Chapter 2
I would not die when Springtime lifts The white world to her maiden mouth, And heaps its cradle with gay gifts, Breeze-blown from out the singing South: Too full of life and loves that cling; Too heedless of all mortal woe, The young, unsympathetic Spring, That Death should never know.
I would not die when Summer shakes Her daisied locks below her hips, And naked as a star that takes A cloud, into the silence slips: Too rich is Summer; poor in needs; In egotism of loveliness Her pomp goes by, and never heeds One life the more or less.
But I would die when Autumn goes, The dark rain dripping from her hair, Through forests where the wild wind blows Death and the red wreck everywhere: Sweet as love's last farewells and tears To fall asleep when skies are gray, In the old autumn of my years, Like a dead leaf borne far away.
IN MAY
I
When you and I in the hills went Maying, You and I in the bright May weather, The birds, that sang on the boughs together, There in the green of the woods, kept saying All that my heart was saying low, "I love you! love you!" soft and low,-- And did you know? When you and I in the hills went Maying.
II
There where the brook on its rocks went winking, There by its banks where the May had led us, Flowers, that bloomed in the woods and meadows, Azure and gold at our feet, kept thinking All that my soul was thinking there, "I love you! love you!" softly there-- And did you care? There where the brook on its rocks went winking.
III
Whatever befalls through fate's compelling, Should our paths unite or our pathways sever, In the Mays to come I shall feel forever The wildflowers thinking, the wild birds telling, In words as soft as the falling dew, The love that I keep here still for you, Both deep and true, Whatever befalls through fate's compelling.
AUBADE
Awake! the dawn is on the hills! Behold, at her cool throat a rose, Blue-eyed and beautiful she goes, Leaving her steps in daffodils.-- Awake! arise! and let me see Thine eyes, whose deeps epitomize All dawns that were or are to be, O love, all Heaven in thine eyes!-- Awake! arise! come down to me!
Behold! the dawn is up: behold! How all the birds around her float, Wild rills of music, note on note, Spilling the air with mellow gold.-- Arise! awake! and, drawing near, Let me but hear thee and rejoice! Thou, who keep'st captive, sweet and clear, All song, O love, within thy voice! Arise! awake! and let me hear!
See, where she comes, with limbs of day, The dawn! with wild-rose hands and feet, Within whose veins the sunbeams beat, And laughters meet of wind and ray. Arise! come down! and, heart to heart, Love, let me clasp in thee all these-- The sunbeam, of which thou art part, And all the rapture of the breeze!-- Arise! come down! loved that thou art!
APOCALYPSE
Before I found her I had found Within my heart, as in a brook, Reflections of her: now a sound Of imaged beauty; now a look.
So when I found her, gazing in Those Bibles of her eyes, above All earth, I read no word of sin; Their holy chapters all were love.
I read them through. I read and saw The soul impatient of the sod-- Her soul, that through her eyes did draw Mine--to the higher love of God.
PENETRALIA
I am a part of all you see In Nature; part of all you feel: I am the impact of the bee Upon the blossom; in the tree I am the sap,--that shall reveal The leaf, the bloom,--that flows and flutes Up from the darkness through its roots.
I am the vermeil of the rose, The perfume breathing in its veins; The gold within the mist that glows Along the west and overflows With light the heaven; the dew that rains Its freshness down and strings with spheres Of wet the webs and oaten ears.
I am the egg that folds the bird; The song that beaks and breaks its shell; The laughter and the wandering word The water says; and, dimly heard, The music of the blossom's bell When soft winds swing it; and the sound Of grass slow-creeping o'er the ground.
I am the warmth, the honey-scent That throats with spice each lily-bud That opens, white with wonderment, Beneath the moon; or, downward bent, Sleeps with a moth beneath its hood: I am the dream that haunts it too, That crystallizes into dew.
I am the seed within the pod; The worm within its closed cocoon: The wings within the circling clod, The germ, that gropes through soil and sod To beauty, radiant in the noon: I am all these, behold! and more-- I am the love at the world-heart's core.
ELUSION
I
My soul goes out to her who says, "Come, follow me and cast off care!" Then tosses back her sun-bright hair, And like a flower before me sways Between the green leaves and my gaze: This creature like a girl, who smiles Into my eyes and softly lays Her hand in mine and leads me miles, Long miles of haunted forest ways.
