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diff --git a/16535-8.txt b/16535-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0b9668b --- /dev/null +++ b/16535-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3963 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Myth and Romance, by Madison Cawein + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Myth and Romance + Being a Book of Verses + +Author: Madison Cawein + +Release Date: August 16, 2005 [EBook #16535] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MYTH AND ROMANCE *** + + + + +Produced by Digital & Multimedia Center, Michigan State +University Libraries, Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Sankar +Viswanathan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team +at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + Myth and Romance + + + Being a Book of verses + + By MADISON CAWEIN + + + + + G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS + + New York and London + + The Knickerbocker Press + + 1899 + + + + + +TO + +MY FRIEND + +WILLIAM WARWICK THUM + + + + +CONTENTS + + + + +VISIONS AND VOICES + + +Myth and Romance + +Genius Loci + +The Rain-Crow + +The Harvest Moon + +The Old Water-Mill + +Anthem of Dawn + +Dithyrambics + +Hymn to Desire + +Music + +Jotunheim + +Dionysia + +The Last Song + +Romaunt of the Oak + +Morgan le Fay + +The Dream of Roderick + +Zyps of Zirl + +The Glowworm + +Ghosts + +The Purple Valleys + +The Land of Illusion + +Spirit of Dreams + + +LINES AND LYRICS + + +To a Wind-Flower + +Microcosm + +Fortune + +Death + +The Soul + +Conscience + +Youth + +Life's Seasons + +Old Homes + +Field and Forest Call + +Meeting in Summer + +Swinging + +Rosemary + +Ghost Stories + +Dolce far Niente + +Words + +Reasons + +Evasion + +In May + +Will you Forget? + +Clouds of the Autumn Night + +The Glory and the Dream + +Snow and Fire + +Restraint + +Why Should I Pine? + +When Lydia Smiles + +The Rose + +A Ballad of Sweethearts + +Her Portrait + +A Song for Yule + +The Puritans' Christmas + +Spring + +Lines + +When Ships put out to Sea + +The "Kentucky" + +Quatrains + +Processional + + + + +_PROEM._ + + +_There is no rhyme that is half so sweet +As the song of the wind in the rippling wheat; +There is no metre that's half so fine +As the lilt of the brook under rock and vine; +And the loveliest lyric I ever heard +Was the wildwood strain of a forest bird.-- +If the wind and the brook and the bird would teach +My heart their beautiful parts of speech. +And the natural art that they say these with, +My soul would sing of beauty and myth +In a rhyme and a metre that none before +Have sung in their love, or dreamed in their lore, +And the world would be richer one poet the more._ + + + + +VISIONS AND VOICES + + + + +_Myth and +Romance_ + +I + + +When I go forth to greet the glad-faced Spring, + Just at the time of opening apple-buds, +When brooks are laughing, winds are whispering, + On babbling hillsides or in warbling woods, + There is an unseen presence that eludes:-- +Perhaps a Dryad, in whose tresses cling + The loamy odors of old solitudes, +Who, from her beechen doorway, calls; and leads + My soul to follow; now with dimpling words + Of leaves; and now with syllables of birds; +While here and there--is it her limbs that swing? +Or restless sunlight on the moss and weeds? + + +II + + +Or, haply, 't is a Naiad now who slips, + Like some white lily, from her fountain's glass, +While from her dripping hair and breasts and hips, + The moisture rains cool music on the grass. + Her have I heard and followed, yet, alas! +Have seen no more than the wet ray that dips + The shivered waters, wrinkling where I pass; +But, in the liquid light, where she doth hide, + I have beheld the azure of her gaze + Smiling; and, where the orbing ripple plays, +Among her minnows I have heard her lips, +Bubbling, make merry by the waterside. + + +III + + +Or now it is an Oread--whose eyes + Are constellated dusk--who stands confessed, +As naked as a flow'r; her heart's surprise, + Like morning's rose, mantling her brow and breast: + She, shrinking from my presence, all distressed +Stands for a startled moment ere she flies, + Her deep hair blowing, up the mountain crest, +Wild as a mist that trails along the dawn. + And is't her footfalls lure me? or the sound + Of airs that stir the crisp leaf on the ground? +And is't her body glimmers on yon rise? +Or dog-wood blossoms snowing on the lawn? + + +IV + + +Now't is a Satyr piping serenades + On a slim reed. Now Pan and Faun advance +Beneath green-hollowed roofs of forest glades, + Their feet gone mad with music: now, perchance, + Sylvanus sleeping, on whose leafy trance +The Nymphs stand gazing in dim ambuscades + Of sun-embodied perfume.--Myth, Romance, +Where'er I turn, reach out bewildering arms, + Compelling me to follow. Day and night + I hear their voices and behold the light +Of their divinity that still evades, +And still allures me in a thousand forms. + + + + +_Genius +Loci_ + +I + + +What wood-god, on this water's mossy curb, + Lost in reflections of earth's loveliness, +Did I, just now, unconsciously disturb? + I, who haphazard, wandering at a guess, +Came on this spot, wherein, with gold and flame +Of buds and blooms, the season writes its name.-- +Ah, me! could I have seen him ere alarm + Of my approach aroused him from his calm! + As he, part Hamadryad and, mayhap, +Part Faun, lay here; who left the shadow warm + As wildwood rose, and filled the air with balm + Of his sweet breath as with ethereal sap. + + +II + + +Does not the moss retain some vague impress, + Green dented in, of where he lay or trod? +Do not the flow'rs, so reticent, confess + With conscious looks the contact of a god? +Does not the very water garrulously +Boast the indulgence of a deity? +And, hark! in burly beech and sycamore + How all the birds proclaim it! and the leaves + Rejoice with clappings of their myriad hands! +And shall not I believe, too, and adore, + With such wide proof?--Yea, though my soul perceives + No evident presence, still it understands. + + +III + + +And for a while it moves me to lie down + Here on the spot his god-head sanctified: +Mayhap some dream he dreamed may lingert brown + And young as joy, around the forestside; +Some dream within whose heart lives no disdain +For such as I whose love is sweet and sane; +That may repeat, so none but I may hear-- + As one might tell a pearl-strung rosary-- + Some epic that the trees have learned to croon, +Some lyric whispered in the wild-flower's ear, + Whose murmurous lines are sung by bird and bee, + And all the insects of the night and noon. + + +IV + + +For, all around me, upon field and hill, + Enchantment lies as of mysterious flutes; +As if the music of a god's good-will + Had taken on material attributes +In blooms, like chords; and in the water-gleam, +That runs its silvery scales from stream to stream; +In sunbeam bars, up which the butterfly, + A golden note, vibrates then flutters on-- + Inaudible tunes, blown on the pipes of Pan, +That have assumed a visible entity, + And drugged the air with beauty so, a Faun, + Behold, I seem, and am no more a man. + + + + +_The +Rain-Crow_ + +I + + +Can freckled August,--drowsing warm and blonde + Beside a wheat-shock in the white-topped mead, +In her hot hair the oxeyed daisies wound,-- + O bird of rain, lend aught but sleepy heed + To thee? when no plumed weed, no feather'd seed +Blows by her; and no ripple breaks the pond, + That gleams like flint between its rim of grasses, + Through which the dragonfly forever passes + Like splintered diamond. + + +II + + +Drouth weights the trees, and from the farmhouse eaves + The locust, pulse-beat of the summer day, +Throbs; and the lane, that shambles under leaves + Limp with the heat--a league of rutty way-- + Is lost in dust; and sultry scents of hay +Breathe from the panting meadows heaped with sheaves-- + Now, now, O bird, what hint is there of rain, + In thirsty heaven or on burning plain, + That thy keen eye perceives? + + +III + + +But thou art right. Thou prophesiest true. + For hardly hast thou ceased thy forecasting, +When, up the western fierceness of scorched blue, + Great water-carrier winds their buckets bring + Brimming with freshness. How their dippers ring +And flash and rumble! lavishing dark dew + On corn and forestland, that, streaming wet, + Their hilly backs against the downpour set, + Like giants vague in view. + + +IV + + +The butterfly, safe under leaf and flower, + Has found a roof, knowing how true thou art; +The bumble-bee, within the last half-hour, + Has ceased to hug the honey to its heart; + While in the barnyard, under shed and cart, +Brood-hens have housed.--But I, who scorned thy power, + Barometer of the birds,--like August there,-- + Beneath a beech, dripping from foot to hair, + Like some drenched truant, cower. + + + + +_The +Harvest Moon_ + +I + + +Globed in Heav'n's tree of azure, golden mellow + As some round apple hung +High in hesperian boughs, thou hangest yellow + The branch-like mists among: +Within thy light a sunburnt youth, named Health, + Rests 'mid the tasseled shocks, the tawny stubble; +And by his side, clad on with rustic wealth + Of field and farm, beneath thy amber bubble, +A nut-brown maid, Content, sits smiling still: + While through the quiet trees, + The mossy rocks, the grassy hill, +Thy silvery spirit glides to yonder mill, + Around whose wheel the breeze +And shimmering ripples of the water play, +As, by their mother, little children may. + + +II + + +Sweet spirit of the moon, who walkest,--lifting + Exhaustless on thy arm, +A pearly vase of fire,--through the shifting + Cloud-halls of calm and storm, +Pour down thy blossoms! let me hear them come, + Pelting with noiseless light the twinkling thickets, +Making the darkness audible with the hum + Of many insect creatures, grigs and crickets: +Until it seems the elves hold revelries + By haunted stream and grove; + Or, in the night's deep peace, +The young-old presence of Earth's full increase + Seems telling thee her love, +Ere, lying down, she turns to rest, and smiles, +Hearing thy heart beat through the myriad miles. + + + + +_The Old +Water-Mill_ + + +Wild ridge on ridge the wooded hills arise, +Between whose breezy vistas gulfs of skies +Pilot great clouds like towering argosies, +And hawk and buzzard breast the azure breeze. +With many a foaming fall and glimmering reach +Of placid murmur, under elm and beech, +The creek goes twinkling through long glows and glooms +Of woodland quiet, poppied with perfumes: +The creek, in whose clear shallows minnow-schools +Glitter or dart; and by whose deeper pools +The blue kingfishers and the herons haunt; +That, often startled from the freckled flaunt +Of blackberry-lilies--where they feed and hide-- +Trail a lank flight along the forestside +With eery clangor. Here a sycamore, +Smooth, wave-uprooted, builds from shore to shore +A headlong bridge; and there, a storm-hurled oak +Lays a long dam, where sand and gravel choke +The water's lazy way. Here mistflower blurs +Its bit of heaven; there the oxeye stirs +Its gloaming hues of bronze and gold; and here, +A gray cool stain, like dawn's own atmosphere, +The dim wild-carrot lifts its crumpled crest: +And over all, at slender flight or rest, +The dragon-flies, like coruscating rays +Of lapis-lazuli and chrysoprase, +Drowsily sparkle through the summer days; +And, dewlap-deep, here from the noontide heat +The bell-hung cattle find a cool retreat: +And through the willows girdling the hill, +Now far, now near, borne as the soft winds will, +Comes the low rushing of the water-mill. +Ah, lovely to me from a little child, +How changed the place! wherein once, undefiled, +The glad communion of the sky and stream +Went with me like a presence and a dream. +Where once the brambled meads and orchardlands +Poured ripe abundance down with mellow hands +Of summer; and the birds of field and wood +Called to me in a tongue I understood; +And in the tangles of the old rail-fence +Even the insect tumult had some sense, +And every sound a happy eloquence; +And more to me than wisest books can teach, +The wind and water said; whose words did reach +My soul, addressing their magnificent speech, +Raucous and rushing, from the old mill-wheel, +That made the rolling mill-cogs snore and reel, +Like some old ogre in a fairy-tale +Nodding above his meat and mug of ale. + +How memory takes me back the ways that lead-- +As when a boy--through woodland and through mead! +To orchards fruited; or to fields in bloom; +Or briary fallows, like a mighty room, +Through which the winds swing censers of perfume, +And where deep blackberries spread miles of fruit;-- +A splendid feast, that stayed the ploughboy's foot +When to the tasseling acres of the corn +He drove his team, fresh in the primrose morn; +And from the liberal banquet, nature lent, +Took dewy handfuls as he whistling went.