There is a glory in the apple-boughs
Of glimmering moonlight,—like a torch of myrrh,
Burning upon an altar of sweet vows,
Dropped from the hand of some pale worshiper:—
And there is life among the apple-blooms
Of mystic winds,—as if a god addressed
The flamen from the sanctuary glooms,
Revealing secrets which no man has guessed,
Saying: “Behold! a darkness which illumes:
A waking which is rest.”
II
There is a blackness in the apple-trees
Of tempest,—like the ashes of an urn
Hurt hands have gathered upon blistered knees,
With salt of tears, out of the flames that burn:—
And there is death among the blooms, that fill
The night with breathless scent,—as when, above
The priest, the vision of his faith doth will
Forth from his soul the beautiful form thereof,
Saying: “Behold! a silence never still:
And love that’s more than love.”
ELEUSINIAN
Praxitelean marbles, fairer forms
Than Phryne’s and than hers,—who loved and knew
The Attic cynic’s soul,—the rosy charms
Of lovely Laïs, gradually grew
Before his eyelids, like a floating mist,
Out of the music of the citharist.
And there were Dryads, laughing sidewise eyes,
Among Cithæron’s ash-trees; and uncouth
Brown Satyrs, dancing ’neath Bœotian skies;
And by a fountain sat a beautiful youth,
Like some white flow’r, with dim, dejected grace,
In love with the reflection of his face.
And then a chord of soft bewitchment swept
Along his soul; and, oh! within a vale,
Like some young god, a godlike mortal slept;
And there was splendor on the heights, and pale
The presence of supernal purity,
Whose face was as a marble melody.
And now two chords, that were two hands that strewed
Innumerable memories upon
His eyelids—and his spirit understood
How, ages past, he was Endymion,—
And, lo! again the old, wild rapture of
Immortal sorrow and immortal love.
ARGONAUT
His argosy spreads dawn-kissed sails,
His trireme oars the dusk,
On mythic seas whereover gales
Of summer breathe their musk.