Part 5

No star, no rose, to lesson him and lead, No woodsman compass of the skies and rocks,-- Tattooed with stars and lichens,--doth love need To guide him where, among the hollyhocks, A blur of moonlight, gleam his sweetheart’s locks.

III

We name it beauty--that permitted part, The love-elected apotheosis Of Nature, which the god within the heart, Just touching, makes immortal, but by this-- A star, a rose, the memory of a kiss.

PROEM TO “UNDERTONES”

Long are the days, and overlong the nights. The weary hours are a heavy chain Upon the feet of all Earth’s dear delights, Holding them ever prisoners to pain. What shall beguile me to believe again In hope, that Faith within her parable writes Of life, Care reads with eyes whose teardrops stain? Shall such assist me to subdue the heights? Long is the night, and overlong the day.-- The burden of all being!--Is it worse Or better, lo! that they who toil and pray May win no more than they who toil and curse A little sleep, a little love, ah me! And the slow weight up the soul’s Calvary!

UNQUALIFIED

Not his the part to win the goal, The flaming goal that flies before, Into whose course the apples roll Of self that stay the feet the more.

Beyond himself he shall not win Whose aim is as a driven dust, That his own soul must wander in, Seeing no farther than his lust.

UNENCOURAGED ASPIRATION

Mine is the part of no companion hand Of help, except my shadow’s silent self: A moonlight traveller in Fancy’s land Of leering gnome and hollow-laughing elf:

Whose forests deepen and whose moon goes down, When night’s blind shadow shall usurp my own; And, ’midst the dust and wreck of some old town, The City of Dreams, I grope and fall alone.

INTERPRETED

What magic shall solve us the secret Of beauty that’s born for an hour? That gleams, in the flight of an egret, Or swoons, in the scent of a flower, With death for a dower?

What leaps in the bosk but a satyr? What pipes in the wind but a faun? What blooms in the waters that scatter But limbs of a nymph that is gone, When we walk in the dawn?

What sings on the hills but a fairy? Or sighs in the fields but a sprite? What breathes through the leaves but the airy Dim spirits of shadow and light, When we walk in the night?

Behold how the world-heart is eager To draw us and hold us and claim! Through truths of the dreams that beleaguer Her soul she makes ours the same, And death but a name.

SECOND SIGHT

They lean their faces to me through Green windows of the woods; Their cool throats sweet with honey-dew Beneath their leafy hoods-- No dream they dream but hath been true Here in the solitudes.

Star trillium, in the underbrush, In whom Spring bares her face; Sun eglantine, that breathes the blush Of Summer’s quiet grace; Moon mallow, in whom lives the hush Of Autumn’s tragic pace.

This one hath heard the dryad’s sighs Behind the covering bark; That one hath felt the satyr’s eyes Gleam through the bosky dark; And one hath seen the Naiad rise In waters all a-spark.

I bend my soul unto them, stilled In worship man hath lost:-- The old-world myths that science killed Are living things almost To me through these whose forms are filled With Beauty’s pagan ghost.

And with new eyes I seem to see The world these live within,-- A shuttered world of mystery, Where unreal forms begin Real forms of ideality That have no unreal kin.

SUCCESS

How some succeed, who have least need, In that they make no effort for! And pluck, where others pluck a weed, The burning blossom of a star, Grown from no earthly seed.

For some shall reap who never sow; And some shall toil and ne’er attain-- What boots it, in ourselves to know Such labor here is not in vain, When we still see it so!

THE HOUSE OF SONG

Unto the portal of the House of Song, Symbols of wrong and emblems of unrest, And mottoes of despair and envious jest, And stony masks of scorn and hate belong.

Who enters here shall feel his soul denied All welcome; where the chiselled form of Love Stares down in marble on the shrine above The tomb of Beauty where he dreamed and died.

Who enters here shall know no poppy flowers Of Rest, or harp-tones of serene Content; Only sad ghosts of music and of scent Shall mock his mind with their remembered powers.

