"Golden lads and lasses mustLike chimney-sweepers come to dust."—SHAKESPEARE.
So young, but already the splendorOf genius robed him about—Already the dangerous, tenderRegard of the gods marked him out—
(On whom the burden and dutyThey bind, at his earliest breath,Of showing their own grave beauty,They love and they crown with death.)
We were of one blood, but the oldenRapt poets spake out in his tone;We were of one blood, but the goldenRathe promise was his, his alone.
And ever his great eye glistenedWith visions I could not see,Ever he thrilled and listenedTo voices withholden from me.
Young lord of the realms of fancy,The bright dreams flocked to his callLike sprites that the necromancyOf a Prospero holds in thrall—
Quick visions that served and attended,Elusive and hovering things,With a quiver of joy in the splendidWild sweep of their luminous wings;
He dwelt in an alien glamor,He wrought of its gleams a crown,—But the world, with its cruelty and clamor,Broke him and beat him down;
So he passed; he was worn, he was weary,He was slain at the touch of life;—With a smile that was wistful and eerieHe passed from the senseless strife;—
So he ceased (is their humor satiric,These gods that make perfect and blight?)—He ceased like an exquisite lyricThat dies on the breast of night.
'TWIXT ancient Beersheba and DanAnother such a caravanDazed Palestine had never seenAs that which bore Sabea's queenUp from the fain and flaming SouthTo slake her yearning spirit's drouthAt wisdom's pools, with Solomon.
With gifts of scented sandalwood,And labdanum, and cassia-bud,With spicy spoils of ArabyAnd camel-loads of ivoryAnd heavy cloths that glanced and shoneWith inwrought pearl and beryl-stoneShe came, a bold Sabean girl.
And did she find him grave, or gay?Perchance his palace breathed that dayWith psalters sounding solemnly—Or cymbals' merrier minstrelsy—Perchance the wearied monarch heardSome loose-tongued prophet's meddling word;—None knows, no one—but Solomon!
She looked—with eyne wherein were blentAll ardors of the Orient;She spake—all magics of the SouthWere compassed in the witch's mouth;—He thought the scarlet lips of herMore precious than En Gedi's myrrh,The lips of that Sabean girl;
By many an amorous sun caressed,From lifted brow to amber breastShe gleamed in vivid loveliness—And lithe as any leopardess—And verily, one blames thee notIf thine own proverbs were forgot,O Solomon, wise Solomon!
She danced for him, and surely sheLearnt dancing from some moonlit sea
Where elfin vapors swirled and swayedWhile the wild pipes of witchcraft playedSuch clutching music 'twould impelA prophet's self to dance to hell—So spun the light Sabean girl.
He swore her laughter had the liltOf chiming waters that are spiltIn sprays of spurted melodyFrom founts of carven porphyry,And in the billowy turbulenceOf her dusk hair drowned soul and sense—Dark tides and deep, O Solomon!
Perchance unto her day belongsHis poem called the Song of Songs,Each little lyric intervalTimed to her pulse's rise and fall;—Or when he cried out wearilyThat all things end in vanityDid he mean that Sabean girl?
The bright barbaric opulence,The sun-kist Temple, Kedar's tents,—
How many a careless caravan'Twixt Beersheba and ruined Dan,Within these forty centuries,Has flung their dust to many a breeze,With dust that was King Solomon!
But still the lesson holds as true,O King, as when she lessoned you:That very wise men are not wiseUntil they read in Folly's eyesThe wisdom that escapes the schools,That bids the sage revise his rulesBy light of some Sabean girl!
"Archaeologists have discovered a love-letter among the ruinsof Babylon." —Newspaper report.
The world hath just one tale to tell, and it is very old,A little tale—a simple tale—a tale that's easy told:"There was a youth in Babylon who greatly loved amaid!"The world hath just one song to sing, but sings itunafraid,A little song—a foolish song—the only song it hath:"There was a youth in Ascalon who loved a girl inGath!"
Homer clanged it, Omar twanged it, Greece andPersia knew!—Nimrod's reivers, Hiram's weavers, Hindu, Kurd,and Jew—Crowning Tyre, Troy afire, they have dreamedthe dream;Tiber-side and Nilus-tide brightened with thegleam—
Oh, the suing, sighing, wooing, sad and merryhours,Blisses tasted, kisses wasted, building Babel'stowers!Hearts were aching, hearts were breaking, lasheswet with dew,When the ships touched the lips of islands Sapphoknew;Yearning breasts and burning breasts, cold at last,are hidAmid the glooms of carven tombs in Khufu'spyramid—Though the sages, down the ages, smile their cynicdoubt,Man and maid, unafraid, put the schools to rout;Seek to chain love and retain love in the bonds ofbreath,Vow to hold love, bind and fold love even untodeath!
The dust of forty centuries has buried Babylon,And out of all her lovers dead rises only one;Rises with a song to sing and laughter in his eyes,The old song—the only song—for all the rest are lies!
For, oh, the world has just one dream, and it is veryold—'Tis youth's dream—a silly dream—but it is flushedwith gold!
PEARL-SLASHED and purple and crimson andfringed with gray mist of the hills,The pennons of morning advance to the music ofrock-fretted rills,The dumb forest quickens to song, and the littlegusts shout as they flingA floor-cloth of orchard bloom down for the flashing,quick feet of the Spring.
