With argosies of dawn he sails,And triremes of the dusk,The Seas of Song, whereon the galesAre myths that trail wild musk.
He hears the hail of Siren bandsFrom headlands sunset-kissed;The Lotus-eaters wave pale handsWithin a land of mist.
For many a league he hears the roarOf the Symplegades;And through the far foam of its shoreThe Isle of Sappho sees.
All day he looks, with hazy lids,At gods who cleave the deep;All night he hears the NereïdsSing their wild hearts asleep.
When heaven thunders overhead,And hell upheaves the Vast,Dim faces of the ocean's deadGaze at him from each mast.
He but repeats the oracleThat bade him first set sail;And cheers his soul with, "All is well!Go on! I will not fail."
Behold! he sails no earthly barkAnd on no earthly sea,Who down the years into the dark,—Divine of destiny,—
Holds to his purpose,—ships of Greece,—Ideal-steered afar,For whom awaits the Golden Fleece,The fame that is his star.
From an ode "In Commemoration of the Founding of theMassachusetts Bay Colony."
The morn that breaks its heart of goldAbove the purple hills;The eve, that spillsIts nautilus splendor where the sea is rolled;The night, that leads the vast procession inOf stars and dreams,—The beauty that shall never die or pass:—The winds, that spinOf rain the misty mantles of the grass,And thunder raiment of the mountain-streams;The sunbeams, penciling with gold the duskGreen cowls of ancient woods;The shadows, thridding, veiled with musk,The moon-pathed solitudes,Call to my Fancy, saying, "Follow! follow!"Till, following, I see,—Fair as a cascade in a rainbowed hollow,—A dream, a shape, take form,Clad on with every charm,—
The vision of that Ideality,Which lured the pioneer in wood and hill,And beckoned him from earth and sky;The dream that cannot die,Their children's children did fulfill,In stone and iron and wood,Out of the solitude,And by a stalwart actCreate a mighty fact—A Nation, now that standsClad on with hope and beauty, strength and song,Eternal, young and strong,Planting her heel on wrong,Her starry banner in triumphant hands….
Within her face the roseOf Alleghany dawns;Limbed with Alaskan snows,Floridian starlight in her eyes,—Eyes stern as steel yet tender as a fawn's,—And in her hairThe rapture of her rivers; and the dare,As perishless as truth,That o'er the crags of her Sierras flies,Urging the eagle ardor through her veins,Behold her where,Around her radiant youth,
The spirits of the cataracts and plains,The genii of the floods and forests, meet,In rainbow mists circling her brow and feet:The forces vast that sitIn session round her; powers paraclete,That guard her presence; awful forms and fair,Making secure her place;Guiding her surely as the worlds through spaceDo laws sidereal; edicts, thunder-lit,Of skyed eternity, in splendor borneOn planetary wings of night and morn.
* * * * *
From her high place she seesHer long procession of accomplished acts,Cloud-winged refulgencesOf thoughts in steel and stone, of marble dreams,Lift up tremendous battlements,Sun-blinding, built of facts;While in her soul she seems,Listening, to hear, as from innumerable tents,Æonian thunder, wonder, and applauseOf all the heroic ages that are gone;Feeling secureThat, as her Past, her Future shall endure,As did her CauseWhen redly broke the dawnOf fierce rebellion, and, beneath its star,The firmaments of warPoured down infernal rain,And North and South lay bleeding mid their slain.And now, no less, shall her great Cause prevail,More so in peace than war,Through the thrilled wire and electric rail,Carrying her message far:Shaping her dreamWithin the brain of steam,That, with a myriad hands,Labors unceasingly, and knits her landsIn firmer union; joining plain and streamWith steel; and binding shore to shoreWith bands of iron;—nerves and arteries,Along whose adamant forever pourHer concrete thoughts, her tireless energies.
She walks with the wind on the windy heightWhen the rocks are loud and the waves are white,And all night long she calls through the night,"O my children, come home!"Her bleak gown, torn as a tattered cloud,Tosses around her like a shroud,While over the deep her voice rings loud,—"O my children, come home, come home!O my children, come home!"
Who is she who wanders alone,When the wind drives sheer and the rain is blown?Who walks all night and makes her moan,"O my children, come home!"Whose face is raised to the blinding gale;Whose hair blows black and whose eyes are pale,While over the world goes by her wail,—"O my children, come home, come home!O my children, come home!"
She walks with the wind in the windy wood;The dark rain drips from her hair and hood,And her cry sobs by, like a ghost pursued,"O my children, come home!"Where the trees loom gaunt and the rocks stretch drear,The owl and the fox crouch back with fear,As wild through the wood her voice they hear,—"O my children, come home, come home!O my children, come home!"
Who is she who shudders byWhen the boughs blow bare and the dead leaves fly?Who walks all night with her wailing cry,"O my children, come home!"Who, strange of look, and wild of tongue,With wan feet wounded and hands wild-wrung,Sweeps on and on with her cry, far-flung,—"O my children, come home, come home!O my children, come home!"
'Tis the Spirit of Autumn, no man sees,The mother of Death and of Mysteries,Who cries on the wind all night to these,"O my children, come home!"The Spirit of Autumn, pierced with pain,Calling her children home again,Death and Dreams, through ruin and rain,—"O my children, come home, come home!O my children, come home!"
No more for him, where hills look down,Shall Morning crownHer rainy brow with blossom bands!—The Morning Hours, whose rosy handsDrop wildflowers of the breaking skiesUpon the sod 'neath which he lies.—No more for him! No more! No more!