-- +A boy once more I stand with sunburnt feet +And watch the harvester sweep down the wheat; +Or laze with warm limbs in the unstacked straw +Nearby the thresher, whose insatiate maw +Devours the sheaves, hot drawling out its hum-- +Like some great sleepy bee, above a bloom, +Made drunk with honey--while, grown big with grain, +The bulging sacks receive the golden rain. +Again I tread the valley, sweet with hay, +And hear the bob-white calling far away, +Or wood-dove cooing in the elder-brake; +Or see the sassafras bushes madly shake +As swift, a rufous instant, in the glen +The red-fox leaps and gallops to his den; +Or, standing in the violet-colored gloam, +Hear roadways sound with holiday riding home +From church, or fair, or bounteous barbecue, +Which the whole country to some village drew. + +How spilled with berries were its summer hills, +And strewn with walnuts were its autumn rills-- +And chestnut burs! fruit of the spring's long flowers, +When from their tops the trees seemed streaming showers +Of slender silver, cool, crepuscular, +And like a nebulous radiance shone afar. +And maples! how their sappy hearts would gush +Broad troughs of syrup, when the winter bush +Steamed with the sugar-kettle, day and night, +And all the snow was streaked with firelight. +Then it was glorious! the mill-dam's edge, +One slant of frosty crystal, laid a ledge +Of pearl across; above which, sleeted trees +Tossed arms of ice, that, clashing in the breeze, +Tinkled the ringing creek with icicles, +Thin as the peal of Elfland's Sabbath bells: +A sound that in my city dreams I hear, +That brings before me, under skies that clear, +The old mill in its winter garb of snow, +Its frozen wheel, a great hoar beard below, +And its West windows, two deep eyes aglow. + +Ah, ancient mill, still do I picture o'er +Thy cobwebbed stairs and loft and grain-strewn floor; +Thy door,--like some brown, honest hand of toil, +And honorable with labor of the soil,-- +Forever open; through which, on his back +The prosperous farmer bears his bursting sack. +And while the miller measures out his toll, +Again I hear, above the cogs' loud roll,-- +That makes stout joist and rafter groan and sway,-- +The harmless gossip of the passing day: +Good country talk, that tells how so-and-so +Has died or married; how curculio +And codling-moth have ruined half the fruit, +And blight plays mischief with the grapes to boot; +Or what the news from town; next county fair; +How well the crops are looking everywhere: +Now this, now that, on which their interests fix, +Prospects for rain or frost, and politics. +While, all around, the sweet smell of the meal +Filters, warm-pouring from the grinding wheel +Into the bin; beside which, mealy white, +The miller looms, dim in the dusty light. + +Again I see the miller's home, between +The crinkling creek and hills of beechen green: +Again the miller greets me, gaunt and brown, +Who oft o'erawed me with his gray-browed frown +And rugged mien: again he tries to reach +My youthful mind with fervid scriptural speech.-- +For he, of all the country-side confessed, +The most religious was and happiest; +A Methodist, and one whom faith still led, +No books except the Bible had he read-- +At least so seemed it to my younger head.-- +All things in earth and heav'n he'd prove by this, +Be it a fact or mere hypothesis; +For to his simple wisdom, reverent, +"_The Bible says_" was all of argument.-- +God keep his soul! his bones were long since laid +Among the sunken gravestones in the shade +Of those black-lichened rocks, that wall around +The family burying-ground with cedars crowned; +Where bristling teasel and the brier combine +With clambering wood-rose and the wild-grape vine +To hide the stone whereon his name and dates +Neglect, with mossy hand, obliterates. + + + + +_Anthem +of Dawn_ + +I + + +Then up the orient heights to the zenith, that balanced the crescent,-- +Up and far up and over,--the heaven grew erubescent, +Vibrant with rose and with ruby from the hands of the harpist Dawn, +Smiting symphonic fire on the firmament's barbiton: +And the East was a priest who adored with offerings of gold and of gems, +And a wonderful carpet unrolled for the inaccessible hems +Of the glistening robes of her limbs; that, lily and amethyst, +Swept glorying on and on through temples of cloud and mist. + + +II + + +Then out of the splendor and richness, that burned like a magic stone, +The torrent suffusion that deepened and dazzled and broadened and shone, +The pomp and the pageant of color, triumphal procession of glare, +The sun, like a king in armor, breathing splendor from feet to hair, +Stood forth with majesty girdled, as a hero who towers afar +Where the bannered gates are bristling hells and the walls are roaring war: +And broad on the back of the world, like a Cherubin's fiery blade, +The effulgent gaze of his aspect fell in glittering accolade. + + +III + + +Then billowing blue, like an ocean, rolled from the shores of morn to even: +And the stars, like rafts, went down: and the moon, like a ghost-ship, driven, +A feather of foam, from port to port of the cloud-built isles that dotted, +With pearl and cameo, bays of the day, her canvas webbed and rotted, +Lay lost in the gulf of heaven: while over her mixed and melted +The beautiful children of Morn, whose bodies are opal-belted; +The beautiful daughters of Dawn, who, over and under, and after +The rivered radiance, wrestled; and rainbowed heaven with laughter +Of halcyon sapphire.--O Dawn! thou visible mirth, +And hallelujah of Heaven! hosanna of Earth! + + + + +_Dithyrambics_ + +I + +TEMPEST + + +Wrapped round of the night, as a monster is wrapped of the ocean, +Down, down through vast storeys of darkness, behold, in the tower +Of the heaven, the thunder! on stairways of cloudy commotion, +Colossal of tread, like a giant, from echoing hour to hour +Goes striding in rattling armor ... +The Nymph, at her billow-roofed dormer +Of foam; and the Sylvan--green-housed--at her window of leaves appears; +--As a listening woman, who hears +The approach of her lover, who comes to her arms in the night; +And, loosening the loops of her locks, +With eyes full of love and delight, +From the couch of her rest in ardor and haste arises.-- +The Nymph, as if breathed of the tempest, like fire surprises +The riotous bands of the rocks, +That face with a roar the shouting charge of the seas. +The Sylvan,--through troops of the trees, +Whose clamorous clans with gnarly bosoms keep hurling +Themselves on the guns of the wind,--goes wheeling and whirling. +The Nymph, of the waves' exultation upheld, her green tresses +Knotted with flowers of the hollow white foam, dives screaming; +Then bounds to the arms of the storm, who boisterously presses +Her hair and wild form to his breast that is panting and streaming. +The Sylvan,--hard-pressed by the wind, the Pan-footed air,-- +On the violent backs of the hills,-- +Like a flame that tosses and thrills +From peak to peak when the world of spirits is out,-- +Is borne, as her rapture wills, +With glittering gesture and shout: +Now here in the darkness, now there, +From the rain-like sweep of her hair,-- +Bewilderingly volleyed o'er eyes and o'er lips,-- +To the lambent swell of her limbs, her breasts and her hips, +She flashes her beautiful nakedness out in the glare +Of the tempest that bears her away,-- +That bears me away! +Away, over forest and foam, over tree and spray, +Far swifter than thought, far swifter than sound or than flame. +Over ocean and pine, +In arms of tumultuous shadow and shine ... +Though Sylvan and Nymph do not +Exist, and only what +Of terror and beauty I feel and I name +As parts of the storm, the awe and the rapture divine +That here in the tempest are mine,-- +The two are the same, the two are forever the same. + + +II + +CALM + + +Beautiful-bosomed, O night, in thy noon +Move with majesty onward! bearing, as lightly +As a singer may bear the notes of an exquisite tune, +The stars and the moon +Through the clerestories high of the heaven, the firmament's halls; +Under whose sapphirine walls, +June, hesperian June, +Robed in divinity wanders. Daily and nightly +The turquoise touch of her robe, that the violets star, +The silvery fall of her feet, that lilies are, +Fill the land with languorous light and perfume.-- +Is it the melody mute of burgeoning leaf and of bloom? +The music of Nature, that silently shapes in the gloom +Immaterial hosts +Of spirits that have the flowers and leaves in their keep, +That I hear, that I hear? +Invisible ghosts,-- +Who whisper in leaves and glimmer in blossoms and hover +In color and fragrance and loveliness, breathed from the deep +World-soul of the mother, +Nature;--who, over and over, +Both sweetheart and lover, +Goes singing her songs from one sweet month to the other,-- +That appear, that appear? +In forest and field, on hill-land and lea, +As crystallized harmony, +Materialized melody, +An uttered essence peopling far and near +The hyaline atmosphere?... +Behold how it sprouts from the grass and blooms from flower and tree! +In waves of diaphanous moonlight and mist, +In fugue upon fugue of gold and of amethyst, +Around me, above me it spirals; now slower, now faster, +Like symphonies born of the thought of a musical master.-- +--O music of Earth! O God who the music inspired! +Let me breathe of the life of thy breath! +And so be fulfilled and attired +In resurrection, triumphant o'er time and o'er death! + + + + +_Hymn to +Desire_ + +I + + +Mother of visions, with lineaments dulcet as numbers +Breathed on the eyelids of love by music that slumbers, +Secretly, sweetly, O presence of fire and snow, +Thou comest mysterious, +In beauty imperious, +Clad on with dreams and the light of no world that we know. +Deep to my innermost soul am I shaken, +Helplessly shaken and tossed, +And of thy tyrannous yearnings so utterly taken, +My lips, unsatisfied, thirst; +Mine eyes are accurst +With longings for visions that far in the night are forsaken; +And mine ears, in listening lost, +Yearn, yearn for the note of a chord that will never awaken. + + +II + + +Like palpable music thou comest, like moonlight; and far,-- +Resonant bar upon bar,-- +The vibrating lyre +Of the spirit responds with melodious fire, +As thy fluttering fingers now grasp it and ardently shake, +With flame and with flake, +The chords of existence, the instrument star-sprung. +Whose frame is of clay, so wonderfully molded from mire. + + +III + + +Vested with vanquishment, come, O Desire, Desire! +Breathe in this harp of my soul the audible angel of love! +Make of my heart an Israfel burning above, +A lute for the music of God, that lips, which are mortal, but stammer! +Smite every rapturous wire +With golden delirium, rebellion and silvery clamor, +Crying--"Awake! awake! +Too long hast thou slumbered! too far from the regions of glamour, +With its mountains of magic, its fountains of Faëry, the spar-sprung, +Hast thou wandered away, O Heart! +Come, oh, come and partake +Of necromance banquets of beauty; and slake +Thy thirst in the waters of art, +That are drawn from the streams +Of love and of dreams." + + +IV + + +"Come, oh, come! +No longer shall language be dumb! +Thy vision shall grasp-- +As one doth the glittering hasp +Of a dagger made splendid with gems and with gold-- +The wonder and richness of life, not anguish and hate of it merely. +And out of the stark +Eternity, awful and dark, +Immensity silent and cold,-- +Universe-shaking as trumpets, or thunderous metals +That cymbal; yet pensive and pearly +And soft as the rosy unfolding of petals, +Or crumbling aroma of blossoms that wither too early,-- +The majestic music of Death, where he plays +On the organ of eons and days." + + + + +_Music_ + + +Thou, oh, thou! +Thou of the chorded shell and golden plectrum! thou +Of the dark eyes and pale pacific brow! +Music, who by the plangent waves, +Or in the echoing night of labyrinthine caves, +Or on God's mountains, lonely as the stars, +Touchest reverberant bars +Of immemorial sorrow and amaze;-- +Keeping regret and memory awake, +And all the immortal ache +Of love that leans upon the past's sweet days +In retrospection!