Part 9

"What made gold Horus smile with golden lips? Anubis dire forget his ghosts to lead To Hell's profoundness?--He, who stayed to sip One winking bubble from the wine-god's cup, And, captive ever after, joined thy train?-- What made Osiris, 'mid the palms of Nile, Leave Isis dreaming, and the frolic Pan's Wild trebles follow as a roaring bull, Far as the fanes of Indra; he who long Was mourned in Memphis by his tawny priests?-- Io! Bacchus! Bacchus! Io! Io! The brimming purple of thy hollow gold They tasted and, 'though gods, they worship'd too!

"Sad Echo sat once in a spiral cave; She, from its sea-dyed labyrinth of rock, Saw the long pageant dancing on the strand, Where Nereus slept upon an isle of crags, And o'er the slope of his far-foaming head The strangeness of the orgies wildly cried, Till the gray god awoke, at first in rage; Serened his face then; stretched a welcoming hand With civil utterance for the Bacchus horn. But Echo followed not; instead, she sits Among her crags remembering that wild cry, That nomad sound still haunting all her dreams, Confusing all her speech, that naught can say Save warring words bewildering her ears Like waves reverberant in a deep sea-cave.

"Io! Bacchus! Bacchus! Io! Io! See, the white stars, O Dionysos! see, Have spilled their glittering globules, one by one,-- Like bubbles winking in the cup of night,-- Down the dark west behind the mountain chain. Ægeus sleeps, lulled by my murmuring harp; And I have sung thy triumph. Let me die!"

THE PAPHIAN VENUS

With anxious eyes and dry, expectant lips, Within the sculptured stoa by the sea, All day she waited while, like ghostly ships, Long clouds rolled over Paphos: the wild bee Hung in the sultry poppy, half asleep, Beside the shepherd and his drowsy sheep.

White-robed she waited day by day; alone With the white temple's shrined concupiscence, The Paphian goddess on her obscene throne, Binding all chastity to violence, All innocent to lust that feels no shame-- Venus Mylitta born of filth and flame.

So must they haunt her marble portico, The devotees of passion, passion-pale As moonlight streaming through the stormy snow; Dark eyes desirous of the stranger sail,-- The gods shall bring across the Cyprian Sea, And him elected to their mastery.

A priestess of the temple came, when eve Blazed, like a satrap's triumph, in the west; And watched her listening to the ocean's heave, Dusk's golden glory on her face and breast, And in her hair the rosy wind's caress,-- Pitying her dedicated tenderness.

When out of darkness night persuades the stars, A dream shall bend above her saying, "Soon A barque shall come with purple sails and spars, Sailing from Tarsus 'neath a low white moon; And thou shalt see one in a robe of Tyre Facing toward thee like the god Desire.

"Rise then! as, clad in starlight, riseth night-- Thy nakedness clad on with loveliness! So shalt thou see him, like the god Delight, Breast through the foam and climb the cliff to press Hot lips to thine and lead thee in before Love's awful presence where ye shall adore."

Thus at her heart the vision entered in, With lips of lust the lips of song had kissed, And eyes of passion laughing with sweet sin, A starry splendor robed in amethyst, Seen like that star set in the glittering gloam-- Venus Mylitta born of fire and foam.

So shall she dream until, near middle night,-- When on the blackness of the ocean's rim The moon, like some war-galleon all alight With blazing battle, from the sea shall swim,-- A shadow, with inviolate lips and eyes, Shall rise before her speaking in this wise:

"So hast thou heard the promises of one,-- Of her, with whom the God of gods is wroth,-- For whom was prophesied at Babylon The second death--Chaldæan Mylidoth! Whose feet take hold on darkness and despair, Hissing destruction in her heart and hair!

"Wouldst thou behold the vessel she would bring?-- A wreck! ten hundred years have smeared with slime: A hulk! where all abominations cling, The spawn and vermin of the seas of time: Wild waves have rotted it, fierce suns have scorched, Mad winds have tossed and stormy stars have torched.

"Can lust give birth to love! The vile and foul Be mother to beauty? Lo! can this thing be?-- A monster like a man shall rise and howl Upon the wreck across the crawling sea, Then plunge; and swim unto thee; like an ape, A beast all belly.--Thou canst not escape!"

