,

Or sudden thrilling shout,

Followed by laughters, full of little joys.

Perchance a lurking breeze

Springs, just awakened to its wayward play,

Tossing the sober trees

Into a frolic maze of ecstasies,

And snatching at the gay

Banners of Autumn, strews them where it please.

The sunset colors glow

A second time in flame from out the wood,

As bright and warm as though

The vanished clouds had fallen, and lodged below

Among the tree-tops, hued

With all the colors of heaven's signal-bow.

The fitful breezes die

Into a gentle whisper, and then sleep;

And sweetly, mournfully,

Starting to sight, in the transparent sky,

Lone in the upper deep,

Sad Hesper pours its beams upon the eye;

And for one little hour,

Holds audience with the lesser lights of heaven;

Then to its western bower

Descends in sudden darkness, as the flower

That at the fall of Even

Shuts its bright eye, and yields to slumber's power.

Soon, with a dusky face,

Pensive and proud as an East Indian queen,

And with a solemn grace,

The moon ascends, and takes her royal place

In the fair evening scene;

While all the reverential stars, apace,

Take up their march through the cool fields of space,

And dead is the sweet Autumn day whose close we've seen.

In the deep woods of Mexico,

Where screams the "painted paraquet,"

And mocking-birds flit to and fro,

With borrowed notes they half forget;

Where brilliant flowers and poisonous vines

Are mingled in a firm embrace,

And the same gaudy plant entwines

Some reptile of a poisonous race;

Where spreads the Itos' icy shade,

Benumbing, even in summer's heat,

The thoughtless traveler who hath laid

Himself to noonday slumbers sweet;—

Where skulks unseen the beast of prey—

The native robber glares and hides,—

And treacherous death keeps watch alway

On him who flies, or he who bides.

In these deep tropic woods there grows

A tree, whose tall and silvery bole

Above the dusky forest shows,

As shining as a saintly soul

Among the souls of sinful men;—

Lifting its milk-white flowers to heaven,

And breathing incense out, as when

The passing saints of earth are shriven.

The skulking robber drops his eyes,

And signs himself with holy cross,

If, far between him and the skies,

He sees its pearly blossoms toss.

The wanderer halts to gaze upon

The lovely vision, far or near,

And smiles and sighs to think of one

He wishes for the moment here.

The Mexic native fears not fang

Of poisonous serpent, vine, nor bee,

If he may soothe the baleful pang

With juices of this "holy tree."

How do we all, in life's wild ways,

Which oft we traverse lost and lone,

Need that which heavenward draws the gaze,

Some Palo Santo of our own!

Fade not, sweet day!

Another hour like this—

So full of tranquil bliss—

May never come my way,

I walk in paths so shadowed and so cold:

But stay thou, darling hour,

Nor stint thy gracious power

To smile away the clouds that me enfold:

Oh stay! when thou art gone,

I shall be lost and lone.

Lost, lone, and sad;

And troubled more and more,

By the dark ways, and sore,

In which my feet are led;—

Alas, my heart, it was not always so!

Therefore, O happy day,

Haste not to fade away,

Nor let pale night chill all thy tender glow—

Thy rosy mists, that steep

The violet hills in sleep—

Thy airs of gold,

That over all the plain,

And fields of ripened grain,

A shimmering glory hold,—

The soft fatigue-dress of the drowsy sun;

Dreaming, as one who goes

To peace, and sweet repose,

After a battle hardly fought, and won:

Even so, my heart, to-day,

Dream all thy fears away.

O happy tears,

That everywhere I gaze,

Jewel the golden maze,

Flow on, till earth appears

Worthy the soft perfection of this scene:

Beat, heart, more soft and low,

Creep, hurrying blood, more slow:

Waste not one throb, to lose me the serene,

Deep, satisfying bliss

Of such an hour as this!

