Part 5

Here in hushed dells, by mossy crags and steeps, Where silent pools stand moorèd in the air, Under the shade of woodlands, shy, cool deeps, Loved by lone creatures stealing to loiter there: The timid fawn, the loping, shadowy hare, The wily lynx, who secret haunts his prey; Here flutter of wings, athwart the drowsèd day, Wakes Solitude from out her hidden lair.

Big swollen rivers, haunting still, deep woods, Where dawn is midnight and faint dawn at noon, Sing under shadows, pausing in shimmering moods Of inky silence, glimmering like the moon

In midnight’s heaven; the while a drowsy tune The singing shallows make to shine and shade, While through the budding boughs the warm winds wade, Sowing in petals white the year’s first rune.

The low of kine comes in from farms afar, The chopper’s axe rings blithely down the wind, And here at even comes the first pale star, In the soft heaven over the woods behind Where the warm south hath blown in, bland and kind; ’Tis here I love to be; to feel my heart Wake with the season’s in its first glad start, When the young year gropes slow for heart and mind.

Far out in maple woods, with laugh and song, The jocund sugar-makers ease their toil With mirth, the sunny, melting hours along, Where, brim with sap, the great iron kettles boil, And troughs spill over with their amber spoil Of generous maples; evening skies loom soft With veil of stars, in heaven’s deep wells aloft, Where great mossed branches lift and spread and coil.

Out in far wastes and under sun-pierced glades, Where naked boughs put forth their misty buds, The snows are rotting, and the thin ice fades Like wasting steel; alone in gloom of woods, The soilèd drifts still lift their shrunken hoods In storm-swathed hollows; by far river shores The sun-warmed wind hath eaten the ice in cores, Winnowing with warmth the frosty solitudes.

The year hath draped his mantle of beauty on, And tuned his pipe to melody once more; All weazened faces put new youth upon, And I am fain to learn the young year’s lore;

His wisdom taught of heaven and wood and shore; To drink anew of life’s fresh ecstasy, To dream new love in sky and field and tree, Where Spring’s first footsteps blossom the forest floor.

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 grey 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 grey, 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.

MIDWINTER STORM IN THE LAKE REGION.

Rises the wild, red dawn over the icicled edges Of black, wet, cavernous rocks, sheeted and winter-scarred, And heaving of grey-green waves, foaming the ice-blocks and ledges, Into this region of death, sky-bounded, solitude-barred.

Turned to the cold kiss of dawn, gilding their weird, dark faces, Lift the cyclopean rocks, silent, motionless, bare; Where high on each haggard front, in deep-plowed, passionate traces The storm hath graven his madness, the night hath furrowed her care.

Out of the far, grey skies comes the dread north with his blowing, That chills the warm blood in the veins, and cuts to the heart like fate. Quick as the fall of a leaf the lake-world is white with his snowing, Quick as the flash of a blade the waters are black with his hate.

God pity the sad-fated vessels that over these waters are driven To meet the rude shock of his strength and shudder at blast of his breath; God pity the tempest-drave sailors, for here naught on wave or in heaven Is heard but the hate of the night, the merciless grinding of death.

TO THE LAKES.

With purple glow at even, With crimson waves at dawn, Cool bending blue of heaven, O blue lakes pulsing on; Lone haunts of wilding creatures dead to wrong; Your trance of mystic beauty Is wove into my song.

I know no gladder dreaming In all the haunts of men, I know no silent seeming Like to your shore and fen; No world of restful beauty like your world Of curvèd shores and waters, In sunlight vapors furled.

I pass and repass under Your depths of peaceful blue, You dream your wild, hushed wonder Mine aching heart into; And all the care and unrest pass away Like night’s grey, haunted shadows At the red birth of day.

You lie in moon-white splendour Beneath the northern sky, Your voices soft and tender In dream-worlds fade and die, In whispering beaches, haunted bays and capes, Where mists of dawn and midnight Drift past in spectral shapes.

Beside your far north beaches, Comes late the quickening spring; With soft, voluptuous speeches The summer, lingering, Fans with hot winds your breasts so still and wide, Where June, with trancèd silence, Drifts over shore and tide.

