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diff --git a/31764.txt b/31764.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..db44e91 --- /dev/null +++ b/31764.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4414 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Days and Dreams, by Madison J. 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: Days and Dreams + Poems + +Author: Madison J. Cawein + +Release Date: March 25, 2010 [EBook #31764] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DAYS AND DREAMS *** + + + + +Produced by David Garcia, Joseph R. Hauser and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Kentuckiana Digital Library) + + + + + +DAYS AND DREAMS + +POEMS + +BY + +MADISON CAWEIN + + +AUTHOR OF "LYRICS AND IDYLS," "THE TRIUMPH +OF MUSIC," ETC., ETC. + + + + +G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS +NEW YORK LONDON +27 West Twenty-third St. 27 King William St., Strand + +The Knickerbocker Press +1891 + + + + +COPYRIGHT, 1891 +BY +MADISON CAWEIN + + + + +The Knickerbocker Press, New York +Printed and Bound by +G. P. Putnam's Sons + + + + +TO +JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY +WITH +ADMIRATION AND REGARD + + + + + + _O lyrist of the lowly and the true, + The song I sought for you + Hides yet unsung. What hope for me to find, + Lost in the daedal mind, + The living utterance with lovely tongue! + To say, as erst was sung + By Ariosto of Knight-errantry,-- + Through lands of Poesy, + Song's Paladin, knight of the dream and day, + The wizard shield you sway + Of that Atlantes power, sweet and terse, + The skyey-builded verse: + The shield that dazzles, brilliant with surprise, + Our unanointed eyes.-- + Oh, had I written as 't were worthy you, + Each line, a spark of dew,-- + As once Ferdusi shone in Persia,-- + Had strung each rosy spray + Of the unfolding flower of each song; + And Iran's bulbul tongue + Had sobbed its heart out o'er the fountain's slab + In gardens of Afrasiab._ + + + + +CONTENTS. + + + PAGE + +ONE DAY AND ANOTHER 1 + +DAYS AND DREAMS 93 + +DEITY 95 + +SELF 97 + +SELF AND SOUL 99 + +THE DREAM OF DREAD 102 + +DEATH IN LIFE 105 + +THE EVE OF ALL-SAINTS 110 + +MATER DOLOROSA 116 + +THE OLD INN 119 + +LAST DAYS 121 + +THE ROMANZA 123 + +MY ROMANCE 125 + +THE EPIC 127 + +THE BLIND HARPER 129 + +ELPHIN 131 + +PRE-ORDINATION 134 + +AT THE STILE 138 + +THE ALCALDE'S DAUGHTER 140 + +AT THE CORREGIDOR'S 142 + +THE PORTRAIT 145 + +ISMAEL 150 + +A PRE-EXISTENCE 154 + +BEHRAM AND EDDETMA 158 + +THE KHALIF AND THE ARAB 166 + + + + +ONE DAY AND ANOTHER. + +PART I. + + +1. + +_He waits musing._ + + Herein the dearness of her is: + The thirty perfect days of June + Made one, in beauty and in bliss + Were not more white to have to kiss, + To love not more in tune. + + And oft I think she is too true, + Too innocent for our day; + For in her eyes her soul looks new-- + Two crowfoot-blossoms watchet-blue + Are not more soft than they. + + So good, so kind is she to me, + In darling ways and happy words, + Sometimes my heart fears she may be + Too much with God and secretly + Sweet sister to the birds. + + +2. + +_Becoming impatient._ + + The owls are quavering, two, now three, + And all the green is graying; + The owls our trysting dials be-- + There is no time for staying. + + I wait you where this buckeye throws + Its tumbled shadow over + Wood-violet and the bramble-rose, + Long lady-fern and clover. + + Spice-seeded sassafras weighs deep + Rough rail and broken paling, + Where all day long the lizards sleep + Like lichen on the railing. + + Behind you you will feel the moon's + Gold stealing like young laughter; + And mists--gray ghosts of picaroons-- + Its phantom treasure after. + + And here together, youth and youth, + Love will be doubly able; + Each be to each as true as truth, + And dear as fairy fable. + + The owls are calling and the maize + With fallen dew is dripping-- + Ah, girlhood, through the dewy haze + Come like a moonbeam slipping. + + +3. + +_He hums._ + + There is a fading inward of the day, + And all the pansy sunset hugs one star; + To eastward dwindling all the land is gray, + While barley meadows westward smoulder far. + + Now to your glass will you pass + For the last time? + Pass, + Humming that ballad we know?-- + Here while I wait it is late + And is past time-- + Late, + And love's hours they go, they go. + + There is a drawing downward of the night; + The wedded Heaven wends married to the Moon; + Above, the heights hang golden in her light, + Below, the woods bathe dewy in the June. + + There through the dew is it you + Coming lawny? + You, + Or a moth in the vines? + You!--at your throat I may note + Twinkling tawny, + Note, + A glow-worm, your brooch that shines. + + +4. + +_She speaks._ + + How many smiles in the asking?-- + Herein I can not deceive you; + My "yes" in a "no" was a-masking, + Nor thought, dear, once to grieve you. + I hid. The humming-bird happiness here + Danced up i' the blood ... but what are words + When the speech of two souls all truth affords? + Affirmative, negative what in love's ear?-- + I wished to say "yes" and somehow said "no"; + The woman within me knew you would know, + For it held you six times dear. + + +_He speaks._ + + So many hopes in a wooing!-- + Therein you could not deceive me; + The heart was here and the hope pursuing, + Knew that you loved, believe me.-- + Bunched bells o' the blush pomegranate--to fix + At your throat; three drops of fire they are; + And the maiden moon and the maiden star + Sink silvery over yon meadow ricks. + Will you look?--till I hug your head back, so-- + For I know it is "yes" though you whisper "no,"-- + And my kisses, sweet, are six. + + +5. + +_She speaks._ + + Could I recall every joy that befell me + There in the past with its anguish and bliss, + Here in my heart it has whispered to tell me, + These were no joys to this. + + Were it not well if our love could forget them, + Veiling the _was_ with the dawn of the _is_? + Dead with the past we should never regret them, + These were no joys to this. + + When they were gone and the present stood speechful, + Ardent with word and with look and with kiss, + What though we know that their eyes are beseechful, + These were no joys to this. + + Is it not well to have more of the spirit, + Living high futures this earthly must miss? + Less of the flesh with the past pining near it?-- + Such is the joy of this. + + +6. + +_She sings._ + + We will leave reason, + Dear, for a season; + Reason were treason + Since yonder nether + Foot-hills are clad now + In nothing sad now; + We will be glad now, + Glad as this weather. + Heart and heart! in the Maytime, Maytime, + Youth and Love take playtime, playtime ... + I in the dairy; you are the airy + Majesty passing; Love is the fairy + Bringing us two together. + + +_He sings._ + + Starlight in masses + Of mist that passes, + Stars in the grasses; + Star-bud and flower + Laughingly know us; + Secretly show us + Earth is below us + And for the hour + Soul has soul. In the Maytime, Maytime, + Youth and Love take playtime, playtime ... + You are a song; a singer I hear it + Whispered in star and in flower; the spirit, + Love, is the power. + + +7. + +_He speaks._ + + And say we can not wed us now, + Since roses and the June are here, + Meseems, beneath the beechen bough + 'T is just as sweet, my doubly dear, + To swear anew each old love vow, + And love another year. + + When breathe green woodlands through and through + Wild scents of heliotrope and rain, + Where deep the moss mounds cool with dew, + Beyond the barley-blowing lane, + More wise than wedding, is to woo-- + So we will woo again. + + All night I lie awake and mark + The hours by no clanging clock, + But in the dim and dewy dark + Far crowing of some punctual cock; + Until the lyric of the lark + Mounts and Morn's gates unlock. + + And would you be a nun and miss + All this delightful ache of love? + Not have the moon for what she is? + Love's honey-horn God holds above-- + No world, for worlds are in a kiss + If worlds are good enough. + + So say we can not wed us now, + Since roses and the June are here + We 'll stroll beneath the doddered bough, + Heaven's mated songsters singing near, + To swear anew each old love vow, + And love another year. + + +8. + +_He opens his heart._ + + And had we lived in the days + Of the Khalif Haroun er Reshid, + We had loved, as the story says, + Did the Sultan's favorite one + And the Persian Emperor's son + Ali ben Bekkar, he + Of the Kisra dynasty. + + Do you know the story well + Of the Khalif Haroun's sultana?-- + When night on the palace fell, + A slave through a secret door, + Low-arched on the Tigris' shore, + By a hidden winding stair + Ben Bekkar brought to his fair? + + Then there was laughter and mirth, + And feasting and singing together, + In a chamber of marvellous worth; + In a chamber vaulted high + On columns of ivory; + Its dome, like the irised skies, + Mooned over with peacock eyes; + And the curtains and furniture, + Damask and juniper. + + Ten slave-girls--so many blooms-- + Stand sconcing tamarisk torches, + Silk-clad from the Irak looms; + Ten handmaidens serve the feast, + Each like to a star in the East; + Ten singers, their lutes a-tune, + Each like to a bosomed moon. + + For her in the stuff of Merv + Blue-clad, unveiled, and jewelled, + No metaphor made may serve; + Scarved deep with her own dark hair, + The jewels like fire-flies there-- + Blossom and moon and star, + The Lady Shemsennehar. + + The zone embracing her waist,-- + The ransom of forty princes,-- + But her form more priceless is placed; + Carbuncles of Istakhar + In her coronet burning are-- + Though gems of the Jamshid race, + Far rarer the gem of her face. + + Tall-shaped like the letter I, + With a face like an Orient morning; + Eyes of the bronze-black sky; + Lips, of the pomegranate split, + With the light of her language lit; + Cheeks, which the young blood dares + Make blood-red anemone lairs. + + Kohled with voluptuous look, + From opaline casting-bottles, + Handmaidens over them shook + Rose-water, and strewed with bloom + Mosaics old of the room; + Torch-rays on the walls made bars, + Or minted down golden dinars. + + Roses of Rocknabad, + Hyacinths of Bokhara;-- + Not a spray of cypress sad;-- + Narcissus and jessamine o'er + Carved pillar and cedarn door; + Pomegranates and bells of clear + Tulips of far Kashmeer. + + And the chamber glows like a flower + Of the Tuba, or vale of El Liwa; + And the bronzen censers glower; + And scents of ambergris pour + With myrrh brought out of Lahore, + And musk of Khoten, and good + Aloes and sandal-wood. + + Rubies, a tragacanth-red, + Angered in armlet and anklet + Dragon-like eyes that bled: + Bangles and necklaces dangled + Diamonds, whose prisms were angled, + Over veil and from coiffure, each + Or apricot-colored or peach. + + And Ghoram now smites her lute, + Sings loves of Mejnoon and Leila, + Or amorous ghazals may suit:-- + And the flambeaux snap and wave + Barbaric on free and slave, + Rich fabrics and bezels of gems, + And roses in anadems. + + Sherbets in ewers of gold, + Fruits in salvers carnelian; + Flagons of grotesque mold, + Made of a sapphire glass, + Stained with wine of Shiraz; + Shaddock and melon and grape + On plate of an antique shape: + + Vases of frost and of rose, + An alabaster graven, + Filled with the mountain snows; + Goblets of mother-of-pearl, + One filigree silver-swirl; + Vessels of gold foamed up + With spray of spar on the cup.-- + + When a slave bursts in with the cry: + "The eunuchs! the Khalif's eunuchs! + With scimitars bared draw nigh! + Wesif and Afif and he, + Chief of the hideous three, + Mesrour! the Sultan 's seen + 'Mid a hundred weapons' sheen!"... + + _We_, never had parted, no! + As parted those lovers fearful; + But kissing you so and so, + When they came they had found us dead + On the flowers our blood dyed red; + Our lips together and + The dagger in my hand. + + +9. + +_She speaks, musing._ + + O cities built by music! lyres of love + Strung to a songful sea! did I but own + One harp chord of one broken barbiton + What had I budded for our life thereof? + + In docile shadows under bluebell skies + A home upon the poppied edge of eve, + Beneath lone peaks the splendors never leave, + In lemon orchards whence the egret flies. + + Where pitying gray the pitiless eyes of Death + Blight no slight bud unfostered, I have thought; + Deep, lily-deep, pearl-pale daturas, fraught + With dewy fragrance like an angel's breath. + + Sleep in the days; the twilights tuned and tame + Through mockbirds throating to attentive stars; + Each morn outrivalling each in opal bars; + Eves preaching beauty with rose-tongues of flame. + + O country by the undiscovered sea! + The dream infolds thee and the way is dim-- + With head not high, what if I follow him, + Love--with the madness and the melody? + + +10. + +_He, after a pause, lightly._ + + An elf there is who stables the hot + Red wasp that stings o' the apricot; + An elf who rowels his spiteful bay, + Like a mote on a ray, away, away; + An elf who saddles the hornet lean + To din i' the ear o' the swinging bean; + Who hunts with a hat cocked half awry + The bottle-blue o' the dragon-fly:-- + O ho, O hi! Oh, well know I. + + An elf there is where the clover tips + A horn whence the summer leaks and drips, + Where lanthorns of mustard-flowers bloom, + In the dusk awaits the bee's dull boom; + Gay gold brocade from head to knee, + Who robs the caravan bumble-bee; + Big bags of honey bee-merchants pay + To the bandit elf of the Fairy way,-- + O ho, O hey! I have heard them say. + + Another ouphen the butterflies know, + Who paints their wings like the buds that blow; + Flowers, staining the dew-drops through, + Seals their colors in tubes of dew; + Colors to dazzle the butterflies' wing-- + The evening moth is another thing: + The butterfly's glory he got at dawn, + The moon-moth's got when the moon was wan; + He it is, that the hollyhocks hear, + Who dangles a brilliant i' each one's ear; + Teases at noon the pane's green fly, + And lights at night the glow-worm's eye:-- + O ho, O hi! Oh, well know I. + + But the dearest elf, so the poets say, + Is the elf who hides in an eye of gray; + Who curls in a dimple and slips along + The strings of a lute or a lover's song; + Shines in a scent, or wings a rhyme, + And laughs in the bells of a wedding chime; + Hides unhidden, where none may know, + In her bosom's blossom or throat's blue bow-- + O ho, O ho!