To the road, gipsy-heart, thou and I! 'Tis themad piper, Spring, who is leading;'Tis the pulse of his piping that throbs throughthe brain, irresistibly pleading;Full-blossomed, deep-bosomed, fain woman,light-footed, lute-throated and fleet,We have drunk of the wine of this Wanderer's song;let us follow his feet!
Like raveled red girdles flung down by somehoidenish goddess in mirthThe tangled roads reach from rim unto utter-mostrim of the earth—We will weave of these strands a strong net, wewill snare the bright wings of delight,—We will make of these strings a sweet lute thatwill shame the low wind-harps of night.
The clamor of tongues and the clangor of tradesin the peevish packed street,The arrogant, jangling Nothings, with iterant,dissonant beat,The clattering, senseless endeavor with dross ofmere gold for its goal,These have sickened the senses and wearied thebrain and straitened the soul.
"Come forth and be cleansed of the folly of strifefor things worthless of strife,Come forth and gain life and grasp God by foregoinggains worthless of life"—
It was thus spake the wizard wildwood, low-voicedto the hearkening heart,It was thus sang the jovial hills, and the harpersun bore part.
O woman, whose blood as my blood with the fireof the Spring is aflame,We did well, when the red roads called, that weheeded the call and came—Came forth to the sweet wise silence where soulmay speak sooth unto soul,Vine-wreathed and vagabond Love, with the goalof Nowhere for our goal!
What planet-crowned Dusk that wanders thesteeps of our firmament thereHath gems that may match with the dew-opalsmeshed in thine opulent hair?What wind-witch that skims the curled billowswith feet they are fain to caressHath sandals so wing'd as thine art with agod-like carelessness?
And dare we not dream this is heaven?—to wanderthus on, ever on.Through the hush-heavy valleys of space, up theflushing red slopes of the dawn?—For none that seeks rest shall find rest till heceaseth his striving for rest,And the gain of the quest is the joy of the roadthat allures to the quest.
AND I would seek the country townAmid green meadows nestled downIf I could only find the wayBack to the Land of Yesterday!
How I would thrust the miles aside,Rush up the quiet lane, and then,Just where her roses laughed in pride,Find her among the flowers again.I'd slip in silently and waitUntil she saw me by the gate,And then … read through a blur of tearsQuick pardon for the selfish years.
This time, this time, I would not waitFor that brief wire that said,Too late!—If I could only find the wayInto the Land of Yesterday.
I wonder if her roses yetLift up their heads and laugh with pride,And if her phlox and mignonetteHave heart to blossom by their side;I wonder if the dear old laneStill chirps with robins after rain,And if the birds and banded beesStill rob her early cherry-trees….
I wonder, if I went there now,How everything would seem, and how—But no! not now; there is no wayBack to the Land of Yesterday.
CEASE to call him sad and sober,Merriest of months, October!Patron of the bursting bins,Reveler in wayside inns,I can nowhere find a traceOf the pensive in his face;There is mingled wit and folly,But the madcap lacks the graceOf a thoughtful melancholy.Spendthrift of the seasons' gold,How he flings and scatters outTreasure filched from summer-time!—Never ruffling squire of oldBetter loved a tavern boutWhen Prince Hal was in his prime.Doublet slashed with gold and green;Cloak of crimson; changeful sheen,Of the dews that gem his breast;Frosty lace about his throat;
Scarlet plumes that flaunt and floatBackward in a gay unrest—Where's another gallant drestWith such tricksy gaiety,Such unlessoned vanity?With his amber afternoonsAnd his pendant poets' moons—With his twilights dashed with roseFrom the red-lipped afterglows—With his vocal airs at dawnBreathing hints of Helicon—Bacchanalian bees that sipWhere his cider-presses drip—With the winding of the hornWhere his huntsmen meet the morn—With his every piping breezeShaking from familiar treesApples of Hesperides—With the chuckle, chirp, and trillOf his jolly brooks that spillMirth in tangled madrigalsDown pebble-dappled waterfalls—(Brooks that laugh and make escapeThrough wild arbors where the grape
Purples with a promise ofRacy vintage rare as love)—With his merry, wanton air,Mirth and vanity and follyWhy should he be made to bearBurden of some melancholySong that swoons and sinks with care?Cease to call him sad or sober,—He's a jolly dog, October!
THE Hours passed by, a fleet, confused crowd;With wafture of blown garments bright as fire,Light, light of foot and laughing, morning-browed,And where they trod the jonquil and the briarThrilled into jocund life, the dreaming dellsWaked to a morrice chime of jostled bells;—They danced! they danced! to piping such asflingsThe garnered music of a million SpringsInto one single, keener ecstasy;—One paused and shouted to my questionings:"Lo, I am Youth; I bid thee follow me!"
The Hours passed by; they paced, great lords andproud,Crowned on with sunlight, robed in rich attire;Before their conquering word the brute deedbowed,And Ariel fancies served their large desire;
They spake, and roused the mused soul that dwellsIn dust, or, smiling, shaped new heavens andhells,Dethroned old gods and made blind beggars kings:"And what art thou," I cried to one, "that bringsHis mistress, for a brooch, the Galaxy?"—"I am the plumed Thought that soars and sings:Lo, I am Song; I bid thee follow me!"
