Part 6

The winds of spring, that whisper to the grass; The rain, that sets the red roots harping; sound, And gleam and color of the dews that glass Globes of concentric beauty on the ground; Shall hint of her; and she herself shall pass, Like prayer, into each flower with memory crowned.

So, though she’s dead, you see she is not dead: All things are vocal of her: lost in sleep She lies: its narrow house the soul hath fled; Her soul, still near us, haply; while the deep Remains unvoyaged: waiting to be led It still delays, held here by us who weep.

We should restrain our anguish;--(merciless, Albeit it is, and bitter cruel the grave:)-- Grief wrings our dead with more than grief’s distress, Earth chaining love, bound by the lips that rave. And curse not death!--Yea, rather let us bless That conqueror who makes us less a slave!

To principles of passion and of pride; To sin and circumstance and lust and law! Slave to all these, like rags now flung aside!-- Wouldst have the soul resume them, and withdraw From its inheritance, where, as a bride, It stands arrayed in glory and in awe?

“Unjust”?--God is not. Yea, hast thou not all, All that thou ever hadst when this dull clay, Thy well belovéd, made the spiritual A restless vassal of the night and day? This hath been thine and is: the cosmic call Rang through this house, and took its own away.

But man, in selfishness, from its estate,-- Won with what pains and devastating cares, What bootless battling with resistless fate, What mailed endeavor with unyielding years,-- Would bar the soul, Heaven grants him here as mate, And being compelled, returns Heaven’s loan with tears.

SLEEP

Look in my eyes!--Oh, the mild and mysterious Deeps of thine eyes that are holy with rest!-- Sigh to me! yea, as thy kinsman, imperious Love, might, with lips that are soft and delirious, Soft with such comfort as blesses the blessed. Fold all my soul in the mild and mysterious Might of thy rest.

All the night for thy love, all the night! while the gladdening Presence of darkness, as legends of old, Wraps me in poesy: none of the saddening Prose of the day that is sad with the maddening Soul of unrest that is heartless and cold. All the night for thy love, all the night! and its gladdening Beauty of old.

Scorn is not thine nor is hate; but the bubbling Fountains of strength that are youthful as morn’s: Hurt is not thine of remembrance; nor troubling Sorrows of waking whose fingers keep doubling-- Pressing on temples life’s cares that are thorns. Thine are the hours of the stars and the bubbling Wells of the morns.

Pride and the passions and labors that worry us Mix with and brutalize; envy and spite Of the heart; and the griefs of the soul that oft hurry us On, with the iron of anguish, and bury us,-- Touch them and calm with thy fingers of white. Make all these passions and pains, that oft worry us, Night with the night.

Silence hath built thee a mansion, where flowery Fields of the visions are poppied with dreams; Where the high mountains of quiet loom showery Under the stars; and the valleys of bowery Lotus and moly gleam, misty with streams: Where slumber’s halcyon waters thrid flowery Pastures of dreams.

Come to me, Spirit!--Ah, wilt thou not stay for me? Stay for me! fill me with rest as with prayer! Mother of hope, let thy touch soothe away for me All of life’s weariness! make all the day for me Dim with forgetting! the day and its care! Come to me! Mix with the soul of me! Stay for me, Cure me like prayer!

CHATTERTON

“_I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous boy, The sleepless soul that perished in his pride._” --Wordsworth.

He dreamed of Mendip Hills, and woods So deep, storm-barriers on the sky Are not more dark, that rain their floods From clouds of sullen dye:

And Somerset, where sparsely grew Gnarled, iron-colored oaks, with rifts, Between old boughs, of April blue: Ways where the speedwell lifts

Its bit of heav’n; and, spreading far,-- The gold, the fallen gold of dawn Held captive in each cowslip’s star,-- The meadows led him on.

Where, round his feet, the lady-smock And pearl-pale lady-slipper crept; Where butterflies, pied-wing’d, did rock, Or, seal-brown, sucked and slept.

O’er which the west shot crooked fire Athwart a half-moon leaning low; While one white, arrowy star throbbed higher In curdled honey-glow.