No more for him, where waters sleep,Shall Evening heapThe long gold of the perfect days!The Eventide, whose warm hand laysGreat poppies of the afterglowUpon the turf he rests below.—No more for him! No more! no more!
Ill
No more for him, where woodlands loom,Shall Midnight bloomThe star-flowered acres of the blue!The Midnight Hours, whose dim hands strewDead leaves of darkness, hushed and deep,Upon the grave where he doth sleep.—No more for him! No more! No more!
The hills, that Morning's footsteps wake:The waves that takeA brightness from the Eve; the woodsAnd solitudes, o'er which Night broods,Their Spirits have, whose parts are oneWith him, whose mortal part is done.Whose part is done.
At the moon's down-going let it beOn the quarry hill with its one gnarled tree.
The red-rock road of the underbrush,Where the woman came through the summer hush.
The sumac high and the elder thick,Where we found the stone and the ragged stick.
The trampled road of the thicket, fullOf footprints down to the quarry pool.
The rocks that ooze with the hue of lead,Where we found her lying stark and dead.
The scraggy wood; the negro hut,With its doors and windows locked and shut.
A secret signal; a foot's rough tramp;A knock at the door; a lifted lamp.
An oath; a scuffle; a ring of masks;A voice that answers a voice that asks.
A group of shadows; the moon's red fleck;A running noose and a man's bared neck.
A word, a curse, and a shape that swings;The lonely night and a bat's black wings.
At the moon's down-going let it beOn the quarry hill with its one gnarled tree.
She passed the thorn-trees, whose gaunt branches tossedTheir spider-shadows round her; and the breeze,Beneath the ashen moon, was full of frost,And mouthed and mumbled to the sickly trees,Like some starved hag who sees her children freeze.
Dry-eyed she waited by the sycamore.Some stars made misty blotches in the sky.And all the wretched willows on the shoreLooked faded as a jaundiced cheek or eye.She felt their pity and could only sigh.
And then his skiff ground on the river rocks.Whistling he came into the shadow madeBy that dead tree. He kissed her dark brown locks;And round her form his eager arms were laid.Passive she stood, her secret unbetrayed.
And then she spoke, while still his greeting kissAched in her hair. She did not dare to liftHer eyes to his—her anguished eyes to his,While tears smote crystal in her throat. One riftOf weakness humored might set all adrift.
Fields over which a path, overwhelmed with burrsAnd ragweeds, noisy with the grasshoppers,Leads,—lost, irresolute as paths the cowsWear through the woods,—unto a woodshed; then,With wrecks of windows, to a huddled house,Where men have murdered men.
A house, whose tottering chimney, clay and rock,Is seamed and crannied; whose lame door and lockAre bullet-bored; around which, there and here,Are sinister stains.—One dreads to look around.—The place seems thinking of that time of fearAnd dares not breathe a sound.
Within is emptiness: The sunlight fallsOn faded journals papering the walls;On advertisement chromos, torn with time,Around a hearth where wasps and spiders build.—The house is dead: meseems that night of crimeIt, too, was shot and killed.
We have sent him seeds of the melon's core,And nailed a warning upon his door:By the Ku Klux laws we can do no more.
Down in the hollow, 'mid crib and stack,The roof of his low-porched house looms black;Not a line of light at the door-sill's crack.
Yet arm and mount! and mask and ride!The hounds can sense though the fox may hide!And for a word too much men oft have died.
The clouds blow heavy toward the moon.The edge of the storm will reach it soon.The kildee cries and the lonesome loon.
The clouds shall flush with a wilder glareThan the lightning makes with its angled flare,When the Ku Klux verdict is given there.
In the pause of the thunder rolling low,A rifle's answer—who shall knowFrom the wind's fierce hurl and the rain's black blow?
Only the signature, written grimAt the end of the message brought to him—A hempen rope and a twisted limb.
So arm and mount! and mask and ride!The hounds can sense though the fox may hide!—For a word too much men oft have died.
The white moth-mullein brushed its slimCool, faery flowers against his knee;In places where the way lay dimThe branches, arching suddenly,Made tomblike mystery for him.
The wild-rose and the elder, drenchedWith rain, made pale a misty place,—From which, as from a ghost, he blenched;He walking with averted face,And lips in desolation clenched.
For far within the forest,—whereWeird shadows stood like phantom men,And where the ground-hog dug its lair,The she-fox whelped and had her den,—The thing kept calling, buried there.
One dead trunk, like a ruined tower,Dark-green with toppling trailers, shovedIts wild wreck o'er the bush; one bowerLooked like a dead man, capped and gloved,The one who haunted him each hour.
Now at his side he heard it: thinAs echoes of a thought that speaksTo conscience. Listening with his chinUpon his palm, against his cheeksHe felt the moon's white finger win.
And now the voice was still: and lo,With eyes that stared on naught but night,He saw?—what none on earth shall know!—Was it the face that far from sightHad lain here, buried long ago?
But men who found him,—thither ledBy the wild fox,—within that placeRead in his stony eyes, 'tis said,The thing he saw there, face to face,The thing that left him staring dead.
The woods stretch deep to the mountain side,And the brush is wild where a man may hide.
They have brought the bloodhounds up againTo the roadside rock where they found the slain.
They have brought the bloodhounds up, and theyHave taken the trail to the mountain way.
Three times they circled the trail and crossed;And thrice they found it and thrice they lost.
Now straight through the trees and the underbrushThey follow the scent through the forest's hush.