The Hours passed by, with veiled eyes endowedOf dream, and parted lips that scarce suspire,To breathing dusk and arrowy moonlight vowed,South wind and shadowy grove and murmuringlyre;—Swaying they moved, as drows'd of wizard spellsOr tranc'd with sight of recent miracles,And yet they trembled, down their folded wingsQuivered the hint of sweet withholden things,Ah, bitter-sweet in their intensity!One paused and said unto my wonderings:"Lo, I am Love; I bid thee follow me!"
The Hours passed by, through huddled cities loudWith witless hate and stale with stinking mire:
So cowled monks might march with bier and shroudDown streets plague-spotted toward some cleansing pyre;—Yet, lo! strange lilies bloomed in lightless cells,And passionate spirits burst their clayey shellsAnd sang the stricken hope that bleeds and clings:Earth's bruised heart beat in the throbbing strings,And joy still struggled through the threnody!One stern Hour said unto my marvelings:"Lo, I am Life; I bid thee follow me!"
The Hours passed by, the stumbling hours andcowed,Uncertain, prone to tears and childish ire,—The wavering hours that drift like any cloudAt whim of winds or fortunate or dire,—The feeble shapes that any chance expells;Their wisdom useless, lacking the blood that swellsThe tensed vein: the hot, swift tide that stingsWith life. Ah, wise! but naked to the slingsOf fate, and plagued of youthful memory!A cracked voice broke upon my pityings:"Lo, I am Age; I bid thee follow me!"
Ah, Youth! we dallied by the babbling wellsWhere April all her lyric secret tells;—Ah, Song! we sped our bold imaginingsAs far as yon red planet's triple rings;—O Life! O Love! I followed, followed thee!There waits one word to end my journeyings:"Lo, I am Death; I bid thee follow me!"
My dust in ruined BabylonIs blown along the level plain,And songs of mine at dawn have soaredAbove the blue Sicilian main.
We are ourselves, and not ourselves …For ever thwarting pride and willSome forebear's passion leaps from deathTo claim a vital license still.
Ancestral lusts that slew and died,Resurgent, swell each living vein;Old doubts and faiths, new panoplied,Dispute the mastery of the brain.
The love of liberty that flamesFrom written rune and stricken reedShook the hot hearts of swordsmen siresAt Marathon and Runnymede.
What are these things we call our "selves"? …Have I not shouted, sobbed, and diedIn the bright surf of spears that brokeWhere Greece rolled back the Persian tide?
Are we who breathe more quick than theyWhose bones are dust within the tomb?Nay, as I write, what gray old ghostsMurmur and mock me from the gloom….
They call … across strange seas they call,Strange seas, and haunted coasts of time….They startle me with wordless songsTo which the Sphinx hath known the rhyme.
Our hearts swell big with dead men's hates,Our eyes sting hot with dead men's tears;We are ourselves, but not ourselves,Born heirs, but serfs, to all the years!
I rode with Nimrod … strove at Troy …A slave I stood in Crowning Tyre,A queen looked on me and I lovedAnd died to compass my desire.
EARTH loves to gibber o'er her dross,Her golden souls, to waste;The cup she fills for her god-menIs a bitter cup to taste.
Who sees the gyves that bind mankindAnd strives to strike them offShall gain the hissing hate of fools,Thorns, and the ingrate's scoff.
Who storms the moss-grown walls of eldAnd beats some falsehood downShall pass the pallid gates of deathSanslaurel, love or crown;
For him who fain would teach the worldThe world holds hate in fee—For Socrates, the hemlock cup;For Christ, Gethsemane.
"In Vishnu-land, what avatar?"—BROWNING.
PERCHANCE the dying gods of EarthAre destined to another birth,And worn-out creeds regain their worthIn the kindly air of other stars—What lords of life and light hold swayIn the myriad worlds of the Milky Way?What avatars in Mars?
What Aphrodites from the seasThat lap the plunging PleiadesArise to spread afarThe dream that was the soul of Greece?In Mars, what avatar?
Which hundred moons are wan with loveFor dull Endymions?Which hundred moons hang tranced aboveAudacious Ajalons?
What Holy Grail lures errants paleThrough the wastes of yonder star?What fables sway the Milky Way?In Mars, what avatar?
When morning skims with crimson wingsAcross the meres of Mercury,What dreaming Memnon wakes and singsOf miracles on Mercury?What Christs, what avatars,Claim Mars?
NEVERMOREShall the shepherds of Arcady followPan's moods as he lolls by the shoreOf the mere, or lies hid in the hollow;NevermoreShall they start at the sound of his reed-fashionedflute;
Fallen muteAre the strings of Apollo,His lyre and his lute;And the lips of the Memnons are muteEvermore;And the gods of the North,—are they dead orforgetful,Our Odin and Baldur and Thor?Are they drunk, or grown weary of worship andfretful,Our Odin and Baldur and Thor?
And into what night have the Orient dietiesstrayed?Swart gods of the Nile, in dusk splendors arrayed,Brooding Isis and somber Osiris,You were gone ere the fragile papyrus,(That bragged you eternal!) decayed.
The avatarsBut illumine their limited evensAnd vanish like plunging stars;They are fixed in the whirling heavensNo firmer than falling stars;Brief lords of the changing soul, they passLike a breath from the face of a glass,Or a blossom of summer blown shallop-like overThe cloverAnd tossed tides of grass.
Sink to silence the psalms and the paeansThe shibboleths shift, and the faiths,And the temples that challenged the aeonsAre tenanted only by wraiths;Swoon to silence the cymbals and psalters,The worships grow senseless and strange,
And the mockers ask,"Where be thy altars?"Crying,"Nothing is changeless—but Change!"