Was it some elfin euphrasy That purged his sight and said, “Prepare! See where the daisies beckon thee; The harebells ring to prayer?

“Come here and dream! far from the roofs, The grime and smoke of London Town, That monster, with its myriad hoofs, That grinds the poet down!”

Not different from his days our days, That break the poet’s heart. No love Or pity after death repays The soul that failed and strove.

They found him dead his songs beside, Long stairs above the din and dust Of life: and that for which he died Denied him even a crust.

THE SYMPHONY

The soul of love is harmony: as such All melodies, that with wide pinions beat Against the heart’s red gateway to the soul,-- That, opening, bids them enter in and sing,-- Are portions of the soul, and while they stay, Lords of its action molding all at will.

There is a symphony, I know not whose, That seems to bear my spirit far away, To regions not of Earth nor yet of Heaven, Where neither am I I, nor air, nor clay, My soul, a portion of the waves of song, Reverberating ’twixt the earth and moon.

First, sweeping marches, loud with martial boast, Triumphal clamors and the shout of joy, As when,--in bannered cities, welcoming home,-- Bright ranks of victory and cavalcades Of splendid battle march to roll of drums And clang of cymbals and sonorous horns. Then sudden thunder; adverse hosts of storm; And lightning cleaving the tempestuous gloom; Earthquake, and roar of ruin as if Thebes And Karnac crashed their Titan temples down, Pillar and groinéd nave and fretted dome, On all their gods of gold and worshippers.

Then from the wreck, unutterably slow, An exhalation seems to beat, of sound, An audible perfume; slowly as the fang Of dusty gold the lily’s cone puts forth To drink the sunlight and to lure the bee: A mist of music, delicate as the shapes Who ride the rainbow bubbles of the foam Of mountain cataracts; or, who, heeled with flame, Wing-tipped with fire, make couriers of the winds, And, zoned with opal, chariot the morning star.

Then soft complaints that fill the waiting heart With dreams of love long-cherished; love-dreams found On morning mountains, splendid with the dawn. Then tender chords that weigh the eyelids down With sleep’s pale kisses, softer than the buds That open to the spring, the kiss of May; And sweeter than sweet vows of fondest faith Kept evermore; or looks, whose witchery Might lure old saints down to the lowest Hell For one last glance: then notes like haunting eyes, Great, melancholy eyes of love long lost, Darker than night, and brimming o’er with dreams; Or faces, stooping in a silver mist At Care’s thin brow, and gazing in his eyes, Sad where he sits before the smouldering logs, At Yuletide, when the sleet taps on the pane, And all the loved are gone, and he’s alone, Alone, save for the memories that rise Faint in the ashes and the spark-starred smoke.

Then, from these chords, these mortal ecstasies, Dim as the half-forgotten dreams of youth, Voices of expectation chorus up,-- The diapason of a mighty choir,-- ’Mid organ throbbings, ever beating low Like the huge heart of Ocean; pulsings wove Of deep, æolian thunders: and my soul Seems wafted far beneath the sea of seas, To chasms and caves of crystal, ocean-carved, Filled with dark lamentations of the deep, Deep, dolorous seas, that throb like some vast harp, Wild, oceanic, and with stormy sighs Of labyrinthine music shake the world. One with the tumult,--under circling tiers Of beryl and chrysoberyl, splashed and hung Pale with pelagian gems and feathery shells, And spars of moony radiance,--on I drift, A voice ’mid voices, chord amid the chords, A wave, a wild vibration of the strain, Part of the ray, the rose of melody, An utterance amid that utterance Of choral harmony: now rising up,-- As ’twere a spire of silver symphony Blown from a reed of hollow pearl and fire By some still spirit dwelling within the moon,-- To the vast vault of echoes: dying now Down to the underworld of silence, deep With wild, unburdened sobbings; then, once more, Sweeping the vault with tumult, like a bird With maddened wings, that beat and bleed in vain Against the bars; or like the human soul, Oppressed and bulked within its cage of clay, That longs and strains to burst its bonds and soar.