--a friend or foe? + + +11. + +_She, seriously._ + + Who the loser, who the winner, + If the Fancy fail as preacher?-- + None who loved was yet beginner + Though another's love-beseecher; + Love's revealment 's of the inner + Life and deity, the teacher. + + Who may falsify the feeling + To the lover who is loser? + Has she felt:--the mere revealing + Of the passion 's his accuser; + She conceals it; the concealing + Is her own love's self-abuser. + + One hath said, no flower knoweth + Of the fragrance it revealeth; + Song, its soul that overfloweth, + Never nightingale's heart feeleth-- + Such the love the spirit groweth, + Love unconscious if it healeth. + + +12. + +_He._ + + Handsels of anemones + The surrendered hours + Pour about the sweet Spring's knees-- + Crowding babies of the breeze, + Her unstudied flowers. + + When 't is dawn, bestowing Day + Strews with coins of golden + Every furlong of his way-- + Like a Sultan gone to pray + At a Kaaba olden. + + Warlock Night, when dips the dark, + Opens, tire on tire, + Windows of an heavenly ark, + Whence the stars swarm, spark on spark, + Butterflies of fire. + + With the night, the day, the spring,-- + Godly chords of beauty,-- + We the instrument will string + Of our lives and love shall sing + Songs of truth and duty. + + +13. + +_She._ + + How it was I can not tell, + For I know not where nor why, + And the beautiful befell + In a land that does not lie + East or West where mortals dwell-- + But beneath a vaguer sky. + + Was it in the golden ages, + Or the iron, that I heard, + In prophetic speech of sages, + How had come a snowy bird + 'Neath whose wing lay written pages + Of an unknown lover's word? + + I forget; you may remember + How the earthquake shook our ships; + How our city, one huge ember, + Blazed within the thick eclipse; + When you found me--deep December + Sealed on icy eyes and lips. + + I forget. No one may say + Pre-existences are true: + Here 's a flower dies to-day, + Resurrected blooms anew: + Death is dumb and Life is gray-- + Who shall doubt what God can do! + + +14. + +_He._ + + As to this, nothing to tell, + You being all my belief; + Doubt may not enter or dwell + Here where your image is chief, + Royal, to quicken or quell, + Swaying no sceptre of grief. + + Wise with the wisdom of Spring-- + Dew-drops, a world in each prism, + Gems from the universe ring:-- + Free of all creed and all schism, + Buds that are speechless but bring + God-uttered God aphorism. + + See how the synod is met + There of the planets to preach us-- + Freed from the frost's oubliette, + Here how the flowers beseech us-- + Were it not well to forget + Winter and night as they teach us? + + Dew-drop, a bud, and a star, + These--each a separate thought + Over man's logic how far!-- + God to a unit hath wrought-- + Love, making these what they are, + For without love they were naught. + + Millions of stars; and they roll + Over your path that is white, + Here where we end the long stroll.-- + Seen of the innermost sight, + All of the love of my soul + Kisses your spirit. Good-night. + + + + +PART II. + + +1. + +_She delays, meditating._ + + Sad skies and a foggy rain + Dripping from streaming eaves; + Over and over again + Dead drop of the trickling leaves; + And the woodward winding lane, + And the hill with its shocks of sheaves, + One scarce perceives. + + Must I go in such sad weather + By the lane or over the hill? + Where the splitting milk-weed's feather + Dim, diamond-like rain-drops fill? + Or where, ten stars together, + Buff ox-eyes rank the rill + By the old corn-mill? + + The creek by this is swollen, + And its foaming cascades sound; + And the lilies, smeared with pollen, + In the race look dull and drowned;-- + 'T is the path we oft have stolen + To the bridge, that rambles round + With willows crowned. + + Through a bottom wild with berry + Or packed with the iron-weeds, + With their blue combs washed and very + Purple; the sorghum meads + Glint green near a wilding cherry; + Where the high wild-lettuce seeds + The fenced path leads. + + A bird in the rain beseeches; + And the balsams' budding balls + Smell drenched by the way which reaches + The wood where the water falls; + Where the warty water-beeches + Hang leaves one blister of galls, + The mill-wheel drawls. + + My shawl instead of a bonnet!... + Though the wood be soaking yet + Through the wet to the rock I 'll run it-- + How sweet to meet in the wet!-- + Our rock with the vine upon it, + Each flower a fiery jet-- ... + He won't forget! + + +2. + +_He speaks, rowing._ + + Deep are the lilies here that lay + Lush, lambent leaves along our way, + Or pollen-dusty bob and float + White nenuphars about our boat + This side the woodland we have reached; + Two rapid strokes our skiff is beached. + + There is no path. Heaped foxgrapes choke + Huge trunks they wrap. This giant oak + Floods from the Alleghanies bore + To wedge here by this sycamore; + Its wounded bulk, heart-rotted white, + Lights ghostly foxfire in the night. + + Now oar we through this willow fringe + The bulging shore that bosks,--a tinge + Of green mists down the marge;--where old, + Scarred cottonwoods build walls of shade + With breezy balsam pungent; bowled + Around vined trunks the floods have made + Concentric hollows. On we pass. + + As we pass, we pass, we pass, + In daisy jungles deep as grass, + A bubbling sparrow flirts above + In wood-words with its woodland love: + A white-streaked woodpecker afar + Knocks: slant the sun dashed, each a star, + Three glittering jays flash over: slim + The piping sand-snipes skip and skim + Before us: and a finch or thrush-- + Who may discover where such sing?-- + The silence rinses with a gush + Of mellow music gurgling. + + On we pass, and onward oar + To yon long lip of ragged shore, + Where from yon rock spouts, babbling frore + A ferny spring; where dodging by + Rests sulphur-disced that butterfly; + Mallows, rank crowded in for room, + 'Mid wild bean and wild mustard bloom; + Where fishers 'neath those cottonwoods + Last Spring encamped those ashes say + And charcoal boughs.--'T is long till buds!-- + Here who in August misses May? + + +3. + +_He speaks, resting._ + + Here the shores are irised; grasses + Clump the water gray that glasses + Broken wood and deepened distance: + Far the musical persistence + Of a field-lark lingers low + In the west where tulips blow. + + White before us flames one pointed + Star; and Day hath Night anointed + King; from out her azure ewer + Pouring starry fire, truer + Than true gold. Star-crowned he stands + With the starlight in his hands. + + Will the moon bleach through the ragged + Tree-tops ere we reach yon jagged + Rock, that rises gradually? + Pharos of our homeward valley. + Down the dusk burns golden-red; + Embers are the stars o'erhead. + + At my soul some Protean elf is: + You 're Simaetha, I am Delphis; + You are Sappho and her Phaon-- + I. We love. There lies a ray on + All the dark AEolian seas + 'Round the violet Lesbian leas. + + On we drift. He loves you. Nearer + Looms our island. Rosier, clearer + The Leucadian cliff we follow, + Where the temple of Apollo + Lifts a pale and pillared fire-- + Strike, oh, strike the Lydian lyre; + Out of Hellas blows the breeze + Singing to the Sapphic seas. + + +4. + +_He sings._ + + Night, Night, 't is night. The moon before to love us, + And all the moonlight tangled in the stream: + Love, love, my love, and all the stars above us, + The stars above and every star a dream. + + In odorous purple, where the falling warble + Of water cascades and the plunged foam glows, + A columned ruin heaps its sculptured marble + Curled with the chiselled rebeck and the rose. + + +_She sings._ + + Sleep, Sleep, sweet Sleep sleeps at the drifting tiller, + And in our sail the Spirit of the Rain-- + Love, love, my love, ah bid thy heart be stiller, + And, hark! the music of the harping main. + + What flowers are those that blow their balm unto us? + Bow white their brows' aromas each a flame? + Ah, child, too kind the love we know, that knew us, + That kissed our eyes that we might see the same. + + +_He._ + + Night! night! good night! no dream it is to vanish, + The temple and the nightingale are there; + The thornless roses bruising none to banish, + The moon and one wild poppy in thy hair. + + +_She._ + + Night! night! good night! and love's own star before thee, + And love's star-image in the starry sea; + Yes, yes, ah yes! a presence to watch o'er thee-- + Night! night! good night and good the gods to thee! + + +5. + +_Homeward through flowers: she speaks._ + + O simple offerings of the common hills; + Love's lowly names, that make you trebly sweet! + One Johnny-jump-up, but an apron-full + Of starry crowfoot, making mossy dells + Dim with heaven's morning blue; dew-dripping plumes + Of waxen "dog-mouths"; red the tippling cups + Of gypsy-lilies all along the creek, + Where dull the freckled silence sleeps, and dark + The water runs when, at high noon, the cows + Wade knee-deep and the heat hums drowsy with + The drone of dizzy flies;--one Samson-flower + Blue-streaked and crystal as a summer's cloud; + White violets, milk-weed, scarlet Indian-pinks, + All fragile-scented and familiar as + Pink baby faces and blue infant eyes. + + O fair suggestions of a life more fair! + Love's fragrant whispers of an untaught faith, + High habitations 'neath a godlier blue + Beyond the sin of Earth, in heavens prepared-- + What is it?--halcyon to utter calm, + Faith? such as wrinkled wisdom, doubting, has + Yearned for and sought in miser'd lore of worlds, + And vainly?--Love?--Oh, have I learned to live? + + +6. + +_He speaks._ + + Would you have known it seeing it? + Could you have seen it being it? + Waving me out of the budding land + Sunbeam-jewelled a bloom-white hand, + Wafting me life and hope and love, + Life with the hope of the love thereof, + Love. + + --"What is the value of knowing it?"-- + Only the worth of owing it; + Need of the bud contents the light; + Dew at dawn and nard at night, + Beauty, aroma, honey at heart, + Which is debtor, part for part, + Heart? + + Thoughts, when the heart is heedable, + Then to the heart are readable; + I in the texts of your eyes have read + Deep as the depth of the living dead, + Measures of truth in unsaid song + Learned from the soul to haunt me long, + Song. + + Love perpends each laudable + Thought of the soul made audible, + Said in gardens of bliss or pain: + Moonlight rays in drops of rain, + Feels the faith in its sleep awake, + Wish of the silent words that shake + Sleep. + + +7. + +_She hums and muses._ + + _If love I have had of thee thou hadst of me, + No loss was in giving it over; + Could I give aught but that I had of thee, + Being no more than thy lover?_ + + And let it cease. When what befalls befalls, + You cannot love me less, + Loving me much now. Neither weeks nor walls, + With bitterest distress, + + Shall all avail. Despair will find reprieve, + Though dark the soul be tossed, + In past possession of that love you grieve, + The love which you have lost. + + Ponder the morning, or the midnight moon, + The wilding of the wold, + The morning slitting from night's brown cocoon + Wide wings of flaxen gold: + + The moon that, had not darkness been before, + Had never shone to lead; + And think that, though you are, you are not poor, + Since you have loved indeed. + + From flower to star read upward; you shall see + The purposes of loss, + Deep hierograms of gracious deity, + And comfort in your cross. + + +8. + +_She speaks._ + + Sunday shall we ride together? + Not the root-rough, rambling way + Through the woods we went that day, + In the sultry summer weather, + + Past the Methodist Camp-Meeting, + Where religion helped the hymn + Gather volume, and a slim + Minister with textful greeting + + Welcomed us and still expounded. + From the service on the hill + We had rode three hills and still + Far away the singing sounded. + + Nor that road through weed and berry + Drowsy days led me and you + To the old-time barbecue, + Where the country-side made merry. + + Dusty vehicles together; + Darkies with the horses by + 'Neath the soft Kentucky sky, + And a smell of bark and leather; + + When you smiled, "Our modern tourney: + Gallantry and politics + Dinner, dance and intermix." + As we went the homeward journey + + 'Twixt hot chaparrals and thickets, + Heard brisk fiddles, scraping still, + Drone and thump the quaint quadrille, + Like a worried band of crickets.-- + + Neither road. The shady quiet + Of that way by beech and birch, + Winding to the ruined church + On the Fork that sparkles by it. + + Where the silent Sundays listen + For the preacher whom we bring, + In our hearts to preach and sing + Week-day shade to Sabbath glisten. + + +9. + +_He, at parting._ + + Yes, to-morrow; when the morn, + Pentecost of flame, uncloses + Portals that the stars adorn, + Whence a golden presence throws his + Fiery swords and burning roses + At the wide wood's world of wall, + Spears of sparkle at each fall; + + Then together let us ride + Down deep-wood cathedral places, + Where the pilgrim wild-flowers hide, + Praying Sabbath in their faces; + Where in truest untaught phrases, + Worship in each rhythmic word, + Sings no migratory bird.... + + Pearl on pearl the high stars dight + Jewels of divine devices + 'Round the Afric throat of Night; + Where yon misty glimmer rises + Soon the white moon crystallizes + Out of darkness, like a spell.