Part 5

But the song of alluring Is ever as true, To lead the heart back To the beauty it knew;

And vain the mad magic Where life's glories burn, For the heart of the yearner Who longs to return:

For he hears that voice calling, Voiced never in vain, To world-heart aweary For all dreamings fain;

And he hears the low grasses, The green tents of sod, From roof-trees of slumber, As voices of God;

And the spinning and turning, Of madness amain Fade out from his dreaming As night from the pane,

When the rosy-red splendor In dewdreams impearled, From ashes of slumber, Lifts over the world.

Yea, back from those echoes Of bugles that blew, Heart-weary, life-broken, He wanders to you;

Yea, back to his truest, Those far broken gleams Of that rosy-red, morning-lit House of his dreams.

Where all hours were splendid, And all hearts held true, In those glory-lit visions Of beauty and you.

Yea, call to him, cry to him, Mother of all; You lit his youth's torches, You saw their flames fall.

You loved him, upheld him, This child of thy breast, And now give him surcease In dreamings and rest.

Thy note was the one note He heard in the fray, That bore him far out In the heat of the day;

Thy call is the one call That beckons him home, When day-fires darken By forest and foam.

When o'er all the heartache, The visions untrue, Love draws her dim curtains Of duskfire and dew.

While the bells ring for slumber As out of the deep, Come pleading those velvet-winged Spirits of sleep.

And there at thy doorways Of slumber he stands, Like him of old Horeb, And sees his heart's lands;

And under the white awe Of planets that swim, Knows dawning and even As one world to him.

To the Ottawa

Out of the northern wastes, lands of winter and death, Regions of ruin and age, spaces of solitude lost; You wash and thunder and sweep, And dream and sparkle and creep, Turbulent, luminous, large, Scion of thunder and frost.

Down past woodland and waste, lone as the haunting of even, Of shrivelled and wind-moaning night when Winter hath wizened the world; Down past hamlet and town By marshes, by forests that frown, Brimming their desolate banks, Your tides to the ocean are hurled.

Departure

Old house now ruined, wrecked and gray, Home once enshrined of love's delight And all glad promise of the May, Now hushed in shades of wintry night,--

Once garment of a thousand loves, Now but a shroud of glooming stone,-- While sad October moans and roves, Old house, old house, we are alone!

We are alone; yea, you and I, Who dreamed old summers in their prime; Now sad and late, to see them die Along this ruined verge of time.

Old rooms now empty, once so bright,-- Staircases climbed of gladdening feet, Dark windows erstwhile filled with light Where now but rains of autumn beat:--

Where now but lorn months call and call And sea and gust and night complain,-- With ghost-boughs shadowing on the wall, Or dead vines knocking at the pane.

Old place, whose ceilings, walls and floors Still redolent of love and May; Once more, once more I leave your doors, Into the night I take my way.

Huge yawning hearths, once flaming bright On many a well-loved face and form Long gathered out unto the night To meet the vastness and the storm,--

Into the night; where I, too, go, Beyond your sheltering walls and doors; Where death's October drives his woe Over a thousand midnight moors,

Beyond your sheltering, where I beat To sleep with stars of dark o'ergleamed, Or breast the night of moan and sleet To meet that morn a world hath dreamed.

Hath dreamed? Hope-hungering heart hath read, And carolled morning-lifted lark! Yea, back of all this muffled dread Perchance some splendor rifts the dark.

Yea, though no magic reach its gleams, Nor heart of doubting prove it true, Old house, beloved, of my dead dreams, While I go forth from love and you.

