3
I met a mother on the moor,
By a new grave a-praying.
The happy swallows in the blue
Upon the winds were playing.
"Would I were in his grave," I said,
"And he beside her standing!"
There was no heart to break if death
For me had made demanding.
[HUMAN LOVE]
We spoke of God and Fate,
And of that Life—which some await—
Beyond the grave.
"It will be fair," she said,
"But love is here!
I only crave thy breast
Not God's when I am dead.
For He nor wants nor needs
My little love.
But it may be, if I love thee
And those whose sorrow daily bleeds,
He knows—and somehow heeds!"
[OH, GO NOT OUT]
Oh, go not out upon the storm,
Go not, my sweet, to Swalchie pool!
A witch tho' she be dead may charm
Thee and befool.
A wild night 'tis! her lover's moan,
Down under ooze and salty weed,
She'll make thee hear—and then her own!
Till thou shall heed.
And it will suck upon thy heart—
The sorcery within her cry—
Till madness out of thee upstart,
And rage to die.
For him she loved, she laughed to death!
And as afloat his chill hand lay,
"Ha, ha! to hell I sent his wraith!"
Did she not say?
And from his finger strive to draw
The ring that bound him to her spell?—
But on her closed his hand—she saw ...
Oh, who can tell?
For tho' she strove—tho' she did wail,
The dead hand held her cold and fast:
The tide crawled in o'er rock and swale,
To her at last!
Down in the pool where she was swept
He holds her—Oh, go not a-near!
For none has heard her cry but wept
And died that year.
[CALL TO YOUR MATE, BOB-WHITE]
O call to your mate, bob-white, bob-white,
And I will call to mine.
Call to her by the meadow-gate,
And I will call by the pine.
Tell her the sun is hid, bob-white,
The windy wheat sways west.
Whistle again, call clear and run
To lure her out of her nest.
For when to the copse she comes, shy bird,
With Mary down the lane
I'll walk, in the dusk of locust tops,
And be her lover again.
Ay, we will forget our hearts are old,
And that our hair is gray.
We'll kiss as we kissed at pale sunset
One summer's halcyon day.
That day, can it fade?... ah, bob, bob-white,
Still calling—calling still?
We're coming—a-coming, bent and weighed,
But glad with the old love's thrill!
[TRANSCENDED]
I who was learned in death's lore
Oft held her to my heart
And spoke of days when we should love no more—
In the long dust, apart.
"Immortal?" No—it could not be,
Spirit with flesh must die.
Tho' heart should pray and hope make endless plea,
Reason would still outcry.
She died. They wrapped her in the dust—
I heard the dull clod's dole,
And then I knew she lived—that death's dark lust
Could never touch her soul!
[THE CRY OF EVE]
Down the palm-way from Eden in the moist
Midnight lay Eve by her outdriven mate,
Pillowed on lilies that still told the sweet
Of birth within the Garden's ecstasy.
Pitiful round her face that could not lose
Its memory of God's perfecting was strewn
Her troubled hair, and sigh grieved after sigh
Along her loveliness in the white moon.
Sudden her dream, too cruelly impent
With pain, broke and a cry fled shuddering
Into the wounded stillness from her lips.
Then, cold, she fearfully felt for his hand,
While tears, that had before ne'er visited
Her lids with anguish, stinging traced her cheeks.
"Oh, Adam!" then as a wild shadow burst
Her moan on the pale air, "What have I dreamed?
Now do I understand His words, so dim
To creatures that had quivered but with bliss!
Since at the dusk thy kiss to me, and I
Wept at caresses that were once all joy,
I have slept, seeing through Futurity
The uncreated ages visibly!
Foresuffering phantoms crowded in the womb
Of Time, and all with lamentable mien
Accusing thee and me!
And some were far
From birth, without a name, but others near—
Sodom and dark Gomorrah ... from whose flames
Fleeing one turned ... how like her look to mine
When the tree's horror trembled on my taste!
And Nineveh, a city sinking slow
Under a shroud of sandy centuries
That hid me not from the buried cursing eyes
Of women who gave birth! And Babylon,
Upbuilded on our sin but for a day!
Ah, to be mother of all misery!
To be first-called out of the earth and fail
For a whole world! To shame maternity
For women evermore—women whose tears
Flooding the night, no hope can wipe away!
To see the wings of Death, as, Adam, thou
Hast not, endlessly beating, and to hear
The swooning ages suffer up to God!
And O that birth-cry of a guiltless child!
In it are sounding of our sin and woe,
With prophesy of ill beyond all years!
Yearning for beauty never to be seen—
Beatitude redeemless evermore!
And I whose dream mourned with all motherhood
Must hear it soon! Already do soft skill,
Low-babbled lulls, enticings and quick tones
Of tenderness—that will like light awake
The folded memory children shall bring
Out of the dark—move in me longingly.
Yet thou, Adam, dear fallen thought of God,
Thou, when thou too shall hear humanity
Cry in thy child, wilt groaning wish the world
Back in unsummoned Void! and, woe! wilt fill
God's ear with troubled wonder and unrest!"