--now, oh, now, +Interpreter and heart-physician, thou, +Who gazest on the heaven and the hell +Of life, and singest each as well, +Touch with thy all-mellifluous finger-tips, +Or thy melodious lips, +This sickness named my soul, +Making it whole, +As is an echo of a chord, +Or some symphonic word, +Or sweet vibrating sigh, +That deep, resurgent still doth rise and die +On thy voluminous roll; +Part of the beauty and the mystery +That axles Earth with song; and as a slave, +Swings it around and 'round on each sonorous pole, +'Mid spheric harmony, +And choral majesty, +And diapasoning of wind and wave; +And speeds it on its far elliptic way +'Mid vasty anthemings of night and day.-- +O cosmic cry +Of two eternities, wherein we see +The phantasms, Death and Life, +At endless strife +Above the silence of a monster grave. + + + + +_Jotunheim_ + +I + + +Beyond the Northern Lights, in regions haunted +Of twilight, where the world is glacier planted, +And pale as Loki in his cavern when +The serpent's slaver burns him to the bones, +I saw the phantasms of gigantic men, +The prototypes of vastness, quarrying stones; +Great blocks of winter, glittering with the morn's +And evening's colors,--wild prismatic tones +Of boreal beauty.--Like the three gray Norns, +Silence and solitude and terror loomed +Around them where they labored. Walls arose, +Vast as the Andes when creation boomed +Insurgent fire; and through the rushing snows +Enormous battlements of tremendous ice, +Bastioned and turreted, I saw arise. + + +II + + +But who can sing the workmanship gigantic + That reared within its coruscating dome +The roaring fountain, hurling an Atlantic + Of streaming ice that flashed with flame and foam? +An opal spirit, various and many formed,-- +In whose clear heart reverberant fire stormed,-- + Seemed its inhabitant; and through pale halls, + And deep diaphanous walls, + And corridors of whiteness. + Auroral colors swarmed, + As rosy-flickering stains, +Or lambent green, or gold, or crimson, warmed +The pulsing crystal of the spirit's veins + With ever-changing brightness. +And through the Arctic night there went a voice, +As if the ancient Earth cried out, "Rejoice! + My heart is full of lightness!" + + +III + + +Here well might Thor, the god of war, +Harness the whirlwinds to his car, +While, mailed in storm, his iron arm +Heaves high his hammer's lava-form, +And red and black his beard streams back, +Like some fierce torrent scoriac, +Whose earthquake light glares through the night +Around some dark volcanic height; +And through the skies Valkyrian cries +Trumpet, as battleward he flies, +Death in his hair and havoc in his eyes. + + +IV + + +Still in my dreams I hear that fountain flowing; +Beyond all seeing and beyond all knowing; +Still in my dreams I see those wild walls glowing + With hues, Aurora-kissed; +And through huge halls fantastic phantoms going. + Vast shapes of snow and mist,-- +Sonorous clarions of the tempest blowing,-- + That trail dark banners by, + Cloudlike, underneath the sky + Of the caverned dome on high, + Carbuncle and amethyst.-- + Still I hear the ululation + Of their stormy exultation, + Multitudinous, and blending + In hoarse echoes, far, unending; + And, through halls of fog and frost, + Howling back, like madness lost + In the moonless mansion of + Its own demon-haunted love. + + +V + + +Still in my dreams I hear the mermaid singing; +The mermaid music at its portal ringing; +The mermaid song, that hinged with gold its door, + And, whispering evermore, + Hushed the ponderous hurl and roar + And vast æolian thunder + Of the chained tempests under + The frozen cataracts that were its floor.-- +And, blinding beautiful, I still behold +The mermaid there, combing her locks of gold, +While, at her feet, green as the Northern Seas, +Gambol her flocks of seals and walruses; +While, like a drift, her dog--a Polar bear-- +Lies by her, glowering through his shaggy hair. + + +VI + + +O wondrous house, built by supernal hands + In vague and ultimate lands! +Thy architects were behemoth wind and cloud, + That, laboring loud, +Mountained thy world foundations and uplifted + Thy skyey bastions drifted +Of piled eternities of ice and snow; + Where storms, like ploughmen, go, +Ploughing the deeps with awful hurricane; + Where, spouting icy rain, +The huge whale wallows; and through furious hail + Th' explorer's tattered sail +Drives like the wing of some terrific bird, + Where wreck and famine herd.-- +Home of the red Auroras and the gods! +He who profanes thy perilous threshold,--where + The ancient centuries lair, +And, glacier-throned, thy monarch, Winter, nods,-- + Let him beware! +Lest, coming on that hoary presence there, + Whose pitiless hand, + Above that hungry land, +An iceberg wields as sceptre, and whose crown + The North Star is, set in a band of frost, +He, too, shall feel the bitterness of that frown, + And, turned to stone, forevermore be lost. + + + + +_Dionysia_ + + +The day is dead; and in the west +The slender crescent of the moon-- +Diana's crystal-kindled crest-- +Sinks hillward in a silvery swoon. +What is the murmur in the dell? +The stealthy whisper and the drip?-- +A Dryad with her leaf-light trip? +Or Naiad o'er her fountain well?-- +Who, with white fingers for her comb, +Sleeks her blue hair, and from its curls +Showers slim minnows and pale pearls, +And hollow music of the foam. +What is it in the vistaed ways +That leans and springs, and stoops and sways?-- +The naked limbs of one who flees? +An Oread who hesitates +Before the Satyr form that waits, +Crouching to leap, that there she sees? +Or under boughs, reclining cool, +A Hamadryad, like a pool +Of moonlight, palely beautiful? +Or Limnad, with her lilied face, +More lovely than the misty lace +That haunts a star and gives it grace? +Or is it some Leimoniad, +In wildwood flowers dimly clad? +Oblong blossoms white as froth; +Or mottled like the tiger-moth; +Or brindled as the brows of death; +Wild of hue and wild of breath. +Here ethereal flame and milk +Blent with velvet and with silk; +Here an iridescent glow +Mixed with satin and with snow: +Pansy, poppy and the pale +Serpolet and galingale; +Mandrake and anemone, +Honey-reservoirs o' the bee; +Cistus and the cyclamen,-- +Cheeked like blushing Hebe this, +And the other white as is +Bubbled milk of Venus when +Cupid's baby mouth is pressed, +Rosy, to her rosy breast. +And, besides, all flowers that mate +With aroma, and in hue +Stars and rainbows duplicate +Here on earth for me and you. + +Yea! at last mine eyes can see! +'Tis no shadow of the tree +Swaying softly there, but she!-- +Mænad, Bassarid, Bacchant, +What you will, who doth enchant +Night with sensuous nudity. +Lo! again I hear her pant +Breasting through the dewy glooms-- +Through the glow-worm gleams and glowers +Of the starlight;--wood-perfumes +Swoon around her and frail showers +Of the leaflet-tilted rain. +Lo, like love, she comes again, +Through the pale, voluptuous dusk, +Sweet of limb with breasts of musk. +With her lips, like blossoms, breathing +Honeyed pungence of her kiss, +And her auburn tresses wreathing +Like umbrageous helichrys, +There she stands, like fire and snow, +In the moon's ambrosial glow, +Both her shapely loins low-looped +With the balmy blossoms, drooped, +Of the deep amaracus. +Spiritual yet sensual, +Lo, she ever greets me thus +In my vision; white and tall, +Her delicious body there,-- +Raimented with amorous air,-- +To my mind expresses all +The allurements of the world. +And once more I seem to feel +On my soul, like frenzy, hurled +All the passionate past.--I reel, +Greek again in ancient Greece, +In the Pyrrhic revelries; +In the mad and Mænad dance +Onward dragged with violence; +Pan and old Silenus and +Faunus and a Bacchant band +Round me. Wild my wine-stained hand +O'er tumultuous hair is lifted; +While the flushed and Phallic orgies +Whirl around me; and the marges +Of the wood are torn and rifted +With lascivious laugh and shout. +And barbarian there again,-- +Shameless with the shameless rout, +Bacchus lusting in each vein,-- +With her pagan lips on mine, +Like a god made drunk with wine, +On I reel; and, in the revels, +Her loose hair, the dance dishevels, +Blows, and 'thwart my vision swims +All the splendor of her limbs.... + +So it seems. Yet woods are lonely. +And when I again awake, +I shall find their faces only +Moonbeams in the boughs that shake; +And their revels, but the rush +Of night-winds through bough and brush. +Yet my dreaming--is it more +Than mere dreaming? Is some door +Opened in my soul? a curtain +Raised? to let me see for certain +I have lived that life before? + + + + +_The Last +Song_ + + +She sleeps; he sings to her. The day was long, +And, tired out with too much happiness, +She fain would have him sing of old Provence; +Quaint songs, that spoke of love in such soft tones, +Her restless soul was straight besieged of dreams, +And her wild heart beleagured of deep peace, +And heart and soul surrendered unto sleep.-- +Like perfect sculpture in the moon she lies, +Its pallor on her through heraldic panes +Of one tall casement's gulèd quarterings.-- +Beside her couch, an antique table, weighed +With gold and crystal; here, a carven chair, +Whereon her raiment,--that suggests sweet curves +Of shapely beauty,--bearing her limbs' impress, +Is richly laid: and, near the chair, a glass, +An oval mirror framed in ebony: +And, dim and deep,--investing all the room +With ghostly life of woven women and men, +And strange fantastic gloom, where shadows live,-- +Dark tapestry,--which in the gusts--that twinge +A grotesque cresset's slender star of light-- +Seems moved of cautious hands, assassin-like, +That wait the hour. + She alone, deep-haired +As rosy dawn, and whiter than a rose, +Divinely breasted as the Queen of Love, +Lies robeless in the glimmer of the moon, +Like Danaë within the golden shower. +Seated beside her aromatic rest, +In rapture musing on her loveliness, +Her knight and troubadour. A lute, aslope +The curious baldric of his tunic, glints +With pearl-reflections of the moon, that seem +The silent ghosts of long-dead melodies. +In purple and sable, slashed with solemn gold, +Like stately twilight o'er the snow-heaped hills, +He bends above her.-- + Have his hands forgot +Their craft, that they pause, idle on the strings? +His lips, their art, that they cease, speechless there?-- +His eyes are set.... What is it stills to stone +His hands, his lips? and mails him, head and heel, +In terrible marble, motionless and cold?-- +Behind the arras, can it be he feels, +Black-browed and grim, with eyes of sombre fire, +Death towers above him with uplifted sword? + + + + +_Romaunt of +the Oak_ + + +"I rode to death, for I fought for shame-- +The Lady Maurine of noble name, + +"The fair and faithless!--Though life be long +Is love the wiser?--Love made song + +"Of all my life; and the soul that crept +Before, arose like a star and leapt: + +"Still leaps with the love that it found untrue, +That it found unworthy.--Now run me through! + +"Yea, run me through! for meet and well, +And a jest for laughter of fiends in hell, + +"It is that I, who have done no wrong, +Should die by the hand of Hugh the Strong, + +"Of Hugh her leman!