Part 4

Goddess, reclimb thy heaven, and be once more An inaccessible splendor to adore, A faith, a hope of such transcendent worth As bred ennobling discontent with earth; Give back the longing, back the elated mood That, fed with thee, spurned every meaner good; Give even the spur of impotent despair That, without hope, still bade aspire and dare; Give back the need to worship that still pours Down to the soul that virtue it adores!

Nay, brightest and most beautiful, deem naught These frantic words, the reckless wind of thought; Still stoop, still grant,--I live but in thy will; Be what thou wilt, but be a woman still! Vainly I cried, nor could myself believe That what I prayed for I would fain receive. My moon is set; my vision set with her; No more can worship vain my pulses stir. Goddess Triform, I own thy triple spell, My heaven’s queen,--queen, too, of my earth and hell!

THE BLACK PREACHER.

A BRETON LEGEND.

At Carnac in Brittany, close on the bay, They show you a church, or rather the gray Ribs of a dead one, left there to bleach With the wreck lying near on the crest of the beach, Roofless and splintered with thunder-stone, ’Mid lichen-blurred gravestones all alone; ’Tis the kind of ruin strange sights to see That may have their teaching for you and me.

Something like this, then, my guide had to tell, Perched on a saint cracked across when he fell; But since I might chance give his meaning a wrench, He talking his _patois_ and I English-French, I’ll put what he told me, preserving the tone, In a rhymed prose that makes it half his, half my own.

An abbey-church stood here, once on a time, Built as a death-bed atonement for crime: ’Twas for somebody’s sins, I know not whose; But sinners are plenty, and you can choose. Though a cloister now of the dusk-winged bat, ’Twas rich enough once, and the brothers grew fat, Looser in girdle and purpler in jowl, Singing good rest to the founder’s lost soul.

But one day came Northmen, and lithe tongues of fire Lapped up the chapter-house, licked off the spire, And left all a rubbish-heap, black and dreary, Where only the wind sings _miserere_.

No priest has kneeled since at the altar’s foot, Whose crannies are searched by the nightshade’s root, Nor sound of service is ever heard, Except from throat of the unclean bird, Hooting to unassoiled shapes as they pass In midnights unholy his witches' mass, Or shouting “Ho! ho!” from the belfry high As the Devil’s sabbath-train whirls by.

But once a year, on the eve of All-Souls, Through these arches dishallowed the organ rolls, Fingers long fleshless the bell-ropes work, The chimes peal muffled with sea-mists mirk, The skeleton windows are traced anew On the baleful flicker of corpse-lights blue, And the ghosts must come, so the legend saith, To a preaching of Reverend Doctor Death.

Abbots, monks, barons, and ladies fair Hear the dull summons and gather there: No rustle of silk now, no clink of mail, Nor ever a one greets his church-mate pale; No knight whispers love in the _châtelaine’s_ ear His next-door neighbor this five hundred year; No monk has a sleek _benedicite_ For the great lord shadowy now as he; Nor needeth any to hold his breath, Lest he lose the least word of Doctor Death.

He chooses his text in the Book Divine, Tenth verse of the Preacher in chapter nine:-- “'Whatsoever thy hand shall find thee to do, That do with thy whole might, or thou shalt rue; For no man is wealthy, or wise, or brave, In that quencher of might-be’s and would-be’s, the grave.' Bid by the Bridegroom, 'To-morrow,' ye said, And To-morrow was digging a trench for your bed; Ye said, 'God can wait; let us finish our wine;' Ye had wearied Him, fools, and that last knock was mine!”

But I can’t pretend to give you the sermon, Or say if the tongue were French, Latin, or German; Whatever he preached in, I give you my word The meaning was easy to all that heard; Famous preachers there have been and be, But never was one so convincing as he; So blunt was never a begging friar, No Jesuit’s tongue so barbed with fire, Cameronian never, nor Methodist, Wrung gall out of Scripture with such a twist.

And would you know who his hearers must be? I tell you just what my guide told me: Excellent teaching men have, day and night, From two earnest friars, a black and a white, The Dominican Death and the Carmelite Life; And between these two there is never strife, For each has his separate office and station, And each his own work in the congregation; Whoso to the white brother deafens his ears, And cannot be wrought on by blessings or tears, Awake in his coffin must wait and wait, In that blackness of darkness that means _too late_, And come once a year, when the ghost-bell tolls, As till Doomsday it shall on the eve of All-Souls, To hear Doctor Death, whose words smart with the brine Of the Preacher, the tenth verse of chapter nine.