Softly he soothed her straying hair, and kissed
The fever from her lips. Over the palms
The sad moon poured her peace into their eyes,
Till Sleep, the angel of forgetfulness,
Folded again her wings above their rest.
[THE CHILD GOD GAVE]
"Give me a little child
To draw this dreary want out of my breast,"
I cried to God.
"Give, for my days beat wild
With loneliness that will not rest
But under the still sod!"
It came—with groping lips
And little fingers stealing aimlessly
About my heart.
I was like one who slips
A-sudden into Ecstasy
And thinks ne'er to depart.
"Soon he will smile," I said,
"And babble baby love into my ears—
How it will thrill!"
I waited—Oh, the dread,
The clutching agony, the fears!—
He was so strange and still.
Did I curse God and rave
When they came shrinkingly to tell me 'twas
A witless child?
No ... I ... I only gave
One cry ... just one ... I think ... because ...
You know ... he never smiled.
[MOTHER-LOVE]
The seraphs would sing to her
And from the River
Dip her cool grails of radiant Life.
The angels would bring to her,
Sadly a-quiver,
Laurels she never had won in earth-strife.
And often they'd fly with her
O'er the star-spaces—
Silent by worlds where mortals are pent.
Yea, even would sigh with her,
Sigh with wan faces!
When she sat weeping of strange discontent.
But one said, "Why weepest thou
Here in God's heaven—
Is it not fairer than soul can see?"
"'Tis fair, ah!—- but keepest thou
Not me depriven
Of some one—somewhere—who needeth most me?
For tho' the day never fades
Over these meadows,
Tho' He has robed me and crowned—yet, yet!
Some love-fear for ever shades
All with sere shadows—
Had I no child there—whom I forget?"
[ASHORE]
What are the heaths and hills to me?
I'm a-longing for the sea!
What are the flowers that dapple the dell,
And the ripple of swallow-wings over the dusk;
What are the church and the folk who tell
Their hearts to God?—my heart is a husk!
(I'm a-longing for the sea!)
Aye! for there is no peace to me—
But on the peaceless sea!
Never a child was glad at my knee,
And the soul of a woman has never been mine.
What can a woman's kisses be?—
I fear to think how her arms would twine,
(I'm a-longing for the sea!)
So, not a home and ease for me—
But still the homeless sea!
Where I may swing my sorrow to sleep
In a hammock hung o'er the voice of the waves,
Where I may wake when the tempests heap
And hurl their hate—and a brave ship saves.
(I'm a-longing for the sea!)
Then when I die, a grave for me—
But in the graveless sea!
Where is no stone for an eye to spell
Thro' the lichen a name, a date and a verse.
Let me be laid in the deeps that swell
And sigh and wander—an ocean hearse!
(I'm a-longing for the sea!)
[LOVE'S WAY TO CHILDHOOD]
We are not lovers, you and I,
Upon this sunny lane,
But children who have never known
Love's joy or pain.
The flowers we pass, the summer brook,
The bird that o'er us darts—
We do not know 'tis they that thrill
Our childish hearts.
The earth-things have no name for us,
The ploughing means no more
Than that they like to walk the fields
Who plough them o'er.
The road, the wood, the heaven, the hills
Are not a World to-day—
But just a place God's made for us
In which to play.
[LISSETTE]
Oh ... there was love in her heart—no doubt of it—
Under the anger.
But see what came out of it!
Not a knave, he!—A Romeo rhyme-smatterer,
Cloaking in languor
And heartache to flatter her.
And just as a woman will—even the best of them—
She yielded—brittle.
God spare me the rest of them!
Aye! though 'twas but kisses—she swore!—he had of her.
For, was it little?
She thought 'twas not bad of her,
Said I would lavish a burning hour full
On any grissette.
A parry!—and powerful!
But—"You are mine, and blood is inflammable,
Flaunty Lissette!"
My rage was undammable....
Could a stilletto's one prick be prettier?
Look at the gaping.
No?—then you're her pitier!
Pah! she's the better, and I ... I'm your prisoner.
Loose me the strapping—
I'll lay one more kiss on her.
[TEARLESS]
Do women weep when men have died?
It cannot be!
For I have sat here by his side,
Breathing dear names against his face,
That he must list to were his place
Over God's throne—
Yet have I wept no tear and made no moan.
No! but to lids, that gaze stone-wide,
Grief seems in vain.
Do women weep?—I was his bride—
They brought him to me cold and pale—
Upon his lids I saw the trail
Of deathly pain.
They said, "Her tears will fall like Autumn rain."
I cannot weep! Not if hot tears,
Dropped on his lips,
Might burn him back to life and years
Of yearning love, would any rise
To flood the anguish from my eyes—
And I'm his bride!
Ah me, do women weep when men have died?
[THE LIGHTHOUSEMAN]
When at evening smothered lightnings
Burn the clouds with opal fires;
When the stars forget to glisten,
And the winds refuse to listen
To the song of my desires,
Oh, my love, unto thee!
When the livid breakers angered
Churn against my stormy tower;
When the petrel flying faster
Brings an omen to the master
Of his vessel's fated hour—
Oh, the reefs! ah, the sea!
