I, knight-at-arms, in my own forest lost!Count of the empire, heir to crags and caves,And brother to the eagle and the fox!The music of the thunder, and the windAmong the arches of the oaks, may choirA requiem for my passing soul. But hist!A footstep in the leaves—some poaching hindOr gypsy trapping game—Holà! holà!Perhaps the kobolds are abroad to-night.Zanthon knows well these mountain-folk entice.The woods divide, dawn breaks, I see the verge;Bathony's stronghold on the Polish plainsShould top the wilderness: were Zanthon here,To boast his prowess in our hunting bouts,I would not cuff nor flout him, could we sightIn the old way, with fanfaron, the boarsOn the old battlements, our ancient badge.That lie to Zanthon on the Volga's banks,When Amine sent the wild rose by his hand,Was Satan's wile. I played the Cossack well.With shame my mustache bristled when I said,"Troopers must forage where the grain is grown:I share my kopecks with the village priest,Who winnows peccadillos by the sheaf."Then Zanthon, laughing in his foxy beard:"When Amine meets me in the plane-tree walk(Where pairing little finches seek to build,We saw the cuckoo thieve their nests when boys),Shall I then tell her, in my peasant way,Your broken promise, and her troth denied?"And he was gone—gone, with the stud he boughtFrom Schamyl's son, up by Caucasus way,Leaving me solitude to reason with.Around me, then, an odor swept—the rose!It plagued my nostrils day and night, in gustsIt blew, but one way only—towards Amine.At cards it smote me, in the saddle puffed,Through my tent walls at night its withered blastPierced, and changed me in my wavering dreams.What spell was this, by love or friendship sent?Across the steppes I followed Zanthon, close,—He might have heard the whinny of my mare;Verst after verst, the measure of her hoofsBeat out a rhythm, like a cackling laugh.But on the frontier my poor Sesma fell:I heard the ravens croaking from the hills.The sun has burned away the valley's mist.And in the silent, tranquil morning airA mirage rises of my ruined walls:Gold-colored, crystal-edged, the banners flash.The rooks are stringing for the old beech copse.This gully crossed, the bridge that spans the stream—But halte-lâ, my heart crowds up my breast,For this is Poland, Mother of my Soul!Quoth Zanthon, watching in the plane-tree walk,"My fine Bathony comes to join the feast,And raise the conopeum for my bride.I pay the kopecks to the priest to-day,But Amine in his sheaf will not be bound."ACHILLES IN ORCUS.From thy translucent waves, great Thetis, rise!Mother divine, hear, and take back the giftThou gavest me of valor and renown,And then seek Zeus, but not with loosened zoneFor dalliance; entreat him to restoreMe, Achilles, to the earth, to the black earth,The nourisher of men, not these pale shades,Whose shapes have learned the presage of thy doom;They flit between me and the wind-swept plainOf Troy, the banners over Ilion's walls,The zenith of my prowess, and my fate.Give me again the breath of life, not death.Would I could tarry in the timbered tent,As when I wept Patroclus, when, by night,Old Priam crept, kissing my knees with tearsFor Hector's corse, the hero I laid low.My panoply was like the gleam of fireWhen in the dust I dragged him at my wheels,My heart was iron,—he despoiled my friend.Cast on these borders of eternal gloom,Now comes Odysseus with his wandering crew;He pours libations in the deep-dug trench,While airy forms in multitudes press near,And listen to the echoes of my praise.His consolation vain, he hails me, "Prince!"Vain is his speech: "No man before thy time,Achilles, lived more honored; here thou artSupreme, the ruler in these dread abodes."Speak not so easily to me of death,Great Odysseus! Rather would I beThe meanest hind, and bring the bleating lambsFrom down the grassy hills, or with a goadTo prod the hungry swine in beechen woods,Than over the departed to bear sway.Then from the clouds to note the warning cryOf the harsh crane; to see the Pleiads rise,The vine and fig-tree shoot, the olive bud;To hear the chirping swallows in the dawn,The thieving cuckoo laughing in the leaves!So, may Achilles pass his palace gate,And later heroes strike Achilles' lyre!ABOVE THE TREE.Why should I tarry here, to be but oneTo eke out doubt, and suffer with the rest?Why should I labor to become a name,And vaunt, as did Ulysses to his mates,"I am a part of all that I have met."A wily seeker to suffice myself!As when the oak's young leaves push off the old,So from this tree of life man drops away,And all the boughs are peopled quick by springAbove the furrows of forgotten graves.The one we thought had made the nation's creed,Whose death would rive us like a thunderbolt,Dropped down—a sudden rustling in the leaves,A knowledge of the gap, and that was all!The robin flitting on his frozen moundIs more than he. Whoever dies, gives upUnfinished work, which others, tempted, claimAnd carry on. I would go free, and