How like our dream,

Of that delightful rest

God keepeth for the blest,

This lovely peace doth seem;—

Perchance, my heart, He sent this gracious day,

That when the dark and cold,

Thy doubtful steps enfold,

Thou, may'st remember, and press on thy way,

Nor faint midway the gloom

That lies this side the tomb.

All, all in vain,

Sweet day, do I entreat

To stay thy wingéd feet;

The gloom, the cold, the pain,

Gather me back as thou dost pale and fade;

Yet in my heart I make

A chamber for thy sake,

And keep thy picture in warm color laid:—

Thy memory, happy day,

Thou can'st not take away.

Under the pines sat a young man and maiden,

"Love," said he; "life is sweet, think'st thou not so?"

Sweet were her eyes, full of pictures of Aidenn,—

"Life?" said she; "love is sweet; no more I know."

Into the wide world the maid and her lover

Wandered by pathways that sundered them far;

From pine-groves to palm-groves, he flitted a rover,

She tended his roses, and watched for his star.

Oft he said softly, while melting eyes glistened,

"Sweet is my life, love, with you ever near:"

Morning and evening she waited and listened

For a voice and a foot-step that never came near.

Fainting at last, on her threshold she found him:

"Life is but ashes, and bitter," he sighed.

She, with her tender arms folded around him,

Whispered—"But love is still sweet;" and so died.

O wild November wind, blow back to me

The withered leaves, that drift adown the past;

Waft me some murmur of the summer sea,

On which youth's fairy fleet of dreams was cast;

Return to me the beautiful No More—

O wild November wind, restore, restore!

November wind, in what dim, loathsome cave,

Languish the tender-plumed gales of spring?

No more their dances dimple o'er the wave,

Nor freighted pinions song and perfume bring:

Those gales are dead—that dimpling sea is dark;

And cloudy ghosts clutch at each mist-like bark.

O wild, wild wind, where are the summer airs

That kissed the roses of the long-ago?

Taking them captive—swooned in blissful snares—

To let them perish. Now no roses blow

In the waste gardens thou art laying bare:

Where are my heart's bright roses, where, oh where?

Thou hast no answer, thou unpitying gale?

No gentle whisper from the past to me!

No snatches of sweet song—no tender tale—

No happy ripple of that summer sea;

Are all my dreams wrecked on the nevermore?

O wild November wind, restore, restore!

Blue is the mist on the mountains,

White is the fog on the sea;

Ruby and gold is the sunset,—

And Bertha is waiting for me.

Down on the loathsome sand-beach,

Her eyes as blue as the mist;

Her brows as white as the sea-fog,—

Bertha, whose lips I have kissed.

Bertha, whose lips are like rubies,

Whose hair is like coiléd gold;

Whose sweet, rare smile is tenderer

Than any legend of old.

One morn, one noon, one sunset,

Must pass before we meet;

O wind and sail bear steady on,

And bring me to her feet.

The morn rose pale and sullen,

The noon was still and dun;

Across the storm at sunset,

Came the boom of a signal-gun.

Who treads the loathsome sand-beach,

With wet, disordered hair;

With garments tangled with sea-weed,

And cheeks more pale than fair?

O blue-eyed, white-browed maiden,

He will keep love's tryst no more;

His ship sailed safely into port—

But on the heavenward shore.

November came that day,

And all the air was gray

With delicate mists, blown down

From hill-tops by the south wind's balmy breath;

And all the oaks were brown

As Egypt's kings in death;

The maple's crown of gold

Laid tarnished on the wold;

The alder and the ash, the aspen and the willow,

Wore tattered suits of yellow.

The soft October rains

Had left some scarlet stains

Of color on the landscape's neutral ground;

Those fine ephemeral things,

The winged motes of sound,

That sing the "Harvest Home"

Of ripe Autumn in the gloam

Of the deep and bosky woods, in the field and by the river,

Sang that day their best endeavor.

I said: "In what sweet place

Shall we meet face to face,

Her loveliest self to see—

Meet Nature at her sad autumnal rites,

And learn the mystery

Of her unnamed delights?"

