Howsoft this moonlight of the South!How sweet my South in soft moonlight!I want to kiss her warm sweet mouthAs she lies sleeping here to-night.How still! I do not hear a mouse.I see some bursting buds appear;I hear God in His garden,—hearHim trim some flowers for His house.I hear some singing stars; the mouthOf my vast river sings and sings,And pipes on reeds of pleasantthings,—Of splendid promise for my South:My great South-woman, soon to riseAnd tiptoe up and loose her hair;Tiptoe, and take from all the skiesGod’s stars and glorious moon to wear!
Howsoft this moonlight of the South!How sweet my South in soft moonlight!I want to kiss her warm sweet mouthAs she lies sleeping here to-night.
How still! I do not hear a mouse.I see some bursting buds appear;I hear God in His garden,—hearHim trim some flowers for His house.
I hear some singing stars; the mouthOf my vast river sings and sings,And pipes on reeds of pleasantthings,—Of splendid promise for my South:
My great South-woman, soon to riseAnd tiptoe up and loose her hair;Tiptoe, and take from all the skiesGod’s stars and glorious moon to wear!
Thepoet shall create or kill,Bid heroes live, bid braggarts die.I look against a luridsky,—My silent South lies proudly still.
The lurid light of burning landsStill climbs to God’s house overhead;Mute women wring white withered hands;Their eyes are red, their skies are red.
Poor man! still boast your bitter wars!Still burn and burn, and burning die.But God’s white finger spins the starsIn calm dominion of the sky.
And not one ray of light the lessComes down to bid the grasses spring;No drop of dew nor anythingShall fail for all your bitterness.
The land that nursed a nation’s youth,Ye burned it, sacked it, sapped it dry.Ye gave it falsehoods for its truth,And fame was fashioned from a lie.
If man grows large, is God the less?The moon shall rise and set the same,The great sun spill his splendid flameAnd clothe the world in queenliness.
And from that very soil ye trodSome large-souled seeing youth shall comeSome day, and he shall not be dumbBefore the awful court of God.
The weary moon had turned away,The far North-Star was turning paleTo hear the stranger’s boastful taleOf blood and flame that battle day.
And yet again the two men glared,Close face to face above that tomb;Each seemed as jealous of the roomThe other eager waiting shared.
Again the man began tosay,—As taking up some broken thread,As talking to the patientdead,—The Creole was as still as they:
“That night we burned yon grass-growntown,—The grasses, vines are reaching up;The ruins they are reaching down,As sun-browned soldiers when they sup.
“I knew her,—knew her constancy.She said, this night of every yearShe here would come, and kneeling here,Would pray the live-long night for me.
“This praying seems a splendid thing!It drives old Time the other way;It makes him lose all reckoningOf years that pagans have to pay.
“This praying seems a splendid thing!It makes me stronger as sheprays—But oh the bitter, bitter daysWhen I became a banished thing!
“I fled, took ship,—I fled as farAs far ships drivetow’rdthe North-Star;For I did hate the South, the sunThat made me think what I had done.
“I could not see a fair palm-treeIn foreign land, in pleasant place,But it would whisper of her faceAnd shake its keen sharp blades at me.
“Each black-eyed woman would recallA lone church-door, a face, a name,A coward’s flight, a soldier’s shame:I fled from woman’s face, from all.
“I hugged my gold, my precious gold,Within my strong, stout, buckskin vest.I wore my bags against my breastSo close I felt my heart grow cold.
“I did not like to see it now;I did not spend one single piece.I travelled, travelled without ceaseAs far as Russian ship could plow.
“And when my own scant hoard was gone,And I had reached the far North-land,I took my two stout bags in handAs one pursued, and journeyed on.
“Ah, I was weary! I grew gray;I felt the fast years slip and reelAs slip black beads when maidens kneelAt altars when out-door is gay.
“At last I fell prone in theroad,—Fell fainting with my cursèd load.A skin-clad cossack helped me bearMy bags, nor would one shilling share.