-- + Late, 't is late. Till dawn, farewell. + + + + +PART III. + + +1. + + Now rests the season in forgetfulness, + Careless in beauty of maturity; + The ripened roses 'round brown temples, she + Fulfils completion in a dreamy guess: + Now Time grants night the more and day the less; + The gray decides; and brown + Dim golds and reds in dulling greens express + Themselves and broaden as the year goes down. + Sadder the croft where, thrusting gray and high + Their balls of seeds, the hoary onions die, + Where, Falstaff-like, buff-bellied pumpkins lie: + Deeper each wilderness; + Sadder the blue of hills that lounge along + The lonesome west; sadder the song + Of the wild red-bird in the leafage yellow, + Deeper and dreamier, aye! + Than woods or waters, leans the languid sky + Above lone orchards where the cider-press + Drips and the russets mellow. + + Nature grows liberal; under woodland leaves + The beech-nuts' burs their little pockets poke, + Plump with the copper of the nuts that choke; + Above our bristling way the spider weaves + A glittering web for which the Dawn designs + Thrice twenty rows of sparkles. By the oak, + That rolls old roots in many gnarly lines, + The acorn thimble, smoothly broke, + Shines by its saucer. On sonorous pines + The far wind organs; but the forest here + To no weak breeze hath woke; + Far off the wind, but crumbling near and near,-- + Each tingling twig expectant, and the gray + Surmise of heaven pilots it the way, + Rippling the leafy spines, + Until the wildwood, one exultant sway, + Booms, and the sunlight, arrowing through it, shines + Visible applause you hear. + + How glows the garden! though the white mists keep + The vagabond in flowers reminded of + Decay that comes to slay in open love, + When the full moon hangs cold and night is deep, + Unheeding such their cardinal colors leap + Gay in the crescent of the blade of death; + Spaced innocents in swaths he weeps to reap, + Waiting his scythe a breath, + To gravely lay them dead with one last sweep.-- + Long, long admire + Their splendors manifold:-- + The scarlet salvia showered with spurts of fire; + Cascading lattices, dark vines that creep, + Nightshade and cypress; there the marigold + Burning--a shred of orange sunset caught + And elfed in petals that eve's goblins brought + From elfland; there, predominant red, + The dahlia lifts its head + By the white balsams' red-bruised horns of honey, + In humming spaces sunny. + The crickets singing dirges noon and night + For morn-born flowers, at dusk already dead, + For dusk-dead flowers weep; + While tired Summer white, + Where yonder aster whispering odor rocks,-- + The withered poppies knotted in her locks,-- + Sighs, 'mong her sleepy hollyhocks asleep. + + +2. + + The hips were reddening on the rose, + The haws hung slips of fire; + We went the woodland way that goes + Up hills of branch and briar. + The hooked thorn held her gown and seemed + Imploring her be staying + The sunlight of herself that beamed + Beside it gently swaying. + + Low bent the golden saxifrage; + Its yellow bells like bangles + The foxglove fluttered. Like a page-- + From out the rail-fence angles-- + With crimson plume the sumach, hosed + In Lincoln green, attended + My lady of the elder, posed + In blue-black jewels splendid. + + And as we mounted up the hill + The rocky path that stumbled + Spread smooth; and all the day was still + And odorous with umbled + Tops of wild-carrots drying gray; + And there, soft-sunned before us, + An orchard dwindling away + With dappled boughs bent o'er us. + + An orchard where the pippin fell + Worm-bitten, bruised, and dusty; + And hornet-stung, each like a bell, + The Bartlett ripened rusty; + The smell of tawny peach and plum, + That offered luscious yellow; + Of wasp and bee the hidden hum, + Made all the warm air mellow. + + And on we went where many-hued + Hung wild the morning-glory, + Their blue balloons in shadows, dewed + With frost-white dew-drops hoary; + In bush and burgrass far away + Beneath us stretched the valley, + Cleft by one creek that laughed with day + And babbled musically. + + The brown, the bronze, the gray, the red + Of weed and briar ran riot + Flush to dark woodland walls that led + To nooks of whispering quiet. + Long, feathering bursts of golden-rod + Ran golden woolly patches-- + Bloom-sunsets of the withered sod + The dying summer catches. + + Then o'er the hills, loose-tumbling rolled-- + O'erleaping expectation-- + The sunset, flaming marigold, + A system's conflagration: + And homeward turning, she and I + Went as one self in being-- + God met us in the earth and sky + And Love had purged our seeing. + + +3. + + Say, my dear, O my dear, + These are the eves for speaking; + There is no wight will work us spite + Beneath the sunset's streaking. + + Yes, my dear, O my dear, + These are the eves for telling; + To walk together in starry weather + Ere springs o' the moon are welling. + + O my dear, yes, my dear, + These are the dusks for staying; + When twilight dreams of night who seems + Among long-purples praying. + + "No, my dear!"--"Yes, my dear!" + These are the nights to kiss it + Times twice-a-twenty: they grow a-plenty + On lips that will not miss it. + + +4. + + To dream where silence sleeps + A sorrow's sleep that sighs; + Where all heaven's azure peeps + Blue from one wildflower's eyes + Where, in reflecting deeps,-- + Of cloudier woods and skies,-- + Another gray world lies. + + Divining God from things + Humble as weeds and bees; + From songs the free bird sings + Learn all are vain but these; + In light-delighted springs, + Wise, star-familiar trees, + Seek love's philosophies. + + +5. + + Here where the days are dimmest, + Each old, big-hearted tree + Gives bounteous sympathy; + Here where dead nights sit grimmest + In druid company; + Here where the days are dimmest. + + Leaves of my lone communion, + Leaves; and the listening sigh + Of silence wanders by; + While on my soul the union + Is--of the wood and sky-- + Leaves of my lone communion. + + And eyes with tears are aching, + While life waits wistfully + For love that may not be: + In visions vain of waking + Lives all it can not see.-- + And eyes with tears are aching, + And eyes with tears are aching. + + +6. + + And here alone I sit and see it so. + A vale of willows swelling into knobs, + A bulwark eastward. Sloping low + Westward the scooping waters flow + Under a rocky culvert's arch that throbs + With clanging wheels of transient trains that go + Screaming to north and south. + Here all the weary waters, stagnant stayed, + Sleep at the culvert's mouth; + The current's hungry hiccup still afraid, + Haply, that I should never know + The secret 'neath the striate scum o' the stream + The devil and the dream, + I, dropping gravels so the echo sob + Mocking and thin as music of a shade + In shades that wring from rocks a hollow woe, + Complaining phantoms of faint whispers rob. + + There, up the valley where the lank grass leaps + Blades each a crooked kris, + The currents strike or miss + Dream melodies: No wide-belled mallow sleeps + Monandrous flowers oval as a kiss; + No mandrake curling convolutions up + Loops heavy blossoms, each a conical cup + That swoons moon-nectar and a serpent's hiss; + No tiger-lily, where the crayfish play, + Mirrors a savage face, a copper hue + Streaked with a crimson dew; + No dragon-fly in endless error keeps + Sewing the pale-gold gown of day + With tangled stitches of a burning blue,-- + Whose brilliant body but a needle is, + An azurn and incarnate ray:-- + But here, where haunted with the shade, + The dull stream stales and dies, + Are beauties none or few, + Such sinister and new; + And one at widest noon-gaze shrinks afraid + Beneath the timid skies; + So, if you ask me why I answer this:-- + + You know not; only where the kildees wade + There in the foamy scum, + There where the wet rocks ail,-- + Low rocks to which the water-reptiles come, + Basking pied bodies in the brindled shade,-- + Dim as a bubble's prism on the grail + Below, an angled sparkle rayed, + While lights and shadows aid + From breeze-blown clouds that lounge at sunny loss, + Deep down, a sense of wavy features quail + The heart; with lips that writhe and fade + And clench; tough, rooty limbs that twist and cross, + And flabby hair of smoky moss. + + A brimstone sunset. And at night + The twinkling flies in will-o'-the-wisp dance wheel + Through copse and open, all a gnomish green. + I hear the water, and the wave is white + There where the boulder plants a keel, + And each taunt ripple 's sheen.-- + Where instant insects dot + The dark with spurts of sulphur--bright, + Beneath the hazy height, + No bitter-almond trees make wan the night, + Building bloom ridges of a ghostly lustre, + But white-tops tossing cluster over cluster: + Huge-seen within that twilight spot-- + As if a hill-born giant, half asleep, + Had dropped his night-cap while he drove his sheep + Foldward through fallow browns + And foxy grays,--a something crowns + The knoll--is it the odorous peak + Of one June-savory timothy stack? + + Now, one dead ash behind, + A weak moon shows a withered cheek + Of Quaker quiet, wasted o'er the vines' + Appentice ruins roofing pillared pines: + Beyond these, back and back, + An oak-wood stretches black-- + And here the whining were-wolves of the wind + Snuff snarling: but their eyes are blind, + Although their fangs are fierce; + And though they never pierce + Beyond the bad, bedevilled woodland streak, + I hear them, yes, I hear + A padding o' footsteps near, + A prowling pant in ear + And can not fly!--yes!--no!-- + What horror holds me?--That uncoiling slow, + Sure, mastering chimera there, + Hooping firm unseen feelers 'round my neck + A binding, bruising coil ... + The waters burn and boil; + The fire-flies the dappled darkness fleck + With impish dabs of blazing wizard's oil ... + Deep, deep into the black eye of the beck + I stare, magnetic fixed, and little reck + If all the writhing shadow slips, + Dripping around me, to the eyes and hips, + Where grinning murder leers with lupine lips. + + +7. + + What can it mean for me? what have I done to her? + I in our freedom of love as a sun to her; + She to our liberty goddess and slumberless + Moon of the stars shining silver and numberless: + Who on my life, that was thorny and showery, + Came--and made dewyness; smiled--and made flowery; + Mine! the affinitized one of humanity: + Mine! the elected of soul over vanity-- + What have I done to her, what have I done! + + What can it mean for me? what have I said to her? + I, who have idolized, worshipped, and pled to her; + Sung for her, laughed for her, sorrowed and sighed for her, + Lived for her, hated and gladly had died for her! + See; she has written me thus! she has written me-- + Sooner would dagger or serpent had smitten me! + Would they had shrivelled or ever they'd read of it! + Eyes, that are wide to the bitterest dread of it-- + What have I said to her, what have I said! + + What shall I make of it, I, who am trembling + Fearful of loss?--Oh, enamored, dissembling + Flame!--of the candle that burning, but guttering, + Flatters the moth that comes circling and fluttering + Out of the summer night; trusting, importunate, + Quitting cool flowers for this--O unfortunate!-- + Such has she been to me making me such to her, + Slaying me, saying I never was much to her-- + What shall I make of it, what can I make! + + Love, in thy everglades, moaning and motionless + Look, I have fallen; the evil is potionless: + I, with no thought but the heavens that lock us in, + Set naked feet 'mid the cottonmouth, moccasin + Under wild-roses, the Cherokee, eying me:-- + In the sweet blue with the egrets that, flying me, + Loosened like blooms from magnolias, rose slenderly + White and pale pink; where the mocking-bird tenderly + Sang, making vistas of mosses melodious, + Wandered unheeding my steps in the odious + Slime that was venom; I followed the fiery + Violet curve of thy star falling wiry-- + So was I lost in night, thus am undone!... + + Have I not told to her--living alone for her-- + Purposed unfoldments of love I had sown for her + Here in the soil of my soul? their variety + Endless; and ever she answered with piety.-- + See! it has come to this ... all the tale's suavity + At the ninth chapter grows stupid with gravity; + Duller than death all our beautiful history-- + Close it!--the _finis_ is more than a mystery.-- + Yes, I will tell her this; yes, I will tell. + + +8. + + I seem to hear her speak and see + That blue-hung room. Her perfume comes + From lavender folds vined dreamily-- + A-blossom with brocaded blooms,-- + A stuff of Orient looms. + + Again I hear her speak and back, + Where steals the showery sunlight, piles + A whatnot dainty bric-a-brac + Beside a tall clock; each glazed tile's + Blue-patterned profile smiles. + + I hear her say, "Ah, had we known, + Could what has been have ever been?-- + And now!"... How hurt the hard ache shone + In eyes whose sadness seemed to lean + On something far, unseen! + + And as in sleep my own self seems + Outside my suffering self: I flush + In mists of undetermined dreams; + Behold her musing in that hush + Of lilac light and plush. + + Smiling but tortured. Yes, I feel + Despite that face, not seeming sad, + In those calm temples thoughts like steel + Remorseless bore. I had gone mad + Had I once deemed her glad. + + Unconsciously, with eyes that yearn + To pierce beyond the present far, + Searching some future hope, I turn;-- + There in her garden one fierce star, + Beyond the window's bar,-- + + Vermilion as a storm-sunk sun,-- + A phyllocactus?--all the life + Of torrid middays in but one + Rich crimson bloom--flames red as strife; + And near it, rankly rife-- + + Deep coreopsis?--heavy hues + Of soft seal-bronze and satiny gold, + Sway girandoles whose jets of dews + Burn points of starlight diamond-cold, + Warm-colored, manifold. + + She dare not speak; I can not. Yet + An intercourse 'twixt brain and brain + Goes feverish on.--Crushed, smelling wet, + Through silken curtains drift again + Verbena-scents of rain. + + I in the doorway turn and stay; + Angry her cameo beauty mark + Set in that smile--Oh! will she say + No farewell? no regret? one spark + Of hope to cheer the dark? + + That sepia-sketch--conceive it so-- + A roguish head with jaunty eyes + Laughing beneath a rose-chapeau, + Silk-masked, unmasking--it denies + The full-faced flower surprise; + + Hung o'er her davenport.... We read + The true beneath the false; perceive + The smile that hides the ache.--Indeed! + _Whose_ soul unmasks?... not mine!