Yes, nothing seems changeless, but Change.And yet, through the creed-wrecking years,One story for ever appears;The tale of a City Supernal—The whisper of Something eternal—A passion, a hope, and a visionThat peoples the silence with Powers;A fable of meadows ElysianWhere Time enters not with his Hours;—Manifold are the tale's variations,Race and clime ever tinting the dreams,Yet its essence, through endless mutations,Immutable gleams.
Deathless, though godheads be dying,Surviving the creeds that expire,Illogical, reason-defying,Lives that passionate, primal desire;Insistent, persistent, foreverMan cries to the silences,Never
Shall Death reign the lord of the soul,Shall the dust be the ultimate goal—I will storm the black bastions of Night!I will tread where my vision has trod,I will set in the darkness a light,In the vastness, a god!"
As the forehead of Man grows broader, so dohis creeds;And his gods they are shaped in his image, andmirror his needs;And he clothes them with thunders and beauty,he clothes them with music and fire;Seeing not, as he bows by their altars, that heworships his own desire;And mixed with his trust there is terror, andmixed with his madness is ruth,And every man grovels in error, yet every manglimpses a truth.
For all of the creeds are false, and all of the creedsare true;And low at the shrines where my brothers bow,there will I bow, too;
For no form of a god, and no fashionMan has made in his desperate passionBut is worthy some worship of mine;—Not too hot with a gross belief,Nor yet too cold with pride,I will bow me down where my brothers bow,Humble—but open-eyed!
A FIERCE unrest seethes at the coreOf all existing things:It was the eager wish to soarThat gave the gods their wings.
From what flat wastes of cosmic slime,And stung by what quick fire,Sunward the restless races climb!—Men risen out of mire!
There throbs through all the worlds that areThis heart-beat hot and strong,And shaken systems, star by star,Awake and glow in song.
But for the urge of this unrestThese joyous spheres were mute;But for the rebel in his breastHad man remained a brute.
When baffled lips demanded speech,Speech trembled into birth—(One day the lyric word shall reachFrom earth to laughing earth)—
When man's dim eyes demanded lightThe light he sought was born—His wish, a Titan, scaled the heightAnd flung him back the morn!
From deed to dream, from dream to deed,From daring hope to hope,The restless wish, the instant need,Still lashed him up the slope!
. . . . . .
I sing no governed firmament,Cold, ordered, regular—I sing the stinging discontentThat leaps from star to star!
WHAT was his life, back yonderIn the dusk where time began,This beast uncouth with the jaw of an apeAnd the eye and brain of a man?—Work, and the wooing of woman,Fight, and the lust of fight,Play, and the blind beginningsOf an Art that groped for light?—
In the wonder of redder mornings,By the beauty of brighter seas,Did he stand, the world's first thinker,Scorning his clan's decrees?—Seeking, with baffled eyes,In the dumb, inscrutable skies,A name for the greater gloryThat only the dreamer sees?
One day, when the afterglows,Like quick and sentient things,
With a rush of their vast, wild wings,Rose out of the shaken oceanAs great birds rise from the sod,Did the shock of their sudden splendorStir him and startle and thrill him,Grip him and shake him and fill himWith a sense as of heights untrod?—Did he tremble with hope and vision,And grasp at a hint of God?
London stands where the mammothCaked shag flanks with slime—And what are our lives that inheritThe treasures of all time?Work, and the wooing of woman,Fight, and the lust of fight,A little play (and too much toil!)With an Art that gropes for light;And now and then a dreamer,Rapt, from his lonely sodLooks up and is thrilled and startledWith a fleeting sense of God!
THE creeds he wrought of dream and thoughtFall from him at the touch of life,His old gods fail him in the strife—Withdrawn, the heavens he sought!
Vanished, the miracles that led,The cloud at noon, the flame at night;The vision that he wing'd and spedFalls backward, baffled, from the height;
Yet in the wreck of these he standsUpheld by something grim and strong;Some stubborn instinct lifts a songAnd nerves him, heart and hands:
He does not dare to call it hope;—It is not aught that seeks reward—
Nor faith, that up some sunward slopeRuns aureoled to meet its lord;
It touches something elder farThan faith or creed or thought in man,It was ere yet these lived and ranLike light from star to star;
It touches that stark, primal needThat from unpeopled voids and vastFashioned the first crude, childish creed,—And still shall fashion, till the last!
For one word is the tale of men:They fling their icons to the sod,And having trampled down a godThey seek a god again!
Stripped of his creeds inherited,Bereft of all his sires held true,Amid the wreck of visions deadHe thrills at touch of visions new….
He wings another Dream for flight….He seeks beyond the outmost dawnA god he set there … and, anon,Drags that god from the height!
. . . . . .
But aye from ruined faiths and oldThat droop and die, fall bruised seeds;And when new flowers and faiths unfoldThey're lovelier flowers, they're kindlier creeds.
THE steam, the reek, the fume, of prayerBlown outward for a million years,Becomes a mist between the spheres,And waking Sentience struggles there.
Prayer still creates the boon we pray;And gods we've hoped for, from those hopesWill gain sufficient form one dayAnd in full godhood storm the slopesWhere ancient Chaos, stark and gray,Already trembles for his sway.
