Chapter 2
Guises your moods once wore are hung within The closet of my mind. I take access This moment to regard them and confess How spare for want of you they hang, and thin. Pity seems all their argument may win, That fine, frail rustling of each mood's meet dress. Yet starts a subtle incense from the press, Crushed perfumes of the flowers your thoughts have been.
Sweeter than ever spoken do they come Again with finer relish to my mind Starved on your absence. False surmise is numb, For now in these reliques of you I find The smile you meant when rebel lips were dumb, The kind words agitation made unkind.
THE SECOND COVENANT
I dreamt that we were lying On a high hill afar, Our deepest thoughts replying To one lone star. High from the vault of heaven Its silver rays were shed; And the deep peace between us Was the peace of the dead.
Our busy lives were over, Our day and night and day; Of you and me your lover, Nought more to say; And sorrows we had vanquished And blisses we had known And our cares and our kisses To the four winds were blown.
The handclasp of contrition, The eyesight of each Where each had recognition, Were passed, with our speech. Vast night declared above us, "Now sight and semblance fade, No heart's emotion bindeth A shadow to a shade."
Then within me, lying near you, A dark sadness grew That, to cherish or to cheer you, There was nought left to do. Of happy daily service Nought now remained to me-- Of good news for you and comfort As once it used to be.
No beauty save the spirit's Abode wide heaven's scrolls; No charm the flesh inherits, No strength save the soul's; As breath upon a mirror All recognizing sign. Yet nearer far and dearer Your soul spoke to mine.
For viewed not of each other, Yet closer side by side Than child unto his mother, Than husband to bride, Thought unto thought you answered. One prayer we seemed--one breath; And the deep love between us Was the love after death.
DEDICATION TO A FIRST BOOK
Braver than sea-going ships with the dawn in their sails, Than the wind before dawn more healing and fragrant and free, Fairer than sight of a city all white from the mountain-top viewed in the vales, Or the silver-bright flakes of the moonlight in lakes, when the moon rides the clouds and the forest awakes, You are to me!
For you are to me what the bowstring is to the shaft, Speeding my purpose aloft and aflame and afar, Through the thick of the fight, in your eyes' steady light my soul hath seen splendor, and laughed. Now, however I tend betwixt foeman and friend through the riddle of Life to Death's light at the end, I ride for your star!
THE SHADOWED ROAD
Our shadows moved before us on the road. The trees that watched us brooded dark and still, Streaked by the frost with phosphorescent gray. Chill followed sharply on a gorgeous day Of winds, blown leaves, red bonfires. Faintly showed The mist-ringed moon above the pasture hill.
Our shadows moved before us. By our side New mystery, throbbing through the rhythm of life Echoed our footsteps; and its presence grew So real to me, I felt its power endue An archangelic shape, whose phantom stride Rhymed with our own who walked as man and wife.
Light fell upon us from the glimmering moon, And light upon his face whose name is Love. Ah, the rapt eyes, the tender, quickening gaze, The splendor on that wild immortal face! Then hurrying cloud possessed the heavens, and soon I saw his shadow darken from above.
Beyond our own it stretched along the way, The darkness of Death's cowl, more deep than night. Gulfing our own, it blotted out the road, The shadow of Love that brightest dreams forebode. Yet, in my soul I found a thing to say: "Though darkness go before, we walk in light.
"This is Love's answer!" For Death's night must move Onward before two hearts that cast out fear, Joined by the closest of immortal bonds. They shall speak truth when prayer to prayer responds, "Death but precedes us as the shadow of Love. Light falls about us from a surer sphere!"
LOVE IN THE DAWN
Dawn, with hallowed flame, seemed to sing your name Through our open window as the golden glory came. Ardor thrilled me through; Dawn again--with you! "Up and at the world again! The world is made anew!"
Newly on my sight flashed the lovely light, All the ringing roads of fame glittered broad and bright. On again! with new visions to pursue; And dawn again, dawn again, dawn again--with you!
Other dawns may keep joy as pure and deep? Dawns of greater splendor may awaken me from sleep? Nay! they never can bless a stubborn man Like the dawn, the wonder-dawn with which this day began!
Oh, my deeds must take triumph for its sake! Loud my heart shall sing it while the mind remains awake: Words I never knew could so thrill me through-- Dawn again, dawn again, dawn again--with you!