Here must he wait till striving Patience carves His name upon the century-storied floor; His heart’s blood staining one dim pane the more In Fame’s high casement while he sings and starves.

FLOWERS

Oh, why for us the blighted bloom, The blossom that lies withering!-- Why has He, of Life’s changeless loom, Created here no changeless thing?

Where grows the rose of fadeless Grace? Through which the spirit manifests The fact of an immortal place, The dream on which religion rests.

Where buds the lily of our Faith? That grows for us in unknown wise, Out of the barren dust of death, The pregnant bloom of Paradise.

In Heaven! so near that flowers know! That flowers see how near!--and thus Reflect the knowledge here below Of love and life unknown to us.

DEAD SEA FRUIT

All things have power to hold us back. Our very hopes build up a wall Of doubt, whose shadow stretches black O’er all.

The dreams, that helped us once, become Dread disappointments, that oppose Dead eyes to ours, and lips made dumb With woes.

The thoughts that opened doors before Within the mind’s house, hide away; Discouragement hath locked the door For aye.

Come, loss, more frequently than gain! And failure than success! until The spirit’s struggle to attain Is still!

REQUIEM

I

No more for him, where hills look down, Shall Morning crown Her rainy brow with blossom bands!-- The Morning Hours, whose rosy hands Drop wild-flowers of the breaking skies Upon the sod ’neath which he lies.-- No more for him! No more! no more!

II

No more for him, where waters sleep, Shall Evening heap The long gold of the perfect days! The Eventide, whose warm hand lays Great poppies of the afterglow Upon the turf he rests below.-- No more for him! No more! no more!

III

No more for him, where woodlands loom, Shall Midnight bloom The star-flow’red acres of the blue! The Midnight Hours, whose dim hands strew Dead leaves of darkness, hushed and deep, Upon the grave where he doth sleep.-- No more for him! No more! no more!

IV

The hills, that Morning’s footsteps wake; The waves that take A brightness from the Eve; the woods, The solitudes, o’er which Night broods, Their Spirits have, whose parts are one With his, whose mortal part is done. Whose part is done; alas! is done.

AT LAST

What shall be said to him, Now he is dead? Now that his eyes are dim, Low lies his head? What shall be said to him, Now he is dead?

One thing, he knew not of, Sweet, in his ear Whisper with all thy love-- Haply he’ll hear. One thing, he knew not of, Sweet, in his ear.

What shall be given him, Now he is dead? Now that his eyes are dim, Low lies his head? What shall be given him, Now he is dead?

That which was long denied Here, Sweet,--thy heart Lay now his heart beside, Never to part. That which was long denied Here, Sweet,--thy heart.

REMEMBERED

Here in the dusk I picture it again, Her face, as ’twas before she fell asleep: Renunciation glorifying pain Of her soul’s inmost deep.

I shall not see its like again! the brow Of marble, that the fair hair aureoled,-- Like some pale lily in the afterglow,-- With supernatural gold.

As if a rose should speak and, somehow heard Thro’ some strange sense, the unembodied sound Grow visible, her mouth was as a word A sweet thought falters round.

So do I still remember eyes imbued With far reflections--as the stars suggest The silence, purity, and solitude Of infinite peace and rest.

She was my all. I loved her as men love A high desire, religion, an ideal-- The meaning purpose in the loss whereof God shall alone reveal.

MONOCHROMES

I

The last rose falls, wrecked of the wind and rain; Where once it bloomed the thorns alone remain: Dead in the wet the slow rain strews the rose. The day was dim; now eve comes on again, Grave as a life weighed down with many woes: So is the joy dead, and alive the pain.

The brown leaf flutters where the green leaf died; Bare are the boughs, and bleak the forest side: The wind is whirling with the last wild leaf. The eve was strange; now dusk comes weird and wide, Gaunt as a life that lives alone with grief: So hope is gone, and doubt and loss abide.

An empty nest hangs where the wood-bird pled; Along the west the dusk dies, stormy red: The frost falls, subtle as a serpent’s breath. The dusk was sad; now night is overhead, Grim as a life brought face to face with death: So life lives on when love, its life, lies dead.