“He looked at me with prouddisdain,—He looked at me as if he knew;His black eyes burned methro’andthro’;His scorn pierced like a deadly pain.
“He frightened me with honesty;He made me feel so small, so base,I fled, as if the fiend keptchase,—The fiend that claims my company!
“I bore my load alone; I creptFar up the steep and icy way;And there, before a cross there layA barefoot priest, who bowed and wept.
“I threw my gold right down and spedStraight on. And oh my heart was light!A spring-time bird in spring-time flightFlies not so happy as I fled.
“I felt somehow this monk would takeMy gold, my load from off my back;Would turn the fiend from off my track,Would take my gold for sweet Christ’s sake!
“I fled; I did not look behind;I fled, fled with the mountain wind.At last; far down the mountain’s baseI found a pleasant resting-place.
“I rested there so long, so well,More grateful than all tongues can tell.It was such pleasant thing to hearThat valley’s voices calm and clear:
“That valley veiled in mountain air,With white goats on the hills at morn;That valley green with seas of corn,With cottage islands here and there.
“I watched the mountain girls. The hayThey mowed was not more sweet than they;They laid brown hands in my white hair;They marvelled at my face of care.
“I tried to laugh; I could but weep.I made these peasants onerequest,—That I with them might toil or rest,And with them sleep the long, last sleep.
“I begged that I might battle there,For that fair valley-land, for thoseWho gave me cheer when girt with foes,And have a country, loved and fair.
“Where is that spot that poets nameOur country? name the hallowed land?Where is that spot where man must standOr fall when girt with sword and flame?
“Where is that one permitted spot?Where is the one place man must fight?Where rests the one God-given rightTo fight, as ever patriots fought?
“I say’t isin that holy houseWhere God first set us down on earth:Where mother welcomed us at birth,And bared her breasts, a happy spouse.
“But when some wrong, some deed of shame,Shall make that land no more ourown—Ah! hunger for that holy nameMy country, I have truly known!
“The simple plough-boy from his fieldLooks forth. He sees God’s purple wallEncircling him. High over allThe vast sun wheels his shining shield.
“This King, who makes earth what itis,—King David bending to his toil!O lord and master of the soil,How envied in thy loyal bliss!
“Long live the land we loved inyouth,—That world with blue skies bent about,Where never entered ugly doubt!Long live the simple, homely truth!
“Can true hearts love some far snow-land,Some bleak Alaska bought with gold?God’s laws are old as love is old;And Home is something near at hand.
“Yea, change yon river’s course; estrangeThe seven sweet stars; make hate divideThe full moon from the flowingtide,—But this old truth ye cannot change.
“I begged a land as begging bread;I begged of these brave mountaineersTo share their sorrows, share their tears;To weep as they wept, with their dead.
“They did consent. The mountain townWas mine to love, and valley lands.That night the barefoot monk came downAnd laid my two bags in my hands!
“On! On! And oh the load I bore!Why, once I dreamed my soul was lead;Dreamed once it was a body dead!It made my cold, hard bosom sore.
“I dragged that body forth andback—O conscience, what a baying hound!Nor frozen seas nor frosted groundCan throw this bloodhound from his track.
“In farthest Russia I lay downA dying man, at last to rest;I felt such load upon my breastAs seamen feel, who sinking drown.
“That night, all chill and desperate,I sprang up, for I could not rest;I tore the two bags from my breast,And dashed them in the burning grate.
“I then crept back into my bed;I tried, I begged, I prayed to sleep;But those red, restless coins would keepSlow dropping, dropping, and blood red.
“I heard them clink and clink andclink,—They turned, they talked within that grate.They talked of her; they made me thinkOf one who still must pray and wait.
“And when the bags burned crisp and black,Two coins did start, roll to thefloor,—Roll out, roll on, and then roll back,As if they needs must journey more.
“Ah, then I knew nor change nor space,Nor all the drowning years that rolledCould hide from me her haunting face,Nor still that red-tongued talking gold.