When that the restless worlds would flyTheir wish created rapid wings,But not till aeons had passed byWith dower of many idler things;And when dumb flesh demanded speechSpeech struggled to the lips at last;—Now the unpeopled Void, and vast,
Clean to that uttermost blank beachWhereto the boldest thought may reachThat voyages from the vaguest past—(Dim realm and ultimate of space)—Is vexed and troubled, stirs and shakes,In prescience of a god that wakes,Born of man's wish to see God's face!
The endless, groping, dumb desires,—The climbing incense thick and sweet,The lovely purpose that aspires,The wraiths of vapor wing'd and fleetThat rise and run with eager feetForth from a myriad altar fires:All these become a mist that fillsThe vales and chasms nebular;A shaping Soul that moves and thrillsThe wastes between red star and star!
OUT of the soil and the slime,Reeking, they climb,
Out of the muck and the mire,Rank, they aspire;
Filthy with murder and mud,Black with shed blood,
Lust and passion and clay—Dying, they slay;
Stirred by vague hints of a goal,Seeking a soul!
Groping through terror and nightUp to the light:
Life in the dust and the clodSensing a God;
Flushed of the glamor and gleamCaught from a dream;
Stained of the struggle and toil,Stained of the soil,
Ally of God in the end—Helper and friend—
Hero and prophet and priestOut of the beast!
CHRIST was of virgin birth, and, being slain,The creedists say, He rose from death again.Oh, futile age-long talk of death and birth!—His life, that is the one thing wonder-worth;Not how He came, but how He lived on earth.For if gods stoop, and with quaint juggleryMock nature's laws, how shall that profit thee?—The nobler lesson is that mortals canGrow godlike through this baffled front of man!
EACH race has died and lived and fought for the"true" gods of that poor race,Unconsciously, divinest thought of each racegilding its god's face.And every race that lives and dies shall make itselfsome other gods,Shall build, with mingled truth and lies, new iconsfrom the world-old clods.Through all the tangled creeds and dreams andshifting shibboleths men holdThe false-and-true, inwoven, gleams: a mattedmass of dross and gold.Prove, then, thy gods in thine own soul; all others'gods, for thee, are vain;Nor swerved be, struggling for the goal, by bribeof joy nor threat of pain.
As skulls grow broader, so do faiths; as old tonguesdie, old gods die, too,
And only ghosts of gods and wraiths may meetthe backward-gazer's view.Where, where the faiths of yesterday? Ah,whither vanished, whither gone?Say, what Apollos drive to-day adown the flamingslopes of dawn?Oh, does the blank past hide from view forgottenChrists, to be reborn,The future tremble where some new Messiah-Memnonsings the morn?Of all the worlds, say any earth, like dustwind-harried to and fro,Shall give the next Prometheus birth; but say—atlast—you do not know.
How should I know what dawn may gleam beyondthe gates of darkness there?—Which god of all the gods men dream? Whyshould I whip myself to care?Whichever over all hath place hath shaped andmade me what I am;Hath made me strong to front his face, to dareto question though he damn.
Perhaps to cringe and cower and bring a shrinea forced and faithless faithIs far more futile than to fling your laughter inthe face of Death.For writhe or whirl in dervish rout, they are notflattered there on high,Or sham belief to hide a doubt—no gods are minethat love a lie!Nor gods that beg belief on earth with portentsthat some seer foretells—Is life itself not wonder-worth that we must cryfor miracles?Is it not strange enough we breathe? Does every-thing not God reveal?Or must we ever weave and wreathe some creedthat shall his face conceal?Some creed of which its prophets cry it holdsthe secret's all-in-all:Some creed which ever bye and bye doth crumble,totter, to its fall!Say any dream of all the dreams that drift anddarkle, glint and glow,Holds most of truth within its gleams; but say—at last—you do not know.
Oh, say the soul, from star to star, with victorywing'd, leap on through spaceAnd scale the bastioned nights that bar the secret'sinner dwelling-place;Or say it ever roam dim glades where pallidwraiths of long-dead moonsFlit like blown feathers through the shades, borneon the breath of sobbing tunes:Say any tide of any time, of all the tides that ebband flow,Shall buoy us on toward any clime; but say—atlast—you do not know!
"King Pandion, he is dead;All thy friends are lapp'd in lead."—SHAKESPEARE.
DREAMERS, drinkers, rebel youth,Where's the folly free and fineYou and I mistook for truth?Wits and wastrels, friends of wine,Wags and poets, friends of mine,Gleams and glamors all are fled,Fires and frenzies half divine!King Pandion, he is dead!
Time's unmannerly, uncouth!Here's the crow's-foot for a sign!And, upon our brows, forsooth,Wits and wastrels, friends of wine,Time hath set his mark malign;Frost has touched us, heart and head,Cooled the blood and dulled the eyne:King Pandion, he is dead!
Time's a tyrant without ruth:—Fancies used to bloom and twineRound a common tavern booth,Wits and wastrels, friends of wine,In that youth of mine and thine!'Tis for youth the feast is spread;When we dine now—we but dine!—King Pandion, he is dead!
How our dreams would glow and shine,Wits and wastrels, friends of wine,Ere the drab Hour came that said:King Pandion, he is dead!
VERY red are the roses of Sharon,But redder thy mouth,There is nard, there is myrrh, in En Gedi,From the uplands of Lebanon, heavyWith balsam, the windsDrift freighted and scented and cedarn—But thy mouth is more precious than spices!
