Chapter 2

Winter, some call thee fair, Yea! flatter thy cold face With vain compare Of all thy glittering ways And magic snows With summer and the rose; Thy phantom flowers And fretted traceries Of crystal breath, Thy frozen and fantastic art of death, With April as she showers The violet on the leas, And bares her bosom In the blossoming trees, And dances on her way To laugh with May-- Winter that hath no bird To sing thee, and no bloom To deck thy brow: To me thou art an empty haunted room, Where once the music Of the summer stirred, And all the dancers Fallen on silence now.

THE MYSTIC FRIENDS

I nothing did all yesterday But listen to the singing rain On roof and weeping window-pane, And, 'whiles I'd watch the flying spray And smoking breakers in the bay: Nothing but this did I all day--

Save turn anon to trim the fire With a new log, and mark it roar And flame with yellow tongues for more To feed its mystical desire. No other comrades save these three, The fire, the rain, and the wild sea,

All day from morn till night had I-- Yea! and the wind, with fitful cry, Like a hound whining at the door.

Yet seemed it, as to sleep I turned, Pausing a little while to pray, That not mis-spent had been the day; That I had somehow wisdom learned From those wild waters in the bay, And from the fire as it burned; And that the rain, in some strange way, Had words of high import to say; And that the wind, with fitful cry, Did some immortal message try, Striving to make some meaning clear Important for my soul to hear.

But what the meaning of the rain, And what the wisdom of the fire, And what the warning of the wind, And what the sea would tell, in vain My soul doth of itself enquire,-- And yet a meaning too doth find:

For what am I that hears and sees But a strange brother of all these That blindly move, and wordless cry, And I, mysteriously I, Answer in blood and bone and breath To what my gnomic kindred saith; And, as in me they all have part, Translate their message to my heart--

And know, yet know not, what they say: Know not, yet know, the fire's tongue And the rain's elegiac song, And the white language of the spray, And all the wind meant yesterday-- Yea! wiser he, when the day ends, Who shared it with those four strange friends.

THE COUNTRY GODS

I dwell, with all things great and fair: The green earth and the lustral air, The sacred spaces of the sea, Day in, day out, companion me. Pure-faced, pure-thoughted, folk are mine With whom to sit and laugh and dine; In every sunlit room is heard Love singing, like an April bird, And everywhere the moonlit eyes Of beauty guard our paradise; While, at the ending of the day, To the kind country gods we pray, And dues of our fair living pay.

Thus, when, reluctant, to the town I go, with country sunshine brown, So small and strange all seems to me-- the boonfellow of the sea-- That these town-people say and be: Their insect lives, their insect talk, Their busy little insect walk, Their busy little insect stings-- And all the while the sea-weed swings Against the rock, and the wide roar Rises foam-lipped along the shore. Ah! then how good my life I know, How good it is each day to go Where the great voices call, and where The eternal rhythms flow and flow. In that august companionship, The subtle poisoned words that drip, With guileless guile, from friendly lip, The lie that flits from ear to ear, Ye shall not speak, ye shall not hear; Nor shall you fear your heart to say, Lest he who listens shall betray.

The man who hearkens all day long To the sea's cosmic-thoughted song Comes with purged ears to lesser speech, And something of the skyey reach Greatens the gaze that feeds on space; The starlight writes upon his face That bathes in starlight, and the morn Chrisms with dew, when day is born, The eyes that drink the holy light Welling from the deep springs of night.

And so--how good to catch the train Back to the country gods again.

III

TO ONE ON A JOURNEY

Why did you go away without one word, Wave of the hand, or token of good-bye, Nor leave some message for me with flower or bird, Some sign to find you by;

Some stray of blossom on the winter road, To know your feet had gone that very way, Told me the star that points to your abode, And tossed me one faint ray

To climb from out the night where now I dwell-- Or, seemed it best for you to go alone To heaven, as alone I go to hell Upon the four winds blown.

HER PORTRAIT IMMORTAL

Must I believe this beauty wholly gone That in her picture here so deathless seems, And must I henceforth speak of her as one Tells of some face of legend or of dreams, Still here and there remembered--scarce believed, Or held the fancy of a heart bereaved.

So beautiful she--was; ah! "was," say I, Yet doubt her dead--I did not see her die. Only by others borne across the sea Came the incredible wild blasphemy They called her death--as though it could be true Of such an immortality as you!

