Part 2

And now I felt her presence near, I, full of life; yet knew no fear There in the sombre silence, mark. And it was dark, yes, deadly dark: But when I slowly drew away The pall, death modeled with her face,-- From her fair form it fell and lay Rich in the dust,--the shrouded place Was glittering daggered by the spark Of one wild ruby at her throat, Red-arrowed as a star with throbs Of pulsing flame. And note on note The night seemed filled with tenuous sobs Of fire that flickered from that stone, That, lustrous, lay against her throat, Large as her eyes, and shadowy. And standing by the dead alone I marveled not that this should be. The essence of an hundred stars, Of fretful crimson, through and through Its bezels beat, when, bending down My hot lips pressed her mouth. And scars, Aurora-scarlet, veiny blue, Flame-hearted, blurred the midnight; and The vault rang; and I felt a hand Like fire in mine. And, lo, a frown Broke up her face as gently as The surface of a fountain's glass A zephyr moves, that jolts the grass Spilling its rain-drops. When this passed, Through song-soft slumber, binding fast, Slow smiles dreamed outward beautiful; And with each smile I heard the dull Deep music of her heart, and saw, As by some necromantic law, Faint tremblings of a lubric light Flush her white temples and her throat: And each long pulse was as a note, That, gathering, like a strong surprise With all of happiness, made sweet With dim carnation in wild wise The arch of her pale lips, and beat Like moonlight from her head to feet. I bent and kissed her once again: And with that kiss it seemed that pain, Which long had ached beneath her smile And eyelids, vanished. In a while I saw she breathed. Then, wondrous white, Fair as she was before she died, She rose upon the bier; a sight To marvel at, whose truth belied All fiction. Yet I saw her eyes Grow wide unto my kiss,--like skies Of starless dawn.--And all the fire Of that dark ruby at her throat Around her presence seemed to float, A mist of rose, wherein like light She moved, or music exquisite.

What followed then I scarcely know: All I remember is, I caught Her hand; and from the tomb I brought Her beautiful: and o'er the snow, Where moonbeams on the hollies glow, I led her. But her feet no print Left of their nakedness, no dint, No faintest trace in frost. I thought, "The moonlight fills them with its glow, So soft they fall; or 'tis the snow Covers them o'er!--the tomb was black, And--this strong light blinds!"--Turning back My eyes met hers; and as I turned, Flashing centupled facets, burned That ruby at her throat; and I Studied its beauty for a while: How came it there, and when, and why? Who set it at her throat? Again, Was it a ruby?--Pondering, I stood and gazed. A far, strange smile Filled all her face, and as with pain I seemed to hear her speak, or sing, These words, that meant not anything, Yet more than any words may mean: "Thy blood it is," she said; then sighed: "See where thy heart's blood beateth! here Thy heart's blood, that my lips did drain In life; I live by still, unseen, Long as thy passion shall remain.-- Canst thou behold and have no fear?-- Yea, if I am not dead, 'tis thou!-- Look how thy heart's blood flashes now!-- Blood of my life and soul, beat on! Beat on! and fill my veins with dawn; And heat the heart of me, his bride!" And then she leaned against me, eyed Like some white serpent, strangely still, That binds one with its glittering stare, That at wild stars hath gazed until Its eyes have learned their golden glare.

And then I took her by the wrists And drew her to me. Faintly felt The shadow of her hair, whose mists Were twilight-deep and dimly smelt Of shroud and sepulchre. And she Smiled on me with such sorcery As well might win a soul from God To Hell and torments. And I trod On white enchantments and was long A song and harp-string to a song, Love's battle in my blood. And there, Kissing her mouth, all unaware The ruby loosened at her throat, And, ere I wist, hung o'er my hand, And on the brink I seemed to stand Of something that cried out, "Admire The beauty of this gem of fire, Its witchcraft and its workmanship." Then from her throat it seemed to slip, And, in the hollow of my hand, A rosy spasm, a bubble-boat Of living flame, it seemed to float; A fretful fire; a heart, fierce fanned Of red convulsions. Like a brand, A blaze, it touched me; seemed to run Like fever through my pulses, swift, Of torrid poison. One by one, Now burning ice, now freezing sun, I felt my veins swell. Then I felt My palm brim up and overflow With blood that, beads of oozing glow, Dripped, drop by drop, upon the snow, Like holly-berries on the snow.