Thy breasts are twin lilies of Kedron;White lilies, that sleepIn the shallows where loitering KedronBroadens out and is lost in the Jordan;Globed lilies, so whiteThat David, thy King, thy belovedDeclareth them meet for his gardens.
Under the stars very strangelyThe still waters gleam;Deep down in the waters of Hebron
The soul of the starlight is sunken,But deep in thine eyesStirs a more wonderful secretThan pools ever learn of the starlight.
A TOAST to the Fools!Pierrot, Pantaloon,Harlequin, Clown,Merry-Andrew, Buffoon—Touchstone and Triboulet—all of the tribe.—Dancer and jester and singer and scribe.We sigh over Yorick—(unfortunate fool,Ten thousand Hamlets have fumbled his skull!)—But where is the Hamlet to weep o'er the biersOf his brothers?And where is the poet solicits our tearsFor the others?They have passed from the world and left nevera sign,And few of us now have the courage to singThat their whimsies made life a more livablething—We, that are left of the line,Let us drink to the jesters—in gooseberry wine!
Then here's to the Fools!Flouting the sagesThrough history's pagesAnd driving the dreary old seers into rages—The humbugging MagisWho prate that the wagesOf Folly are Death—toast the Fools of all ages!They have ridden like froth down the whirlpoolsof time,They have jingled their caps in the councils ofstate,They have snared half the wisdom of life in arhyme,And tripped into nothingness grinning at fate—Ho, brothers mine,Brim up the glasses with gooseberry wine!
Though the prince with his firman,The judge in his ermine,Affirm and determineBold words need the whip,Let them spare us the rod and remit us thesermon,For Death has a quip
Of the tomb and the verminThat will silence at last the most impudent lip!Is the world but a bubble, a bauble, a joke?Heigho, Brother Fools, now your bubble is broke,Do you ask for a tear?—or is it worth while?Here's a sigh for you, then—but it ends in a smile!Ho, Brother Death,We would laugh at you, too—if you spared us thebreath!
"Mary, Mary, quite contrary,How does your garden grow?With silver bells and cockle-shellsAnd pretty maids all in a row!"—Mother Goose.
MARY, Mistress Mary,How does your garden grow?From your uplands airy,Mary, Mistress Mary,Float the chimes of faeryWhen the breezes blow!Mary, Mistress Mary,How does your garden grow?
With flower-maidens, singingAmong the morning hills—With silvern bells a-ringing,With flower-maidens singing,With vocal lilies, springingBy chanting daffodils;With flower-maidens, singingAmong the morning hills!
YOUR triolet should glimmerLike a butterfly;In golden light, or dimmer,Your triolet should glimmer,Tremble, turn, and shimmer,Flash, and flutter by;Your triolet should glimmerLike a butterfly.
HELD and thrilled by the visionI stood, as the twilight died,Where the great bridge soars like a songOver the crawling tide—
Stood on the middle arch—And night flooded in from the bay,And wonderful under the starsBefore me the city lay;
Girdled with swinging waters—Guarded by ship on ship—A gem that the strong old oceanHeld in his giant grip;
There was play of shadows aboveAnd drifting gleams below,And magic of shifting wavesThat darkle and glance and glow;
Dusky and purple and splendid,Banded with loops of light,The tall towers rose like pillars,Lifting the dome of night;
The gliding cars of trafficSlid swiftly up and downLike monsters, fiery mailed,Leaping across the town.
Not planned with a thought of beauty;Built by a lawless breed;Builded of lust for power,Builded of gold and greed.
Risen out of the trader'sBrutal and sordid wars—And yet, behold! a cityWonderful under the stars!
GALAHADS, Galahads, Percivals, gallop!Bayards, to the saddle!—the clangorous trumpets,Hoarse with their ecstasy, call to the mellay.Paladins, Paladins, Rolands flame-hearted,Olivers, Olivers, follow the bugles!
Girt with the glory and glamor of power,Error sits throned in the high place of justice;Paladins, Paladins, youth noble-hearted,Saddle and spear, for the battle-flags beckon!Thrust the keen steel through the throat of the liar.
Star (or San Grael) that illumines thy pathway,Follow it, follow that far Ideal!—Thine not the guerdon to gain it or grasp it;Soul of thee, passing, ascendeth unto it,Augmenting its brightness for them that comeafter.
Heed then the call of the trumpets, the trumpets,Hoarse with the fervor, the frenzy of battle,—Paladins, Paladins, saddle! to saddle!Bide not, abide not, God's bugles are calling!—Thrust the sharp sword through the heart of theliar.
MY lands, not thine, we look upon,Friend Croesus, hill and vale and lawn.Mine every woodland madrigal,And mine thy singing waterfallThat vaguely hints of Helicon.
Mark how thine upland slopes have drawnA golden glory from the dawn!—Fool's gold?—thy dullness proves them allMy lands—not thine!
For when all title-deeds are gone,Still, still will satyr, nymph, and faunThrough brake and covert pipe and callIn dances bold and bacchanal—For them, for me, you hold in pawn,My lands—not thine!
FORMAL, quaint, precise, and trim,You begin your steps demurely—There's a spirit almost primIn the feet that move so surely,So discreetly, to the chimeOf the music that so sweetlyMarks the time.
But the chords begin to tinkleQuicker,And your feet they flash and flicker—Twinkle!—Flash and flutter to a tricksyFickle meter;And you foot it like a pixie—Only fleeter!