Then you said: "Let us go

Where the late violets blow

In hollows of the hills, under dead oak leaves hiding;—

We'll find she's there abiding."

Do we recall that day?

Has its grace passed away?

Its tenderest, dream-like tone,

Like one of Turner's landscapes limned on air—

Has its fine perfume flown

And left the memory bare?

Not so; its charm is still

Over wood, vale and hill—

The ferny odor sweet, the humming insect chorus,

The spirit that before us

Enticed us with delights

To the blue, breezy hights.

O, beautiful hills that stand

Serene 'twixt earth and heaven, with the grace

Of both to make you grand,—

Your loveliness leaves place

For nothing fairer; fair

And complete beyond compare.

O, lovely purple hills, O, first day of November,

Be sure that I remember!

I cannot wean my wayward heart from waiting,

Though the steps watched for never come anear;

The wearying want clings to it unabating—

The fruitless wish for presences once dear.

No fairer eve e'er blessed a poet's vision;

No softer airs e'er kissed a fevered brow;

No scene more truly could be called Elysian,

Than this which holds my gaze enchanted now.

And yet I pine;—this beautiful completeness

Is incomplete, to my desiring heart;

'Tis Beauty's form, without her soul of sweetness—

The pure, but chiseled loveliness of art.

There is no longer pleasure in emotion.

I envy those dead souls no touch can thrill;

Who—"painted ships upon a painted ocean,"—

Seem to be moved, yet are forever still.

Where are they fled?—they whose delightful voices,

Whose very footsteps had a charmed fall:

No more, no more their sound my heart rejoices:

Change, death, and distance part me now from all.

And this fair evening, with remembrance teeming,

Pierces my soul with every sharp regret;

The sweetest beauty saddens to my seeming,

Since all that's fair forbids me to forget.

Eyes that have gazed upon yon silver crescent,

'Till filled with light, then turned to gaze in mine,

Lips that could clothe a fancy evanescent,

In words whose magic thrilled the brain like wine:

Hands that have wreathed June's roses in my tresses,

And gathered violets to deck my breast,

Where are ye now? I miss your dear caresses—

I miss the lips, the eyes, that made me blest.

Lonely I sit and watch the fitful burning

Of prairie fires, far off, through gathering gloom;

While the young moon, and one bright star returning

Down the blue solitude, leave Night their room.

Gone is the glimmer of the silent river;

Hushed is the wind that sped the leaves to-day;

Alone through silence falls the crystal shiver

Of the sweet starlight, on its earthward way.

And yet I wait, how vainly! for a token—

A sigh, a touch, a whisper from the past;

Alas, I listen for a word unspoken,

And wail for arms that have embraced their last.

I wish no more, as once I wished, each feeling

To grow immortal in my happy breast;

Since not to feel will leave no wounds for healing—

The pulse that thrills not has no need of rest.

As the conviction sinks into my spirit

That my quick heart is doomed to death in life;

Or that these pangs must pierce and never sear it,

I am abandoned to despairing strife.

To the lost life, alas! no more returning—

In this to come no semblance of the past—

Only to wait!—hoping this ceaseless yearning

May, 'ere long, end—and rest may come at last.

What tellest thou to heaven,

Thou royal tropic tree?

At morn or noon or even,

Proud dweller by the sea,

What is thy song to heaven?

The homesick heart that fainted

In torrid sun and air,

With peace becomes acquainted

Beholding thee so fair—

With joy becomes acquainted:

And charms itself with fancies

About thy kingly race—

With gay and wild romances

That mimic thee in grace—

Of supple, glorious fancies.

I feel thou art not tender,

Scion of sun and sea—

The wild-bird does not render

To thee its minstrelsy—

Fearing thou art not tender:

But calm, serene and saintly,

As highborn things should be:

Who, if they love us faintly,

Make us love reverently,

Because they are so saintly.

To be loved without loving,

O proud and princely palm!

Is to fancy our ship moving

With the ocean at dead calm—

The joy of love is loving.

