AUGUST MOONLIGHT
The solemn light behind the barns,
The rising moon, the cricket's call,
The August night, and you and I—
What is the meaning of it all!
Has it a meaning, after all?
Or is it one of Nature's lies,
That net of beauty that she casts
Over Life's unsuspecting eyes?
That web of beauty that she weaves
For one strange purpose of her own,—
For this the painted butterfly,
For this the rose—for this alone!
Strange repetition of the rose,
And strange reiterated call
Of bird and insect, man and maid,—
Is that the meaning of it all?
If it means nothing, after all!
And nothing lives, except to die—
It is enough—that solemn light
Behind the barns, and you and I.
TO A ROSE
O rose! forbear to flaunt yourself,
All bloom and dew—
I once, sad-hearted as I am,
Was young as you.
But, one by one, the petals fell
Earthward to rot;
Only a berry testifies
A rose forgot.
INVITATION
Unless you come while still the world is green,
A place of birds and the blue dreaming sea,
In vain has all the singing summer been,
Unless you come, and share it all with me.
Ah! come, ere August flames its heart away,
Ere, like a golden widow, autumn goes
Across the woodlands, sad with thoughts of May,
An aster in her bosom for a rose.
SUMMER GOING
Crickets calling,
Apples falling.
Summer dying,
Life is flying.
So soon over—
Love and lover.
AUTUMN TREASURE
Who will gather with me the fallen year,
This drift of forgotten forsaken leaves,
Ah! who give ear
To the sigh October heaves
At summer's passing by!
Who will come walk with me
On this Persian carpet of purple and gold
The weary autumn weaves,
And be as sad as I?
Gather the wealth of the fallen rose,
And watch how the memoried south wind blows
Old dreams and old faces upon the air,
And all things fair.
WINTER
Winter, some call thee fair,
Yea! flatter thy cold face
With vain compare
Of all thy glittering ways
And magic snows
With summer and the rose;
Thy phantom flowers
And fretted traceries
Of crystal breath,
Thy frozen and fantastic art of death,
With April as she showers
The violet on the leas,
And bares her bosom
In the blossoming trees,
And dances on her way
To laugh with May—
Winter that hath no bird
To sing thee, and no bloom
To deck thy brow:
To me thou art an empty haunted room,
Where once the music
Of the summer stirred,
And all the dancers
Fallen on silence now.
THE MYSTIC FRIENDS
I nothing did all yesterday
But listen to the singing rain
On roof and weeping window-pane,
And, 'whiles I'd watch the flying spray
And smoking breakers in the bay:
Nothing but this did I all day—
Save turn anon to trim the fire
With a new log, and mark it roar
And flame with yellow tongues for more
To feed its mystical desire.
No other comrades save these three,
The fire, the rain, and the wild sea,
All day from morn till night had I—
Yea! and the wind, with fitful cry,
Like a hound whining at the door.
Yet seemed it, as to sleep I turned,
Pausing a little while to pray,
That not mis-spent had been the day;
That I had somehow wisdom learned
From those wild waters in the bay,
And from the fire as it burned;
And that the rain, in some strange way,
Had words of high import to say;
And that the wind, with fitful cry,
Did some immortal message try,
Striving to make some meaning clear
Important for my soul to hear.
But what the meaning of the rain,
And what the wisdom of the fire,
And what the warning of the wind,
And what the sea would tell, in vain
My soul doth of itself enquire,—
And yet a meaning too doth find:
For what am I that hears and sees
But a strange brother of all these
That blindly move, and wordless cry,
And I, mysteriously I,
Answer in blood and bone and breath
To what my gnomic kindred saith;
And, as in me they all have part,
Translate their message to my heart—
And know, yet know not, what they say:
Know not, yet know, the fire's tongue
And the rain's elegiac song,
And the white language of the spray,
And all the wind meant yesterday—
Yea! wiser he, when the day ends,
Who shared it with those four strange friends.
THE COUNTRY GODS
I dwell, with all things great and fair:
The green earth and the lustral air,
The sacred spaces of the sea,
Day in, day out, companion me.
Pure-faced, pure-thoughted, folk are mine
With whom to sit and laugh and dine;
In every sunlit room is heard
Love singing, like an April bird,
And everywhere the moonlit eyes
Of beauty guard our paradise;
While, at the ending of the day,
To the kind country gods we pray,
And dues of our fair living pay.
Thus, when, reluctant, to the town
I go, with country sunshine brown,
So small and strange all seems to me—
the boonfellow of the sea—
That these town-people say and be:
Their insect lives, their insect talk,
Their busy little insect walk,
Their busy little insect stings—
And all the while the sea-weed swings
Against the rock, and the wide roar
Rises foam-lipped along the shore.