--I grieve + Here, here, but laugh and leave.... + + +9. + + Beyond the knotty apple-trees + That fade about the old brick-barn, + Its tattered arms and tattered knees + A scare-crow tosses to the breeze + Among the shocks of corn. + + All things grow gray in earth and sky; + The cold wind sounding drearily + Makes all the rusty branches fly; + The rustling leaves a-rotting lie; + The year is waning wearily. + + At night I hear the far wild geese + Honk in frost-bitten heavens, under + Arcturus. Though I seem to cease + Outside myself and sleep in peace, + I drowse awake and wonder. + + I know torn thistles by the creek + Hang hairy with the frost; the tented + Brown acres of the corn stretch bleak + And ghostly in the moonlight, weak + In hollows bitter-scented. + + Dream back the ways we strolled at morn + Through woods of summer ever singing; + Moon-trysts beneath the crooked thorn, + The tasselled meads of cane and corn + Their restless shadows swinging.... + + I stand and oar our boat among + The dripping lilies of the river; + I reach her hat the grape-vine long + Struck in the stream; we sing a song, + That song ... I wake and shiver. + + And then my feverish mind reverts + To our sad words and sadder parting + In days long gone; and, oh! it hurts + Within here, for the soul asserts + Mine the fool fault from starting. + + And I must lie awake and think + Of her with such regrets as gladly + No unrebuking conscience shrink; + And hear the wild-fowls' clangor sink + Through plaintive starlight sadly. + + When all are overflown and deep + The stoic night is left forsaken, + For company I well would weep, + Since all my spirit fears to sleep, + Sleep of such visions shaken. + + Grave visions of dead deeds that flaw + Our waking hours, ever haunting; + Else were we, lacking love and law, + Rude scare-crow things of sticks and straw + Undaunted and undaunting. + + +10. + + The sun a splintered splendor was + In sober trees that broke and blurred, + That afternoon we went together + In droning hum and whirling buzz, + Where hard the dinning locust whirred, + Through fields of golden-rod a-feather. + + So sweet it was to look and lean + To your young face and feel the light + Of eyes that fondled mine unsaddened! + The laugh that left lips more serene; + The words that blossomed like the white + Life-everlasting there and gladdened. + + Maturing Summer, you were fraught + With wiser beauties then than now + Parades rich Autumn's red November; + This stuns: there dreams no subtle thought + As then on hinting bush and bough-- + But now I am alone, remember. + + +11. + + Through iron-weeds and roses + And bronzing beech and oak, + Old porches it discloses, + Above the briars and roses + Fall's feeble sunbeams soak. + + Neglected walks that tangle + The dodder-strangled grass; + Its chimney shows one angle + Heaped with dead leaves that spangle + The paths that round it pass. + + The early mists that bury + And hide them in its rooms, + From spider closets--very + Dim with old webs--will hurry + Out in the raining glooms. + + They haunt each stair and basement; + They stand on hearth and porch; + Lean from each paneless casement, + Or in the moonlight's lacement + Fly with a phantom torch. + + There is a sense of frost here; + And gusts that sob away + Of something that was lost here, + Long, long ago was lost here, + But what, they can not say. + + There croons no owl to startle + Despondency within; + No raven o'er its portal + To scare the daring mortal + And guard its cellared sin. + + The creaking road descries it + This side the dusty toll; + The farmer passing eyes it; + None stops t' philosophize it, + This symbol of a soul. + + +12. + + Though the dog-tooth violet come + With the shower, + And the wild-bee haunt and hum + Every flower, + We shall never wend as when + Love laughed leading us from men + Over violet vale and glen, + Where the red-bird sang an hour, + And we heard the partridge drum. + + Here October shadows pray, + Till one stills + Joyance, where for buried May + Sob the rills: + So love's vision has arisen + Of the long ago: I listen-- + Memory, tears in eyes that glisten + Points but Indiana hills + Fading dark-blue far away. + + + + +PART IV. + + +1. + + When in her cloudy chiton + Spring freed the donjoned rills, + And trumpeting, a Triton, + Wind-war was on the hills; + O'er ways, hope's buds bedizen, + Long ways the glory lies on, + Love spread us an horizon + Of gold beyond life's ills. + + When Summer came with sickle + Stuck in a sheaf of gleams, + And eves were honey-trickle + From bee-hives of the beams; + Scrolls of the days blue-blotted, + Scrolls of the night star-dotted, + To love and us allotted + A world of woven dreams. + + When Autumn waited tired-- + A fair-faced heretic-- + _Auto-de-fes_ Frost fired + In Winter's Bishopric; + Our loves, a song had started, + Grew with the song sad-hearted, + Sweet loves long-sworn were parted, + Though life for love was sick. + + Now is the Winter waited + 'Neath skies of frozen gold, + Or raining heavens hated + Of winds that curse and scold.-- + Shall this be so: that never + Shall sunlight snowlight sever? + Forever and forever + The heart wait winter-cold? + + +2. + + Soft music bring that seems to weep + All this dull sorrow of the soul; + Vague music soft to utter sleep, + Sleep and undying dole: + Forgetting not--forgotten most-- + How love is well though lost. + + So weary, oh! and yet so fain + In silent service of the heart; + Still feeling if it be in vain + Love's spirit hath His part; + And if in death God grant the rest + Life were but kind at best. + + +3. + + Last night I slept till midnight + Then woke, and far away + A cock crowed; lonely and distant + Came mournful a watch-dog's bay; + But lonelier, slower the tedious + Old clock ticked on towards day. + + And what a day!--remember + The morns of a Summer and Spring, + That bound two lives together? + Each morn a wedding ring + Of dew and dreams and sparkle, + Of flowers and birds a-wing? + + Broad morns when I strolled the garden + Awaiting one the rose + Expected, fresh in its blushes-- + The Giant of Battle that grows + A head of radiance and fragrance, + The champion of the close. + + Not in vain did I wait, departed + Summer, this morning mocks; + 'Mid the powdery crystal and crimson + Of your hollow hollyhocks; + Your fairy-bells and poppies, + And the bee that in them rocks. + + Cool-clad 'mid the pendulous purple + Of the morning-glory vine, + By the giant pearls pellucid + Of the peonies a-line, + The snapdragons' and the pansies' + Deep-colored jewel mine. + + Shall I ever see my mealy, + Drunk dusty-millers gay; + My lady-slippers bashful + Of butterfly and ray; + My gillyflowers as spicy + Each as a day of May? + + Oh, dear when I think of the handfuls + Of little gold coin a-mass, + My bachelor's-buttons scatter + Over the garden grass; + Of the marigold that boasts its + One bit of burning brass; + + More bitter I feel the winter + Tighten to spirit and heart; + And dream of the days remembered + As lost--of the past a part; + Of the ways we went, all blotted, + Tear-blotted on love's chart. + + And I see the mill and the diamonds + Of foam tossed from its wheel; + Red lilies tumbled together, + The madcap wind at heel; + And the timid veronicas' blossoms-- + Those prayers the woods conceal. + + The wild-cat gray of the meadows + That the ox-eyed daisies dot, + Fawn-eyed and a leopard-yellow, + That tangle a tawny spot-- + As if some panther tired + Lay dozing tame and hot. + + Ah! back again with the present, + With winds that pinch and twist + Each leaf in their peevish passion, + And whirl wherever they list; + With the morning hoary and nipping, + Whose mausolean mist + + Builds white a tomb for the daylight-- + A frosty, shaggy fog, + That fits gray wigs on the cedars, + And furs with wool each log; + Carpets with satin the meadow, + And velvets white the bog. + + Alone at morn--indifferent; + Alone at eve--I sigh; + And wait, like the wind complaining, + Complain and know not why; + But ailing and longing and hating + Because I cannot die. + + How dull are the sunsets! dreary + Cold, hard and harsh and dead! + Far richer were those of August, + One stain of wine-dark red-- + The juice of a mulberry vintage-- + To the new moon overhead. + + But now I sit with the sighing + Dead wests of a dying year! + Like the fallen leaves and the acorns + Am worthless and feel as sear; + For the soul and the body sicken, + And the heart's one scalding tear. + + And I stare from my window! The darkness, + Like a bravo, his cloak throws on; + The moon, like a hidden lanthorn, + Glitters--or dagger drawn; + All my heart cries out beseeching: + "Strike here! strike and be gone!" + + +4. + + When friends are sighing + Round one and one + Nearer is lying, + Nearer the sun, + When one is dying + And all is done; + + I may remember, + You may forget + Words, each an ember, + Burning here yet-- + In dead December + One will regret. + + Love we have given, + Over and o'er, + All, who has driven + Us from his door, + Is he forgiven + When he is poor? + + What if you wept once, + What though he knew! + What if he slept once! + Still he was true, + If he but kept once + Something of you. + + Never forgetful, + Love may forget; + Froward and fretful, + Child, he will fret; + Ever regretful, + He will regret. + + Love would be sweeter + If we but knew; + Lives be completer + To themselves true; + Hearts more in metre, + Truth looking through. + + Flesh never near it, + Being impure, + Mind must endear it + Making it sure-- + Love in the spirit, + That will endure. + + So when to-morrow + Ceases and we + Quit this we borrow, + Mortality, + Such chastens sorrow + So it may see. + + There will be weeping, + Weary and deep,-- + God's be the keeping + Of those that weep!-- + When our loved, sleeping, + Sleep their long sleep; + + Then they are dearer + Than we're aware; + Character clearer, + Being more fair; + Then they are nearer, + Nearer by prayer. + + +5. + + They will not say I can not live beyond the weary night, + But then I know that I shall die before comes morning's light. + How frail is flesh!--but you 'll forgive me now I tell you how + I loved you, love you; and the pain it gives to leave you now? + + This could not be on earth; the flesh, that clothes the soul of me-- + Ordained at birth a sacrifice to this heredity-- + Denied, forbade.--Ah, you have seen the bright spots in my cheeks + Grow hectic, as before comes night blood dyes the sunset's streaks? + + Consumption. "But I promised you my love"--'t is left forlorn + Of life God summons unto him, and is it then forsworn? + Oh, I was glad in love of you; but think: if I had died + Ere babe of mine had come to be a solace at your side? + + Had it been little then, your grief, when Heaven had made us one + In everything that's good on earth and then the good undone? + No! no!--and had I lived to raise a boy we saw each day + Bud into beauty, with that blight born in him that must slay! + + Just when we cherish him the most, and youthful, sunny pride + Sits on his curly front, he pines and dies ere I have died. + Whose fault?--not mine! but hers or his, that ancestor who gave + Escutcheon to our humble house--a death's-head and a grave. + + Beneath the pomp of those grim arms we live and may not move; + Nor faith, nor fame, nor wealth avail to hurl them down, nor love. + How could I tell you this?--not then! when all the world was spun + Of morning colors for our love to walk and dance upon. + + I could not tell you how disease hid here a viper germ, + Precedence slowly claiming and so slowly fixing firm. + And when I broke our plighted troth and would not tell you why, + I loved you, thinking "time enough when I have come to die." + + Draw off my rings and let my hands rest so ... the wretched cough + Will interrupt my feeble speech and will not be put off.... + Ah, anyhow, my anodyne is this--to feel that you + Are near me, that your healthy hand soothes mine's unhealthy dew. + + And that your heart excuses all, and that you will not fret + Because you understand me now and never will forget.-- + Now bring me roses pale and pure and tell me death's a lie, + --Late was it hard for me to live, now it is hard to die. + + + + +PART V. + + +1. + + Vased in her bedroom window, white + As her glad girlhood, never lost, + I smelt the roses; and the night + Outside was fog and frost. + + What though I claimed her dying there! + God nor one angel understood + Nor cared, who from loved feet to hair + Had changed to mist her blood. + + Love, love had claimed us long, and long + Our hearts sang harp-strung, late and soon; + But God!--God jangles thus the song + And makes discord of tune. + + What lily lilier than her face! + More virgin than her lips I kissed! + When morn like God, with gold and grace + Broke massed in mist! broke massed in mist! + + +2. + + Love, to your face farewell now, + Pillowed a flower on flowers; + Eyes, white-weighed with a spell now; + Lips, with nothing to tell now, + That bade adieu to ours. + + Dear, is your soul so daggered + There by a world that hates? + Love--is _he_ ever laggard? + Hope--is _her_ face so haggard? + You, who are one with the Fates? + + Never to wait to-morrow + Under such worldly skies! + Never to sleep with sorrow! + Hour by hour to borrow + Joy that has only sighs! + + Sweet, farewell forever; + And a burning tear or two-- + Will they reach your knowledge ever, + And touch through the dreams that sever + My life from the life of you? + + O Life, in my flesh so fearful + Medicine me this pain! + Thy eyes with a science cheerful, + But mine, with a mystery tearful, + Tearful and slumber-fain. + + Love, to your lips farewell now-- + Your spirit through them I kiss; + Lips--so sealed with a spell now! + Lips, with nothing to tell now + But this! but this! but this!... + + +3. + + So long it seems since last I saw her face, + So long ago it seems, + Like some sad soul, in unconjectured space, + Lost in the happiness of some dead grace + Remembered--I. And, oh! a little while + The sorrow stabs and Death conceals no smile + From Love bowed weeping in a thorny place-- + So long ago, our love is what are dreams! + + Since she is gone no more I feel the light, + Since she is gone beyond, + Burst like a revelation out of night,-- + Golden convictions of far futures bright,-- + Whiles clouds around the west take marble tones; + For Hope sits sighing in a place of stones, + Dark locks dishevelled and face very white,-- + Since she is gone and life's an iron bond. + + Now she is dead the doubt Love dulled with awe, + Now she is dead to me, + Questions the wisdom of diviner law. + Self-solved of self I search to find a flaw-- + O egotism of Earth's fools and slaves!