THE IDIOT
Two children in a garden
Shouting for joy
Were playing dolls and houses,
A girl and boy.
I smiled at a neighbor window,
And watched them play
Under a budding oak tree
On a wintry day.
And then a board half broken
In the high fence
Fell over and there entered,
I know not whence,
A jailbird face of yellow
With a vacant sulk,
His body was a sickly
Thing of bulk.
His open mouth was slavering,
And a green light
Turned disc-like in his eyeballs,
Like a dog's at night.
His teeth were like a giant's,
And far apart;
I saw him reel on the children
With a stopping heart.
He trampled their dolls and ruined
The house they made;
He struck to earth the children
With a dirty spade.
As a tiger growls with an antelope
After the hunt,
Over the little faces
I heard him grunt.
I stood at the window frozen,
And short of breath,
And then I saw the idiot
Was Master Death!
A bird in the lilac bushes
Began to sing.
The garden colored before me
To the kiss of spring.
And the yellow face in a moment
Was a mystic white;
The matted hair was softened
To starry light.
The ragged coat flowed downward
Into a robe;
He carried a sword and a balance
And stood on a globe.
I watched him from the window
Under a spell;
The idiot was the angel
Azrael!
HELEN OF TROY
On an ancient vase representing in bas-relief the flight of Helen.
This is the vase of Love
Whose feet would ever rove
O'er land and sea;
Whose hopes forever seek
Bright eyes, the vermeiled cheek,
And ways made free.
Do we not understand
Why thou didst leave thy land,
Thy spouse, thy hearth?
Helen of Troy, Greek art
Hath made our heart thy heart,
Thy mirth our mirth.
For Paris did appear,—
Curled hair and rosy ear
And tapering hands.
He spoke—the blood ran fast,
He touched, and killed the past,
And clove its bands.
And this, I deem, is why
The restless ages sigh,
Helen, for thee.
Whate'er we do or dream,
Whate'er we say or seem,
We would be free.
We would forsake old love,
And all the pain thereof,
And all the care;
We would find out new seas,
And lands more strange than these,
And flowers more fair.
We would behold fresh skies
Where summer never dies
And amaranths spring;
Lands where the halcyon hours
Nest over scented bowers
On folded wing.
We would be crowned with bays,
And spend the long bright days
On sea or shore;
Or sit by haunted woods,
And watch the deep sea's moods,
And hear its roar.
Beneath that ancient sky
Who is not fain to fly
As men have fled?
Ah! we would know relief
From marts of wine and beef,
And oil and bread.
Helen of Troy, Greek art
Hath made our heart thy heart,
Thy love our love.
For poesy, like thee,
Must fly and wander free
As the wild dove.