Part 11

There we found the water-beech, One forgotten August noon, With a hornet-nest in reach,-- Like a fairyland balloon, Full of bustling fairy speech.

Some invasion, sure, it was; For we heard the captains scold; Waspish cavalry a-buzz,-- Troopers uniformed in gold, Sable-slashed,--to charge on us.

Could I find the sedgy angle, Where the dragon-flies would turn Slender flittings into spangle On the sunlight? or would burn-- Where the berries made a tangle--

Sparkling green and brassy blue; Rendezvousing, by the stream, Bands of elf-banditti, who, Brigands of the bloom and beam, Drunken were with honey-dew.

Could I find the pond that lay Where vermilion blossoms showered Fragrance down the daisied way? That the sassafras embowered With the spice of early May?

Could I find it--should I seek-- The old mill? Its weather-beaten Wheel and gable by the creek? With its warping roof; worm-eaten, Dusty rafters worn and weak.

Where old shadows haunt old places, Loft and hopper, stair and bin; Ghostly with the dust that laces Webs that usher phantoms in, Wistful with remembered faces.

While the frogs’ grave litanies Drowse in far-off antiphone, Supplicating, till the eyes Of dead friendships, long alone In the dusky corners,--rise.

Moonbeams? or the twinkling tip Of a star? or, in the darkling Twilight, fireflies? there that dip-- As if Night a myriad sparkling Jewels from her hands let slip.

Where, I dream, my youth still crosses, With a corn-sack for the meal, Through the sprinkled ferns and mosses, To the gray mill’s lichened wheel, Where the water drips and tosses.

ENCHANTMENT

The deep seclusion of this forest path,-- O’er which the green boughs weave a canopy; Along which bluet and anemone Spread a dim carpet; where the Twilight hath Her dark abode; and, sweet as aftermath, Wood-fragrance roams,--has so enchanted me, That yonder blossoming bramble seems to be Some Sylvan resting, rosy from her bath: Has so enspelled me with tradition’s dreams, That every foam-white stream that, twinkling, flows, And every bird that flutters wings of tan, Or warbles hidden, to my fancy seems A Naiad dancing to a Faun who blows Wild woodland music on the pipes of Pan.

IN THE FOREST

One well might deem, among these miles of woods, Such were the Forests of the Holy Grail,-- Brocéliand and Dean: where, clothed in mail, The Knights of Arthur rode, and all the broods Of legend laired.--And, where no sound intrudes Upon the ear, except the glimmering wail Of some far bird; or, in some flowery swale, A brook that murmurs to the solitudes, Might think he hears the laugh of Vivien Blent with the moan of Merlin, muttering bound By his own magic to one stony spot: And, in the cloud that looms above the glen,-- In which the sun burns like the Table Round,-- Might dream he sees the towers of Camelot.

CAN SUCH THINGS BE

Meseemed that while she played, while lightly yet Her fingers fell, as roses bloom by bloom, I listened--dead within a mighty room Of some old palace where great casements let Gaunt moonlight in, that glimpsed a parapet Of statued marble: in the arrased gloom Majestic pictures towered, dim as doom, The dreams of Titian and of Tintoret. And then, it seemed, along a corridor, A mile of oak, a stricken footstep came, Hurrying, yet slow.... I thought long centuries Passed ere she entered--she, I loved of yore, For whom I died, who wildly wailed my name And bent and kissed me on the mouth and eyes.

KNIGHT-ERRANT

Onward he gallops through enchanted gloom.-- The phantoms of the forest, dark and dim, And shadows of vast death environ him-- Onward he spurs victorious over doom. Before his eyes that love’s far fires illume-- Where courage sits, impregnable and grim-- The form and features of _her_ beauty swim, Beckoning him on with looks that fears consume. The thought of her distress, her lips to kiss, Mails him in triple might; and so at last To Lust’s huge keep he comes; its giant wall, Wild-towering, frowning from the precipice: And through its gate, borne like a bugle-blast, O’er night and hell he thunders to his all.

