Part 13

Not into these dark cities, These sordid marts and streets, That the sun in his rising pities, And the moon with sorrow greets, Does she, with her dreams and flowers, For whom our hearts are dumb, Does she of the golden hours, Earth’s heaven-born Beauty come.

Afar ’mid the hills she tarries, Beyond the farthest streams, In a world where music marries With color that blooms and beams; Where shadow and light are wedded, Whose children people the Earth, The fair, the fragrant-headed, The pure, the wild of birth.

Where Morn with rosy kisses Wakes ever the eyes of Day; And, winds in her radiant tresses, Haunts every wildwood way: Where Eve, with her mouth’s twin roses, Her kisses sweet with balm, The eyes of the glad Day closes, And, crowned with stars, sits calm.

There, lost in contemplation Of things no mortal sees, She dwells, the incarnation Of idealities; Of dreams, that long have fired Men’s hearts with joy and pain,-- The far, the dear-desired, Whom no man shall attain.

THE BALLAD OF THE ROSE

Booted and spurred he rode toward the west, A rose, from the woman who loved him best, Lay warm with her kisses there in his breast, And the battle beacons were burning.

As over the draw he galloping went, She, from the gateway’s battlement, With a wafted kiss and a warning bent-- “Beware of the ford at the turning!”

An instant only he turned in his sell, And lightly fingered his petronel, Then settled his sword in its belt as well, And the horns to battle were sounding.

She watched till he reached the beacon there, And saw its gleam on his helm and hair, Then turned and murmured, “God keep thee, Clare! From that wolf of the hills and his hounding.”

And on he rode till he came to the hill, Where the road turned off by the ruined mill, Where the stream flowed shallow and broad and still, And the battle beacon was burning.

Into the river with little heed, Down from the hill he galloped his steed-- The water whispered on rock and reed, “Death hides by the ford at the turning!”

And out of the night on the other side, Their helms and corselets dim descried, He saw ten bandit troopers ride, And the horns to battle were blaring.

Then he reined his steed in the middle ford, And glanced behind him and drew his sword, And laughed as he shouted his battle-word, “Clare! Clare! and my steel needs airing!”

Then down from the hills at his back there came Ten troopers more. With a face of flame Red Hugh of the Hills led on the same, In the glare of the beacon’s burning.

Again the cavalier turned and gazed, Then quick to his lips the rose he raised, And kissed it, crying, “Now God be praised! And help her there when mourning!”

Then he rose in his stirrups and loosened rein, And shouting his cry spurred on amain Into the troopers to slay and be slain, While the horns to battle were blowing.

With ten behind him and ten before, And the battle beacon to light the shore, Small doubt of the end in his mind he bore, With her rose in his bosom glowing.

One trooper he slew with his petronel, And one with his sword when his good steed fell, And they haled him, fighting, from horse and sell In the light of the beacon’s burning.

Quoth Hugh of the Hills,--“To yonder tree Now hang him high where she may see; Then bear this rose and message from me-- ‘The ravens feast at the turning.’”

BERTRAND DE BORN

_Knight and Troubadour, to his Lady the beautiful Maenz of Martagnac._

The burden of the sometime years, That once my soul did overweigh, Falls from me, with its griefs and fears, When gazing in thine eyes of gray; Wherein, behold, like some bright ray Of dawn, thy hearts fond love appears, To cheer my life upon its way.

Thine eyes! the daybreak of my heart! That give me strength to do and dare; Whose beauty is a radiant part Of all my songs; the music there; The morning, that makes dim each care, And glorifies my mind’s dull mart, And helps my soul to do and dare.

God, when He made thy fresh fair face, And thy young body, took the morn And made thee like a rose, whose race Is not of Earth; without a thorn, And dewed thee with the joy that’s born Of love, wherein hope hath its place Like to the star that heralds morn.

I go my way through town and thorp: In court and hall and castle bower I tune my lute and strike my harp: And often from some twilight tower A lady drops to me a flower, That bids me scale the moat’s steep scarp, And climb to love within her bower.