“Again I sprang forth from my bed!I shook as in an ague fit;I clutched that red gold, burning red,I clutched, as if to strangle it.
“I clutched it up—you hear me,boy?—I clutched it up with joyful tears!I clutched it close, with such wild joyI had not felt for years and years!
“Such joy! for I should now retraceMy steps, should see my land, her face;Bring back her gold this battle day,And see her, see her, hear her pray!
“I brought it back—you hear me,boy?—I clutch it, hold it, hold it now:Red gold, bright gold that giveth joyTo all, and anywhere or how;
“That giveth joy to all butme,—To all but me, yet soon to all.It burns my hands, it burns! but sheShall ope my hands and let it fall.
“For oh I have a willing handTo give these bags of gold; to seeHer smile as once she smiled on meHere in this pleasant, warm palm-land!”
He ceased, he thrust each hard-clenched fist,He threw his gold hard forth again,As one impelled by some mad painHe would not or could not resist.
The creole, scorning, turned away,As if he turned from that lostthief,—The one that died without beliefThat awful crucifixion day.
Believe in man, nor turn away.Lo! man advances year by year;Time bears him upward, and his sphereOf life must broaden day by day.
Believe in man with large belief;The garnered grain each harvest-timeHath promise, roundness, and full primeFor all the empty chaff and sheaf.
Believe in man with proud belief:Truth keeps the bottom of her well,And when the thief peeps down, the thiefPeeps back at him, perpetual.
Faint not that this or that man fell;For one that falls a thousand riseTo lift white Progress to the skies:Truth keeps the bottom of her well.
Fear not for man, nor cease to delveFor cool sweet truth, with large belief.Lo! Christ himself chose only twelve,Yet one of these turned out a thief.
Down through the dark magnolia leavesWhere climbs the rose of CherokeeAgainst the orange-blossomed tree,A loom of moonlight weaves andweaves,—
A loom of moonlight, weaving clothesFrom snow-white rose of Cherokee,And bridal blooms of orange-tree,For fairy folk in fragrant rose.
Down through the mournful myrtle crape,Through moving moss, through ghostly gloom,A long white moonbeam takes a shapeAbove a nameless, lowly tomb;
A long white finger through the gloomOf grasses gathered roundabout,—As God’s white finger pointing outA name upon that nameless tomb.
Her white face bowed in her black hair,The maiden prays so still withinThat you might hear a fallingpin,—Ay, hear her white unuttered prayer.
The moon has grown disconsolate,Has turned her down her walk of stars:Why, she is shutting up her bars,As maidens shut a lover’s gate.
The moon has grown disconsolate;She will no longer watch and wait.But two men wait; and two men willWait on till morning, mute and still:
Still wait and walk among the trees,Quite careless if the moon may keepHer walk along her starry steepAbove the Southern pearl-sown seas.
They know no moon, or set or riseOf stars, or anything to lightThe earth or skies, save her dark eyes,This praying, waking, watching night.
They move among the tombs apart,Their eyes turn ever to that door;They know the worn walks there byheart—They turn and walk themo’erando’er.
They are not wide, these little walksFor dead folk by this crescent town.They lie right close when they lie down,As if they kept up quiet talks.
The two men keep their paths apart;But more and more begins to stoopThe man with gold, as droop and droopTall plants with something at their heart.
Now once again with eager zestHe offers gold with silent speech;The other will not walk in reach,But walks around, as round a pest.
His dark eyes sweep the scene around,His young face drinks the fragrant air,His dark eyes journeyeverywhere,—The other’s cleave unto the ground.
It is a weary walk for him,For oh he bears a weary load!He does not like that narrow roadBetween the dead—it is so dim:
It is so dark, that narrow place,Where graves lie thick, like yellow leaves:Give us the light of Christ and grace,Give light to garner in the sheaves.
Give light of love; for gold is cold,And gold is cruel as a crime;It gives no light at such sad timeAs when man’s feet wax weak and old.