Gone was the shadow with the suffering brow; And in the temple's porch she lay and wept, Alone with night, the ocean, and her vow. Then up the east the moon's full splendor swept, And, dark between it--wreck or argosy?-- A sudden vessel far away at sea.

GARGAPHIE

"_Succinctæ sacra Dianæ._"--Ovid.

I

There the ragged sunlight lay Tawny on thick ferns and gray On dark waters: dimmer, Lone and deep, the cypress grove Bowered mystery and wove Braided lights, like those that love On the pearl plumes of a dove Faint to gleam and glimmer.

II

There centennial pine and oak Into stormy utterance broke: Hollow rocks gloomed, slanting, Echoing in dim arcade, Looming with long moss, that made Twilight streaks in tatters laid: Where the wild hart, hunt-affrayed, Plunged the water, panting.

III

Poppies of a sleepy gold Mooned the gray-green darkness rolled Down its vistas, making Wisp-like blurs of flame. And pale Stole the dim deer down the vale: And the haunting nightingale Sang unseen--the olden tale All its hurt heart breaking.

IV

There the hazy serpolet, Dewy cistus, blooming wet, Blushed on bank and boulder: There the cyclamen, as wan As faint footsteps of the Dawn, Carpeted the spotted lawn: Where the nude nymph, dripping drawn, Sloped a flower-white shoulder.

V

In the citrine shadow there What tall presences and fair, Godlike, lingered!--gracious As the rock-rose there that grew:-- Delicate and dim as dew Stepped from out the oaks, and drew Faun-like forms to follow, who Filled the forest spacious!

VI

Guarded that Bœotian Valley so no foot of man Soiled its silence holy With profaning tread--save one, The Hyantian: Actæon, Who beheld but was undone By Diana's wrath, that none-- 'Though with magic moly,--

VII

Might escape.--That valley sleeps Lost to us: enchantment keeps Sacred still its banished Bowers that no man may see, Fountains that her deity Haunts, and every rock and tree Where her hunt goes swinging free As in ages vanished.

THE FAUN

The joys that touched thee once, be mine! The sympathies of sky and sea, The friendship of each rock and pine, That made thy lonely life, ah me! In Tempe or in Gargaphie.

Such joy as thou didst feel when first, On some wild crag, thou stood'st alone And watched the mountain tempest burst, With streaming thunder, lightning sown, On Latmos or on Pelion.

Thy awe! when crowned with vastness, Night And Silence ruled the deep's abyss; And through dark leaves thou saw'st the white Breasts of the starry maids who kiss Pale feet of moony Artemis.

Thy dreams! when, breasting matted weeds Of Arethusa, thou didst hear The music of the wind-swept reeds; And down dim forest-ways drew near Shy herds of slim Arcadian deer.

Thy wisdom! that knew naught but love And beauty, with which love is fraught; The wisdom of the heart--whereof All noblest passions spring--that thought As Nature thinks, "All else is naught."

Thy hope! wherein To-morrow set No shadow; hope that, lacking care And retrospect, held no regret, But bloomed in rainbows everywhere Filling with gladness all the air.

These were thine all: in all life's moods Embracing all of happiness: And when within thy long-loved woods Didst lay thee down to die, no less Thy happiness stood by to bless.

APOLLO

I

All the Lydian notes revealing, Son of Leto, oh, come stealing As the wind Thessalian rivers Whisper of! the wind that shivers Every ripple into stars, In the sunlight's golden bars. Touch thy harp, that haunts the oaks, With the mastery that invokes Naiad music of the fount, Oread music of the mount; And such satyr song as keeps Revel on Lycæan steeps, When night nods, a Mænad shape, Purple with dusk's staining grape. Wake such chords as dewy grounds Echo when no mortal hounds Bell the hunt, whose spear-point shines Through Arcadia's tangled vines, When the half-awakened Dawn, Dreaming on a mountain lawn, Lets her golden sandals lie And walks barefooted through the sky; And by Arethusa's bank, Swift upon the red hart's flank, Drives Diana's buskined band Down the cistus-blossomed strand. Then Love's minors, swooning o'er The mountain hush, the ocean roar, As Selene, stealing, sails Over Lemnos' lakes to vales Where Endymion dreams and feels Love her stolen kiss reveals.