II

Go your own ways. Who shall persuade me now To look with high face for a star of hope? Or up endeavor’s unsubduable slope Advance a bosom of desire, and bow A back of patience in a thankless task? Alone beside the grave of love I ask, Shalt thou? or thou?

Leave go my hands. Fain would I walk alone The easy ways of silence and of sleep. What though I go with eyes that can not weep, And lips contracted with no uttered moan, Through rocks and thorns, where every footprint bleeds, A dead-sea path of desert night that leads To one white stone!

Though sands be black and bitter black the sea, Night lie before me and behind me night, And God within far Heaven refuse to light The consolation of the dawn for me,-- Between the shadowy bournes of Heaven and Hell, It is enough love leaves my soul to dwell With memory.

THE WORLD’S DESIRE

The roses of voluptuousness Wreathe her dark locks and hide her eyes; Her limbs are flower-like nakedness, Wherethrough the fragrant blood doth press, The blossom-blood of Paradise.

She stands with Lilith finger-tips, With Lilith hands; and gathers up The grapes of life; whose wine she sips,-- With Lilith-laughter-lightened lips,-- The soul, as from a curious cup.

What though she cast the cup away! The empty bowl that flashed with wine! Her lips’ wild kiss, that stained the clay, Her hands’ hot clasp--shall these not stay, That made its nothingness divine?

Through one again shall live the glow, Immortalizing, of her touch; And through the other, sweet to know How life swept, flame once, ’neath the snow Of her moon’d breasts--and this is much!

THE UNATTAINABLE

Mark thou! a shadow crowned with fire of hell. Man holds her in his heart as night doth hold The moonlight memories of day’s dead gold; Or as a winter-withered asphodel In its dead loveliness holds scents of old. And looking on her, lo, he thinks ’tis well.

Who would not follow her whose glory sits, Imperishably lovely, on the air? Who, from the arms of Earth’s desire, flits With eyes defiant and rebellious hair?-- Hers is the beauty that no man shall share.

He who hath seen, what shall it profit him? He who doth love, what shall his passion gain? When disappointment at her cup’s bright brim Poisons the pleasure with the hemlock pain? Hers is the passion that no man shall drain.

How long, how long since Life hath kissed her eyes, Making their night clairvoyant! And how long Since Love hath kissed her lips and made them wise, Mixing their speech with prophecy and song! Hope clad her nakedness in lovely lies, Giving into her hands the right of wrong!

Lo! in her world she sets pale tents of thought, Unearthly bannered; and her dreams’ wild bands Besiege the heavens like a twilight fraught With recollections of lost stars. She stands Radiant as Lilith glowing from God’s hands.

The golden rose of patience at her throat Drops fragrant petals--as a pensive tune Drops its surrendered sweetness note by note;-- And from her hands the buds of hope are strewn, Moon-flowers, mothered of the barren moon.

So in her flowers man seats him at her feet In star-faced worship, knowing all of this; And now to him to die seems very sweet, Filled with the fire of her look and kiss; While in his heart the blood’s tumultuous beat Drowns, in her own, the drowsing serpent’s hiss.

He who hath dreamed but of her world shall give All of his soul unto her restlessly: He who hath seen but her far face shall live No more for things we name reality: Such is the power of her tyranny.

He, whom she wins, hath nothing ’neath the sun; Forgetting all that she may not forget He loves her, who still feeds his soul upon Dreams and desires, and doubt and vain regret,-- Life’s bitter bread his heart’s fierce tears make wet.

What word of wisdom hast thou, Life, to wake Him now! or song of magic now to dull The dreams he lives in! or what charm to break The spell that makes her evil beautiful! What charm to show her beauty hides a snake, Whose basilisk eyes burn dark behind a skull!

PROBLEMS

Man’s is the learning of his books-- What is all knowledge that he knows Beside the wit of winding brooks, The wisdom of the summer rose!

How soil distils the scent in flowers Baffles his science: heaven-dyed, How, from the sunshine and the showers, They draw their colors, hath defied.