Ay, gold is heavy, hard, and cold!And have I said this thing before?Well, I will tell ito’erando’er,’T wereneed be told ten thousand fold.
“Give us this day our dailybread,”—Get this of God, then all the restIs housed in thine own honest breast,If you but lift a lordly head.
Oh, I have seen men, tall and fair,Stoop down their manhood with disgust,Stoop down God’s image to the dust,To get a load of gold to bear;
Have seen men selling day by dayThe glance of manhood that God gave:To sell God’s image as a slaveMight sell some little pot of clay!
Behold! here in this green graveyardA man with gold enough to fillA coffin, as a miller’s till;And yet his path is hard, so hard!
His feet keep sinking in the sand,And now so near an opened grave!He seems to hear the solemn waveOf dread oblivion at hand.
The sands, they grumble so, it seemsAs if he walks some shelving brink.He tries to stop, he tries to think,He tries to make believe he dreams:
Why, he is free to leave the land,The silver moon is white as dawn;Why, he has gold in either hand,Has silver ways to walk upon.
And who should chide, or bid him stay?Or taunt, or threat, or bid him fly?Theworld ’sfor sale, I hear men say,And yet this man has gold to buy.
Buy what? Buy rest? He could not rest!Buy gentle sleep? He could not sleep,Though all these graves were wide and deepAs their wide mouths with the request.
Buy Love, buy faith, buy snow-white truth?Buy moonlight, sunlight, present, past?Buy but one brimful cup of youthThat calm souls drink of to the last?
O God!’t ispitiful to seeThis miser so forlorn and old!O God! how poor a man may beWith nothing in this world but gold!
The broad magnolia’s blooms are white;Her blooms are large, as if the moonHad lost her way some lazy night,And lodged here till the afternoon.
Oh, vast white blossoms breathing love!White bosom of my lady dead,In your white heaven overheadI look, and learn to look above.
All night the tall magnolia keptKind watch above the nameless tomb:Two shapes kept waiting in the gloomAnd gray of morn, where roses wept.
The dew-wet roses wept; their eyesAll dew, their breath as sweet as prayer.And as they wept, the dead down thereDid feel their tears and hear their sighs.
The grass uprose as if afraidSome stranger foot might press too near;Its every blade was like a spear,Its every spear a living blade.
The grass above that nameless tombStood all arrayed, as if afraidSome weary pilgrim seeking roomAnd rest, might lay where she was laid.
’T wasmorn, and yet it was not morn;’T wasmorn in heaven, not onearth,—A star was singing of a birth,Just saying that a day was born.
The marsh hard by that bound thelake,—The great low sea-lake, Ponchartrain,Shut off from sultry Cubanmain,—Drew up its legs, as half awake:
Drew long stork legs, long legs that steepIn slime where alligatorscreep,—Drew long green legs that stir the grass,As when the late lorn night-winds pass.
Then from the marsh came croakings low,Then louder croaked some sea-marsh beast;Then, far away against the east,God’s rose of morn began to grow.
From out the marsh, against that east,A ghostly moss-swept cypress stood;With ragged arms above the woodIt rose, a God-forsaken beast.
It seemed so frightened where it rose!The moss-hung thing it seemed to waveThe worn-out garments of thegrave,—To wave and wave its old grave-clothes.
Close by, a cow rose up and lowedFrom out a palm-thatched milking-shed.A black boy on the river roadFled sudden, as the night had fled:
A nude black boy, a bit of nightThat had been broken off and lostFrom flying night, the time it crossedThe surging river in its flight:
A bit of darkness, followingThe sable night on sablewing,—A bit of darkness stilled with fear,Because that nameless tomb was near.
Then holy bells came pealing out;Then steamboats blew, then horses neighed;Then smoke from hamlets round aboutCrept out, as if no more afraid.
Then shrill cocks here, and shrill cocks there,Stretched glossy necks and filled the air.How many cocks it takes to makeA country morning well awake!