"HAD I A CLAIM TO FAME?"
Had I a claim to fame? Little to honor; Save when I spoke her name, Gazing upon her. Then was I crowned of men, More than my seeming. Youth's glorious hope again Bannered my dreaming.
So, when our day is past; When we lie stilly Under the earth at last, Clod by white lily. Give me neither tear nor sigh; Breath but this in passing by, Where empearled with morning dew The high grass above her Waves, and above me too,-- "He was her lover!"
THE ONE
You are that belovèd thing Which, through all my seeking In silence or in speaking, I would find, and finding sing!
You are that belovèd air Which, o'er all the chiming Of music or of rhyming, Reconciles my long despair.
You are that belovèd sight Which, beyond life's fairest Or rich beauty's rarest, Fills my heart with true delight.
You are that belovèd place Where, past all the portals To the pomp of mortals, Love perceives the courts of grace,
And what splendors more,--ah, well! Though I often fashion Songs of praise and passion, Now--I look--but cannot tell!
DREAM AND DEED
All day long I am fashioning crowns, Crowns of great price for you! What do I fashion them of? Opals and pearls of the dew, Diamonds of old renowns, Blazing rubies of love, And gold from the heart of the golden sun, brought down by a sunset djinn,-- Brighter gold, purer gold than ever gleamed under Andvari's fin!
All day long I am tempering swords, Swords for my thought to wield! What is the steel I true, And how is their splendor annealed? High dreams, to slay evil hordes, And flaming thoughts of you That light my dark heart from their white-hot forge-- a glory to take one's breath-- Like the dove-gray, rose-faint veils of faith you wind round the skull of death!
But when was a sword or a crown For praise or for honor meet, When the truth transcends, and sees Knighthood kneeling at your feet? In the darkness they go down! There is better trust in these: Set teeth, and the furious will to strive through the dust of the world for you; The hardly builded house of deeds each day, that must prove me true!
A TAPER OF INCENSE
You are a bannered balcony Of God's heraldic house, Waving above the dinning throng of the days Pennants of purple and oriflammes of crimson And cloths of gold. Your varying device is on every shining shield Of the brilliant row that flames beneath the eaves Of that house whose street is cobbled with silver clouds.
The days go down that street, the troops of days Dark and bright, tramping to tread the earth. Ever, with trumpets and tumult, rigor or laughter, They pass saluting, to press upon the world, Regiment after regiment unnumbered.
Your beauty is a balcony hung with banners To wave them on. The foremost have sent your name Echoing rearward to hearten new battalions. Your beauty is the sunset's streaming flag, It is the vivid standard of the dawn Flapping over dazed dream-voyagers That kneel on new sun-pooled, mysterious strands. It wasted the moon to pallor, set the sun Pulsing with burning blood--it shattered the mind Of heaven into stars.
The beauty of your spirit has sent the winds Eternally sighing, and sharpened the cold ache Of the heart-broken, incessantly-sobbing sea. It has scattered its sparks in the hearts of silken flowers And has raised the frozen fury of glaciers against the North And has permeated the South with its elusive fragrance. Auroral over East and West it dances.
You are a crystal goblet of such wine Set in a niche of night That when Death quaffs you he must glow to life Flushed with eternity.
O proud Love, so humble and human, Yet beyond the gods to exalt-- O quiet Love, couching with the curled might and majesty Of tawny leopards! O tamed tiger, Love, whose golden eyes Weep for the thrift of angels! Thou pinnacled pain of the midnight, Rose-strewer of daylit mire, Transfiguration of our futile lives, Dazzler into the secret courts of heaven-- Thou whose passion is written in all men's blood and tears And in silver letters upon the books of God-- Make me to stand erect, and walk with danger, And strive like a flame! For Thou and I are struck as cymbals of God's exultation In Life, His song!
TO PURITY
God knows that you are beautiful as Death Chanced on in some hot, sunlit forest-clearing Where--burst from tangled thickets, with desperate breath-- My outlawed heart might gasp at him appearing So sudden and dazzling upon my rage and fearing,-- Such pale announcement, such quietude should endue Tall, proud, grave Death, with noble footsteps nearing! Immortal goddess, thus beautiful are you!