Then something darkly seemed to melt Within me, and I heard a sigh So like a moan, 'twas as if years Of anguish bore it; and the sky Swam near me as when seen through tears-- And she was gone.... In ghostly gloom Of dark, scarred pines a crumbling tomb Loomed like a mist. Carved in its stone, Above the grated portal deep, Glimmered this legend:--

"Let her sleep, Crowned with dim death, our lovely one, Known here on Earth as Gloramone. Our hearts bow down by her and weep, And one sits weeping all alone."

THE IMAGE IN THE GLASS

I

The slow reflection of a woman's face Grew, as by witchcraft, in the oval space Of that strange glass on which the moon looked in:-- As cruel as death beneath the auburn hair The dark eyes burned; and, o'er the faultless chin,-- Evil as night, yet as the daybreak fair,-- Rose-red and sensual smiled the mouth of sin.

II

The glorious throat and shoulders and, twin crests Of snow, the splendid beauty of the breasts, Filled soul and body with the old desire.-- Daughter of darkness! how could this thing be? You, whom I loathed! for whom my heart's fierce fire Had burnt to ashes of satiety! You, who had sunk my soul in crime's red mire!

III

How came your image there? and in that room! Where she, the all-adored, my life's sweet bloom, Died poisoned! She, my scarcely one week's bride-- Yes, poisoned by a gift you sent to her, Thinking her death would win me to your side. It won me; yes! but.... Well, it made some stir-- By your own hand, I think, they said you died.

IV

Time passed. And then--was it the curse of crime, That night of nights, which forced my feet to climb To that locked bridal-room?--'Twas midnight when A longing, like to madness, mastered me, Compelled me to that chamber, which for ten Long years was sealed: a dark necessity To gaze upon--I knew not what again.

V

Love's ghost, perhaps. Or, in the curvature Of that orbed mirror, something that might cure The ache in me--some message, said perchance Of her dead loveliness,--which once it glassed,-- That might repeat again my lost romance In momentary pictures of the past, While in its depths her image swam in trance.

VI

I did not dream to see the soulless eyes Of _you_ I hated; nor the lips where lies And kisses curled: _your_ features,--that were tuned To all demonic,--smiling up as might Some deep damnation! while ... my God! I swooned!... Oozed slowly out, between the breasts' dead white, The ghastly red of that wide dagger-wound.

THE LEGEND OF THE STONE

The year was dying, and the day Was almost dead; The west, beneath a sombre gray, Was sombre red: The gravestones in the ghostly light, That glimmered there, Seemed phantoms, wandering wan and white, 'Mid trees half bare.

I stood beside the grave of one Who, here in life, Was false to me; who had undone My child and wife: I stood beside his grave until The moon came up-- It seemed the dark, unhallowed hill Lifted a cup.

No stone was there to mark his grave, No flower to grace-- 'Twas meet that weeds alone should wave In such a place: I stood beside his grave until The stars swam high, And all the night was iron-still From sky to sky.

What cared I though strange eyes glowed bright Within the gloom! Though, evil blue, a witch's-light Burnt by each tomb! Or that each crooked thorn-tree seemed A hag, black-cloaked! Or that the owl above me screamed, The raven croaked!

I cursed him: cursed him when the day Burnt sullen red; Had cursed him when the west was gray, And day was dead: And now when night made dark the pole, Both soon and late I cursed his body, yea, and soul, With th' hate of hate.

Once at my side I seemed to hear A low voice say,-- "'Twere better to forgive,--and fear Thy God,--and pray." I laughed; and from pale lips of stone On sculptured tombs Wild laughter leapt, and then a moan Swept through the glooms.