--What else could be +When the devil was judge twixt thee and me? + +"He splintered my lance, and my blade he broke-- +Now finish me thou 'neath the trysting oak!" ... + +The crest of his foeman,--a heart of white +In a bath of fire,--stooped i' the night; + +Stooped and laughed as his sword he swung, +Then galloped away with a laugh on his tongue.... + +But who is she in the gray, wet dawn, +'Mid the autumn shades like a shadow wan? + +Who kneels, one hand on her straining breast, +One hand on the dead man's bosom pressed? + +Her face is dim as the dead's; as cold +As his tarnished harness of steel and gold. + +O Lady Maurine! O Lady Maurine! +What boots it now that regret is keen? + +That his hair you smooth, that you kiss his brow +What boots it now? what boots it now?... + +She has haled him under the trysting oak, +The huge old oak that the creepers cloak. + +She has stood him, gaunt in his battered arms, +In its haunted hollow.--"Be safe from storms," + +She laughed as his cloven casque she placed +On his brow, and his riven shield she braced. + +Then sat and talked to the forest flowers +Through the lonely term of the day's pale hours. + +And stared and whispered and smiled and wept, +While nearer and nearer the evening crept. + +And, lo, when the moon, like a great gold bloom +Above the sorrowful trees did loom, + +She rose up sobbing, "O moon, come see +My bridegroom here in the old oak-tree! + +"I have talked to the flowers all day, all day, +For never a word had he to say. + +"He would not listen, he would not hear, +Though I wailed my longing into his ear. + +"O moon, steal in where he stands so grim, +And tell him I love him, and plead with him. + +"Soften his face that is cold and stern +And brighten his eyes and make them burn, + +"O moon, O moon, so my soul can see +That his heart still glows with love for me!" ... + +When the moon was set, and the woods were dark, +The wild deer came and stood as stark + +As phantoms with eyes of fire; or fled +Like a ghostly hunt of the herded dead. + +And the hoot-owl called; and the were-wolf snarled; +And a voice, in the boughs of the oak-tree gnarled,-- + +Like the whining rush of the hags that ride +To the witches' sabboth,--crooned and cried. + +And wrapped in his mantle of wind and cloud +The storm-fiend stalked through the forest loud. + +When she heard the dead man rattle and groan +As the oak was bent and its leaves were blown, + +And the lightning vanished and shimmered his mail, +Through the swirling sweep of the rain and hail, + +She seemed to hear him, who seemed to call,-- +"Come hither, Maurine, the wild leaves fall! + +"The wild leaves rustle, the wild leaves flee; +Come hither, Maurine, to the hollow tree! + +"To the trysting tree, to the tree once green; +Come hither, Maurine! come hither, Maurine!" ... + +They found her closed in his armored arms-- +Had he claimed his bride on that night of storms? + + + + +_Morgan le +Fay_ + + +In dim samite was she bedight, + And on her hair a hoop of gold, +Like fox-fire in the tawn moonlight, + Was glimmering cold. + +With soft gray eyes she gloomed and glowered; + With soft red lips she sang a song: +What knight might gaze upon her face, + Nor fare along? + +For all her looks were full of spells, + And all her words of sorcery; +And in some way they seemed to say + "Oh, come with me! + +"Oh, come with me! oh, come with me! + Oh, come with me, my love, Sir Kay!"-- +How should he know the witch, I trow, + Morgan le Fay? + +How should he know the wily witch, + With sweet white face and raven hair? +Who by her art bewitched his heart + And held him there. + +For soul and sense had waxed amort + To wold and weald, to slade and stream; +And all he heard was her soft word + As one adream. + +And all he saw was her bright eyes, + And her fair face that held him still; +And wild and wan she led him on + O'er vale and hill. + +Until at last a castle lay + Beneath the moon, among the trees; +Its Gothic towers old and gray + With mysteries. + +Tall in its hall an hundred knights + In armor stood with glaive in hand; +The following of some great King, + Lord of that land. + +Sir Bors, Sir Balin, and Gawain, + All Arthur's knights, and many mo; +But these in battle had been slain + Long years ago. + +But when Morgan with lifted hand + Moved down the hall, they louted low; +For she was Queen of Shadowland, + That woman of snow. + +Then from Sir Kay she drew away, + And mocking at him by her side,-- +"Behold, Sir Knights, the knave who slew + Your King," she cried. + +Then like one man those shadows raised + Their swords, whereon the moon glanced gray; +And clashing all strode from the wall + Against Sir Kay. + +And on his body, bent and bowed, + The hundred blades like one blade fell; +While over all rang long and loud + The mirth of Hell. + + + + +_The Dream +of Roderick_ + + +Below, the tawny Tagus swept +Past royal gardens, breathing balm; +Upon his couch the monarch slept; +The world was still; the night was calm. + +Gray, Gothic-gated, in the ray +Of moonrise, tower-and castle-crowned, +The city of Toledo lay +Beneath the terraced palace-ground. + +Again, he dreamed, in kingly sport +He sought the tree-sequestered path, +And watched the ladies of his Court +Within the marble-basined bath. + +Its porphyry stairs and fountained base +Shone, houried with voluptuous forms, +Where Andalusia vied in grace +With old Castile, in female charms. + +And laughter, song, and water-splash +Rang round the place, with stone arcaded, +As here a breast or limb would flash +Where beauty swam or beauty waded. + +And then, like Venus, from the wave +A maiden came, and stood below; +And by her side a woman slave +Bent down to dry her limbs of snow. + +Then on the tesselated bank, +Robed on with fragrance and with fire,-- +Like some exotic flower--she sank, +The type of all divine desire. + +Then her dark curls, that sparkled wet, +She parted from her perfect brows, +And, lo, her eyes, like lamps of jet +Within an alabaster house. + +And in his sleep the monarch sighed, +"Florinda!"--Dreaming still he moaned, +"Ah, would that I had died, had died! +I have atoned! I have atoned!" ... + +And then the vision changed: O'erhead +Tempest and darkness were unrolled, +Full of wild voices of the dead, +And lamentations manifold. + +And wandering shapes of gaunt despair +Swept by, with faces pale as pain, +Whose eyes wept blood and seemed to glare +Fierce curses on him through the rain. + +And then, it seemed, 'gainst blazing skies +A necromantic tower sate, +Crag-like on crags, of giant size; +Of adamant its walls and gate. + +And from the storm a hand of might +Red-rolled in thunder, reached among +The gate's huge bolts--that burst; and night +Clanged ruin as its hinges swung. + +Then far away a murmur trailed,-- +As of sad seas on cavern'd shores,-- +That grew into a voice that wailed, +"They come! they come! the Moors! the Moors!" + +And with deep boom of atabals +And crash of cymbals and wild peal +Of battle-bugles, from its walls +An army rushed in glimmering steel. + +And where it trod he saw the torch +Of conflagration stalk the skies, +And in the vanward of its march +The monster form of Havoc rise. + +And Paynim war-cries rent the storm, +Athwart whose firmament of flame, +Destruction reared an earthquake form +On wreck and death without a name ... + +And then again the vision changed: +Where flows the Guadalete, see, +The warriors of the Cross are ranged +Against the Crescent's chivalry. + +With roar of trumpets and of drums +They meet; and in the battle's van +He fights; and, towering towards him, comes +Florinda's father, Julian; + +And one-eyed Taric, great in war: +And where these couch their burning spears, +The Christian phalanx, near and far, +Goes down like corn before the shears. + +The Moslem wins: the Christian flies: +"Allah il Allah," hill and plain +Reverberate: the rocking skies, +"Allah il Allah," shout again. + +And then he dreamed the swing of swords +And hurl of arrows were no more; +But, louder than the howling hordes, +Strange silence fell on field and shore. + +And through the night, it seemed, he fled, +Upon a white steed like a star, +Across a field of endless dead, +Beneath a blood-red scimitar. + +Of sunset: And he heard a moan, +Beneath, around, on every hand-- +"Accurséd! Yea, what hast thou done +To bring this curse upon thy land?" + +And then an awful sense of wings: +And, lo! the answer--"'Twas his lust +That was his crime. Behold! E'en kings +Must reckon with Me. All are dust." + + + + +_Zyps of +Zirl_ + + +The Alps of the Tyrol are dark with pines, +Where, foaming under the mountain spines, +The Inn's long water sounds and shines. + +Beyond, are peaks where the morning weaves +An icy rose; and the evening leaves +The glittering gold of a thousand sheaves. + +Deep vines and torrents and glimmering haze, +And sheep-bells tinkling on mountain ways, +And fluting shepherds make sweet the days. + +The rolling mist, like a wandering fleece, +The great round moon in a mountain crease, +And a song of love make the nights all peace. + +Beneath the blue Tyrolean skies +On the banks of the Inn, that foams and flies, +The storied city of Innsbruck lies. + +With its mediaeval streets, that crook, +And its gabled houses, it has the look +Of a belfried town in a fairy-book. + +So wild the Tyrol that oft, 'tis said, +When the storm is out and the town in bed, +The howling of wolves sweeps overhead. + +And oft the burgher, sitting here +In his walled rose-garden, hears the clear +Shrill scream of the eagle circling near. + +And this is the tale that the burghers tell:-- +The Abbot of Wiltau stood at his cell +Where the Solstein lifts its pinnacle. + +A mighty summit of bluffs and crags +That frowns on the Inn; where the forest stags +Have worn a path to the water-flags. + +The Abbot of Wiltau stood below; +And he was aware of a plume and bow +On the precipice there in the morning's glow. + +A chamois, he saw, from span to span +Had leapt; and after it leapt a man; +And he knew 't was the Kaiser Maxmilian. + +But, see! though rash as the chamois he, +His foot less sure. And verily +If the King should miss ... "Jesu, Marie! + +"The King hath missed!"--And, look, he falls! +Rolls headlong out to the headlong walls. +What saint shall save him on whom he calls? + +What saint shall save him, who struggles there +On the narrow ledge by the eagle's lair, +With hooked hands clinging 'twixt earth and air? + +The Abbot, he crosses himself in dread-- +"Let prayers go up for the nearly dead, +And the passing-bell be tolled," he said. + +"For the House of Hapsburg totters; see, +How raveled the thread of its destiny, +Sheer hung between cloud and rock!" quoth he. + +But hark! where the steeps of the peak reply, +Is it an eagle's echoing cry? +And the flitting shadow, its plumes on high? + +No voice of the eagle is that which rings! +And the shadow, a wiry man who swings +Down, down where the desperate Kaiser clings. + +The _crampons_ bound to his feet, he leaps +Like a chamois now; and again he creeps +Or twists, like a snake, o'er the fearful deeps. + +"By his cross-bow, baldrick, and cap's black curl," +Quoth the Abbot below, "I know the churl! +'T is the hunted outlaw Zyps of Zirl. + +"Upon whose head, or dead or alive, +The Kaiser hath posted a price.--Saints shrive +The King!" quoth Wiltau. "Who may contrive + +"To save him now that his foe is there?"-- +But, listen! again through the breathless air +What words are those that the echoes bear? + +"Courage, my King!