TO J. FOX, JR.
You remember how the mist,
When we climbed to Devil's Den,
Pearly in the mountain glen,
And above us, amethyst,
Throbbed or circled? then away,
Through the wildwoods opposite,
Torn and scattered, morning-lit,
Vanished into dewy gray?—
Vague as in romance we saw,
From the fog, one riven trunk,
Talon-like with branches shrunk,
Thrust a monster dragon claw.
And we climbed for hours through
The dawn-dripping Jellicoes,
To a wooded rock that shows
Undulating leagues of blue
Summits; mountain-chains that lie
Dark with forests; bar on bar,
Ranging their irregular
Purple peaks beneath a sky
Soft as slumber. Range on range
Billow their enormous spines,
Where the rocks and priestly pines
Sit eternal, without change.
We were sons of Nature then:
She had taken us to her,
Signalized by brier and burr,
Something more to her than men:
Pupils of her lofty moods,
From her bloom-anointed looks,
Wisdom of no man-made books
Learned we in those solitudes:
How the seed supplied the flower;
How the sapling held the oak;
How within the vine awoke
The wild impulse still to tower;
How in fantasy or mirth,
Springing from her footsteps there,
Curious fungi everywhere
Bulged, exuded from the earth;
Coral vegetable things,
That the underworld exhaled,
Bulbous, crystal-ribbed and scaled,
Many colored and in rings,
Like the Indian-Pipe that grew
Pink and white in loamy cracks,
Flowers of a natural wax,
She had turned her fancy to.—
On that laureled precipice,
Where the chestnuts dropped their burrs,
Sweet with balsam of the firs,
First we felt her mother kiss
Full of heaven and the wind;
While the forests, wood on wood,
Murmured like a multitude
Giving praise where none hath sinned.—
Freedom met us there; we saw
Freedom giving audience;
In her face the eloquence,
Lightning-like, of love and law:
Round her, with majestic hips,
Lay the giant mountains; there
Near her, cataracts tossed their hair,
God and thunder on their lips.—
Oft an eagle, or a hawk,
Or a scavenger, we knew
Winged through altitudes of blue,
By its shadow on the rock.
Or a cloud of templed white
Moved, a lazy berg of pearl,
Through the sky's pacific swirl,
Shot with cool cerulean light.
So we dreamed an hour upon
That warm rock the lichens mossed,
While around us foliage tossed
Coins, gold-minted of the sun:
Then arose; and a ravine,
Which a torrent once had worn,
Made our roadway to the corn,
In the valley, deep and green;
And the farm house with its bees,
Where old-fashioned flowers spun
Gay rag-carpets in the sun,
Hid among the apple trees.
Here we watched the twilight fall;
O'er Wolf-Mountain sunset made
A huge rhododendron rayed
Round the sun's cloud-centered ball.
Then through scents of herb and soil,
To the mining-camp we turned,
In the twinkling dusk discerned
With its white-washed homes of toil.
Ah, those nights!—We wandered forth
On some haunted mountain path,
When the moon was late, and rathe
The large stars, sowed south and north,
Splashed with gold the purple skies;
And the milky zodiac,
Rolled athwart the belted black,
Seemed a path to Paradise.
And we walked or lingered till,
In the valley-land beneath,
Like the vapor of a breath
Breathed in frost, arose the still
Architecture of the mist:
And the moon-dawn's necromance
Touched the mist and made it glance
Like a town of amethyst.
Then around us, sharp and brusque,
Night's shrill insects strident strung
Instruments that buzzed and sung
Pixy music of the dusk.
And we seemed to hear soft sighs,
And hushed steps of ghostly things,
Fluttered feet or rustled wings,
Moved before us. Fire-flies,
Gleaming in the tangled glade,
Seemed the eyes of warriors
Stealing under watching stars
To some midnight ambuscade;
To the Indian village there,
Wigwamed with the mist, that slept
By the woodland side, whence crept
Shadowy Shawnees of the air.