And then I felt a change--a force, That seemed to seize My body, like some fearful curse, And, fastening, freeze It downward, deeper than the knees, Into the earth-- While still among the twisted trees Rang mocking mirth.

And then I felt such fear, despair, As lost ones feel, When, knotted in their pitch-stiff hair, They feel the steel Of devils' forks lift up, through sleet Of Hell's slant fire, Then plunge,--as white from head to feet I grew entire.

A voice without me, yet within, As still as frost, Intoned: "Thy sin is more than sin, O damned and lost! Behold, how God would punish thee For this thy crime-- Thy crime of hate and blasphemy-- Through endless time!

"O'er him, whom thou wouldst not forgive, Record what good He did on Earth! and let him live Loved, understood! Be memory thine of all the worst He did thine own!"... There at the head of him I cursed I stood--a stone.

THE RUINED MILL

On the wild South Fork of Harrod's Creek, O'ergrown with creepers, if you should seek, You will find an ancient water-mill Of stone below a wooded hill. Its weedy wheel is not less still Than its image that sleeps in the grassy pool Where the moccasin swims; and, slimly cool Like streaks of light through blurs of sun, The silver minnows and crawfish run. So lone the place, in its sycamore The blue crane builds; and from the shore The shitepoke wanders about its door. The burdock sprawls on its sill of pine; And, in its pathway, eglantine And blackberry tangle and intertwine; Ox-daisies checker with pearl and gold The bushy banks of its mill-race old; The owl in its loft as safely lairs As the fox in its cellar, that whelps and cares Naught for the hunters who gallop by With their baying hounds; the martins fly Around its chimney and build therein; And wasp and hornet, with murmurous din, Plaster their nests, that none disturb, On window-lintel and hopper-curb.

Once I stood in this old, stone mill, Once as the day died over the hill, And night came on; and stark and still I met with phantoms upon its stairs; Shadows, that took me unawares, Eyed with fire and cowled with gloom-- Twilight phantoms, that crowded, dark, Its dim interior, each eye a spark Of sunset, creviced, within the room-- While a moist, chill, moldering, dead perfume Of crumbling timbers and rotting grain, On floors all warped with the sun and rain, Made of the stagnant air a cell, Round the cobwebbed rafters hung like a spell; Making my mind, despite me, run On thoughts of a hidden skeleton, There in the walls; or, dripping dank, Under the floor, 'neath a certain plank; Glowering, grim in the mossy wet, In its hollow eyes a dark regret. I had entered when the evening-star In the saffron heaven was sparkling afar, In all its glory of light divine, Like a diamond drowned in kingly wine; And I stayed till the heavens hung low and gray, And the clouds of the storm drove down and away, Like the tattered leaves of an Autumn day; And the wild rain beat on the rotting roof The goblin dance of the Fiend's own hoof, Till the spider dropped from its dusty woof; And the thunder throbbed like a mighty heart; And the wild wind filled each crannied part Of the mill with moanings, that seemed to be The voice of an ancient agony-- Till the beetle shrunk in its board of pine;-- While the lightning lit with its instant shine The tossing terror of tree and vine ... Then, all on a sudden, the storm was still-- And I saw _her_ there, near the shattered sill, At the window, gazing from the mill Into the darkness under the storm; Around her flickering hair and form Unearthly glimmer. She seemed to lean To the rushing waters that roared unseen: A moment only she seemed to sway Before me there in the lightning gray, Then vanished utterly away: Like a blown-out light....

And was it she, The miller's daughter who died, they say, Who flung herself on the mill's great wheel, Long years ago, in her heart's despair?-- Or was it a dream, a fantasy, That the place and the moment made me feel, And imagination imaged there?

ON FLOYD'S FORK

When the hoot of the owl comes over the hill, At twelve o'clock when the night is still, And pale on the pool where the creek-frogs croon, Glimmering gray is the light o' the moon; And under the willows, where shadows lie, The torch of the firefly wanders by;-- They say that the miller walks here, walks here, All covered with chaff, with his crooked staff, And his horrible hobble and hideous laugh; The old, lame miller hung many a year: When the hoot of the owl comes over the hill, He walks in the night by Harrod's mill.