And their deep-mouthed bay is a pulse of fearIn the heart of the wood that the man must hear.
The man who crouches among the treesFrom the stern-faced men who follow these.
A huddle of rocks that the ooze has mossed,And the trail of the hunted again is lost.
An upturned pebble; a bit of groundA heel has trampled—the trail is found.
And the woods re-echo the bloodhounds' bayAs again they take to the mountain way.
A rock; a ribbon of road; a ledge,With a pine tree clutching its crumbling edge.
A pine, that the lightning long since clave,Whose huge roots hollow a ragged cave.
A shout; a curse; and a face aghast;The human quarry is laired at last.
The human quarry with clay-clogged hairAnd eyes of terror who waits them there.
That glares and crouches and rising thenHurls clods and curses at dogs and men.
Until the blow of a gun-butt laysHim stunned and bleeding upon his face.
A rope; a prayer; and an oak-tree near,And a score of hands to swing him clear.
A grim, black thing for the setting sunAnd the moon and the stars to gaze upon.
If it so befalls that the midnight hoversIn mist no moonlight breaks,The leagues of the years my spirit covers,And my self myself forsakes.
And I live in a land of stars and flowers,White cliffs by a silvery sea;And the pearly points of her opal towersFrom the mountains beckon me.
And I think that I know that I hear her callingFrom a casement bathed with light—Through music of waters in waters fallingMid palms from a mountain height.
And I feel that I think my love's awaitedBy the romance of her charms;That her feet are early and mine belatedIn a world that chains my arms.
But I break my chains and the rest is easy—In the shadow of the rose,Snow-white, that blooms in her garden breezy,We meet and no one knows.
And we dream sweet dreams and kiss sweet kisses;The world—it may live or die!The world that forgets; that never missesThe life that has long gone by.
We speak old vows that have long been spoken;And weep a long-gone woe:For you must know our hearts were brokenHundreds of years ago.
Frail, shrunken face, so pinched and worn,That life has carved with care and doubt!So weary waiting, night and morn,For that which never came about!Pale lamp, so utterly forlorn,In which God's light at last is out.
Gray hair, that lies so thin and primOn either side the sunken brows!And soldered eyes, so deep and dim,No word of man could now arouse!And hollow hands, so virgin slim,Forever clasped in silent vows!
Poor breasts! that God designed for love,For baby lips to kiss and press;That never felt, yet dreamed thereof,The human touch, the child caress—That lie like shriveled blooms aboveThe heart's long-perished happiness.
O withered body, Nature gaveFor purposes of death and birth,That never knew, and could but craveThose things perhaps that make life worth,—Rest now, alas! within the grave,Sad shell that served no end of Earth.
John-A-Dreams and Harum-ScarumCame a-riding into town:At the Sign o' the Jug-and-JorumThere they met with Low-lie-down.
Brave in shoes of Romany leather,Bodice blue and gypsy gown,And a cap of fur and feather,In the inn sat Low-lie-down.
Harum-Scarum kissed her lightly;Smiled into her eyes of brown:Clasped her waist and held her tightly,Laughing, "Love me, Low-lie-down!"
Then with many an oath and swagger,As a man of great renown,On the board he clapped his dagger,Called for sack and sat him down.
So a while they laughed together;Then he rose and with a frownSighed, "While still 'tis pleasant weather,I must leave thee, Low-lie-down."
So away rode Harum-Scarum;With a song rode out of town;At the Sign o' the Jug-and-JorumWeeping tarried Low-lie-down.
Then this John-a-dreams, in tatters,In his pocket ne'er a crown,Touched her, saying, "Wench, what matters!Dry your eyes and, come, sit down.
"Here's my hand: we'll roam together,Far away from thorp and town.Here's my heart,—for any weather,—And my dreams, too, Low-lie-down.
"Some men call me dreamer, poet:Some men call me fool and clown—What I am but you shall know it,Only you, sweet Low-lie-down."
For a little while she pondered:Smiled: then said, "Let care go drown!"Up and kissed him…. Forth they wandered,John-a-dreams and Low-lie-down.
Thus have I pictured her:—In Arden oldA white-browed maiden with a falcon eye,Rose-flushed of face, with locks of wind-blown gold,Teaching her hawks to fly.
Or, 'mid her boar-hounds, panting with the heat,In huntsman green, sounding the hunt's wild prize,Plumed, dagger-belted, while beneath her feetThe spear-pierced monster dies.
Or in Brécéliand, on some high tower,Clad white in samite, last of her lost race,My soul beholds her, lovelier than a flower,Gazing with pensive face.
Or, robed in raiment of romantic lore,Like Oriana, dark of eye and hair,Riding through realms of legend evermore,And ever young and fair.
Or now like Bradamant, as brave as just,In complete steel, her pure face lit with scorn,At giant castles, dens of demon lust,Winding her bugle-horn.
Another Una; and in chastityA second Britomart; in beauty farO'er her who led King Charles's chivalryAnd Paynim lands to war….
Now she, from Avalon's deep-dingled bowers,—'Mid which white stars and never-waning moonsMake marriage; and dim lips of musk-mouthed flowersSigh faint and fragrant tunes,—
Implores me follow; and, in shadowy shapesOf sunset, shows me,—mile on misty mileOf purple precipice,—all the haunted capesOf her enchanted isle.
Where, bowered in bosks and overgrown with vine,Upon a headland breasting violet seas,Her castle towers, like a dream divine,With stairs and galleries.