changeInto a star above the multitude,To shine afar, and penetrate where thoseWho in the darkling boughs are prisoned close,But when they catch my rays, will borrow light,Believing it their own, and it will serve.TO AN ARTIST.To me, long absent from the world of art,You bring the clouded mountains, my desire,The tranquil river, and the stormy sea,The far, pale morning, and the crimson eve,And silent days, that brood among lush leaves,When, in the afternoon, the summer sunIs gliding down the hazy yellow west,And my soul's atmosphere rests in the scene,Until I dream the boundaries of my lifeMay hold an unknown, coming happiness.How shall I, then, to show my gratitude,But offer you a picture drawn in words—With all the art I have,—in black and white!A LANDSCAPE.Between me and the woods along the bayThe swallows circle through the darkling mist,The robins breast the grass, and they divideThis solitude with me. The rippling seaAnd sunset clouds, the sea gulls' flashing flightFrom looming isles beyond—I watch them nowWith a new sense. Where are the swallows' young,And where the robins' nests? Year after yearThey hover round this ancient house, and I,Within as heedless, saw the long years pass,Nor ever dreamed a day like this might come—A day when mourners go about the streetFor one who always loved his fellow-men.The windflower trembles in the woods, the sodIs full of violets, the orchards rainTheir scented blossoms. May unfolds its leaves—Nature's eternal mystery to renew.Must man be less than leaf or flower, and end?If I go hence, when this departed soulHas left no human tie to bind me now,When spring unfolds, and I recall his past,Will their remembrance lead me here again,To teach me that his spirit comes to showThat Nature is eternal for man's sake?FROM THE HEADLAND.I hear the waters of some inlet nowCome lapping to the fringe of yonder wood,The storm-bent firs, and oaks along the cliff.The yellow leaves are glistening in the grass,The grassy slope I climb this autumn day.Ensnaring me, the brambles clutch my feet,As if constraining me to be a guestTo the wild, silent populace they shield.It cannot say, nor I, why we are here.What is my recompense upon this soil,For other paths are mine if I go hence,Still must I make the mystery my quest?For here or there, I think, one sways my will.There is no show of beauty to delightThe vision here, or strike the electric chordWhich makes the present and the past as one.No thickets where the thrushes sing in mazeOf green, no silver-threaded waterfallsIn vales, where summer sleeps in darkling woodsWith sunlit glades, and pools where lilies blow.Here, but the wiry grass and sorrel beds,The gaping edges of the sand ravines,Whose shifting sides are tufted with dull herbs,Drooping above a brook, that sluggish creepsDown to the whispering rushes in the marsh.And this is all, until I reach the cliff,And on the headland's verge I stand, enthralledBefore the gulf of the unquenchable sea—The sea, inexorable in its might,Circling the pebbly beach with limpid tides,Storming in bays whose margins fade in mist;Now blue and silent as a noonday sky,At twilight now the pearly rollers shakeThe sunset's trail of violet and gold;Or black, when rushing on the rocky islesAnchored in waves that bellow to the winds.I watch till comes the night; the moonlight falls,The silvery deep on some far journey goes,To solve for me, I think, this mystery.AS ONE.When I, enclosed within the city's walls,Behold the multitudes that come and go,Hands clenched on gain, and nature all denied,Then I recall, recall the drift of time.But when she proffered all her wealth to me,The first faint blossom of the spring I share,The latest autumn leaf, the last green blade,Then I forget, forget the drift of time.The months go by, and take me in their train,The vesture wrapping them enfolds me too,And all the journey through we seem as one,And I forget, forget the drift of time.I hear the bluebird's call in windy dawns,The robin's cheery note from dewy fields,The swallow's cry along the pool at eve,And I forget, forget the drift of time.When hedges give the prophecy of birds,And sunbeams play on the expectant boughs,The leaves uncurl and fill their veins with life,And I forget, forget the drift of time.I watch a tumult in the summer skies,A blur of sunshine, and the rush of rain,The tempest dying in the twilight's hush,And I forget, forget the drift of time.When winter woods are armored by the frost,And all the highways filled with soundless snows,Then comes the sun to show his golden palm,And I forget, forget the drift of time.The mountains look upon me and the sea—I hover on their crests in silver mists,And with the waters pass beyond their verge,And I forget, forget the drift of time.THE VISITINGS OF TRUTH KNOWN ELSEWHERE.Spending abroad these varied autumn days,Their melancholy legend I deny.They keep a vanished treasure I will seek,And follow on a track of mystic hopes.While watching in thy