Ah! then how good my life I know,
How good it is each day to go
Where the great voices call, and where
The eternal rhythms flow and flow.
In that august companionship,
The subtle poisoned words that drip,
With guileless guile, from friendly lip,
The lie that flits from ear to ear,
Ye shall not speak, ye shall not hear;
Nor shall you fear your heart to say,
Lest he who listens shall betray.
The man who hearkens all day long
To the sea's cosmic-thoughted song
Comes with purged ears to lesser speech,
And something of the skyey reach
Greatens the gaze that feeds on space;
The starlight writes upon his face
That bathes in starlight, and the morn
Chrisms with dew, when day is born,
The eyes that drink the holy light
Welling from the deep springs of night.
And so—how good to catch the train
Back to the country gods again.
III
TO ONE ON A JOURNEY
Why did you go away without one word,
Wave of the hand, or token of good-bye,
Nor leave some message for me with flower or bird,
Some sign to find you by;
Some stray of blossom on the winter road,
To know your feet had gone that very way,
Told me the star that points to your abode,
And tossed me one faint ray
To climb from out the night where now I
dwell—
Or, seemed it best for you to go alone
To heaven, as alone I go to hell
Upon the four winds blown.
HER PORTRAIT IMMORTAL
Must I believe this beauty wholly gone
That in her picture here so deathless seems,
And must I henceforth speak of her as one
Tells of some face of legend or of dreams,
Still here and there remembered—scarce believed,
Or held the fancy of a heart bereaved.
So beautiful she—was; ah! "was," say I,
Yet doubt her dead—I did not see her die.
Only by others borne across the sea
Came the incredible wild blasphemy
They called her death—as though it could be true
Of such an immortality as you!
True of these eyes that from her picture gaze,
Serene, star-steadfast, as the heaven's own eyes;
Of that deep bosom, white as hawthorn sprays,
Where my world-weary head forever lies;
True of these quiet hands, so marble-cool,
Still on her lap as lilies on a pool.
Must I believe her dead—that this sweet clay,
That even from her picture breathes perfume,
Was carried on a fiery wind away,
Or foully locked in the worm-whispering tomb;
This casket rifled, ribald fingers thrust
'Mid all her dainty treasure—is this dust!
Once such a dewy marvel of a girl,
Warm as the sun, and ivory as the moon;
All gone of her, all lost—except this curl
Saved from her head one summer afternoon,
Tied with a little ribbon from her breast—
This only mine, and Death's now all the rest.
Must I believe it true! Bid me not go
Where on her grave the English violets blow;
Nay, leave me—if a dream, indeed, it be—
Still in my dream that she is somewhere she,
Silent, as was her wont. It is a lie—
She is not dead—I did not see her die.
SPRING'S PROMISES
When the spring comes again, will you be there?
Three springs I watched and waited for your face,
And listened for your voice upon the air;
I sought for you in many a hidden place,
Saying, "She must be there."
"Surely some magic slumber holds her fast,
She whose blue eyes were morning's earliest flowers,"
I sighed: and, one by one, before me passed
The rainbowed daughters of the vernal showers,
Saying, "She comes at last."
Ah! broken promise of the world! how fair
You speak young hearts! In many a wanton word
Of lyric April, each succeeding year,
By risen flower, and the returning bird,
You vowed to bring back her.
And now the flutes are in the trees once more,
The violets breathe up through the melting snow,
Old Earth throws open wide her grassy door—
As if there were no violets long ago,
Or any birds before.
"APRIL IS IN THE WORLD AGAIN"
April is in the world again,
And all the world is filled with flowers—
Flowers for others, not for me!
For my one flower I cannot see,
Lost in the April showers.
I cannot wake her, though I sing,
And all the birds, for her dear sake,
Fill with their songs the wintry brake;
Ah! could they make her rise again,
What resurrection would be mine!
Is she too tired to help the sun
And all the little stars to shine?
"SINGING GO I"
Singing go I, seeking for ever a song
Sung long ago; I ask no more to hear
Her voice that sang—for I should do her wrong,
Had I the power, to bring her once more near—
Near to the earth, its sorrow or its joy,
To drag her back into the arms of pain
And Love and all the April flowers again
And all her little dreams of heaven destroy.
Have I the heart? Ah! had I but the song,
The nightingale would listen and all things
That talk in waterfalls and trees and strings
Would hush themselves to listen as I sang,
Had I the song.
"WHO WAS IT SWEPT AGAINST MY DOOR"
Who was it swept against my door just now,
With rustling robes like Autumn's—was it thou?
Ah! would it were thy gown against my door—
Only thy gown once more.
Sometimes the snow, sometimes the fluttering breath
Of April, as toward May she wandereth,
Make me a moment think that it is thou—
But yet it is not thou!