-- + For Faith leans thoughtful in a place of graves, + On that unseen from this seen known to draw, + Now she is dead and it is hard to see. + + +4. + + Ridged and bleak the gray forsaken + Twilight at the night has guessed, + Where no star of dusk has taken + Flame unshaken in the west. + + All the day the woodlands dying + Moaned, and drippings as of grief + Tossed from barren boughs with sighing + Death of flying twig and leaf. + + Ah, to be a dream unbroken, + Past the ironies of Fate! + Born a tree; with branches oaken + Dear unspoken intimate. + + Who may say that man has never + Lived the mighty hearts of trees? + Graduating Godward ever, + The Forever finds through these? + + Colors, we have lived, are cherished; + Odors, we have been, are ours; + Entity alone has perished; + Beauty-nourished souls were flowers. + + Music, when the fancy guesses, + Lifts us loftier thoughts among; + Spirit that the flesh distresses, + But expresses self with song.... + + Heaven in darkness bends upbraiding + Without moonlight, without star; + Darkness and the reason aiding, + All but fading phantoms are. + + Still philosophy is saying: + "Now that hope with life seems gone, + Some are cursing, some are praying, + God smiles raying in the dawn!" + + +5. + + Wild weather; the whip of the sleet + On the shuttered casement tapping; + A shadow from face to feet, + Like a shroud, my spirit wrapping, + + Wild weather; and how is she + Now the sting of the storm beats serried, + Over the stone and the tree + Of the grave where she is buried? + + Wild weather; I cannot weep-- + But the skies weep on and worry; + So I sleep, and dream in my sleep + How I hear dim garments hurry.... + + Star weather and footsteps of stars; + And I see white raiment glisten, + Like the glow on the face of Mars + When the stars to the angels listen. + + And with me I see how she stands + With lips high thought has weighted; + With testifying hands, + And eyes with purity mated. + + Have I spoken and have I kneeled + To the prayer I worship, I wonder?-- + What waits on her lips that are sealed? + God-sealed and who shall sunder! + + I sob, "Oh your stay was long! + You are come, but your feet were laggard, + With mansuetude and song + For a heart your death has daggered." + + And I lift wet eyes to her + Unutterable with weeping, + And beg for the loves that were, + Now passed into Heaven's keeping.... + + I wake and a clock tolls three-- + And the night and the storm lie serried + On the testament that's she, + Closed, clasped, and forever buried. + + +6. + + The night is shrewd with storm and sleet; + Each loose-warped casement raps or groans; + I hear the wailing woodland beat + The tempest with long blatant moans, + Like one who fears defeat. + + And sitting here beyond the storm, + Alone within the lonely house, + It seems of Sleep the Fairy charm + Weaves incantations; even the mouse + That scratched has come to harm. + + And in this grave light, stolen o'er + Familiar objects, grown severe, + I 'm strange--as, opening a door, + One finds one's dead self standing near, + One knew not dead before. + + The old stair rings with growling gusts; + Each hearth's flue gasps a gorgon throat + That snores and sleeps; the spectral dusts, + Which yonder Shawnee war-gear coat, + Whose quiver hangs and rusts, + + Are shaken; till I feel that he, + Who wore it in the wild war-dance, + And died in it, fills shadowy + Its wampumed skins; its plume, perchance, + Shakes, scowling eyes at me. + + And so the Swedenborge I toss + Aside, contented with the dark + That takes me. O'er the fire-light cross; + Pass where the andirons spit and spark, + And ponder o'er her loss. + + Or from the flaw-splashed window yearn + Out toward the waste, where sway and dip + Dank, dark December boughs, where burn + Some late last leaves, that icy drip + No matter where you turn. + + Where sodden soil, you scarce have trod, + Fills oozy footprints; and the night + So ugly that it mocks at God, + Creating monsters which the sight + Fancies, unseen, abroad. + + The months I count: how long it seems + Since that bland summer when with her, + There on her porch, in rainy gleams + We watched the mellow lightning stir + In rain-clouds gray as dreams! + + When all the west a torn gold sheet-- + Swift openings of some Titan's forge-- + Laid bald with storm; in quivering heat + Pitched precipice and nightmare gorge, + Where thunder torrents beat. + + And strong the wind was as again + Storm lit the instant earth; and how + The wood sprang out one virent stain; + We read no more--lost is it now!-- + In _Romance of a Reign_; + + A tale of nowhere; then that we + Were reading till we heard the plunge + Of distant thunder sullenly, + And left to mark long lightnings lunge + Convulsions fiery. + + What worlds love wrought us, dreaming there, + Of sorcery and necromance! + With spirits lustrous of the air, + A land like one great pearl, a trance + Of floods and forests fair. + + Where white-faced flowers sang and thought; + Where fragrant birds flew, brilliant-blown, + In winging odors; feather-fraught + With light, where breathing colors shone, + On throbbing music brought. + + Or built us some snug country home + Among the hills; with terraces + Vine-hung and orchared o'er the foam + Of the Ohio, far one sees + Wind crimson in the gloam. + + And this! and this!--alone! alone! + To hear the sweep of winter rain, + The missiled sleet's sharp arrows blown; + Dark shadow on the freezing pane, + And on my heart a moan! + + + + +DAYS AND DREAMS. + + + He dreamed of hills so deep with woods + Storm-barriers on the summer sky + Are not more dark, where plunged loud floods + Down rocks of sullen dye. + + Flat ways were his where sparsely grew + Gnarled, iron-colored oaks, with rifts, + Between dead boughs, of Eden-blue: + Ways where the speedwell lifts + + Its shy appeal, and spreading far-- + The gold, the fallen gold of dawn + Staining each blossom's balanced star-- + Hollows of cowslips wan. + + Where 'round the feet the lady-smock + And pearl-pale lady-slipper creep; + White butterflies upon them rock + Or seal-brown suck and sleep. + + At eve the west shoots crooked fire + Athwart a half-moon leaning low; + While one white, arrowy star throbs higher + In curdled honey-glow. + + Was it some elfin euphrasy + That purged his spirit so that there + Blue harebells, by those ways that be, + Seemed summoning to prayer? + + For all the death within him prays; + Not he--his higher self, whose love + Fire-filled the flesh. Its light still stays + Touched by the soul above. + + They found him dead his songs beside, + Six stairs above the din and dust + Of life: and that for which he died + Denied him even a crust. + + + + +DEITY. + + + No personal; a God divinely crowned + With gold and raised upon a golden throne + Deep in a golden glory, whence he nods + Man this or that--and little more than man! + + And shalt thou see Him individual? + Not till the freed intelligence hath sought + Ten hundred hundred years to rise and love, + Piercing the singing cycles under God,-- + Their iridescent evolutions orbed + In wild prismatic splendors,--shall it see-- + Through God-propinquity become a god-- + See, lightening out of spheric harmonies, + Resplendencies of empyrean light, + Prisms and facets of ten million beams + Starring a crystal of berainbowed rays, + And in this--eyes of burning sapphire, eyes + Deep as the music of the beautiful; + And o'er the eyes, limpid hierarchal brows, + As they were lilies of seraphic fire; + Lips underneath, of trembling ruby--lips + Whose tongue's a chord, and every sound a song: + Cherubic faces of intensity + In multiplying myriads to a word + Forming the unit--God; Supremity + Creative and ubiquitous. + + From this + Thy intellect, detached, expelled and breathed + Exaltant into flesh endowed with soul, + One sparkle of the Essence clothed with clay.-- + O high development! devolvings up + From matter to unmattered potencies, + Up to the source and fountain of all mind, + Beauty and truth, inviolable Love, + And so resumed and reabsorbed in God, + One more expression of eternity! + + + + +SELF. + + + A Sufi debauchee of dreams + Spake this:--From Sodomite to Peri + Earth tablets us; we live and are + Man's own long commentary. + + Is one begat in Bassora, + One lies in Damietta dying-- + The plausibilities of God + All possibles o'erlying. + + But burns the lust within the flesh?-- + Hell's but a homily to Heaven,-- + Put then the individual first, + And of thyself be shriven. + + Neither in adamant nor brass + The scrutinizing eye records it; + The arm is rooted in the heart, + The heart that rules and lords it. + + Be that it is and thou art all; + And what thou art so thou hast written + Thee of the lutanists of Love, + Or of the torture-smitten. + + + + +SELF AND SOUL. + + + It came to me in my sleep, + And I rose from my sleep and went + Out in the night to weep, + Over the bristling bent. + With my soul, it seemed, I stood + Alone in a moaning wood. + + And my soul said, gazing at me, + "Shall I show you another land + Than other this flesh can see?" + And took into hers my hand.-- + We passed from the wood to a heath + As starved as the ribs of Death. + + Three skeleton trees we pass, + Bare bones on an iron moor, + Where every leaf and the grass + Was a thorn and a thistle hoar. + And my soul said, looking on me, + "_The past of your life you see._" + + And a swine-herd passed with his swine, + Deformed; and I heard him growl; + Two eyes of a sottish shine + Leered under two brows as foul. + And my soul said, "_This is the lust_ + _That soils my limbs with the dust._" + + And a goose wife hobbled by + On a crutch, with the devil's geese; + A-mumbling how life is a lie, + And cursing my soul without cease. + And my soul said, "_This is desire;_ + _The meaning of life is higher._" + + And we came to a garden, close + To a hollow of graves and tombs; + A garden as red as a rose + Hung over of obscene glooms; + The heart of each rose was a spark + That smouldered or splintered the dark. + + And I was aware of a girl + With a wild-rose face, who came + With a mouth like a shell's split pearl, + Rose-clad in a robe of flame; + And she plucked the roses and gave, + And my flesh was her veriest slave. + + She vanished. My lips would have kissed + The flowers she gave me with sighs, + But they writhed in my hands and hissed, + In their hearts were a serpent's eyes. + And my soul said, "_Pleasure is she;_ + _The joys of the flesh you see_." + + And I bowed with a heart too weary, + That longed for rest, for sleep; + And my eyes were heavy and teary, + And yearned for a way to weep. + And my soul smiled, "_This may be!_ + _Will you know me and follow me?_" + + + + +THE DREAM OF DREAD. + + + I have lain for an hour or twain + Awake, and the tempest is beating + On the roof, and the sleet on the pane, + And the winds are three enemies meeting; + And I listen and hear it again, + My name, in the silence, repeating. + + Then dumbness of death that must slay, + Till the midnight is burst like a bubble; + And out of the darkness a ray-- + 'T is she! the all beautiful double; + With a face like the breaking of day, + Eyes dark with the magic of trouble. + + I move not; she lies with her lips + At mine; and I feel she is drawing + My life from my heart to their tips, + My heart where the horror is gnawing; + My life in a thousand slow sips, + My flesh with her sorcery awing. + + She binds me with merciless eyes; + She drinks of my blood, and I hear it + Drain up with a shudder and rise + To the lips, like the serpent's, that steer it + And she lies and she laughs as she lies, + Saying, "Lo, thy affinitized spirit!" + + Then I hear--as if torturing swords + Had shivered and torments had grated + Hoarse iron deep under; and words + As of sins that howled out and awaited + A fiend who lashed into their hords, + And a demon who lacerated. + + And I shriek and lie clammy and stark, + As the curse of a devil mounts higher, + Up--out of damnation and dark, + Up--a hobble of hoofs that is dire; + I feel that his mouth is a spark, + His features, of filth and of fire. + + "To thy body's corruption, thy grave! + Thy hell! from which thou hast stolen!" + And a blackness rolls down like a wave + With a clamor of tongues that are swollen-- + And I feel that my flesh is the slave + Of a--vampire, diakka, eidolon? + + + + +DEATH IN LIFE. + + + Within my veins it beats + And burns within my brain; + For when the year is sad and sear + I dream the dream again. + + Ah! over young am I + God knows! yet in this sleep + More pain and woe than women know + I know, and doubly deep!... + + Seven towers of shaggy rock + Rise red to ragged skies, + Built in a marsh that, black and harsh, + To dead horizons lies. + + Eternal sunset pours, + Around its warlock towers, + A glowing urn where garnets burn + With fire-dripping flowers. + + O'er bat-like turrets high, + Stretched in a scarlet line, + The crimson cranes through rosy rains + Drop like a ruby wine. + + Once in the banquet-hall + These scarlet storks are heard:-- + I sit at board with men o' th' sword + And knights of noble word; + + Cased all in silver mail; + But he, I love and fear, + In glittering gold beside me bold + Sits like a lover near. + + Wild music echoes in + The hollow towers there; + Behind bright bars o' his visor, stars + Beam in his eyes and glare. + + Wild music oozes from + Arched ceilings, caked with white + Groined pearl; and floors like mythic shores + That sing to seas of light. + + Wild music and a feast, + And one's beloved near + In burning mail--why am I pale, + So pale with grief and fear? + + Red heavens and slaughter-red + The marsh to west and east; + Seven slits of sky, seven casements high, + Flare on the blood-red feast. + + Our torches tall are these, + Our revel torches seven, + That spill from gold soft splendors old-- + The hour of night--eleven. + + No word. The sparkle aches + In cups of diamond-spar, + That prism the light of ruddy white + In royal wines of war. + + No word. Rich plate that rays, + Splashes of splitting fires, + Off beryl brims; while sobs and swims + Enchantment of lost lyres. + + I lean to him I love, + And in the silence say: + "Would thy dear grace reveal thy face, + If love should crave and pray?" + + Grave Silence, like a king, + At that strange feast is set; + Grave Silence still as the soul's will, + That rules the reason yet. + + But when I speak, behold! + The charm is snapped, for low + Speaks out the mask o' his golden casque, + "At midnight be it so!" + + And Silence waits severe, + Till one sonorous tower, + Owl-swarmed, that looms in glaring glooms, + Sounds slow the midnight hour. + + Three strokes; the knights arise, + The palsy from them flung, + To meward mock like some hoarse rock + When wrecking waves give tongue. + + Six strokes; and wailing out + The music hoots away; + The fiery glimmer of eve dies dimmer, + The red grows ghostly gray. + + Nine strokes; and dropping mould + The crumbling hall is lead; + The plate is rust, the feast is dust, + The banqueters are dead. + + Twelve strokes pound out and roll; + The huge walls writhe and shake + O'er hissing things with taloned wings-- + Christ Jesus, let me wake! + + Then rattling in the night + _His_ iron visor slips-- + In rotting mail a death's-head pale + Kisses my loathing lips. + + Two hell-fierce lusts its eyes, + Sharp-pointed like a knife, + That flaming seem to say, "_No dream!