II

Thou hast sung of Helicon: How the sister Muses won From the nine Pierides Empire o'er the harmonies. Thou hast sung of Tempe's maid, And the sudden laurel's aid. Thou hast sung of many loves Of the gods that haunt the groves Where the marble altar stands Rose-heaped by the balmy hands Of Romance and Beauty; where, High upon the temple stair, Priest-like, bay-crowned, white of hair, Old Tradition, looking up, Pours libation from his cup. Thou hast sung, all sweet of tongue, As once wild Amphion sung, Songs,--Parnassian rocks,--that swung Each in its lyric niche, and massed Such mural heights of song and vast, Melodious walls of poesy, That Time himself shall not outlast, Enduring as eternity.

III

Ours shall be no island song, Suited to a maiden throng, Dancing with their wreaths of roses To the double-flute's soft closes!-- But a Nation's! whose large eyes With life's liberty are wise, And consenting sympathies Of all arts and sciences. She! who stands above the storms With truth's thunder in her arms, And the star-serenity Of her hope bound burningly Round her brow; and at her knee The Spirit of Progress who is shod With ethereal fire of God.... Yea! thy last shall still be first-- Some wild epopee to burst With such organ notes as rang When the stars of morning sang, And the Sons of Heaven sent Shoutings through the firmament; As our years have justified And the stars have prophesied.

1886.

JOTUNHEIM

I

Beyond the Northern Lights, in regions haunted Of twilight, where the world is glacier planted, And pale as Loké in his cavern when The serpent's slaver burns him to the bones, I saw the phantasms of gigantic men, The prototypes of vastness, quarrying stones; Great blocks of winter, glittering with the morn's And evening's colors,--wild prismatic tones Of boreal beauty.--Like the three gray Norns, Silence and solitude and terror loomed Around them where they labored. Walls arose, Vast as the Andes when creation boomed Insurgent fire; and through the rushing snows Enormous battlements of tremendous ice, Bastioned and turreted, I saw arise.

II

But who can sing the workmanship gigantic That reared within its coruscating dome The roaring fountain, hurling an Atlantic Of liquid ice that flashed with flame and foam? An opal spirit, various and many formed,-- In whose clear heart reverberant fire stormed,-- Seemed its inhabitant; and through pale halls, And deep diaphanous walls, And corridors of whiteness, Auroral colors swarmed, As rosy-flickering stains, Or lambent green, or gold, or crimson, warmed The pulsing crystal of the spirit's veins With ever-changing brightness. And through the Arctic night there went a voice, As if the ancient Earth cried out, "Rejoice!" "My heart is full of lightness!"

III

Here well might Thor, the god of war, Harness the whirlwinds to his car, While, mailed in storm, his iron arm Heaves high his hammer's lava-form, And red and black his beard streams back, Like some fierce torrent scoriac, Whose earthquake light glares through the night Around some dark volcanic height; And through the skies Valkyrian cries Trumpet, as battleward he flies, Death in his hair and havoc in his eyes.

IV

Still in my dreams I hear that fountain flowing; Beyond all seeing and beyond all knowing; Still in my dreams I see those wild walls glowing With hues, Aurora-kissed; And through huge halls fantastic phantoms going, Vast shapes of snow and mist,-- Sonorous clarions of the tempest blowing,-- That trail dark banners by, Cloudlike, underneath the sky Of the caverned dome on high, Carbuncle and amethyst.-- Still I hear the ululation Of their stormy exultation, Multitudinous, and blending In hoarse echoes, far, unending; And, through halls of fog and frost, Howling back, like madness lost In the moonless mansion of Death and demon-haunted love.

V

Still in my dreams I hear the mermaid singing; The mermaid music at its portal ringing; The mermaid song, that hinged with gold its door, And, whispering evermore, Hushed the ponderous hurl and roar And vast æolian thunder Of the chained tempests under The frozen cataracts that were its floor.-- And, blinding beautiful, I still behold The mermaid there, combing her locks of gold, While at her feet, green as the Northern Seas, Gambol her flocks of seals and walruses; While, like a drift, her dog,--a Polar bear,-- Lies by her, glowering through his shaggy hair.