Because the Sun did sire thee,

The Ocean nurse thy youth,

Because the Stars desire thee,

The warm winds whisper truth,

Shall nothing ever fire thee?

What is thy tale to heaven

In the sultry tropic noon?

What whisperest thou at even

To the dusky Indian Moon—

Has she sins to be forgiven?

Keep all her secrets; loyal

As only great souls are—

As only souls most royal,

To the flower or to the star

Alike are purely loyal.

O Palma, if thou hearest,

Thou proud and princely tree!

Thou knowest that my Dearest

Is emblemed forth in thee—

My kingly Palm, my Dearest.

I am his Moon admiring,

His wooing Wind, his Star;

And I glory in desiring

My Palm-tree from afar—

Glad as happier lovers are,

Am happy in desiring!

I have learned how vainly given

Life's most precious things may be.

—Landon.

O, Christ, to-night I bring

A sad, weak heart, to lay before thy feet;

Too sad, almost, to cling

Even to Thee; too suffering,

If Thou shouldst pierce me, to regard the sting;

Too stunned to feel the pity I entreat

Closing around me its embraces sweet.

Shepherd, who gatherest up

The weary ones from all the world's highways;

And bringest them to sup

Of Thy bread, and Thy blessed cup;

If so Thou will, lay me within the scope

Only of Thy great tenderness, that rays

Too melting may not reach me from Thy face.

Here let me lie, and press

My forehead's pain out on Thy mantle's hem;

And chide not my distress,

For this, that I have loved thee less,

In loving so much some, whose sordidness

Has left me outcast, at the last, from them

And their poor love, which I cannot contemn.

No, cannot, even now,

Put Thee before them in my broken heart.

But, gentle Shepherd, Thou

Dost even such as I allow

The healing of Thy presence. Let my brow

Be covered from thy sight, while I, apart,

Brood over in dull pain my mortal hurt.

A child of scarcely seven years,

Light haired, and fair as any lily;

With pure eyes ready in their tears

At chiding words, or glances chilly;

And sudden smiles, as inly bright

As lamps through alabaster shining,

With ready mirth, and fancies light,

Dashed with strange dreams of child-divining:

A child in all infantile grace,

Yet with the angel lingering in her face.

A curious, eager, questioning child,

Whose logic leads to naive conclusions;

Her little knowledge reconciled

To truth amid some odd confusions;

Yet credulous, and loving much

The problems hardest for her reason,

Placing her lovely faith on such,

And deeming disbelief a treason;

Doubting that which she can disprove,

And wisely trusting all the rest to love.

Such graces dwell beside your hearth,

And bless you in a priceless pleasure,

Leaving no sweeter spot on earth

Than that which holds your household treasure.

No entertainment ever yet

Had half the exquisite completeness—

The gladness without one regret,

You gather from your darling's sweetness:

An angel sits beside the hearth

Where e're an innocent child is found on earth.

There's a little bird with a wondrous song—

A little bird that every one knows—

(Though it sings for the most part under the rose),

That is petted and pampered wherever it goes,

And nourished in bosoms gentle and strong.

This petted bird has a crooked beak

And eyes like live coals set in its head,

A gray breast dappled with glowing red—

Dabbled—not dappled, I should have said,

From a fancy it has of which I shall speak.

This eccentricity that I name

Is, that whenever the bird would sing

It darts its black head under its wing,

And moistens its beak in—darling thing!—

A human heart that is broken with shame.

Then this cherished bird its song begins—

Always begins its song one way—

With two little dulcet words, They Say,

Carolled in such a charming way

That the listener's heart it surely wins.

This sweetest of songsters sits beside

Every hearth in this Christian land,

Ever so humble or never so grand,

Gloating o'er crumbs which many a hand

Gathers to nourish it, far and wide.

Over each crumb that it gathers up

It winningly carols those two soft words

In the dulcet notes of the sweetest of birds,

Darting its sharp beak under its wing

As it might in a ruby drinking-cup.