God knows that you are passionate as Life, On rhythmic curves of bosom and limb attending,-- Sweet as clear water, and acid as a knife Thrust through fresh fruit wherewith the bough is bending,-- Yet rule the riotous blood to Man's befriending,-- Yea, hush his ghastly tears the midnight through, To flesh of flesh your ageless mystery lending. Ah, holy goddess, thus terrible are you!
God knows that you are hated as men hate Only the highest and the uttermost presence, For in your eyes is anger to break fate And life's too blissful sweet is all your essence. Your glory seethed the suns to incandescence, You are flame--flame! Our creeds your orb unto Are but thin shadowy demilunes and crescents,-- Immortal goddess, so infinite are you!
Infinite in range of life, the worm you quicken From crashing suns.... "Let there be light!" you said. Light was, and life,--Man rose, and Man fell stricken By your relentless power that through him sped; And again Man rose, halt like the walking dead, Dragging these heavy laws you never knew Till you recoiled from him astonishèd,-- Ah, holy goddess, so wonderful were you!
So now Man hath smeared filth upon your altar, And, slant-eyed and slime-lipped, wrought sins apart. His tongue intones an abominable psalter Hoarsely, and on his brows cold sweat-drops start,-- Nor through your oracles speaks he from his heart, Hearing you in the porches of his ears; His eyes are blind of you, where only smart The sick revulsions of his ignorant tears.
No! He intones by rote a coded praise, Unto a leering two-faced god falls prone, And smears with lust and fear his alternate days For monstrous imaginations to atone; For you, most instant, most ardent,--you are flown Like fumes to his clownish brain, and in his fear He dreams you a eunuch carved of pallid stone Warning, "Beware all ye who enter here!"
TO PURITY
God knows you are as clean as the sea-gust Uproarious round those poppied headlands high Where huge green seas beneath, in billows upthrust, Scatter snow-amethysts to the bright sapphire sky,-- Or music on which fusillade the hoof-beats by Of screaming valkyr-steeds, to exalted strife! You are love's seal and love's nobility, And the burning flame, the aching flame of Life!
Therefore, transfigurer of the flesh,--clear-shining Redeemer of the coinage passed for base,-- Strong flawless column, round which all vipers twining Hiss out their venom and die on their disgrace,-- Oh radiant form, oh rapt victorious face Of our dreams of love, toward whom all brave and true Strain upward, seeking out your holiest place,-- This praise I raise, this praise I raise to you!
ATONEMENT
Through flamelit Hades To win a realm, I rode with my lady's Sleeve on my helm. With fiends around me And fiends before, I rode, and found me At an iron door.
My pulses hammered. I clubbed my spear And knocked. Fiends clamored. I felt Man's fear When mysteries awe him. The door, with din, Swung wide. I saw him Who sat therein.
Oh, amaranthine Are Love's estates, But Rhadamanthine The Judge awaits. My blazon and banner He stared them through And said, _"What manner Of man are you?"_
I stood stripped naked, Stark to atone. My body achèd Through every bone. A blast blew through me. I drank black gall. I saw he knew me. I told him all.
"The heart I stare in Is black as night," He said, "but therein There burns a light. White hands encore it To guard its grace, And strangely o'er it Bends a still face.
"Small light--great wonder! Through all my hall You flash asunder The murky pall. Walls grow unreal-- All Hell a wraith,-- Oh white, ideal Flame of her faith!"
"Here I surrender, White flame of trust! Knave, strike some splendor From this your dust. Oh gross, weak, dumb thing, Rise--dare a part! For here--is something That breaks my heart!"
THE ADORATION
Now, like withdrawing music Where pillared aisles implore, You are a vanished choir, A soft-closed door.
Victorious voices blended Fade, and I kneel still-hearted. Sudden my life is ended. We have parted.
Lost in the vault's vast splendor My ghost goes rising, thinning. Can heartbreak be an end, or Some strange beginning?
TALISMAN
Each cup shall be broken, Each tower shall fall, All drink be bitter, Bitter as gall, The dark heart go lonely-- Save for one tower, One cyathus only, One wine of power!
My love's white beauty Is this tower, The wine of her beauty My wine of power, The cup of her spirit Mine to drain With awful knowledge And trembling pain.