Then tones that shape before my inner sight The moonlit gardens of the spirit, Sleep, Far on a star man’s eyes have never seen: White Sleep, who leads me ’mid her poppies, weighed With dewy slumber; from whose chalices She culls white dreams to lay on human hearts In pearly clusters sparkling now with tears And now with smiles; the blossoms of her soul. She, on her shadowy pinions, winging high, Bears me from pole to pole of her white star, The continents like clouds beneath our feet, The seas like mists; then drops me, meteor-like, A million leagues, through all the gulfs of God, Down, down to Earth again; a sound of stars, Streaming from burning orbits into night, About my soul, about my soul like fire.

Oh, then what agony and bitter woe, Regret and noise of desolation, vast As when all that one loves is torn away Forever with “farewell forevermore”! Oh, strife and panic of impending doom! Wherein rush by pale brows with tresses torn; Pale faces browed with raven, rended hair, That cringe or fly before the wrath of God, Or stand white-lifted to the bolts of Heaven, Ploughing the tempest, chasmed with torrent flame As ’twere with rocking earthquake. All around Ruin and terror, moans and awful eyes, Fierce, moveless eyes that seem to curse their God: Then sounds, as ’twere, of burning tears that fall Through blinding blackness: then--long thunder strokes As of a bell that tolls “’Tis Judgment Day!” Sonorous bell-beats heard through night and storm, O’er hands high lifted as it were in prayer Or battling with their doom: still tolling on, The knell of dying Earth and of the Dawn; The Dawn that will not break, that comes no more; Never again; the beautiful, wild Dawn, The young, the holy, radiant and wonderful, First born of Heaven’s children, daughters of Light: The Rose of God, the dream and youth of Day, Whom Night hath slain and Darkness laid away, Crying, “No more shall she awake the world! No more! no more!--The Dawn, aurora-wreathed, Lies dead with all her flow’rs! and Death and I, Darkness and Death, Lords of Oblivion, Heart-shaking monarchs of the universe, Throned on the ruins of the world, shall rule From everlasting unto everlasting now!-- Look on our faces, Nations, and despair!”

A SONG FOR OLD AGE

Now nights grow cold and colder, And north the wild vane swings, And round each tree and boulder The driving snow-storm sings-- Come, make my old heart older, O memory of lost things!

Of Hope, when promise sung her Brave songs, and I was young, That banquets now on hunger Since all youth’s songs are sung; Of Love, who walks with younger Sweethearts the flowers among.

Ah, well! while Life holds levee, Death’s ceaseless dance goes on. So let the curtains, heavy About my couch, be drawn-- The curtains, dark and heavy, Where all shall sleep anon.

“WHEN THE WINE-CUP AT THE LIP”

When the wine-cup at the lip Slants its ruby fire, O’er its level, while you sip, Have you marked the finger-tip Of the god Desire slip, Of the god Desire? Saying--“Lo, the hours run! Live your day before ’tis done!”

When the empty goblet lies At the ended revel, In the glass, the wine-stain dyes, Have you marked the hollow eyes Of a mocking Devil rise, Of a mocking Devil? Saying--“Lo, the pleasure’s done! Look on me whose hour’s begun!”

THE BETTER LOT

Her life was bound to crutches: pale and bent, But smiling ever, she would go and come: For of her soul God made an instrument Of strength and comfort to an humble home.

Better a life of toil and slow disease That Love companions through the patient years, Than one whose heritage is loveless ease, That never knows the blessedness of tears.

PASSION

The wine-loud laughter of indulged desire Upon his lips, and, in his eyes, the fire Of uncontrol, he takes in reckless hands,-- And interrupts with discords,--the sad lyre Of Love’s deep soul, and never understands.

THE TROGLODYTE

In ages dead, a troglodyte, At the hollow roots of a monster height,-- That grew from the heart of the world to light,-- I dwelt in caverns: Over me Were mountains older than the moon; And forests, vaster than the sea, And gulfs, that the earthquake’s hand had hewn, Hung under me. And late and soon I heard the Dæmon of Change that sighed A cosmic language of mystery; Where I sat silent, primeval-eyed, With the infant Spirit of Prophecy.