Then I climb the climbing stairway,
Turn the light across the storm;
You are watching, fisher-maiden,
For the token flashes laden
With a love death could not harm—
Lo, they come, swift and free!
One—that means, "I think of thee!"
Two—"I swear me thine!"
Three—Ah, hear me tho' you sleep!—
Is, "Love, I know thee mine!"
Thro' the darkness, One, Two, Three,
All the night they sweep:
Thro' raging darkness o'er the deep,
One—and Two—and Three.
[BY THE INDUS]
Thou art late, O Moon,
Late,
I have waited thee long.
The nightingale's flown to her nest,
Sated with song.
The champak hath no odour more
To pour on the wind as he passeth o'er—
But my heart it will not rest.
Thou art late, O Love,
Late,
For the moon is a-wane.
The kusa-grass sighs with my sighs,
Burns with my pain.
The lotus leans her head on the stream—
Shall I not lean to thy breast and dream,
Dream ere the night-cool dies?
Thou art late, O Death,
Late,
For he did not come!
A pariah is my heart,
Cast from him—dumb!
I cannot cry in the jungle's deep—
Is it not time for Nirvana's sleep?
O Death, strike with thy dart!
[FROM ONE BLIND]
I cannot say thy cheek is like the rose,
Thy hair ripple of sunbeams, and thine eyes
Violets, April-rich and sprung of God.
My barren gaze can never know what throes
Such boons of beauty waken, tho' I rise
Each day a-tremble with the ruthless hope
That light will pierce my useless lids—then grope
Till night, blind as the worm within his clod.
Yet unto me thou are not less divine,
I touch thy cheek—and know the mystery hid
Within the twilight breeze; I smoothe thy hair
And understand how slipping hours may twine
Themselves into eternity: yea, rid
Of all but love, I kiss thine eyes and seem
To see all beauty God Himself may dream.
Why then should I o'ermuch for earth-sight care?
[AT THE FALL OF ROME]
A.D. 455
Drink to Death, drink!
He's god o' the world.
Up with the cup—
Let no man shiver!
Up with the cup—
Let no man shrink!
Drink to death,
He's lord o' the breath
Of mortals hurled from the world
Into Oblivion's river!
Drink to Death, aye!
And then—to the dust!
Fill with a will—
And quaff like a lover!
Fill with a will—
Who dares a Nay!
Drink to Death!...
He lies who saith
That life is just—'tis a crust
Tossed to a slave in his hover!
Drink to Death!—So!
Who recks for the rest?
Love is above—
Or Hate, what matter?
Love is above—
Or Hell below.
Drink to Death,
For vile is the peth
Of Rome, and Shame is her name!
Then drink, and the goblet shatter!
[PEACELESS LOVE]
I say unto all hearts that cannot rest
For want of love, for beating loud and lonely,
Pray the great Mercy-God to give you only
Love that is passionless within the breast.
Pray that it may not be a haunting fire,
A vision that shall steal insatiably
All beauteous content, all sweet desire,
From faith and dream, star, flower, and song, and sea.
But seek that soul and soul may meet together,
Knowing they have for ever been but one—
Meet and be surest when ill's chartless weather
Drives blinding gales of doubt across their sun.
Pray—pray! lest love uptorn shall seem as nether
Hell-hate and rage beyond oblivion.
[SUNDERED]
God who can bind the stars eternally
With but a breath of spirit speech, a thought;
Who can within earth's arms lay the mad sea
Unserverably, and count it as sheer nought—
With His All-might can bind not you and me.
For though he pressed us heart to burning heart,
Knowing this fatal spell that so enthralls,
Still would our souls, unhelpably apart,
Stand aliens—beating fierce against the walls
Of dark unsympathies that 'tween us start.
Stands aliens, aye, and would! tho' we should meet
Beyond the oblivion of unnumbered births—
Upon some world where Time cannot repeat
The feeblest syllable that once was earth's.
[WITH OMAR]
I sat with Omar by the Tavern door
Musing the mystery of mortals o'er,
And soon with answers alternate we strove
Whether, beyond death, Life hath any shore.
"Come, fill the cup," said he. "In the fire of Spring
Your Winter-garment of Repentance fling.
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To flutter—and the Bird is on the Wing."
"The Bird of Time?" I answered. "Then have I
No heart for Wine. Must we not cross the Sky
Unto Eternity upon his wings—
Or, failing, fall into the Gulf and die?"
"So some for the Glories of this World; and some
Sigh for the Prophet's Paradise to come;
But you, Friend, take the Cash—the Credit leave,
Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum!"
"What, take the Cash and let the Credit go?
Spend all upon the Wine the while I know
A possible To-morrow may bring thirst
For Drink but Credit then shall cause to flow?"
"Yea, make the most of what you yet may spend,
Before we too into the Dust descend;
Dust unto Dust, and under Dust, to lie,
Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and—sans End!"
"Into the Dust we shall descend—we must.
But can the soul not break the crumbling Crust
In which he is encaged? To hope or to
Despair he will—which is more wise or just?"
"The worldly hope men set their hearts upon
Turns Ashes—or it prospers: and anon,
Like Snow upon the Desert's dusty Face,
Lighting a little hour or two—is gone."