A delicate thing is our bird withal

And owns but a fickle appetite,

So that old and young take a keen delight

In serving it ever, day and night,

With the last gay heart now turned to gall.

Thus, though a dainty dear, it sings

In a very well-conditioned way

A truly wonderful sort of lay,

Whose burden is ever the same—They Say—

Darting its dabbled beak under its wings.

I leant above your chair last night,

And on your brow once and again,

I pressed a kiss as still and light

As I would have your bosom's pain.

You did not feel the gentle touch,

It gave you neither grief nor pleasure,

Though that caress held, oh, so much,

Of love and blessing without measure.

Thus ever when I see you sad,

My heart toward you overflows;

But when again you're gay and glad,

I shrink back into cold repose,

I know not why I like you best,

O'erclouded by a passing sorrow—

Unless because it gives a zest

To the insouciance of to-morrow.

You're welcome to my light caress,

And all the love that with it went;

To live, and love you any less,

Would rob me of my soul's content.

Continue sometimes to be sad,

That I may feel that pity tender,

Which grieves for you, and yet is glad

Of an excuse for love's surrender.

Said one to me: "I seem to be—

Like a bird blown out to sea,

In the hurricane's wild track—

Lost, wing-weary, beating back

Vainly toward a fading shore,

It shall rest on nevermore."

Said I: "Betide, some good ships ride,

Over all the waters wide;

Spread your wings upon the blast,

Let it bear you far and fast:

In some sea, serene and blue,

Succor-ships are waiting you."

This soul then said: "Would I were dead—

Billows rolling o'er my head!

Those that sail the ships will cast

Storm-waifs back into the blast;

Omens evil will they call

What the hurricane lets fall."

For my reply: "Beneath the sky

Countless isles of beauty lie:

Waifs upon the ocean thrown,

After tossings long and lone,

To those blessed shores have come,

Finding there love, heaven, and home."

This soul to me: "The seething sea,

Tossing hungry under me,

I fear to trust; the ships I fear;

I see no isle of beauty near;

The sun is blotted out—no more

'Twill shine for me on any shore."

Once more I said: "Be not afraid;

Yield to the storm without a dread;

For the tree, by tempests torn

From its native soil, is borne

Green, to where its ripened fruit

Gives a sturdy forest-root.

"That which we lose, we think we choose,

Oft, from slavery to use.

Shocks that break our chains, tho' rude,

Open paths to highest good:

Wise, my sister soul, is she

Who takes of life the proffered key."

"Nay, Hylas, I have come

To where life's landscape takes a western slope,

And breezes from the occidental shores

Sigh thro' the thinning locks around my brow,

And on my cheeks fan flickering summer fires.

Oh, winged feet of Time, forget your flight,

And let me dream of those rose-scented bowers

That lapped my soul in youth's enchanted East!

It needs no demon-essence of Hasheesh

To flash that sunrise glory in my eyes!—

It needs no Flora to bring back those flowers—

No gay Apollo to sound liquid reeds—

No muse to consecrate the hills and streams—

No God or oracle within those groves

To render sacred all the emerald glooms:

For here dwelt such bright angels as attend

The innocent ways of youth's unsullied feet;

And all the beautiful band of sinless hopes,

Twining their crowns of pearl-white amaranth;

And rosy, dream-draped, sapphire-eyed desires

Whose twin-born deities were Truth and Faith

Having their altars over all the land.

Beauty held court within its vales by day,

And Love made concert with the nightingales

In singing 'mong the myrtles, starry eves."

"You are inspired, Zobedia, your eyes

Look not upon the present summer world,

But see some mystery beyond the close

Of this pale blue horizon."

"Erewhile I wandered from this happy land.

Crowned with its roses, wearing in my eyes

Reflections of its shining glorious heaven,

And bearing on my breast and in my hands

Its violets, and lilies white and sweet,—

Following the music floating in the air

Made by the fall of founts, the voice of streams

And murmur of the winds among the trees,

I strayed in reveries of soft delight

Beyond the bounds of this delicious East.

