The flame! the envious flame, it leaptEnraged to see such majesty,Such scorn of death; such kingly scorn.Then like some lightning-riven treeThey sank down in that flame—and sleptAnd all was hushed above that steepSo still, that they might sleep and sleep;As still as when a day is born.
At last! from out the embers leaptTwo shafts of light above thenight,—Two wings of flame that lifting sweptIn steady, calm, and upward flight;Two wings of flame against the whiteFar-lifting, tranquil, snowy cone;Two wings of love, two wings of light,Far, far above that troubled night,As mounting, mounting to God’s throne.
And all night long that upward lightLit up the sea-cow’s bed below:The far sea-cows still calling soIt seemed as they must call all night.All night! there was no night. Nay, nay,There was no night. The night that layBetween that awful eve andday,—That nameless night was burned away.
Rhymeon, rhyme on in reedy flow,O river, rhymer ever sweet!The story of thy land is meet,The stars stand listening to know.Rhyme on, O river of the earth!Gray father of the dreadful seas,Rhyme on! the world upon its kneesShall yet invoke thy wealth and worth.Rhyme on, the reed is at thy mouth,O kingly minstrel, mighty stream!Thy Crescent City, like a dream,Hangs in the heaven of my South.Rhyme on, rhyme on! these broken stringsSing sweetest in this warm south wind;I sit thy willow banks and bindA broken harp that fitful sings.
Rhymeon, rhyme on in reedy flow,O river, rhymer ever sweet!The story of thy land is meet,The stars stand listening to know.
Rhyme on, O river of the earth!Gray father of the dreadful seas,Rhyme on! the world upon its kneesShall yet invoke thy wealth and worth.
Rhyme on, the reed is at thy mouth,O kingly minstrel, mighty stream!Thy Crescent City, like a dream,Hangs in the heaven of my South.
Rhyme on, rhyme on! these broken stringsSing sweetest in this warm south wind;I sit thy willow banks and bindA broken harp that fitful sings.
Andwhere is my city, sweet blossom-sown town?And what is her glory, and what has she done?By the Mexican seas in the path of the sunSit you down: in the crescent of seas sit you down.
Ay, glory enough by my Mexican seas!Ay, story enough in that battle-torn town,Hidden down in the crescent of seas, hidden down’Midmantle and sheen of magnolia-strown trees.
But mine is the story of souls; of a soulThat bartered God’s limitless kingdom forgold,—Sold stars and all space for a thing he could holdIn his palm for a day, ere he hid with the mole.
O father of waters! O river so vast!So deep, so strong, and so wondrouswild,—He embraces the land as he rushes past,Like a savage father embracing his child.
His sea-land is true and so valiantly true,His leaf-land is fair and so marvellous fair,His palm-land is filled with a perfumed airOf magnolia blooms to its dome of blue.
His rose-land has arbors of moss-sweptoak,—Gray, Druid old oaks; and the moss that swaysAnd swings in the wind is the battle-smokeOf duellists, dead in her storied days.
His love-land has churches and bells and chimes;His love-land has altars and orange flowers;And that is the reason for all theserhymes,—These bells, they are ringing through all the hours!
His sun-land has churches, and priests at prayer,White nuns, as white as the far north snow;They go where danger may bid themgo,—They dare when the angel of death is there.
His love-land has ladies so fair, so fair,In the Creole quarter, with great blackeyes,—So fair that the Mayor must keep them thereLest troubles, like troubles of Troy, arise.
His love-land has ladies, with eyes helddown,—Held down, because if they lifted them,Why, you would be lost in that old French town,Though you held even to God’s garment hem.
His love-land has ladies so fair, so fair,That they bend their eyes to the holy bookLest you should forget yourself, your prayer,And never more cease to look and to look.
And these are the ladies that no men see,And this is the reason men see them not.Better their modest sweetmystery,—Better by far than the battle-shot.
And so, in this curious old town of tiles,The proud French quarter of days long gone,In castles of Spain and tumble-down pilesThese wonderful ladies live on and on.