And at her casement, Circe-beautiful,Above the surgeless reaches of the deep,She sits, while, in her gardens, fountains lullThe perfumed wind asleep.
Or, round her brow a diadem of spars,She leans and hearkens, from her raven height,The nightingales that, choiring to the stars,Take with wild song the night.
Or, where the moon is mirrored in the waves,To mark, deep down, the Sea King's city rolled,Wrought of huge shells and labyrinthine caves,Ribbed pale with pearl and gold.
There doth she wait forever; and the kingsOf all the world have wooed her: but she caresFor none but him, the Love, that dreams and sings,That sings and dreams and dares.
From "Beltenebros at Miraflores"
O sunset, from the springs of starsDraw down thy cataracts of gold;And belt their streams with burning barsOf ruby on which flame is rolled:Drench dingles with laburnum light;Drown every vale in violet blaze:Rain rose-light down; and, poppy-bright,Die downward o'er the hills of haze,And bring at last the stars of night!
The stars and moon! that silver world,Which, like a spirit, faces west,Her foam-white feet with light empearled,Bearing white flame within her breast:Earth's sister sphere of fire and snow,Who shows to Earth her heart's pale heat,And bids her mark its pulses glow,And hear their crystal currents beatWith beauty, lighting all below.
O cricket, with thy elfin pipe,That tinkles in the grass and grain;And dove-pale buds, that, dropping, stripeThe glen's blue night, and smell of rain;O nightingale, that so dost wailOn yonder blossoming branch of snow,Thrill, fill the wild deer-haunted dale,Where Oriana, walking slow,Comes, thro' the moonlight, dreamy pale.
She comes to meet me!—Earth and airGrow radiant with another light.In her dark eyes and her dark hairAre all the stars and all the night:She comes! I clasp her!—and it isAs if no grief had ever been.—In all the world for us who kissThere are no other women or menBut Oriana and Amadis.
The tripod flared with a purple spark,And the mist hung emerald in the dark:Now he stooped to the lilac flameOver the glare of the amber embers,Thrice to utter no earthly name;Thrice, like a mind that half remembers;Bathing his face in the magic mistWhere the brilliance burned like an amethyst.
"Sylph, whose soul was born of mine,Born of the love that made me thine,Once more flash on my eyes! AgainBe the loved caresses taken!Lip to lip let our forms remain!—Here in the circle sense, awaken!Ere spirit meet spirit, the flesh laid by,Let me touch thee, and let me die."
Sunset heavens may burn, but neverKnow such splendor! There bloomed an everOpaline orb, where the sylphid roseA shape of luminous white; divinerWhite than the essence of light that sowsThe moons and suns through space; and finerThan radiance born of a shooting-star,Or the wild Aurora that streams afar.
"Look on the face of the soul to whomThou givest thy soul like added perfume!Thou, who heard'st me, who long had prayed,Waiting alone at morning's portal!—Thus on thy lips let my lips be laid,Love, who hast made me all immortal!Give me thine arms now! Come and restWeariness out on my beaming breast!"
Was it her soul? or the sapphire fireThat sang like the note of a seraph's lyre?Out of her mouth there fell no word—She spake with her soul, as a flower speaketh.
Fragrant messages none hath heard,Which the sense divines when the spirit seeketh….And he seemed alone in a place so dimThat the spirit's face, who was gazing at him,For its burning eyes he could not see:Then he knew he had died; that she and heWere one; and he saw that this was she.
The clouds that tower in storm, that beatArterial thunder in their veins;The wildflowers lifting, shyly sweet,Their perfect faces from the plains,—All high, all lowly things of EarthFor no vague end have had their birth.
Low strips of mist that mesh the moonAbove the foaming waterfall;And mountains, that God's hand hath hewn,And forests, where the great winds call,—Within the grasp of such as seeAre parts of a conspiracy;
To seize the soul with beauty; holdThe heart with love: and thus fulfillWithin ourselves the Age of Gold,That never died, and never will,—As long as one true nature feelsThe wonders that the world reveals.
The gods are dead; but still for meLives on in wildwood brook and treeEach myth, each old divinity.
For me still laughs among the rocksThe Naiad; and the Dryad's locksDrop perfume on the wildflower flocks.
The Satyr's hoof still prints the loam;And, whiter than the wind-blown foam,The Oread haunts her mountain home.
To him, whose mind is fain to dwellWith loveliness no time can quell,All things are real, imperishable.
To him—whatever facts may say—Who sees the soul beneath the clay,Is proof of a diviner day.
The very stars and flowers preachA gospel old as God, and teachPhilosophy a child may reach;
That cannot die; that shall not cease;That lives through idealitiesOf Beauty, ev'n as Rome and Greece.
That lifts the soul above the clod,And, working out some periodOf art, is part and proof of God.
Ah me! I shall not waken soonFrom dreams of such divinity!A spirit singing 'neath the moonTo me.
Wild sea-spray driven of the stormIs not so wildly white as she,Who beckoned with a foam-white armTo me.
With eyes dark green, and golden-greenLong locks that rippled drippingly,Out of the green wave she did leanTo me.
And sang; till Earth and Heaven seemedA far, forgotten memory,And more than Heaven in her who gleamedOn me.
Sleep, sweeter than love's face or home;And death's immutability;And music of the plangent foam,For me!
Sweep over her! with all thy ships,With all thy stormy tides, O sea!—The memory of immortal lipsFor me!
"Succinctae sacra Dianae".—OVID
There the ragged sunlight layTawny on thick ferns and grayOn dark waters: dimmer,Lone and deep, the cypress groveBowered mystery and woveBraided lights, like those that loveOn the pearl plumes of a doveFaint to gleam and glimmer.