Gaunt stars glared down on the Titan peaks; And the gaunter glare of the cratered streaks Of the sunset’s ruin heard condor shrieks: The roar of cataracts hurled in air, And the hurricane, laying its thunders bare, And the rush of battling beasts,--whose lair Was the antechamber of nadir-gloom,-- Were my outworld joys. But who can tell The awe of the depths whence rose the boom Of the iron rivers that fashioned Hell!

THE EVANESCENT BEAUTIFUL

Day after day, young with eternal beauty, Pays flowery duty to the month and clime; Night after night erects a vasty portal Of stars immortal for the march of Time.

But where are now the glory and the rapture, That once did capture me in cloud and stream? Where now the joy, that was both speech and silence? Where the beguilance that was fact and dream?

I know that Earth and Heaven are as golden As they of olden made me feel and see; Not in themselves is lacking aught of power Through star and flower--something’s lost in me.

“Return! return!” I cry, “O visions vanished, O voices banished, to my soul again!"-- The near Earth blossoms and the far skies glisten, I look and listen, but, alas! in vain.

THE HIGHER BROTHERHOOD

To come in touch with mysteries Of beauty idealizing Earth, Go seek the hills, grown green with trees, The old hills wise with death and birth.

There you may hear the heart that beats In streams, where music has its source; And in wild rocks of mossed retreats Behold the silent soul of force.

Above the love that emanates From human passion, and reflects The flesh, must be the love that waits On Nature, whose high call elects

None to her secrets save the few Who hold that facts are far less real Than dreams, with which all facts indue Themselves approaching the ideal.

TO A WINDFLOWER

I

Teach me the secret of thy loveliness, That, being made wise, I may aspire to be As beautiful in thought, and so express Immortal truths to Earth’s mortality; Though to my soul ability be less Than ’tis to thee, O sweet anemone.

II

Teach me the secret of thy innocence, That in simplicity I may grow wise; Asking from Art no other recompense Than the approval of her own just eyes; So may I rise to some fair eminence, Though less than thine, O cousin of the skies.

III

Teach me these things; through whose high knowledge, I,-- When Death hath poured oblivion through my veins, And brought me home, as all are brought, to lie In that vast House, common to serfs and Thanes,-- I shall not die, I shall not utterly die, For beauty born of beauty--_that_ remains.

MICROCOSM

The memory of what we’ve lost Is with us more than what we’ve won; Perhaps because we count the cost By what we could, yet have not done.

’Twixt act and purpose fate hath drawn Invisible threads we can not break, And puppet-like these move us on The stage of life, and break or make.

Less than the dust from which we’re wrought, We come and go, and still are hurled From change to change, from naught to naught, Heirs of oblivion and the world.

FORTUNE

Within the hollowed hand of God Blood-red they lie, the dice of Fate, That have no time nor period, And know no early and no late.

Postpone you can not, nor advance Success or failure that’s to be; All fortune, being born of chance, Is bastard child to destiny.

Bow down your head, or hold it high, Consent, defy--no smallest part Of this you change, although the die Was fashioned from your living heart.

DEATH

Through some strange sense of sight or touch I find what all have found before,-- The presence I have feared so much, The unknown’s immaterial door.

I seek not and it comes to me: I do not know the thing I find: The fillet of fatality Drops from my brows that made me blind.

Point forward now or backward, Light! The way I take I may not choose: Out of the night into the night, And in the night no certain clews.

But on the future, dim and vast, And dark with dust and sacrifice, Death’s towering ruin from the past Makes black the land that round me lies.

THE SOUL

An heritage of hopes and fears And dreams and memory, And vices of ten thousand years God gives to thee.

A house of clay, the home of Fate, Haunted of Love and Sin, Where Death stands knocking at the gate To let him in.

CONSCIENCE

Within the soul are throned two powers, Named Love and Hate. Begot of these, And veiled between, a presence towers, The shadowy Keeper of the Keys.