"Like Snow it comes—to cool one burning Day;
And like it goes—for all our plea or sway.
But flooding tears nor Wine can ever purge
The Vision it has brought to us away."
"But to this world we come and Why not knowing
Nor Whence, like water willy-nilly flowing;
And out of it, as Wind along the waste,
We know not Whither, willy-nilly blowing."
"True, little do we know of Why or Whence.
But is forsooth our Darkness evidence
There is no Light?—the worm may see no star
Tho' heaven with myriad multitudes be dense."
"But, all unasked, we're hither hurried Whence?
And, all unasked, we're Whither hurried hence?
O, many a cup of this forbidden Wine
Must drown the memory of that insolence."
"Yet can not—ever! For it is forbid
Still by that quenchless soul within us hid,
Which cries, 'Feed—feed me not on Wine alone,
For to Immortal Banquets I am bid.'"
"Well oft I think that never blows so red
The Rose as where some buried Caesar bled:
That every Hyacinth the Garden wears
Dropt in her lap from some once lovely Head."
"Then if, from the dull Clay thro' with Life's throes,
More beautiful spring Hyacinth and Rose,
Will the great Gard'ner for the uprooted soul
Find Use no sweeter than—useless Repose?"
"We cannot know—so fill the cup that clears
To-day of past regret and future fears:
To-morrow!—Why, To-morrow we may be
Ourselves with yesterday's sev'n thousand Years."
"No Cup there is to bring oblivion
More during than Regret and Fear—no, none!
For Wine that's Wine to-day may change and be
Marah before to-morrow's Sands have run."
"Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint, and heard great argument
About it and about: but evermore
Came out by the same door wherein I went."
"The doors of Argument may lead Nowhither,
Reason become a Prison where may wither
From sunless eyes the Infinite, from hearts
All Hope, when their sojourn too long is thither."
"Up from Earth's Centre thro' the Seventh Gate
I rose, and on the throne of Saturn sate,
And many a Knot unravelled by the Road—
But not the Master-knot of Human fate."
"The Master-knot knows but the Master-hand
That scattered Saturn and his countless Band
Like seeds upon the unplanted heaven's Air:
The Truth we reap from them is Chaff thrice fanned."
"Yet if the Soul can fling the Dust aside
And naked on the air of Heaven ride,
Wer't not a shame—wer't not a shame for him
In this clay carcass crippled to abide?"
"No, for a day bound in this Dust may teach
More of the Saki's Mind than we can reach
Through aeons mounting still from Sky to Sky—
May open through all Mystery a breach."
"You speak as if Existence closing your
Account and mine should know the like no more;
The Eternal Saki from that Bowl has poured
Millions of bubbles like us, and will pour."
"Bubbles we are, pricked by the point of Death.
But, in each bubble, hope there dwells a Breath
That lifts it and at last to Freedom flies,
And o'er all heights of Heaven wandereth."
"A moment's halt—a momentary taste
Of Being from the Well amid the Waste—
And Lo!—the phantom Caravan has reached
The Nothing it set out from—Oh, make haste!"
"And yet it should be—it should be that we
Who drink shall drink of Immortality.
The Master of the Well has much to spare:
Will He say, 'Taste'—then shall we no more be?"
"The Moving Finger writes; and having writ,
Moves on; nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
Nor all your tears wash out a word of it."
"And—were it otherwise?... We might erase
The Letter of some Sorrow in whose place
No other sounding, we should fail to spell
The Heart which yearns behind the mock-world's face."
"Well, this I know; whether the one True Light
Kindle to Love, or Wrath—consume me quite,
One flash of it within the Tavern caught
Better than in the Temple lost outright."
"In Temple or in Tavern 't may be lost.
And everywhere that Love hath any Cost
It may be found; the Wrath it seems is but
A Cloud whose Dew should make its power most."
"But see His Presence thro' Creation's veins,
Running Quicksilver-like eludes your pains;
Taking all shapes from Mah to Mahi; and
They change and perish all—but He remains."
"All—it may be. Yet lie to sleep, and lo,
The soul seems quenched in Darkness—is it so?
Rather believe what seemeth not than seems
Of Death—until we know—until we know."
"So wastes the Hour—gone in the vain pursuit
Of This and That we strive o'er and dispute.
Better be jocund with the fruitful Grape
Than sadden after none, or bitter Fruit."
"Better—unless we hope the Shadow 's thrown
Across our Path by glories of the Unknown
Lest we may think we have no more to live
And bide content with dim-lit Earth alone."
"Then, strange, is't not? that of the myriads who
Before us passed the door of Darkness through
Not one returns to tell us of the Road,
Which to discover we must travel too?"
"Such is the ban! but even though we heard
Love in Life's All we still should crave the word
Of one returned. Yet none is sure, we know,
Though they lie deep, they are by Death deterred."
"Send then thy Soul through the Invisible
Some letter of the After-life to spell:
And by and by thy Soul returned to thee
But answers, 'I myself am Heaven and Hell.'"
"From the Invisible, he does. But sent
Through Earth where living Goodness though 'tis blent
With Evil dures, may he not read the Voice,
'To make thee but for Death were toil ill-spent'?"