THE ARTIST

In story books, when I was very young, I knew her first, one of the Fairy Race; And then it was her picture took its place, Framed round with love’s deep gold, and draped and hung High in my heart’s red room: no song was sung, No tale of passion told, I did not grace With her associated form and face, And intimated charm of touch and tongue. As years went on she grew to more and more, Until each thing, symbolic to my heart Of beauty,--such as honor, truth, and fame,-- Within the studio of my soul’s thought wore Her lineaments, whom I, with all my art, Strove to embody and to give a name.

POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY

Out of the past the dim leaves spake to me The thoughts of Pindar with a voice so sweet Hyblæan bees seemed swarming my retreat Around the reedy well of Poesy. I closed the book. Then, knee to neighbor knee, Sat with the soul of Plato, to repeat Doctrines, till mine seemed some Socratic seat High on the summit of Philosophy. Around the wave of one Religion taught Her first rude children. From the stars that burned Above the mountained ether, Science learned The first vague lessons of the work she wrought. Daughters of God, in whom we still behold The Age of Iron and the Age of Gold.

“QUO VADIS”

It is as if imperial trumpets broke Again the silence on War’s iron height; And Cæsar’s armored legions marched to fight, While Rome, blood-red upon her mountain-yoke, Blazed like an awful sunset. At a stroke, Again I see the living torches light The horrible revels, and the bloated, white, Bayed brow of Nero smiling through the smoke: And here and there a little band of slaves Among dark ruins; and the form of Paul, Bearded and gaunt, expounding still the Word: And towards the North the tottering architraves Of empire; and, wild-waving over all, The flaming figure of a Gothic sword.

TO A CRITIC

R. H. S.

Song hath a catalogue of lovely things Thy kind hath oft defiled,--whose spite misleads The world too often!--where the poet reads, As in a fable, of old envyings, Crows, such as thou, which hush the bird that sings, Or kill it with their cawings: thorns and weeds, Such as thyself, ’midst which the wind sows seeds Of flow’rs, these crush before one blossom swings. But here and there the wisdom of a School Unknown to these hath often written down “Fame” in white ink the future hath turned brown; When every beauty, heaped with ridicule, In their ignoble prose, proved their renown, Making each famous--as an ass or fool.

QUATRAINS

I

_Poetry_

Who hath beheld the goddess face to face, Blind with her beauty, all his days shall go Climbing lone mountains towards her temple’s place, Weighed with Song’s sweet, inexorable woe.

II

_The Unimaginative_

Each form of beauty’s but the new disguise Of thoughts more beautiful than forms can be; Sceptics, who search with unanointed eyes, Never the Earth’s wild Fairy-dance shall see.

III

_Music_

God-born before the Sons of God, she hurled, With awful symphonies of flood and fire, God’s name on rocking chaos--world by world Flamed as the universe rolled from her lyre.

IV

_The Three Elements_

They come as couriers of Heaven: their feet Sonorous-sandaled with majestic awe; In raiment of swift foam and wind and heat, Blowing the trumpets of God’s wrath and law.

V

_Rome_

Above the Circus of the World she sat, Beautiful and base, a harlot crowned with pride: Fierce Nations, upon whom she sneered and spat, Shrieked at her feet and for her pastime died.

VI

_On Reading the Life of Haroun er Reshid_

Down all the lanterned Bagdad of our youth He steals, with golden justice for the poor: Within his palace--you shall know the truth!-- A blood-smeared headsman hides behind each door.

VII

_Mnemosyne_

In classic beauty, cold, immaculate, A voiceful sculpture, stern and still she stands, Upon her brow deep-chiselled love and hate, That sorrow o’er dead roses in her hands.

VIII

_Beauty_

High as a star, yet lowly as a flower, Unknown she takes her unassuming place At Earth’s proud masquerade--the appointed hour Strikes, and, behold! the marvel of her face.

IX

_The Stars_

These--the bright symbols of man’s hope and fame, In which he reads his blessing or his curse-- Are syllables with which God speaks His name In the vast utterance of the universe.

X

_Echo_

Dweller in hollow places, hills and rocks, Daughter of Silence and old Solitude, Tip-toe she stands within her cave or wood, Her only life the noises that she mocks.