"FACE IN THE TOMB THAT LIES SO STILL"
Face in the tomb, that lies so still,
May I draw near,
And watch your sleep and love you,
Without word or tear.
You smile, your eyelids flicker;
Shall I tell
How the world goes that lost you?
Shall I tell?
Ah! love, lift not your eyelids;
'Tis the same
Old story that we laughed at,—
Still the same.
We knew it, you and I,
We knew it all:
Still is the small the great,
The great the small;
Still the cold lie quenches
The flaming truth,
And still embattled age
Wars against youth.
Yet I believe still in the ever-living God
That fills your grave with perfume,
Writing your name in violets across the sod,
Shielding your holy face from hail and snow;
And, though the withered stay, the lovely go,
No transitory wrong or wrath of things
Shatters the faith—that each slow minute brings
That meadow nearer to us where your feet
Shall flicker near me like white butterflies—
That meadow where immortal lovers meet,
Gazing for ever in immortal eyes.
"I KNOW NOT IN WHAT PLACE"
I know not in what place again I'll meet
The face I love—but there is not a street
In the wide world where you can wander, sweet,
Without my finding you, with those great eyes;
Nor is there any star in all the skies
Can give you shelter from my pitiless love.
RESURRECTION
Is it your face I see, your voice I hear?
Your face, your voice, again after these years!
O is your cheek once more against my cheek?
And is this blessed rain, angel, your tears?
You have come back,—how strange—out of the grave;
Its dreams are in your eyes, and still there clings
Dust of the grave on your vainglorious hair;
And a mysterious rust is on these rings—
The ring we gave each other, that young night
When the moon rose on our betrothal kiss;
When the sun rose upon our wedding day,
How wonderful it was to give you this!
I dreamed you were a bird or a wild flower,
Some changed lovely thing that was not you;
Maybe, I said, she is the morning star,
A radiance unfathomably far—
And now again you are so strangely near!
Your face, your voice, again after these years!
Is it your face I see, your voice I hear,
And is this blessed rain, angel, your tears?
"WHEN THE LONG DAY HAS FADED"
When the long day has faded to its end,
The flowers gone, and all the singing done,
And there is no companion left save Death—
Ah! there is one,
Though in her grave she lies this many a year,
Will send a violet made of her blue eyes,
A flowering whisper of her April breath,
Up through the sleeping grass to comfort me,
And in the April rain her tears shall fall.
"HER EYES ARE BLUEBELLS NOW"
Her eyes are bluebells now, her voice a bird,
And the long sighing grass her elegy;
She who a woman was is now a star
In the high heaven shining down on me.
"THE DEAD AROSE"
The dead arose. Long had they dreamed,
Deep in the grass of the still grave,
Of meeting their beloved once more.
They knocked at each familiar door.
They waited eagerly to see
The old loved faces at the door,
They waited for a voice to say
The same old words it said before—
They knocked at each familiar door.
But no one answered to the dead,
No voice of welcome, no kind word!
Only a little flower came out,
And one small elegiac bird.
"THE BLOOM UPON THE GRAPE"
The bloom upon the grape I ask no more,
Nor pampered fragrance of the soft-lipped rose,
I only ask of Him who keeps the Door—
To open it for one who fearless goes
Into the dark, from which, reluctant, came
His innocent heart, a little laughing flame;
I only ask that he who gave me sight,
Who gave me hearing and who gave me breath,
Give me the last gift in His flaming hand—
The holy gift of Death.
THE FRIEND
Through the dark wood
There came to me a friend,
Bringing in his cold hands
Two words—'The End.'
His face was fair
As fading autumn flowers,
And the lost joy
Of unforgotten hours.
His voice was sweet
As rain upon a grave;
'Be brave,' he smiled.
And yet again—'be brave.'
ADORATION
Ah, if you worship anything,
In deepest hush of silence bend
The lone adoring knee,
And only silence bring
Into the sanctuary.
Trust not the fairest word
Your soul to wrong:
Even the Rose's bird
Hath not a song
Sweet as the silence
Round about the Rose.
Ah, something goes,
Fails, and is lost in speech
That silence knows.
How should I speak
The hush about my heart
That holds your name
Shrined in a burning core
Of central flame,
Like names of seraphim
Mystically writ on cloud?
To speak your name aloud
Were to unhallow
Such a holy thing;
Therefore I bring
To your white feet
And your immortal eyes
Silence forever,
But in such a wise
Am silent as the quiet waters are,
Hiding some holy star
Amid hushed lilies
In a secret lake.
Ah, if a ripple break
The stillness halcyon—
The star is gone!
"AT LAST I GOT A LETTER FROM THE DEAD"
At last I got a letter from the dead,
And out of it there fell a little flower,—
The violet of an unforgotten hour.