Phaethon

I Phaethon: dwelling in that golden house, Which Hephaistos did build for my great sire, Old Helios, king of glowing heaven and day; Knowing this life but mortal in its span, Hedged in by puling youth and palsied age, Where poor men crawl like insects, knowing pain And mighty sorrow to the gates of death; Besought the god my father by his love, To grant me that which I did long for most Of all things great in earth and heaven and sea, The which he granting in his mighty love,-- Of all things splendid under the splendid sky Built of old by toil of ancient gods, To me the dearest; for one round golden day, To stand in his great chariot built of fire, And chase the rosy hours from dawn to dusk, Guiding his fleeting steeds o'er heaven's floors. He gave to me.--No god yet brake his word.-- Speaking to me in sorrow: "O my son, Know what thy foolish pride hath made for thee. That mortal life which is to men a span, From childhood unto youth, and manhood's prime, Reaching on out to happy olden age, For thee must shrink into one woeful day. For, O my son, impetuous in thy pride, Who would be as the gods and ape their ways, And sacrilegious leave thy mortal bounds,-- Know thou must die upon that baleful day, That terrible day of days thou mountest up To ride that chariot never mortal rode, And drive those steeds that never man hath driven. Then I: "My father, know me, thine own son, Better to me to live one day a god, Going out in some great flame of death, Than live this weary life of common men, Misunderstood, misunderstanding still, Half wakeful, moving dimly in a dream, Confused, phantasmic, men call history; Chasing the circles of the perishing suns, The summers and dim winters, hating all, Heart-eaten for a longing ne'er attained, Despising all things named of earth or heaven, Or mortal birth that they should ever be; Knowing within this mystery of my being, This curbed heredity, lies a latent dream Of some old vanished, banished, lease of being, When life was life and man's soul lived its hour, Uncurbed, uncabined, like the mighty gods, Vast, splendid, capable, and heraclean, To drain the golden beaker of his days." Thus I: "My father, I am over weary, Chained in this summer-plot of circumstance, Beaten by fearful custom, childish, chidden, Hounded of cruel wolves of superstition, And rounded by a petty wall of time, Plodding the dreary years that wend their round, Aping the sleeping sensual life of beasts, Fearful of all things, dreading mostly death, Past pain and age and all their miseried end, Where all must rot, who smile and weep and sleep, And be a part of all this grim corruption. Nay, better to me than the long-measured draught, Trickling out through many anxious years, Iron-eaten, haggard, to the place of death-- To drain my flagon of life in one glad draught,-- To live, to love, aspire, and dare all things; Be all I am and others ought to be, Real man or demi-god, to blossom my rose, To scale my heights, to live my vastest dream, To climb, to be, and then, if chance my fate, To greatly fall." Then my great father, laden With woe divine: "My son, take thou thy way; As thou hast chosen, thus 't will be to thee;" And passing, darkened down his godlike face, And shadowed splendor thence forevermore.

'Twas night ambrosial down the orient meads, With stars like winking pearls far-studding heaven, And dews all glorious on the bending stem, Odorous, passionate as the rose of sleep Half-budded on the throbbing heart of night, And in the east a glowing sapphire gloomed; When I awoke and lifted up mine eyes, And saw through rose and gold and vermeil dyes, And splendid mists of azure hung with pearl, Half-hid, half-seen, as life would apprehend, As in a sleep, the presence of dim death And fate and terrible gods, the car of day.

Like morn within the morning, glad, it hung, Light hid in light, swift blinding all who saw, Dazzled, its presence; motionless though vibrate, Where it did swing athwart the deep-welled night, The heart of morning in the folds of dark, Pulsating sleep, and conquering death with life; So glowed its glory, folded, cloud in cloud, Gold within azure, purple shut in gold, The bud of morning pulsing ere it break, And spill its splendors many vermeil-dyed, Reddening Ocean to his outmost rim.

Here charmèd dreams and drowsèd magic hung, And wingèd hopes and rosy joys afloat Filled all the air, and I was quick aware That this was life, and this mine hour supreme, To seize and act and be one with the gods. So dreamed I reckless when to think, to act, And moved, elate, with swift life-flaming step Athwart the meadow's budding asphodels, Song on my lip, and life at heart and eye, Exultant, breathing flame of pride and power.

Joy rose and sang, a bird, across the fields, Hope's rosy wings shot trembling to the blue, And Courage with dauntless steps before me went, Brushing the veils of fierce cobwebby fires. And there, before me, sprawled grim ancient Power, A hideous ethiope, huge in sodden sleep, The golden reins clutched in his titan hands. I snatched, leaped, shouted; morning rose in flame, And ashweed paled to lily, lily blushed To ruddy crocus, crocus flamed to rose, And out of all, borne on the floors of light, I floated, gloried, up the orient walls, And all things woke, and sang of conquering day.