I sit in the church where they come and go;I dream of glory that has long since gone,Of the low raised high, of the high brought low,As in battle-torn days of Napoleon.
These piteous places, so rich, so poor!One quaint old church at the edge of the townHas white tombs laid to the very churchdoor,—White leaves in the story of life turned down.
White leaves in the story of life are these,The low white slabs in the long strong grass,Where Glory has emptied her hour-glassAnd dreams with the dreamers beneath the trees.
I dream with the dreamers beneath the sod,Where souls pass by to the great white throne;I count each tomb as a mute milestoneFor weary, sweet souls on their way to God.
I sit all day by the vast, strong stream,’Midlow white slabs in the long strong grassWhere Time has forgotten for aye to pass,To dream, and ever to dream and to dream.
This quaint old church with its dead to the door,By the cypress swamp at the edge of the town,So restful seems that you want to sit downAnd rest you, and rest you for evermore.
And one white tomb is a lowliest tomb,That has crept up close to the crumblingdoor,—Some penitent soul, as imploring roomClose under the cross that is leaningo’er.
’T isa low white slab, and’t isnameless,too—Her untold story, why, who should know?Yet God, I reckon, can read right throughThat nameless stone to the bosom below.
And the roses know, and they pity her, too;They bend their heads in the sun or rain,And they read, and they read, and then read again,As children reading strange pictures through.
Why, surely her sleep it should be profound;For oh the apples of gold above!And oh the blossoms of bridal love!And oh the roses that gather around!
The sleep of a night, or a thousand morns?Why what is the difference here, to-day?Sleeping and sleeping the years awayWith all earth’s roses, and none of its thorns.
Magnolias white and the rosesred—The palm-tree here and the cypress there:Sit down by the palm at the feet of the dead,And hear a penitent’s midnight prayer.
The old churchyard is still as death,A stranger passes to and froAs if to church—he does notgo—The dead night does not draw a breath.
A lone sweet lady prays within.The stranger passes by thedoor—Will he not pray? Is he so poorHe has no prayer for his sin?
Is he so poor! His two strong handsAre full and heavy, as with gold;They clasp, as clasp two iron bandsAbout two bags with eager hold.
Will he not pause and enter in,Put down his heavy load and rest,Put off his garmenting of sin,As some black burden from his breast?
Ah, me! the brave alone can pray.The church-door is as cannon’s mouthTo sinner North, or sinner South,More dreaded than dread battle day.
Now two men pace. They pace apart,And one with youth and truth is fair;The fervid sun is in his heart,The tawny South is in his hair.
Ay, two men pace, pace left andright—The lone, sweet lady prayswithin—Ay, two men pace: the silent nightKneels down in prayer for some sin.
Lo! two men pace; and one is gray,A blue-eyed man from snow-clad land,With something heavy in eachhand,—With heavy feet, as feet of clay.
Ay, two men pace; and one is lightOf step, but still his brow is darkHis eyes are as a kindled sparkThat burns beneath the brow of night!
And still they pace. The stars are red,The tombs are white as frosted snow;The silence is as if the deadDid pace in couples, to and fro.
The azure curtain of God’s houseDraws back, and hangs star-pinned to space;I hear the low, large moon arouse,I see her lift her languid face.
I see her shoulder up the east,Low-necked, and large aswomanhood,—Low-necked, as for some ample feastOf gods, within yon orange-wood.
She spreads white palms, she whisperspeace,—Sweet peace on earth for evermore;Sweet peace for two beneath the trees,Sweet peace for one within the door.
The bent stream, like a scimitarFlashed in the sun, sweeps on and on,Till sheathed like some great sword new-drawnIn seas beneath the Carib’s star.
The high moon climbs the sapphire hill,The lone sweet lady prays within;The crickets keep a clang anddin—They are so loud, earth is so still!
And two men glare in silence there!The bitter, jealous hate of eachHas grown too deep for deed orspeech—The lone, sweet lady keeps her prayer.