She only, she only Stands on the stars. Her small hands grapple Heaven's black bars. Only her deep love Pays the price Of a sight of the vistas Of paradise.
Each goblet may shatter, Each tower may fall, Low livid sunset Darken on all-- In her soul's high tower My love pours wine, And the glory and the power Of the stars are mine!
RECOGNITION
Like the twilight blowing over sunset water Under high holy hills purple-mirrored in a mere, Quietly and smiling, my dear love brought her Heart to my heart, and through the dusk drew near;
Drew to me near, drew my brows up to the tender Caress of her hands. And I lifted up my eyes To hers, and deep within them saw a silent splendor More still, more strange than the planets' in the skies.
Each gazed on each. O what is mortal seeing To the glory of that depth, to the glory of that height Through veils revealed, when all the gates of being Burst open to a torrent of such blinding light!
Yes, and here I stand warped by life's derision, A mountebank grimacing lest at last I weep. What man could tell that I had ever seen a vision More wonderful than any on the steeps of sleep?
Days come, days go, as the clock ticks hours. Years loom, years pass; the shadows rise.... Like the twilight breathing over holy flowers Once my love drew near. And I lifted up my eyes....
TRIBUTE
Remembering one woman I have seen And have known, Benignant eyes, nobility of mien, A scarf from off a perfect shoulder blown, Solicitude, white ardor in a face, Motions like water under the moon's grace,-- I wonder much how men can be so base, So worse than stone.
Oh murmurings of music through the world, Ye women born To arduous things and angers, and upwhirled Like tongues of flame through smoke of the world's scorn, Crystalline lights, awful and fitful gleams Of reconciliation with our dreams, Through you alone the world's true spirit streams Sounding her silver horn.
All things I wish for you that height may hold, Who hold the race, Oh desperate runners on the track unrolled Over the highlands now, in the sun's face; O swift and free, hoverers on the verge Whence the impossible things we mocked emerge,-- O wings--wings--sliding the starry surge And veering on the chase!
The satyr and the centaur race below Deriding wings above. Manful they meet and fight to overthrow All they are wearied of,-- Manful they build, demolish, drive, are driven,-- But you are free, who have more greatly striven, Yours is the light above their lightless heaven, For yours is Love!
THE SILVER HIND
Through the black forest You glance, you start,-- Through the black forest That is my heart! Beautiful, silver-heeled, Swift as wind, Topping the brake Like a flying hind!
I have a bugle Of ivory The wizard of twilight Gave to me. I hear it winding in my heart, In the black forest, where you start.
And I know, Like huntsmen in gold and green, That my thoughts spur past Where you have been, And, like hounds that have slipped the leash, They race,-- Bell-tongued brachets Upon your trace.
Through the black forest You reach, you run, Out of the shadow, Into the sun. And the hunt behind Is lyric and loud Where horses and hounds And huntsmen crowd....
But you are gone-- Oh, you are gone Out to the blaze and glory of dawn! Leaving the print of blood-red anemones In the mould, and echoes of ancient glees Shaking like silver leaves on my sombre trees!
ARISTEAS RELATES HIS YOUTH
(_Who, in his age, was reported a magician throughout all Greece, as it was said that his soul could leave his body at will._)
Early rose was the light As I sought the portico Whence her wings had fluttered in flight And with surge and flow Had risen to soar, and go Out, out over the sea, Dwindling white and soft and slow To a memory.
Oh, grief of all years to be! Most miserable of men! My throat ached with my tears, As a sword driven through my ears Was my anguish then.
Dark were the rooms where they lay Who loved in the flesh (Diana's disciples they said!) In that lupanar of the dead. Sweet was the flesh they loved, Graceful the limbs that moved, Wild the passion that they
Desired afresh In the night. Were they not of the world, Of lust and toil and war? And I--I too? Yea--till that music swirled About me, and I knew I was visited of a star!
A star it was grew and grew (As hot in the dark I lay, Panting, after the feast,) Glorious out of the east, And a face that made my soul A slowly uncrumpling scroll, It glimmered so near and fey!
Her voice rippled like water In the light gold-green Of some mid-noon ravine. She stooped, the moon's daughter, With her hand underneath my head And her lips on the lips of the dead. I arose from my rumpled bed.