II
Sometimes she seems a faint perfume, A fragrance that a flower exhaled And God gave form to; now, unveiled, A sunbeam making gold the gloom Of vines that roof some woodland room Of boughs; and now the silvery sound Of streams her presence doth assume-- Music, from which, in dreaming drowned, A crystal shape she seems to bloom.
III
Sometimes she seems the light that lies On foam of waters where the fern Shimmers and drips; now, at some turn Of woodland, bright against the skies, She seems the rainbowed mist that flies; And now the mossy fire that breaks Beneath the feet in azure eyes Of flowers; now the wind that shakes Pale petals from the bough that sighs.
IV
Sometimes she lures me with a song; Sometimes she guides me with a laugh; Her white hand is a magic staff, Her look a spell to lead me long: Though she be weak and I be strong, She needs but shake her happy hair, But glance her eyes, and, right or wrong, My soul must follow--anywhere She wills--far from the world's loud throng.
V
Sometimes I think that she must be No part of earth, but merely this-- The fair, elusive thing we miss In Nature, that we dream we see Yet never see: that goldenly Beckons; that, limbed with rose and pearl, The Greek made a divinity:-- A nymph, a god, a glimmering girl, That haunts the forest's mystery.
WOMANHOOD
I
The summer takes its hue From something opulent as fair in her, And the bright heaven is brighter than it was; Brighter and lovelier, Arching its beautiful blue, Serene and soft, as her sweet gaze, o'er us.
II
The springtime takes its moods From something in her made of smiles and tears, And flowery earth is flowerier than before, And happier, it appears, Adding new multitudes To flowers, like thoughts, that haunt us evermore.
III
Summer and spring are wed In her--her nature; and the glamour of Their loveliness, their bounty, as it were, Of life and joy and love, Her being seems to shed,-- The magic aura of the heart of her.
THE IDYLL OF THE STANDING STONE
The teasel and the horsemint spread The hillside as with sunset, sown With blossoms, o'er the Standing-Stone That ripples in its rocky bed: There are no treasuries that hold Gold richer than the marigold That crowns its sparkling head.
'Tis harvest time: a mower stands Among the morning wheat and whets His scythe, and for a space forgets The labor of the ripening lands; Then bends, and through the dewy grain His long scythe hisses, and again He swings it in his hands.
And she beholds him where he mows On acres whence the water sends Faint music of reflecting bends And falls that interblend with flows: She stands among the old bee-gums,-- Where all the apiary hums,-- A simple bramble-rose.
She hears him whistling as he leans, And, reaping, sweeps the ripe wheat by; She sighs and smiles, and knows not why, Nor what her heart's disturbance means: He whets his scythe, and, resting, sees Her rose-like 'mid the hives of bees, Beneath the flowering beans.
The peacock-purple lizard creeps Along the rail; and deep the drone Of insects makes the country lone With summer where the water sleeps: She hears him singing as he swings His scythe--who thinks of other things Than toil, and, singing, reaps.
NOËRA
Noëra, when sad Fall Has grayed the fallow; Leaf-cramped the wood-brook's brawl In pool and shallow; When, by the woodside, tall Stands sere the mallow.
Noëra, when gray gold And golden gray The crackling hollows fold By every way, Shall I thy face behold, Dear bit of May?
When webs are cribs for dew, And gossamers Streak by you, silver-blue; When silence stirs One leaf, of rusty hue, Among the burrs:
Noëra, through the wood, Or through the grain, Come, with the hoiden mood Of wind and rain Fresh in thy sunny blood, Sweetheart, again.
Noëra, when the corn, Reaped on the fields, The asters' stars adorn; And purple shields Of ironweeds lie torn Among the wealds:
Noëra, haply then, Thou being with me, Each ruined greenwood glen Will bud and be Spring's with the spring again, The spring in thee.
Thou of the breezy tread; Feet of the breeze: Thou of the sunbeam head; Heart like a bee's: Face like a woodland-bred Anemone's.
Thou to October bring An April part! Come! make the wild birds sing, The blossoms start! Noëra, with the spring Wild in thy heart!