Nor hath he solved why light is white, Yet paints with hues the dawns and noons, Stains all the hollow edge of night With glory as of molten moons.

What knows he of the laws of birth Or death, or what these are and why! Or what it is within the earth That helps us live and helps us die!

THE BEAUTIFUL

I

Of moires of placid glitter The moon is knitter, Under dark trees, whose branches The blue night blanches: Upon yon stream’s swift arrow Lights lie, as narrow As is the glance of some pale sorceress, Spell-haunted, watching in a wilderness. And I, who, dreaming, wander, Seem to behold her yonder, My beautiful dream, my bodiless loveliness.

II

Upon this water’s glimmer White sheets of shimmer Glow outward, as if inner Sea-castles,--thinner Than peeléd pearl,--through curlings And water whirlings, Let spray the light of lucid dome and spire, The smoldering silver of an inward fire.-- Perhaps her towers, enchanted, Are there; on mountains planted Of crystal:--hers! the soul of my desire!

III

Or there above the beeches, On terraced reaches Of rolling roses, towered And moonbeam-bowered, Is it her palace airy?-- Or dream of Fairy?-- Piled, full of melody and marble-white, Its pointed casements lit with piercing light: Wherein, all veiled and hidden, She waits,--who long hath bidden Me come to her,--her accoladed knight?

IV

The blue night’s sweetness settles-- Like hyacinth petals, Bowed by their weight of rain-drops-- Around me: pain drops From off my heart, the sadness Of life to gladness Of beauty turns, that was not born to die; That whispers in my soul and tells me why I, too, was born--to render Her worship: feel her splendor Expand me like a rose beneath God’s eye.

WORLD’S ATTAINMENT

A Lorelei full fair she sits Above the Stream of Life that rolls; And, hope-thrilled, with her wild harp knits To her from year to year men’s souls.

They hear her harp, they hear her song, Behold her beauty throned on high, And gazing on her, sweep along, Strike on the rocks and sink and die.

A BLOWN ROSE

Lay but a finger on Its pallid petals sweet, They flutter, gray and wan, Beneath the passing feet.

But, soft! blown rose, although Departed is thy bloom,-- Thy bud, thy youth, I know, Had no such sweet perfume.

Thou art like one whose page Of life is beauty-fraught, Who grays to ripe old-age, Sweet-mellowed through with thought:

Who, when his hoary head Is wept into the tomb, With dreams, that are not dead, Still gives his name perfume.

NEPENTHE

Ah, it is well for men to strain And strive and yearn to rise; The soul’s salvation is in pain, In toil and sacrifice.

The grandest souls that rose above, Thought’s noblest heights to tread, Found consolation in their love, And life behind the dead.

A living glory in the tomb, Whose night shall end in light; An intense splendor veiled with gloom, Too blinding for earth’s sight.

Nepenthe of this struggling world, Whose knowledge comforts care, And in the heart, where it is curled, Conquers the snake, despair.

ON A DIAL

Look on my face: to-morrow I am to-day. From me you may not borrow Or take away. I mark life’s mirth and sorrow, Birth and decay.

I know nor joy nor sadness: I go, yet stay: And men in me find gladness And grief, they say: I stay not for their madness, Nor pass away.

UNUTTERABLE

There is a sorrow in the wind to-night That haunteth me; she, like a penitent, Heaps on rent hair the snow’s thin ashes white, And moans and moans, her swaying body bent.

And Superstition, gliding softly, shakes With wasted hands, that vainly grope and seek, The rustling curtains; of each cranny makes Wild, ghostly lips that, wailing, fain would speak.

QUESTIONINGS

Now that wan sunsets, wintery With icy gold, paint bleak the sky; Now nights are starless utterly, And snow and sleet cut moaning by, One’s memory keeps one company, And sorrow puts its “when” and “why.”

Such inquisition, when alone, Leads on to ways of doubt and dread, Despair has miled with many a stone, Carved with the faces of our dead, Stamped on whose brows we read, “Unknown! No further look, nor seek to tread.”

