Part 2

Bird, canst thou fashion Song of things that grieve thee? Wave hast thou passion For things that will deceive thee? Bird and wave I leave ye!

RONDEAU

A Sunday-calm, ornate, profound, Enchanting sense, subduing sound, Enjoins its ritual to prepare; The day is bland with unctuous prayer That leaps to heaven at a bound.

And bells ope throats in mellow round Of sweet antiphonal resound, And virtue glistens everywhere-- A Sunday-calm.

Draw breath! Away to virgin ground! But where the fields are flower-crowned The cattle with self-conscious stare Chide my undeprecative air,-- Good heavens! Can they too have found A Sunday-calm?

SUNSET BURIAL

The trees upheaven filigrane fingers of desire To touch a ruby-throated cloud-face fanned By a bronze breath and globous mouth of fire; Beneath, the rigid gravestones stand, Each one a cadaver that cannot close its hand.

FAIRY SONG

I can live in a golden fruit Whose core is hung with honey; I can swing on golden wing In elfin ceremony-- But oh! for the power To open as a flower When the air is sunny!

A YOUNG GIRL'S LOVE

The season is less stubborn now; Over the youngling world we see A white sky full of scudding blue, A white wind that runneth as a child Touching most delicately the new Sweet buds, and having touched and smiled, Goes to seek out some pale anemone, And wreathe with maiden flowers her fragile brow.

A YOUNG MAN'S LOVE

If I were your sister I'd lie with you the night-long To feel your bosom's beating; If I were your brother I'd wake you with a day-song And give a kiss as greeting; If I were your mother I'd hold you as a shut flower When the dark comes creeping; If I were your father I'd enter at the dawn-hour To look upon you, sleeping. What is there left over For me, who am your lover?

SONG

A cup full of star-shine That glowed as an ember, (Oh, star of my delight!) With smiles I do remember And words forgotten quite, A cup full of star-shine I drank with you to-night.

A cup full of sea-sound That was as summer thunder-- (Oh sea of my delight!) With love that lay under Seven heavens bright, A cup full of sea-sound I drank with you to-night.

SONG

(_After an old English tune_)

I will bring thee a silver crown. I will bring thee an ell of vair, Cloth of gold and ermine rare To make thee a gown.

Thou hast brought me a marble frown. Thou hast brought me a cold, cold stare, Heart of lead and wry despair, And a mad-man's swown.

I will bring thee a leaden crown, Cloth of Raines in thirty-fold! I will bring thee a bed on the wold To lay thee down.

Thou hast brought me out of the town To the earth upturned where the bell is tolled-- Fires of hell and the river's cold My sorrows drown!

TRISTAN AND ISOLDE

The sea is here, it hath not any shore, Nor moves with moving of wind-driven waves Which, undulant and writhing--naked slaves To the uneasy wanderer of heaven's floor, Bow sullen backs beneath their master's store He brought with viewless hands from broken graves-- The sea is here, and in its silent caves Moves not, tho the wind clamors more and more.

The sea is here, an infinite undertone; But lo! upon its surface I descry Two floating bubbles, wonderfully blown Toward each other, flame-like from the sky-- Meet--melt with lyric splendor into one-- Then, wind-prick'd, vanish--o'er the Sea, a cry!

PALINURUS

Starlight: with deep and quiet breathing slept The southern sea. The white-wing'd ship that bore The good Aeneas from his Dido's shore Ghostlike, with rippling furrows, onward crept, And only faithful Palinurus kept The midnight watch--but ah, the magic bough, The opiate dew that dript upon his brow, The vacant post, the friends who waking wept.

The gods demand their victims; who shall know What failures Time and Circumstance compel? Yet, if such doom were mine, I would 'twere so That they would mark my absence thus: "How well Even unto the last he struggled, lo! He tore the rudder with him when he fell!"

THE DERELICT

I cannot remember whither I was bound-- I cannot remember why I was found Moving without a sound Moving in mystery-- Derelict, derelict, Over the sea!