THE DREAMER

Even as a child he loved to thrid the bowers, And mark the loafing sunlight’s lazy laugh; Or, on each season, spell the epitaph Of its dead months repeated in their flowers; Or list the music of the strolling showers, Whose vagabond notes strummed through a twinkling staff, Or read the day’s delivered monograph Through all the chapters of its dædal hours. Still with the same child-faith and child regard He looks on Nature, hearing, at her heart, The Beautiful beat out the time and place, Through which no lesson of this life is hard, No struggle vain of science or of art, That dies with failure written on its face.

WINTER

The flute, whence Summer’s dreamy finger-tips Drew music,--ripening the cramped kernels in The burly chestnut and the chinquapin, Red-rounding-out the oval haws and hips,-- Now Winter crushes to his stormy lips, And surly songs whistle around his chin; Now the wild days and wilder nights begin When, at the eaves, the lengthening icicle drips. Thy songs, O Summer, are not lost so soon! Still dwells a memory in thy hollow flute, Which unto Winter’s masculine airs doth give Thy own creative qualities of tune, Through which we see each bough bend white with fruit, Each branch with bloom, in snow commemorative.

MID-WINTER

All day the clouds hung ashen with the cold; And through the snow the muffled waters fell; The day seemed drowned in grief too deep to tell, Like some old hermit whose last bead is told. At eve the wind woke, and the snow clouds rolled Aside to leave the fierce sky visible; Harsh as an iron landscape of wan Hell The dark hills hung framed in with gloomy gold. And then, towards night, the wind seemed some one at My window, wailing: now a little child Crying outside my door; and now the long Howl of some starved beast down the flue.--I sat And knew ’twas Winter with his madman song Of miseries on which he stared and smiled.

SPRING

First came the rain, loud, with sonorous lips; A pursuivant who heralded a prince: And dawn put on her livery of tints, And dusk bound gold about her hair and hips: And, all in silver mail, the sunlight came, A knight, who bade the winter let him pass; And freed imprisoned beauty, naked as The Court of Love, in all her wildflower shame. And so she came, in breeze-borne loveliness, Across the hills; and heav’n bent down to bless: Above her head the birds were as a choir; And at her feet, like some strong worshiper, The shouting water pæan’d praise of her, Who, with blue eyes, set the wild world on fire.

TRANSFORMATION

It is the time when, by the forest falls, The touch-me-nots hang faery folly-caps; When ferns and flowers fill the lichened laps Of rocks with color, rich as orient shawls: And in my heart I hear a voice that calls Me woodward, where the hamadryad wraps Her limbs in bark, and, bubbling in the saps, Sings the sweet Greek of Pan’s old madrigals: There is a gleam that lures me up the stream-- A Naiad swimming with wet limbs of light? Perfume that leads me on from dream to dream-- An oread’s footprints flowering into flight? And, lo! meseems I am a Faun again, One with the myths that I pursue in vain.

RESPONSE

There is a music of immaculate love, That beats within the virginal veins of Spring,-- And trillium blossoms, (like the stars that cling To fairies’ wands;) and, strung on sprays above, White-hearts and mandrake blooms, (that look enough Like the elves’ washing--white with laundering Of May-moon dews;) and all pale-opening Wildflowers of the woods are born thereof. There is no sod Spring’s white foot brushes but Must feel the music that vibrates within, And thrill to the communicated touch Responsive harmonies, that must unshut The heart of Beauty for Song’s concrete kin, Emotions--that are flowers--born of such.

THE SWASHBUCKLER

Squat-nosed and broad, of big and pompous port; A tavern visage, apoplexy haunts, All pimple-puffed: the Falstaff-like resort Of fat debauchery, whose veined cheek flaunts A flabby purple: rusty-spurred he stands In rakehell boots and belt, and hanger that Claps when, with greasy gauntlets on his hands, He swaggers past in cloak and slouch-plumed hat. Aggression marches armies in his words; And in his oaths great deeds ride cap-à-pie; His looks, his gestures breathe the breath of swords; And in his carriage camp all wars to be:-- With him, of battles there shall be no lack While buxom wenches are and stoops of sack.