True of these eyes that from her picture gaze, Serene, star-steadfast, as the heaven's own eyes; Of that deep bosom, white as hawthorn sprays, Where my world-weary head forever lies; True of these quiet hands, so marble-cool, Still on her lap as lilies on a pool.

Must I believe her dead--that this sweet clay, That even from her picture breathes perfume, Was carried on a fiery wind away, Or foully locked in the worm-whispering tomb; This casket rifled, ribald fingers thrust 'Mid all her dainty treasure--is _this_ dust!

Once such a dewy marvel of a girl, Warm as the sun, and ivory as the moon; All gone of her, all lost--except this curl Saved from her head one summer afternoon, Tied with a little ribbon from her breast-- This only mine, and Death's now all the rest.

Must I believe it true! Bid me not go Where on her grave the English violets blow; Nay, leave me--if a dream, indeed, it be-- Still in my dream that she is somewhere she, Silent, as was her wont. It is a lie-- She is not dead--I did not see her die.

SPRING'S PROMISES

When the spring comes again, will you be there? Three springs I watched and waited for your face, And listened for your voice upon the air; I sought for you in many a hidden place, Saying, "She must be there."

"Surely some magic slumber holds her fast, She whose blue eyes were morning's earliest flowers," I sighed: and, one by one, before me passed The rainbowed daughters of the vernal showers, Saying, "She comes at last."

Ah! broken promise of the world! how fair You speak young hearts! In many a wanton word Of lyric April, each succeeding year, By risen flower, and the returning bird, You vowed to bring back her.

And now the flutes are in the trees once more, The violets breathe up through the melting snow, Old Earth throws open wide her grassy door-- As if there were no violets long ago, Or any birds before.

"APRIL IS IN THE WORLD AGAIN"

April is in the world again, And all the world is filled with flowers-- Flowers for others, not for me! For my one flower I cannot see, Lost in the April showers.

I cannot wake her, though I sing, And all the birds, for her dear sake, Fill with their songs the wintry brake; Ah! could they make her rise again, What resurrection would be mine! Is she too tired to help the sun And all the little stars to shine?

"SINGING GO I"

Singing go I, seeking for ever a song Sung long ago; I ask no more to hear Her voice that sang--for I should do her wrong, Had I the power, to bring her once more near--

Near to the earth, its sorrow or its joy, To drag her back into the arms of pain And Love and all the April flowers again And all her little dreams of heaven destroy.

Have I the heart? Ah! had I but the song, The nightingale would listen and all things That talk in waterfalls and trees and strings Would hush themselves to listen as I sang, Had I the song.

"WHO WAS IT SWEPT AGAINST MY DOOR"

Who was it swept against my door just now, With rustling robes like Autumn's--was it thou? Ah! would it were thy gown against my door-- Only thy gown once more.

Sometimes the snow, sometimes the fluttering breath Of April, as toward May she wandereth, Make me a moment think that it is thou-- But yet it is not thou!

"FACE IN THE TOMB THAT LIES SO STILL"

Face in the tomb, that lies so still, May I draw near, And watch your sleep and love you, Without word or tear.

You smile, your eyelids flicker; Shall I tell How the world goes that lost you? Shall I tell?

Ah! love, lift not your eyelids; 'Tis the same Old story that we laughed at,-- Still the same.

We knew it, you and I, We knew it all: Still is the small the great, The great the small;

Still the cold lie quenches The flaming truth, And still embattled age Wars against youth.

Yet I believe still in the ever-living God That fills your grave with perfume, Writing your name in violets across the sod, Shielding your holy face from hail and snow; And, though the withered stay, the lovely go, No transitory wrong or wrath of things Shatters the faith--that each slow minute brings

That meadow nearer to us where your feet Shall flicker near me like white butterflies-- That meadow where immortal lovers meet, Gazing for ever in immortal eyes.

"I KNOW NOT IN WHAT PLACE"

I know not in what place again I'll meet The face I love--but there is not a street In the wide world where you can wander, sweet, Without my finding you, with those great eyes; Nor is there any star in all the skies Can give you shelter from my pitiless love.

RESURRECTION

Is it your face I see, your voice I hear? Your face, your voice, again after these years! O is your cheek once more against my cheek? And is this blessed rain, angel, your tears?