There centennial pine and oakInto stormy cadence broke:Hollow rocks gloomed, slanting,Echoing in dim arcade,Looming with long moss, that madeTwilight streaks in tatters laid:Where the wild hart, hunt-affrayed,Plunged the water, panting.
Poppies of a sleepy goldMooned the gray-green darkness rolledDown its vistas, makingWisp-like blurs of flame. And paleStole the dim deer down the vale:And the haunting nightingaleThrobbed unseen—the olden taleAll its wild heart breaking.
There the hazy serpolet,Dewy cistus, blooming wet,Blushed on bank and bowlder;There the cyclamen, as wanAs first footsteps of the dawn,Carpeted the spotted lawn:Where the nude nymph, dripping drawn,Basked a wildflower shoulder.
In the citrine shadows thereWhat tall presences and fair,Godlike, stood!—or, graciousAs the rock-rose there that grew,Delicate and dim as dew,Stepped from boles of oaks, and drewFaunlike forms to follow, whoFilled the forest spacious!—
Guarding that BoeotianValley so no foot of manSoiled its silence holyWith profaning tread—save one,The Hyantian: Actæon,Who beheld, and might not shunPale Diana's wrath; undoneBy his own mad folly.
Lost it lies—that valley: sleepsIn serene enchantment; keepsBeautiful its banishedBowers that no man may see;Fountains that her deityHaunts, and every rock and treeWhere her hunt goes swinging freeAs in ages vanished.
Her heart is still and leaps no moreWith holy passion when the breeze,Her whilom playmate, as before,Comes with the language of the bees,Sad songs her mountain cedars sing,And water-music murmuring.
Her calm white feet,—erst fleet and fastAs Daphne's when a god pursued,—No more will dance like sunlight pastThe gold-green vistas of the wood,Where every quailing floweretSmiled into life where they were set.
Hers were the limbs of living light,And breasts of snow; as virginalAs mountain drifts; and throat as whiteAs foam of mountain waterfall;And hyacinthine curls, that streamedLike crag-born mists, and gloomed and gleamed.
Her presence breathed such scents as hauntMoist, mountain dells and solitudes;Aromas wild as some wild plantThat fills with sweetness all the woods:And comradeships of stars and skiesShone in the azure of her eyes.
Her grave be by a mossy rockUpon the top of some wild hill,Removed, remote from men who mockThe myths and dreams of life they kill:Where all of beauty, naught of lustMay guard her solitary dust.
The joys that touched thee once, be mine!The sympathies of sky and sea,The friendships of each rock and pine,That made thy lonely life, ah me!In Tempe or in Gargaphie.
Such joy as thou didst feel when first,On some wild crag, thou stood'st aloneTo watch the mountain tempest burst,With streaming thunder, lightning-sown,On Latmos or on Pelion.
Thy awe! when, crowned with vastness, NightAnd Silence ruled the deep's abyss;And through dark leaves thou saw'st the whiteBreasts of the starry maids who kissPale feet of moony Artemis.
Thy dreams! when, breasting matted weedsOf Arethusa, thou didst hearThe music of the wind-swept reeds;And down dim forest-ways drew nearShy herds of slim Arcadian deer.
Thy wisdom! that knew naught but loveAnd beauty, with which love is fraught;The wisdom of the heart—whereofAll noblest passions spring—that thoughtAs Nature thinks, "All else is naught."
Thy hope! wherein To-morrow setNo shadow; hope, that, lacking careAnd retrospect, held no regret,But bloomed in rainbows everywhere,Filling with gladness all the air.
These were thine all: in all life's moodsEmbracing all of happiness:And when within thy long-loved woodsDidst lay thee down to die—no lessThy happiness stood by to bless.
With anxious eyes and dry, expectant lips,Within the sculptured stoa by the sea,All day she waited while, like ghostly ships,Long clouds rolled over Paphos: the wild beeHung in the sultry poppy, half asleep,Beside the shepherd and his drowsy sheep.
White-robed she waited day by day; aloneWith the white temple's shrined concupiscence,The Paphian goddess on her obscene throne,Binding all chastity to violence,All innocence to lust that feels no shame—Venus Mylitta born of filth and flame.
So must they haunt her marble portico,The devotees of Paphos, passion-paleAs moonlight streaming through the stormy snow;Dark eyes desirous of the stranger sail,The gods shall bring across the Cyprian Sea,With him elected to their mastery.
A priestess of the temple came, when eveBlazed, like a satrap's triumph, in the west;
And watched her listening to the ocean's heave,Dusk's golden glory on her face and breast,And in her hair the rosy wind's caress,—Pitying her dedicated tenderness.
When out of darkness night persuades the stars,A dream shall bend above her saying, "SoonA barque shall come with purple sails and spars,Sailing from Tarsus 'neath a low white moon;And thou shalt see one in a robe of TyreFacing toward thee like the god Desire.
"Rise then! as, clad in starlight, riseth Night—Thy nakedness clad on with loveliness!So shalt thou see him, like the god Delight,Breast through the foam and climb the cliff to pressHot lips to thine and lead thee in beforeLove's awful presence where ye shall adore."
Thus at her heart the vision entered in,With lips of lust the lips of song had kissed,And eyes of passion laughing with sweet sin,A shimmering splendor robed in amethyst,—Seen like that star set in the glittering gloam,—Venus Mylitta born of fire and foam.