I heed them not, but go my ways: What is their passion unto me! My songs are only in thy praise; Thy face alone it is I see, That fills my heart with melody-- My sweet aubade! that makes my days All music, singing here in me!

One time a foul knight in his towers Sneered thus: “God’s blood! why weary us With this one woman all our hours!-- Sing of _our_ wenches! amorous Yolande and Ysoarde here!--Not thus Shalt sing, but of _our_ paramours!-- What is thy Lady unto us!”

And then I flung my lute aside; And from its baldric flew my sword; And down the hall ’twas but a stride; And in his brute face and its word My gauntlet; and around the board The battle, till all wild-beast-eyed He lay and at his throat my sword.

Thou dost remember in Provence The vile thing that I slew; and how With my good jongleurs and my lance Kept back his horde!--The memory now Makes fierce my blood and hot my brow With rage.--Ah, what a madman dance We led them, and escaped somehow!

Oft times, when, in the tournament, I see thee sitting yet uncrowned; And bugles blow and spears are bent, And shields and falchions clash around, And steeds go crashing to the ground; And thou dost smile on me,--though spent With war, again my soul is crowned:

And I am fire to strike and slay; Before my face there comes a mist Of blood; and like a flame I play Through the loud lists; all who resist Go down like corn; until thy wrist, Kneeling, I kiss; the wreath they lay Of beauty on thy head’s gold mist.

And then I seize my lute and sing Some chanson or some wild aubade Full of thy beauty and the swing Of swords and love which I have had Of thee, until, with music mad, The lists reel with thy name and ring The echoed words of my aubade.

I am thy knight and troubadour, Bertrand de Born, whom naught shall part From thee: who art my life’s high lure, And wild bird of my wilder heart And all its music: yea, who art My soul’s sweet sickness and its cure, From which, God grant! it ne’er shall part.

THE TROUBADOUR, PONS DE CAPDEUIL

_In Provence, to his Lady, Azalis de Mercœur in Anjou_

The gray dawn finds me thinking still Of thee who hadst my thoughts all night; Of thee, who art my lute’s sweet skill, And of my soul the only light; My star of song to whom I turn My face and for whose love I yearn.

Thou dost not know thy troubadour Lies sick to death; no longer sings: That this alone may work his cure-- To feel thy white hand, weighed with rings, Smoothed softly through his heavy hair, Or resting with the old love there.

To feel thy warm cheek laid to his; Thy bosom fluttering with love; Then on his eyes and lips thy kiss-- Thy kiss alone were all enough To heal his heart, to cure his soul, And make his mind and body whole.

The drought, these three months past, hath slain All green things in this weary land, As in my life thy high disdain Hath killed ambition: yea, my hand Forgets its cunning; and my heart, Sick to stagnation, all its art.

Once to my castle there at Puy, In honor of thy beauty, came The Angevin nobility, To hear me sing of thee, whose fame Was high as Helen’s.--Azalis, Hast thou forgot? Forget’st thou this?

And in the lists how often there I broke a spear for thee? and placed The crown of beauty on thy hair, While thou sat’st, like the fair moon faced, Amid the human firmament Of faces that toward thee bent.

I take my hawk, my peregrine-- No falconer or page beside-- And ride from morn till eve begin; I ride forgetting that I ride, And all save this: that thou no more Dost ride beside me as of yore.

A heron sweeps above me: I Remember then how oft were cast Thy hawk and mine at such: and sigh Thinking of thee and days long past, When through the Anjou fields and bowers We used to hawk and hunt for hours.

And when, unhappy, I return, And take my lute and seek again The terrace where, beside some urn, The castle gathers,--while the stain Of sunset crimsons all the sea,-- And sing old songs once loved of thee:

The soul within me overflows With longing; and I seem to hear Thy voice through fountains and the rose Calling afar, while, wildly near, The rossignol makes mute my tongue With memories of things long sung.

Here in Provence I pine for thee; And there in Anjou dost forget!-- All beauty here is less to me Than is the ribbon lightly set At thy white throat; or, on thy foot, The shoe that I have loved to lute.