Now our current, dowdyThings—
"Turkey-trots" and rowdyFlings—For they made you overseasIn politer times than these,In an age when grace could please,Ere St. VitusClutched and shook us, spine and knees;—Loosed a plague of jerks to smite us!
Well, our day is far more briskAnd our manner rather slacker),And you are nothing more than bisqueAnd lacquer—But you shame us with the gracesOf courtlier times and placesWhen the cheapAnd vulgar wasn't "art"—When the faunal prance and leapWeren't "smart."
Have we lost the trick of weddingGrace to pleasure?Must we clown it at the biddingOf some tawdry, common measure?
Can't you school us in the gracesOf your pose and dainty paces?—Now the chords begin to tinkleQuicker—And your feet they flash and flicker—Twinkle!—And you mock us as you featlySwing and flutter to the chimeOf the music-box that sweetlyMarks the time!
WHITE wing'd below the darkling cloudsThe driven sea-gulls wheel;The roused sea flings a storm againstThe towers of stone and steel.
The very voice of ocean ringsAlong the shaken street—Dusk, storm, and beauty whelm the worldWhere sea and city meet—
But what care they for flashing wings,Quick beauty, loud refrain,These huddled thousands, deaf and blindTo all but greed and gain?
THE sun-god stooped from out the skyTo kiss the flushing sea,While all the winds of all the worldMade jovial melody;The night came hurrying up to hideThe lovers with her tent;The governed thunders, rank on rank,Stood mute with wonderment;The pale worn moon, a jealous shade,Peered from the firmament;The early stars, the curious stars,Came peering forth to seeWhat mighty nuptials shook the worldWith such an ecstasyWhenas the sun-god left the skyTo mingle with the sea.
ALACK-A-DAY for poverty!What jewels my mind doth give to thee!
Carved agate stone porphyrogene,Green emerald and beryl green,Deep sapphine and pale amethyst,Sly opal, cloaking with a mistThe levin of its love elate,Shy brides' pearls, flushed and delicate,Sea-colored lapis lazuli,Sardonyx and chalcedony,Enkindling diamond, candid gold,Red rubies and red garnets bold:And all their humors should be blentIn one intolerable blaze,Barbaric, fierce, and opulent,To dazzle him that dared to gaze!
Alack-a-day for poverty:My rhymes are all you get of me!Yet, if your heart receive, behold!The worthless words are set in gold.
I STILL remember how she movedAmong the rathe, wild blooms she loved,(When Spring came tip-toe down the slopes,Atremble 'twixt her doubts and hopes,Half fearful and all virginal)—How Silvia sought this dell to callHer flowers into full festival,And chid them with this madrigal:
_"The busy spider hangs the brushWith filmy gossamers,The frogs are croaking in the creek,The sluggish blacksnake stirs,But still the ground is bare of bloomBeneath the fragrant firs.
"Arise, arise, O briar rose,And sleepy violet!Awake, awake, anemone,Your wintry dreams forget—_
_For shame, you tardy marigold,Are you not budded yet?
"The Swallow's back, and claims the eavesThat last year were his home;The Robin follows where the plowBreaks up the crusted loam;And Red-wings spies the Thrush and pipes:'Look! Speckle-breast is come!'
"Up, blooms! and storm the wooded slopes,The lowlands and the plain—Blow, jonquil, blow your golden hornAcross the ranks of rain!To arms! to arms! and put to flightThe Winter's broken train!"_
She paused beside this selfsame rill,And as she ceased, a daffodilHeld up reproachfully his headAnd fluttered into speech, and said:
"Chide not the flowers! You little knowOf all their travail 'neath the snow,
Their struggling hoursOf choking sorrow underground.Chide not the flowers!You little guess of that profoundAnd blind, dumb agony of ours!Yet, victor here beside the rill,I greet the light that I have found,A Daffodil!"
And when the Daffodil was doneA boastful Marigold spake on:
"Oh, chide the white frost, if you choose,The heavy clod, so hard to loose,The preying powersOf worm and insect underground.Chide not the flowers!For spite of scathe and cruel wound,Unconquered by the sunless hours,I rise in regal pride, a boldAnd golden-hearted, golden-crownedMarsh Marigold!"
And when she came no more, her creekWould not believe, but bade us seek
Hither, yon, and to and fro—Everywhere that children goWhen the SpringIs on the wingAnd the winds of April blow—"I will never think her dead;"She will come again!" it said;And then the birds that use the vale,Broken-hearted, turned the taleInto syllables of songAnd chirped it half a summer long:
"Silvia, Silvia,Be our Song once more,Our vale revisit, Silvia,And be our Song once more:For joy lies sleeping in the lute;The merry pipe, the woodland flute,And all the pleading reeds are muteThat breathed to thee of yore.
"Silvia, Silvia,Be our Moon again,
_Shine on our valley, Silvia,And be our Moon again:The fluffy owl and nightingaleFlit silent through the darkling vale,Or utter only words of wailFrom throats all harsh with pain.
"Silvia, Silvia,Be Springtime, as of old;Come clad in laughter, Silvia,Our Springtime, as of old:The waiting lowlands and the hillsAre tremulous with daffodilsUnblown, until thy footstep thrillsTheir promise into gold."_
And, musing on her here, I tooMust wonder if it can be trueShe died, as other mortals do.The thought would fit her more, to feignThat, full of life and unawareThat earth holds aught of grief or stain,The fairies stole and hold her whereDeath enters not, nor strife nor pain;—
That, drowsing on some bed of pansies,By Titania's necromanciesHer senses were to slumber lulled,Deeply sunken, steeped and dulled,And by wafture of swift pinionsShe was borne out through earth's portalsTo the fairy queen's dominions,To some land of the immortals.