SIMULACRA

Dark in the west the sunset’s sombre wrack Unrolled vast walls the rams of war had split, Along whose battlements the battle lit Tempestuous beacons; and, with gates hurled back, A mighty city, red with ruin and sack, Through burning breaches, crumbling bit by bit, Showed where the God of Slaughter seemed to sit With Conflagration glaring at each crack.-- Who knows? perhaps as sleep unto us makes Our dreams as real as our waking seems With recollections time can not destroy, So in the mind of Nature now awakes, Haply, some wilder memory, and she dreams The stormy story of the fall of Troy.

THE BLUEBIRD

From morn till noon upon the window-pane The tempest tapped with rainy finger-nails, And all the afternoon the blustering gales Beat at the door with furious feet of rain. The rose, near which the lily’s bloom lay slain, Like some red wound dripped by the garden rails, On which the sullen slug left silvery trails-- It seemed the sun would never shine again. Then in the drench, long, loud, and clarion-clear,-- A skyey herald tabarded in blue,-- A bluebird warbled ... and at once a bow Was bent in heaven, and I seemed to hear God’s sapphire spaces crystallizing through The strata’d clouds in azure tremolo.

CAVERNS

_Written of Colossal Cave, Kentucky._

Aisles and abysses; leagues, no man explores, Of rock that labyrinths and night that drips; Where everlasting silence broods, with lips Of adamant, o’er earthquake-builded floors. Where forms, such as the Dæmon-World adores, Laborious water carves; whence echo slips Wild-tongued o’er pools where petrifaction strips Her breasts of crystal from which crystal pours.-- Here where primordial fear, the Gorgon, sits, Staring all life to stone in ghastly mirth, I seem to tread, with awe no tongue can tell,-- Beneath vast domes, by torrent-tortured pits, ’Mid wrecks terrific of the ruined Earth,-- An ancient causeway of forgotten Hell.

A VOICE ON THE WIND

PROEM

_Oh, for a soul that fulfills Music like that of a bird! Thrilling with rapture the hills, Heedless if any one heard._

_Or, like the flower that blooms Lone in the midst of the trees, Filling the woods with perfumes, Careless if any one sees._

_Or, like the wandering wind, Over the meadows that swings, Bringing wild sweets to mankind, Knowing not that which it brings._

_Oh, for a way to impart Beauty, no matter how hard! Like unto Nature, whose art Never once dreams of reward._

A VOICE ON THE WIND

I

She walks with the wind on the windy height When the rocks are loud and the waves are white, And all night long she calls through the night, “O my children, come home!” Her bleak gown, torn as a tattered cloud, Tosses around her like a shroud, While over the deep her voice rings loud,-- “O my children, come home, come home! O my children, come home!”

II

Who is she who wanders alone, When the wind drives sheer and the rain is blown? Who walks all night and makes her moan, “O my children, come home!” Whose face is raised to the blinding gale; Whose hair blows black and whose eyes are pale, While over the world goes by her wail,-- “O my children, come home, come home! O my children, come home!”

III

She walks with the wind in the windy wood; The dark rain drips from her hair and hood, And her cry sobs by, like a ghost pursued, “O my children, come home!” Where the trees loom gaunt and the rocks stretch drear, The owl and the fox crouch back in fear, As wild through the wood her voice they hear,-- “O my children, come home, come home! O my children, come home!”

IV

Who is she who shudders by When the boughs blow bare and the dead leaves fly? Who walks all night with her wailing cry, “O my children, come home!” Who, strange of look, and wild of tongue, With wan feet wounded and hands wild-wrung, Sweeps on and on with her cry, far-flung,-- “O my children, come home, come home! O my children, come home!”

V

’Tis the Spirit of Autumn, no man sees, The mother of Death and of Mysteries, Who cries on the wind all night to these, “O my children, come home!” The Spirit of Autumn, pierced with pain, Calling her children home again, Death and Dreams, through ruin and rain,-- “O my children, come home, come home! O my children, come home!”

THE LAND OF HEARTS MADE WHOLE

Do you know the way that goes Over fields of rue and rose,-- Warm of scent and hot of hue, Roofed with heaven’s bluest blue,-- To the Vale of Dreams Come True?