atmosphere, I seeThe form of beauty changes, not its soul.When with the Spring, the flying feet of youthSpurning the present as it passed, and me,I thought the world a mere environmentTo hold my wishes and my happiness.I have forgot that foolish, vain belief,Now in my sere and yellow leaf, serene,I offer Autumn all my homage now.The eddies, whirling, rustling in my path,Lure me like sprites, and from the leaves a voice:"Say not our lesson is decay; we fall,And lo, the naked trees in beauty liftTheir delicate tracery against the sky.On the pale verdure of the grass we spreadA shining web of scarlet, bronze, and gold;When the rain comes, the oaks uphold us still.The holly shines, and waits the Christmas chimes,Beneath the branches of the evergreens."November's clouds without a shadow liftThe purple mountains of its airy sphere,And all my purpose waits upon them now.Day fades—a rose above the darkling sea,And from the amber sky clear twilight falls;The orange woods grow black, and I go forth,And as I go, the noiseless airs pass by,And touch me like the petals of a flower;The cricket chirps me in the warm, dry sod,Drowsy, and I would pipe a cheery strain;But from the pines I hear the call of night,And round the quiet earth the stars wheel up,With me eternal, and I stay beneath,Until I fade into the fading plain.WE MUST WAIT.The testimony of my loss and gainWill I give utterance to, though none may hear.When long ago, bereft of all I loved,I sought in Nature recompense, imploredFor pity, solace, or forgetfulness,"The dear, familiar seasons as they pass,The seal of memory on every place,"I said, "will give the sympathy I seek,The restoration which they owe to me."By day and night I prayed as futile prayersAs the wind's shriek in lonesome winter nights;By the sea they fell as empty as the shellsUpon its sands, uncertain as its mists.With them I tracked the shadows of the woods,And sowed them in the fields among the seed;Whoso reaped harvest, I could gather none.I wandered in the thickets, giving tongueLike a lost hound, dazed by their solitude,The while birds called their mates, the lilies blazed,And roses opened to the wandering airs.They vanished with the leaves that voyaged the brook,Which babbled of no story but its own.How blind I was to Nature's liberty!Grief stalked beside me, I was sore beset,And could not hear the turning of Time's wheel.Still were the skies serene, the earth most fair,When with the doleful chant of dust to dustMingled the laughter of this sunlit sea;And through my tears I saw the ripples dance,And June's sweet breezes kiss the swaying elms.As he who turns the key within his doorAnd gazes at his walls before he goes,Then forward sets his steps—so I set mineTo join a band whose purpose was to findA world of action; but my heart was cold,My mind supine. Yet I remained with them,And answered to the roll called Honor, Fame!Where were my memories and my ardent prayers?The years stood far behind, their columns gravedDeep with the adage which youth namesNo More.Like one who enters some old storied hall,And down its vista suddenly beholdsA banner waving out its old deviceOf victory—so suddenly I feltMy later life a void. I was recalled!My prayers were answered, and behold me here;Within the pale of all my loss and gain,The dear, familiar seasons as they pass,The seal of memory on every place,Bestow the restoration which I sought.At peace, I know, as those who suffer know,There is no secret we can wrest at willFrom Nature. Time must bring and share with herThe gift of resignation, cure for grief,And cast upon our ways this ray of hope—That I, the lost, and Nature may be one.UNRETURNING.Now all the flowers that ornament the grass,Wherever meadows are and placid brooks,Must fall—the "glory of the grass" must fall.Year after year I see them sprout and spread—The golden, glossy, tossing buttercups,The tall, straight daisies and red clover globes,The swinging bellwort and the blue-eyed bent,With nameless plants as perfect in their hues—Perfect in root and branch, their plan of life,As if the intention of a soul were there:I see them flourish as I see them fall!But he, who once was growing with the grass,And blooming with the flowers, my little son,Fell, withered—dead, nor has revived again!Perfect and lovely, needful to my sight,Why comes he not to ornament my days?The barren fields forget their barrenness,The soulless earth mates with these soulless things,Why should I not obtainmyrecompense?The budding spring should bring, or summer's prime,At least a vision of the vanished child,And let his heart commune with mine again,Though in a dream—his life was but a dream;Then might I wait with patient cheerfulness,That cheerfulness which keeps one's tears unshed,And blinds the eyes with pain—the passage slowOf other seasons, and be still and coldAs the earth is when shrouded in the snow,Or passive, like it, when the boughs are strippedIn autumn, and the leaves roll everywhere.And he