_ + _No dream! the truth of Life!_" + + + + +THE EVE OF ALL-SAINTS. + + + 1. + + This is the tale they tell, + Of an Hallowe'en; + This is the thing that befell + Me and the village Belle, + Beautiful Aimee Dean. + + + 2. + + Did I love her?--God and she, + They know and I! + And love was the life of me-- + Whatever else may be, + Would God that I could die! + + + 3. + + That All-Saints' eve was dim; + The frost lay white + Under strange stars and a slim + Moon in the graveyard grim, + An Autumn ghost of light. + + + 4. + + They told her: "Go alone, + With never a word, + To the burial plot's unknown + Grave with the grayest stone, + When the clock on twelve is heard; + + + 5. + + "Three times around it pass, + With never a sound; + Each time a wisp of grass + And myrtle pluck, and pass + Out of the ghostly ground; + + + 6. + + "And the bridegroom that's to be + At smiling wait, + With a face like mist to see, + With graceful gallantry + Will bow you to the gate." + + + 7. + + She laughed at this, and so + Bespoke us how + To the burial place she'd go:-- + And I was glad to know, + For I'd be there to bow. + + + 8. + + An acre from the farm + The homestead graves + Lay walled from sun and storm; + Old cedars of priestly form + Around like sentinel slaves. + + + 9. + + I loved, but never could say + Such words to her, + And waited from day to day, + Nursing the hope that lay + Under the doubts that were.-- + + + 10. + + She passed 'neath the iron arch + Of the legended ground, + And the moon like a twisted torch + Burned over one lonesome larch; + She passed with never a sound. + + + 11. + + Three times had the circle traced, + Three times had bent + To the grave that the myrtle graced; + Three times, then softly faced + Homeward, and slowly went. + + + 12. + + Had the moonlight changed me so? + Or fear undone + Her stepping strange and slow? + Did she see and did not know? + Or loved she another one? + + + 13. + + Who knows?--She turned to flee + With a face so white + That it haunts and will haunt me; + The wind blew gustily, + The graveyard gate clanged tight. + + + 14. + + Did she think it me or--what, + Clutching her dress? + Her face so pinched that not + A star in a stormy spot + Shows half as much distress. + + + 15. + + Did I speak? did she answer aught? + O God! had I said + "Aimee, 't is I!" but naught!-- + And the mist and the moon distraught + Stared with me on her--dead.... + + + 16. + + This is the tale they tell + Of the Hallowe'en; + This is the thing that befell + Me and the village Belle, + Beautiful Aimee Dean. + + + + +MATER DOLOROSA. + + + The nuns sing, "_ora pro nobis_," + The lancets glitter above; + And the beautiful Virgin whose robe is + Woven of infinite love, + Infinite love and sorrow, + Prays for them there on high;-- + Who has most need of her prayers,--to-morrow + Shall tell them,--they or I? + + Up in the hills together + We loved, where the world seemed true; + Our world of the whin and heather, + Our skies of a nearer blue, + A blue from which one borrows + A faith that helps one die-- + O Mother, sweet Mother of Sorrows, + None needs such more than I! + + We lived, we loved unwedded-- + Love's sin and its shame that slays!-- + No ill of the year we dreaded, + No day of its coming days; + Its coming days, their many + Trials by morn and night, + And I know no land, not any, + Where love's lilies grow so white! + + Was he false to me, my Mother! + Or I to him, my God!-- + Who gave thee right, O brother! + To take God's right and rod! + God's rod of avenging morrows, + And the life here in my side! + O Mother, God's Mother of Sorrows, + For both I would have died! + + By the wall of the Chantry kneeling, + I pray and the organ rings, + "_Gloria! gloria!_" pealing, + "_Sancta Maria_" sings! + They will find us dead to-morrow + By the wall of their nunnery, + O Mother, sweet Mother of Sorrow! + His unborn babe and me. + + + + +THE OLD INN. + + + 1. + + Red-winding from the sleepy town, + One takes the lone, forgotten lane + Straight through the hills. A brush-bird brown + Bubbles in thorn-flowers sweet with rain; + Light shivers sink the gleaming grain; + The cautious drip of higher leaves + The lower dips that drip again.-- + Above the tangled tops it heaves + Its gables and its haunted eaves. + + 2. + + One creeper, gnarled to bloomlessness, + O'er-forests all its eastern wall; + The sighing cedars rake and press + Dark boughs along the panes they sprawl; + While, where the sun beats, breaks a drawl + Of hiving wasps; one bushy bee, + Gold-dusty, hurls along the hall + To hum into a crack.--To me + The shadows seem too scared to flee. + + + 3. + + Of ragged chimneys martins make + Huge pipes of music; twittering here + Build, breed, and roost.--My footfalls wake + Strange stealing echoes, till I fear + I'll meet my pale self coming near; + My phantom face as in a glass; + Or one men murdered, buried--where? + Dim in gray, stealthy glimmer, pass + With lips that seem to moan "Alas." + + + + +LAST DAYS. + + + Aye! heartbreak of the tattered hills, + And mourning of the raining sky! + Heartbreak and mourning, since God wills, + Are mine, and God knows why! + + The brutal wind that herds the storm + In hail-big clouds that freeze along, + As this gray heart are doubly warm + With thrice the joy of song. + + I held one dearer than each day + Of life God sets in limpid gold-- + What thief hath stole that gem away + To leave me poor and old! + + The heartbreak of the hills be mine, + Of trampled twig and mired leaf, + Of rain that sobs through thorn and pine + An unavailing grief! + + The sorrow of the childless skies' + _Good-nights_, long said, yet never said, + As when I kissed my child's blue eyes + And lips ice-dumb and dead. + + + + +THE ROMANZA. + + + In a kingdom of mist and moonlight, + Or ever the world was known, + Past leagues of unsailed water, + There reigned a king with a daughter + That shone like a starry stone. + + The day grew out o' the moonlight; + But never a day was there. + The king was wise as hoary, + And his daughter, like the glory + Of seven kingdoms, fair. + + And the night dimmed over the moonlight,-- + And ever the mist was gray,-- + With slips of dull stars, bluer + Where the princess met her wooer, + A page like the month o' May. + + In her eyes the mist, and the moonlight + In hair of a crumpled gold; + By day they wooed a-hawking, + A-hawking laughed, a-mocking + The good, white king and old. + + On the sea the mist, and the moonlight + Poured pale to the lilies' tips;-- + At eve, when the hawks were feeding, + In courts to the kennels leading, + He kissed her mouth and lips. + + On towers the mist, and the moonlight + On a dead face staring up;-- + His kingly couch was ready, + But and her hand was steady + Giving the poisoned cup. + + + + +MY ROMANCE. + + + If it so befalls that the midnight hovers + In mist no moonlight breaks, + The leagues of years my spirit covers, + And myself myself forsakes. + + And I live in a land of stars and flowers, + White cliffs by a silver sea; + And the pearly points of her opal towers + From the mountains beckon me. + + And I think that I know that I hear her calling + From a casement bathed with light-- + The music of waters in waters falling + To palms from a rocky height. + + And I feel that I think my love's awaited + By the romance of her charms; + That her feet are early and mine belated + In a world that chains my arms. + + But I break my chains and the rest is easy-- + In the shadow of the rose + Snow-white, that blooms in her garden breezy, + We meet and no one knows. + + To dream sweet dreams and kiss sweet kisses; + The world--it may live or die; + The world that forgets, the soul that misses + The life that has long gone by. + + We speak old vows that have long been spoken, + And weep a long-gone woe,-- + For you must know our hearts were broken + Hundreds of years ago. + + + + +THE EPIC. + + + "To arms!" the battle bugles blew. + The daughter of their Earl was she, + Lord of a thousand swords and true; + He but a squire of low degree. + + The horns of war blew up to horse: + He kissed her mouth; her face was white; + "God grant they bear thee back no corse!"-- + "God give I win my spurs to-night!" + + Each watch-tower's blazing beacon scarred + A blood-blot in the wounded dark: + She heard knights gallop battleward, + And from the turret leaned to mark. + + "My God, deliver me and mine! + My child! my God!" all night she prayed: + She saw the battle beacons shine; + She saw the battle beacons fade. + + They brought him on a bier of spears.-- + For him--the death-won spurs and name; + For her--the sting of secret tears, + And convent walls to hide her shame. + + + + +THE BLIND HARPER. + + + And thus it came my feet were led + To wizard walls that hairy hung + Old as their rock the moss made dead; + And, like a ditch of fire flung + Around it, uncouth flowers red + Thrust spur and fang and tongue. + + And here I harped. Did dead men list? + Or was it hollow hinges gnarred + Huge, iron scorn in donjon-twist? + And when I thought a face sword-scarred + Would curse me, lo! a woman kissed + At me hands ringed and starred. + + And so I sang; for she had leaned + Rare beauty to me, dark and tall; + I sang of Love, whose Court is queened + Of Alienor the virginal, + Nor saw how rolled on me a fiend + Wolf-eyeballs from the wall. + + Oh, how I sang! until she laughed + Red lips that made lute harmony; + I sang of knights who fought and quaffed + To Love's own paragon, Marie-- + Nor saw the suzerain whose shaft + Was bowed and bent on me. + + And I had harped until she wept; + But when I sang of Ermengarde + Of Anjou,--where her Court is kept + By brave, by beauty, and by bard,-- + She turned a raven there and swept + Me, like a fury, 'ward. + + A bleeding beak had pierced my sight; + A crimson claw each cheek had lined; + One glimpse: wild walls of threatening night + Heaped raven battlements behind + A moat of blazing serpents bright-- + And then I wandered blind. + + + + +ELPHIN. + + + The eve was a burning copper, + The night was a boundless black + Where wells of the lightning crumbled + And boiled with blazing rack, + When I came to the coal-black castle + With the wild rain on my back. + + Thrice under its goblin towers, + Where the causey of rock was laid, + Thrice, there at its spider portal, + My scornful bugle brayed, + But never a warder questioned,-- + An owl's was the answer made. + + When the heaven above was blistered + One scald of blinding storm, + And the blackness clanged like a cavern + Of iron where demons swarm, + I rode in the court of the castle + With the shield upon my arm. + + My sword unsheathed and certain + Of the visor of my casque, + My steel steps challenged the donjon + My gauntlet should unmask; + But never a knight or varlet + To stay or slay or ask. + + My heels on the stone ground iron, + My fists on the bolts clashed steel;-- + In the hall, the roar of the torrent, + In the turret, the thunder's peal;-- + And I found her there in the turret + Alone by her spinning-wheel. + + She spun the flax of a spindle, + And I wondered on her face; + She spun the flax of a spindle, + And I marvelled on her grace; + She spun the flax of a spindle, + And I watched a little space. + + But nerves of my manhood weakened; + The heart in my breast was wax; + Myself but the hide of an image + Out-stuffed with the hards of flax:-- + She spun and she smiled a-spinning + A spindle of blood-red flax. + + She spun and she laughed a-spinning + The blood of my veins in a skein; + But I knew how the charm was mastered, + And snapped in the hissing vein; + So she wove but a fiery scorpion + That writhed from her hands again.... + + Fleeing in rain and in tempest, + Saw by the cataract's bed,-- + Cancers of ulcerous fire, + Wounds of a bloody red,-- + Its windows glare in the darkness + Eyes of a dragon's head. + + + + +PRE-ORDINATION. + + + She bewitched me in my childhood, + And the witch's charm is hidden-- + Far beyond the wicked wildwood + I shall find it, I am bidden. + + She commands me, she who bound me + With soft sorcery to follow; + In a golden snare who wound me + To her bosom's snowy hollow.... + + Comes a night-dark stallion sired + Of the wind; a mare his mother + Whom Thessalian madness fired, + And the hurricane his brother. + + Then my soul delays no longer: + Though the night around is scowling, + Keenly mount him blacker, stronger + Than the tempest that is howling. + + At our ears wild shadows whistle; + Brazen forks the lightning o'er us + Flames; and huge the thunder's missile + Bursts behind us, drags before us. + + Over fire-scorched fields of stubble; + Iron forests dark with wonder; + Evil marshes black with trouble; + Nightmare torrents thundering under: + + In the thorn that past us races, + Harelipped hags like crows are rocking; + Stunted oaks have dwarf-like faces + Gnarled that leer an impish mocking: + + Rocks, in which the storm is hooting, + Thrust a humpbacked murder over; + Bristling heaths, dead thistles shooting, + Raven-haunted gibbets cover: + + Each and all are passed, like water + Under-rolled into a cavern, + Till we see the Devil's daughter + Waiting at the Devil's tavern. + + And we stay; I drain the beaker + In her hand; the draught is fire; + World-remembrances grow weaker, + And my spirit, one desire. + + Course it! course it! Darkness passes + Like an uprolled banner tattered; + Walled before us mountain masses + Rise like centuries unscattered. + + And the storm flies ragged. Slowly + Comes a moon of copper-color, + And the evil night grows holy, + Mists the wild ride growing duller. + + In the round moon's angry scanning, + Demon-swift cross spider arches + Of the web-thick bridges spanning + Chasms of her kingdom's marches. + + We have reached her kingdom, olden + As the sea that sighs its sadness; + Rocks and trees and sands are golden, + And the air a golden gladness. + + Shapely ingots are the flowers, + And the waters, amber brightness; + Gold-bright, song-birds in the bowers + Sing with eyes of diamond whiteness. + + And she meets me with a chalice + Like the Giamschid ruby burning, + And I drain it without malice, + To her towers of topaz turning. + + Many hundred years forgetting + All that's earth: within her power + I possess her: naught regretting + Since each year is as an hour. + + + + +AT THE STILE. + + + Young Harry leapt over the stile and kissed her, + Over the stile the stars a-winking; + He thought it was Mary--'t was Mary's sister-- + And love hath a way of thinking. + + "Thy pail, sweetheart, I will take and carry."