Higher, yet higher, out of fiery mists, Filling those meadows of the dew-built dawn, Gloried and glorying, power clutched in my hand, Wreathed about in terrible splendors, I drave, Glowing, the dawn's gold coursers, champing steam Of snow and pearly foam from golden bridles, Forged in blue eidolon forges of the night, Beaten on steely anvils of the stars. These, champing, reared their fetlocks; breathing flame, In red, dew-draining lances, thundered on, 'Whelming night, as golden stair by stair They climbed the glimmering bridgeway of the day. Far under, wreathed in mists, old ocean swayed; And, cyclops-like, the bearded mountains hung. Vast shining rivers with their brimming floors And broad curved courses gleamed and glanced and shone, And loneliness and gloom and gray despair With sombre hauntings fled to shuddering night Hidden in caves and coral glooms of seas.

Low down the east the morn's ambrosial meads Sank in soft splendors. Sphering out below, Gilded in morning, anchored the patient earth, Mountain and valley, ocean and wide plain, Opening to dawn's young footsteps where we wheeled, And blossomed wide the rosebud of the day. Glory was mine, but greater, sense of power, Nor marred by fear, as loftier we climbed, With glinting hoofs, that clanged the azure bridge That arched from dawning up to flaming noon. Dauntless my soul, and fiery-glad my heart, And "vastness," "vastness," sang through all my being, As gloved with adamant I guided on The day's red coursers up their flaming hill, To reach the mighty keystone of the day.

All things conspired to build my upward road: The fitful winds of morning, the soft clouds, That fleece-like swept my cheek, the azure glint Of ocean swaying, restless, on his rim, Where slept the continents like a serpent curled In sleep, leviathan, huge, about the world.

Then sudden all my waking turned to dream, A madness wherein, hideous, all things hung. Thought fled confused, and awful apprehension Shadowed my spirit, power and reason fled; And, maddening, day's red coursers thundered on, Uncurbed, unguided by my palsied hand. Then with loud ruin, blundering from the bridge, Through space went swaying, now high up, now down, Scattering conflagration and fierce death O'er earth's shrunk verges where their scorchings scarred.

Time fled in terror, forests shrivelled up, Ocean drew back in shudderings to his caves, Huge mountains shook and rumbled to their base, Great streams dried up, old cities smoked and fell, And all life met confusion and despair, And dread annihilation. Then the Gods, Pitying wrecked nature, in their sudden vengeance, Me, impious, hurled from out my dizzying height. Time vanished, reason swooned, then left her throne, And darkness wrapt me as I shuddering fell, Oblivion-clouded, to the plunging seas. Ocean received me, folding in her deeps, Cooling and emerald. Here in coral dreams I rest and cure me, never wholly waking, Filled with one splendor, fumbling in a dream, As waves do fumble all about a cave, For one clear memory of that one high day.

I failed, was mortal; where I climbed I fell. But all else little matters; life was mine, I dreamed, I dared, I grappled with, I fell; And here I live it over in my dreams. All things may pass, decline, and come to naught, Death 'whelm life as day engulfed in dark, But I have greatly lived, have greatly dared, And death will never wholly wrap me round And black me in its terrors. I am made One with the future, dwelling in the dreams And memories dread of envious gods and men.

The Humming Bee

Glad music of the summer's heart, Jargoning from flower to flower, A part of each unconscious hour Until the happy days depart!

Thou dream-like toiler of the fields! Each honeyed spot thou knowest well Where Nature's heart her sweetness yields, Some ruined trunk thy citadel; There buildest a home for Winter's hour In some lone, sunlight-haunted place, When all the year is at its power, And June's high-tide on bank and bower Mirrors in blossoms Nature's face.

At early morn by breathing wood, Or in some dewy clover dell, Tuning the young day's solitude,-- Or down the slumbrous afternoon, Rich-freighted, wingest thy tuneful way, Self-musing, murmurous, musical; Amid the whole world's dreamy swoon, Sole voice of all the drowsèd day, Until the gradual shadows fall:-- Then, by some lonely pasture-fell At ruddy eve when homeward come Past deepening shade or fading ray The weary children of the day. I hear thy joyous, drowsy hum, Till stars peep out and woods breathe low, And sounds of human toil grow dumb, And Night, the blessèd, comes apace, Bending to Earth's her cooling face, While airs across the dark outblow: Then rocked on some glad blossom's breast, Thou dreamest to rest.

When Summer wanes to Autumn's age, And come the days of fate and rage, O happy Humming Bee! Then wilt thou sink to wintry sleep, When storms are hoarse along the deep, In hushed tranquillity. No more wilt wind thy subtle horn By dreamy eve or misty morn, When trees are leafless, pastures shorn. Ah me! ah me! Could we, like thee, go down the days Of summer hush to autumn haze. Housing, with what we built before, The gold of all our memory's store And garnered thought; So when the bleak December's hate Beat round the bastions of our fate, We, wrapt in wealth of honeyed dreams Of kindlier visions, far-off streams, Might heed it not.