ARCADIA REDIVIVA.

I, walking the familiar street, While a crammed horse-car jingled through it, Was lifted from my prosy feet And in Arcadia ere I knew it.

Fresh sward for gravel soothed my tread, And shepherd’s pipes my ear delighted; The riddle may be lightly read: I met two lovers newly plighted.

They murmured by in happy care, New plans for paradise devising, Just as the moon, with pensive stare, O’er Mistress Craigie’s pines was rising.

Astarte, known nigh threescore years, Me to no speechless rapture urges; Them in Elysium she enspheres, Queen, from of old, of thaumaturges.

The railings put forth bud and bloom, The house-fronts all with myrtles twine them, And light-winged Loves in every room Make nests, and then with kisses line them.

O sweetness of untasted life! O dream, its own supreme fulfilment! O hours with all illusion rife, As ere the heart divined what ill meant!

“_Et ego_,” sighed I to myself, And strove some vain regrets to bridle, “Though now laid dusty on the shelf, Was hero once of such an idyl!

“An idyl ever newly sweet, Although since Adam’s day recited, Whose measures time them to Love’s feet, Whose sense is every ill requited.”

Maiden, if I may counsel, drain Each drop of this enchanted season, For even our honeymoons must wane, Convicted of green cheese by Reason.

And none will seem so safe from change, Nor in such skies benignant hover, As this, beneath whose witchery strange You tread on rose-leaves with your lover.

The glass unfilled all tastes can fit, As round its brim Conjecture dances; For not Mephisto’s self hath wit To draw such vintages as Fancy’s.

When our pulse beats its minor key, When play-time halves and school-time doubles, Age fills the cup with serious tea, Which once Dame Clicquot starred with bubbles.

“Fie, Mr. Graybeard! Is this wise? Is this the moral of a poet, Who, when the plant of Eden dies, Is privileged once more to sow it?

“That herb of clay-disdaining root, From stars secreting what it feeds on, Is burnt-out passion’s slag and soot Fit soil to strew its dainty seeds on?

“Pray, why, if in Arcadia once, Need one so soon forget the way there? Or why, once there, be such a dunce As not contentedly to stay there?”

Dear child, ’twas but a sorry jest, And from my heart I hate the cynic Who makes the Book of Life a nest For comments staler than rabbinic.

If Love his simple spell but keep, Life with ideal eyes to flatter, The Grail itself were crockery cheap To Every-day’s communion-platter.

One Darby is to me well known, Who, as the hearth between them blazes, Sees the old moonlight shine on Joan, And float her youthward in its hazes.

He rubs his spectacles, he stares,-- ’Tis the same face that witched him early! He gropes for his remaining hairs,-- Is this a fleece that feels so curly?

“Good heavens! but now ’twas winter gray, And I of years had more than plenty; The almanac’s a fool! ’Tis May! Hang family Bibles! I am twenty!

“Come, Joan, your arm; we’ll walk the room-- The lane, I mean--do you remember? How confident the roses bloom, As if it ne’er could be December!

“Nor more it shall, while in your eyes My heart its summer heat recovers, And you, howe’er your mirror lies, Find your old beauty in your lover’s.”

THE NEST.

MAY.

When oaken woods with buds are pink, And new-come birds each morning sing, When fickle May on Summer’s brink Pauses, and knows not which to fling, Whether fresh bud and bloom again, Or hoar-frost silvering hill and plain,

Then from the honeysuckle gray The oriole with experienced quest Twitches the fibrous bark away, The cordage of his hammock-nest, Cheering his labor with a note Rich as the orange of his throat.

High o’er the loud and dusty road The soft gray cup in safety swings, To brim ere August with its load Of downy breasts and throbbing wings, O’er which the friendly elm-tree heaves An emerald roof with sculptured eaves.

Below, the noisy World drags by In the old way, because it must, The bride with heartbreak in her eye, The mourner following hated dust: Thy duty, wingëd flame of Spring, Is but to love, and fly, and sing.

Oh, happy life, to soar and sway Above the life by mortals led, Singing the merry months away, Master, not slave of daily bread, And, when the Autumn comes, to flee Wherever sunshine beckons thee!

PALINODE.--DECEMBER.

Like some lorn abbey now, the wood Stands roofless in the bitter air; In ruins on its floor is strewed The carven foliage quaint and rare, And homeless winds complain along The columned choir once thrilled with song.

