III.
WORLD—how it walled about
Life with disgrace
Till God’s own smile came out:
That was thy face.
Robert Browning.
PORPHYRIA’S LOVER.
THE rain set early in to-night,
The sullen wind was soon awake;
It tore the elm-tops down for spite,
And did its worst to vex the lake.
I listened with heart fit to break,
When glided in Porphyria; straight
She shut the cold out and the storm,
And kneeled and made the cheerless grate
Blaze up, and all the cottage warm;
Which done, she rose, and from her form
Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl,
And laid her soiled gloves by, untied
Her hat and let the damp hair fall,
And, last, she sat down by my side
And called me. When no voice replied,
She put my arm about her waist,
And made her smooth, white shoulder bare,
And all her yellow hair displaced,
And, stooping, made my cheek lie there,
And spread o’er all her yellow hair,—
Murmuring how she loved me,—she
Too weak for all her heart’s endeavour,
To set its struggling passion free
From pride, and vainer ties dissever,
And give herself to me for ever.
But passion sometimes would prevail,
Nor could to-night’s gay feast restrain
A sudden thought of one so pale
For love of her, and all in vain:
So, she was come through wind and rain.
Be sure I looked up at her eyes
Happy and proud; at last I knew
Porphyria worshipped me; surprise
Made my heart swell, and still it grew
While I debated what to do.
That moment she was mine, mine, fair,
Perfectly pure and good: I found
A thing to do, and all her hair
In one long yellow string I wound
Three times her little throat around,
And strangled her. No pain felt she;
I am quite sure she felt no pain.
As a shut bud that holds a bee,
I warily oped her lids: again
Laughed the blue eyes without a stain.
And I untightened next the tress
About her neck; her cheek once more
Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss:
I propped her head up as before.
Only this time my shoulder bore
Her head, which droops upon it still:
The smiling rosy little head,
So glad it has its utmost will,
That all it scorned at once is fled,
And I, its love, am gained instead!
Porphyria’s love: she guessed not how
Her darling one wish would be heard.
And thus we sit together now,
And all night long we have not stirred,
And yet God has not said a word.
Robert Browning.
ROBIN’S SONG.
Warwickshire, 16—.
UP, up, my heart! up, up, my heart,
This day was made for thee!
For soon the hawthorn spray shall part,
And thou a face shalt see
That comes, O heart, O foolish heart,
This way to gladden thee.
The grass shows fresher on the way
That soon her feet shall tread—
The last year’s leaflet curled and gray,
I could have sworn was dead,
Looks green, for lying in the way
I know her feet will tread.
What hand yon blossom-curtain stirs,
More light than errant air?
I know the touch—’tis hers, ’tis hers!
She parts the thicket there—
The flowerèd branch her coming stirs
Hath perfumed all the air.
The springs of all forgotten years
Are waked to life anew—
Up, up, my eyes, nor fill with tears
As tender as the dew—
I knew her not in all those years;
But life begins anew.
Up, up, my heart! up, up, my heart,
This day was made for thee!
Come, Wit, take on thy nimblest art,
And win Love’s victory—
What now? Where art thou, coward heart?
Thy hour is here—and She!
H. C. Bunner.
THE HOUR OF SHADOWS.
UPON that quiet day that lies
Where forest branches screen the skies,
The spirit of the eve has laid
A deeper and a dreamier shade;
And winds that through the tree-tops blow
Wake not the silent gloom below.
Only the sound of far-off streams,
Faint as our dreams of childhood’s dreams,
Wandering in tangled pathways crost,
Like woodland truants strayed and lost,
Their faint, complaining echoes roam,
Threading the forest toward their home.
O brooks, I too have gone astray,
And left my comrade on the way—
Guide me through aisles where soft you moan,
To some sad spot you know alone,
Where only leaves and nestlings stir,
And I may dream, and dream of Her.
H. C. Bunner.
CARNATIONS IN WINTER.
YOUR carmine flakes of bloom to-night
The fire of wintry sunsets hold;
Again in dreams you burn to light
A fair Canadian garden old.
The blue north summer over it
Is bland with long ethereal days;
The gleaming martins wheel and flit
Where breaks your sun down orient ways.
There, when the gradual twilight falls,
Through quietudes of dusk afar,
Hermit, antiphonal hermit calls
From hills below the first pale star.
Then, in your passionate love’s foredoom
Once more your spirit stirs the air,
And you are lifted through the gloom
To warm the coils of her dark hair.
Bliss Carman.
THE EAVESDROPPER.
IN a still room at hush of dawn,
My Love and I lay side by side
And heard the roaming forest wind
Stir in the paling autumn-tide.
I watched her earth-brown eyes grow glad
Because the round day was so fair;
While memories of reluctant night
Lurked in the blue dusk of her hair.
Outside, a yellow maple-tree,
Shifting upon the silvery blue
With small innumerable sound,
Rustled to let the sunlight through.
The livelong day the elvish leaves
Danced with their shadows on the floor;
And the lost children of the wind
Went straying homeward by our door.