The vast moon high through heaven’s fieldIn circling chariot is rolled;The golden stars are spun and reeled,And woven into cloth of gold.
The white magnolia fills the nightWith perfume, as the proud moon fillsThe glad earth with her ample lightFrom out her awful sapphire hills.
White orange blossoms fill the boughsAbove, about the old churchdoor,—They wait the bride, the bridalvows,—They never hung so fair before.
The two men glare as dark as sin!And yet all seems so fair, so white,You would not reckon it wasnight,—The while the lady prays within.
She prays so very long andlate,—The two men, weary, waitingthere,—The great magnolia at the gateBends drowsily above her prayer.
The cypress in his cloak of moss,That watches on in silent gloom,Has leaned and shaped a shadow-crossAbove the nameless, lowly tomb.
What can she pray for? What her sin?What folly of a maid so fair?What shadows bind the wondrous hairOf one who prays so long within?
The palm-trees guard in regiment,Stand right and left without the gate;The myrtle-moss trees wait and wait;The tall magnolia leans intent.
The cypress trees, on gnarled old knees,Far out the dank and marshy deepWhere slimy monsters groan and creep,Kneel with her in their marshy seas.
What can her sin be? Who shall know?The night flies by,—a bird on wing;The men no longer to and froStride up and down, or anything.
For one so weary and so oldHas hardly strength to stride or stir;He can but hold his bags ofgold,—But hug his gold and wait for her.
The two stand still,—stand face to face.The moon slides on; the midnight airIs perfumed as a house ofprayer—The maiden keeps her holy place.
Two men! And one is gray, but oneScarce lifts a full-grown face as yet:With light foot on life’s thresholdset,—Is he the other’s sun-born son?
And one is of the land of snow,And one is of the land of sun;A black-eyed burning youth is one,But one has pulses cold and slow:
Ay, cold and slow from clime of snowWhere Nature’s bosom, icy bound,Holds all her forces, hard,profound,—Holds close where all the South lets go.
Blame not the sun, blame not the snows;God’s great schoolhouse for all is clime,The great school-teacher, Father Time;And each has borne as best he knows.
At last the elder speaks,—hecries,—He speaks as if his heart would break;He speaks out as a man thatdies,—As dying for some lost love’s sake:
“Come, take this bag of gold, and go!Come, take one bag! See, I have two!Oh, why stand silent, staring so,When I would share my gold with you?
“Come, take this gold! See how I pray!See how I bribe, and beg, andbuy,—Ay, buy! buy love, as you, too, maySome day before you come to die.
“God! take this gold, I beg, I pray!I beg as one who thirsting criesFor but one drop of drink, and diesIn some lone, loveless desert way.
“You hesitate? Still hesitate?Stand silent still and mock my pain?Still mock to see me wait and wait,And wait her love, as earth waits rain?”
O broken ship! O starless shore!O black and everlasting night,Where love comes never any moreTo light man’s way with heaven’s light.
A godless man with bags of goldI think a most unholy sight;Ah, who so desolate at nightAmid death’s sleepers still and cold?
A godless man on holy groundI think a most unholy sight.I hear death trailing like a houndHard after him, and swift to bite.
The vast moon settles to the west:Two men beside a nameless tomb,And one would sit thereon torest,—Ay, rest below, if there were room.
What is this rest of death, sweet friend?What is the rising up,—and where?I say, death is a lengthened prayer,A longer night, a larger end.
Hear you the lesson I once learned:I died; I sailed a million milesThrough dreamful, flowery, restfulisles,—She was not there, and I returned.
I say the shores of death and sleepAre one; that when we, wearied, comeTo Lethe’s waters, and lie dumb,’T isdeath, not sleep, holds us to keep.
Yea, we lie dead for need of restAnd so the soul drifts out ando’erThe vast still waters to the shoreBeyond, in pleasant, tranquil quest:
It sails straight on, forgetting pain,Past isles of peace, to perfectrest,—Now were it best abide, or bestReturn and take up life again?