When the moon rose, like a cup
Lay the valley, brimmed with wine
Of mesmeric shade and shine,
To the moon's pale face held up.
As she rose from out the mines
Of the eastern darkness, night
Met her, clad in dewy light
'Mid Pine Mountain's sachem pines.
As from clouds in pearly parts
Her serene circumference grew,
Home we turned. And all night through
Dreamed the dreams of happy hearts.
A Confession
These are the facts:—I was to blame:
I brought her here and wrought her shame:
She came with me all trustingly.
Lovely and innocent her face:
And in her perfect form, the grace
Of purity and modesty.
I think I loved her then: 'would dote
On her ambrosial breast and throat,
Young as a blossom's tenderness:
Her eyes, that were both glad and sad:
Her cheeks and chin, that dimples had:
Her mouth, red-ripe to kiss and kiss.
Three months passed by; three moons of fire;
When in me sickened all desire:
And in its place a devil,—who
Filled all my soul with deep disgust,
And on the victim of my lust
Turned eyes of loathing,—swiftly grew.
One night, when by my side she slept,
I rose: and leaning, while I kept
The dagger hid, I kissed her hair
And throat: and, when she smiled asleep,
Into her heart I drove it deep:
And left her dead, still smiling there.
Lilith
Yea, there are some who always seek
The love that lasts an hour;
And some who in love's language speak,
Yet never know his power.
Of such was I, who knew not what
Sweet mysteries may rise
Within the heart when 't is its lot
To love and realize.
Of such was I, ah me! till, lo,
Your face on mine did gleam,
And changed that world, I used to know,
Into an evil dream.
That world wherein, on hill and plain,
Great blood-red poppies bloomed,
Their hot hearts thirsty for the rain,
And sleepily perfumed.
Above, below, on every part
A crimson shadow lay,
As if the red sun streamed athwart
And sunset was alway.
I know not how, I know not when,
I only know that there
She met me in the haunted glen,
A poppy in her hair.
Her face seemed fair as Mary's is,
That knows no sin or wrong;
Her presence filled the silences
As music fills a song.
And she was clad like the Mother of God,
As 't were for Christ's sweet sake,
But when she moved and where she trod
A hiss went of a snake.
Though seeming sinless, till I die
I shall not know for sure
Why to my soul she seemed a lie
And otherwise than pure.
Nor why I kissed her soon and late
And for her felt desire,
While loathing of her passion ate
Into my soul like fire.
Was it because my soul could tell
That, like the poppy-flower,
She had no soul? a thing of Hell,
That o'er it had no power.
Or was it that your love at last
My soul so long had craved,
From the sweet sin that held me fast
At that last moment saved?
Content
When I behold how some pursue
Fame, that is care's embodiment,
Or fortune, whose false face looks true,—
A humble home with sweet content
Is all I ask for me and you.
A humble home, where pigeons coo,
Whose path leads under breezy lines
Of frosty-berried cedars to
A gate, one mass of trumpet-vines,
Is all I ask for me and you.
A garden, which, all summer through,
The roses old make redolent,
And morning-glories, gay of hue,
And tansy, with its homely scent,
Is all I ask for me and you.
An orchard, that the pippins strew,
From whose bruised gold the juices spring;
A vineyard, where the grapes hang blue,
Wine-big and ripe for vintaging,
Is all I ask for me and you.
A lane, that leads to some far view
Of forest and of fallow-land,
Bloomed o'er with rose and meadow-rue,
Each with a bee in its hot hand,
Is all I ask for me and you.
At morn, a pathway deep with dew,
And birds to vary time and tune;
At eve, a sunset avenue,
And whippoorwills that haunt the moon,
Is all I ask for me and you.
Dear heart, with wants so small and few,
And faith, that's better far than gold,
A lowly friend, a child or two,
To care for us when we are old,
Is all I ask for me and you.