"But oh, the splendors of that newer clime!

It was as if those oriental dreams

In which my soul was steeped to fervidness,

Were here transmuted to their golden real

With added glories for each shape or hue.

The stately trees wore coronals of flowers

That swung their censers in the mid-day sun:

The pines and palms of my delightful east

Chaunted their wild songs nearer to the stars;

Even the roses had more exquisite hues,

And for one blossom I had left behind

I found a bower in this fragrant land.

Bright birds, no larger than the costly gems

The river bedded in their golden sands,

Sparkle like prismal rain-drops 'mong the leaves;

And others sang, or flashed their plumage gay

Like rainbow fragments on my dazzled eyes.

The sky had warmer teints: I could not tell

Whether the heavens lent color to the flowers,

Or but reflected that which glowed in them.

The gales that blew from off the cloud-lost hills,

Struck from the clambering vines Eolian songs,

That mingled with the splashing noise of founts,

In music such as stirs to passionate thought:

This peerless land was thronged with souls like mine,

Straying from East to South, impelled unseen,

And lost, like mine, in its enchanted vales:—

Souls that conversed apart in pairs, or sang

Low breeze-like airs, more tender than sweet words;

Save here and there a wanderer like myself,

Dreaming alone, and dropping silent tears,

Scarce knowing why, upon the little group

Of Eastern flowers we had not yet resigned:—

'Till one came softly smiling in my eyes,

And dried their tears with radiance from his own.

"At last it came—I knew not how it came—

But a tornado swept this sunny South,

And when I woke once more, I stood alone.

My senses sickened at the dismal waste,

And caring not, now all things bright were dead,

That a volcano rolled its burning tide

In fiery rivers far athwart the land,

I turned my feet to aimless wanderings.

The equatorial sun poured scorching beams,

On my defenceless head. The burning winds

Seemed drying up the blood within my veins.

The straggling flowers that had outlived the storm

Won but a feeble, half-contemptuous smile;

And if a bird attempted a brief song,

I closed my ears lest it should burst my brain.

After much wandering I came at last

To cooler skies and a less stifling air;

And finally to this more temperate clime.

Where every beauty is of milder type—

Where the simoon nor tempest ever come,

And I can soothe the fever of my soul

In the bland breezes blowing from the West."

Sphinx, down whose rugged face

The sliding centuries their furrows cleave

By sun and frost and cloud-burst; scarce to leave

Perceptible a trace

Of age or sorrow;

Faint hints of yesterdays with no to-morrow;—

My mind regards thee with a questioning eye,

To know thy secret, high.

If Theban mystery,

With head of woman, soaring, bird-like wings

And serpent's tail on lion's trunk, were things

Puzzling in history;

And men invented

For it an origin which represented

Chimera and a monster double-headed,

By myths Phenician wedded—

Their issue being this—

This most chimerical and wonderous thing

From whose dumb mouth not even the gods could wring

Truth, nor antithesis:

Then, what I think is,

This creature—being chief among men's sphinxes—

Is eloquent, and overflows with story,

Beside thy silence hoary!

Nevada!—desert waste!

Mighty, and inhospitable, and stern;

Hiding a meaning over which we yearn

In eager, panting haste—

Grasping and losing,

Still being deluded ever by our choosing—

Answer us Sphinx: What is thy meaning double

But endless toil and trouble?

Inscrutable, men strive

To rend thy secret from thy rocky breast;

Breaking their hearts, and periling heaven's rest

For hopes that cannot thrive;

Whilst unrelenting,

Upon thy mountain throne, and unrepenting,

Thou sittest, basking in a fervid sun,

Seeing or hearing none.

I sit beneath thy stars,

The shallop moon beached on a bank of clouds—;

And see thy mountains wrapped in shadowed shrouds,

Glad that the darkness bars

The day's suggestion—

The endless repetition of one question;

Glad that thy stony face I cannot see,

Nevada—Mystery!