AND some still cry:"What is the use?The service rendered? What the gain?Heroic, yes!—but in what cause?Have they made less one earth-borne pain?Broadened the bounded spirit's scope?Or died to make the dull world hope?"
Must man still be the slave of Use?—But these men, careless and elate,Join battle with a burly worldOr come to wrestling grips with fate,And not for any good nor gainNor any fame that may befall—But, thrilling in the clutch of life,Heed the loud challenge and the call;—And grown to symbols at the last,Stand in heroic silhouetteAgainst horizons ultimate,As towers that front lost seas are set;—
The reckless gesture, the strong pose,Sharp battle-cry flung back to Earth,And buoyant humor, as a godMight say:"Lo, here my feet have trod!"—There lies the meaning and the worth!
They bring no golden treasure home,They win no acres for their clan,Nor dream nor deed of theirs shall mendThe ills of man's bedeviled span—Nor are they skilled in sleights of speech,(Nor overeager) to make plainThe use they serve, transcending use,—The gain beyond apparent gain!
WITH half-hearted levies of frost that make foray,retire, and refrain—Ambiguous bugles that blow and that falter tosilence again—
With banners of mist that still waver above them,advance and retreat,The hosts of the Autumn still hide in the hills,for a doubt stays their feet;—
But anon, with a barbaric splendor to dazzle theeyes that behold,And regal in raiment of purple and umber andamber and gold,
And girt with the glamor of conquest and scarvedwith red symbols of pride,From the hills in their might and their mirth onthe steeds of the wind will they ride,
To make sport and make spoil of the Summer,who dwells in a dream on the plain,Still tented in opulent ease in the camps of herindolent train.
TIME steals from Love all but Love's wings;And how should aught but evil things,Or any good but death, befallHim that is thrall unto Time's thrall,Slave to the lesser of these Kings?
O heart of youth that wakes and sings!O golden vows and golden rings!Life mocks you with the tale of allTime steals from Love!
O riven lute and writhen strings,Dead bough whereto no blossom clings,The glory was ephemeral!Nor may our Autumn grief recallThe passion of the perished SpringsTime steals from Love!
YOUR rondeau's tale must still be light—No bugle-call to life's stern fight!Rather a smiling interludeMemorial to some transient moodOf idle love and gala-night.
Its manner is the merest sleightO' hand; yet therein dwells its might,For if the heavier touch intrudeYour rondeau's stale.
Fragrant and fragile, fleet and bright,And wing'd with whim, it gleams in flightLike April blossoms wind-pursuedDown aisles of tangled underwood;—Nor be too serious when you writeYour rondeau's tail!
THEY haunt me, they tease me with hintedWithheld revelations,The songs that I may not utter;They lead me, they flatter, they woo me.I follow, I follow, I snatchAt the veils of their secrets in vain—For lo! they have left me and vanished,The songs that I cannot sing.
There are visions elusive that comeWith a quiver and shimmer of wings;—Shapes shadows and shapes, and the murmurOf voices;—Shapes, that out of the twilightLeap, and with gesture appealingSeem to deliver a message,And are gone 'twixt a breath and a breath;—Shapes that race in with the wavesMoving silverly under the moon,
And are gone ere they break into foam on the rocksAnd recede;—Breathings of love from invisibleFlutes,Blown somewhere out in the tenderDusk,That die on the bosom of Silence;—Formless,And fleeter than thought,Vaguer than thought or emotion,What are these visitors?
Out of the vast and unchartedRealms that encircle the visible world,With a glimmer of light on their pinions,They rush …They waver, they vanish,Leaving me stirred with a dream of the ultimatebeauty,A sense of the ultimate music,I never shall capture;—
They are Beauty,Formless and tremulous Beauty,
Beauty unborn;Beauty as yet unappareledIn thought;Beauty that hesitates,Falters,Withdraws from the verge of birth,Flutters,Retreats from the portals of life;—O Beauty for ever uncaptured!O songs that I never shall sing!
WE have come "the primrose way,"Folly, thou and I!Such a glamor and a graceEver glimmered on thy face,Ever such a witcheryLit the laughing eyes of thee,Could a fool like me withstandFolly's feast and beckoning hand?Drinking, how thy lips' caressSpiced the cup of waywardness!So we came "the primrose way,"Folly, thou and I!
But now, Folly, we must part,Folly, thou and I!Shall one look with mirth or tearsBack on all his wasted years,Purposes dissolved in wine,Pearls flung to the heedless swine?—
Idle days and nights of mirth,Were they pleasures nothing worth?Well, there's no gainsaying weSquandered youth right merrily!But now, Folly, we must part,Folly, thou and I!
THESE logs with drama and with dream are rife,For all their golden Summers and green SpringsThrough leaf and root they sucked the forest's life,Drank in its secret, deep, essential things,Its midwood moods, its mystic runes,Its breathing hushes stirred of faery wings,Its August nights and April noons;The garnered fervors of forgotten JunesFlare forth again and waste away;And in the sap that leaps and singsWe hear again the chant the cricket flingsAcross the hawthorn-scented dusks of May.