Come with our golden year: Come as its gold: With the same laughing, clear, Loved voice of old: In thy cool hair one dear Wild marigold.
THE OLD SPRING
I
Under rocks whereon the rose Like a streak of morning glows; Where the azure-throated newt Drowses on the twisted root; And the brown bees, humming homeward, Stop to suck the honeydew; Fern- and leaf-hid, gleaming gloamward, Drips the wildwood spring I knew, Drips the spring my boyhood knew.
II
Myrrh and music everywhere Haunt its cascades--like the hair That a Naiad tosses cool, Swimming strangely beautiful, With white fragrance for her bosom, And her mouth a breath of song-- Under leaf and branch and blossom Flows the woodland spring along, Sparkling, singing flows along.
III
Still the wet wan mornings touch Its gray rocks, perhaps; and such Slender stars as dusk may have Pierce the rose that roofs its wave; Still the thrush may call at noontide And the whippoorwill at night; Nevermore, by sun or moontide, Shall I see it gliding white, Falling, flowing, wild and white.
A DREAMER OF DREAMS
He lived beyond men, and so stood Admitted to the brotherhood Of beauty:--dreams, with which he trod Companioned like some sylvan god. And oft men wondered, when his thought Made all their knowledge seem as naught, If he, like Uther's mystic son, Had not been born for Avalon.
When wandering mid the whispering trees, His soul communed with every breeze; Heard voices calling from the glades, Bloom-words of the Leimoniäds; Or Dryads of the ash and oak, Who syllabled his name and spoke With him of presences and powers That glimpsed in sunbeams, gloomed in showers.
By every violet-hallowed brook, Where every bramble-matted nook Rippled and laughed with water sounds, He walked like one on sainted grounds, Fearing intrusion on the spell That kept some fountain-spirit's well, Or woodland genius, sitting where Red, racy berries kissed his hair.
Once when the wind, far o'er the hill, Had fall'n and left the wildwood still For Dawn's dim feet to trail across,-- Beneath the gnarled boughs, on the moss, The air around him golden-ripe With daybreak,--there, with oaten pipe, His eyes beheld the wood-god, Pan, Goat-bearded, horned; half brute, half man; Who, shaggy-haunched, a savage rhyme Blew in his reed to rudest time; And swollen-jowled, with rolling eye-- Beneath the slowly silvering sky, Whose rose streaked through the forest's roof-- Danced, while beneath his boisterous hoof The branch was snapped, and, interfused Between gnarled roots, the moss was bruised.
And often when he wandered through Old forests at the fall of dew-- A new Endymion, who sought A beauty higher than all thought-- Some night, men said, most surely he Would favored be of deity: That in the holy solitude Her sudden presence, long-pursued, Unto his gaze would stand confessed: The awful moonlight of her breast Come, high with majesty, and hold His heart's blood till his heart grew cold, Unpulsed, unsinewed, all undone, And snatch his soul to Avalon.
DEEP IN THE FOREST
I. SPRING ON THE HILLS
Ah, shall I follow, on the hills, The Spring, as wild wings follow? Where wild-plum trees make wan the hills, Crabapple trees the hollow, Haunts of the bee and swallow?
In redbud brakes and flowery Acclivities of berry; In dogwood dingles, showery With white, where wrens make merry? Or drifts of swarming cherry?
In valleys of wild strawberries, And of the clumped May-apple; Or cloudlike trees of haw-berries, With which the south winds grapple, That brook and byway dapple?
With eyes of far forgetfulness,-- Like some wild wood-thing's daughter, Whose feet are beelike fretfulness,-- To see her run like water Through boughs that slipped or caught her.
O Spring, to seek, yet find you not! To search, yet never win you! To glimpse, to touch, but bind you not! To lose, and still continue, All sweet evasion in you!
In pearly, peach-blush distances You gleam; the woods are braided Of myths; of dream-existences.... There, where the brook is shaded, A sudden splendor faded.
O presence, like the primrose's, Again I feel your power! With rainy scents of dim roses, Like some elusive flower, Who led me for an hour!