--To the rescue, ho!" +The wild voice rings like a twanging bow, +And the staring Abbot stands mute below. + +And, lo! the hand of the outlaw grasps +The arm of the King--and death unclasps +Its fleshless fingers from him who gasps. + +And how he guides! where the clean cliffs wedge +Them flat to their faces; by chasm and ledge +He helps the King from the merciless edge. + +Then up and up, past bluffs that shun +The rashest chamois; where eagles sun +Fierce wings and brood; where the mists are spun. + +And safe at last stand Kaiser and churl +On the mountain path where the mosses curl-- +And this the revenge of Zyps of Zirl. + + + + +_The +Glowworm_ + + +How long had I sat there and had not beheld +The gleam of the glow-worm till something compelled!... + +The heaven was starless, the forest was deep, +And the vistas of darkness stretched silent in sleep. + +And late 'mid the trees had I lingered until +No thing was awake but the lone whippoorwill. + +And haunted of thoughts for an hour I sat +On a lichen-gray rock where the moss was a mat. + +And thinking of one whom my heart had held dear, +Like terrible waters, a gathering fear. + +Came stealing upon me with all the distress +Of loss and of yearning and powerlessness: + +Till the hopes and the doubts and the sleepless unrest +That, swallow-like, built in the home of my breast, + +Now hither, now thither, now heavenward flew, +Wild-winged as the winds are: now suddenly drew + +My soul to abysses of nothingness where +All light was a shadow, all hope, a despair: + +Where truth, that religion had set upon high, +The darkness distorted and changed to a lie: + +And dreams of the beauty ambition had fed +Like leaves of the autumn fell blighted and dead. + +And I rose with my burden of anguish and doom, +And cried, "O my God, had I died in the womb! + +"Than born into night, with no hope of the morn, +An heir unto shadows, to live so forlorn! + +"All effort is vain; and the planet called Faith +Sinks down; and no power is real but death. + +"Oh, light me a torch in the deepening dark +So my sick soul may follow, my sad heart may mark!"-- + +And then in the darkness the answer!--It came +From Earth not from Heaven--a glimmering flame, + +Behold, at my feet! In the shadow it shone +Mysteriously lovely and dimly alone: + +An ember; a sparkle of dew and of glower; +Like the lamp that a spirit hangs under a flower: + +As goldenly green as the phosphorus star +A fairy may wear in her diadem's bar: + +An element essence of moonlight and dawn +That, trodden and trampled, burns on and burns on. + +And hushed was my soul with the lesson of light +That God had revealed to me there in the night: + +Though mortal its structure, material its form, +The spiritual message of worm unto worm. + + + + +_Ghosts_ + + +Was it the strain of the waltz that, repeating +"Love," so bewitched me? or only the gleam +There of the lustres, that set my heart beating, +Feeling your presence as one feels a dream? + +For, on a sudden, the woman of fashion, +Soft at my side in her diamonds and lace, +Vanished, and pale with reproach or with passion, +You, my dead sweetheart, smiled up in my face. + +Music, the nebulous lights, and the sifting +Fragrance of women made amorous the air; +Born of these three and my thoughts you came drifting, +Clad in dim muslin, a rose in your hair. + +There in the waltz, that followed the lancers, +Hard to my breast did I crush you and hold; +Far through the stir and the throng of the dancers +Onward I bore you as often of old. + +Pale were your looks; and the rose in your tresses +Paler of hue than the dreams we have lost;-- +"Who," then I said, "is it sees or who guesses, +Here in the hall, that I dance with a ghost?" + +Gone! And the dance and the music are ended. +Gone! And the rapture dies out of the skies. +And, on my arm, in her elegance splendid, +The woman of fashion smiles up in my eyes. + +Had I forgotten? and did you remember?-- +You, who are dead, whom I cannot forget; +You, for whose sake all my heart is an ember +Covered with ashes of dreams and regret. + + + + +_The Purple +Valleys_ + + +Far in the purple valleys of illusion +I see her waiting, like the soul of music, +With deep eyes, lovelier than cerulean pansies, +Shadow and fire, yet merciless as poison; +With red lips, sweeter than Arabian storax, +Yet bitterer than myrrh.--O tears and kisses! +O eyes and lips, that haunt my soul forever! + +Again Spring walks transcendent on the mountains: +The woods are hushed: the vales are blue with shadows: +Above the heights, steeped in a thousand splendors, +Like some vast canvas of the gods, hangs burning +The sunset's wild sciography: and slowly +The moon treads heaven's proscenium,--night's stately +White queen of love and tragedy and madness. + +Again I know forgotten dreams and longings; +Ideals lost; desires dead and buried +Beside the altar sacrifice erected +Within the heart's high sanctuary. Strangely +Again I know the horror and the rapture, +The utterless awe, the joy akin to anguish, +The terror and the worship of the spirit. + +Again I feel her eyes pierce through and through me; +Her deep eyes, lovelier than imperial pansies, +Velvet and flame, through which her fierce will holds me, +Powerless and tame, and draws me on and onward +To sad, unsatisfied and animal yearnings, +Wild, unrestrained--the brute within the human-- +To fling me panting on her mouth and bosom. + +Again I feel her lips like ice and fire, +Her red lips, odorous as Arabian storax, +Fragrance and fire, within whose kiss destruction +Lies serpent-like. Intoxicating languors +Resistlessly embrace me, soul and body; +And we go drifting, drifting--she is laughing-- +Outcasts of God, into the deep's abysm. + + + + +_The Land +of Illusion_ + +I + + +So we had come at last, my soul and I, + Into that land of shadowy plain and peak, + On which the dawn seemed ever about to break +On which the day seemed ever about to die. + + +II + + +Long had we sought fulfillment of our dreams, + The everlasting wells of Joy and Youth; + Long had we sought the snow-white flow'r of Truth, +That blooms eternal by eternal streams. + + +III + + +And, fonder still, we hoped to find the sweet + Immortal presence, Love; the bird Delight + Beside her; and, eyed with sidereal night, +Faith, like a lion, fawning at her feet. + + +IV + + +But, scorched and barren, in its arid well, + We found our dreams' forgotten fountain-head; + And by black, bitter waters, crushed and dead, +Among wild weeds, Truth's trampled asphodel. + + +V + + +And side by side with pallid Doubt and Pain, + Not Love, but Grief did meet us there: afar + We saw her, like a melancholy star, +Or pensive moon, move towards us o'er the plain. + + +VI + + +Sweet was her face as song that sings of home; + And filled our hearts with vague, suggestive spells + Of pathos, as sad ocean fills its shells +With sympathetic moanings of its foam. + + +VII + + +She raised one hand and pointed silently, + Then passed; her eyes, gaunt with a thirst unslaked, + Were worlds of woe, where tears in torrents ached, +Yet never fell. And like a winter sea,-- + + +VIII + + +Whose caverned crags are haunts of wreck and wrath, + That house the condor pinions of the storm,-- + My soul replied; and, weeping, arm in arm, +To'ards those dim hills, by that appointed path, + + +IX + + +We turned and went. Arrived, we did discern + How Beauty beckoned, white 'mid miles of flowers, + Through which, behold, the amaranthine Hours +Like maidens went each holding up an urn; + + +X + + +Wherein, it seemed--drained from long chalices + Of those slim flow'rs--they bore mysterious wine; + A poppied vintage, full of sleep divine +And pale forgetting of all miseries. + + +XI + + +Then to my soul I said, "No longer weep. + Come, let us drink; for hateful is the sky, + And earth is full of care, and life's a lie. +So let us drink; yea, let us drink and sleep." + + +XII + + +Then from their brimming urns we drank sweet must, + While, all around us, rose-crowned faces laughed + Into our eyes; but hardly had we quaffed +When, one by one, these crumbled into dust. + + +XIII + + +And league on league the eminence of blooms, + That flashed and billowed like a summer sea, + Rolled out a waste of thorns and tombs; where bee +And butterfly and bird hung dead in looms + + +XIV + + +Of worm and spider. And through tomb and brier, + A thin wind, parched with thirsty dust and sand, + Went wailing as if mourning some lost land +Of perished empire, Babylon or Tyre. + + +XV + + +Long, long with blistered feet we wandered in + That land of ruins, through whose sky of brass + Hate's Harpy shrieked; and in whose iron grass +The Hydra hissed of undestroyable Sin. + + +XVI + + +And there at last, behold, the House of Doom,-- + Red, as if Hell had glared it into life, + Blood-red, and howling with incessant strife,-- +With burning battlements, towered in the gloom. + + +XVII + + +And throned within sat Darkness.--Who might gaze + Upon that form, that threatening presence there, + Crowned with the flickering corpse-lights of Despair, +And yet escape sans madness and amaze? + + +XVIII + + +And we had hoped to find among these hills + The House of Beauty!--Curst, yea, thrice accurst, + The hope that lures one on from last to first +With vain illusions that no time fulfills! + + +XIX + + +Why will we struggle to attain, and strive, + When all we gain is but an empty dream?-- + Better, unto my thinking, doth it seem +To end it all and let who will survive; + + +XX + + +To find at last all beauty is but dust; + That love and sorrow are the very same; + That joy is only suffering's sweeter name; +And sense is but the synonym of lust. + + +XXI + + +Far better, yea, to me it seems to die; + To set glad lips against the lips of Death-- + The only thing God gives that comforteth, +The only thing we do not find a lie. + + + + +_Spirit of +Dreams_ + +I + + +Where hast thou folded thy pinions, + Spirit of Dreams? +Hidden elusive garments + Woven of gleams? +In what divine dominions, + Brighter than day, +Far from the world's dark torments, + Dost thou stay, dost thou stay?-- +When shall my yearnings reach thee + Again? +Not in vain let my soul beseech thee! + Not in vain! not in vain! + + +II + + +I have longed for thee as a lover + For her, the one; +As a brother for a sister + Long dead and gone. +I have called thee over and over + Names sweet to hear; +With words than music trister, + And thrice as dear. +How long must my sad heart woo thee, + Yet fail? +How long must my soul pursue thee, + Nor avail, nor avail? + + +III + + +All night hath thy loving mother, + Beautiful Sleep, +Lying beside me, listened + And heard me weep. +But ever thou soughtest another + Who sought thee not; +For him thy soft smile glistened-- + I was forgot. +When shall my soul behold thee + As before? +When shall my heart infold thee?-- + Nevermore? nevermore? + + + + +LINES AND LYRICS + + + + +_To a Wind-Flower_ + +I + + +Teach me the secret of thy loveliness, + That, being made wise, I may aspire to be +As beautiful in thought, and so express + Immortal truths to earth's mortality; +Though to my soul ability be less + Than 't is to thee, O sweet anemone. + + +II + + +Teach me the secret of thy innocence, + That in simplicity I may grow wise; +Asking from Art no other recompense + Than the approval of her own just eyes; +So may I rise to some fair eminence, + Though less than thine, O cousin of the skies. + + +III + + +Teach me these things; through whose high knowledge, I,-- + When Death hath poured oblivion through my veins, +And brought me home, as all are brought, to lie + In that vast house, common to serfs and Thanes,-- +I shall not die, I shall not utterly die, + For beauty born of beauty--_that_ remains. + + + + +_Microcosm_ + + +The memory of what we've lost +Is with us more than what we've won; +Perhaps because we count the cost +By what we could, yet have not done. + +'Twixt act and purpose fate hath drawn +Invisible threads we can not break, +And puppet-like these move us on +The stage of life, and break or make. + +Less than the dust from which we're wrought, +We come and go, and still are hurled +From change to change, from naught to naught, +Heirs of oblivion and the world. + + + + +_Fortune_ + + +Within the hollowed hand of God, +Blood-red they lie, the dice of fate, +That have no time nor period, +And know no early and no late. + +Postpone you can not, nor advance +Success or failure that's to be; +All fortune, being born of chance, +Is bastard-child to destiny. + +Bow down your head, or hold it high, +Consent, defy--no smallest part +Of this you change, although the die +Was fashioned from your living heart. + + + + +_Death_ + + +Through some strange sense of sight or touch +I find what all have found before, +The presence I have feared so much, +The unknown's immaterial door. + +I seek not and it comes to me: +I do not know the thing I find: +The fillet of fatality +Drops from my brows that made me blind. + +Point forward now or backward, light! +The way I take I may not choose: +Out of the night into the night, +And in the night no certain clews. + +But on the future, dim and vast, +And dark with dust and sacrifice, +Death's towering ruin from the past +Makes black the land that round me lies. + + + + +_The +Soul_ + + +An heritage of hopes and fears +And dreams and memory, +And vices of ten thousand years +God gives to thee. + +A house of clay, the home of Fate, +Haunted of Love and Sin, +Where Death stands knocking at the gate +To let him in. + + + + +_Conscience_ + + +Within the soul are throned two powers, +One, Love; one, Hate. Begot of these, +And veiled between, a presence towers, +The shadowy keeper of the keys. + +With wild command or calm persuasion +This one may argue, that compel; +Vain are concealment and evasion-- +For each he opens heaven and hell. + + + + +_Youth_ + +I + + +Morn's mystic rose is reddening on the hills, +Dawn's irised nautilus makes glad the sea; +There is a lyre of flame that throbs and fills +Far heaven and earth with hope's wild ecstasy.