You have come back,--how strange--out of the grave; Its dreams are in your eyes, and still there clings Dust of the grave on your vainglorious hair; And a mysterious rust is on these rings--

The ring we gave each other, that young night When the moon rose on our betrothal kiss; When the sun rose upon our wedding day, How wonderful it was to give you this!

I dreamed you were a bird or a wild flower, Some changed lovely thing that was not you; Maybe, I said, she is the morning star, A radiance unfathomably far--

And now again you are so strangely near! Your face, your voice, again after these years! Is it your face I see, your voice I hear, And is this blessed rain, angel, your tears?

"WHEN THE LONG DAY HAS FADED"

When the long day has faded to its end, The flowers gone, and all the singing done, And there is no companion left save Death-- Ah! there is one, Though in her grave she lies this many a year, Will send a violet made of her blue eyes, A flowering whisper of her April breath, Up through the sleeping grass to comfort me, And in the April rain her tears shall fall.

"HER EYES ARE BLUEBELLS NOW"

Her eyes are bluebells now, her voice a bird, And the long sighing grass her elegy; She who a woman was is now a star In the high heaven shining down on me.

"THE DEAD AROSE"

The dead arose. Long had they dreamed, Deep in the grass of the still grave, Of meeting their beloved once more. They knocked at each familiar door. They waited eagerly to see The old loved faces at the door, They waited for a voice to say The same old words it said before-- They knocked at each familiar door. But no one answered to the dead, No voice of welcome, no kind word! Only a little flower came out, And one small elegiac bird.

"THE BLOOM UPON THE GRAPE"

The bloom upon the grape I ask no more, Nor pampered fragrance of the soft-lipped rose, I only ask of Him who keeps the Door-- To open it for one who fearless goes Into the dark, from which, reluctant, came His innocent heart, a little laughing flame; I only ask that he who gave me sight, Who gave me hearing and who gave me breath, Give me the last gift in His flaming hand-- The holy gift of Death.

THE FRIEND

Through the dark wood There came to me a friend, Bringing in his cold hands Two words--'The End.'

His face was fair As fading autumn flowers, And the lost joy Of unforgotten hours.

His voice was sweet As rain upon a grave; 'Be brave,' he smiled. And yet again--'be brave.'

ADORATION

Ah, if you worship anything, In deepest hush of silence bend The lone adoring knee, And only silence bring Into the sanctuary. Trust not the fairest word Your soul to wrong: Even the Rose's bird Hath not a song Sweet as the silence Round about the Rose. Ah, something goes, Fails, and is lost in speech That silence knows. How should I speak The hush about my heart That holds your name Shrined in a burning core Of central flame, Like names of seraphim Mystically writ on cloud? To speak your name aloud Were to unhallow Such a holy thing; Therefore I bring To your white feet And your immortal eyes Silence forever, But in such a wise Am silent as the quiet waters are, Hiding some holy star Amid hushed lilies In a secret lake. Ah, if a ripple break The stillness halcyon-- The star is gone!

"AT LAST I GOT A LETTER FROM THE DEAD"

At last I got a letter from the dead, And out of it there fell a little flower,-- The violet of an unforgotten hour.

IV

SONGS FOR FRAGOLETTA

I

Fragoletta, blessed one, What think you of the light of the sun? Do you think the dark was best, Lying snug in mother's breast? Ah! I knew that sweetness, too, Fragoletta, before you! But, Fragoletta, now you're born, You must learn to love the morn, Love the lovely working light, Love the miracle of sight, Love the thousand things to do-- Little girl, I envy you!-- Love the thousand things to see, Love your mother, and--love me! And some night, Fragoletta, soon, I'll take you out to see the moon; And for the first time, child of ours, You shall--think of it!--look on flowers, And smell them, too, if you are good, And hear the green leaves in the wood Talking, talking, all together In the happy windy weather; And if the journey's not too far For little limbs so lately made, Limb upon limb like petals laid, We'll go and picnic in a star.

II

Blue eyes looking up at me, I wonder what you really see, Lying in your cradle there, Fragrant as a branch of myrrh. Helpless little hands and feet, O so helpless! O so sweet! Tiny tongue that cannot talk, Tiny feet that cannot walk, Nothing of you that can do Aught, except those eyes of blue. How they open, how they close! Eyelids of the baby-rose, Open and shut, so blue, so wise, Baby-eyelids, baby-eyes.