With wild command or calm persuasion _This_ one may argue, _that_ compel: Vain are concealment and evasion-- For each he opens Heaven and Hell.

YOUTH

I

Morn’s mystic rose is reddening on the hills; Dawn’s irised nautilus makes glad the sea; There is a lyre of flame that throbs and fills Far heaven and earth with hope’s wild ecstasy.-- With lilied field and grove, Haunts of the turtle-dove, Here is the land of Love.

II

The chariot of the noon makes blind the blue As towards the goal his burning axle glares; There is a fiery trumpet thrilling through Wide heaven and earth with deeds of one who dares.-- With peaks of splendid name, Wrapped round with astral flame, Here is the land of Fame.

III

The purple priesthood of the evening waits With golden pomp within the templed skies; There is a harp of worship at the gates Of heaven and earth that bids the soul arise.-- With columned cliffs and long Vales, music breathes among, Here is the land of Song.

IV

Moon-crowned the epic of the night unrolls Its starry utterance o’er height and deep; There is a voice of beauty at the souls Of heaven and earth that lulls the heart asleep.-- With storied woods and streams, Where marble glows and gleams, Here is the land of Dreams.

LIFE’S SEASONS

I

When all the world was May-day, And all the skies were blue, Young innocence made play-day Among the buds and dew; Then all of life was May-day And clouds were none or few.

II

When all the world was Summer, And morn shone overhead, Love was the sweet new-comer Who led youth forth to wed; Then all of life was Summer, And clouds were gold and red.

III

When earth was all October, And days were gray with mist, On woodways, sad and sober, Grave memory kept her tryst; Then life was all October, And clouds were twilight-kissed.

IV

Now all the world’s December, And night is all alarm, Above the last dim ember Age bends to keep him warm; Now all of life’s December, And clouds are driven storm.

THE LIGHT AND LARK

Hangs, stormed with stars, the night, Deep over deep; Each star a point of light In God’s high keep.

In God’s?--Perhaps.--Of such We can not tell, Who shrink--and is it much?-- To say farewell.

_There_ ’tis the dawn and lark: _Here_ ’tis the wail, Sobbed through the ceaseless dark, O’ the nightingale.

But what were all this worth To thee or me, Were there not, after earth, Eternity?

God gives us life to keep.-- And what hath life?-- Love, faith, and care, and sleep, Where dreams are rife.

Death’s sleep! whose shadows start The tears in eyes Of Love, who breaks his heart, Despairs and dies.

And faith is never given Without some care, Perhaps that leads to Heaven By ways of prayer.

The nightingale and dark He gives us here:-- Oh, for the light and lark Eternal there!

THE JESSAMINE AND THE MORNING-GLORY

I

With his herald torch in the van of day The star of the morning smiled; And the streaks in the east were rosy gray, And the earth lay undefiled, When a morning-glory’s spiral bud, As pink as a shell and slim, Unbound the sark of her maidenhood, And flashed on the dawning dim: Royal she seemed, to the purple born, And vain of her beauty and proud to scorn.

II

And she shook her locks at the morning-star, And her raiment fluttered wide; Then smiled above at his scimitar, And gazed around in pride: The pomegranate near, with its crown of flame, And the gemmed geraniums nigh, All bowed their heads at her whispered name, As she throned herself on high; While the fuchsia, under her silvery hood, Shrunk with a face like a bead of blood.

III

All knew that this child of the morning light Was queen of the morn and them; That the morning-star, in his beams of white, Was her prince in a diadem: ’Twas he who had given those gems that flash And jewel the front of her smock; From his lordly fingers of light did dash Down pearls where she stooped to mock A jessamine, pale, in the garden’s gloom, All wan of face, but of sweet perfume.

IV

And the morning-glory, in pride of birth, From the jessamine turned in scorn: “I marvel,” she said, “if thy mother earth Was not sick when thou wast born! Thou art pale as an infant an hour dead-- Wan thing, dost weary our eye!” And she weakly laughed and stiffened her head And turned to her star in the sky. And the jessamine sighed, as she bent her head, “I am sick of myself, and I would I were dead!”

V