Chill, in thy drowsy aether warm,
Softly thou gleamest, subtler form;
Witch-bloom thou seem’st to be,
For Lilith would have bound thee in her hair—
Smiling at dusk inscrutably,
And Circe gathered such for gods to wear,
In evenings when the moon,
A sorceress who steals in white
Along the cloudy parapets of night,
In every glade her ghostly pearl hath strewn.
Thou art as violet-wan
As eyelids of a vestal dead and meek.
If after-life can come to blossoms gone,
Surely Persephone
Shall crown her brow with thee,
In realms where burns nor star nor sun
To show the dead what amaranths to seek.
And ah—this other! none
Of all thy kin more purely is arrayed—
Pallid as Aphrodite’s cheek
To some long passion-swoon betrayed,
By ecstasy foretold;
Yet as with blood thy bosom gleams;
Red as Adonis’ wound it seems,
By Syria mourned of old,
Or scarlet lips that drink from bowls of jade,
Slowly, an ivory poison, sweet and cold....
Oh! mystically strange
That speechless things should so have power to hint,
With subtle form and tint
That seize the heart’s high memories unaware,
The sorrow and the mystery of Change,
And elements in Fate’s controlling plan
Not altogether ministrant to man
Nor mindful of his care—
Some joy to death akin,
Or tragic kiss, or fruit malignly fair,
Some garden built by Sin
For Love to wander in,
Some face whose beauty bids the heart despair!
And yet, O blossoms pure!
How marvelous the lure
Of your fragility and innocence—
This grace and wistfulness of helpless things
That ask no recompense!
Ye give the spirit wings,
For yours the beauty that is near to pain,
And stir the heart again
With visions of the Flowers that abide—
Ah! sweet
As when love’s glances meet
Across the music, heard at eventide!
SONNETS ON THE SEA’S VOICE
I
Thou seem’st to call to that which will not hear,
As man to Fate. Thine anthems uncontrolled,
From winnowed sands and reefs reverberant rolled,
Shake as with sorrow, and the hour is near
Wherein thy voice shall seem a thing of fear,
Like to a lion’s at the trembling fold;
And men shall waken to the midnight cold,
And feel that dawn is far, that night is drear.
Thou wert ere Life, a dim but quenchless spark,
Found vesture in thy vastness. Thou shalt be
When Life hath crossed the threshold of the Dark,—
When shackling ice hath zoned at last thy breast,
And thy deep voice is hushed, O vanquished Sea!
One with eternity that giveth rest.
II
No cloud is on the heavens, and on the sea
No sail: the immortal, solemn ocean lies
Unbroken sapphire to the walling skies—
Immutable, supreme in majesty.
The billows, where the charging foam leaps free,
Burden the winds with thunder. Soul, arise!
For ghostly trumpet-blasts and battle-cries
Across the tumult wake the Past for thee.
They call me to a dim, disastrous land,
Where fallen marbles tell of mighty years,
Heroic architraves, but where the gust
Ripples forsaken waters. Lo! I stand
With armies round about, and in mine ears
The roar of harps reborn from legend’s dust.