Beneath great crags the larches, By some lone, northern bay, Bend, as the strong wind marches Out of the dull, north day, Horning along the borders of the night, With icèd, chopping waters Out in the shivering light.

Here the white winter’s fingers Tip with dull fires the dawn, Where the pale morning lingers By stretches bleak and wan; Kindling the icèd capes with heatless glow, That renders cold and colder Lone waters, rocks and snow.

Here in the glad September, When all the woods are red And gold, and hearts remember The long days that are dead; And all the world is mantled in a haze; And the wind, a mad musician, Melodious makes the days;

And the nights are still, and slumber Holds all the frosty ground, And the white stars whose number In God’s great books are found, Gird with pale flames the spangled, frosty sky; By white, moon-curvèd beaches The haunted hours go by.

MOONLIGHT.

The moonlight on this beach lies pallidly, And on the waters in a white track dreams, Where ripples pulsate under misty beams. Far out the night lifts vast and shadowy, Fear-haunted, where the dim, white headlands lie, And chants the lake the dark’s wild frighted themes In far-heard thunders. Here the silence teems With frensy’s sweet and frosted phantasy.

This is the realm of lovers, and across This silvery web two shadows come and go. Outside the world sleeps with its freight of woe, Its human load of haggard pain and loss; But these two dream, where elfin torches glow And wind-stirred boughs their snowy foliage toss.

ON A SUMMER SHORE.

Long years have gone, and yet it seems But scarce an hour ago, I lay upon a moss-grown rock, And watched the ebb and flow Of waters, where cool shades above Glassed in cool depths below.

You stood beside me sweet and fair, A basket on your arm, Red-heaped with luscious fruit we’d picked Down at the old shore farm; You stood and in the shore-wood made A picture glad and warm.

Like heaving pearl the blue bay rocked Against its limestone wall, Far off in reeling dreams of blue The heavens seemed to fall About the world, and there you stood, Unconscious, queen of all.

From far-off fields the low of kine, Soft bird-notes, airy streams, That stole in here, far, broken notes Of all the day’s hushed dreams; And you, one slender shaft of light, In all the world’s wide gleams.

We spoke no love, for I was shy, And you were shyer then; Mine was a boy’s faint heart, and yours Still outside of love’s ken; But such sweet moments are full rare In barren years of men.

And often when the heart is worn And life grows sorrow-wise, I dream again a blue, north bay, A gleam of summer skies; And by my side a young girl stands With heaven in her eyes.

You are a dream, a face, a wraith, You drift across my pain, I lock you in my sacred past Where all love’s ghosts remain; But life hath nought for me so sweet As you can bring again.

ON THE SHORE.

AGE.

With golden spicèd dreams blows in the dawn, About the cool blue bosom of the lake; Far over wave and shore wild voices wake, The watery curves and windy reeds upon, Where the young glory of the day dreams on; And wingèd creatures haunts of sleep forsake, And dreams and silence their dim ways betake Round the grey edge where lidded night hath gone.

Here all is young and glad, the laughing shore The sunshine, the glad birds, no memories On haggard faces wistful to forget; Save yon old man beside the rude hut door, With palsied hands, chin bending to his knees, Mending dead youth in meshes of a net.

TO MIGHTY DEATH CONCERNING ROBERT BROWNING.

Great Warder of those mists forever yawning, And whence no soul returns that wanders through Into some muffled midnight or white dawning, Into strange peace no love hath proven true; Whom we know now no more than Homer knew, Or Plato’s master ere the hemlock drink Charmed his great soul across thy shadowed brink.

O mighty Death, teach us of our great brother, Whose sight was deep and spirit strong like wine; Long will it be before earth knows another Like unto him who worked the heart’s deep mine, And chiselled from the chaos sparks divine: Who delved so long beneath, he failed to care How formed his crystal heaps in outer air.

Lord of all song but for the lack of caring, When high in lyric flight his heart did lift, No lesser brother pinioned where its faring Seemed reaching up to God through skyey rift; What demon chained his mighty soul to drift In mystic visions, meaningless and long, Who might have piped the world’s youth back in song?