VI

O wondrous house, built by supernal hands In vague and ultimate lands! Thy architects were behemoth wind and cloud, That, laboring loud, Mountained thy world foundations and uplifted Thy skyey bastions drifted Of piled eternities of ice and snow; Where storms, like ploughmen, go, Ploughing the deeps with awful hurricane; Where, spouting icy rain, The huge whale wallows; and through furious hail Th' explorer's tattered sail Drives like the wing of some terrific bird, Where wreck and famine herd.--

VII

Home of the red Auroras and the gods! He who profanes thy perilous threshold,--where The ancient centuries lair, And, glacier-throned, thy monarch, Winter, nods,-- Let him beware! Lest coming on that hoary presence there, Whose pitiless hand, Above that hungry land, An iceberg wields as sceptre, and whose crown The North Star is, set in a band of frost, He, too, shall feel the bitterness of that frown, And, turned to stone, forevermore be lost.

DIONYSIA

The day is dead; and in the west The slender crescent of the moon-- Diana's crystal-kindled crest-- Sinks hillward in a silvery swoon. What is the murmur in the dell? The stealthy whisper and the drip? A Dryad with her leaf-light trip? A Naiad o'er her fountain well?-- Who, with white fingers for her comb, Sleeks her blue hair, and from its curls Showers slim minnows and pale pearls, And hollow music of the foam. What is it in the vistaed ways That leans and springs, and stoops and sways?-- The naked limbs of one who flees? An Oread who hesitates Before the Satyr form that waits, Crouching to leap, that there she sees? Or under boughs, reclining cool, A Hamadryad, like a pool Of moonlight, palely beautiful? Or Limnad, with her lilied face, More lovely than the misty lace That haunts a star in a firefly place? Or is it some Leimoniad In wildwood flowers dimly clad? Oblong blossoms white as froth, Or mottled like the tiger-moth; Or brindled as the brows of death, Wild of hue and wild of breath: Here ethereal flame and milk Blent with velvet and with silk; Here an iridescent glow Mixed with satin and with snow: Pansy, poppy and the pale Serpolet and galingale; Mandrake and anemone, Honey-reservoirs o' the bee; Cistus and the cyclamen,-- Cheeked like blushing Hebe this, And the other white as is Bubbled milk of Venus when Cupid's baby mouth is pressed, Rosy, to her rosy breast. And, besides, all flowers that mate With aroma, and in hue Stars and rainbows duplicate Here on earth for me and you. Yea! at last mine eyes can see! 'Tis no shadow of the tree Swaying softly there, but she!-- Mænad, Bassarid, Bacchant, What you will, who doth enchant Night with sensuous nudity. Lo! again I hear her pant Breasting through the dewy glooms-- Through the glow-worm gleams and glowers Of the starlight; wood-perfumes Swoon around her and frail showers Of the leaflet-tilted rain. Lo! like love, she comes again Through the pale voluptuous dusk, Sweet of limb with breasts of musk. With her lips, like blossoms, breathing Honeyed pungence of her kiss, And her auburn tresses wreathing Like umbrageous helichrys, There she stands, like flame and snow, In the moon's ambrosial glow, Both her shapely loins low-looped With the balmy blossoms, drooped, Of the deep amaracus. Spiritual, yet sensual, Lo, she ever greets me thus In my vision; white and tall, Her delicious body there,-- Raimented with amorous air,-- To my mind expresses all The allurements of the world. And once more I seem to feel On my soul, like frenzy, hurled All the passionate past.--I reel, Greek again in ancient Greece, In the Pyrrhic revelries; In the mad and Mænad dance; Onward dragged with violence: Pan and old Silenus and Faunus and a Bacchant band Round me. Wild my wine-stained hand O'er tumultuous hair is lifted; While the flushed and Phallic orgies Whirl around me; and the marges Of the wood are torn and rifted With lascivious laugh and shout. And barbarian there again,-- Shameless with the shameless rout, Bacchus lusting in each vein,-- With her pagan lips on mine, Like a god made drunk with wine, On I reel; and in the revels Her loose hair, the dance dishevels, Blows, and 'thwart my vision swims All the splendor of her limbs.... So it seems. Yet woods are lonely. And when I again awake, I shall find their faces only Moonbeams in the boughs that shake; And their revels--but the rush Of night-winds through bough and brush. But my dreaming?--is it more Than mere dreaming? Is a door Opened in my soul? a curtain Raised? to let me see for certain I have lived that life before?