Then many boughs, with manybirds,—Young boughs in green, old boughs ingray,—These birds had very much to sayIn their soft, sweet, familiar words.
And all seemed sudden glad; the gloomForgot the church, forgot the tomb;And yet like monks with cross and beadThe myrtles leaned to read and read.
And oh the fragrance of the sod!And oh the perfume of the air!The sweetness, sweetness everywhere,That rose like incense up to God!
I like a cow’s breath in sweet spring,I like the breath of babes new-born;A maid’s breath is a pleasantthing,—But oh the breath of sudden morn!
Of sudden morn, when every poreOf mother earth is pulsing fastWith life, and life seems spillingo’erWith love, with love too sweet to last:
Of sudden morn beneath the sun,By God’s great river wrapped in gray,That for a space forgets to run,And hides his face as if to pray.
The black-eyed Creole kept his eyesTurned to the door, as eyes might turnTo see the holy embers burnSome sin away at sacrifice.
Full dawn! but yet he knew no dawn,Nor song of bird, nor bird on wing,Nor breath of rose, nor anythingHer fair face lifted not upon.
And yet he taller stood with morn;His bright eyes, brighter than before,Burned fast against that fastened door,His proud lips lifting up withscorn,—
With lofty, silent scorn for oneWho all night long had plead and plead,With none to witness but the deadHow he for gold must be undone.
Oh, ye who feed a greed for gold,And barter truth, and trade sweet youthFor cold hard gold, behold, behold!Behold this man! behold this truth!
Why, what is there in all God’s planOf vast creation, high or low,By sea or land, by sun or snow,So mean, so miserly as man?
Lo, earth and heaven all let goTheir garnered riches, year by year!The treasures of the trackless snow,Ah, hast thou seen how very dear?
The wide earth gives, gives golden grain,Gives fruits of gold, gives all, gives all!Hold forth your hand, and these shall fallIn your full palm as free as rain.
Yea, earth is generous. The treesStrip nude as birth-time without fear,And their reward is year by yearTo feel their fulness but increase.
The law of Nature is to give,To give, to give! and to rejoiceIn giving with a generous voice,And so trust God and truly live.
But see this miser at thelast,—This man who loves, grasps hold of gold,Who grasps it with such eager hold,To hold forever hard and fast:
As if to hold what God lets go;As if to hold, while all aroundLets go, and drops upon the groundAll things as generous as snow.
Let go your greedy hold, I say!Let go your hold! Do not refuse’Tilldeath comes by and shakes you loose,And sends you shamed upon your way.
What if the sun should keep his gold?The rich moon lock her silver up?What if the gold-clad buttercupBecame a miser, mean and old?
Ah, me! the coffins are so trueIn all accounts, the shrouds so thin,That down there you might sew and sew,Nor ever sew one pocket in.
And all that you can hold of landsDown there, below the grass, down there,Will only be that little shareYou hold in your two dust-full hands.
She comes! she comes! The stony floorSpeaks out! And now the rusty doorAt last has just one word this day,With mute religious lips, to say.
She comes! she comes! And lo, her faceIs upward, radiant, fair as prayer!So pure here in this holy place,Where holy peace is everywhere.
Her upraised face, her face of lightAnd loveliness, from duty done,Is like a rising orient sunThat pushes back the brow of night.
How brave, how beautiful is truth!Good deeds untold are like to this.But fairest of all fair things isA pious maiden in her youth:
A pious maiden as she standsJust on the threshold of the yearsThat throb and pulse with hopes and fears,And reaches God her helpless hands.
How fair is she! How fond is she!Her foot upon the threshold there.Her breath is as a blossomedtree,—This maiden mantled in her hair!
Her hair, her black, abundant hair,Where night, inhabited all nightAnd all this day, will not take flight,But finds content and houses there.
Her hands are clasped, her two small hands;They hold the holy book of prayerJust as she steps the threshold there,Clasped downward where she silent stands.
