MOODS.
My wayward youth had drained the cup of Life,
Wasting its treasures in the fitful strife,
The mad revolt of a rebellious soul,
That beats the stubborn bars of Fate’s control.
My foolish heart whispered, there is no God,
And if there is, let cravens fear his rod:
Be thy own god, slake thy imperious thirst
Where’er thou wilt, no fountain is accurst.
Many strange paths my restless feet had sought,
Not all ignoble, but to each I brought
The turbulence of will that grasps at all,
And, failing, breaks itself against the wall.
Too late I knew my impotence at last,
When the bright glow of youth was overpast.
Worn out, exhausted by the weary route
That leads from knowledge to disgust and doubt,
Defeat, deceit, and baffled purpose stole
Like a corroding canker to my soul.
I hated Life, scorned and despised my kind,
So far astray may err the unbridled mind.
I had been nigh to death; the sullen wave
Already my consenting feet did lave,
When one who thought to be my friend, and fain
Had done me kindness, plucked me back again.
They said my reason wandered, and had found
A peaceful nook remote from sight or sound
Of busy men; there by the moonlit sea
On a soft couch I lay, where over me
Through the low lattice the sea odors crept,
And from the landward side about me swept
Soft languid waves of amorous perfume,
Of pollen-dust, of bursting bud and bloom.
Wrecked by the storm of life, and cast aside
Like drift rejected by the loathing tide,
Vacant of heart and thought I lay; the air
That wooed my cheek and gently stirred my hair,
Laden with yearning voices of the spring,
Awoke in me no answering tone or string.
From the deep shadows of the sleeping wood
A baleful night-bird swept the solitude;
The shuddering moonlight like a living thing
Shrank from the touch of his defiling wing;
And fiercely following like an eager pack
Of wingèd hounds upon his lurid track,
Lewd mocking spirits filled the thickening air,
Swarming as to a charnel banquet there.
Close at my ear burst forth a piercing yell,
As if each ghoul and fiend from nether hell
Had burst its bonds, and joined that chorus fell;
My quivering veins and nerves to frenzy stung,
In discord jangled like a harp unstrung.
Suddenly at my heart a quick sharp pluck,
As ’twere some foot of small fierce bird had struck
And griped me sore; then after some short space
The keen pain seized me in another place;
I felt myself clasped in a rude embrace,
And o’er my body spread swift fleeting pangs,
Sickening and deadly as a serpent’s fangs.
Quivering in every limb then I was ’ware
Of a strange woman bending o’er me there,
With ashen hair, that in the moonlight pale
Rippled about her shoulders like a veil;
In her cold eyes that pierced me through and through,
There dimly lurked a look that once I knew.
Her face was bloodless, as of one that’s dead,
But oh! her little mouth, how rosy red,
Beset with glittering little fangs that bled,
Fresh from the cruel feast whereon they fed.
Cold was her bosom, and her clammy arms—
No ruddy current warmed those shapely charms.
The air grew stifling, and upon my ear
Fell strident whispers chilling me with fear.
“Dost thou not know my face? in my close kiss
Lingers no essence of the olden bliss?
Doth not my breath revive the ancient fire,
And fill the shrunken veins of dead desire?
I am the child of all thy joys; ere Death
Swallowed them up each left with me some breath,
Some drop of blood, some accent, or some look,
A token from each fleeting hour I took;
In me thy vanished raptures all unite
The perfect fruit of all thy past delight.
Long have I sought thee, now that thou art found,
Now that my limbs about thee have been wound,
And that my lips have fed upon thy face,
Nothing shall tear thee more from my embrace;
Dearer thou art to me than all that dwell
In the wide triple realms, Earth, Heaven and Hell.
Thou art my fruitful vineyard, and my well,
My gilded mountain top, and flowery dell
Whereon my lips shall pasture all the night,
Vanishing only with the morning light.
For in thy arms the olden joys I taste,
And round us swarm the spectres of the past;
The ruddy light still in their hollow eyes
Lingers that shone upon our revelries
In gay Lisboa’s palaces of pride,
When every mask and cheek was flung aside,
Virtue was mocked, and God and man defied.
“And youthful joys far from Lisboa’s town
Through some green byway of the years float down;
Over fair Lusitania’s hills and plains
Again we wander free from sinful stains;
Though viewed through mist of tears, the earliest scenes
Are brightest still whatever intervenes.
The leafy songs that thrill the listening wood,
And answering birds that make sweet interlude,
The sylvan lakes illuminated by
The rainbows arching all our summer sky,
And swans that drift along the shore at rest—
A string of pearls upon a swelling breast.”
Ranging amid the garden groves of youth,
The luring voice grew softer, till in sooth
Like pulsing of a moonlight lute it fell,
Lulling my senses with a rhythmic spell.
I know not if I slumbered, but anon
Those odious limbs about my own were thrown;
I started up with thick and laboring breath,
And sickening loathing almost unto death;
“O Christ!” I cried, lo, at that sacred name
The foul shape vanished, and instead one came
Clad in soft light as from an inner flame,
And held an ebon cross whereon there bled
A great white Christ, with loving arms outspread.
Singing afar a tender voice I heard,
Faintly the accents fell, “Flee as a bird.”
Then, as the spring-tides yearning to the moon,
Flood the dry hollows where we walked at noon,
E’en so the tidal-wave of feeling rose,
And memories wakened from their long repose,
And rushing back through many a dusty year
Left me again a reverent child at prayer.