So shall she dream until, near middle night,—When on the blackness of the ocean's rimThe moon, like some war-galleon all alightWith blazing battle, from the sea shall swim,—A shadow, with inviolate lips and eyes,Shall rise before her speaking in this wise:
"So hast thou heard the promises of one,—Of her, with whom the God of gods is wroth,—For whom was prophesied at BabylonThe second death—Chaldaean Mylidoth!Whose feet take hold on darkness and despair,Hissing destruction in her heart and hair.
"Wouldst thou behold the vessel she would bring?—A wreck! ten hundred years have smeared with slime:A hulk! where all abominations cling,The spawn and vermin of the seas of time:Wild waves have rotted it; fierce suns have scorched;Mad winds have tossed and stormy stars have torched.
"Can lust give birth to love? The vile and foulBe mother to beauty? Lo! can this thing be?—A monster like a man shall rise and howlUpon the wreck across the crawling sea,Then plunge; and swim unto thee; like an ape,A beast all belly.—Thou canst not escape!"
Gone was the shadow with the suffering brow;And in the temple's porch she lay and wept,Alone with night, the ocean, and her vow.—Then up the east the moon's full splendor swept,And dark between it—wreck or argosy?—A sudden vessel far away at sea.
Beyond lost seas of summer sheDwelt on an island of the sea,Last scion of that dynasty,Queen of a race forgotten long.—With eyes of light and lips of song,From seaward groves of blowing lemon,She called me in her native tongue,Low-leaned on some rich robe of Yemen.
I was a king. Three moons we droveAcross green gulfs, the crimson cloveAnd cassia spiced, to claim her love.Packed was my barque with gums and gold;Rich fabrics; sandalwood, grown oldWith odor; gems; and pearls of Oman,—Than her white breasts less white and cold;—And myrrh, less fragrant than this woman.
From Bassora I came. We sawHer eagle castle on a clawOf soaring precipice, o'eraweThe surge and thunder of the spray.Like some great opal, far awayIt shone, with battlement and spire,Wherefrom, with wild aroma, dayBlew splintered lights of sapphirine fire.
Lamenting caverns dark, that keepSonorous echoes of the deep,Led upward to her castle steep….Fair as the moon, whose light is shedIn Ramadan, was she, who ledMy love unto her island bowers,To find her…. lying young and deadAmong her maidens and her flowers.
She was a queen. 'Midst mutes and slaves,A mameluke, he loved her.——WavesDashed not more hopelessly the pavesOf her high marble palace-stairThan lashed his love his heart's despair.—As souls in Hell dream Paradise,He suffered yet forgot it thereBeneath Rommaneh's houri eyes.
With passion eating at his heartHe served her beauty, but dared dartNo amorous glance, nor word impart.—Taïfi leather's perfumed tanBeneath her, on a low divanShe lay 'mid cushions stuffed with down:A slave-girl with an ostrich fanSat by her in a golden gown.
She bade him sing. Fair lutanist,She loved his voice. With one white wrist,Hooped with a blaze of amethyst,She raised her ruby-crusted lute:Gold-welted stuff, like some rich fruit,Her raiment, diamond-showered, rolledFolds pigeon-purple, whence one footDrooped in an anklet-twist of gold.
He stood and sang with all the fireThat boiled within his blood's desire,That made him all her slave yet higher:And at the end his passion durstQuench with one burning kiss its thirst.—O eunuchs, did her face show scornWhen through his heart your daggers burst?And dare ye say he died forlorn?
He waited till within her towerHer taper signalled him the hour.
He was a prince both fair and brave.—What hope that he would loveherslave!
He of the Persian dynasty;And she a Queen of Araby!—
No Peri singing to a starUpon the sea were lovelier….
I helped her drop the silken rope.He clomb, aflame with love and hope.
I drew the dagger from my gownAnd cut the ladder, leaning down.
Oh, wild his face, and wild the fall:Her cry was wilder than them all.
I heard her cry; I heard him moan;And stood as merciless as stone.
The eunuchs came: fierce scimitarsStirred in the torch-lit corridors.
She spoke like one who speaks in sleep,And bade me strike or she would leap.
I bade her leap: the time was short:And kept the dagger for my heart.
She leapt…. I put their blades aside,And smiling in their faces—died.
In some quaint Nurnbergmaler-atelierUprummaged. When and where was never clearNor yet how he obtained it. When, by whom'Twas painted—who shall say? itself a gloomResisting inquisition. I opineIt is a Dürer. Mark that touch, this line;Are they deniable?—Distinguished graceOf the pure oval of the noble faceTarnished in color badly. Half in lightExtend it so. Incline. The exquisiteExpression leaps abruptly: piercing scorn;Imperial beauty; each, an icy thornOf light, disdainful eyes and … well! no use!Effaced and but beheld! a sad abuseOf patience.—Often, vaguely visible,The portrait fills each feature, making swellThe heart with hope: avoiding face and hairStart out in living hues; astonished, "There!—The picture lives!" your soul exults, when, lo!You hold a blur; an undetermined glowDislimns a daub.—"Restore?"—Ah, I have triedOur best restorers, and it has defied.
Storied, mysterious, say, perhaps a ghostLives in the canvas; hers, some artist lost;A duchess', haply. Her he worshiped; daredNot tell he worshiped. From his window staredOf Nuremberg one sunny morn when shePassed paged to court. Her cold nobilityLoved, lived for like a purpose. Seized and pliedA feverish brush—her face!—Despaired and died.