’Twixt him and us deep silences are falling, For his is rest and ours awhile to moan; We call through dark and still we keep on calling, And grope about our prison-hearts of stone; And hear no voice but echo of our own; We on, he back, beneath the spangled dark, Like outbound bark that vanisheth from bark.

Where hath he fared, and what glad mystic vision Hath wrapt his soul? What mighty peace of night? What good knows he? What sweet, long-lost elysian Doth he reclaim? What reveries of delight? In what far borders wings his strenuous flight? This lore-wrapt seer, song’s mightiest, I trow, Who knew so much, what wisdom hath he now?

O great, kind Death, whom men call falsely cruel, Read us the riddle, life’s best, latest friend; In what weird matrix formeth love’s bright jewel? In our beginning do we know our end? Hath he gone back with some old past to blend? Or doth he on to other regions fare, Recrystallized in some diviner air?

Can he take up the songs he failed in singing? Can he make clear what here seemed meaningless? Can his soul soar, nor ever tire of winging? Or doth he feel our earth-born giddiness? For all old wounds hath he now love’s redress? Or lost in dreamings, by thy weird love kissed, Is his great soul still rounded by a mist?

There is a land where summer, spring, nor winter, Nor noon, nor night, nor morning’s holy prime, Nor love, nor hate, nor hope can ever enter, A dreamless land, beyond the date of time; A land of eld and age and hoary rime, Of sleep’s long frosts, where sword and armour rust, And shackles fall from hands that turn to dust.

Here all may sleep, for no dread warder’s warning Can come with clang of care and garish day; They sleep the sleep of night that knows no morning, No fierce noon-heats or chill at evening grey; No sound of those who watch or weep or pray May enter here to stir the long, long rest Of those who slumber on oblivion’s breast.

Long weaned of life’s mad throe and time’s weird glory, Stilled hands on breast, sleep closely side by side, The hearts that read and those who told earth’s story, The necks that bent, the brows that rose in pride: But one event for all who here abide, The wise, the fool, the despot and the slave, One common dust in one great common grave.

* * * * *

And he who met so calm thy salutation, When thou didst hail him softly, “Peace, be still!” Forsaking men and toil and adulation, Smoothed his great brow and bowed him to thy will; And went with thee meet lordly place to fill, In the great minster walls where love doth keep The genius of a nation in its sleep.

* * * * *

Forgive these winter songs, O great Life-Master, These halting rhymes, O strong and puissant Death: Our sight is small, but thine is vast and vaster; Thy knowledge lives, ours dwindles with a breath. Forgive these rhymes on him who slumbereth; Who was too great for mine unworthy pen To do him grace, King Singer of singing men.

THE DEAD LEADER.

JUNE 10, 1891.

Let the sad drums mutter low, And the serried ranks move slow, And the thousand hearts beat hushed along the street; For a mighty heart is still, And a great, unconquered will, Hath passed to meet the conqueror all must meet.

Outworn without assoil From a great life’s lengthened toil, Laurelled with a half a century’s fame; From the care and adulation To the heart-throb of the nation He hath passed to be a memory and a name.

With banners draped and furled, ’Mid the sorrow of a world, We lay him down with fitting pomp and state, With slumber in his breast, To his long, eternal rest We lay him down, this man who made us great.

Him of the wider vision, Who had one hope, elysian, To mould a mighty empire toward the west; Who through the hostile years, ’Mid the wrangling words, like spears, Still bore this titan vision in his breast. God gave this highest honour To the nation, that upon her He was spared to lay the magic of his hand; Then to live to see the greatness Of his noble works, completeness, Then to pass to rest belovèd by his land.

We stand at death’s dim gates Where his mighty soul awaits Somewhere the long, long silence of the years. And the marble of his lips Doth all our woe eclipse, Death’s awful peace rolls back upon our tears.

Greater than all sorrow That our hearts can borrow; Loftier than our fleeting, human praise, He hath calmness, great and grim, That death hath granted him, The wisest and the mightiest of our days.

Let the sad drums mutter low, And the serried ranks move slow, And the thousand hearts beat hushed along the street; For a mighty heart is still, And a great, unconquered will, Hath passed to meet the conqueror all must meet.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Dread Voyage, by William Wilfred Campbell