"Well, when the Angel of the darker drink
At last shall find us by the river-brink,
And offering his Cup invite our souls
Forth to our lips to quaff, we shall not shrink."
"No. But if in the sable Cup we knew
Death without waking were the fateful brew,
Nobler it were to curse as Coward Him
Who roused us into light—then light withdrew."
"Then thou who didst with pitfall and with gin
Beset the Road I was to wander in,
Thou wilt not with Predestined Evil round
Enmesh, and then impute my fall to sin."
"He will not. If one evil we endure
To ultimate Debasing, oh, be sure
'Tis not of Him predestined, and the sin
Not His nor ours—but fate's He could not cure."
"Yet, ah, that Spring should vanish with the Rose!
That Youth's sweet-scented Manuscript should close!
The Nightingale that on the branches sang—
Ah, whence, and whither flown again, who knows?"
"So does it seem—no other joys like these!
Yet Summer comes, and Autumn's honoured ease;
And wintry Age, is't ever whisperless
Of that Last Spring, whose Verdure may not cease?"
"Still, would some winged Angel ere too late
Arrest the yet unfolded roll of Fate,
And make the stern Recorder otherwise
Enregister or quite obliterate!"
"To otherwise enregister believe
He toils eternally, nor asks Reprieve.
And could Creation perfect from his hands
Have come at Dawn, none overmuch should grieve."
So till the wan and early scene of day
We strove, and silent turned at last away,
Thinking how men in ages yet unborn
Would ask and answer—trust and doubt and pray.
[A JAPANESE MOTHER]
(In Time of War)
The young stork sleeps in the pine-tree tops,
Down on the brink of the river.
My baby sleeps by the bamboo copse—
The bamboo copse where the rice field stops:
The bamboos sigh and shiver.
The white fox creeps from his hole in the hill;
I must pray to Inari.
I hear her calling me low and chill—
Low and chill when the wind is still
At night and the skies are starry.
And ever she says, "He's dead! he's dead!
Your lord who went to battle.
How shall your baby now be fed,
Ukibo fed, with rice and bread—
What if I hush his prattle?"
The red moon rises as I slip back,
And the bamboo stems are swaying.
Inari was deaf—and yet the lack,
The fear and lack, are gone, and the rack,
I know not why—with praying.
For though Inari cared not at all,
Some other god was kinder.
I wonder why he has heard my call,
My giftless call—and what shall befall?...
Hope has but left me blinder!
[SHINTO]
(Miyajima, Japan, 1905)
Lowly temple and torii,
Shrine where the spirits of wind and wave
Find the worship and glory we
Give to the one God great and grave—
Lowly temple and torii,
Shrine of the dead, I hang my prayer
Here on your gates—the story see
And answer out of the earth and air.
For I am Nature's child, and you
Were by the children of Nature built.
Ages have on you smiled—and dew
On you for ages has been spilt—
Till you are beautiful as Time
Mossy and mellowing ever makes:
Wrapped as you are in lull—or rhyme
Of sounding drum that sudden breaks.
This is my prayer then, this, that I
Too may reverence all of life,
Beauty, and power and miss no high
Awe of a world with wonder rife.
That I may build in spirit fair
Temples and torii on each place
That I have loved—O hear it, Air,
Ocean and Earth, and grant your grace!
[EVOCATION]
(Nikko, Japan, 1905)
Weird thro' the mist and cryptomeria
Booms the temple bell,
Down from the tomb of Iëyasu
Yearning, as a knell.
Down from the tomb where many an aeon
Silently has knelt,
Many a pilgrimage of millions—
Still about it felt.
Still, for see them gather ghostly
Now, as the numb sound
Floats as unearthly necromancy
From the past's dead ground.
See the invisible vast millions,
Hear their soundless feet
Climbing the shrine-ways to the gilded
Carven temple's seat.
And, one among them—pale among them—
Passes waning by.
What is it tells me mystically
That strange one was I?...
Weird thro' the mist and cryptomeria
Dies the bell—'tis dumb.
After how many lives returning
Shall I hither come?
Hither again! and climb the votive
Ever mossy ways?
Who shall the gods be then, the millions,
Meek, entreat or praise?
[THE ATONER]
Winter has come in sackcloth and ashes
(Penance for Summer's enverdured sheaves).
Bitterly, cruelly, bleakly he lashes
His limbs that are naked of grass and leaves.
He moans in the forest for sins unforgiven
(Sins of the revelrous days of June)—
Moans while the sun drifts dull from the heaven,
Giftless of heat's beshriving boon.
Long must he mourn, and long be his scourging,
(Long will the day-god aloof frown cold),
Long will earth listen the rue of his dirging—
Till the dark beads of his days are told.
[INTIMATION]
All night I smiled as I slept,
For I heard the March-wind feel
Blindly about in the trees without
For buds to heal.
All night in dreams, for I smelt,
In the rain-wet woods and fields,
The coming flowers and the glad green hours
That summer yields.
And when at dawn I awoke,
At the blue-bird's wooing cheep,
Winter with all its chill and pall
Seemed but a sleep.