The narrow Judengasse: gables frownAround a humpbacked usurer's, where brown,Neglected in a corner, long it lay,Heaped in a pile of riff-raff, such as—say,Retables done in tempera and oldPanels by Wohlgemuth; stiff paintings coldOf martyrs and apostles,—names forgot,—Holbeins and Dürers, say; a haloed lotOf praying saints, madonnas: these, perchance,'Mid wine-stained purples, mothed; an old romance;A crucifix and rosary; inlaidArms, Saracen-elaborate; a strayedNiello of Byzantium; rich work,In bronze, of Florence: here a murderous dirk,There holy patens.So.—My ancestor,The first De Herancour, esteemed by farThis piece most precious, most desirable;
Purchased and brought to Paris. It looked wellIn the dark paneling above the oldHearth of the room. The head's religious gold,The soft severity of the nun face,Made of the room an apostolic placeRevered and feared.—Like some lived scene I seeThat Gothic room: its Flemish tapestry;Embossed within the marble hearth a shield,Carved 'round with thistles; in its argent fieldThree sable mallets—arms of Herancour—Topped with the crest, a helm and hands that bore,Outstretched, two mallets. On a lectern laid,—Between two casements, lozenge-paned, embayed,—A vellum volume of black-lettered text.Near by a taper, winking as if vexedWith silken gusts a nervous curtain sends,Behind which, haply, daggered Murder bends.
And then I seem to see again the hall;The stairway leading to that room.—Then allThe terror of that night of blood and crimePasses before me.—It is Catherine's time:The house De Herancour's. On floors, splashed red,Torchlight of Medicean wrath is shed.Down carven corridors and rooms,—where couchAnd chairs lie shattered and black shadows crouchTorch-pierced with fear,—a sound of swords draws near—The stir of searching steel.What find they here,Torch-bearer, swordsman, and fierce halberdier,On St. Bartholomew's?—A Huguenot!Dead in his chair! Eyes, violently shotWith horror, glaring at the portrait there:Coiling his neck a blood line, like a hairOf finest fire. The portrait, like a fiend,—Looking exalted visitation,—leanedFrom its black panel; in its eyes a hateSatanic; hair—a glowing auburn; lateA dull, enduring golden."Just one threadOf the fierce hair around his throat," they said,"Twisting a burning ray; he—staring dead."
I had not found the road too short,As once I had in days of youth,In that old forest of long ruth,Where my young knighthood broke its heart,Ere love and it had come to part,And lies made mockery of truth.I had not found the road too short.
A blind man, by the nightmare way,Had set me right when I was wrong.—I had been blind my whole life long—What wonder then that on this dayThe blind should show me how astrayMy strength had gone, my heart once strong.A blind man pointed me the way.
The road had been a heartbreak one,Of roots and rocks and tortured trees,And pools, above my horse's knees,And wandering paths, where spiders spun'Twixt boughs that never saw the sun,And silence of lost centuries.The road had been a heartbreak one.
It seemed long years since that black hourWhen she had fled, and I took horseTo follow, and without remorseTo slay her and her paramourIn that old keep, that ruined tower,From whence was borne her father's corse.It seemed long years since that black hour.
And now my horse was starved and spent,My gallant destrier, old and spare;The vile road's mire in mane and hair,I felt him totter as he went:—Such hungry woods were never meantFor pasture: hate had reaped them bare.Aye, my poor beast was old and spent.
I too had naught to stay me with;And like my horse was starved and lean;My armor gone; my raiment mean;Bare-haired I rode; uneasy sithThe way I'd lost, and some dark mythFar in the woods had laughed obscene.I had had naught to stay me with.
Then I dismounted. Better so.And found that blind man at my rein.And there the path stretched straight and plain.I saw at once the way to go.The forest road I used to knowIn days when life had less of pain.Then I dismounted. Better so.
I had but little time to spare,Since evening now was drawing near;And then I thought I saw a sneerEnter into that blind man's stare:And suddenly a thought leapt bare,—What if the Fiend had set him here!—I still might smite him or might spare.
I braced my sword: then turned to look:For I had heard an evil laugh:The blind man, leaning on his staff,Still stood there where my leave I took:What! did he mock me? Would I brookA blind fool's scorn?—My sword was halfOut of its sheath. I turned to look:
And he was gone. And to my sideMy horse came nickering as afraid.Did he too fear to be betrayed?—What use for him? I might not ride.So to a great bough there I tied,And left him in the forest glade:My spear and shield I left beside.
My sword was all I needed there.It would suffice to right my wrongs;To cut the knot of all those thongsWith which she'd bound me to despair,That woman with her midnight hair,Her Circe snares and Siren songs.My sword was all I needed there.
And then that laugh again I heard,Evil as Hell and darkness are.It shook my heart behind its barOf purpose, like some ghastly word.But then it may have been a bird,An owlet in the forest far,A raven, croaking, that I heard.
I loosed my sword within its sheath;My sword, disuse and dews of nightHad fouled with rust and iron-blight.I seemed to hear the forest breatheA menace at me through its teethOf thorns 'mid which the way lay white.I loosed my sword within its sheath.
I had not noticed until nowThe sun was gone, and gray the moonHung staring; pale as marble hewn;—Like some old malice, bleak of brow,It glared at me through leaf and bough,With which the tattered way was strewn.I had not noticed until now.
And then, all unexpected, vastAbove the tops of ragged pinesI saw a ruin, dark with vines,Against the blood-red sunset massed:My perilous tower of the past,Round which the woods thrust giant spines.I never knew it was so vast.