Thy foot, that I have loved to kiss; To kiss and sing of!--Song hath died In me since then, my Azalis; Since to my soul e’en that’s denied: Thy kiss, that now alone could cure The sick heart of thy Troubadour.

THE OLD HOME

An old lane, an old gate, an old house by a tree; A wild wood, a wild brook--they will not let me be: In boyhood I knew them, and still they call to me.

Down deep in my heart’s core I hear them and my eyes Through tear-mists behold them beneath the old-time skies, ’Mid bee-boom and rose-bloom and orchard-lands arise.

I hear them; and heartsick with longing is my soul, To walk there, to dream there, beneath the sky’s blue bowl; Around me, within me, the weary world made whole.

To talk with the wild brook of all the long-ago; To whisper the wood-wind of things we used to know When we were old companions, before my heart knew woe.

To walk with the morning and watch its rose unfold; To drowse with the noontide lulled on its heart of gold; To lie with the night-time and dream the dreams of old.

To tell to the old trees, and to each listening leaf, The longing, the yearning, as in my boyhood brief, The old hope, the old love, would ease me of my grief.

The old lane, the old gate, the old house by the tree; The wild wood, the wild brook--they will not let me be: In boyhood I knew them, and still they call to me.

THE OLD HERB-MAN

On the barren hillside lone he sat; On his head he wore a tattered hat; In his hand he bore a crooked staff; Never heard I laughter like his laugh, On the barren hillside, thistle-hoar.

Cracked his laughter sounded, harsh as woe, As the croaking, thinned, of a crow: At his back hung, pinned, a wallet old, Bulged with roots and simples caked with mould: On the barren hillside in the wind.

Roots of twisted twin-leaf; sassafras; Bloodroot, tightly whipped round with grass; Adder’s-tongue; and, tipped brown and black, Yellowroot and snakeroot filled his pack, On the barren hillside, winter-stripped.

There is nothing sadder than old age; Nothing saddens more than that stage When, forlornly poor, bent with toil, One must starve or wring life from the soil, From the barren hillside, wild and hoar.

Down the barren hillside slow he went, Cursing at the cold, bowed and bent; With his bag of mold, herbs and roots, In his clay-stained garments, clay-caked boots, Down the barren hillside, poor and old.

THE SOLITARY

Upon the mossed rock by the spring She sits, forgetful of her pail, Lost in remote remembering Of that which may no more avail.

Her thin, pale hair is dimly dressed Above a brow lined deep with care, The color of a leaf long pressed, A faded leaf that once was fair.

You may not know her from the stone So still she sits who does not stir, Thinking of this one thing alone-- The love that never came to her.

FOOTPATHS

_What though I dreamed of mountain heights, Of peaks, the barriers of the world, Around whose tops the Northern Lights And tempests are unfurled!_

_Mine are the footpaths leading through Life’s lowly fields and woods,--with rifts, Above, of heaven’s Eden blue,--By which the violet lifts_

_Its shy appeal; and, holding up Its chaliced gold, like some wild wine, Along the hillside, cup on cup, Blooms bright the celandine._

_Where soft upon each flowering stock The butterfly spreads damask wings; And under grassy loam and rock The cottage cricket sings._

_Where, overhead, eve blooms with fire, In which the new moon bends her bow, And, arrow-like, one white star by her Burns through the afterglow._

_I care not, so the sesame I find; the magic flower there, Whose touch unseals each mystery In water, earth and air._

_Which, in the oak-tree, lets me hear Its heart’s deep speech, its soul’s wise words; And to my mind makes crystal clear The melodies of birds._

_Why should I care, who live aloof, Beyond the din of life and dust, While dreams still share my humble roof, And love makes sweet my crust?_

ELFIN

I

When wildflower blue and wildflower white The wildflowers lay their heads together, And the moon-moth glimmers along the night, And the wandering firefly flares its light, And the full moon rises broad and bright, Then, then it is elfin weather.

II

And fern and flower on top of the hill Are a fairy wood where the fairies camp; And there, to the pipe of the cricket shrill, And the owl’s bassoon or the whippoorwill, They whirl their wildest and trip their fill By the light of the glow-worm’s lamp.