[IN JULY]
This path will tell me where dark daisies dance
To the white sycamores that dell them in;
Where crow and flicker cry melodious din,
And blackberries in ebon ripeness glance
Luscious enticings under briery green.
It will slip under coppice limbs that lean
Brushingly as the slow-belled heifer pants
Toward weedy water-plants
That shade the pool-sunk creek's reluctant trance.
I shall find bell-flower spires beside the gap
And lady phlox within the hollow's cool;
Cedar with sudden memories of Yule
Above the tangle tipped with blue skullcap.
The high hot mullein fond of the full sun
Will watch and tell the low mint when I've won
The hither wheat where idle breezes nap,
And fluffy quails entrap
Me from their brood that crouch to escape mishap.
Then I shall reach the mossy water-way
That gullies the dense hill up to its peak,
There dally listening to the eerie eke
Of drops into cool chalices of clay.
Then on, for elders odorously will steal
My senses till I climb up where they heal
The livid heat of its malingering ray,
And wooingly betray
To memory many a long-forgotten day.
There I shall rest within the woody peace
Of afternoon. The bending azure frothed
With silveryness, the sunny pastures swathed,
Fragrant with morn-mown clover and seed-fleece;
The hills where hung mists muse, and Silence calls
To Solitude thro' aged forest halls,
Will waft into me their mysterious ease,
And in the wind's soft cease
I shall hear hintings of eternities.
[FROM ABOVE]
What do I care if the trees are bare
And the hills are dark
And the skies are gray.
What do I care for chill in the air,
For crows that cark
At the rough wind's way.
What do I care for the dead leaves there—
Or the sullen road
By the sullen wood.
There's heart in my heart
To bear my load!
So enough, the day is good!
[SONGS TO A. H. R.]
I.
THE WORLD'S, AND MINE
The world may hear
The wind at his trees,
The lark in her skies,
The sea on his leas;
May hear the song rise
From the breast of a woman
And think it as dear
As heaven tho' human.
But I have a music they can never know—
The touch of you, soul of you, heart of you. Oh!
All else that is said or sung 's but a part of you—
Ever to me 'tis so!
II.
LOVE-CALL IN SPRING
Not only the lark but the robin too
(Oh, heart o' my heart, come into the wood!)
Is singing the air to gladness new
As the breaking bud
And the freshet's flood!
Not only the peeping grass and the scent—
(Oh, love o' my life, fly unto me here!)
Of violets coming ere April's spent—
But the frog's shrill cheer
And the crow's wild jeer!
Not only the blue, not only the breeze,
(Oh, soul o' my heart, why tarry so long!)
But sun that is sweeter upon the trees
Than rills that throng
To the brooklet's song!
Oh, heart o' my heart, oh, heart o' my love,
(Oh soul o' my soul, haste unto me, haste!)
For spring is below and God is above—
But all is a waste
Without thee—Haste!
III.
MATING
The bliss of the wind in the redbud ringing!
What shall we do with the April days!
Kingcups soon will be up and swinging—
What shall we do with May's!
The cardinal flings, "They are made for mating!"
Out on the bough he flutters, a flame.
Thrush-flutes echo "For mating's elating!
Love is its other name!"
They know! know it! but better, oh, better,
Dearest, than ever a bird in Spring,
Know we to make each moment a debtor
Unto love's burgeoning!
IV.
UNTOLD
Could I, a poet,
Implant the truth of you,
Seize it and sow it
As Spring on the world.
There were no need
To fling (forsooth) of you
Fancies that only lovers heed!
No, but unfurled,
The bloom, the sweet of you,
(As unto me they are opened oft)
Would with their beauty's breath repeat of you
All that my heart breathes loud or soft!
V.
LOVE-WATCH
My love's a guardian-angel
Who camps about thy heart,
Never to flee thine enemy,
Nor from thee turn apart.
Whatever dark may shroud thee
And hide thy stars away,
With vigil sweet his wings shall beat
About thee till the day.
VI.
AS YOU ARE
Dark hair—dark eyes—
But heart of sun,
Pity and hope
That rill and run
With flowing fleet
To heal the defeat
Of all Life has undone.
Dark hair—dark eyes—
But soul as clear,
Trusty and fair
As e'er drew near
To clasp its mate
And enter the gate
Of Love that casts out fear.
Dark hair—dark eyes—
But, there is seen
In them the most
That earth can mean;
The most that death
Can bring—or breath
There—in the bright Unseen!
VII.
AT AMALFI
Come to the window, you who are mine.
Waken! the night is calling.
Sit by me here—with the moon's fair shine
Into your deep eyes falling.
The sea afar is a fearful gloom;
Lean from the casement, listen!
Anear, it breaks with a faery spume,
Spraying the moon-path's glisten.
The little white town below lies deep
As eternity in slumber.
O, you who are mine, how a glance can reap
Beauties beyond all number!
"Amalfi!" say it—as the stars set
O'er yon far promontory.
"Amalfi!" ... Shall we ever forget
Even Above this glory?
No; as twin sails at anchor ride,
Our spirits rock together
On a sea of love—lit as this tide
With tenderest star-weather!
And the quick ecstasy within
Your breast is against me beating.
Amalfi!... Never a night shall win
From God again such fleeting.