And thou, dear nest, whence joy and praise The thankful oriole used to pour, Swing’st empty while the north winds chase Their snowy swarms from Labrador: But, loyal to the happy past, I love thee still for what thou wast.

Ah, when the Summer graces flee From other nests more dear than thou, And, where June crowded once, I see Only bare trunk and disleaved bough; When springs of life that gleamed and gushed Run chilled, and slower, and are hushed;

When our own branches, naked long, The vacant nests of Spring betray, Nurseries of passion, love, and song That vanished as our year grew gray; When Life drones o’er a tale twice told O’er embers pleading with the cold,--

I’ll trust, that, like the birds of Spring, Our good goes not without repair, But only flies to soar and sing Far off in some diviner air, Where we shall find it in the calms Of that fair garden ’neath the palms.

A YOUTHFUL EXPERIMENT IN ENGLISH HEXAMETERS.

IMPRESSIONS OF HOMER.

Sometimes come pauses of calm, when the rapt bard, holding his heart back, Over his deep mind muses, as when o’er awestricken ocean Poises a heapt cloud luridly, ripening the gale and the thunder; Slow rolls onward the verse with a long swell heaving and swinging, Seeming to wait till, gradually wid’ning from far-off horizons, Piling the deeps up, heaping the glad-hearted surges before it, Gathers the thought as a strong wind darkening and cresting the tumult. Then every pause, every heave, each trough in the waves, has its meaning; Full-sailed, forth like a tall ship steadies the theme, and around it, Leaping beside it in glad strength, running in wild glee beyond it, Harmonies billow exulting and floating the soul where it lists them, Swaying the listener’s fantasy hither and thither like driftweed.

BIRTHDAY VERSES.

WRITTEN IN A CHILD’S ALBUM.

’Twas sung of old in hut and hall How once a king in evil hour Hung musing o’er his castle wall, And, lost in idle dreams, let fall Into the sea his ring of power.

Then, let him sorrow as he might, And pledge his daughter and his throne To who restored the jewel bright, The broken spell would ne’er unite; The grim old ocean held its own.

Those awful powers on man that wait, On man, the beggar or the king, To hovel bare or hall of state A magic ring that masters fate With each succeeding birthday bring.

Therein are set four jewels rare: Pearl winter, summer’s ruby blaze, Spring’s emerald, and, than all more fair, Fall’s pensive opal, doomed to bear A heart of fire bedreamed with haze.

To him the simple spell who knows The spirits of the ring to sway, Fresh power with every sunrise flows, And royal pursuivants are those That fly his mandates to obey.

But he that with a slackened will Dreams of things past or things to be, From him the charm is slipping still, And drops, ere he suspect the ill, Into the inexorable sea.

ESTRANGEMENT.

The path from me to you that led, Untrodden long, with grass is grown,-- Mute carpet that his lieges spread Before the Prince Oblivion When he goes visiting the dead.

And who are they but who forget? You, who my coming could surmise Ere any hint of me as yet Warned other ears and other eyes, See the path blurred without regret.

But when I trace its windings sweet With saddened steps, at every spot That feels the memory in my feet, Each grass-blade turns forget-me-not, Where murmuring bees your name repeat.

PHŒBE.

Ere pales in Heaven the morning star, A bird, the loneliest of its kind, Hears Dawn’s faint footfall from afar While all its mates are dumb and blind.

It is a wee sad-colored thing, As shy and secret as a maid, That, ere in choir the robins ring, Pipes its own name like one afraid.

It seems pain-prompted to repeat The story of some ancient ill, But _Phœbe!_ _Phœbe!_ sadly sweet Is all it says, and then is still.

It calls and listens. Earth and sky, Hushed by the pathos of its fate, Listen: no whisper of reply Comes from its doom-dissevered mate.

_Phœbe!_ it calls and calls again, And Ovid, could he but have heard, Had hung a legendary pain About the memory of the bird; A pain articulate so long In penance of some mouldered crime Whose ghost still flies the Furies' thong Down the waste solitudes of time.

Waif of the young World’s wonder-hour, When gods found mortal maidens fair, And will malign was joined with power Love’s kindly laws to overbear,

Like Progne, did it feel the stress And coil of the prevailing words Close round its being, and compress Man’s ampler nature to a bird’s?

One only memory left of all The motley crowd of vanished scenes, Hers, and vain impulse to recall By repetition what it means.

_Phœbe!_ is all it has to say In plaintive cadence o’er and o’er, Like children that have lost their way, And know their names, but nothing more.

Is it a type, since Nature’s Lyre Vibrates to every note in man, Of that insatiable desire, Meant to be so since life began?