The Children of the Foam

Out forever and forever, Where our tresses glint and shiver On the icy moonlit air; Come we from a land of gloaming, Children lost, forever homing, Never, never reaching there; Ride we, ride we, ever faster, Driven by our demon master, The wild wind in his despair; Ride we, ride we, ever home, Wan, white children of the foam.

In the wild October dawning, When the heaven's angry awning Leans to lakeward, bleak and drear; And along the black, wet ledges, Under icy, caverned edges, Breaks the lake in maddened fear; And the woods in shore are moaning; Then you hear our weird intoning, Mad, late children of the year; Ride we, ride we, ever home, Lost, white children of the foam.

All gray day, the black sky under, Where the beaches moan and thunder, Where the breakers spume and comb, You may hear our riding, riding, You may hear our voices chiding, Under glimmer, under gloam; Like a far-off infant wailing, You may hear our hailing, hailing, For the voices of our home; Ride we, ride we, ever home, Haunted children of the foam.

And at midnight, when the glimmer Of the moon grows dank and dimmer, Then we lift our gleaming eyes; Then you see our white arms tossing, Our wan breasts the moon embossing, Under gloom of lake and skies; You may hear our mournful chanting, And our voices haunting, haunting, Through the night's mad melodies; Riding, riding, ever home, Wild, white children of the foam.

There, forever and forever, Will no demon-hate dissever Peace and sleep and rest and dream; There is neither fear nor fret there When the tired children get there, Only dews and pallid beam Fall in gentle peace and sadness Over long surcease of madness, From hushed skies that gleam and gleam: In the longed-for, sought-for home Of the children of the foam.

There the streets are hushed and restful, And of dreams is every breast full, With the sleep that tired eyes wear; There the city hath long quiet From the madness and the riot, From the failing hearts of care; Balm of peacefulness ingliding, Dream we through our riding, riding, As we homeward, homeward fare; Riding, riding, ever home, Wild, white children of the foam.

Under pallid moonlight beaming, Under stars of midnight gleaming, And the ebon arch of night; Round the rosy edge of morning, You may hear our distant horning, You may mark our phantom flight; Riding, riding, ever faster, Driven by our demon master, Under darkness, under light; Ride we, ride we, ever home, Wild, white children of the foam.

How One Winter Came

IN THE LAKE REGION

For weeks and weeks the autumn world stood still, Clothed in the shadow of a smoky haze; The fields were dead, the wind had lost its will, And all the lands were hushed by wood and hill, In those gray, withered days.

Behind a mist the blear sun rose and set, At night the moon would nestle in a cloud; The fisherman, a ghost, did cast his net; The lake its shores forgot to chafe and fret, And hushed its caverns loud.

Far in the smoky woods the birds were mute, Save that from blackened tree a jay would scream, Or far in swamps the lizard's lonesome lute Would pipe in thirst, or by some gnarlèd root The tree-toad trilled his dream.

From day to day still hushed the season's mood, The streams stayed in their runnels shrunk and dry; Suns rose aghast by wave and shore and wood, And all the world, with ominous silence, stood In weird expectancy:

When one strange night the sun like blood went down, Flooding the heavens in a ruddy hue; Red grew the lake, the sere fields parched and brown, Red grew the marshes where the creeks stole down, But never a wind-breath blew.

That night I felt the winter in my veins, A joyous tremor of the icy glow; And woke to hear the north's wild vibrant strains, While far and wide, by withered woods and plains, Fast fell the driving snow.

ELECTROTYPED AND PRINTED BY H. O. HOUGHTON AND CO.

The Riverside Press

CAMBRIDGE, MASS., U. S. A.

Transcriber's Notes:

Inconsistent punctuation changed as follows: Quotation mark removed before _Those holy dreams_ (=The Tree of Truth=, stanza 11, line 2). Added quotation mark after _five more days!_ (=Unabsolved=, stanza 11, line 11). Added quotation mark after _To greatly fall_ (=Phaethon=, stanza 1, line 71).

End of Project Gutenberg's Beyond the Hills of Dream, by W. Wilfred Campbell