-- + Over the stile the stars hang yellow.-- + "Just to the spring, my sweetheart Harry."-- + And love is a heartless fellow. + + "Thou saidst me _yea_ when the frost did shower + Over the stile from stars a-shiver."-- + "I say thee _nay_ now the cherry-trees flower, + And love is taker and giver." + + "O false! thou art false to me, sweetheart!"-- + Over the stile the stars a-glister. + "To thee, the stars, and myself, sweetheart, + I never was aught save Mary's sister. + + "Sweet Mary's sister and thou my Harry, + Her Harry and mine, but mine the weeping: + In a month or twain you two will marry-- + And I in my grave be sleeping." + + Alone among the meadows of millet, + Over the stile the stars pursuing, + Some tears in her pail as she stoops to fill it-- + And love hath a way of doing. + + + + +THE ALCALDE'S DAUGHTER. + + + The times they had kissed and parted + That night were over a score; + Each time that the cavalier started, + Each time she would swear him o'er, + + "Thou art going to Barcelona!-- + To make Naxera thy bride! + Seduce the Lady Yoena!-- + And thy lips have lied! have lied! + + "I love thee! I love thee, thou knowest! + And thou shalt not give away + The love to my life thou owest; + And my heart commands thee stay!-- + + "I say thou hast lied and liest!-- + For where is there war in the state?-- + Thou goest, by Heaven the highest! + To choose thee a fairer mate. + + "Wilt thou go to Barcelona + When thy queen in Toledo is? + To wait on the haughty Yoena, + When thou hast these lips to kiss?" + + And they stood in the balcony over + The old Toledo square: + And weeping she took for her lover + A red rose out of her hair. + + And they kissed farewell; and higher + The moon made amber the air: + And she drew for the traitor and liar + A stiletto out of her hair.... + + When the night-watch lounged through the quiet + With the stir of halberds and swords, + Not a bravo was there to defy it, + Not a gallant to brave with words. + + One man, at the corner's turning, + Quite dead. And they stoop or stand-- + In his heart a dagger burning, + And a red rose crushed in his hand. + + + + +AT THE CORREGIDOR'S. + + + To Don Odora says Donna De Vine: + "I yield to thy long endeavor!-- + At my balcony be on the stroke of nine, + And, Signor, am thine forever!" + + This beauty but once had the Don descried + As she quit the confessional; followed; + "What a foot for silk! a face for a bride-- + Hem--!" the rest Odora swallowed. + + And with vows as soft as his oaths were sweet + Her heart he barricaded; + And pressed this point with a present meet, + And that point serenaded. + + What else could the enemy do but yield + To a handsome importuning! + A gallant blade with a lute for shield + All night at her lattice mooning! + + "_Que es estrella!_ O lily of girls! + Here's that for thy fierce duenna: + A purse of pistoles and a rosary o' pearls + And gold as yellow as henna. + + "She will drop from thy balcony's rail, my sweet! + My seraph! this silken ladder; + And then--sweet then!--my soul at thy feet + No lover of lovers gladder!" + + And the end of it was!--But I will not say + How he won to the room of the lady:-- + Ah! to love is life and to live is gay, + For the rest--a maravedi! + + Now comes her betrothed from the wars, and he, + A Count of the Court Castilian, + A Don Diabolus, sword at knee, + And moustaches--uncivilian. + + And his is a jealous love; and--for + He marks that this marriage makes sadder-- + He watches, and sees a robber to her, + Or gallant, ascend a ladder. + + So he pushes inquiry unto her room, + With his naked sword demanding-- + An Alquazil with the face of Doom, + Sure of a stout withstanding. + + And weapon to weapon they foined and fought; + Diabolus' thrusts were vicious; + Three thrusts to the floor Odora had brought, + A fourth was more malicious, + + Through the offered bosom of Donna De Vine-- + And this is the Count's condition ... + Was he right, was he wrong? the question is mine, + To judge--for the Inquisition. + + + + +THE PORTRAIT. + + + In some quaint Nuernberg _maler-atelier_ + Uprummaged. When and where was never clear, + Nor yet how he obtained it. When, by whom + 'T was painted--who shall say? itself a gloom + Resisting inquisition. I opine + It is a Duerer. Humph?--that touch, this line + Are not deniable; distinguished grace + In the pure oval of the noble face; + The color badly tarnished. Half in light + Extend it, so; incline; the exquisite + Expression leaps abruptly: piercing scorn, + Imperial beauty; icy, each a thorn + Of light--disdainful eyes and ... well! no use! + Effaced and but beheld, a sad abuse + Of patience. Often, vaguely visible, + The portrait fills each feature, making swell + The soul with hope: avoiding face and hair + Alive with lively warmth; astonished there + "Occult substantial!" you exult, when, ho! + You hold a blur; an undetermined glow + Dislimns a daub.--Restore?--ah, I have tried + Our best restorers, all! it has defied ... + Storied, mysterious, say, mayhap a ghost + Lives in the canvas; hers, some artist lost, + A duchess', haply. Her he worshipped; dared + Not tell he worshipped; from his window stared + Of Nuremburg one sunny morn when she + Passed paged to court. Her cold nobility + Loved, lived for like a purpose; seized and plied + A feverish brush--her face! despaired and died. + + The narrow Judengasse; gables frown + Around a skinny usurer's, where brown + And dirty in a corner long it lay, + Heaped in a pile of riff-raff, such as--say, + Retables done in tempora and old + Panels by Wohlgemuth; stiff paintings cold + Of martyrs and apostles, names forgot; + Holbeins and Duerers, say, a haloed lot + Of praying saints, madonnas: such, perchance, + Mid wine-stained purples mothed; a whole romance + Of crucifixes, rosaries; inlaid + Arms Saracen-elaborate; a strayed + Niello of Byzantium; rich work + In bronze, of Florence; here a delicate dirk, + There holy patens. + + So, my ancestor, + The first De Herancour, esteemed by far + This piece most precious, most desirable; + Purchased and brought to Paris. It looked well + In the dark panelling above the old + Hearth of his room. The head's religious gold, + The soft severity of the nun face, + Made of the room an apostolic place + Revered and feared.-- + + Like some lived scene I see + That Gothic room; its Flemish tapestry: + Embossed above the aged lintel, shield-- + Deep Or-enthistled, in an Argent field + Three Sable mallets--arms De Herancour, + Carved with the torso of the crest that bore, + Outstretched, two mallets. Lozenge-paned, embayed, + Its slender casements; on a lectern laid, + A vellum volume of black-lettered text; + Near by a blinking taper--as if vexed + With silken gusts a nervous curtain sends, + Behind which, maybe, daggered Murder bends;-- + Waxed floors of rosy oak, whereon the red + Torchlight of Medicean wrath is shed, + Down knightly corridors; a carven couch + Sword-slashed; dark velvets of the chairs that crouch, + It seems, with fright; clear-clashing near, more near, + The stir of searching steel. + + What find they here?-- + 'T is St. Bartholomew's--a Huguenot + Dead in his chair?--dead! violently shot + With horror, eyes glued on a portrait there, + Coiling his neck one blood line, like a hair + Of finest fire; the portrait, like a fiend,-- + Looking exalted visitation,--leaned + From its black panel; in its eyes a hate + Demonic; hair--a glowing auburn, late + A dim, enduring golden. + + "Just one thread + Of the fierce hair around his throat," they said, + "Twisting a burning ray, he--staring-dead." + + + + +ISMAEL. + + + Ismael, the Sultan, in the Ramazan, + Girdled with guards and many a yataghan, + Pachas and amins, viziers wisdom-gray, + And holy marabouts, betook his way + Through Mekinez.--Written the angel's word, + Of Eden's Kauther, reads, "Slay! praying the Lord! + Pray! slaying the victims!" so the Sultan went, + The Cruel Sultan, with this good intent, + + In white bournouse and sea-green caftan clad + First to the mosque. Long each muezzin had + Summoned the faithful unto prayer and let + The "Allah Akbar!" from each minaret, + Call to their thousand lamps of blazing gold. + Prostrated prayed the Sultan. On the old + Mosaics of the mosque--whose hollow steamed + With aloes-incense--lean ecstatics dreamed + On Allah and his Prophet, and how great + Is God, and how unstable man's estate. + Conviction on him, in this chanting low + Of Koran texts, the Caliph's passion so + Exalted rose,--lamps of religious awe, + Loud smitings of the everlasting law + On unbelievers,--trebly manifest + The Faith's anointed sword he feels confessed. + + So from the mosque, whose arabesques above-- + The marvellous work of Oriental love-- + Seen with new splendors of Heaven's blue and gold, + Applauding all, he, as the gates are rolled + Ogival back to let the many forth, + Cries war to all the unbelieving North. + + Soon have they passed the tight bazaar; along + Close, crooked streets, too narrow for the throng; + The place of owls and tombs; the merloned wall, + Camel and steed and ass. Projecting all + Its towering battlements, his palace gray, + Seraglios and courts, against the day + Lifts, vanishes. And now, soul-set on hate, + From Mekinez they pass the scolloped gate. + + Two dozing beggars, baking each a sore, + Sprawl in the sun the city gate before; + A leprous cripple and a thief, whose eyes-- + Burnt out with burning iron,--as supplies + The law for thieves,--two fly-thick wounds blood-raw, + Lifted shrill voices as they heard or saw; + Praised God, and flung into the dust each face + With words of "victory and Allah's grace + Attend our Caliph, Mouley-Ismael! + Even at the cost of ours his days be well!" + + And grimly smiling as he grimly passed, + "While God most merciful, who is, shall last,-- + Now by Es Sirat!--will a liar's word + And thief's prevail or prosper?--Pray the Lord!-- + What! at your lives' cost?--my devout intent! + Even as 't is bidden let their necks be bent! + Though words be pious, evil at the soul + Naught is the prayer!--So let their prayer be whole. + Nay! give them gold; but when the sequins cease + From the slaves' hands, by these my Soudanese + They die!" he said; and even as he said + Rolled in the dust each writhing, withered head. + + And frowning westward, as the day grew late, + Four bleeding heads stared from the city gate + 'Neath this inscription, for the passer-by, + "There is no virtue but in God the High." + + + + +A PRE-EXISTENCE. + + + An intimation of some previous life, + Or dark dream, in the present dim-divined, + Of some uncertain sleep--or lived or dreamed + In some dead life--between a dusk and dawn; + + From heathen battles to Toledo's gates, + Far off defined, his corselet and camail, + Damascened armet, shattered; in an eve's + Anger of brass a galloping glitter, one + Rode arrow-wounded. And the city caught + A cry before him and a wail behind, + Of walls beleaguered; battles; conquered kings; + Triumphant Taric; broken Spain and slaves. + + And I, a Moslem slave, a miser Jew's, + Housed near the Tagus--squalid and alone + Save for his slave, held dear--to beat and starve-- + Leaner than my lank shadow when the moon, + A burning beacon, westerns; and my bones + A visible hunger; famished with the fear, + Soul-garb of slaves, I bore him--I, who held + Him soul and self, more hated than his God, + Stood silent; fools had laughed; I saw my way. + + War-time crops weapons; and the blade I bought + Was subtly pointed. For, I knew his ways: + The nightly nuptials of his jars of gems + And bags of doublas--oh, I knew his ways. + A shadow, woven in the hangings, hid + Till time said _now_; gaunt from the hangings stole + Behind him; humped and stooping so, his heart + Clove through the faded tunic, murrey-dyed; + Grinned exultation while the grim, slow blood + Drenched black and darkened round the oblong wound, + And his old face thinned grayer than morn's moon. + + Rubies from Badakhshan in rose lights dripped + Slim tears of poppy-purple crystal; dull, + Red, ember-pregnant, carbuncles wherein + Fevered a captive crimson; bugles wan + Of cat-eyed hyacinths; moon-emeralds + With starry greenness stabbed; in limpid stains + Of liquid lilac, Persian amethysts; + Fire-opals savage and mesmeric with + Voluptuous flame, long, sweet, and sensuous as + Soft eyes of Orient women; sapphires beamed + With talismanic violet, from tombs, + Deev-guarded, of primordial Solimans; + Length-agonized with fire, diamonds of + Golconda--This, a sandaled dervise bare + Seven days, beneath a red Arabian sun, + Seven nights, beneath a round Arabian moon, + Under his tongue; an Emeer's ransom, held + Of some wild tribe.... Bleached in the perishing waste + A Bedouin Arab found sand-strangled bones, + A skeleton, vulture-torn, fierce in whose skull + One blazing eye--the diamond. At Aleppo + Bartered--a bauble for his desert love.-- + Jacinth and Indian pearl, gem jolting gem, + Flashed, rutilating in the irised light, + A rain of splintered fire; and his head, + Long-haired, white-sunk among them. + + Yet I took + All--though his eyes burned in them; though, meseemed, + Each several jewel glared a separate curse.... + + Well! dead men work us mischief from the grave. + Richer than all Castile and yet not dare + Drink but from cups of Roman murra, spar + Bowl-sprayed with fibrile gold! spar sensitive + Of poison! I, no slave, yet all a slave + To fear a dead fool's malice!