III

And the mottled toad and the katydid Are the henchmen set to guard their dance; At whose cry they creep ’neath the dewy lid Of a violet’s eye, or close lie hid In a bluebell’s ear, if a mortal ’mid The moonlit woods should chance.

IV

And the forest-fly with its gossamer wings, And filmy body of rainbow dye, Is the ouphen steed each elfin brings, Whereon by the light of the stars he swings, When the dance is done and the barn-cock sings, And the dim dawn streaks the sky.

AUTHORITIES

The unpretentious flowers of the woods, That rise in bright and banded brotherhoods, Waving us welcome, and with kisses sweet Laying their lives down underneath our feet, Lesson my soul more than the tomes of man, Packed with the lore of ages, ever can, In love and truth, hope and humility, And such unselfishness as to the bee, Lifting permissive petals dripping nard, Yields every sweet up, asking no reward. The many flowers of wood and field and stream, Filling our hearts with wonder and with dream, That know no ceremony, yet that are Attended of such reverence as that star-- That punctual point of flame, which, to our eyes, Leads on the vast procession of the skies, Sidereal silver, glittering in the west-- Compels, assertive of heaven’s loveliest. Where may one find suggestion simpler set Than in the radius of a violet? Or more authentic loveliness than glows In the small compass of a single rose? Or more of spiritual thought than perfumes from The absolute purity of a lily-bloom?

THE WILLOW WATER

Deep in the hollow wood he found a way Winding unto a water, dim and gray, Grayer and dimmer than the break of day; By which a wildrose blossomed; flower on flower Leaning above its image hour on hour, Musing, it seemed, on its own loveliness, And longing with sweet longing to express Some thought to its reflection.

Dropping now Bee-shaken pollen from the voluble bough, And now a petal, delicate as a blush, It seemed to sigh or whisper to the hush The dreams, the myths and marvels it had seen Tip-toeing dimly through the woodland green: Faint shapes of fragrance; forms like flowers, that go Footing the moss; or, shouldered with moonbeam glow, Through starlit waves oaring an arm of snow. He sat him down and gazed into the pool: And as he gazed, two petals, silken cool, Fell, soft as star beams fall that arrow through The fern-hung trembling of a drop of dew; And, pearly-placid, on the water lay, Two curves of languid ruby, where, green-gray, The shadow of a willow dimmed the stream. And suddenly he saw--or did he dream He saw?--the rose-leaves change to rosy lips, A laughing crimson. And, with silvery hips, And eyes of luminous emerald, full of sleep And all the stillness of the under deep, The shadow of the tree become a girl, A shadowy girl, who shook from many a curl Faint, tangled glimmerings of shell and pearl. A girl who called him, beckoned him to come, Waving a hand whiter than moonlit foam, And pointing, minnowy fingered, to her home-- A bubble, rainbow-built, beneath the wave, Dim-domed, and murmurous as the deep-sea cave, Columned of coral and of grottoed foam, Where the pale mermaids never cease to comb Their weed-green hair with fingers crystal-cold, Sighing forever round the Sea King old Throned on his throne of shell and ribbéd gold. Laughing, she lured him, lipped like some wild-rose; Bidding him follow; come to her; repose Upon her bosom and forever dream Lulled by the wandering whisper of the stream. But him mortality weighed heavily on And earthly love: and, sorrowful and wan, He shook his head, motioning “I can not rise”; But still he felt the magic of her eyes Drawing him to her; felt her hands of foam Around his heart; her lips, that bade him come With smiling witchery, and with laughing looks Like those that lured us in the fairy books Our childhood dreamed on.... Then, as suddenly, A wind, it seemed, from nowhere he could see, Wrinkled the water; ruffled its smooth glass; And there again, behold! when it did pass The rose-leaves lay and shadow, dimly seen; The willow’s shadow, and no thing between.