-- + With lilied field and grove, + Haunts of the turtle-dove, + Here is the land of Love. + + +II + + +The chariot of the noon makes blind the blue +As towards the goal his burning axle glares; +There is a fiery trumpet thrilling through +Wide heaven and earth with deeds of one who dares.-- + With peaks of splendid name, + Wrapped round with astral flame, + Here is the land of Fame. + + +III + + +The purple priesthood of the evening waits +With golden pomp within the templed skies; +There is a harp of worship at the gates +Of heaven and earth that bids the soul arise.-- + With columned cliffs and long + Vales, music breathes among, + Here is the land of Song. + + +IV + + +Moon-crowned, the epic of the night unrolls +Its starry utterance o'er height and deep; +There is a voice of beauty at the souls +Of heaven and earth that lulls the heart asleep.-- + With storied woods and streams, + Where marble glows and gleams, + Here is the land of Dreams. + + + + +_Life's +Seasons_ + +I + + +When all the world was Mayday, + And all the skies were blue, +Young innocence made playday + Among the flowers and dew; +Then all of life was Mayday, + And clouds were none or few. + + +II + + +When all the world was Summer, + And morn shone overhead, +Love was the sweet newcomer + Who led youth forth to wed; +Then all of life was Summer, + And clouds were golden red. + + +III + + +When earth was all October, + And days were gray with mist, +On woodways, sad and sober, + Grave memory kept her tryst; +Then life was all October, + And clouds were twilight-kissed. + + +IV + + +Now all the world's December, + And night is all alarm, +Above the last dim ember + Grief bends to keep him warm; +Now all of life's December, + And clouds are driven storm. + + + + +_Old +Homes_ + + +Old homes among the hills! I love their gardens, +Their old rock-fences, that our day inherits; +Their doors, 'round which the great trees stand like wardens; +Their paths, down which the shadows march like spirits; +Broad doors and paths that reach bird-haunted gardens. + +I see them gray among their ancient acres, +Severe of front, their gables lichen-sprinkled,-- +Like gentle-hearted, solitary Quakers, +Grave and religious, with kind faces wrinkled,-- +Serene among their memory-hallowed acres. + +Their gardens, banked with roses and with lilies-- +Those sweet aristocrats of all the flowers-- +Where Springtime mints her gold in daffodillies, +And Autumn coins her marigolds in showers, +And all the hours are toilless as the lilies. + +I love their orchards where the gay woodpecker +Flits, flashing o'er you, like a winged jewel; +Their woods, whose floors of moss the squirrels checker +With half-hulled nuts; and where, in cool renewal, +The wild brooks laugh, and raps the red woodpecker. + +Old homes! old hearts! Upon my soul forever +Their peace and gladness lie like tears and laughter; +Like love they touch me, through the years that sever, +With simple faith; like friendship, draw me after +The dreamy patience that is theirs forever. + + + + +_Field and +Forest Call_ + + +There is a field, that leans upon two hills, +Foamed o'er with flowers and twinkling with clear rills; +That in its girdle of wild acres bears +The anodyne of rest that cures all cares; +Wherein soft wind and sun and sound are blent +And fragrance--as in some old instrument +Sweet chords--calm things, that nature's magic spell +Distils from heaven's azure crucible, +And pours on Earth to make the sick mind well. + There lies the path, they say-- + Come, away! come, away! + +There is a forest, lying 'twixt two streams, +Sung through of birds and haunted of dim dreams; +That in its league-long hand of trunk and leaf +Lifts a green wand that charms away all grief; +Wrought of quaint silence and the stealth of things, +Vague, whispering touches, gleams and twitterings, +Dews and cool shadows--that the mystic soul +Of nature permeates with suave control, +And waves o'er earth to make the sad heart whole. + There lies the road, they say-- + Come, away! come, away! + + + + +_Meeting in +Summer_ + + + A tranquil bar +Of rosy twilight under dusk's first star. + + A glimmering sound +Of whispering waters over grassy ground. + + A sun-sweet smell +Of fresh-reaped hay from dewy field and dell. + + A lazy breeze +Jostling the ripeness from the apple-trees. + + A vibrant cry, +Passing, then gone, of bullbats in the sky. + + And faintly now +The katydid upon the shadowy bough. + + And far-off then +The little owl within the lonely glen. + + And soon, full soon, +The silvery arrival of the moon. + + And, to your door, +The path of roses I have trod before. + + And, sweetheart, you! +Among the roses and the moonlit dew. + + + + +_Swinging_ + + +Under the boughs of spring +She swung in the old rope-swing. + +Her cheeks, with their happy blood, +Were pink as the apple-bud. + +Her eyes, with their deep delight, +Were glad as the stars of night. + +Her curls, with their romp and fun, +Were hoiden as wind and sun. + +Her lips, with their laughter shrill, +Were wild as a woodland rill. + +Under the boughs of spring +She swung in the old rope-swing. + +And I,--who leaned on the fence, +Watching her innocence, + +As, under the boughs that bent, +Now high, now low, she went, + +In her soul the ecstasies +Of the stars, the brooks, the breeze,-- + +Had given the rest of my years, +With their blessings, and hopes, and fears, + +To have been as she was then; +And, just for a moment, again + +A boy in the old rope-swing +Under the boughs of spring. + + + + +_Rosemary_ + + +Above her, pearl and rose the heavens lay; +Around her, flowers scattered earth with gold, +Or down the path in insolence held sway-- +Like cavaliers who ride the elves' highway-- +Scarlet and blue, within a garden old. + +Beyond the hills, faint-heard through belts of wood, +Bells, Sabbath-sweet, swooned from some far-off town; +Gamboge and gold, broad sunset colors strewed +The purple west as if, with God imbued, +Her mighty pallet Nature there laid down. + +Amid such flowers, underneath such skies, +Embodying all life knows of sweet and fair, +She stood; love's dreams in girlhood's face and eyes, +White as a star that comes to emphasize +The mingled beauty of the earth and air. + +Behind her, seen through vines and orchard trees, +Gray with its twinkling windows--like the face +Of calm old-age that sits and smiles at ease-- +Porched with old roses, haunts of honey-bees, +The homestead loomed dim in a glimmering space. + +Ah! whom she waited in the afterglow, +Soft-eyed and dreamy 'mid the lily and rose, +I do not know, I do not wish to know;-- +It is enough I keep her picture so, +Hung up, like poetry, o'er my life's dull prose. + +A fragrant picture, where I still may find +Her face untouched of sorrow or regret, +Unspoiled of contact, ever young and kind, +Glad spiritual sweetheart of my soul and mind, +She had not been, perhaps, if we had met. + + + + +_Ghost +Stories_ + + +When the hoot of the owl comes over the hill, +At twelve o'clock when the night is still, +And pale on the pools, where the creek-frogs croon, +Glimmering gray is the light o' the moon; +And under the willows, where waters lie, +The torch of the firefly wanders by; +They say that the miller walks here, walks here, +All covered with chaff, with his crooked staff, +And his horrible hobble and hideous laugh; +The old lame miller hung many a year: +When the hoot of the owl comes over the hill, +He walks alone by the rotting mill. + +When the bark of the fox comes over the hill, +At twelve o'clock when the night is shrill, +And faint, on the ways where the crickets creep, +The starlight fails and the shadows sleep; +And under the willows, that toss and moan, +The glow-worm kindles its lanthorn lone; +They say that a woman floats dead, floats dead, +In a weedy space that the lilies lace, +A curse in her eyes and a smile on her face, +The miller's young wife with a gash in her head: +When the bark of the fox comes over the hill, +She floats alone by the rotting mill. + +When the howl of the hound comes over the hill, +At twelve o'clock when the night is ill, +And the thunder mutters and forests sob, +And the fox-fire glows like the lamp of a Lob; +And under the willows, that gloom and glance, +The will-o'-the-wisps hold a devils' dance; +They say that that crime is re-acted again, +And each cranny and chink of the mill doth wink +With the light o' hell or the lightning's blink, +And a woman's shrieks come wild through the rain: +When the howl of the hound comes over the hill, +That murder returns to the rotting mill. + + + + +_Dolce far +Niente_ + +I + + +Over the bay as our boat went sailing + Under the skies of Augustine, +Far to the East lay the ocean paling + Under the skies of Augustine.-- +There, in the boat as we sat together, +Soft in the glow of the turquoise weather, +Light as the foam or a seagull's feather, +Fair of form and of face serene, +Sweet at my side I felt you lean, +As over the bay our boat went sailing + Under the skies of Augustine. + + +II + + +Over the bay as our boat went sailing + Under the skies of Augustine, +Pine and palm, to the West, hung, trailing + Under the skies of Augustine.-- +Was it the wind that sighed above you? +Was it the wave that whispered of you? +Was it my soul that said "I love you"? +Was it your heart that murmured between, +Answering, shy as a bird unseen? +As over the bay our boat went sailing + Under the skies of Augustine. + + +III + + +Over the bay as our boat went sailing + Under the skies of Augustine, +Gray and low flew the heron wailing + Under the skies of Augustine.-- +Naught was spoken. We watched the simple +Gulls wing past. Your hat's white wimple +Shadowed your eyes. And your lips, a-dimple, +Smiled and seemed from your soul to wean +An inner beauty, an added sheen, +As over the bay our boat went sailing + Under the skies of Augustine. + + +IV + + +Over the bay as our boat went sailing + Under the skies of Augustine, +Red on the marshes the day flared, failing + Under the skies of Augustine.-- +Was it your thought, or the transitory +Gold of the West, like a dreamy story, +Bright on your brow, that I read? the glory +And grace of love, like a rose-crowned queen +Pictured pensive in mind and mien? +As over the bay our boat went sailing + Under the skies of Augustine. + + +V + + +Over the bay as our boat went sailing + Under the skies of Augustine, +Wan on the waters the mist lay veiling + Under the skies of Augustine.-- +Was it the joy that begot the sorrow?-- +Joy that was filled with the dreams that borrow +Prescience sad of a far To-morrow,-- +There in the Now that was all too keen, +That shadowed the fate that might intervene? +As over the bay our boat went sailing + Under the skies of Augustine. + + +VI + + +Over the bay as our boat went sailing + Under the skies of Augustine, +The marsh-hen cried and the tide was ailing + Under the skies of Augustine.