III

That, Fragoletta, is the rain Beating upon the window-pane; But lo! the golden sun appears, To kiss away the window's tears. That, Fragoletta, is the wind That rattles so the window-blind; And yonder shining thing's a star, Blue eyes,--you seem ten times as far. That, Fragoletta, is a bird That speaks, yet never says a word; Upon a cherry-tree it sings, Simple as all mysterious things; Its little life to peck and pipe As long as cherries ripe and ripe, And minister unto the need Of baby-birds that feed and feed. This, Fragoletta, is a flower, Open and fragrant for an hour, A flower, a transitory thing, Each petal fleeting as a wing, All a May morning blows and blows, And then for everlasting goes.

IV

Blue eyes, against the whiteness pressed Of little mother's hallowed breast, The while your trembling lips are fed, Look up at mother's bended head, All benediction over you-- blue eyes looking into blue! Fragoletta is so small, We wonder that she lives at all-- Tiny alabaster girl, Hardly bigger than a pearl; That is why we take such care, Lest someone runs away with her.

V

A BALLAD OF WOMAN _(Gratefully Dedicated to Mrs. Pankhurst_)

She bore us in her dreaming womb, And laughed into the face of Death; She laughed, in her strange agony,-- To give her little baby breath.

Then, by some holy mystery, She fed us from her sacred breast, Soothed us with little birdlike words-- To rest--to rest--to rest--to rest;

Yea, softly fed us with her life-- Her bosom like the world in May: Can it be true that men, thus fed, Feed women--as I hear them say?

Long ere we grew to girl and boy, She sewed the little things we wore, And smiled unto herself for joy-- Mysterious Portress of the Door.

Shall she who bore the son of God, And made the rose of Sappho's song, She who saved France, and beat the drum Of freedom, brook this vulgar wrong?

I wonder if such men as these Had once a sister with blue eyes, Kind as the soothing hand of God, And as the quiet heaven wise.

I wonder if they ever saw A soldier lying on a bed On some lone battle-field, and watched Some holy woman bind his head.

I wonder if they ever walked, Lost in a black and weary land, And suddenly a flower came And took them softly by the hand.

I wonder if they ever heard The silver scream, in some grey morn, High in a lit and listening tower, Because a man-child then was born.

I wonder if they ever saw A woman's hair, or in her eye Read the eternal mystery-- Or ever saw a woman die.

I wonder, when all friends had gone,-- The gay companions, the brave men-- If in some fragile girl they found Their only stay and comrade then.

She who thus went through flaming hell To make us, put into our clay All that there is of heaven, shall she-- Mother and sister, wife and fay,--

Have no part in the world she made-- Serf of the rainbow, vassal flower-- Save knitting in the afternoon, And rocking cradles, hour by hour!

AN EASTER HYMN

Spake the Lord Christ--"I will arise." It seemed a saying void and vain-- How shall a dead man rise again!-- Vain as our tears, vain as our cries. Not one of all the little band That loved Him this might understand.

"I will arise"--Lord Jesus said. Hearken, amid the morning dew, Mary, a voice that calleth you,-- Then Mary turned her golden head, And lo! all shining at her side Her Master they had crucified.

At dawn to his dim sepulchre, Mary, remembering that far day, When at his feet the spikenard lay, Came, bringing balm and spice and myrrh; To her the grave had made reply: "He is not here--He cannot die."

Praetor and priest in vain conspire, Jerusalem and Rome in vain Torture the god with mortal pain, To quench that seed of living fire; But light that had in heaven its birth Can never be put out oh earth.

"I will arise"--across the years, Even as to Mary that grey morn, To us that gentle voice is borne-- "I will arise." He that hath ears O hearken well this mystic word, Let not the Master speak unheard.

No soul descended deep in hell, The child of sorrow, sin and death, The immortal spirit suffereth To see corruption; though it fell From loftiest station in the skies, It still to heaven again must rise.

No dream of faith, no seed of love, No lonely action nobly done, But is as stable as the sun, And fed and watered from above; From nether base to starry cope Nature's two laws are Faith and Hope.

Safe in the care of heavenly powers, The good we dreamed but might not do, Lost beauty magically new, Shall spring as surely as the flowers, When, 'mid the sobbing of the rain, The heart of April beats again.