And all the swarthy afternoon
We watched the great deliberate sun
Walk through the crimsoned hazy world,
Counting his hilltops one by one.
Then as the purple twilight came
And touched the vines along our eaves,
Another shadow stood without
And gloomed the dancing of the leaves.
The silence fell on my Love’s lips;
Her great brown eyes were veiled and sad
With pondering some maze of dream,
Though all the splendid year was glad.
Restless and vague as a gray wind
Her heart had grown, she knew not why.
But hurrying to the open door,
Against the verge of western sky
I saw retreating on the hills,
Looming and sinister and black,
The stealthy figure swift and huge
Of One who strode and looked not back.
Bliss Carman.
THE IMPOSSIBLE SHE.
FAR away hangs an apple that ripens on high
The latest-born child of old sun-blind July,
Till the summer’s warm kiss as he wooes overhead
Turns its sour heart to sweetness, its wan cheek to red.
But it is not for you, and it is not for me,
Nay, it is not for any who here may be;
For its dawning red sweetness,
That rounds to completeness
Grows moist for the lips that we never may see.
There’s a white rose leaf-cloistered in heavy noon-hush,
And no eyes but the stars tempt its pale face to blush,
In that wilderness garden where, shut from day’s beam,
Fall its fragrant white leaves, light as steps of a dream.
But it is not for you, and it is not for me,
Nay, it is not for any who here may be;
For it sleeps and then wakes
In dew-scented snow-flakes,
As a star for the dusk hair we never may see.
In a green golden valley there grows an elf-girl,
And her lip is red-ripe; and her soul, one rich pearl,
Yields once to one diver a treasure unpriced
As the wine of the Gods or the wine-blood of Christ.
But she is not for you, and she is not for me,
Nay she is not for any who here may be;
For her breast like a moon
Through the rosed air of June
Grows round for his hand whom we never may see.
Henry Bernard Carpenter.
A DREAM SHAPE.
WITH moon-white hearts that held a gleam
I gathered wild flowers in a dream,
And shaped a woman, whose sweet blood
Was odour of the wildwood bud.
From dew, the starlight arrowed through,
I wrought a woman’s eyes of blue;
The lids, that on her eyeballs lay,
Were rose-pale petals of the May.
I took the music of the breeze,
And water whispering in the trees,
And shaped the soul that breathed below
A woman’s blossom breasts of snow.
Out of a rose-bud’s veins I drew
The fragrant crimsom beating through
The languid lips of her, whose kiss
Was as a poppy’s drowsiness.
Out of the moonlight and the air
I wrought the glory of her hair,
That o’er her eyes’ blue heaven lay
Like some gold cloud o’er dawn of day.
A shadow’s shadow in the glass
Of sleep, my spirit saw her pass;
And, thinking of it now, meseems
We only live within our dreams.
For in that time she was to me
More real than our reality;
More real than Earth, more real than I—
The unreal things that pass and die.
Madison Cawein.
UNREQUITED.
PASSION? not hers who fixed me with pure eyes—
One hand among the deep curls of her brow,
I drank the girlhood of her gaze with sighs:
She never sighed, nor gave me kiss or vow.
So have I seen a clear October pool,
Cold, liquid topaz set within the sear
Gold of the woodland, tremorless and cool,
Reflecting all the heartbreak of the year.
Sweetheart? not she whose voice was music-sweet,
Whose face loaned language to melodious prayer;
Sweetheart I called her.—When did she repeat
Sweet to one hope or heart to one despair!
So have I seen a glad flower’s fragrant head
Sung to and sung to by a longing bird,
And at the last, albeit the bird lay dead,
No blossom wilted, for it had not heard.
Madison Cawein.
IN THE WOOD.
THROUGH laughing leaves the sunlight comes,
Turning the green to gold;
The bee about the heather hums,
And the morning air is cold
Here on the breezy woodland side,
Where we two ride.
Through laughing leaves on golden hair,
The sunlight glances down,
And makes a halo round her there,
And crowns her with a crown
Queen of the sunrise and the sun,
As we ride on.
The wanton wind has kissed her face,—
His lips have left a rose,—
He found her cheek so sweet a place
For kisses, I suppose,—
He thought he’d leave a sign, that so
Others might know.
The path grows narrower as we ride
The green boughs close above,
And overhead, and either side,
The wild birds sing of Love:—
But ah, she is not listening
To what they sing!
Till I take up the wild bird’s song
And word by word unfold
Its meaning as we ride along,—
And when my tale is told,
I turn my eyes to hers again,—
And then,—and then,—
(The bridle path more narrow grows,
The leaves shut out the sun;—)
Where the wind’s lips left their one rose
My own leave more than one:—
While the leaves murmur up above,
And laugh for love.
This was the place;—you see the sky
Now ’twixt the branches bare;
About the path the dead leaves lie,
And songless is the air;—
All’s changed since then, for that you know
Was long ago.
Let us ride on! The wind is cold.—
Let us ride on—ride fast!—
’Tis winter, and we know of old
That love could never last
Without the summer and the sun!—
Let us ride on!
Herbert E. Clarke.