Ah—but the dawn is redd'ning up
Over the moon low-dying.
Come, come away—we have drunk the cup:
Ours is the dream undying!
VIII.
ON THE PACIFIC
A storm broods far on the foam of the deep;
The moon-path gleams before.
A day and a night, a night and a day,
And the way, love, will be o'er.
Six thousand wandering miles we have come
And never a sail have seen.
The sky above and the sea below
And the drifting clouds between.
Yet in our hearts unheaving hope
And light and joy have slept.
Nor ever lonely has seemed the wave
Tho' heaving wild it leapt.
For there is talismanic might
Within our vows of love
To breathe us over all seas of life—
On to that Port above
Where the great Captain of all ships
Shall anchor them or send
Them forth on a vaster Voyage, yea,
On one that shall not end.
And upon that we two, I think,
Together still shall sail.
O may it be, my own, or may
We perish in death's gale!
[THE WINDS]
The East Wind is a Bedouin,
And Nimbus is his steed;
Out of the dusk with the lightning's thin
Blue scimitar he flies afar,
Whither his rovings lead.
The Dead Sea waves
And Egypt caves
Of mummied silence laugh
When he mounts to quench the Siroc's stench,
And to wrench
From his clutch the tyrant's staff.
The West Wind is an Indian brave
Who scours the Autumn's crest.
Dashing the forest down as a slave
He tears the leaves from its limbs and weaves
A maelstrom for his breast.
Out of the night
Crying to fright
The earth he swoops to spoil—
There is furious scathe in the whirl of his wrath,
In his path
There is misery and moil.
The North Wind is a Viking—cold
And cruel, armed with death!
Born in the doomful deep of the old
Ice Sea that froze ere Ymir rose
From Niflheim's ebon breath.
And with him sail
Snow, Frost, and Hail,
Thanes mighty as their lord,
To plunder the shores of Summer's stores—
And his roar's
Like the sound of Chaos' horde.
The South Wind is a Troubadour;
The Spring, his serenade.
Over the mountain, over the moor,
He blows to bloom from the winter's tomb
Blossom and leaf and blade.
He ripples the throat
Of the lark with a note
Of lilting love and bliss,
And the sun and the moon, the night and the noon,
Are a-swoon—
When he woos them with his kiss.
[THE DAY-MOON]
So wan, so unavailing,
Across the vacant day-blue dimly trailing!
Last night, sphered in thy shining,
A Circe—mystic destinies divining;
To-day but as a feather
Torn from a seraph's wing in sinful weather,
Down-drifting from the portals
Of Paradise, unto the land of mortals.
Yet do I feel thee awing
My heart with mystery, as thy updrawing
Moves thro' the tides of Ocean
And leaves lorn beaches barren of its motion;
Or strands upon near shallows
The wreck whose weirded form at night unhallows
The fisher maiden's prayers—
"For him!—that storms may take not unawares!"
So wan, so unavailing,
Across the vacant day-blue dimly trailing!
But Night shall come atoning
Thy phantom life thro' day, and high enthroning
Thee in her chambers arrassed
With star-hieroglyphs, leave thee unharassed
To glide with silvery passion,
Till in earth's shadow swept thy glowings ashen.
[TO A SINGING WARBLER]
"Beauty! all—all—is beauty?"
Was ever a bird so wrong!
"No young in the nest, no mate, no duty?"
Ribald! is this your song?
"Glad it is ended," are you?
The Spring and its nuptial fear?
"Freedom is better than love?" beware you
There will be May next year!
"Beauty!" again? still "beauty"?
Wait till the winter comes!
Till kestrel and hungry kite seek booty
And there are so few crumbs!
Wait? nay, fling it unbidden,
The false little song you prate!
Too sweet are its fancies to be chidden,
E'en of the rudest fate!
[TO THE SEA]
Art thou enraged, O sea, with the blue peace
Of heaven, so to uplift thine armèd waves,
Thy billowing rebellion 'gainst its ease,
And with Tartarean mutter from cold caves,
From shuddering profundities where shapes
Of awe glide through entangled leagues of ooze,
To hoot thy watery omens evermore,
And evermore thy moanings interfuse
With seething necromancy and mad lore?
Or, dost thou labour with the drifting bones
Of countless dead, thou mighty Alchemist,
Within whose stormy crucible the stones
Of sunk primordial shores, granite and schist,
Are crumbled by thine all-abrasive beat?
With immemorial chanting to the moon,
And cosmic incantation dost thou crave
Rest to be found not till thy wild be strewn
Frigid and desert over earth's last grave?
Thou seemest with immensity mad, blind—
With raving deaf, with wandering forlorn;
Parent of Demogorgon whose dire mind
Is night and earthquake, shapeless shame and scorn
Of the o'ermounting birth of Harmony.
Bound in thy briny bed and gnawing earth
With foamy writhing and fierce-panted tides,
Thou art as Fate in torment of a dearth
Of black disaster and destruction's strides.
And how thou dost drive silence from the world,
Incarnate Motion of all mystery!
Whose waves are fury-wings, whose winds are hurled
Whither thy Ghost tempestuous can see
A desolate apocalypse of death.