--Still, how else! + Feasting within the music of my halls, + While perfumed beauty danced in sinuous robes, + Diaphanous, more silken than those famed + Of loomed Amorgos or of classic Kos, + Draining the unflawed murrhine, Xeres-brimmed, + Had I reeled poisoned, dying wolfsbane-slain! + + + + +BEHRAM AND EDDETMA. + + + Against each prince now she had held her own, + An easy victor for the seven years + O'er kings and sons of kings; Eddetma, she + Who, when much sought in marriage, hating men, + Espoused their ways to win beyond their worth + Through martial exercise and hero deeds: + She, who accomplished in all warlike arts, + Let cry through every kingdom of the kings:-- + "Eddetma weds with none but him who proves + Himself her master in the push of arms, + Her suitor's foeman she. And he who fails, + So overcome of woman, woman-scorned, + Disarmed, dishonored, yet shall he depart, + Brow-bearing, forehead-stigmatized with fire, + 'Behold, a freedman of Eddetma this.' + Let cry, and many princes put to shame, + Pretentious courtiers small in thew and thigh, + Proud-palanquined from principalities + Of Irak and of Hind and farther Sind. + Though she was queenly as that Empress of + The proud Amalekites, Tedmureh, and + More beautiful, yet she had held her own. + + To Behram of the Territories, one + Son of a Persian monarch swaying kings, + Came bruit of her and her noised victories, + Her maiden beauty and her warrior strength; + Eastward he journeyed from his father's court, + With men and steeds and store of wealth and arms, + To the rich city where her father reigned, + Its seven citadels by Seven Seas. + And messengered the monarch with a gift + Of savage vessels wroughten out of gold, + Of foreign fabrics stiff with gems and gold. + Vizier-ambassadored the old king gave + His answer to the suitor:--"I, my son, + What grace have I above the grace of God? + What power is mine but a material? + What rule have I unto the substanceless? + Me, than the shadow of the Prophet's shade + Less, God invests with power but of man; + Man! and the right beyond man's right is God's; + His the dominion of the secret soul-- + And His her soul! Now hath my daughter sworn, + By all her vestal soul, that none shall know + Her but her better in the listed field, + Determining spear and sword.--Grant Fate thy trust; + She hangs her hand upon to-morrow's joust, + A prize to win.--My greeting and farewell." + Informed Eddetma and the lists arose. + Armored and keen with a Chorasmian mace, + Davidean hauberk came she. Her the prince, + Harnessed in scaly gold Arabian, met; + So clanged the prologue of the battle. As + Closer it waxed, Prince Behram, who a while + Withheld his valor,--in that she he loved + Opposed him and beset him, woman whom + He had not scathed for the Chosroes' wealth,-- + Beheld his madness; how he were undone + With shining shame unless he strove withal, + Whirled fiery sword and smote; the bassinet + Rushed from the haughty face that long had scorned + The wide world's vanquished royalty, and so + Rushed on his own defeat. For like unto + A moon gray clouds have caverned all the eve, + The thunder splits and, virgin triumph, there + She sails a silver aspect, vanquished so + Was Behram by his blow. A wavering strength + Swerved in its purpose; with no final stroke + Stunned stood he and surrendered; stared and stared, + All his strong life absorbed into her face, + All the wild warrior, arrowed by her eyes, + Tamed, and obedient to lip and look. + Then she on him, as condor on a kite, + Plunged pitiless and beautiful and fierce, + One trophy more to added victories; + Haled off his arms, amazement dazing him; + Seized steed and garb, confusion filling him; + And scoffed him forth brow-branded with his shame. + + Dazzled, six days he sat, a staring trance; + But on the seventh, casting stupor off, + Rose, and the straitness of the case that held + Him as with manacles of knitted fire, + Considered, and decided on a way.... + + Once when Eddetma with a houri band + Of high-born damsels, under eunuch guard, + In the walled palace pleasaunce took her ease, + Under a myrrh-bush by a fountain side, + Where Afrits' nostrils snorted diamond rain + In scooped cornelian, one, a dim, hoar head,-- + A patriarch mid gardener underlings,-- + Bent spreading gems and priceless ornaments + Of jewelled amulets of hollow gold + Sweet with imprisoned ambergris and musk; + Symbolic stones in sorcerous carcanets, + Gem-talismans in cabalistic gold. + Whereon the princess marvelled and bade ask, + What did the elder with his riches there? + Who, questioned, mumbled in his bushy beard, + "To buy a wife withal"; whereat they laughed + As oafs when wisdom stumbles. Quoth a maid, + With orient midnight in her starry eyes, + And tropic music on her languid tongue, + "And what if I should wed with thee, O beard + Grayer than my great-grandfather's, what then?" + "One kiss, no more, and, child, thou wert divorced," + He; and the humor took them till the birds, + That listened in the spice-tree and the plane, + Sang gayly of the gray-beard and his kiss. + + Then quoth the princess, "Thou wilt wed with him + Ansada?" mirth in her two eyes' gazelles, + And gravity bird-nestled in her speech; + And took Ansada's hand and laid it in + The old man's staggering hand, and he unbent + Thin, wrinkled brows and on his staff arose, + Weighed with the weight of many heavy years, + And kissed her leaning on his shaking staff, + And heaped her bosom with an Amir's wealth, + And left them laughing at his foolish beard. + + Now on the next day, as she took her ease + With her glad troop of girlhood,--maidens who + So many royal tulips seemed,--behold, + Bowed with white years, upon a flowery sward + The ancient with new jewelry and gems, + Wherefrom the sun coaxed wizard fires and lit + Glimmers in glowing green and pendent pearl, + Ultramarine and beaded, vivid rose; + And so they stood to wonder, and one asked + As yesternoon wherefore the father there + Displayed his Sheikh locks and the genie gems? + --"Another marriage and another kiss?-- + What! doth the tomb-ripe court his youth again? + O aged, libertine in wish not deed! + O prodigal of wives as well as wealth! + Here stands thy damsel"; trilled the Peri-tall + Diarra with the raven in her hair, + Two lemon-flowers blowing in her cheeks, + And took the dotard's jewels with the kiss + In merry mockery. + + Ere the morrow's dawn, + Bethought Eddetma: "Shall my handmaidens, + Teasing a gray-beard's whim to wrinkled smiles, + For withered kisses still divide his wealth? + While I stand idle, lose the caravan + Whose least is notable?--My right and mine-- + Betide me what betides."... + + And with the morn + Before the man,--for privily she came, + Stood habited as of her tire-maids + In humble raiment. Now the ancient saw + And knew her for the princess that she was, + And kindling gladness of the knowledge made + Two sparkling forges of his deep dark eyes + Beneath the ashes of his priestly brows. + Not timidly she came; but coy approach + Became the maiden of Eddetma's suite; + And humbly answered he, "All my old heart!"-- + Responsive to her quavering request-- + "The daughter of the king did give thee leave? + And thou wouldst well?--Then wed with me forth-right. + Thy hand, thy lips." So he arose and gave + Her of barbaric jewelry and gems, + And seized her hand and from her lips the kiss, + When from his age, behold, the dotage fell, + And from the man all palsied hoariness; + Victorious-eyed and amorous with youth, + A god in ardent capabilities + Resistless held her; and she, swooning, saw + Gloating the branded brow of Prince Behram. + + + + +THE KHALIF AND THE ARAB. + +_A Transcript._ + + + Among the tales, wherein it hath been told, + In golden letters in a book of gold, + Of Hatim Tai's hospitality, + Who, substanceless in death and shadowy, + Made men his guests upon that mountain top + Whereon his tomb grayed from a thistle crop;-- + A tomb of rock where women hewn of stone, + Rude figures, spread dishevelled hair; whose moan + From dark to daybreak made the silence cry; + The camel drivers, being tented nigh, + "Ghouls or hyenas," shuddering would say + But only girls of granite find at day:-- + + And of that city, Sheddad son of Aad + Built mid the Sebaa sands.--A king who had + Dominion of the world and many kings.-- + Builded in pride and power out of things + Unstable of the earth. For he had read + Of Paradise, and to his soul had said, + "Now in this life the like of Paradise + I 'll build me and the Prophet's may despise, + Knowing no need of that he promises." + So for this city taxed the lands and seas, + And Columned Irem, on a blinding height, + Blazed in the desert like a chrysolite; + The manner of its building, it is told, + Alternate bricks of silver and of gold: + How Sheddad with his women and his slaves, + His thousand viziers, armored troops as waves + Of ocean countless, God with awful flame-- + Shot sheer in thunder on him--God, his shame + Confounded and abolished, ere his eyes + Had glimpsed bright follies of that Paradise; + Lay blotted to a wilderness the land + Accursed, and the city lost in sand: + Among such tales--who questions of their sooth?-- + One is recorded of an Arab youth: + + The Khalif Hisham ben Abdulmelik + Hunting one day, by some unwonted freak + Rode parted from his retinue and gave + Chase to an antelope. Without or slave, + Amir or vizier to a pasture place + Of sheep he came, where dark, in tattered grace, + Watched one, an Arab youth. And as it came + The antelope drew off, with mouth of flame + And tongue of fire to the youth he turned + Shouting, "Ho! fellow! in what school hast learned! + Seest not the buck escapes me? worthless one! + O desert dullard!" + + Rising in the sun, + "O ignorant," he said, "of that just worth + Of those the worthy of our Muslim earth! + In that thou look'st upon me--what thou art!-- + As one fit for contempt, thou lack'st no part + Of my disdain?--Allah! I would not own + A dog of thine for friend no other known-- + Of speech a tyrant, manners of an ass!" + And flung him, rags and rage, into the grass. + + Provoked, astonished, wrinkled angrily, + Hissed Hisham, "Slave! thou know'st me not I see!" + Calmly the youth, "Aye, verily I know, + O mannerless! thy tongue hath told me so, + Thy tongue commanding ere it spake me _peace_-- + Soon art thou known, nor late may knowledge cease." + + "O dog! I am thy Khalif! by a hair + Thy life hangs rav'ling." + + "May it dangle there + Till thou art rotted!--Whiles, upon thy head + Misfortunes shower!--Of his dwelling place, + Allah, be thou forgetful!--What! his grace + Hisham ben Merwan, king of many words-- + Few generosities!"... + + A flash of swords + In drifts of dust and lo! the Khalif's troops + Surrounding ride. As when a merlin stoops + Some stranger quarry, prey that swims the wind, + Heron or eagle; kenning not its kind + There whence 'tis cast until it, towering, feels + An eagle's tearing talons, falling reels + In broken circles downward--so the youth, + An Arab fearless as the face of Truth + Of all that made him instant of his death, + Waited with eyes indifferent, equal breath. + + The palace reached, "Bring in the prisoner + Before the Khalif," and he came as were + He in no wise concerned: unquestioning went + Chin bowed on breast, and on his feet a bent + Dark gaze of scornful freedom unafraid, + Till at the Khalif's throne his steps were staid; + And unsaluting, standing head held down, + An armed attendant blazed him with a frown, + "Dog of the Bedouins! thy eyes rot out! + Insulter! must the whole big world needs shout + 'Commander of the Faithful,' so thou see?" + + To him the Arab sneering, "Verily, + Packsaddle of an ass." + + The Khalif's rage + Exceeded now, and, "By my realm and rage! + Arab, thy hour is come, thy very last; + Thy hope is vanished and thy life is past." + The shepherd answered, "Aye?--by Allah, then, + O Hisham, if my time be stretched again, + Unscissored of what Destiny ordain, + Little or great, thy words give little pain." + + Then the chief Chamberlain, "O vilest one + Of all the Arabs! wilt thou not be done + Bandying thy baseness with the Ruler of + The Faithful?" spat upon his face. A scoff + Fiery made answer: + + "There be some have heard + The nonsense of our God, the text absurd, + 'One day each soul whatever shall be prompt + To bow before me and to give accompt.'" + + Then wroth indeed was Hisham; hotly said, + "He braves us!--headsman, ho! his peevish head! + See; canst thou medicine its speech anew, + Doctor its multiplying words to few; + Divorce them well." So, where the Arab stood, + Bound him; made kneel upon the cloth of blood: + With curving sword the headsman leaned at pause, + And, even as 'tis custom made of laws, + To the descendant of the Prophet quoth, + "O Khalif, shall I strike?" + + "By Iblis' oath! + Strike!" answered Hisham; but again the slave + Questioned; and yet again the Khalif gave + His nodded "yea"; and for the third time then + He asked--and knowing neither men nor Jinn + Might save him if the Khalif spake assent, + Signalled the sword, the youth with body bent + Laughed--till the wang-teeth of each jaw appeared, + Laughed--as with scorn the King of kings he 'd beard, + Insulting death. So, with redoubled spleen + Roared Hisham rising, "It is truly seen + That thou art mad who mockest Azrael!" + + The Arab answered: "Listen!--Once befell, + Commander of the Faithful, that a hawk, + A hungry hawk, pounced on a sparrow-cock; + And winging nestward with his meal in claw, + To him the sparrow, for the creature saw + The hawk's conceit, addressed this slyly, 'Oh, + Most great, most royal, there is not, I know, + That in me which will stay thy stomach's stress, + I am too paltry for thy mightiness'; + With which the hawk was pleased, and flattered so + In his self-praise, he let the sparrow go." + + Then smiled the Khalif Hisham; and a sign + Staying the scimitar, that hung malign + A threatening crescent, said, "God bless, preserve + The Prophet whom all true believers serve!-- + Now by my kinship to the Prophet, and + Had he at first but spake us thus this hand + Had ne'er been reckless, and instead of hate + He had had all--except the Khalifate." + Bade stuff his mouth with jewels and entreat + Him courteously, then from the palace beat. + + + + +THE END. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Days and Dreams, by Madison J. 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