And that is all of death there is,Believe me. If you find your loveIn that far land, then like the doveAbide, and turn not back to this.
But if you find your love not there;Or if your feet feel sure, and youHave still allotted work todo,—Why, then return to toil and care.
Death is no mystery.’T isplainIf death be mystery, then sleepIs mystery thrice strangelydeep,—For oh this coming back again!
Austerest ferryman of souls!I see the gleam of solid shores,I hear thy steady stroke of oarsAbove the wildest wave that rolls.
O Charon, keep thy sombre ships!We come, with neither myrrh nor balm,Nor silver piece in open palm,But lone white silence on our lips.
She prays so long! she prays so late!What sin in all this flower-landAgainst her supplicating handCould have in heaven any weight?
Prays she for her sweet self alone?Prays she for some one far away,Or some one near and dear to-day,Or some poor, lorn, lost soul unknown?
It seems to me a selfish thingTo pray forever for one’s self;It seems to me like heaping pelfIn heaven by hard reckoning.
Why, I would rather stoop, and bearMy load of sin, and bear it wellAnd bravely down to burning hell,Than ever pray one selfish prayer!
The swift chameleon in thegloom—This silence it is soprofound!—Forsakes its bough, glides to the ground,Then up, and lies across the tomb.
It erst was green as olive-leaf,It then grew gray as myrtle mossThe time it slid the moss across;But now’t ismarble-white with grief.
The little creature’s hues are gone;Here in the pale and ghostly lightIt lies so pale, so pantingwhite,—White as the tomb it lies upon.
The two men by that nameless tomb,And both so still! You might have saidThese two men, they are also dead,And only waiting here for room.
How still beneath the orange-bough!How tall was one, how bowed was one!The one was as a journey done,The other as beginning now.
And one was young,—young with that youthEternal that belongs to truth;And one was old,—old with the yearsThat follow fast on doubts and fears.
And yet the habit of commandWas his, in every stubborn part;No common knave was he at heart,Nor his the common coward’s hand.
He looked the young man in the face,So full of hate, so frank of hate;The other, standing in his place,Stared back as straight and hard as fate.
And now he sudden turned away,And now he paced the path, and nowCame back, beneath the orange-boughPale-browed, with lips as cold as clay.
As mute as shadows on a wall,As silent still, as dark as they,Before that stranger, bent and gray,The youth stood scornful, proud, and tall.
He stood, a tall palmetto-treeWith Spanish daggers guarding it;Nor deed, nor word, to him seemed fitWhile she prayed on so silently.
He slew his rival with his eyes;His eyes were daggers piercingdeep,—So deep that blood began to creepFrom their deep wounds and drop wordwise:
His eyes so black, so bright that theyMight raise the dead, the living slay,If but the dead, the living, boreSuch hearts as heroes had of yore:
Two deadly arrows barbed in black,And feathered, too, with raven’s wing;Two arrows that could silent sting,And with a death-wound answer back.
How fierce he was! how deadly stillIn that mesmeric, hateful stareTurned on the pleading stranger thereThat drew to him, despite his will:
So like a bird down-fluttering,Down, down, beneath a snake’s bright eyes,He stood, a fascinated thing,That hopeless, unresisting, dies.
He raised a hard hand as before,Reached out the gold, and offered itWith hand that shook asague-fit,—The while the youth but scorned the more.
“Youwill not touch it? In God’s nameWho are you, and what are you, then?Come, take this gold, and be ofmen,—A human form with human aim.
“Yea, take this gold,—she must be mineShe shall be mine! I do not fearYour scowl, your scorn, your soul austere,The living, dead, or your dark sign.
“I saw her as she entered there;I saw her, and uncovered stood:The perfume of her womanhoodWas holy incense on the air.
“She left behind sweet sanctity,Religion lay the way she went;I cried I would repent, repent!She passed on, all unheeding me.