When the bark of the fox sounds lone on the hill, At twelve o'clock when the night is chill With the autumn wind, and the waters creep Where the starlight fails and the shadows sleep; And under the willows, that toss and moan, The glow-worm kindles its lanthorn lone;-- They say that a woman floats dead, floats dead, In a weedy space that the lilies lace, A curse in her eyes and a smile on her face; The miller's young wife with a gash in her head: When the bark of the fox sounds lone on the hill, She floats in the night by Harrod's mill.

When the howl of the hound comes over the hill, At twelve o'clock when the night is ill, And the thunder mutters and rain-winds sob, And the foxfire glows like the lamp of a Lob; And under the willows, that gloom and glance, The will-o'-the-wisps hold a devil's-dance;-- They say that that crime is reacted again. And each cranny and chink of the mill doth wink With the light o' hell, or the lightning's blink, And a woman's shrieks are heard through the rain: When the howl of the hound comes over the hill, No man will walk by Harrod's mill.

THE WOMAN BY THE WATER

She stands within the stormy glow Of sunset, with a face of snow, The white embodiment of woe, As night comes on:

She stands within the sombre glare Of dusk, with dark neglected hair, An apparition of despair, When day is gone.

The haggard house within the vale Looks spectral as a ragged sail The Dutchman hoists against the gale On haunted seas:

And in the garden,--one vast brake Of dock and thistle,--snail and snake Crawl; and the death-watch taps, awake In rotting trees.

The stagnant stream along the night Creeps, like a nightmare, where each white Lily is an uneasy light, A wisp up-tossed:

And through the cypress-trees and vines The gray fox skulks and laps and whines; The owl hoots; and the foxfire shines In darkness lost.

She stands beside the stagnant stream; Her garments drip at every seam; She looks a shadow in a dream Of dread and woe:

No star stares half so steadily At earth as at the water she; And what she sees there--it may be The owlets know.

A STREET OF GHOSTS

The drowsy day, with half-closed eyes, Dreams in this quaint forgotten street, That, like some old-world wreckage lies,-- Left by the sea's receding beat,-- Far from the city's restless feet.

Abandoned pavements, that the trees' Huge roots have wrecked; whose flagstones feel No more the sweep of draperies; And sunken curbs, whereon no wheel Grinds, and no gallant's spur-bound heel.

Old houses, walled with rotting brick, Thick-creepered, dormered, weather-vaned,-- Like withered faces, sad and sick,-- Stare from each side, all broken paned, With battered doors the rain has stained.

And though the day be white with heat, Their ancient yards are dim and cold; Where now the toad makes its retreat, 'Mid flower-pots green-caked with mold, And naught but noisome weeds unfold.

The slow gray slug and snail have trailed Their slimy silver up and down The beds where once the moss-rose veiled Rich beauty; and the mushroom brown Swells where the lily tossed its crown.

The shadowy scents, that oft are wont To flit among the walks and boughs, Seem ghosts of sweethearts here who haunt And wander round each empty house, Wrapped in the fragrance of dead vows.

And, haply, when the evening droops Her amber eyelids in the west, Here you may hear the swish of hoops, Or catch the glint of hat and vest, As two dim lovers past you pressed.

And, instant as some star's slant flame, That scores the swarthy cheek of night, Perhaps behold Colonial dame And gentleman in stately white Go glimmering down the pale moonlight.

In powder, patch, and furbelow, Cocked hat and sword; and every one,-- Tory and Whig of long-ago,-- As real as in the days long done, The courtly days of Washington.

BEFORE THE TOMB

The way led under cedared gloom Where, o'er the entrance of her tomb, The moon hung, like a cactus bloom.

I had an hour of night and thin Sad starlight; and I set my chin Against the grating and looked in.

A gleam, like moonlight, through a square Of opening--I knew not where-- Shone on her coffin resting there.