A waterfall sliding green In a silver-mosaicked screen We two trod under; Then I turned where her light touch led, Trembling but unafraid. Across some Elysian sod, Winged of heel, I floated--a god!-- Down and into a moon-filled glade, A glade of wonder....
But the east grew steadily bright, A glaring sea of light. I throbbed to drums of dread. And my eyes still held her flight When she broke that dream with one kiss Of agonizing bliss, Stood in streaming flame by my bed, Gestured, and fled.
Between the pillars I saw, Beyond the pillars I heard Wings of no mortal bird Flare and withdraw. And they who had feasted and passioned Slept, finding light no bar, Slept in their bodies' ease. But under those rustling seas That lapped at the water-stair I ached to plunge my despair And my heart, that some grim God fashioned To be visited of a star!
MAN POSSESSED
Shaken, a thousand times shaken, with the millions that grieve, Now at last I am overtaken. I will say I believe. I ran with the pennons of morning astream over me. On the precipice, scorning its warning, I ran to be free. Still I love high winds and the great running and the steep verge, But strength past my strength overtakes my cunning, and stars emerge High over me, eternal, deathless, deep over deep, And my head sways heavy as I run breathless, my eyelids droop with sleep.
Yet it is not this has shaken my soul in me, Not the bounds of life have overtaken my will to be free, But scent and sound past mete and bound, and a sign--a sign That no other eyes can recognize, that is only mine. I hardly know what I believe or what I mean Save there is sweetness round my heart and the world a screen Of interwoven mystery to a world unseen.
Can one drink the air, can one seize the sea, can one grasp the fire? Even so intangible to me the answer to my desire. The elements we feel and see shift and drift and suspire And we therein behind the screen, with glimmering brains that tire. That is all! Nor can I fall now in the race. As a second breath to a runner comes my soul takes up the pace-- For I dreamed the world ran with me in a far and starry place.
Gray as sea-mist driven were the shapes that strove With the strength of greed and hate and the greater strength of love. I saw their eyes like phosphorus, blue fog about them wove. I saw the limbs glimmer and I heard the sighing come From this side and from that, as our host ran dumb Over a silver shining plain, to some strange end, to some-- Was it goal or heaven or city?--some agonizing gleam That broke the heart for pity and made the eyes stream. Above the pallor of that race our spent breath rose like steam, Yet our red hearts pulsed within us, as we ran, in my dream.
A glow below the ghostly surf that swirled and surged and turned Came from human hearts visible that throbbed and beat and burned, And like sand of human ashes was the soil our feet spurned. All the stars above us thronged the dome of space, Poised like javeliniers, with glinting spear or mace, Watchful of our running and to spoil our race, And all the souls that ran, ran with drawn and lifted face.
This too was the real. I ran with dogged heart. I parched like a desert, tortured in every part. I knew not what city--nor why the race should start.
Then a singing touched me, and the scent of a flower, A child's laugh, and the crying of a woman in her hour, And a comrade's courage--and a subtle power Not of worldly schemes and ways crept along my veins, And my heart went ablaze and consumed its many stains, And my lips were touched with wine and my body felt no pains. Then it passed--and yet again it came and it passed-- Yet again and yet again, till I toiled at last In the old ironic torture, bound fast, bound fast.
But as I looked I saw how it came and went, That touch, that communion, almost inevident, Through the host of these my brothers who ran nigh spent. When it came they ran like men with life and lung And the wind went by them like a song bravely sung, Their hearts spread wide radiance, their limbs glowed young. It passed, and they were phantoms with phantom arms that swung.
Here and there a true form some spirit would endue For moments, but we mortals were but ghosts I knew. Then a light low down before us to a distant landscape grew. The stars from heaven crowded down. I knew our race was through. The stars from heaven crowded down intolerably bright With dizzying brilliance, height above armored height. Every star upcast a spear and hurled it down to smite.
There was one strange thought in me. It echoed through my head As some titanic corridor echoes a giant tread, Only a little thing that my love once had said. Common daily speech, a comforting word Tossed to me as lightly as crumbs to a bird, But it lived in my heart, it broke to flame and stirred My self to a purpose at last not self could mar, And I cried "We are delivered!" and I heard it echo far Up to the vault of heaven past star on shrinking star.
So then I was running through poppies that I knew Above a blue sea basking--and you--and you Were running on the headland in the world made anew.