-- +And so we parted. No vows were spoken. +No faith was plighted that might be broken. +But deep in our hearts each bore a token +Of life and of love and of all they mean, +Beautiful, thornless and ever green, +As over the bay our boat went sailing + Under the skies of Augustine. + + +_St. Augustine, Fla_. + + + + +_Words_ + + +I cannot tell what I would tell thee, + What I would say, what thou shouldst hear: +Words of the soul that should compell thee, + Words of the heart to draw thee near. + +For when thou smilest, thou, who fillest + My life with joy, and I would speak, +'T is then my lips and tongue are stillest, + Knowing all language is too weak. + +Look in my eyes: read there confession: + The truest love has least of art: +Nor needs it words for its expression + When soul speaks soul and heart speaks heart. + + + + +_Reasons_ + +I + + +Yea, why I love thee let my heart repeat: + I look upon thy face and then divine + How men could die for beauty, such as thine,-- + Deeming it sweet +To lay my life and manhood at thy feet, + And for a word, a glance, + Do deeds of old romance. + + +II + + +Yea, why I love thee let my heart unfold: + I look into thy heart and then I know + The wondrous poetry of the long-ago, + The Age of Gold, +That speaks strange music, that is old, so old, + Yet young, as when 't was born, + With all the youth of morn. + + +III + + +Yea, why I love thee let my heart conclude: + I look into thy soul and realize + The undiscovered meaning of the skies,-- + That long have wooed +The world with far ideals that elude,-- + Out of whose dreams, maybe, + God shapes reality. + + + + +_Evasion_ + + +Why do I love you, who have never given + My heart encouragement or any cause? +Is it because, as earth is held of heaven, + Your soul holds mine by some mysterious laws? +Perhaps, unseen of me, within your eyes + The answer lies, the answer lies. + + +II + + +From your sweet lips no word hath ever fallen + To tell my heart its love is not in vain-- +The bee that wooes the flow'r hath honey and pollen + To cheer him on and bring him back again: +But what have I, your other friends above, + To feed my love, to feed my love? + + +III + + +Still, still you are my dream and my desire; + Your love is an allurement and a dare +Set for attainment, like a shining spire, + Far, far above me in the starry air: +And gazing upward, 'gainst the hope of hope, + I breast the slope, I breast the slope. + + + + +_In +May_ + +I + + +When you and I in the hills went Maying, + You and I in the sweet May weather, + The birds, that sang on the boughs together, +There in the green of the woods, kept saying + All that my heart was saying low, + Love, as glad as the May's glad glow,-- + And did you know? +When you and I in the hills went Maying. + + +II + + +There where the brook on its rocks went winking, + There by its banks where the May had led us, + Flowers, that bloomed in the woods and meadows, +Azure and gold at our feet, kept thinking + All that my soul was thinking there, + Love, as pure as the May's pure air,-- + And did you care? +There where the brook on its rocks went winking. + + +III + + +Whatever befalls through fate's compelling, + Should our paths unite or our pathways sever, + In the Mays to come I shall feel forever +The wildflowers thinking, the wildbirds telling + The same fond love that my heart then knew, + Love unspeakable, deep and true,-- + But what of you? +Whatever befalls through fate's compelling. + + + + +_Will You +Forget?_ + + +In years to come, will you forget, +Dear girl, how often we have met? +And I have gazed into your eyes +And there beheld no sad regret +To cloud the gladness of their skies, +While in your heart--unheard as yet-- +Love slept, oblivious of my sighs?-- +In years to come, will you forget? + +Ah, me! I only pray that when, +In other days, some man of men +Has taught those eyes to laugh and weep +With joy and sorrow, hearts must ken +When love awakens in their deep,-- +I only pray some memory then, +Or sad or sweet, you still will keep +Of me and love that might have been. + + + + +_Clouds of the +Autumn Night_ + + +Clouds of the autumn night, + Under the hunter's moon,-- +Ghostly and windy white,-- + Whither, like leaves wild strewn, +Take ye your stormy flight? + +Out of the west, where dusk, + From her rich windowsill, +Leaned with a wand of tusk, + Witch-like, and wood and hill +Phantomed with mist and musk. + +Into the east, where morn + Sleeps in a shadowy close, +Shut with a gate of horn, + 'Round which the dreams she knows +Flutter with rose and thorn. + +Blow from the west, oh, blow, + Clouds that the tempest steers! +And with your rain and snow + Bear of my heart the tears, +And of my soul the woe. + +Into the east then pass, + Clouds that the night winds sweep! +And on her grave's sear grass, + There where she lies asleep. +There let them fall, alas! + + + + +_The Glory +and the Dream_ + + +There in the past I see her as of old, +Blue-eyed and hazel-haired, within a room +Dim with a twilight of tenebrious gold; +Her white face sensuous as a delicate bloom +Night opens in the tropics. Fold on fold +Pale laces drape her; and a frail perfume, +As of a moonlit primrose brimmed with rain, +Breathes from her presence, drowsing heart and brain. + +Her head is bent; some red carnations glow +Deep in her heavy hair; her large eyes gleam;-- +Bright sister stars of those twin worlds of snow, +Her breasts, through which the veined violets stream;-- +I hold her hand; her smile comes sweetly slow +As thoughts of love that haunt a poet's dream; +And at her feet once more I sit and hear +Wild words of passion--dead this many a year. + + + + +_Snow +and Fire_ + + +Deep-hearted roses of the purple dusk +And lilies of the morn; +And cactus, holding up a slender tusk +Of fragrance on a thorn; +All heavy flowers, sultry with their musk, +Her presence puts to scorn. + +For she is like the pale, pale snowdrop there, +Scentless and chaste of heart; +The moonflower, making spiritual the air, +Like some pure work of art; +Divine and holy, exquisitely fair, +And virtue's counterpart. + +Yet when her eyes gaze into mine, and when +Her lips to mine are pressed,-- +Why are my veins all fire then? and then +Why should her soul suggest +Voluptuous perfumes, maddening unto men, +And prurient with unrest? + + + + +_Restraint_ + + +Dear heart and love! what happiness to sit +And watch the firelight's varying shade and shine +On thy young face; and through those eyes of thine-- +As through glad windows--mark fair fancies flit +In sumptuous chambers of thy soul's chaste wit +Like graceful women: then to take in mine +Thy hand, whose pressure brims my heart's divine +Hushed rapture as with music exquisite! +When I remember how thy look and touch +Sway, like the moon, my blood with ecstasy, +I dare not think to what fierce heaven might lead +Thy soft embrace; or in thy kiss how much +Sweet hell,--beyond all help of me,--might be, +Where I were lost, where I were lost indeed! + + + + +_Why Should +I Pine_? + + +Why should I pine? when there in Spain +Are eyes to woo, and not in vain; +Dark eyes, and dreamily divine: +And lips, as red as sunlit wine; + +Sweet lips, that never know disdain: +And hearts, for passion over fain; +Fond, trusting hearts that know no stain + Of scorn for hearts that love like mine.-- + Why should I pine? + +Because all dreams I entertain +Of beauty wear thy form, Elain; + And e'en their lips and eyes are thine: + So though I gladly would resign +All love, I love, and still complain, + "Why should I pine?" + + + + +_When Lydia +Smiles_ + + +When Lydia smiles, I seem to see +The walls around me fade and flee; + And, lo, in haunts of hart and hind + I seem with lovely Rosalind, +In Arden 'neath the greenwood tree: +The day is drowsy with the bee, +And one wild bird flutes dreamily, + And all the mellow air is kind, + When Lydia smiles. + +Ah, me! what were this world to me +Without her smile!--What poetry, + What glad hesperian paths I find + Of love, that lead my soul and mind +To happy hills of Arcady, + When Lydia smiles! + + + + +_The +Rose_ + + +You have forgot: it once was red +With life, this rose, to which you said,-- + When, there in happy days gone by, + You plucked it, on my breast to lie,-- +"Sleep there, O rose! how sweet a bed +Is thine!--And, heart, be comforted; +For, though we part and roses shed + Their leaves and fade, love cannot die.--" + You have forgot. + +So by those words of yours I'm led +To send it you this day you wed. + Look well upon it. You, as I, + Should ask it now, without a sigh, +If love can lie as it lies dead.-- + You have forgot. + + + + +_A Ballad +of Sweethearts_ + + +Summer may come, in sun-blonde splendor, +To reap the harvest that Springtime sows; +And Fall lead in her old defender, + Winter, all huddled up in snows: + Ever a-south the love-wind blows +Into my heart, like a vane asway + From face to face of the girls it knows-- +But who is the fairest it's hard to say. + +If Carrie smile or Maud look tender, + Straight in my bosom the gladness glows; +But scarce at their side am I all surrender + When Gertrude sings where the garden grows: + And my heart is a bloom, like the red rose shows +For her hand to gather and toss away, + Or wear on her breast, as her fancy goes-- +But who is the fairest it's hard to say. + +Let Laura pass, as a sapling slender, + Her cheek a berry, her mouth a rose,-- +Or Blanche or Helen,--to each I render + The worship due to the charms she shows: + But Mary's a poem when these are prose; +Here at her feet my life I lay; + All of devotion to her it owes-- +But who is the fairest it's hard to say. + +How _can_ my heart of my hand dispose? + When Ruth and Clara, and Kate and May, +In form and feature no flaw disclose-- + But who is the fairest it's hard to say. + + + + +_Her +Portrait_ + + +Were I an artist, Lydia, I + Would paint you as you merit, +Not as my eyes, but dreams, descry; + Not in the flesh, but spirit. + +The canvas I would paint you on + Should be a bit of heaven; +My brush, a sunbeam; pigments, dawn + And night and starry even. + +Your form and features to express, + Likewise your soul's chaste whiteness, +I'd take the primal essences + Of darkness and of brightness. + +I'd take pure night to paint your hair; + Stars for your eyes; and morning +To paint your skin--the rosy air + That is your limbs' adorning. + +To paint the love-bows of your lips, + I'd mix, for colors, kisses; +And for your breasts and finger-tips, + Sweet odors and soft blisses. + +And to complete the picture well, + I'd temper all with woman,-- +Some tears, some laughter; heaven and hell, + To show you still are human. + + + + +_A Song +for Yule_ + +I + + +Sing, Hey, when the time rolls round this way, +And the bells peal out, _'Tis Christmas Day_; +The world is better then by half, + For joy, for joy; +In a little while you will see it laugh-- +For a song's to sing and a glass to quaff, + My boy, my boy. +So here's to the man who never says nay!-- +Sing, Hey, a song of Christmas-Day! + + +II + + +Sing, Ho, when roofs are white with snow, +And homes are hung with mistletoe; +Old Earth is not half bad, I wis-- + What cheer! what cheer! +How it ever seemed sad the wonder is-- +With a gift to give and a girl to kiss, + My dear, my dear. +So here's to the girl who never says no! +Sing, Ho, a song of the mistletoe! + + +III + + +No thing in the world to the heart seems wrong +When the soul of a man walks out with song; +Wherever they go, glad hand in hand, + And glove in glove, +The round of the land is rainbow-spanned, +And the meaning of life they understand + Is love, is love. +Let the heart be open, the soul be strong, +And life will be glad as a Christmas song. + + + + +_The Puritans' +Christmas_ + + +Their only thought religion, + What Christmas joys had they, +The stern, staunch Pilgrim Fathers who + Knew naught of holiday?