“Her soul is young, her eyes are brightAnd gladsome, as mine own are dim;But, oh, I felt my senses swimThe time she passed me byto-night!—
“The time she passed, nor raised her eyesTo hear me cry I would repent,Nor turned her head to hear my cries,But swifter went the way shewent,—
“Went swift as youth, for all these years!And this the strangest thing appears,That lady there seems just thesame,—Sweet Gladys— Ah! you know her name?
“You hear her name and start that IShould name her dear name trembling so?Why, boy, when I shall come to dieThat name shall be the last I know.
“That name shall be the last sweet nameMy lips shall utter in this life!That name is brighter than brightflame,—That lady is my wedded wife!
“Ah, start and catch your burning breath!Ah, start and clutch your deadly knife!If this be death, then be itdeath,—But that loved lady is my wife!
“Yea, you are stunned! your face is white,That I should come confronting you,As comes a lorn ghost of the nightFrom out the past, and to pursue.
“You thought me dead? You shake your head,You start back horrified to knowThat she is loved, that she is wed,That you have sinned in loving so.
“Yet what seems strange, that lady there,Housed in the holy house of prayer,Seems just the same for all hertears,—For all my absent twenty years.
“Yea, twenty years to-night, to-night,Just twenty years this day, this hour,Since first I plucked that perfect flower,And not one witness of the rite.
“Nay, do not doubt,—I tell you true!Her prayers, her tears, her constancyAre all for me, are all forme,—And not one single thought for you!
“I knew, I knew she would be hereThis night of nights to pray for me!And how could I for twenty yearKnow this same night so certainly?
“Ah me! some thoughts that we would drownStick closer than a brother toThe conscience, and pursue, pursueLike baying hound to hunt us down.
“And then, that date is history;For on that night this shore was shelled,And many a noble mansion felled,With many a noble family.
“I wore the blue; I watched the flightOf shells like stars tossed through the airTo blow your hearth-stones—anywhere,That wild, illuminated night.
“Nay, rage befits you not so well:Why, you were but a babe at best,Your cradle some sharp bursted shellThat tore, maybe, your mother’s breast!
“Hear me! We came in honored war.The risen world was on your track!The whole North-land was at our back,From Hudson’s bank to the North star!
“And from the North to palm-set seaThe splendid fiery cyclone swept.Your fathers fell, your mothers wept,Their nude babes clinging to the knee.
“A wide and desolated track:Behind, a path of ruin lay;Before, some women by the wayStood mutely gazing, clad in black.
“From silent women waiting thereSome tears came down like still small rain;Their own sons on the battle plainWere now but viewless ghosts of air.
“Their own dear daring boys ingray,—They should not see them any more;Our cruel drums kept tellingo’erThe time their own sons went away.
“Through burning town, by burstingshell—Yea, I remember well that night;I led through orange-lanes of light,As through some hot outpost of hell!
“That night of rainbow-shot and shellSent from your surging river’s breastTo waken me, no more torest,—That night I should remember well!
“That night amid the maimed anddead,—A night in history set downBy light of many a burning town,And written all across inred,—
“Her father dead, her brothers dead,Her home in flames,—what else could sheBut fly all helpless here to me,A fluttered dove, that night of dread?
“Short time, hot time had I to wooAmid the red shells’ battle-chime;But women rarely reckon time,And perils speed their love when true.
“And then I wore a captain’s sword;And, too, had oftentime beforeDoffed cap at her dead father’s door,And passed a soldier’s pleasant word.
“And then—ah, I was comely then!I bore no load upon my back,I heard no hounds upon my track,But stood the tallest of tall men.
“Her father’s and her mother’s shrine,This church amid the orange wood,So near and so secure it stood,It seemed to beckon as a sign.
“Its white cross seemed to beckon me:My heart was strong, and it was mineTo throw myself upon my knee,To beg to lead her to this shrine.
“She did consent. Through lanes of lightI led through that church-door thatnight—Let fall your hand! Take back your faceAnd stand,—stand patient in your place!
“She loved me; and she loves me still.Yea, she clung close to me that hourAs honey-bee tohoney-flower,—And still is mine, through good or ill.