should go again; for winter's snows,And autumn's melancholy voice, in winds,In waters, and in woods, belong to me,To me—a faded soul; for, as I said,The sense of all his beauty, sweetness, comesWhen blossoms are the sweetest; when the sea,Sparkling and blue, cries to the sun in joy,Or, silent, pale, and misty waits the night,Till the moon, pushing through the veiling cloud,Hangs naked in its heaving solitude:When feathery pines wave up and down the shore,And the vast deep above holds gentle stars,And the vast world beneath hides him from me!CLOSED.The crimson dawn breaks through the clouded east,And waking breezes round the casement pipe;They blow the globes of dew from opening buds,And steal the odors of the sleeping flowers.The swallow calls its young ones from the eaves,To dart above their shadows on the lake,Till its long rollers redden in the sun,And bend the lances of the mirrored pines.Who knows the miracle that brings the morn?Still in my house I linger, though the night—The night that hides me from myself is gone.Light robes the world, but strips me bare again.I will not follow on the paths of day.I know the dregs within its crystal hours;The bearers of my cups have served me well;I drained them, and the bearers come no more.Rise, morning, rise, for those believing soulsWho seek completion in day's garish light.My casement I will close, keep shut my door,Till day and night are only dreams to me.MEMORY IS IMMORTAL.Time passed, as passes time with common souls,Whose thoughts and wishes end with every day;For whom no future is, whose present hoursReveal no looming shade of that which was.But Memory is immortal, for she comesTo me, from heaven or hell, to me, once more!As birds that migrate choose the ocean windThat beats them helpless, while it steers them home,So I was this way driven—I chose this way—Of old my dwelling-place, where all my raceAre buried. At first I was enchanted here;Impossible appeared the pall, the shroud;And in my spell I trod the grassy streets,Where in the summer days mild oxen drewThe bristling hay, and in the winter snowsThe creaking masts and knees for mighty ships,Whose hulls were parted on the coral reefs,Or foundered in the depth of Arctic nights.I wandered through the gardens rank and waste,Wonderful once, when I was like the flowers;Along the weedy paths grew roses still,Surviving empire, but remaining queens.My mood established by the slumbrous town—(Slumber with slumber, dream with dream should be)I sought a mansion on the lonely shore,From which, his feet made level with his head,Its occupant was gone. I lived alone.Whoso, beneath this roof, had played his partIn life's deep tragedy, not here againCould be rehearsed its scenes of love or hate.Upon the ancient walls my pictures hung,Of men and women, strong and beautiful,Whose shoulders pushed along the world's great wheel;Landscapes, where cloud and mountain rose as one,Where rivers crept in secret vales, or rolledPast city walls, whose towers and palacesBy slaves were builded, and by princes fallen!And books whose pages ever told one tale,The tale of human love, in joy or pain,The seed of our last hope—Eternity.Days glided by, this mirage cheating all;Morn came, eve went, and we were tranquil still.If form, and sound, and color fail to show,By poet's, painter's, sculptor's noble touch,The subtle truth of Nature, can I tellHow Nature poised my mind in light and shade?But Memory is immortal, and to meShe advanced, silent, slow, a muffled shape.One moonlight night I walked through long white lanes;The sky and sea were like a frosted web;The air was heavy with familiar scents,Which travelled down the wind, I knew from where—The fragrance of a grove of Northern pines.My feet were hastening thither—and my heart!At last I stood before a funeral mound,From which I fled when vanished love and life—Long years ago—fled from my father's house;Banished myself, to banish him I loved—His broken history and his early grave.And in the moonlight Memory floated on,Immortal, with my now immortal Love!THE TRYST.Impelled by memory in a wayward mood,Reluctant, yearning, with a faithless mind,I sought once more a long neglected spot,A wooded upland bordered by the sea,Whose tides were swirling up the reedy sands,Or floating noiseless in the yellow marsh.My way was wild. The winds, awaking, smoteMy face, but as I passed a ruined wallBrambles and vines and waving blossoms dashedA frolic-welcome, like a summer rain.Shouldering the hills against the murky eastStood stalwart oaks, and in the mossy sodBelow the trembling birches whispered me,"Not here!" I reached the silence-loving pines,And lingered. The mists swept from the wooded hills,And, rolling seaward, hid the anchored ships.So, happy, dreaming an old dream again,Of keeping tryst in secret on the knoll,I wandered on, listening in dreamy mazeTo sounds I thought familiar,—the approachOf well-known footsteps in the leafy path,—A murmuring voice calling me by name!Through