Long while I stood considering.—This was the place and this the night.The blind man then had set me right.Here she had come for sheltering.That ruin held her: that dark wingWhich flashed a momentary light.Some time I stood considering.
Deep darkness fell. The somber glareOf sunset, that made cavernous eyesOf those gaunt casements 'gainst the skies,Had burnt to ashes everywhere.Before my feet there rose a stairOf oozy stone, of giant size,On which the gray moon flung its glare.
Then I went forward, sword in hand,Until the slimy causeway loomed,And huge beyond it yawned and gloomedThe gateway where one seemed to stand,In armor, like a burning brand,Sword-drawn; his visor barred and plumed.And I went toward him, sword in hand.
He should not stay revenge from me.Whatever lord or knight he were,He should not keep me long from her,That woman dyed in infamy.No matter. God or devil he,His sword should prove no barrier.—Fool! who would keep revenge from me!
And then I heard, harsh over all,That demon laughter, filled with scorn:It woke the echoes, wild, forlorn,Dark in the ivy of that wall,As when, within a mighty hall,One blows a giant battle-horn.Loud, loud that laugh rang over all.
And then I struck him where he towered:I struck him, struck with all my hate:Black-plumed he loomed before the gate:I struck, and found his sword that showeredFierce flame on mine while black he gloweredBehind his visor's wolfish grate.I struck; and taller still he towered.
A year meseemed we battled there:A year; ten years; a century:My blade was snapped; his lay in three:His mail was hewn; and everywhereWas blood; it streaked my face and hair;And still he towered over me.A year meseemed we battled there.
"Unmask!" I cried. "Yea, doff thy casque!Put up thy visor! fight me fair!I have no mail; my head is bare!Take off thy helm, is all I ask!Why dost thou hide thy face?—Unmask!"—My eyes were blind with blood and hair,And still I cried, "Take off thy casque!"
And then once more that laugh rang outLike madness in the caves of Hell:It hooted like some monster well,The haunt of owls, or some mad routOf witches. And with battle shoutOnce more upon that knight I fell,While wild again that laugh rang out.
Like Death's own eyes his glared in mine,As with the fragment of my bladeI smote him helmwise; huge he swayed,Then crashed, like some cadaverous pine,Uncasqued, his face in full moonshine:And I—I saw; and shrank afraid.For, lo! behold! the face was mine.
What devil's work was here!—What jestFor fiends to laugh at, demons hiss!—To slay myself? and so to missMy hate's reward?—revenge confessed!—Was this knight I?—My brain I pressed.—Then who was he who gazed on this?—What devil's work was here!——What jest!
It was myself on whom I gazed—My darker self!—With fear I rose.—I was right weak from those great blows.—I stood bewildered, stunned and dazed,And looked around with eyes amazed.—I could not slay her now, God knows!—Around me there a while I gazed.
Then turned and fled into the night,While overhead once more I heardThat laughter, like some demon birdWailing in darkness.—Then a lightMade clear a woman by that knight.I saw 'twas she, but said no word,And silent fled into the night.
I remember, when a child,How within the April wildOnce I walked with MysteryIn the groves of Arcady….Through the boughs, before, behind,Swept the mantle of the wind,Thunderous and unconfined.
Overhead the curving moonPierced the twilight: a cocoon,Golden, big with unborn wings—Beauty, shaping spiritual things,Vague, impatient of the night,Eager for its heavenward flightOut of darkness into light.
Here and there the oaks assumedSatyr aspects; shadows gloomed,Hiding, of a dryad look;And the naiad-frantic brook,Crying, fled the solitude,Filled with terror of the wood,Or some faun-thing that pursued.
In the dead leaves on the groundCrept a movement; rose a sound:Everywhere the silence tickedAs with hands of things that pickedAt the loam, or in the dew,—Elvish sounds that crept or flew,—Beak-like, pushing surely through.
Down the forest, overhead,Stammering a dead leaf fled,Filled with elemental fearOf some dark destruction near—One, whose glowworm eyes I sawHag with flame the crooked haw,Which the moon clutched like a claw.
Gradually beneath the treeGrew a shape; a nudity:Lithe and slender; silent asGrowth of tree or blade of grass;Brown and silken as the bloomOf the trillium in the gloom,Visible as strange perfume.
For an instant there it stood,Smiling on me in the wood:And I saw its hair was greenAs the leaf-sheath, gold of sheen:And its eyes an azure wet,From within which seemed to jetSapphire lights and violet.
Swiftly by I saw it glide;And the dark was deified:Wild before it everywhereGleamed the greenness of its hair;And around it danced a light,Soft, the sapphire of its sight,Making witchcraft of the night.
On the branch above, the birdTrilled to it a dreamy word:In its bud the wild bee dronedHoneyed greeting, drowsy-toned:And the brook forgot the gloom,Hushed its heart, and, wrapped in bloom,Breathed a welcome of perfume.
To its beauty bush and treeStretched sweet arms of ecstasy;And the soul within the rockLichen-treasures did unlockAs upon it fell its eye;And the earth, that felt it nigh,Into wildflowers seemed to sigh….
Was it dryad? was it faun?Wandered from the times long gone.Was it sylvan? was it fay?—Dim survivor of the dayWhen Religion peopled streams,Woods and rocks with shapes like gleams,—That invaded then my dreams?
Was it shadow? was it shape?Or but fancy's wild escape?—Of my own child's world the charmThat assumed material form?—Of my soul the mystery,That the spring revealed to me,There in long-lost Arcady?