-- + +A log-church in the clearing + 'Mid solitudes of snow, +The wild-beast and the wilderness, + And lurking Indian foe. + +No time had they for pleasure, + Whom God had put to school; +A sermon was their Christmas cheer, + A psalm their only Yule. + +They deemed it joy sufficient,-- + Nor would Christ take it ill,-- +That service to Himself and God + Employed their spirits still. + +And so through faith and prayer + Their powers were renewed, +And souls made strong to shape a World, + And tame a solitude. + +A type of revolution, + Wrought from an iron plan, +In the largest mold of liberty + God cast the Puritan. + +A better land they founded, + That Freedom had for bride, +The shackles of old despotism + Struck from her limbs and side. + +With faith within to guide them, + And courage to perform, +A nation, from a wilderness, + They hewed with their strong arm. + +For liberty to worship, + And right to do and dare, +They faced the savage and the storm + With voices raised in prayer. + +For God it was who summoned, + And God it was who led, +And God would not forsake the love + That must be clothed and fed. + +Great need had they of courage! + Great need of faith had they! +And lacking these--how otherwise + For us had been this day! + + + + +_Spring_ + + (After the German of Goethe, _Faust_, II) + + +When on the mountain tops ray-crowned Apollo +Turns his swift arrows, dart on glittering dart, +Let but a rock glint green, the wild goats follow +Glad-grazing shyly on each sparse-grown part. + +Rolled into plunging torrents spring the fountains; +And slope and vale and meadowland grow green; +While on ridg'd levels of a hundred mountains, +Far fleece by fleece, the woolly flocks convene. + +With measured stride, deliberate and steady, +The scattered cattle seek the beetling steep, +But shelter for th' assembled herd is ready +In many hollows that the walled rocks heap: + +The lairs of Pan; and, lo, in murmuring places, +In bushy clefts, what woodland Nymphs arouse! +Where, full of yearning for the azure spaces, +Tree, crowding tree, lifts high its heavy boughs. + +Old forests, where the gnarly oak stands regnant +Bristling with twigs that still repullulate, +And, swoln with spring, with sappy sweetness pregnant, +The maple blushes with its leafy weight. + +And, mother-like, in cirques of quiet shadows, +Milk flows, warm milk, that keeps all things alive; +Fruit is not far, th' abundance of the meadows, +And honey oozes from the hollow hive. + + + + +_Lines_ + + +Within the world of every man's desire +Three things have power to lift his soul above, +Through dreams, religion, and ecstatic fire, +The star-like shapes of Beauty, Truth, and Love. + +I never hoped that, this side far-off Heaven, +These three,--whom all exalted souls pursue,-- +I e'er should see; until to me 't was given, +Lady, to meet the three, made one, in you. + + + + +_When Ships put +out to Sea_ + +I + + +It's "Sweet, good-bye," when pennants fly + And ships put out to sea; +It's a loving kiss, and a tear or two +In an eye of brown or an eye of blue;-- + And you'll remember me, + Sweetheart, + And you'll remember me. + + +II + + +It's "Friend or foe?" when signals blow + And ships sight ships at sea; +It's clear for action, and man the guns, +As the battle nears or the battle runs;-- + And you'll remember me, + Sweetheart, + And you'll remember me. + + +III + + +It's deck to deck, and wrath and wreck + When ships meet ships at sea; +It's scream of shot and shriek of shell, +And hull and turret a roaring hell;-- + And you'll remember me, + Sweetheart, + And you'll remember me. + + +IV + + +It's doom and death, and pause a breath + When ships go down at sea; +It's hate is over and love begins, +And war is cruel whoever wins;-- + And you'll remember me, + Sweetheart, + And you'll remember me. + + + + +_The +"Kentucky"_ + + (Battleship, launched March 24, 1898.) + +I + + +Here's to her who bears the name + Of our State; +May the glory of her fame + Be as great! +In the battle's dread eclipse, +When she opens iron lips, +When our ships confront the ships + Of the foe, +May each word of steel she utters carry woe! + Here's to her! + + +II + + +Here's to her, who, like a knight + Mailed of old, +From far sea to sea the Right + Shall uphold. +May she always deal defeat,-- +When contending navies meet, +And the battle's screaming sleet + Blinds and stuns,-- +With the red, terrific thunder of her guns. + Here's to her! + + +III + + +Here's to her who bears the name + Of our State; +May the glory of her fame + Be as great! +Like a beacon, like a star, +May she lead our squadrons far,-- +When the hurricane of war + Shakes the world,-- +With her pennant in the vanward broad unfurled. + Here's to her! + + + + +_Quatrains_ + +I + +MOTHS AND FIREFLIES + + +Since Fancy taught me in her school of spells +I know her tricks--These are not moths at all, +Nor fireflies; but masking Elfland belles +Whose link-boys torch them to Titania's ball. + + +II + +AUTUMN WILD-FLOWERS + + +Like colored lanterns swung in Elfin towers, +Wild morning-glories light the tangled ways, +And, like the rosy rockets of the Fays, +Burns the sloped crimson of the cardinal-flowers. + + +III + +THE WIND IN THE PINES + + +When winds go organing through the pines +On hill and headland, darkly gleaming, +Meseems I hear sonorous lines +Of Iliads that the woods are dreaming. + + +IV + +OPPORTUNITY + + +Behold a hag whom Life denies a kiss +As he rides questward in knighterrant-wise; +Only when he hath passed her is it his +To know, too late, the Fairy in disguise. + + +V + +DREAMS + + +They mock the present and they haunt the past, +And in the future there is naught agleam +With hope, the soul desires, that at last +The heart pursuing does not find a dream. + + +VI + +THE STARS + + +These--the bright symbols of man's hope and fame, +In which he reads his blessing or his curse-- +Are syllables with which God speaks His name +In the vast utterance of the universe. + + +VII + +BEAUTY + + +High as a star, yet lowly as a flower, +Unknown she takes her unassuming place +At Earth's proud masquerade--the appointed hour +Strikes, and, behold, the marvel of her face. + + + + +_Processional_ + + +Universes are the pages +Of that book whose words are ages; +Of that book which destiny +Opens in eternity. + +There each syllable expresses +Silence; there each thought a guess is; +In whose rhetoric's cosmic runes +Roll the worlds and swarming moons. + +There the systems, we call solar, +Equatorial and polar, +Write their lines of rushing light +On the awful leaves of night. + +There the comets, vast and streaming, +Punctuate the heavens' gleaming +Scroll; and suns, gigantic, shine, +Periods to each starry line. + +There, initials huge, the Lion +Looms and measureless Orion; +And, as 'neath a chapter done, +Burns the Great-Bear's colophon. + +Constellated, hieroglyphic, +Numbering each page terrific, +Fiery on the nebular black, +Flames the hurling zodiac. + +In that book, o'er which Chaldean +Wisdom pored and many an eon +Of philosophy long dead, +This is all that man has read:-- + +He has read how good and evil,-- +In creation's wild upheaval,-- +Warred; while God wrought terrible +At foundations red of Hell. + +He has read of man and woman; +Laws and gods, both beast and human; +Thrones of hate and creeds of lust, +Vanished now and turned to dust. + +Arts and manners that have crumbled; +Cities buried; empires tumbled: +Time but breathed on them its breath; +Earth is builded of their death. + +These but lived their little hour, +Filled with pride and pomp and power; +What availed them all at last? +We shall pass as they have past. + +Still the human heart will dream on +Love, part angel and part demon; +Yet, I question, what secures +Our belief that aught endures? + +In that book, o'er which Chaldean +Wisdom pored and many an eon +Of philosophy long dead, +This is all that man has read. + + + + + + +OTHER BOOKS OF VERSE BY MADISON CAWEIN + + + +Days and Dreams Cloth, gilt top, $1.00 +Moods and Memories " " 1.00 +Red Leaves and Roses " " 1.00 +Poems of Nature and Love " " 1.00 +Intimations of the Beautiful " " 1.00 + + + * * * * * + +PUBLISHED BY + +G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS, + +27 & 29, West Twenty-third Street, New York, N. Y + + * * * * * + +_Sent by mail, postpaid, to any address on receipt of price._ + + + + +SOME NOTICES OF MR. CAWEIN'S VERSES + + +"I should like to praise the poetry of Madison Cawein, of Kentucky, +which is as remote as Greece from the actual everyday life of his +region; as remote from it as the poetry of Keats was from the England +of his day, and which is yet so richly, so passionately true to the +presence and essence of nature as she can be known only in the +Southern West. I named Keats with no purpose of likening this young +poet to him, but since he is named it is impossible not to recognize +that they are of the same Hellenic race; full of like rapture in sky +and field and stream, and of a like sensitive reluctance from whatever +chills the joy of sense in youth, in love, in melancholy. I know Mr. +Cawein has faults, and very probably he knows it, too; his delight in +color sometimes plunges him into mere paint; his wish to follow a +subtle thought or emotion sometimes lures him into empty dusks; his +devotion to nature sometimes contents him with solitudes bereft of the +human interest by which alone the landscape lives. But he is, to my +thinking, a most genuine poet, and one of these few Americans, who, +even in their over-refinement, could never be mistaken for Europeans; +who perhaps by reason of it are only the more American."--WILLIAM +DEAN HOWELLS in _Literature_. + +"From the poetry of our day I select that of Madison Cawein as an +example of conspicuous merit. Many American readers have enjoyed Mr. +Cawein's productions.... But the appreciation of his poetry has never +been as great as its merits would indicate. His poems are rather _too +good_ to be caught up on the babbling tongue and cast forth into mere +popularity. They are caviare to the general; and yet they have in them +the best elements of popular favor. + +"Cawein is a classicist. He will have it that poems, however humble +the theme, however tender the sentiment, shall wear a tasteful Attic +dress. I do not intimate that Mr. Cawein's mind has been too much +saturated with the classical spirit or that his native instincts have +been supplanted with Greek exotics and flowers out of the renaissance, +but rather that his own mental constitution is of a classical as well +as a romantic mould. + +"The themes of Cawein's poetry are generally taken from the world of +romance. If there be any modern bard who can recreate a mediæval +castle and give to its inhabitants the sentiments which were theirs in +the twelfth century, Cawein is the poet who can. He takes delight in +the East. He is the Omar Khayyam of the Ohio Valley. He is as much of +a Mohammedan as a Christian. He knows the son of Abdallah better than +he knows Cromwell; and has more sympathy with a Khalif than with a +Colonel. He dwells in the romantic regions of life; but the romance is +real. The hope is a true hope. The dream is a true dream. The picture +is a painting, and not a chromo. The love is a passion, and not a +dilettante episode. Cawein's art is a genuine art. His verse is +exquisite. Out of the three hundred and thirteen poems in the five +volumes under consideration there may be found hardly a false or +broken harmony...."--JOHN CLARK RIDPATH, LL.D., in _The +Arena_. + +"The rattlesnake-weed and the bluet-bloom were unknown to Herrick and +to Wordsworth, but such art as Mr. Cawein's makes them at home in +English poetry. There is passion, too, and thought in his +equipment...."--WILLIAM ARCHER in the _Pall Mall Magazine_. + +"I find in the best pieces an intoxicating sense of beauty, a +richness, that is rarely achieved, although every young poet nowadays +strives after it. I find, too, a daring use of language which +sometimes, nay often, conducts to genuine and startling +felicities."--EDMUND GOSSE. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Myth and Romance, by Madison Cawein + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MYTH AND ROMANCE *** + +***** This file should be named 16535-8.txt or 16535-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/5/3/16535/ + +Produced by Digital & Multimedia Center, Michigan State +University Libraries, Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe, Sankar +Viswanathan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team +at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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