Do you know the path that twines, Banked with elder bosks and vines, Under boughs that shade a stream, Hurrying, crystal as a gleam, To the Hills of Love a-Dream?

Tell me, tell me, have you gone Through the fields and woods of dawn, Meadowlands and trees that roll, Great of grass and huge of bole, To the Land of Hearts Made Whole?

On the way, among the fields, Poppies lift vermilion shields, In whose hearts the golden Noon, Murmuring her drowsy tune, Rocks the sleepy bees that croon.

On the way, amid the woods, Mandrakes muster multitudes, ’Mid whose blossoms, white as tusk, Glides the glimmering Forest-Dusk, With her moths of fluttering musk.

Here you hear the stealthy stir Of shy lives of hoof and fur; Harmless things that hide and peer, Hearts that sucked the milk of fear-- Fox and rabbit, squirrel and deer.

Here you see the mossy flight Of faint forms that love the night-- Whippoorwill and owlet-things, Whose weird call before you brings Wonder-worlds of happenings.

Now in sunlight, now in shade, Water, like a brandished blade, Foaming forward, wild of flight, Startles, then arrests the sight, Whirling steely loops of light.

Through the tree-tops, down the vale, Breezes roam, and leave a trail Of cool music that the birds,-- Following in happy herds,-- Gather up in twittering words.

Blossoms, frail and manifold, Shower the way with pearl and gold; Blurs, that seem the darling print Of the Springtime’s feet, or glint Of her twinkling gown’s torn tint.

There the Myths of old endure: Dreams that are the world-soul’s cure; Things that have no place or play In the facts of Everyday Round your presence smile and sway.

Suddenly your eyes may see, Stepping softly from a tree,-- Slim of form and wet with dew,-- The brown Dryad; lips the hue Of a berry bit into.

You may mark the Naiad rise From her pool’s reflected skies; In her gaze the heaven that dreams, Starred, in twilight-haunted streams, Mixed with water’s grayer gleams.

You may see the laurel’s girth, Big with bloom, give fragrant birth To the Oread whose hair,-- Musk and darkness, light and air,-- Fills the hush with wonder there.

You may mark the rocks divide, And the Faun before you glide, Piping on a magic reed, Sowing many a music-seed, From which bloom and mushroom bead.

Of the rain and sunlight born, Young of beard and young of horn, You may see the Satyr lie, With a very knowing eye, Teaching fledgeling birds to fly.

These shall cheer and follow you Through the Vale of Dreams Come True: Wind-like voices, leaf-like feet; Forms of mist and hazy heat, In whose pulses sunbeams beat.

Lo! you tread enchanted ground! From the hollows all around Elf and spirit, gnome and fay, Guide your feet along the way Till the dewy close of day.

Then beside you, jet on jet, Emerald-hued and violet, Flickering, floats a firefly light, Aye to guide your steps aright From the valley to the height.

Steep the way is; when at last, Vale and wood and stream are passed, From the heights you shall behold Panther heavens of spotted gold Tiger-tawny deeps unfold.

You shall see on stocks and stones Sunset’s bell-deep color tones Fallen; and the valleys filled With dusk’s purple music, spilled On the silence, rapture-thrilled.

Then, as answering bell greets bell, Night ring in her miracle Of the doméd dark, o’er-rolled, Note on note, with starlight cold, ’Twixt the moon’s broad peal of gold.

On the hill-top Love-a-Dream Shows you then her window-gleam; Brings you home and folds your soul In the peace of vale and knoll, In the Land of Hearts Made Whole.

THE WIND OF SUMMER

From the hills and far away All the long, warm summer day Comes the Wind and seems to say:

“Come, oh, come! and let us go Where the meadows bend and blow, Waving with the white-tops’ snow.

“’Neath the hyssop-colored sky ’Mid the meadows we will lie Watching the white clouds roll by;

“While your hair my hands shall press With a cooling tenderness Till your grief grows less and less:

“Come, oh, come! and let us roam Where the rock-cut waters comb Flowing crystal into foam.

“Under trees whose trunks are brown, On the banks that violets crown, We will watch the fish flash down;