Oh, how thou dost drive silence from the world,
With emerald overflowing, waste on waste
Of flashing susurration, dashed and swirled
'Gainst isles and continents and airs o'erspaced!
Nay, frustrate Hope art thou of the Unknown,
Gathered from primal mist and firmament;
A surging shape of Life's unfathomed moan,
Whelming humanity with fears unmeant.
Yet do I love thee, O, above all fear,
And loving thee unconquerably trust
The runes that from thy ageless surfing start
Would read, were they revealed, gust upon gust,
That Immortality is might of heart!
[THE DEAD GODS]
I thought I plunged into that dire Abyss
Which is Oblivion, the house of Death.
I thought there blew upon my soul the breath
Of time that was but never more can be.
Ten thousand years I thought I lay within
Its Void, blind, deaf, and motionless, until—
Though with no eye nor ear—I felt the thrill
Of seeing, heard its phantoms move and sigh.
First one beside me spoke, in tones that told
He once had been a god,—"Persephone,
Tear from thy brow its withered crown, for we
Are king and queen of Tartarus no more;
And that wan, shrivelled sceptre in thy hand,
Why dost thou clasp it still? Cast it away,
For now it hath no virtue that can sway
Dull shades or drive the Furies to their spoil.
Cast it away, and give thy palm to mine:
Perchance some unobliterated spark
Of memory shall warm this dismal Dark.
Perchance—vain! vain! love could not light such gloom."
He sank.... Then in great ruin by him moved
Another as in travail of some thought
Near unto birth; and soon from lips distraught
By aged silence, fell, with hollow woe:
"Ah, Pluto, dost thou, one time lord of Styx
And Acheron make moan of night and cold?
Were we upon Olympus as of old
Laughter of thee would rock its festal height.
But think, think thee of me, to whom or gloom
Or cold were more unknown than impotence!
See the unhurlèd thunderbolt brought hence
To mock me when I dream I still am Jove!"
Too much it was: I withered in the breath;
And lay again ten thousand lifeless years;
And then my soul shook, woke—and saw three biers
Chiselled of solid night majestically.
The forms outlaid upon them were unwound
As with the silence of eternity.
Numbing repose dwelt o'er them like a sea,
That long hath lost tide, wave and roar, in death.
"Ptah, Ammon, and Osiris are their names,"
A spirit hieroglyphed unto my soul,
"Ptah, Ammon, and Osiris—they who stole
The heart of Egypt from the God of gods:
"Aye, they! and these;" pointing to many wraiths
That stood around—Baal, Ormuzd, Indra, all
Whom frightened ignorance and sin's appall
Had given birth, close-huddled in despair.
Their eyes were fixed upon a cloven slope
Down whose descent still other forms a-fresh
From earth were drawn, by the unceasing mesh
Of Time to their irrevocable end.
"They are the gods," one said—"the gods whom men
Still taunt with wails for help."—Then a deep light
Upbore me from the Gulf, and thro' its might
I heard the worlds cry, "God alone is God!"
[AT WINTER'S END]
The weedy fallows winter-worn,
Where cattle shiver under sodden hay.
The plough-lands long and lorn—
The fading day.
The sullen shudder of the brook,
And winds that wring the writhen trees in vain
For drearier sound or look—
The lonely rain.
The crows that train o'er desert skies
In endless caravans that have no goal
But flight—where darkness flies—
From Pole to Pole.
The sombre zone of hills around
That shrink in misty mournfulness from sight,
With sunset aureoles crowned—
Before the night.
[APRIL]
A laughter of wind and a leaping of cloud,
And April, oh, out under the blue!
The brook is awake and the blackbird loud
In the dew!
But how does the robin high in the beech,
Beside the wood with its shake and toss,
Know it—the frenzy of bluets to reach
Thro' the moss!
And where did the lark ever learn his speech?
Up wildly sweet he's over the mead!
Is more than the rapture of earth can teach
In its creed?
I never shall know—I never shall care!
'Tis, oh, enough to live and to love!
To laugh and warble and dream and dare
Are to prove!
[AUGUST GUESTS]
The wind slipt over the hill
And down the valley.
He dimpled the cheek of the rill
With a cooling kiss.
Then hid on the bank a-glee
And began to rally
The rushes—Oh,
I love the wind for this!
A cloud blew out of the west
And spilt his shower
Upon the lily-bud crest
And the clematis.
Then over the virgin corn
Besprinkled a dower
Of dew-gems—And,
I love the cloud for this!
[AUTUMN]
I know her not by fallen leaves
Or resting heaps of hay;
Or by the sheathing mists of mauve
That soothe the fiery day.
I know her not by plumping nuts,
By redded hips and haws,
Or by the silence hanging sad
Under the wind's sere pause.
But by her sighs I know her well—
They are like Sorrow's breath;
And by this longing, strangely still,
For something after death.
[THE WORLD]
Vox desperans.
The World is a wind—on which are blown
All mysteries that are.
Out of a Void it sprang—and to
A Void shall spring, afar.
Vox sperans.
The World is Visible God—who is
Its Soul invisible.
There is no Void beyond that He
Abiding fills not full.