And, oh! that weariness of soul That leans upon our dead, the clod And air have taken, as a whole, Through some mysterious period!-- Life! with its questions of control! Death! with its unguessed laws of God!

FRAGMENTS

I

The curtains of my couch sway heavily: ’Tis death, who parts the curtains of my soul.-- Sleep, like a gray expression of ghost lips Heard through the moonlight of a haunted room, Seems near yet far away. Would God ’twere day!

II

“Stay not too long, love, stay not long away!” Lightly my heart said when we kissed farewell. But now my heart is heavy with hard news-- Oh! bitterness of kisses that were sweet!

III

Tear from my heart and under furious feet Trample the golden record of our love, Love’s book of golden days, despair! despair!

IV

Night is a grave physician, who contrives The drug of sleep to heal day’s bruises with, The drug of death for life’s delirium.--

V

On lost expanses of a phantom land Life stands; and, overhead, one sinister star, A baleful beacon, burns: heav’n seems a hand Of jeweled darkness pointing her her way, Mournful, through shadows of lugubrious hills And rising tempest, to a house, a shape Placid and pale and silent utterly.

VI

O undivulging, unresponsive fate, Is gold another name for power and crime? Life, dust long dedicated unto death? And death? is it all darkness without light? Whereto all things go groping, love and joy And beauty, glow-worms, flickering each its spark? Precious as gold does anything avail? Steadfast as tablets of the eternal stars, What deeds of man, when time hath touched them, last?

DEITY

No personal! No God divinely crowned With gold and raised upon a golden throne, Deep in a golden glory,--whence he nods Man this or that,--and little more than man!

Thus I divine Him: When the soul, refined Through love and wisdom through a thousand years, Shall mount as pure intelligence and pierce The separate cycles singing under God,-- Their iridescent evolutions orbed Of wild electric splendor,--it shall see (Through God-propinquity become a god) Resplendencies of empyrean light Swift-lightening out of spheric harmonies: Prisms and facets of ten million beams Starring a crystal of wild-rainbowed rays: And in it--eyes: of burning sapphire, eyes Deep as the music of the beautiful: And o’er the eyes, limpid, hierarchal brows, As they were lilies of seraphic fire: Lips underneath of trembling ruby--lips, Whose smile is light and each expression, song. In multiplying myriads, forms of fire, Cherubic faces of intensity, Waiting His look, that is electric thought, To work His will, spirits on spirits stand Circling the Unit, God: Supremity Creative and eternal.

And from Him Man’s intellect, detached, expelled and breathed Exaltant into flesh endowed with soul,-- One sparkle of the Essence clothed with clay,-- Is given to Earth for something more than earth, Some purpose, some divine development,-- That protoplasmic evolution proves,-- That lifts him upward, heart and soul and mind, From matter to ideal potencies, Up to the source and fountain of all mind, Beauty and truth and everlasting love, To be resumed and re-absorbed in them-- One more expression of Eternity.

DISENCHANTMENT OF DEATH

Hush! she is dead. Tread gently as the light Steals in the weary room. Thou shalt behold. Look:--in death’s ermine pomp of awful white, Pale passion of pulseless slumber, very cold, Her beautiful youth!--Proud as heroic might,-- Brought low by him whose touch is shadow and mold.

Old earth she is now: energy of birth Hath fledged glad wings and tried them suddenly: The eyes that held have freed their maiden mirth: The spark of spirit, which made this to be, Shines in some fairer star than this of Earth, Some Fairy-star of far eternity.

A sod is this; whence, what were once those eyes, Will grow blue wildflowers in some happier air! Some weed with flossy blossoms will surprise, Haply, some summer with her affluent hair! Some rose reveal her cheeks: and the wise skies Will clasp her beauty in some young tree there.

The chastity of death hath filled her so No dreams of life may reach her in her rest; No dreams the heart exhausted here below, Hopes built within the romance of her breast. Now she will sleep, like music, silent, slow,-- That wakes the buds, to golden life caressed.