I too carry a cargo in my hold, Underneath sea-water and green with mold-- I cannot remember how old! For terrible it is to be Derelict, derelict, Over the sea!

Feebler ships weather bravely into port; Running a course that is safe and short-- My voyage is another sort; No master guideth me-- Derelict, derelict, Over the sea!

Nights have shadow'd me with phantom stride-- Stars have peer'd at me, eerie-eyed-- Goblin lights and magic tide Keep me company, Derelict, derelict, Over the sea!

Setting suns have rowell'd me with crimson'd heel-- Winds have flung laughter, peal after peal-- But they shall not know that I feel Mute in my agony-- Derelict, derelict, Over the sea!

Rudderless, by ways uncharted blown-- Some day shall waken to find me gone-- What matter? I have drifted alone Ever--alone--yet free-- Derelict, derelict, Over the sea!

THE SQUIRE OF DAMES TO HIS LADY

Why should our meeting borrow A sense of shame or sorrow That each must go his way? Love liketh no fetter Therefore our roads were better If you go yours to-morrow, And I go mine to-day.

I hold you for a minute-- You'd catch the hour and pin it-- But if I held you longer Would you have more assurance In days of richer durance, Life with more rapture in it, Passion more wise and stronger?

The Daughter of Illusion Hath made our love seem fusion Of two strange things in one-- But loving hath not taught her That strange as fire to water, Love becomes bleak intrusion When all the glamor's gone.

You say I've brought you sorrow And pay not debts I borrow-- But mirth is what's to pay! So part our paths in laughter, And, since your heart is softer, You go your way to-morrow-- And I'll go mine to-day.

GAS-LIGHT HEROICS

With this night's carousal We will close the portal On our poor espousal-- Sacrament and housel For a love too mortal!

With this gay delaying We'll delay yet longer-- Care not what the saying Of the World--that braying Evil tattle-monger!

Pleasure has as thunder Scorched and jangled thru me; Now I'll sit and wonder At the day-star yonder And your face, grown gloomy.

You are known as "Lily" And they mock your gender; Is it but a silly Fancy, you seem stilly Lily-souled and tender?

Underneath the bitter Mockery of color, Underneath the titter Is there something fitter? Something finer, fuller?

Something (can I hear it In your secret eyes?) When I come too near it Like a frightened spirit Running from the skies?

Girl, you know that glow meant Dawn's thin lips of scarlet-- Bubble of life's foment Stay your soul a moment!

* * * * *

Bah! You're drunk, you harlot!

MISTS

I

I am most weary of this fatuous me That doth obtrude a niddering death's head At a blithe feast of Springtide jollity, Of revelling buds and flowers unsurfeited. I am most weary of this chained thought That hath forgotten where its mansions are-- And lost the dew its seven-spher'd courses caught Wandering in plunged dark from star to star. I am most weary of my stagnant soul That neither thirsts, nor hungers, nor is stirred By the gigantic thunders that have rolled From the white, hurtling lightning of a word.

I am most weary, love; so let thy face-- The sponge that sops my gaze, myself erase.

II

Oft in the groping night I am afraid, For this, mine opaque organism, seems A glass, a mere reflex of trooping dreams-- A polished boss where images parade. And to see these doth make my senses cold-- This globe become a visionary face-- This little spinning soul of me--in space-- I dare not think of what that space may hold! Such thoughts are as the charnel mists that rise From feverish and mortuary ground Thru which one sees the country all around-- Yet near, the dead--and far away, the skies.

But at the thought of you my life expands Until it holds all life within its hands!

SCEPTIC

I

This hour has shut us like a tent From all but night; we two, alone, So close, so poignantly alert, have grown, That trivial speech, from silence rent, Breaks off--a useless instrument.

For all the opening world is ours, And you, tho scarce a woman yet, Your eyes with feasts of lights and vintage set, Hold all the dewy wealth of flowers, And gold of Babylonian towers.