II. MOSS AND FERN
Where rise the brakes of bramble there, Wrapped with the trailing rose; Through cane where waters ramble, there Where deep the sword-grass grows, Who knows? Perhaps, unseen of eyes of man, Hides Pan.
Perhaps the creek, whose pebbles make A foothold for the mint, May bear,--where soft its trebles make Confession,--some vague hint, (The print, Goat-hoofed, of one who lightly ran,) Of Pan.
Where, in the hollow of the hills Ferns deepen to the knees, What sounds are those above the hills, And now among the trees?-- No breeze!-- The syrinx, haply, none may scan, Of Pan.
In woods where waters break upon The hush like some soft word; Where sun-shot shadows shake upon The moss, who has not heard-- No bird!-- The flute, as breezy as a fan, Of Pan?
Far in, where mosses lay for us Still carpets, cool and plush; Where bloom and branch and ray for us Sleep, waking with a rush-- The hush But sounds the satyr hoof a span Of Pan.
O woods,--whose thrushes sing to us, Whose brooks dance sparkling heels; Whose wild aromas cling to us,-- While here our wonder kneels, Who steals Upon us, brown as bark with tan, But Pan?
III. THE THORN TREE
The night is sad with silver and the day is glad with gold, And the woodland silence listens to a legend never old, Of the Lady of the Fountain, whom the faery people know, With her limbs of samite whiteness and her hair of golden glow, Whom the boyish South Wind seeks for and the girlish-stepping Rain; Whom the sleepy leaves still whisper men shall never see again: She whose Vivien charms were mistress of the magic Merlin knew, That could change the dew to glowworms and the glowworms into dew. There's a thorn tree in the forest, and the faeries know the tree, With its branches gnarled and wrinkled as a face with sorcery; But the Maytime brings it clusters of a rainy fragrant white, Like the bloom-bright brows of beauty or a hand of lifted light. And all day the silence whispers to the sun-ray of the morn How the bloom is lovely Vivien and how Merlin is the thorn: How she won the doting wizard with her naked loveliness Till he told her dæmon secrets that must make his magic less.
How she charmed him and enchanted in the thorn-tree's thorns to lie Forever with his passion that should never dim or die: And with wicked laughter looking on this thing which she had done, Like a visible aroma lingered sparkling in the sun: How she stooped to kiss the pathos of an elf-lock of his beard, In a mockery of parting and mock pity of his weird: But her magic had forgotten that "who bends to give a kiss Will but bring the curse upon them of the person whose it is": So the silence tells the secret.--And at night the faeries see How the tossing bloom is Vivien, who is struggling to be free, In the thorny arms of Merlin, who forever is the tree.
IV. THE HAMADRYAD
She stood among the longest ferns The valley held; and in her hand One blossom, like the light that burns Vermilion o'er a sunset land; And round her hair a twisted band Of pink-pierced mountain-laurel blooms: And darker than dark pools, that stand
Below the star-communing glooms, Her eyes beneath her hair's perfumes.
I saw the moonbeam sandals on Her flowerlike feet, that seemed too chaste To tread true gold: and, like the dawn On splendid peaks that lord a waste Of solitude lost gods have graced, Her face: she stood there, faultless-hipped, Bound as with cestused silver,--chased With acorn-cup and crown, and tipped With oak leaves,--whence her chiton slipped.
Limbs that the gods call loveliness!-- The grace and glory of all Greece Wrought in one marble shape were less Than her perfection!--'Mid the trees I saw her--and time seemed to cease For me.--And, lo! I lived my old Greek life again of classic ease, Barbarian as the myths that rolled Me back into the Age of Gold.
PRELUDES
I
There is no rhyme that is half so sweet As the song of the wind in the rippling wheat; There is no metre that's half so fine As the lilt of the brook under rock and vine; And the loveliest lyric I ever heard Was the wildwood strain of a forest bird.-- If the wind and the brook and the bird would teach My heart their beautiful parts of speech, And the natural art that they say these with, My soul would sing of beauty and myth In a rhyme and metre that none before Have sung in their love, or dreamed in their lore, And the world would be richer one poet the more.
II
A thought to lift me up to those Sweet wildflowers of the pensive woods; The lofty, lowly attitudes Of bluet and of bramble-rose: To lift me where my mind may reach The lessons which their beauties teach.
