III.
MOONRISE AT SEA.
With lips that were hoarse with a fury
Of foam and of winds that are strewn,
Of storm and of turbulent hurry,
The ocean roared, heralding soon
A birth of miraculous glory,
Of madness, affection—the moon.
And soon from her waist with a slipping
And shudder and clinging of light,
With a loos'ning and pushing and ripping
Of the raven-laced bodice of Night,
With a silence of feet and a dripping
The goddess came, virginal white.
And the air was alive with the twinkle
And tumult of silver-shod feet,
The hurling of stars, and the sprinkle
Of loose, lawny limbs and a sweet
Murmur and whisper and tinkle
Of beam-weaponed moon spirits fleet.
THE RAIN.
We stood where the fields were tawny,
Where the redolent woodland was warm,
And the summer above us, now lawny,
Was alive with the pulse winds of storm.
And we watched weak wheat waves lighten,
And wince and hiss at each gust,
And the turbulent maples whiten,
And the lane grow gray with dust.
White flakes from the blossoming cherry,
Pink snows of the peaches were blown,
And star-fair blooms of the berry
And the dogwood's flowers were strewn.
And the luminous hillocks grew sullied,
And shadowed and thrilled with alarm,
When the body of the blackness was gullied
With the rapid, keen flame of the storm.
And the birds to dry coverts had hurried,
And the musical rillet ran slow,
And the buccaneer bee was worried,
And the red lilies swung to and fro.
Till the elf-cuirassiers of the showers
Came, bright with slant lances of rain,
And charged the bare heads of the flowers,
And trampled the grass of the plain.
And the armies of the leaves were shattered,
Their standards drenched, heavy and lank;
And the iron weed's purple was spattered,
And the lily lay broke on the bank.
But high in the storm was the swallow,
And the rain-strong voice of the fall
In the bough-grottoed dingle sang hollow
To the sky-blue flags on its wall.
But the storm and its clouds passed over,
And left but one cloud in the West,
Wet wafts that were fragrant with clover,
And the sun low sunken to rest;
Soft spices of rain-studded poppies,
Of honey unfilched of a bee,
And balm of the mead and the coppice,
And musk of the rain-breathing tree.
Then the cloud in the West was riven,
And bubbled and bursten with gold,
Blown out through deep gorges of heaven,
And spilled on the wood and the wold.
TO S. McK.
I.
Shall we forget how, in our day,
The Sabine fields about us lay
In amaranth and asphodel,
And bubbling, cold Bandusian well,
Fair Pyrrhas haunting every way?
In dells of forest faun and fay,
Moss-lounged within the fountain's spray,
How drained we wines too rare to tell,
Shall we forget?
The fine Falernian or the ray
Of fiery Cæcuban, while gay
We heard Bacchantes shout and yell,
Filled full of Bacchus, and so fell
To dreaming of some Lydia;
Shall we forget?
II.
If we forget in after years,
My comrade, all the hopes and fears
That hovered all our walks around
When ent'ring on that mystic ground
Of ghostly legends, where one hears
By bandit towers the chase that nears
Thro' cracking woods, the oaths and cheers
Of demon huntsman, horn and hound;
If we forget.
Lenora's lover and her tears,
Fierce Wallenstein, satanic sneers
Of the red devil Goethe bound,—
Why then, forsooth, they soon are found
In burly stoops of German beers,
If we forget!