Our lives will alter if we move-- It were so easy now to rise And tell my unimpassioned soul it lies-- And claim youth's heritage of love, Let bald life prove what it may prove!

It were so easy to conceive Your lack my lack would compensate-- And by one stroke undo the knot of fate; It were so easy to believe The lies that such a thing could weave!

Or shall I stumble through the night Biting my lips to hold the tears Because your incommunicable years Must spend their summer of delight Without my reach--beyond my sight?

The house is still; the midnight seems Inscrutable--no answer there. Oh God!--to break this tension of despair. Between us the calm lamplight streams-- "Good night!" and "Pleasant dreams!"--yes--dreams.

II

I would I had lain with my love to-night; Her eyes trembled for her body said, "I have smoothed a pillow and made a bed"-- But I smiled against it And turned away my head To come into the cold starlight.

I would I had lain with my love to-night, For I know how flowers are shed, And the cynical scintillant stars are dead-- Dead, dead utterly! Yet I turned away my head To come into the cold starlight.

I would I had lain with my love to-night! Oh, indolent Gods, we too can tread On the silent spirits, the uncomforted! She did not reproach me, Tho I turned away my head And came into the starlight.

III

Love (as a cloud on the sea Hung between poles of blue) Hangs in the heart of me Between the eyes of you. Love, as a cloud on the sea, Claims the tears of two.

Love (as a wind in a tree Shaking its tower of green) Shakes all the heart of me And leaves no peace between. Love, as the wind the tree Tears with hands unseen.

Love (as a storm on the sea Shatters the sleep of the wave) Shatters the heart of me With desires that grope and crave. Love, as the storm the sea, Boasts not me his slave.

IV

You, flower-named, and as a flower arrayed, Open to all the wandering airs that pass, Opened to me--yet I drew back afraid, Craven to the blood that would have preyed And the sly viper coiling in the grass.

V

Love, when you smiled and beckoned My cold thought stood aloof and reckoned Some heights above you. But now you have turned and gone Smiling, fugitive as dawn, I know (oh fool!) I love you.

VI

Love, with her queen's face and child lips Walked at my side; her hair about her head Streamed, with riotous and exuberant spread Like sails and cordage of sea-breasting ships, And as the tides, her mirthful glints and dips Tugged at my anchor'd calmness--then she said, Chilling to gravity, "You are lead." It was as when the bright blade cruelly slips, For in my soul that hid its vain desires Under closed hatch, I knew the stifled fires Devoured in silence, as stealthy serpents writhe Their folds about their prey; and seemed to hear The passing of some irrevocable year, And faint for whistle of a monstrous scythe.

VII

Pain of widest range-- The intimate grown strange.

ARMA VIRUMQUE CANO

And so the good Aeneas went away. It was not dawn, and yet the sleepless sea Felt as a mother, the still unborn day. The stars were brighter than they ought to be. A milky foam curled from the vessel's breast Whose long blades lifted to each lifting crest.

Happy were the sailors to be aboard once more, And the laughing sea answered to their shouts afar off shore.

Dido the Queen Knew he was gone. No need to have seen From the casement withdrawn; No need to be told; Her heart had guessed By the aching unrest And empty breast-- Empty and cold.

Oh, plain her Maidens at their spinning, Love has end that had beginning.

As the course was traced Aeneas paced, His thoughts uprising like a flock of birds; And one flew west, to the new the unknown nest, And one that was wing'd with flaming words-- Something the Queen had uttered, tender--sweet,-- Fluttered back and died--just at her feet.

Ho! chants a Rower, straining at the sweep, Leave the landsman to his pillow, the sailor to the deep.

All night the Queen In fever burned; A dream returned Long ago seen: A dream of ships, Of one who came Out of a flame And cried her name And kissed her lips.

Somewhere in the dawn Someone's singing: "Lo! what gifts love's hands are bringing!"