Again the simple worshippers I saw
Kneeling in fervent prayer; I heard with awe
Once more the shameful tale recounted o’er:
The buffets and revilings that He bore,
The crown of thorns, the wormwood, and the gall,
And our foul sins more bitter than them all,
Filling the cup that our vile hands have pressed
To the pure lips of our expiring Christ.
Gazing upon the Saviour’s agony,
Through my dark soul a cleansing current swept,
And tears of humble penitence I wept.
Softly I wept at first, then gathering force,
Burst forth a storm of passionate remorse,
Till my frail couch shook like an autumn leaf
In the tempestuous torrent of my grief.
Stretching my trembling hands, “O Christ!” I cried,
“Would that with thee I might be crucified,
So I might share thy love. O let me find
Some sure retreat remote from all my kind,
Far from the voice of priest or minister,
Where reigns the silence of the sepulchre;
To some far rocky island let me flee,
Piercing the bosom of an unknown sea,
There let me live in sweet converse with thee.
Or in some Theban desert, too remote
E’en for the sound of Memnon’s warning note,
Or ’mid the rocks on Sinai’s shaking brow,
Where the fierce fires of God’s anger glow;
Or buried in some clammy convent cell,
No matter where, dear Lord, so I may dwell
Apart from all the universe but thee;
So that my name may perish utterly
From memory of man; so that no sound
Of human voice or footstep may resound
Through the deep portals of my solitude.
There let me purge my sins with penance rude,
The scourge, the midnight vigil, and the fast,
Until I know thee, face to face at last.”
How weak are all this life’s most tempting joys,
Love, wealth, ambition, transitory toys,
To those that flood the lonely anchorite
In the rapt moments of his soul’s delight.
The sweetest words of Jesus are not found
In Holy Writ; who in his grace abound,
Forsaking all the world to bear his cross,
Counting all human love and honor dross;
Who wears the thorny crown upon his head,
And loveth better than his daily bread
The scourge, the iron chain, the stony bed,
Worn out with vigils, spent with sighs and tears,
Jesus perchance may whisper in his ears,
Sweeter than music of the choral spheres,
The unwritten words that soothed the Magdalene.
Perchance on Jesus’ bosom he may lean,
A deeper sense than language can impart
Lies in the throbbing of that wondrous heart.
The moon went down, the night grew dark and dense,
The aspiration of my soul intense
Took real form and garb, or so it seemed,
And bore me on to all that I had dreamed.
Into the narrow dungeon where I lay
The Saviour came, and gently put away
My scourging hand; his smile ineffable
With more than earthly radiance lit my cell—
Sweeter than wanton couch had ever known,
The rapture Jesus bringeth to his own.
Naked and prone upon the dungeon stone,
His love suffused me with a rosy glow.
His words of grace and pardon, murmured low,
Thrilled me and filled my spirit’s pulsing vein,
Till like a ship impatient for the main
Her snowy wings tugged at the anchor chain.
I slept profoundly; when I woke, the sun
Already more than half his course had run.
Light willing feet were moving round my couch,
And gentle hands with ministering touch.
They brought me dainties, and their cheerful words,
The hum of honey-bees, the voice of birds,
The grand old forest’s potent influence
Subdued and mingled with my every sense,
And moved my being to accord and tune
With all the leafy harmonies of June,
As if some conscious hand beneficent
A hideous nightmare pall had from me rent.
I wandered out alone beneath the trees
And in a tempting spot reclined at ease,
My head in the cool shade, and at my feet
Streaming the amber sunlight’s genial heat.
My spirits rose, and quickening pulses beat,
Surprised to find that living still was sweet.
The tree-tops o’er me seemed to melt away—
Green islets floating on an azure bay;
And I in fancy floated with them, too,
Drifting forever down the ether blue.
Half dreaming thus, so quietly I lay
The forest denizens resumed their play;
But furtively, as though they feared to break
The spell that brooded in the air, or wake
Some discord slumbering in the solitude.
A bird sang nigh me, but with voice subdued;
The mossy oaks like kingly graybeards stood,
And stretched inviting arms; the aspens wooed
With myriad beckoning leaves, and each slant beam,
Flung from the flying sun-god’s hand, did seem
A rosy finger-tip that coyly pointed
To some deep trysting-place by wood-nymphs haunted.
Long vistas led away mysteriously,
So tempting that I almost thought to see
Arch faces from the nearer branches peeping,
And clumsy satyrs in the distance leaping.
The nymph, the satyr, and the bounding fawn
That filled the groves of Thessaly are gone.
The merry train that circled Oberon
Trip it no more upon the moonlit lawn.
But let them pass nor mourn the solitude:
Far sweeter than the whole fantastic brood
Is one weak, loving woman’s human form.
A woman’s voice, low, tremulous, and warm,
Hath a more potent spell to lull the charm
Than Orphean lute, or siren’s song, where passed
The wave-worn mariner lashed to his mast.
Two doves thrust out their small heads timidly
From the low branches of a neighboring tree,
Looking askance, and peering through the green,
Like foolish lovers fearing to be seen,
Then, reassured, resumed their blissful play.
I smiled to see them, thinking of a day,
Just such another day as this, last year,
When with a damsel I had wandered here,
Amid these very vistas, and I thought
Of a deep vine-clad arbor we had sought.
Our words, our looks, our tender dalliance, all,
Like birds of passage at the swallow’s call,
Came trooping back, on light wings fluttering,
And through me swept the quickening breath of spring.
Seen through the shimmering aspen leaves afar
A fair face twinkled on me like a star,
And rustle of bright garments drawing nigh
Fluttered my heart with strange expectancy.
* * * * *
And soon two happy lovers wandered far,
And tarried till the rising of the evening star.