VINE AND SYCAMORE

I

Here where a tree and its wild liana, Leaning over the streamlet, grow, Once a nymph, like the moon'd Diana, Sat in the ages long ago, Sat with a mortal with whom she had mated, Sat and smiled with a mortal youth, Ere he of the forest, the god who hated, Changed the two into forms uncouth....

II

Once in the woods she had heard a shepherd, Heard a reed in a golden glade; Followed, and clad in the skin of a leopard, Found him fluting within the shade. Found him sitting with bare brown shoulder, Lithe and young as a sapling oak, And leaning over a mossy boulder, Love in her dryad heart awoke.

III

White she was as a dogwood flower, Rosy white as a wild-crab bloom, Fragrant white as a haw-tree bower Full of sap and the May's perfume. He who saw her above him burning, Beautiful, naked, in dawn arrayed, Deemed her Diana, and from her turning, Leapt to his feet and fled afraid.

IV

Far she followed and called and pleaded, Ever he fled with never a look; Fled, till he came to this spot, deep-reeded, Came to the bank of this forest brook. Here for a moment he stopped and listened, Heard in her voice her heart's despair, Saw in her eyes the love that glistened, Sank on her bosom and rested there.

V

Close to her beauty she strained and pressed him, Held and bound him with kiss on kiss; Soft with her hands and her lips caressed him, Sweeter of touch than a blossom is. Spoke to his heart, and with sweet persuasion Mastered his soul till its fear was flown; Smiled on his soul till its mortal evasion Vanished, and body and soul were her own.

VI

Many a day had they met and mated, Many a day by this wildwood brook, When he of the forest, the god who hated, Came on their love and changed with a look. There on the shore, while they joyed and jested, He in the shadows, unseen, espied Her, like the goddess Diana breasted, Him, like Endymion by her side.

VII

Lo! at a word, at a sign, their folded Limbs and bodies assumed new form, Hers to the shape of a tree were molded, His to a vine with surrounding arm.... So they stand with their limbs enlacing, Nymph and mortal, upon this shore, He forever a vine embracing Her, a silvery sycamore.

GENIUS LOCI

I

What wood-god, on this water's mossy curb, Lost in reflections of Earth's loveliness, Did I, just now, unconsciously disturb? I who haphazard, wandering at a guess, Came on this spot, wherein with gold and flame Of buds and blooms the Season writes its name.-- Ah, me! could I have seen him ere alarm Of my approach aroused him from his calm! As he, part Hamadryad and, mayhap, Part Faun, lay here; who left the shadow warm As a wood-rose, and filled the air with balm Of his wild breath as with ethereal sap.

II

Does not the moss retain some slight impress, Green-dented down, of where he lay or trod? Do not the flowers, so reticent, confess With conscious looks the contact of a god? Does not the very water garrulously Boast the indulgence of a deity? And hark!--in burly beech and sycamore How all the birds proclaim it! and the leaves Rejoice with clappings of their myriad hands! And shall not I believe, too, and adore, With such wide proof?--Yea, though my soul perceives No evident presence, still it understands.

III

And for a while it moves me to lie down Here on the spot his god-head sanctified: Mayhap some dream he dreamed may linger, brown And young as joy, around the forest side: Some dream within whose heart lives no disdain For such as I whose love is sweet and sane; That may repeat, so none but I may hear-- As one might tell a pearl-strung rosary-- Some epic that the leaves have learned to croon, Some lyric whispered in the wildflower's ear, Whose murmurous lines are sung by bird and bee, And all the insects of the night and noon.

IV