And on its oval silver-plate I read her name and age and date, And smiled, soft-thinking on my hate.

There was no insect sound to chirr; No wind to make a little stir: I stood and looked and thought on her.

The gleam stole downward from her head, Till at her feet it rested, red On Gothic gold, whose letters said:--

"God to her love lent a weak reed Of strength: and gave no light to lead: Pray for her soul: for it hath need."

There was no night-bird's twitter near; No low, vague water I might hear To make a small sound in the ear.

The gleam, that made a burning mark Of each dim word, died to a spark; Then left the tomb and coffin dark.

I had a little while to wait; And prayed with hands against the grate, And heart that yearned and knew too late.

There was no light below, above, To point my soul the way thereof,-- The way of hate that led to love.

FLAMENCINE

I

It was a gipsy maiden Within the forest green; It was a gipsy maiden Who shook a tambourine: The star of eve had not the face, The cascade's foam had not the grace Of Flamencine.

II

Her bodice was of purple, Her shoes of satin sheen; Her bodice was of purple With scarlet laid between: The wind of eve was in the tread, The black of night was on the head Of Flamencine.

III

Among the dreaming vistas, The darkling dells between, Among the dreaming vistas I heard her tambourine: And far within the ghostly glade The moonbeams and the shadows played Round Flamencine.

IV

Among the beechen shadows When fireflies are seen, Among the beechen shadows When glow-worms glimmer green, Then down the darkness, like a light, She dances; and the eyes are bright Of Flamencine.

V

There lies a gipsy maiden Within the forest green; There lies a gipsy maiden Beside her tambourine: These many years I am her slave-- The violets grow upon the grave Of Flamencine.

HILDEGARD

I

Hildegard the dæmons name Her, who meets me on the mountain: Her, whose hair is like the flame Of a sunset-fevered fountain: I can tell her by her eyes, Dreadful eyes of bitter beryl, Where the anguish never dies, And the suffering soul sits sterile In such light as ever lies On the unsailed seas of peril.

II

How we met I never knew. Once I turned--and there she trembled Near me, glimmering like the dew In the sessions of assembled Flowers.--Hers some influence Of soft, serpent magnetism, Vanquishing my every sense With essential mesmerism; Holding me beneath the lens Of her will's compelling prism.

III

I can not escape. She treads Noiseless as the forest flowers Walked on by the wind; their heads Pavements for the mottled hours: She is whiter than the trees When their blossoms are unsheathing; She is lissome as the ease Of the lilied water wreathing; She is subtle as the breeze Through the summer foliage breathing.

IV

When she speaks, within my ears, Like wild music heard in fever Is her voice; and it appears That my soul can never leave her: Babylonian necromance, Oldest witcheries,--that harrow Yet compel,--are hers; her glance Holds me; and my very marrow Feels it; and I stand a-trance, While her pupils slowly narrow.

V

Thus she binds me with her gaze, While her white hands weigh my shoulders; And my weak will swings and sways To her gaze that burns and smolders. So she draws me far away, Under boughs where summer dallies: Over peaks of purple day: Far away through Eden alleys: All the way is one long May Till we come to her dark valleys.

VI

There black tempest treads the peaks; Iron skies are gulfed asunder, Whence the lightning's lava leaks, Vomiting the hosts of thunder. Here she kisses me till red With my heart's blood are her kisses; Then my soul is seized with dread, For it knows no woman this is: Yea, behold! it sees instead But a milk-white snake that hisses.

ROMAUNT OF THE OAK

"I rode to death, for I fought for shame-- The Lady Maurine of noble name,

"The fair and faithless!--Though life be long Is love the wiser?--Love made song

"Of all my life; and the soul that crept Before, arose like a star and leapt:

"Still leaps with the love that it found untrue, That it found unworthy.--Now run me through!

"Yea, run me through! for meet and well, And a jest for laughter of fiends in Hell,

"It is that I, who have done no wrong, Should die by the hand of Hugh the Strong,