the pine shafts the sunless light of dawnStole. Day was come. My dream would be fulfilled!Above the hills the sky began to blaze,And ushering morn the west flushed rosy-red;Then, the Sun leaping from his bed of gold,Scattered cloud-banners, crimson, gray, and white.There was my shadow in the leafy pathAlone,—none was to keep the tryst with me!No voice, no step among the hills I heard.The joyous swallows from their nestlings flew,Mad in the light with song. Far out at seaThe white sails fluttered in the eager breeze,But Day was silent holding tryst with me,—My pilgrimage rewarded—faith restored.NO ANSWER.You tell me not, green multitude of leaves,Mingling and whirling with the willful breeze,Nor you, bright grasses, trembling blade to blade,What meaneth June, to hap us every year?The spirit of the flowers is watching now,As winking in the sun they suck the dew,The thickets parley with the splendid fields—What meaneth June, to hap us every year?Up where the brook laps round the shining flags,And tinkling foam bells pass the weedy shore,And where the willow swings above the trout—What meaneth June, to hap us every year?The clouds hold knowledge in their snowy peaks,They hide it in their moving fleecy folds,They share it with the sunset's golden isles—What meaneth June, to hap us every year?Fullness and sweetness, and the power of life,Must I in ignorance remain alone,And yield the quest of speech for certain proof?What meaneth June, to hap us every year?Sweetness and beauty, and the power of life,Is it creation's anthem—parts for all?Is this the knowledge—will you answer meWhat meaneth June, to hap us every year?ON THE HILLTOP."By the margent of the seaI would build myself a home."Not by the margent of the sea,But on the hilltop I would be,My little house a mossy den,Between me and the world of men.Beside me dips a wide ravine,Covered with a flowery screen;Far round me rise a band of hills,Whose voices reach me by their rills,Or deep susurrus of the wood,That stands in stately brotherhood,Upholding one vast web of green,Whereunder foot has never been—The pine and elm, the birch and oak—And thus their voices me invoke:"If you would on the hilltop be,We cannot share your misery;Cease, cease this moaning for the Past:The law of grief can never last."When springtime brings anemones,Upon the sod I take my ease,Or search for Arethusa's pink,Along the torrent's ragged brink;Or in the tinted April hoursI watch the curtain of the showersThat fall beneath a lurking cloud,Which for a moment throws a shroudOn the sun's arrows in the west,Till it blaze up a golden crest.The young moon bends her crescent hornAgainst the lingering summer morn;Then, riding down the starry sky,She follows me till night goes by.And when the dawn breaks on yon town,I think the sleepers lying downMust rise to shoulder dismal careMethinks that once was but my fare.But I upon the hilltop yetAm free from every tangling fret;So ever thus, in peace of mind,I give my pity to my kind.For me this noble solitude!And as I face its varying mood,Reflected in its every show,Some higher self I come to know.See, autumn here, with color glad,Not like the poets—russet clad—But scarlet, umber, green, and gold;Then in a breath I must beholdThe autumn winds tear down my screen,And leave me not a leaf to glean.The snow will cover glen and height,And all my hilltop glisten white;I see the crystal atoms flyUnder the dome of this gray sky.Like gnomes are they, these spectral gleams?Or shall I guess them only dreams?Whatever is the truth, I say,If up and down the world I stray,Still on the hilltop I would be,Not by the margent of the sea!THE MESSAGE.To you, my comrades, whether far or near,I send this message. Let our past revive;Come, sound reveille to our hearts once more.Expecting, I shall wait till at my doorI see you enter, each and every oneTumultuous, eager all, with clamorous speech,To hide my stammering welcome and my tears.I am no host carousing long and late,Enticing guests with epicurean hints;Nor am I Timon, sick of this sad world,Who, jesting, cries, "The sky is overhead,And underneath that famous rest, the earth:Show me the man who can have more at last."Without, the thunder of the city rolls;Within, the quiet of the student reigns.There is a change. Time was a childish voice.Sweet as the lark's when from her nest she soars,Thrilled over all, and vanished into heaven.Music once triumphed here: the skilful handOf him who rarely struck the keys, and wokeMy soul in harmony grand as his own,Is folded on his breast, my soldier love.Here hangs his portrait, under it his sword;He served his country, and his grave's afar.Dread not this place as one to relics given,Though I have decked with amaranth my wall,The testimony of a later loss—His who long wandering in foreign lands,Then dying, crossed the sea to die with me.Behold the sunrise and the morning cloudsOn yonder canvas, misty mountain-peaks—The simple grandeur of a perfect art!