Jet-black, the palms like sculptured fountains loomed Above the lovers; one star blazed all night. Beyond the river was the sea that boomed. Their barge was lit with lightnings of delight. Of this, the good Aeneas too had dreamed While the unshaken towers of Ilium gleamed.

Ah! cry the sailors, "whom we loved must wait. There's no turning back from the open track to the gates of fate."

The cicadas drone; Desert winds blow As oarsmen row Their Queen alone Down the river. Alone, she cried Alone! to the tide. And the sea replied Forever!

La, croon the Women, nimbly weaving, "Whose heart do we hear grieving?"

Months bring all wanderings to a close. The fleet years flee; Aeneas wisely wed, Often, when wind and sea strike mighty blows, Wakening from dreams half ecstasy, half dread, That come upon him from another life, Touches the calm breast of his sleeping wife.

Hum, the Night Watch mutters, leaning on his spear, "'Tis a strange world to be in and to have no fear."

The sea at last Brings pain to end. The desert vast Becomes her friend. Her people fear it: "The Queen," they say, "Grows day by day Paler, but still gay-- As a spirit."

Oh, they murmur, "Queen Dido goes away To where the dark river runs, sunless and gray."

A HYMN TO DIONYSUS IN SPRING

Yellow the sands of the shores of Elis, and over the creaming Foam-flakes that flutter and curl on the edge of the dreaming Mediterranean, Jupiter arches his azure dome. Here to the somnolent sands the Aeolian women have come, The dreamers, all languid with silence of spring-tide dreaming, And they stand with their hair unbound and their feet in the foam.

The heart of the morning beats with a swooning, amorous beating, And the nymph-cool waters and brazen sunshine meeting, Mingle where indolent spring-tide ripples shimmer and burn; Out to the dim horizon the eyes of the dreamers yearn, And like flutes are the low, soft voices that chant thus, entreating The God, Dionysus, to rise from the sea and return.

"Bitter thy roving hath been, O Hunter, and stricken with madness, And thy winter frenzy hath torn us with torment of sadness-- Horror of blood in the mouth and of murderous lusts that bring Shadows a-couch in the forest from under us shuddering. We are sick of the feverish nights that have stolen our gladness-- Ah! we are weary of winter and fain of the Spring!"

"Thy foes, O Hunter, have goaded thy soul, but their goading is over, For every unfolding leaf is a shield for thy cover And every grass-blade upraises a spear that is scimitar-keen, Gladly the flowers will weave thee a mantle to wander unseen. Slim as a willow-wand, Ariadne awaits thee, her lover, And her heart is full of the dreams that are cool and green."

"Hyé, the Dew, thy mother, sorrows because of thy going, And the film-pale, rain-sweet Hyades fleeing and flowing, Dissolved from the rainbow and river to rise in the sap of the tree, Leave never their dolorous grieving, lamenting in quest of thee. And the succulent vine and the spirit of all things growing Cry 'Dionysus, return! Oh, return from the sea!'"

"Wilt thou forsake us forever, unheeding our sedulous plaining? See'st not the clusters of pale green globes, crescent and straining Sunwards, that long for thy hand to engarb them with royal attire? Hear us, O Wine-God; return to us! Kindle once more Desire!" So chant the Aeolian women till the light be waning While the foam breaks over their feet in soft folds of fire.

The robes of the sun are red, and close to the earth he dozes; The long day lingers, then slowly and silently closes The shadowy orient gates, climbing upward stair by stair, Raising her evening face to the stars in the spring-tide air. Lo! the sea is aglow and aflame with the odor of roses! Lo! a glimpse of the God with the sun in his yellow hair!

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Transcriber's Notes

The original spelling was mostly preserved. A few obvious typographical errors were silently corrected. All other changes are listed here (before/after):

[p. 10]: ... Fled, the panting, goat-shankid clan, ... ... Fled, the panting, goat-shank'd clan, ...

[p. 32]: ... The wind blows in and the wind blows out. ... ... The wind blows in and the wind blows out ...