I, in strange lands at gray of dawn, Wakeful, have heard that fruitless plaint Through Memory’s chambers deep withdrawn Renew its iterations faint.

So nigh! yet from remotest years It summons back its magic, rife With longings unappeased, and tears Drawn from the very source of life.

DAS EWIG-WEIBLICHE.

How was I worthy so divine a loss, Deepening my midnights, kindling all my morns? Why waste such precious wood to make my cross, Such far-sought roses for my crown of thorns?

And when she came, how earned I such a gift? Why spend on me, a poor earth-delving mole, The fireside sweetnesses, the heavenward lift, The hourly mercy, of a woman’s soul?

Ah, did we know to give her all her right, What wonders even in our poor clay were done! It is not Woman leaves us to our night, But our brute earth that grovels from her sun.

Our nobler cultured fields and gracious domes We whirl too oft from her who still shines on To light in vain our caves and clefts, the homes Of night-bird instincts pained till she be gone.

Still must this body starve our souls with shade; But when Death makes us what we were before, Then shall her sunshine all our depths invade, And not a shadow stain heaven’s crystal floor.

THE RECALL.

Come back before the birds are flown, Before the leaves desert the tree, And, through the lonely alleys blown, Whisper their vain regrets to me Who drive before a blast more rude, The plaything of my gusty mood, In vain pursuing and pursued!

Nay, come although the boughs be bare, Though snowflakes fledge the summer’s nest, And in some far Ausonian air The thrush, your minstrel, warm his breast. Come, sunshine’s treasurer, and bring To doubting flowers their faith in spring, To birds and me the need to sing!

ABSENCE.

Sleep is Death’s image,--poets tell us so; But Absence is the bitter self of Death, And, you away, Life’s lips their red forego, Parched in an air unfreshened by thy breath.

Light of those eyes that made the light of mine, Where shine you? On what happier fields and flowers? Heaven’s lamps renew their lustre less divine, But only serve to count my darkened hours.

If with your presence went your image too, That brain-born ghost my path would never cross Which meets me now where’er I once met you, Then vanishes, to multiply my loss.

MONNA LISA.

She gave me all that woman can, Nor her soul’s nunnery forego, A confidence that man to man Without remorse can never show.

Rare art, that can the sense refine Till not a pulse rebellious stirs, And, since she never can be mine, Makes it seem sweeter to be hers!

THE OPTIMIST.

Turbid from London’s noise and smoke, Here I find air and quiet too: Air filtered through the beech and oak, Quiet by nothing harsher broke Than wood-dove’s meditative coo.

The Truce of God is here; the breeze Sighs as men sigh relieved from care, Or tilts as lightly in the trees As might a robin: all is ease, With pledge of ampler ease to spare.

Repose fills all the generous space Of undulant plain; the rook and crow Hush; ’tis as if a silent grace, By Nature murmured, calmed the face Of Heaven above and Earth below.

From past and future toils I rest, One Sabbath pacifies my year; I am the halcyon, this my nest; And all is safely for the best While the World’s there and I am here.

So I turn tory for the nonce, And think the radical a bore, Who cannot see, thick-witted dunce, That what was good for people once Must be as good forevermore.

Sun, sink no deeper down the sky; Earth, never change this summer mood; Breeze, loiter thus forever by, Stir the dead leaf or let it lie: Since I am happy, all is good.

MIDDLETON, _August, 1884_.

ON BURNING SOME OLD LETTERS.

With what odorous woods and spices Spared for royal sacrifices, With what costly gums seld-seen, Hoarded to embalm a queen, With what frankincense and myrrh, Burn these precious parts of her, Full of life and light and sweetness As a summer day’s completeness, Joy of sun and song of bird Running wild in every word, Full of all the superhuman Grace and winsomeness of woman?

O’er these leaves her wrist has slid, Thrilled with veins where fire is hid ’Neath the skin’s pellucid veil, Like the opal’s passion pale; This her breath hath sweetened; this Still seems trembling with the kiss She half-ventured on my name, Brow and cheek and throat aflame; Over all caressing lies Sunshine left there by her eyes; From them all an effluence rare With her nearness fills the air, Till the murmur I half-hear Of her light feet drawing near.

Rarest woods were coarse and rough, Sweetest spice not sweet enough, Too impure all earthly fire For this sacred funeral-pyre; These rich relics must suffice For their own dear sacrifice.