“The priest stood there. He spake the prayer;He made the holy, mystic sign.And she was mine, was whollymine,—Is mine this moment I will swear!
“Then days, then nights, of vastdelight,—Then came a doubtful, later day;The faithful priest, now far away,Watched with the dying in the fight:
“The priest amid the dying, dead,Kept duty on thebattle-field,—That midnight marriage unrevealedKept strange thoughts running through my head.
“At last a stray ball struck the priest:This vestibule his chancel was.And now none lived to speak her cause,Record, or champion her the least.
“Hear me! I had been bred to hateAll priests, their mummeries and all.Ah, it was fate,—ah, it was fateThat all things tempted me to fall!
“And then the rattling songs we sangThose nights when rudelyrevelling,—The songs that only soldierssing,—Until the very tent-poles rang!
“What is the rhyme that rhymers sayOf maidens born to be betrayedBy epaulettes and shining blade,While soldiers love and ride away?
“And then my comrades spake her nameHalf taunting, with a touch of shame;Taught me to hold that lily-flowerAs some light pastime of the hour.
“And then the ruin in the land,The death, dismay, the lawlessness!Men gathered gold on everyhand,—Heaped gold: and why should I do less?
“The cry for gold was in the air,For Creole gold, for precious things;The sword kept prodding here and thereThrough bolts and sacred fastenings.
“‘Get gold! get gold!’ This was the cry.And I loved gold. What else could IOr you, or any earnest oneBorn in this getting age have done?
“With this one lesson taught from youth,And ever taught us, to getgold,—To get and hold, and everhold,—What else could I have done, forsooth?
“She, seeing how I sought forgold,—This girl, my wife, one late night toldOf treasures hidden close at hand,In her dead father’s mellow land:
“Of gold she helped her brothers hideBeneath a broad banana tree,The day the two in battledied,—The night she dying fled to me.
“It seemed too good; I laughed to scornHer trustful tale. She answered not;But meekly on the morrow mornTwo massive bags of bright gold brought.
“And when she brought this gold to me,Red Creole gold, rich, rare, andold,—When I at last had gold, sweet gold,I cried in very ecstasy!
“Red gold! rich gold! two bags of gold!The two stout bags of gold she broughtAnd gave with scarce a secondthought,—Why, her two hands could hardly hold!
“Now I had gold! two bags of gold!Two wings of gold to fly, and flyThe wide world’s girth; red gold to holdAgainst my heart for aye and aye!
“My country’s lesson: ‘Gold! get gold!’I learned it well in land of snow;And what can glow, so brightly glow,Long winter nights of Northern cold?
“Ay, now at last, at last I hadThe one thing, all fair things aboveMy land had taught me most to love!A miser now! and I grew mad.
“With those two bags of gold my own,I then began to plan that nightFor flight, for far and suddenflight,—For flight; and, too, for flight alone.
“I feared! I feared! My heart grewcold,—Some one might claim this gold of me!I feared her,—feared her purity,Feared all things but my bags of gold.
“I grew to hate her face, hercreed,—That face the fairest ever yetThat bowedo’erholy cross or bead,Or yet was in God’s image set.
“I fled,—nay, not so knavish lowAs you have fancied, did I fly;I sought her at that shrine, and ITold her full frankly I should go.
“I stood a giant in mypower,—And did she question or dispute?I stood a savage, selfishbrute,—She bowed her head, a lily-flower.
“And when I sudden turned to go,And told her I should come no more,She bowed her head so low, so low,Her vast black hair fell pouringo’er.
“And that was all; her splendid faceWas mantled from me, and her nightOf hair half hid her from my sightAs she fell moaning in her place.
“And there,’midher dark night of hair,She sobbed, low moaning through her tears,That she would wait, wait all theyears,—Would wait and pray in her despair.
“Nay, did not murmur, notdeny,—She did not cross me one sweet word!I turned and fled: I thought I heardA night-bird’s piercing low death-cry!”