Once more she lifts her lowly face,And slowly lifts her large, dark eyesOf wonder; and in still surpriseShe looks full forward in her place.
She looks full forward on the airAbove the tomb, and yet belowThe fruits of gold, the blooms of snow,As looking—looking anywhere.
She feels—she knows not what she feels;It is not terror, is not fear,But there is something that revealsA presence that is near and dear.
She does not let her eyes fall down,They lift against the far profound:Against the blue above the townTwo wide-winged vultures circle round.
Two brown birds swim above thesea,—Her large eyes swim as dreamilyAnd follow far, and follow high,Two circling black specks in the sky.
One forward step,—the closing doorCreaks out, as frightened or in pain;Her eyes are on the groundagain—Two men are standing close before.
“My love,” sighs one, “my life, my all!”Her lifted foot across the sillSinks down,—and all things are so stillYou hear the orange blossoms fall.
But fear comes not where duty is,And purity is peace and rest;Her cross is close upon her breast,Her two hands clasp hard hold of this.
Her two hands clasp cross, book, and sheIs strong in tranquilpurity,—Ay, strong as Samson when he laidHis two hands forth, and bowed and prayed.
One at her left, one at her right,And she between, the stepsupon,—I can but see that Syrian night,The women there at early dawn
’T isstrange, I know, and may be wrong,But ever pictured in my song;And rhyming on, I see the dayThey came to roll the stone away.
The sky is like an opal sea,The air is like the breath of kine,But oh her face is white, and sheLeans faint to see a liftedsign,—
To see two hands lift up and waveTo see a face so white with woe,So ghastly, hollow, white as thoughIt had that moment left the grave.
Her sweet face at that ghostly sign,Her fair face in her weight of hair,Is like a white dove drowningthere,—A white dove drowned in Tuscan wine.
He tries to stand, to stand erect.’T isgold,’t isgold that holds him down!And soul and body both mustdrown,—Two millstones tied about his neck.
Now once again his piteous faceIs raised to her face reaching there.He prays such piteous, silent prayerAs prays a dying man for grace.
It is not good to see him strainTo lift his hands, to gasp, to tryTo speak. His parched lips are so dryTheir sight is as a living pain.
I think that rich man down in hellSome like this old man with hisgold,—To gasp and gasp perpetualLike to this minute I have told.
At last the miser cries hispain,—A shrill, wild cry, as if a graveJustope’dits stony lips and gaveOne sentence forth, then closed again.
“’T wastwenty years last night, last night!”His lips still moved, but not to speak;His outstretched hands so trembling weakWere beggar’s hands in sorry plight.
His face upturned to hers, his lipsKept talking on, but gave no sound;His feet were cloven to the ground;Like iron hooks his finger-tips.
“Ay, twenty years,” she sadly sighed:“I promised mother every yearThat I would pray for father here,As she had prayed, the night she died:
“To pray as she prayed, fervidly;As she had promised she would prayThe sad night of her marriage day,For him, wherever he might be.”
Then she was still; then sudden sheLet fall her eyes, and so outspakeAs if her very heart would break,Her proud lips trembling piteously:
“And whether he come soon or lateTo kneel beside this nameless grave,May God forgive my father’s hateAs I forgive, as she forgave!”
He saw the stone; he understoodWith that quick knowledge that will comeMost quick when men are made most dumbWith terror that stops still the blood.
And then a blindness slowly fellOn soul and body; but his handsHeld tight his bags, two iron bands,As if to bear them into hell.
He sank upon the nameless stoneWith oh such sad, such piteous moanAs never man might seek to knowFrom man’s most unforgiving foe.
He sighed at last, so long, so deep,As one heart breaking in one’ssleep,—One long, last, weary, willing sigh,As if it were a grace to die.
And then his hands, like loosened bands,Hung down, hung down on either side;His hands hung down and opened wide:He rested in the orange lands.
University Press: John Wilson & Son, Cambridge.