Seek we first an altar fit For such victims laid on it: It shall be this slab brought home In old happy days from Rome,-- Lazuli, once blest to line Dian’s inmost cell and shrine. Gently now I lay them there, Pure as Dian’s forehead bare, Yet suffused with warmer hue, Such as only Latmos knew.

Fire I gather from the sun In a virgin lens: ’tis done! Mount the flames, red, yellow, blue, As her moods were shining through, Of the moment’s impulse born,-- Moods of sweetness, playful scorn, Half defiance, half surrender, More than cruel, more than tender, Flouts, caresses, sunshine, shade, Gracious doublings of a maid Infinite in guileless art, Playing hide-seek with her heart.

On the altar now, alas, There they lie a crinkling mass, Writhing still, as if with grief Went the life from every leaf; Then (heart-breaking palimpsest!) Vanishing ere wholly guessed, Suddenly some lines flash back, Traced in lightning on the black, And confess, till now denied, All the fire they strove to hide. What they told me, sacred trust, Stays to glorify my dust, There to burn through dusk and damp Like a mage’s deathless lamp, While an atom of this frame Lasts to feed the dainty flame.

All is ashes now, but they In my soul are laid away, And their radiance round me hovers Soft as moonlight over lovers, Shutting her and me alone In dream-Edens of our own; First of lovers to invent Love, and teach men what it meant.

THE PROTEST.

I could not bear to see those eyes On all with wasteful largesse shine, And that delight of welcome rise Like sunshine strained through amber wine, But that a glow from deeper skies, From conscious fountains more divine, Is (is it?) mine.

Be beautiful to all mankind, As Nature fashioned thee to be; ’Twould anger me did all not find The sweet perfection that’s in thee: Yet keep one charm of charms behind,-- Nay, thou ’rt so rich, keep two or three For (is it?) me!

THE PETITION.

Oh, tell me less or tell me more, Soft eyes with mystery at the core, That always seem to meet my own Frankly as pansies fully blown, Yet waver still ’tween no and yes!

So swift to cavil and deny, Then parley with concessions shy, Dear eyes, that share their youth with mine And through my inmost shadows shine, Oh, tell me more or tell me less!

FACT OR FANCY?

In town I hear, scarce wakened yet, My neighbor’s clock behind the wall Record the day’s increasing debt, And _Cuckoo! Cuckoo!_ faintly call.

Our senses run in deepening grooves, Thrown out of which they lose their tact, And consciousness with effort moves From habit past to present fact.

So, in the country waked to-day, I hear, unwitting of the change, A cuckoo’s throb from far away Begin to strike, nor think it strange.

The sound creates its wonted frame: My bed at home, the songster hid Behind the wainscoting,--all came As long association bid.

I count to learn how late it is, Until, arrived at thirty-four, I question, “What strange world is this Whose lavish hours would make me poor?”

_Cuckoo! Cuckoo!_ Still on it went, With hints of mockery in its tone; How could such hoards of time be spent By one poor mortal’s wit alone?

I have it! Grant, ye kindly Powers, I from this spot may never stir, If only these uncounted hours May pass, and seem too short, with Her!

But who She is, her form and face, These to the world of dream belong; She moves through fancy’s visioned space, Unbodied, like the cuckoo’s song.

AGRO-DOLCE.

One kiss from all others prevents me, And sets all my pulses astir, And burns on my lips and torments me: ’Tis the kiss that I fain would give her.

One kiss for all others requites me, Although it is never to be, And sweetens my dreams and invites me: ’Tis the kiss that she dare not give me.

Ah, could it be mine, it were sweeter Than honey bees garner in dream, Though its bliss on my lips were fleeter Than a swallow’s dip to the stream.

And yet, thus denied, it can never In the prose of life vanish away; O’er my lips it must hover forever, The sunshine and shade of my day.

THE BROKEN TRYST.

Walking alone where we walked together, When June was breezy and blue, I watch in the gray autumnal weather The leaves fall inconstant as you.

If a dead leaf startle behind me, I think ’tis your garment’s hem, And, oh, where no memory could find me, Might I whirl away with them!

CASA SIN ALMA.

RECUERDO DE MADRID.

Silencioso por la puerta Voy de su casa desierta Do siempre feliz entré, Y la encuentro en vano abierta Cual la boca de una muerta Despues que el alma se fué.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

FOR THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL CHILDREN OF THE CHURCH OF THE DISCIPLES.

“What means this glory round our feet,” The Magi mused, “more bright than morn?” And voices chanted clear and sweet, “To-day the Prince of Peace is born!”