A dream, to lead my spirit on With sounds of faery shawms and flutes, And all mysterious attributes Of skies of dusk and skies of dawn: To lead me, like the wandering brooks, Past all the knowledge of the books.
A song, to make my heart a guest Of happiness whose soul is love; One with the life that knoweth of But song that turneth toil to rest: To make me cousin to the birds, Whose music needs not wisdom's words.
MAY
The golden discs of the rattlesnake-weed, That spangle the woods and dance-- No gleam of gold that the twilights hold Is strong as their necromance: For, under the oaks where the woodpaths lead, The golden discs of the rattlesnake-weed Are the May's own utterance.
The azure stars of the bluet bloom, That sprinkle the woodland's trance-- No blink of blue that a cloud lets through Is sweet as their countenance: For, over the knolls that the woods perfume, The azure stars of the bluet bloom Are the light of the May's own glance.
With her wondering words and her looks she comes, In a sunbeam of a gown; She needs but think and the blossoms wink, But look, and they shower down. By orchard ways, where the wild bee hums, With her wondering words and her looks she comes Like a little maid to town.
WHAT LITTLE THINGS!
From "One Day and Another"
What little things are those That hold our happiness! A smile, a glance, a rose Dropped from her hair or dress; A word, a look, a touch,-- These are so much, so much.
An air we can't forget; A sunset's gold that gleams; A spray of mignonette, Will fill the soul with dreams More than all history says, Or romance of old days.
For of the human heart, Not brain, is memory; These things it makes a part Of its own entity; The joys, the pains whereof Are the very food of love.
IN THE SHADOW OF THE BEECHES
In the shadow of the beeches, Where the fragile wildflowers bloom; Where the pensive silence pleaches Green a roof of cool perfume, Have you felt an awe imperious As when, in a church, mysterious Windows paint with God the gloom?
In the shadow of the beeches, Where the rock-ledged waters flow; Where the sun's slant splendor bleaches Every wave to foaming snow, Have you felt a music solemn As when minster arch and column Echo organ worship low?
In the shadow of the beeches, Where the light and shade are blent; Where the forest bird beseeches, And the breeze is brimmed with scent,-- Is it joy or melancholy That o'erwhelms us partly, wholly, To our spirit's betterment?
In the shadow of the beeches Lay me where no eye perceives; Where,--like some great arm that reaches Gently as a love that grieves,-- One gnarled root may clasp me kindly, While the long years, working blindly, Slowly change my dust to leaves.
UNREQUITED
Passion? not hers! who held me with pure eyes: One hand among the deep curls of her brow, I drank the girlhood of her gaze with sighs: She never sighed, nor gave me kiss or vow.
So have I seen a clear October pool, Cold, liquid topaz, set within the sere Gold of the woodland, tremorless and cool, Reflecting all the heartbreak of the year.
Sweetheart? not she! whose voice was music-sweet; Whose face loaned language to melodious prayer. Sweetheart I called her.--When did she repeat Sweet to one hope, or heart to one despair!
So have I seen a wildflower's fragrant head Sung to and sung to by a longing bird; And at the last, albeit the bird lay dead, No blossom wilted, for it had not heard.
THE SOLITARY
Upon the mossed rock by the spring She sits, forgetful of her pail, Lost in remote remembering Of that which may no more avail.
Her thin, pale hair is dimly dressed Above a brow lined deep with care, The color of a leaf long pressed, A faded leaf that once was fair.
You may not know her from the stone So still she sits who does not stir, Thinking of this one thing alone-- The love that never came to her.
A TWILIGHT MOTH
Dusk is thy dawn; when Eve puts on its state Of gold and purple in the marbled west, Thou comest forth like some embodied trait, Or dim conceit, a lily bud confessed; Or of a rose the visible wish; that, white, Goes softly messengering through the night, Whom each expectant flower makes its guest.
All day the primroses have thought of thee, Their golden heads close-haremed from the heat; All day the mystic moonflowers silkenly Veiled snowy faces,--that no bee might greet, Or butterfly that, weighed with pollen, passed;-- Keeping Sultana charms for thee, at last, Their lord, who comest to salute each sweet.