Celestial spirit that doth roll The heart's sepulchral stone away, Be this our resurrection day, The singing Easter of the soul: O Gentle Master of the Wise Teach us to say, "I will arise."

BALLAD OF THE SEVEN O'CLOCK WHISTLE

The daisied dawn is in the sky, And the young day still dew and dream, When on the innocent morning air There comes a terrifying scream;

And the four ends of the sad earth Repeat the hellish dreadful call; Soft ladies murmur in soft beds-- "The morning whistle--that is all!"

And I too turn to sleep once more, A haunted sleep all filled with pain; For in my sleep I see the men, The victims of colossal Gain,

Troop in the doors of servitude; I see the children weary-eyed, I see the time-clock, and I see The endless day that glooms inside.

It is the Moloch of the dawn, Capital calling for its prey-- Men, women and little boys and girls, It's human sacrifice each day.

And, as I hear that dreadful scream, High in the dawn all filled with song,-- I pray within my aching heart--"O Lord! O Lord! How long! How long!"

MORALITY

Give me the lifted skirt, And the brave ways of wrong, The fist, the dagger and the sword, And the out-spoken song.

Ah! bring me not the love That bargains, bids and buys: For so much loving I will give So much in lips and eyes;

But love with bosom bared, Sweet as a bird and wild, That in her savage maidenhood Cries for a little child.

VI

FOR THE BIRTHDAY OF EDGAR ALLAN POE

(January 19, 1909)

Poet of doom, dementia, and death, Of beauty singing in a charnel house, Like the lost soul of a poor moon-mad maid, With too much loving of some lord of hell; Doomed and disastrous spirit, to what shore Of what dark gulf infernal art thou strayed, Or to what spectral star of topless heaven Art lifted and enthroned?

The winter dark, And the drear winter cold that welcomed thee To a world all winter, gird with ice and storm Thy January day--yea! the same world Of winter and the wintry hearts of men; And still, for all thy shining, the same swarm That mocked thy song gather about thy fame, With the small murmur of the undying worm, And whisper, blind and foul, amid thy dust.

TO RALPH WALDO EMERSON

Poet, whose words are like the tight-packed seed Sealed in the capsule of a silver flower, Still at your art we wonder as we read, The art dynamic charging each word with power.

Seeds of the silver flower of Emerson: One, on the winds to Scotland brought, did sink In Carlyle's heart; and one was lately blown To Belgium, and flowered in--Maeterlinck.

RICHARD WATSON GILDER (Obiit Nov. 18, 1909)

America grows poorer day by day-- Richer and richer, I have heard some say: They thought of a poor wealth I do not heed-- For, one by one, the men who dreamed the dream That was America, and is now no more, Have gone in flame through that mysterious door, And scarcely one remains, in all our need.

The dream goes with the dreamer--ah! beware, Country of facile silver and of gold, To slight the gentle strength of a pure prayer; America, all made out of a dream-- A dream of good men in the days of old; What if the dream should fade and none remain To tell your children the old dream again!

Therefore, with laurel and with tears and rue, Stand by his grave this sad November day, Sadder that he untimely goes away, Who sang and wrought so well for that high dream We call America--the world made new, New with clean hope and faith and purpose true.

Gilder, your name, with each return of Spring, Shall write itself in the soft April flowers, And, when you hear the murmur of bright showers Over your sleep, and little lives that sing Come back once more, know that the rainbowed rain Is but our tears, saying: "Come back again."

IN A COPY OF FITZGERALD'S "OMAR"

A little book, this grim November day, Wherein, O tired heart, to creep away,-- Come drink this wine and wear this fadeless rose, Nor heed the world, nor what the world shall say.

A thousand gardens--yet to-day there blows In all their wintry walks no single rose, But here with Omar you shall find the Spring That fears no Autumn and eternal glows.

So on the song-soft petals of his rhyme Pillow your head, as in some golden clime, And let the beauty of eternity Smooth from your brow the little frets of time.

VII

A BALLAD OF TOO MUCH BEAUTY

There is too much beauty upon this earth For lonely men to bear, Too many eyes, too enchanted skies, Too many things too fair; And the man who would live the life of a man Must turn his eyes away--if he can.

He must not look at the dawning day, Or watch the rising moon; From the little feet, so white, so fleet, He must turn his eyes away; And the flowers and the faces he must pass by With stern self-sacrificing eye.