ELUSION

I

My soul goes out to her who says, “Come follow me and cast off care!” Then tosses back her sunbright hair, And like a flower before me sways Between the green leaves and my gaze: This creature like a girl, who smiles Into my eyes and softly lays Her hand in mine and leads me miles, Long miles of haunted forest ways.

II

Sometimes she seems a faint perfume, A fragrance that a flower exhaled And God gave form to; now, unveiled, A sunbeam making gold the gloom Of vines that roof some woodland room Of boughs; and now the silvery sound Of streams her presence doth assume-- Music, from which, in dreaming drowned, A crystal shadow she seems to bloom.

III

Sometimes she seems the light that lies On foam of waters where the fern Shimmers and drips; now, at some turn Of woodland, bright against the skies, She seems the rainbowed mist that flies; And now the mossy fire that breaks Beneath the feet in azure eyes Of flowers; and now the wind that shakes Pale petals from the bough that sighs.

IV

Sometimes she lures me with a song; Sometimes she guides me with a laugh; Her white hand is a magic staff, Her look a spell to lead me long: Though she be weak and I be strong, She needs but shake her happy hair, But glance her eyes, and, right or wrong, My soul must follow--anywhere She wills--far from the world’s loud throng.

V

Sometimes I think that she must be No part of earth, but merely this-- The fair, elusive thing we miss In Nature, that we dream we see Yet never see: that goldenly Beckons; that, limbed with rose and pearl, The Greek made a divinity:-- A nymph, a god, a glimmering girl, That haunts the forest’s mystery.

THE LOST GARDEN

Roses, brier on brier, Like a hedge of fire, Walled it from the world and rolled Crimson round it; manifold Blossoms, ’mid which once of old Walked my Heart’s Desire.

There the golden Hours Dwelt; and ’mid the bowers Beauty wandered like a maid; And the Dreams that never fade Sat within its haunted shade Gazing at the flowers.

There the winds that vary Melody and marry Perfume unto perfume, went, Whispering to the buds, that bent, Messages whose wonderment Made them sweet to carry.

There the waters hoary Murmured many a story To the leaves that leaned above, Listening to their tales of love, While the happiness thereof Flushed their green with glory.

There the sunset’s shimmer ’Mid the bowers,--dimmer Than the woods where Fable dwells, And Romance her legends tells,-- Wrought dim dreams and dimmer spells, Filled with golden glimmer.

There at night the wonder Of the moon would sunder Foliage deeps with breast of pearl, Wandering like a glimmering girl, Fair of form and bright of curl, Through the trees and under.

There the stars would follow, Over hill and hollow, Spirit shapes that danced the dew From frail cups of sparry hue; Firefly forms that fleeter flew Than the fleetest swallow.

There my heart made merry; There, ’mid bloom and berry, Dreamed the dreams that are no more, In that garden lost of yore, Set in seas, without a shore, That no man may ferry.

Where perhaps her lyre,-- Wreathed with serest brier,-- Sorrow strikes now; sad its gold Sighing where, ’mid roses old, Fair of face and dead and cold Lies my Heart’s Desire.

LATE OCTOBER WOODS

Clumped in the shadow of the beech,-- In whose brown top the crows are loud,-- Where, every side, great briers reach And cling like hands,--the beech drops crowd The mossy cirque with neutral tints Of gray; and deep, with berries bowed, The buckbush reddens ’mid the mints.

O’erhead the forest scarcely stirs: The wind is laid: the sky is blue: Bush-clover, with its links of burrs, And some last blooms,--few, pink of hue,-- Makes wild the way: and everywhere Slim, white-ribbed cones of fungi strew The grass that’s like a wildman’s hair.

The jewel-weeds, whose pods bombard The hush with fairy batteries Of seeds, grow dense here; pattering hard Their sacs explode, persuade the eyes To search the heaven for show’rs:--One seems To walk where old Enchantment plies Her shuttle of lost days and dreams.

And, lo! yon rock of fern and flower, That heaves its height from bramble deeps, All on a sudden seems the tower Wherein the Sleeping Beauty sleeps: And that red vine the fire-drake, The flaming dragon, is, that keeps The world from her no man may wake.

IN THE BEECH WOODS